A Feast For Crows
by
George RR Martin


PROLOGUE 

Dragons,” said Mollander. He snatched a withered apple off the ground and tossed it 
hand to hand. 

“Throw the apple,” urged Alleras the Sphinx. He slipped an arrow from his quiver and 
nocked it to his bowstring. 

“I should like to see a dragon.” Roone was the youngest of them, a chunky boy still two 
years shy of manhood. “I should like that very much.” 

And I should like to sleep with Rosey’s arms around me, Pate thought. He shifted 
restlessly on the bench. By the morrow the girl could well be his. I will take her far from 
Oldtown, across the narrow sea to one of the Free Cities. There were no maesters there, 
no one to accuse him. 

He could hear Emma’s laughter coming through a shuttered window overhead, mingled 
with the deeper voice of the man she was entertaining. She was the oldest of the serving 
wenches at the Quill and Tankard, forty if she was a day, but still pretty in a fleshy sort of 
way. Rosey was her daughter, fifteen and freshly flowered. Emma had decreed that 
Rosey’s maidenhead would cost a golden dragon. Pate had saved nine silver stags and a 
pot of copper stars and pennies, for all the good that would do him. He would have stood 
a better chance of hatching a real dragon than saving up enough coin to make a golden 
one. 

“You were born too late for dragons, lad,” Armen the Acolyte told Roone. Armen wore a 
leather thong about his neck, strung with links of pewter, tin, lead, and copper, and like 
most acolytes he seemed to believe that novices had turnips growing from their shoulders 
in place of heads. “The last one perished during the reign of King Aegon the Third.” 

“The last dragon in Westeros,” insisted Mollander. 

“Throw the apple,” Alleras urged again. He was a comely youth, their Sphinx. All the 
serving wenches doted on him. Even Rosey would sometimes touch him on the arm when 
she brought him wine, and Pate had to gnash his teeth and pretend not to see. 

“The last dragon in Westeros was the last dragon,” said Armen doggedly. “That is well 
known.” 

“The apple,” Alleras said. “Unless you mean to eat it.” 

“Here.” Dragging his clubfoot, Mollander took a short hop, whirled, and whipped the 
apple sidearm into the mists that hung above the Honeywine. If not for his foot, he would 
have been a knight like his father. He had the strength for it in those thick arms and broad 
shoulders. Far and fast the apple flew . . . 


. . . but not as fast as the arrow that whistled after it, a yard-long shaft of golden wood 
fletched with scarlet feathers. Pate did not see the arrow catch the apple, but he heard it. 
A soft chunk echoed back across the river, followed by a splash. 

Mollander whistled. “You cored it. Sweet.” 

Not half as sweet as Rosey. Pate loved her hazel eyes and budding breasts, and the way 
she smiled every time she saw him. He loved the dimples in her cheeks. Sometimes she 
went barefoot as she served, to feel the grass beneath her feet. He loved that too. He 
loved the clean fresh smell of her, the way her hair curled behind her ears. He even loved 
her toes. One night she’d let him rub her feet and play with them, and he’d made up a 
funny tale for every toe to keep her giggling. 

Perhaps he would do better to remain on this side of the narrow sea. He could buy a 
donkey with the coin he’d saved, and he and Rosey could take turns riding it as they 
wandered Westeros. Ebrose might not think him worthy of the silver, but Pate knew how 
to set a bone and leech a fever. The smallfolk would be grateful for his help. If he could 
learn to cut hair and shave beards, he might even be a barber. That would be enough, he 
told himself, so long as I had Rosey. Rosey was all that he wanted in the world. 

That had not always been so. Once he had dreamed of being a maester in a castle, in 
service to some open-handed lord who would honor him for his wisdom and bestow a 
fine white horse on him to thank him for his service. How high he’d ride, how nobly, 
smiling down at the smallfolk when he passed them on the road . . . 

One night in the Quill and Tankard’s common room, after his second tankard of 
fearsomely strong cider, Pate had boasted that he would not always be a novice. “Too 
true,” Lazy Leo had called out. “You’ll be a former novice, herding swine.” 

He drained the dregs of his tankard. The torchlit terrace of the Quill and Tankard was an 
island of light in a sea of mist this morning. Downriver, the distant beacon of the 
Hightower floated in the damp of night like a hazy orange moon, but the light did little to 
lift his spirits. 

The alchemist should have come by now. Had it all been some cruel jape, or had 
something happened to the man? It would not have been the first time that good fortune 
had turned sour on Pate. He had once counted himself lucky to be chosen to help old 
Archmaester Walgrave with the ravens, never dreaming that before long he would also be 
fetching the man’s meals, sweeping out his chambers, and dressing him every morning. 
Everyone said that Walgrave had forgotten more of ravencraft than most maesters ever 
knew, so Pate assumed a black iron link was the least that he could hope for, only to find 
that Walgrave could not grant him one. The old man remained an archmaester only by 
courtesy. As great a maester as once he’d been, now his robes concealed soiled 
smallclothes oft as not, and half a year ago some acolytes found him weeping in the 
Library, unable to find his way back to his chambers. Maester Gormon sat below the iron 
mask in Walgrave’s place, the same Gormon who had once accused Pate of theft. 


In the apple tree beside the water, a nightingale began to sing. It was a sweet sound, a 
welcome respite from the harsh screams and endless quorking of the ravens he had 
tended all day long. The white ravens knew his name, and would mutter it to each other 
whenever they caught sight of him, “Pate, Pate, Pate,” until he wanted to scream. The 
big white birds were Archmaester Walgrave’s pride. He wanted them to eat him when he 
died, but Pate half suspected that they meant to eat him too. 

Perhaps it was the fearsomely strong cider—he had not come here to drink, but Alleras 
had been buying to celebrate his copper link, and guilt had made him thirsty—but it 
almost sounded as if the nightingale were trilling gold for iron, gold for iron, gold for 
iron. Which was passing strange, because that was what the stranger had said the night 
Rosey brought the two of them together. “Who are you?” Pate had demanded of him, and 
the man had replied, “An alchemist. I can change iron into gold.” And then the coin was 
in his hand, dancing across his knuckles, the soft yellow gold shining in the candlelight. 
On one side was a three-headed dragon, on the other the head of some dead king. Gold 
for iron, Pate remembered, you won’t do better. Do you want her? Do you love her? “I 
am no thief,” he had told the man who called himself the alchemist, “I am a novice of the 
Citadel.” The alchemist had bowed his head, and said, “If you should reconsider, I shall 
return here three days hence, with my dragon.” 

Three days had passed. Pate had returned to the Quill and Tankard, still uncertain what he 
was, but instead of the alchemist he’d found Mollander and Armen and the Sphinx, with 
Roone in tow. It would have raised suspicions not to join them. 

The Quill and Tankard never closed. For six hundred years it had been standing on its 
island in the Honeywine, and never once had its doors been shut to trade. Though the tall, 
timbered building leaned toward the south the way novices sometimes leaned after a 
tankard, Pate expected that the inn would go on standing for another six hundred years, 
selling wine and ale and fearsomely strong cider to rivermen and seamen, smiths and 
singers, priests and princes, and the novices and acolytes of the Citadel. 

“Oldtown is not the world,” declared Mollander, too loudly. He was a knight’s son, and 
drunk as drunk could be. Since they brought him word of his father’s death upon the 
Blackwater, he got drunk most every night. Even in Oldtown, far from the fighting and 
safe behind its walls, the War of the Five Kings had touched them all . . . although 
Archmaester Benedict insisted that there had never been a war of five kings, since Renly 
Baratheon had been slain before Balon Greyjoy had crowned himself. 

“My father always said the world was bigger than any lord’s castle,” Mollander went on. 
“Dragons must be the least of the things a man might find in Qarth and Asshai and Yi Ti. 
These sailors’ stories . . .” 

“. . . are stories told by sailors,” Armen interrupted. “Sailors, my dear Mollander. Go 
back down to the docks, and I wager you’ll find sailors who’ll tell you of the mermaids 
that they bedded, or how they spent a year in the belly of a fish.” 


“How do you know they didn’t?” Mollander thumped through the grass, looking for more 
apples. “You’d need to be down the belly yourself to swear they weren’t. One sailor with 
a story, aye, a man might laugh at that, but when oarsmen off four different ships tell the 
same tale in four different tongues . . .” 

“The tales are not the same,” insisted Armen. “Dragons in Asshai, dragons in Qarth, 
dragons in Meereen, Dothraki dragons, dragons freeing slaves . . . each telling differs 
from the last.” 

“Only in details.” Mollander grew more stubborn when he drank, and even when sober he 
was bullheaded. “All speak of dragons, and a beautiful young queen.” 

The only dragon Pate cared about was made of yellow gold. He wondered what had 
happened to the alchemist. The third day. He said he’d be here. 

“There’s another apple near your foot,” Alleras called to Mollander, “and I still have two 
arrows in my quiver.” 

“Fuck your quiver.” Mollander scooped up the windfall. “This one’s wormy,” he 
complained, but he threw it anyway. The arrow caught the apple as it began to fall and 
sliced it clean in two. One half landed on a turret roof, tumbled to a lower roof, bounced, 
and missed Armen by a foot. “If you cut a worm in two, you make two worms,” the 
acolyte informed them. 

“If only it worked that way with apples, no one would ever need go hungry,” said Alleras 
with one of his soft smiles. The Sphinx was always smiling, as if he knew some secret 
jape. It gave him a wicked look that went well with his pointed chin, widow’s peak, and 
dense mat of close-cropped jet-black curls. 

Alleras would make a maester. He had only been at the Citadel for a year, yet already he 
had forged three links of his maester’s chain. Armen might have more, but each of his 
had taken him a year to earn. Still, he would make a maester too. Roone and Mollander 
remained pink-necked novices, but Roone was very young and Mollander preferred 
drinking to reading. 

Pate, though . . . 

He had been five years at the Citadel, arriving when he was no more than three-and-ten, 
yet his neck remained as pink as it had been on the day he first arrived from the 
westerlands. Twice had he believed himself ready. The first time he had gone before 
Archmaester Vaellyn to demonstrate his knowledge of the heavens. Instead he learned 
how Vinegar Vaellyn had earned that name. It took Pate two years to summon up the 
courage to try again. This time he submitted himself to kindly old Archmaester Ebrose, 
renowned for his soft voice and gentle hands, but Ebrose’s sighs had somehow proved 
just as painful as Vaellyn’s barbs. 


“One last apple,” promised Alleras, “and I will tell you what I suspect about these 
dragons.” 

“What could you know that I don’t?” grumbled Mollander. He spied an apple on a 
branch, jumped up, pulled it down, and threw. Alleras drew his bowstring back to his ear, 
turning gracefully to follow the target in flight. He loosed his shaft just as the apple began 
to fall. 

“You always miss your last shot,” said Roone. 

The apple splashed down into the river, untouched. 

“See?” said Roone. 

“The day you make them all is the day you stop improving.” Alleras unstrung his 
longbow and eased it into its leather case. The bow was carved from goldenheart, a rare 
and fabled wood from the Summer Isles. Pate had tried to bend it once, and failed. The 
Sphinx looks slight, but there’s strength in those slim arms, he reflected, as Alleras threw 
a leg across the bench and reached for his wine cup. “The dragon has three heads,” he 
announced in his soft Dornish drawl. 

“Is this a riddle?” Roone wanted to know. “Sphinxes always speak in riddles in the tales.” 

“No riddle.” Alleras sipped his wine. The rest of them were quaffing tankards of the 
fearsomely strong cider that the Quill and Tankard was renowned for, but he preferred 
the strange, sweet wines of his mother’s country. Even in Oldtown such wines did not 
come cheap. 

It had been Lazy Leo who dubbed Alleras “the Sphinx.” A sphinx is a bit of this, a bit of 
that: a human face, the body of a lion, the wings of a hawk. Alleras was the same: his 
father was a Dornishman, his mother a black-skinned Summer Islander. His own skin 
was dark as teak. And like the green marble sphinxes that flanked the Citadel’s main 
gate, Alleras had eyes of onyx. 

“No dragon has ever had three heads except on shields and banners,” Armen the Acolyte 
said firmly. “That was a heraldic charge, no more. Furthermore, the Targaryens are all 
dead.” 

“Not all,” said Alleras. “The Beggar King had a sister.” 

“I thought her head was smashed against a wall,” said Roone. 

“No,” said Alleras. “It was Prince Rhaegar’s young son Aegon whose head was dashed 
against the wall by the Lion of Lannister’s brave men. We speak of Rhaegar’s sister, born 
on Dragonstone before its fall. The one they called Daenerys.” 


“The Stormborn. I recall her now.” Mollander lifted his tankard high, sloshing the cider 
that remained. “Here’s to her!” He gulped, slammed his empty tankard down, belched, 
and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Where’s Rosey? Our rightful queen 
deserves another round of cider, wouldn’t you say?” 

Armen the Acolyte looked alarmed. “Lower your voice, fool. You should not even jape 
about such things. You never know who could be listening. The Spider has ears 
everywhere.” 

“Ah, don’t piss your breeches, Armen. I was proposing a drink, not a rebellion.” 

Pate heard a chuckle. A soft, sly voice called out from behind him. “I always knew you 
were a traitor, Hopfrog.” Lazy Leo was slouching by the foot of the old plank bridge, 
draped in satin striped in green and gold, with a black silk half cape pinned to his 
shoulder by a rose of jade. The wine he’d dribbled down his front had been a robust red, 
judging from the color of the spots. A lock of his ash-blond hair fell down across one eye. 

Mollander bristled at the sight of him. “Bugger that. Go away. You are not welcome 
here.” Alleras laid a hand upon his arm to calm him, whilst Armen frowned. “Leo. My 
lord. I had understood that you were still confined to the Citadel for . . .” 

“. . . three more days.” Lazy Leo shrugged. “Perestan says the world is forty thousand 
years old. Mollos says five hundred thousand. What are three days, I ask you?” Though 
there were a dozen empty tables on the terrace, Leo sat himself at theirs. “Buy me a cup 
of Arbor gold, Hopfrog, and perhaps I won’t inform my father of your toast. The tiles 
turned against me at the Checkered Hazard, and I wasted my last stag on supper. 
Suckling pig in plum sauce, stuffed with chestnuts and white truffles. A man must eat. 
What did you lads have?” 

“Mutton,” muttered Mollander. He sounded none too pleased about it. “We shared a 
haunch of boiled mutton.” 

“I’m certain it was filling.” Leo turned to Alleras. “A lord’s son should be open-handed, 
Sphinx. I understand you won your copper link. I’ll drink to that.” 

Alleras smiled back at him. “I only buy for friends. And I am no lord’s son, I’ve told you 
that. My mother was a trader.” 

Leo’s eyes were hazel, bright with wine and malice. “Your mother was a monkey from 
the Summer Isles. The Dornish will fuck anything with a hole between its legs. Meaning 
no offense. You may be brown as a nut, but at least you bathe. Unlike our spotted pig 
boy.” He waved a hand toward Pate. 

If I hit him in the mouth with my tankard, I could knock out half his teeth, Pate thought. 
Spotted Pate the pig boy was the hero of a thousand ribald stories: a good-hearted, empty-
headed lout who always managed to best the fat lordlings, haughty knights, and pompous 


septons who beset him. Somehow his stupidity would turn out to have been a sort of 
uncouth cunning; the tales always ended with Spotted Pate sitting on a lord’s high seat or 
bedding some knight’s daughter. But those were stories. In the real world pig boys never 
fared so well. Pate sometimes thought his mother must have hated him to have named 
him as she did. 

Alleras was no longer smiling. “You will apologize.” 

“Will I?” said Leo. “How can I, with my throat so dry . . .” 

“You shame your House with every word you say,” Alleras told him. “You shame the 
Citadel by being one of us.” 

“I know. So buy me some wine, that I might drown my shame.” 

Mollander said, “I would tear your tongue out by the roots.” 

“Truly? Then how would I tell you about the dragons?” Leo shrugged again. “The 
mongrel has the right of it. The Mad King’s daughter is alive, and she’s hatched herself 
three dragons.” 

“Three?” said Roone, astonished. 

Leo patted his hand. “More than two and less than four. I would not try for my golden 
link just yet if I were you.” 

“You leave him be,” warned Mollander. 

“Such a chivalrous Hopfrog. As you wish. Every man off every ship that’s sailed within a 
hundred leagues of Qarth is speaking of these dragons. A few will even tell you that 
they’ve seen them. The Mage is inclined to believe them.” 

Armen pursed his lips in disapproval. “Marwyn is unsound. Archmaester Perestan would 
be the first to tell you that.” 

“Archmaester Ryam says so too,” said Roone. 

Leo yawned. “The sea is wet, the sun is warm, and the menagerie hates the mastiff.” 

He has a mocking name for everyone, thought Pate, but he could not deny that Marwyn 
looked more a mastiff than a maester. As if he wants to bite you. The Mage was not like 
other maesters. People said that he kept company with whores and hedge wizards, talked 
with hairy Ibbenese and pitch-black Summer Islanders in their own tongues, and 
sacrificed to queer gods at the little sailors’ temples down by the wharves. Men spoke of 
seeing him down in the undercity, in rat pits and black brothels, consorting with 


mummers, singers, sellswords, even beggars. Some even whispered that once he had 
killed a man with his fists. 

When Marwyn had returned to Oldtown, after spending eight years in the east mapping 
distant lands, searching for lost books, and studying with warlocks and shadowbinders, 
Vinegar Vaellyn had dubbed him “Marwyn the Mage.” The name was soon all over 
Oldtown, to Vaellyn’s vast annoyance. “Leave spells and prayers to priests and septons 
and bend your wits to learning truths a man can trust in,” Archmaester Ryam had once 
counseled Pate, but Ryam’s ring and rod and mask were yellow gold, and his maester’s 
chain had no link of Valyrian steel. 

Armen looked down his nose at Lazy Leo. He had the perfect nose for it, long and thin 
and pointed. “Archmaester Marwyn believes in many curious things,” he said, “but he 
has no more proof of dragons than Mollander. Just more sailors’ stories.” 

“You’re wrong,” said Leo. “There is a glass candle burning in the Mage’s chambers.” 

A hush fell over the torchlit terrace. Armen sighed and shook his head. Mollander began 
to laugh. The Sphinx studied Leo with his big black eyes. Roone looked lost. 

Pate knew about the glass candles, though he had never seen one burn. They were the 
worst-kept secret of the Citadel. It was said that they had been brought to Oldtown from 
Valyria a thousand years before the Doom. He had heard there were four; one was green 
and three were black, and all were tall and twisted. 

“What are these glass candles?” asked Roone. 

Armen the Acolyte cleared his throat. “The night before an acolyte says his vows, he 
must stand a vigil in the vault. No lantern is permitted him, no torch, no lamp, no taper . . 
. only a candle of obsidian. He must spend the night in darkness, unless he can light that 
candle. Some will try. The foolish and the stubborn, those who have made a study of 
these so-called higher mysteries. Often they cut their fingers, for the ridges on the candles 
are said to be as sharp as razors. Then, with bloody hands, they must wait upon the dawn, 
brooding on their failure. Wiser men simply go to sleep, or spend their night in prayer, 
but every year there are always a few who must try.” 

“Yes.” Pate had heard the same stories. “But what’s the use of a candle that casts no 
light?” 

“It is a lesson,” Armen said, “the last lesson we must learn before we don our maester’s 
chains. The glass candle is meant to represent truth and learning, rare and beautiful and 
fragile things. It is made in the shape of a candle to remind us that a maester must cast 
light wherever he serves, and it is sharp to remind us that knowledge can be dangerous. 
Wise men may grow arrogant in their wisdom, but a maester must always remain humble. 
The glass candle reminds us of that as well. Even after he has said his vow and donned 
his chain and gone forth to serve, a maester will think back on the darkness of his vigil 


and remember how nothing that he did could make the candle burn . . . for even with 
knowledge, some things are not possible.” 

Lazy Leo burst out laughing. “Not possible for you, you mean. I saw the candle burning 
with my own eyes.” 

“You saw some candle burning, I don’t doubt,” said Armen. “A candle of black wax, 
perhaps.” 

“I know what I saw. The light was queer and bright, much brighter than any beeswax or 
tallow candle. It cast strange shadows and the flame never flickered, not even when a 
draft blew through the open door behind me.” 

Armen crossed his arms. “Obsidian does not burn.” 

“Dragonglass,” Pate said. “The smallfolk call it dragonglass.” Somehow that seemed 
important. 

“They do,” mused Alleras, the Sphinx, “and if there are dragons in the world again . . .” 

“Dragons and darker things,” said Leo. “The grey sheep have closed their eyes, but the 
mastiff sees the truth. Old powers waken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will 
soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes.” He stretched, smiling his lazy smile. 
“That’s worth a round, I’d say.” 

“We’ve drunk enough,” said Armen. “Morn will be upon us sooner than we’d like, and 
Archmaester Ebrose will be speaking on the properties of urine. Those who mean to 
forge a silver link would do well not to miss his talk.” 

“Far be it from me to keep you from the piss tasting,” said Leo. “Myself, I prefer the taste 
of Arbor gold.” 

“If the choice is piss or you, I’ll drink piss.” Mollander pushed back from the table. 
“Come, Roone.” 

The Sphinx reached for his bowcase. “It’s bed for me as well. I expect I’ll dream of 
dragons and glass candles.” 

“All of you?” Leo shrugged. “Well, Rosey will remain. Perhaps I’ll wake our little 
sweetmeat and make a woman of her.” 

Alleras saw the look on Pate’s face. “If he does not have a copper for a cup of wine, he 
cannot have a dragon for the girl.” 


“Aye,” said Mollander. “Besides, it takes a man to make a woman. Come with us, Pate. 
Old Walgrave will wake when the sun comes up. He’ll be needing you to help him to the 
privy.” 

If he remembers who I am today. Archmaester Walgrave had no trouble telling one raven 
from another, but he was not so good with people. Some days he seemed to think Pate 
was someone named Cressen. “Not just yet,” he told his friends. “I’m going to stay 
awhile.” Dawn had not broken, not quite. The alchemist might still be coming, and Pate 
meant to be here if he did. 

“As you wish,” said Armen. Alleras gave Pate a lingering look, then slung his bow over 
one slim shoulder and followed the others toward the bridge. Mollander was so drunk he 
had to walk with a hand on Roone’s shoulder to keep from falling. The Citadel was no 
great distance as the raven flies, but none of them were ravens and Oldtown was a 
veritable labyrinth of a city, all wynds and crisscrossing alleys and narrow crookback 
streets. “Careful,” Pate heard Armen say as the river mists swallowed up the four of 
them, “the night is damp, and the cobbles will be slippery.” 

When they were gone, Lazy Leo considered Pate sourly across the table. “How sad. The 
Sphinx has stolen off with all his silver, abandoning me to Spotted Pate the pig boy.” He 
stretched, yawning. “How is our lovely little Rosey, pray?” 

“She’s sleeping,” Pate said curtly. 

“Naked, I don’t doubt.” Leo grinned. “Do you think she’s truly worth a dragon? One day 
I suppose I must find out.” 

Pate knew better than to reply to that. 

Leo needed no reply. “I expect that once I’ve broken in the wench, her price will fall to 
where even pig boys will be able to afford her. You ought to thank me.” 

I ought to kill you, Pate thought, but he was not near drunk enough to throw away his life. 
Leo had been trained to arms, and was known to be deadly with bravo’s blade and 
dagger. And if Pate should somehow kill him, it would mean his own head too. Leo had 
two names where Pate had only one, and his second was Tyrell. Ser Moryn Tyrell, 
commander of the City Watch of Oldtown, was Leo’s father. Mace Tyrell, Lord of 
Highgarden and Warden of the South, was Leo’s cousin. And Oldtown’s Old Man, Lord 
Leyton of the Hightower, who numbered “Protector of the Citadel” amongst his many 
titles, was a sworn bannerman of House Tyrell. Let it go, Pate told himself. He says these 
things just to wound me. 

The mists were lightening to the east. Dawn, Pate realized. Dawn has come, and the 
alchemist has not. He did not know whether he should laugh or cry. Am I still a thief if I 
put it all back and no one ever knows? It was another question that he had no answer for, 
like those that Ebrose and Vaellyn had once asked him. 


When he pushed back from the bench and got to his feet, the fearsomely strong cider all 
went to his head at once. He had to put a hand on the table to steady himself. “Leave 
Rosey be,” he said, by way of parting. “Just leave her be, or I may kill you.” 

Leo Tyrell flicked the hair back from his eye. “I do not fight duels with pig boys. Go 
away.” 

Pate turned and crossed the terrace. His heels rang against the weathered planks of the old 
bridge. By the time he reached the other side, the eastern sky was turning pink. The world 
is wide, he told himself. If I bought that donkey, I could still wander the roads and 
byways of the Seven Kingdoms, leeching the smallfolk and picking nits out of their hair. I 
could sign on to some ship, pull an oar, and sail to Qarth by the Jade Gates to see these 
bloody dragons for myself. I do not need to go back to old Walgrave and the ravens. 

Yet somehow his feet turned back toward the Citadel. 

When the first shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds to the east, morning bells began 
to peal from the Sailor’s Sept down by the harbor. The Lord’s Sept joined in a moment 
later, then the Seven Shrines from their gardens across the Honeywine, and finally the 
Starry Sept that had been the seat of the High Septon for a thousand years before Aegon 
landed at King’s Landing. They made a mighty music. Though not so sweet as one small 
nightingale. 

He could hear singing too, beneath the pealing of the bells. Each morning at first light the 
red priests gathered to welcome the sun outside their modest wharfside temple. For the 
night is dark and full of terrors. Pate had heard them cry those words a hundred times, 
asking their god R’hllor to save them from the darkness. The Seven were gods enough for 
him, but he had heard that Stannis Baratheon worshiped at the nightfires now. He had 
even put the fiery heart of R’hllor on his banners in place of the crowned stag. If he 
should win the Iron Throne, we’ll all need to learn the words of the red priests’ song, 

Pate thought, but that was not likely. Tywin Lannister had smashed Stannis and R’hllor 
upon the Blackwater, and soon enough he would finish them and mount the head of the 
Baratheon pretender on a spike above the gates of King’s Landing. 

As the night’s mists burned away, Oldtown took form around him, emerging ghostlike 
from the predawn gloom. Pate had never seen King’s Landing, but he knew it was a 
daub-and-wattle city, a sprawl of mud streets, thatched roofs, and wooden hovels. 
Oldtown was built in stone, and all its streets were cobbled, down to the meanest alley. 
The city was never more beautiful than at break of day. West of the Honeywine, the 
Guildhalls lined the bank like a row of palaces. Upriver, the domes and towers of the 
Citadel rose on both sides of the river, connected by stone bridges crowded with halls and 
houses. Downstream, below the black marble walls and arched windows of the Starry 
Sept, the manses of the pious clustered like children gathered round the feet of an old 
dowager. 


And beyond, where the Honeywine widened into Whispering Sound, rose the Hightower, 
its beacon fires bright against the dawn. From where it stood atop the bluffs of Battle 
Island, its shadow cut the city like a sword. Those born and raised in Oldtown could tell 
the time of day by where that shadow fell. Some claimed a man could see all the way to 
the Wall from the top. Perhaps that was why Lord Leyton had not made the descent in 
more than a decade, preferring to rule his city from the clouds. 

A butcher’s cart rumbled past Pate down the river road, five piglets in the back squealing 
in distress. Dodging from its path, he just avoided being spattered as a townswoman 
emptied a pail of night soil from a window overhead. When I am a maester in a castle I 
will have a horse to ride, he thought. Then he tripped upon a cobble and wondered who 
he was fooling. There would be no chain for him, no seat at a lord’s high table, no tall 
white horse to ride. His days would be spent listening to ravens quork and scrubbing shit 
stains off Archmaester Walgrave’s smallclothes. 

He was on one knee, trying to wipe the mud off his robes, when a voice said, “Good 
morrow, Pate.” 

The alchemist was standing over him. 

Pate rose. “The third day . . . you said you would be at the Quill and Tankard.” 

“You were with your friends. It was not my wish to intrude upon your fellowship.” The 
alchemist wore a hooded traveler’s cloak, brown and nondescript. The rising sun was 
peeking over the rooftops behind his shoulder, so it was hard to make out the face 
beneath his hood. “Have you decided what you are?” 

Must he make me say it? “I suppose I am a thief.” 

“I thought you might be.” 

The hardest part had been getting down on his hands and knees to pull the strongbox 
from underneath Archmaester Walgrave’s bed. Though the box was stoutly made and 
bound with iron, its lock was broken. Maester Gormon had suspected Pate of breaking it, 
but that wasn’t true. Walgrave had broken the lock himself, after losing the key that 
opened it. 

Inside, Pate had found a bag of silver stags, a lock of yellow hair tied up in a ribbon, a 
painted miniature of a woman who resembled Walgrave (even to her mustache), and a 
knight’s gauntlet made of lobstered steel. The gauntlet had belonged to a prince, 
Walgrave claimed, though he could no longer seem to recall which one. When Pate shook 
it, the key fell out onto the floor. 

If I pick that up, I am a thief, he remembered thinking. The key was old and heavy, made 
of black iron; supposedly it opened every door at the Citadel. Only the archmaesters had 
such keys. The others carried theirs upon their person or hid them away in some safe 


place, but if Walgrave had hidden his, no one would ever have seen it again. Pate 
snatched up the key and had been halfway to the door before turning back to take the 
silver too. A thief was a thief, whether he stole a little or a lot. “Pate,” one of the white 
ravens had called after him, “Pate, Pate, Pate.” 

“Do you have my dragon?” he asked the alchemist. 

“If you have what I require.” 

“Give it here. I want to see.” Pate did not intend to let himself be cheated. 

“The river road is not the place. Come.” 

He had no time to think about it, to weigh his choices. The alchemist was walking away. 
Pate had to follow or lose Rosey and the dragon both, forever. He followed. As they 
walked, he slipped his hand up into his sleeve. He could feel the key, safe inside the 
hidden pocket he had sewn there. Maester’s robes were full of pockets. He had known 
that since he was a boy. 

He had to hurry to keep pace with the alchemist’s longer strides. They went down an 
alley, around a corner, through the old Thieves Market, along Ragpicker’s Wynd. Finally, 
the man turned into another alley, narrower than the first. “This is far enough,” said Pate. 
“There’s no one about. We’ll do it here.” 

“As you wish.” 

“I want my dragon.” 

“To be sure.” The coin appeared. The alchemist made it walk across his knuckles, the 
way he had when Rosey brought the two of them together. In the morning light the 
dragon glittered as it moved, and gave the alchemist’s fingers a golden glow. 

Pate grabbed it from his hand. The gold felt warm against his palm. He brought it to his 
mouth and bit down on it the way he’d seen men do. If truth be told, he wasn’t sure what 
gold should taste like, but he did not want to look a fool. 

“The key?” the alchemist inquired politely. 

Something made Pate hesitate. “Is it some book you want?” Some of the old Valyrian 
scrolls down in the locked vaults were said to be the only surviving copies in the world. 

“What I want is none of your concern.” 

“No.” It’s done, Pate told himself. Go. Run back to the Quill and Tankard, wake Rosey 
with a kiss, and tell her she belongs to you. Yet still he lingered. “Show me your face.” 


“As you wish.” The alchemist pulled his hood down. 
He was just a man, and his face was just a face. A young man’s face, ordinary, with full 
cheeks and the shadow of a beard. A scar showed faintly on his right cheek. He had a 


hooked nose, and a mat of dense black hair that curled tightly around his ears. It was not 
a face Pate recognized. “I do not know you.” 
“Nor I you.” 
“Who are you?” 
“A stranger. No one. Truly.” 
“Oh.” Pate had run out of words. He drew out the key and put it in the stranger’s hand, 


feeling light-headed, almost giddy. Rosey, he reminded himself. “We’re done, then.” 
He was halfway down the alley when the cobblestones began to move beneath his feet. 
The stones are slick and wet, he thought, but that was not it. He could feel his heart 


hammering in his chest. “What’s happening?” he said. His legs had turned to water. “I 
don’t understand.” 
“And never will,” a voice said sadly. 
The cobblestones rushed up to kiss him. Pate tried to cry for help, but his voice was 


failing too. 
His last thought was of Rosey. 



THE PROPHET 

The prophet was drowning men on Great Wyk when they came to tell him that the king 
was dead. 

It was a bleak, cold morning, and the sea was as leaden as the sky. The first three men 
had offered their lives to the Drowned God fearlessly, but the fourth was weak in faith 
and began to struggle as his lungs cried out for air. Standing waist-deep in the surf, Aeron 
seized the naked boy by the shoulders and pushed his head back down as he tried to 
snatch a breath. “Have courage,” he said. “We came from the sea, and to the sea we must 


return. Open your mouth and drink deep of god’s blessing. Fill your lungs with water, 
that you may die and be reborn. It does no good to fight.” 

Either the boy could not hear him with his head beneath the waves, or else his faith had 
utterly deserted him. He began to kick and thrash so wildly that Aeron had to call for 
help. Four of his drowned men waded out to seize the wretch and hold him underwater. 
“Lord God who drowned for us,” the priest prayed, in a voice as deep as the sea, “let 
Emmond your servant be reborn from the sea, as you were. Bless him with salt, bless him 
with stone, bless him with steel.” 

Finally, it was done. No more air was bubbling from his mouth, and all the strength had 
gone out of his limbs. Facedown in the shallow sea floated Emmond, pale and cold and 
peaceful. 

That was when the Damphair realized that three horsemen had joined his drowned men 
on the pebbled shore. Aeron knew the Sparr, a hatchet-faced old man with watery eyes 
whose quavery voice was law on this part of Great Wyk. His son Steffarion accompanied 
him, with another youth whose dark red fur-lined cloak was pinned at the shoulder with 
an ornate brooch that showed the black-and-gold warhorn of the Goodbrothers. One of 
Gorold’s sons, the priest decided at a glance. Three tall sons had been born to 
Goodbrother’s wife late in life, after a dozen daughters, and it was said that no man could 
tell one son from the others. Aeron Damphair did not deign to try. Whether this be 
Greydon or Gormond or Gran, the priest had no time for him. 

He growled a brusque command, and his drowned men seized the dead boy by his arms 
and legs to carry him above the tideline. The priest followed, naked but for a sealskin 
clout that covered his private parts. Goosefleshed and dripping, he splashed back onto 
land, across cold wet sand and sea-scoured pebbles. One of his drowned men handed him 
a robe of heavy roughspun dyed in mottled greens and blues and greys, the colors of the 
sea and the Drowned God. Aeron donned the robe and pulled his hair free. Black and 
wet, that hair; no blade had touched it since the sea had raised him up. It draped his 
shoulders like a ragged, ropy cloak, and fell down past his waist. Aeron wove strands of 
seaweed through it, and through his tangled, uncut beard. 

His drowned men formed a circle around the dead boy, praying. Norjen worked his arms 
whilst Rus knelt astride him, pumping on his chest, but all moved aside for Aeron. He 
pried apart the boy’s cold lips with his fingers and gave Emmond the kiss of life, and 
again, and again, until the sea came gushing from his mouth. The boy began to cough and 
spit, and his eyes blinked open, full of fear. 

Another one returned. It was a sign of the Drowned God’s favor, men said. Every other 
priest lost a man from time to time, even Tarle the Thrice-Drowned, who had once been 
thought so holy that he was picked to crown a king. But never Aeron Greyjoy. He was 
the Damphair, who had seen the god’s own watery halls and returned to tell of it. “Rise,” 
he told the sputtering boy as he slapped him on his naked back. “You have drowned and 
been returned to us. What is dead can never die.” 


“But rises.” The boy coughed violently, bringing up more water. “Rises again.” Every 
word was bought with pain, but that was the way of the world; a man must fight to live. 
“Rises again.” Emmond staggered to his feet. “Harder. And stronger.” 

“You belong to the god now,” Aeron told him. The other drowned men gathered round 
and each gave him a punch and a kiss to welcome him to the brotherhood. One helped 
him don a roughspun robe of mottled blue and green and grey. Another presented him 
with a driftwood cudgel. “You belong to the sea now, so the sea has armed you,” Aeron 
said. “We pray that you shall wield your cudgel fiercely, against all the enemies of our 
god.” 

Only then did the priest turn to the three riders, watching from their saddles. “Have you 
come to be drowned, my lords?” 

The Sparr coughed. “I was drowned as a boy,” he said, “and my son upon his name day.” 

Aeron snorted. That Steffarion Sparr had been given to the Drowned God soon after birth 
he had no doubt. He knew the manner of it too, a quick dip into a tub of seawater that 
scarce wet the infant’s head. Small wonder the ironborn had been conquered, they who 
once held sway everywhere the sound of waves was heard. “That is no true drowning,” 
he told the riders. “He that does not die in truth cannot hope to rise from death. Why have 
you come, if not to prove your faith?” 

“Lord Gorold’s son came seeking you, with news.” The Sparr indicated the youth in the 
red cloak. 

The boy looked to be no more than six-and-ten. “Aye, and which are you?” Aeron 
demanded. 

“Gormond. Gormond Goodbrother, if it please my lord.” 

“It is the Drowned God we must please. Have you been drowned, Gormond 
Goodbrother?” 

“On my name day, Damphair. My father sent me to find you and bring you to him. He 
needs to see you.” 

“Here I stand. Let Lord Gorold come and feast his eyes.” Aeron took a leather skin from 
Rus, freshly filled with water from the sea. The priest pulled out the cork and took a 
swallow. 

“I am to bring you to the keep,” insisted young Gormond, from atop his horse. 

He is afraid to dismount, lest he get his boots wet. “I have the god’s work to do.” Aeron 
Greyjoy was a prophet. He did not suffer petty lords ordering him about like some thrall. 


“Gorold’s had a bird,” said the Sparr. 

“A maester’s bird, from Pyke,” Gormond confirmed. 

Dark wings, dark words. “The ravens fly o’er salt and stone. If there are tidings that 
concern me, speak them now.” 

“Such tidings as we bear are for your ears alone, Damphair,” the Sparr said. “These are 
not matters I would speak of here before these others.” 

“These others are my drowned men, god’s servants, just as I am. I have no secrets from 
them, nor from our god, beside whose holy sea I stand.” 

The horsemen exchanged a look. “Tell him,” said the Sparr, and the youth in the red 
cloak summoned up his courage. “The king is dead,” he said, as plain as that. Four small 
words, yet the sea itself trembled when he uttered them. 

Four kings there were in Westeros, yet Aeron did not need to ask which one was meant. 
Balon Greyjoy ruled the Iron Islands, and no other. The king is dead. How can that be? 
Aeron had seen his eldest brother not a moon’s turn past, when he had returned to the 
Iron Islands from harrying the Stony Shore. Balon’s grey hair had gone half-white whilst 
the priest had been away, and the stoop in his shoulders was more pronounced than when 
the longships sailed. Yet all in all the king had not seemed ill. 

Aeron Greyjoy had built his life upon two mighty pillars. Those four small words had 
knocked one down. Only the Drowned God remains to me. May he make me as strong 
and tireless as the sea. “Tell me the manner of my brother’s death.” 

“His Grace was crossing a bridge at Pyke when he fell and was dashed upon the rocks 
below.” 

The Greyjoy stronghold stood upon a broken headland, its keeps and towers built atop 
massive stone stacks that thrust up from the sea. Bridges knotted Pyke together; arched 
bridges of carved stone and swaying spans of hempen rope and wooden planks. “Was the 
storm raging when he fell?” Aeron demanded of them. 

“Aye,” the youth said, “it was.” 

“The Storm God cast him down,” the priest announced. For a thousand thousand years 
sea and sky had been at war. From the sea had come the ironborn, and the fish that 
sustained them even in the depths of winter, but storms brought only woe and grief. “My 
brother Balon made us great again, which earned the Storm God’s wrath. He feasts now 
in the Drowned God’s watery halls, with mermaids to attend his every want. It shall be 
for us who remain behind in this dry and dismal vale to finish his great work.” He pushed 
the cork back into his waterskin. “I shall speak with your lord father. How far from here 
to Hammerhorn?” 


“Six leagues. You may ride pillion with me.” 

“One can ride faster than two. Give me your horse, and the Drowned God will bless 
you.” 

“Take my horse, Damphair,” offered Steffarion Sparr. 

“No. His mount is stronger. Your horse, boy.” 

The youth hesitated half a heartbeat, then dismounted and held the reins for the 
Damphair. Aeron shoved a bare black foot into a stirrup and swung himself onto the 
saddle. He was not fond of horses—they were creatures from the green lands and helped 
to make men weak—but necessity required that he ride. Dark wings, dark words. A storm 
was brewing, he could hear it in the waves, and storms brought naught but evil. “Meet 
with me at Pebbleton beneath Lord Merlyn’s tower,” he told his drowned men, as he 
turned the horse’s head. 

The way was rough, up hills and woods and stony defiles, along a narrow track that oft 
seemed to disappear beneath the horse’s hooves. Great Wyk was the largest of the Iron 
Islands, so vast that some of its lords had holdings that did not front upon the holy sea. 
Gorold Goodbrother was one such. His keep was in the Hardstone Hills, as far from the 
Drowned God’s realm as any place in the isles. Gorold’s folk toiled down in Gorold’s 
mines, in the stony dark beneath the earth. Some lived and died without setting eyes upon 
salt water. Small wonder that such folk are crabbed and queer. 

As Aeron rode, his thoughts turned to his brothers. 

Nine sons had been born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, the Lord of the Iron Islands. 
Harlon, Quenton, and Donel had been born of Lord Quellon’s first wife, a woman of the 
Stonetrees. Balon, Euron, Victarion, Urrigon, and Aeron were the sons of his second, a 
Sunderly of Saltcliffe. For a third wife Quellon took a girl from the green lands, who 
gave him a sickly idiot boy named Robin, the brother best forgotten. The priest had no 
memory of Quenton or Donel, who had died as infants. Harlon he recalled but dimly, 
sitting grey-faced and still in a windowless tower room and speaking in whispers that 
grew fainter every day as the greyscale turned his tongue and lips to stone. One day we 
shall feast on fish together in the Drowned God’s watery halls, the four of us and Urri 
too. 

Nine sons had been born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, but only four had lived to 
manhood. That was the way of this cold world, where men fished the sea and dug in the 
ground and died, whilst women brought forth short-lived children from beds of blood and 
pain. Aeron had been the last and least of the four krakens, Balon the eldest and boldest, a 
fierce and fearless boy who lived only to restore the ironborn to their ancient glory. At 
ten he scaled the Flint Cliffs to the Blind Lord’s haunted tower. At thirteen he could run a 
longship’s oars and dance the finger dance as well as any man in the isles. At fifteen he 
had sailed with Dagmer Cleftjaw to the Stepstones and spent a summer reaving. He slew 


his first man there and took his first two salt wives. At seventeen Balon captained his 
own ship. He was all that an elder brother ought to be, though he had never shown Aeron 
aught but scorn. I was weak and full of sin, and scorn was more than I deserved. Better to 
be scorned by Balon the Brave than beloved of Euron Crow’s Eye. And if age and grief 
had turned Balon bitter with the years, they had also made him more determined than any 
man alive. He was born a lord’s son and died a king, murdered by a jealous god, Aeron 
thought, and now the storm is coming, a storm such as these isles have never known. 

It was long after dark by the time the priest espied the spiky iron battlements of the 
Hammerhorn clawing at the crescent moon. Gorold’s keep was hulking and blocky, its 
great stones quarried from the cliff that loomed behind it. Below its walls, the entrances 
of caves and ancient mines yawned like toothless black mouths. The Hammerhorn’s iron 
gates had been closed and barred for the night. Aeron beat on them with a rock until the 
clanging woke a guard. 

The youth who admitted him was the image of Gormond, whose horse he’d taken. 
“Which one are you?” Aeron demanded. 

“Gran. My father awaits you within.” 

The hall was dank and drafty, full of shadows. One of Gorold’s daughters offered the 
priest a horn of ale. Another poked at a sullen fire that was giving off more smoke than 
heat. Gorold Goodbrother himself was talking quietly with a slim man in fine grey robes, 
who wore about his neck a chain of many metals that marked him for a maester of the 
Citadel. 

“Where is Gormond?” Gorold asked when he saw Aeron. 

“He returns afoot. Send your women away, my lord. And the maester as well.” He had no 
love of maesters. Their ravens were creatures of the Storm God, and he did not trust their 
healing, not since Urri. No proper man would choose a life of thralldom, nor forge a 
chain of servitude to wear about his throat. 

“Gysella, Gwin, leave us,” Goodbrother said curtly. “You as well, Gran. Maester 
Murenmure will stay.” 

“He will go,” insisted Aeron. 

“This is my hall, Damphair. It is not for you to say who must go and who remains. The 
maester stays.” 

The man lives too far from the sea, Aeron told himself. “Then I shall go,” he told 
Goodbrother. Dry rushes rustled underneath the cracked soles of his bare black feet as he 
turned and stalked away. It seemed he had ridden a long way for naught. 


Aeron was almost at the door when the maester cleared his throat, and said, “Euron 
Crow’s Eye sits the Seastone Chair.” 

The Damphair turned. The hall had suddenly grown colder. The Crow’s Eye is half a 
world away. Balon sent him off two years ago, and swore that it would be his life if he 
returned. “Tell me,” he said hoarsely. 

“He sailed into Lordsport the day after the king’s death, and claimed the castle and the 
crown as Balon’s eldest brother,” said Gorold Goodbrother. “Now he sends forth ravens, 
summoning the captains and the kings from every isle to Pyke, to bend their knees and do 
him homage as their king.” 

“No.” Aeron Damphair did not weigh his words. “Only a godly man may sit the Seastone 
Chair. The Crow’s Eye worships naught but his own pride.” 

“You were on Pyke not long ago, and saw the king,” said Goodbrother. “Did Balon say 
aught to you of the succession?” 

Aye. They had spoken in the Sea Tower, as the wind howled outside the windows and the 
waves crashed restlessly below. Balon had shaken his head in despair when he heard 
what Aeron had to tell him of his last remaining son. “The wolves have made a weakling 
of him, as I feared,” the king had said. “I pray god that they killed him, so he cannot 
stand in Asha’s way.” That was Balon’s blindness; he saw himself in his wild, headstrong 
daughter, and believed she could succeed him. He was wrong in that, and Aeron tried to 
tell him so. “No woman will ever rule the ironborn, not even a woman such as Asha,” he 
insisted, but Balon could be deaf to things he did not wish to hear. 

Before the priest could answer Gorold Goodbrother, the maester’s mouth flapped open 
once again. “By rights the Seastone Chair belongs to Theon, or Asha if the prince is dead. 
That is the law.” 

“Green land law,” said Aeron with contempt. “What is that to us? We are ironborn, the 
sons of the sea, chosen of the Drowned God. No woman may rule over us, nor any 
godless man.” 

“And Victarion?” asked Gorold Goodbrother. “He has the Iron Fleet. Will Victarion 
make a claim, Damphair?” 

“Euron is the elder brother . . .” began the maester. 

Aeron silenced him with a look. In little fishing towns and great stone keeps alike such a 
look from Damphair would make maids feel faint and send children shrieking to their 
mothers, and it was more than sufficient to quell the chain-neck thrall. “Euron is elder,” 
the priest said, “but Victarion is more godly.” 

“Will it come to war between them?” asked the maester. 


“Ironborn must not spill the blood of ironborn.” 

“A pious sentiment, Damphair,” said Goodbrother, “but not one that your brother shares. 
He had Sawane Botley drowned for saying that the Seastone Chair by rights belonged to 
Theon.” 

“If he was drowned, no blood was shed,” said Aeron. 

The maester and the lord exchanged a look. “I must send word to Pyke, and soon,” said 
Gorold Goodbrother. “Damphair, I would have your counsel. What shall it be, homage or 
defiance?” 

Aeron tugged his beard, and thought. I have seen the storm, and its name is Euron 
Crow’s Eye. “For now, send only silence,” he told the lord. “I must pray on this.” 

“Pray all you wish,” the maester said. “It does not change the law. Theon is the rightful 
heir, and Asha next.” 

“Silence!” Aeron roared. “Too long have the ironborn listened to you chain-neck 
maesters prating of the green lands and their laws. It is time we listened to the sea again. 
It is time we listened to the voice of god.” His own voice rang in that smoky hall, so full 
of power that neither Gorold Goodbrother nor his maester dared a reply. The Drowned 
God is with me, Aeron thought. He has shown me the way. 

Goodbrother offered him the comforts of the castle for the night, but the priest declined. 
He seldom slept beneath a castle roof, and never so far from the sea. “Comforts I shall 
know in the Drowned God’s watery halls beneath the waves. We are born to suffer, that 
our sufferings might make us strong. All that I require is a fresh horse to carry me to 
Pebbleton.” 

That Goodbrother was pleased to provide. He sent his son Greydon as well, to show the 
priest the shortest way through the hills down to the sea. Dawn was still an hour off when 
they set forth, but their mounts were hardy and surefooted, and they made good time 
despite the darkness. Aeron closed his eyes and said a silent prayer, and after a while 
began to drowse in the saddle. 

The sound came softly, the scream of a rusted hinge. “Urri,” he muttered, and woke, 
fearful. There is no hinge here, no door, no Urri. A flying axe took off half of Urri’s hand 
when he was ten-and-four, playing at the finger dance whilst his father and his elder 
brothers were away at war. Lord Quellon’s third wife had been a Piper of Pinkmaiden 
Castle, a girl with big soft breasts and brown doe’s eyes. Instead of healing Urri’s hand 
the Old Way, with fire and seawater, she gave him to her green land maester, who swore 
that he could sew back the missing fingers. He did that, and later he used potions and 
poltices and herbs, but the hand mortified and Urri took a fever. By the time the maester 
sawed his arm off, it was too late. 


Lord Quellon never returned from his last voyage; the Drowned God in his goodness 
granted him a death at sea. It was Lord Balon who came back, with his brothers Euron 
and Victarion. When Balon heard what had befallen Urri, he removed three of the 
maester’s fingers with a cook’s cleaver and sent his father’s Piper wife to sew them back 
on. Poltices and potions worked as well for the maester as they had for Urrigon. He died 
raving, and Lord Quellon’s third wife followed soon thereafter, as the midwife drew a 
stillborn daughter from her womb. Aeron had been glad. It had been his axe that sheared 
off Urri’s hand, whilst they danced the finger dance together, as friends and brothers will. 

It shamed him still to recall the years that followed Urri’s death. At six-and-ten he called 
himself a man, but in truth he had been a sack of wine with legs. He would sing, he 
would dance (but not the finger dance, never again), he would jape and jabber and make 
mock. He played the pipes, he juggled, he rode horses, and could drink more than all the 
Wynches and the Botleys, and half the Harlaws too. The Drowned God gives every man 
a gift, even him; no man could piss longer or farther than Aeron Greyjoy, as he proved at 
every feast. Once he bet his new longship against a herd of goats that he could quench a 
hearthfire with no more than his cock. Aeron feasted on goat for a year, and named the 
longship Golden Storm, though Balon threatened to hang him from her mast when he 
heard what sort of ram his brother proposed to mount upon her prow. 

In the end the Golden Storm went down off Fair Isle during Balon’s first rebellion, cut in 
half by a towering war galley called Fury when Stannis Baratheon caught Victarion in his 
trap and smashed the Iron Fleet. Yet the god was not done with Aeron, and carried him to 
shore. Some fishermen took him captive and marched him down to Lannisport in chains, 
and he spent the rest of the war in the bowels of Casterly Rock, proving that krakens can 
piss farther and longer than lions, boars, or chickens. 

That man is dead. Aeron had drowned and been reborn from the sea, the god’s own 
prophet. No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could . . . nor 
memories, the bones of the soul. The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted 
iron hinge. Euron has come again. It did not matter. He was the Damphair priest, beloved 
of the god. 

“Will it come to war?” asked Greydon Goodbrother as the sun was lightening the hills. 
“A war of brother against brother?” 

“If the Drowned God wills it. No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair.” The Crow’s 
Eye will fight, that is certain. No woman could defeat him, not even Asha; women were 
made to fight their battles in the birthing bed. And Theon, if he lived, was just as 
hopeless, a boy of sulks and smiles. At Winterfell he proved his worth, such that it was, 
but the Crow’s Eye was no crippled boy. The decks of Euron’s ship were painted red, to 
better hide the blood that soaked them. Victarion. The king must be Victarion, or the 
storm will slay us all. 

Greydon left him when the sun was up, to take the news of Balon’s death to his cousins 
in their towers at Downdelving, Crow Spike Keep, and Corpse Lake. Aeron continued on 


alone, up hills and down vales along a stony track that drew wider and more traveled as 
he neared the sea. In every village he paused to preach, and in the yards of petty lords as 
well. “We were born from the sea, and to the sea we all return,” he told them. His voice 
was as deep as the ocean, and thundered like the waves. “The Storm God in his wrath 
plucked Balon from his castle and cast him down, and now he feasts beneath the waves in 
the Drowned God’s watery halls.” He raised his hands. “Balon is dead! The king is dead! 
Yet a king will come again! For what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and 
stronger! A king will rise!” 

Some of those who heard him threw down their hoes and picks to follow, so by the time 
he heard the crash of waves a dozen men walked behind his horse, touched by god and 
desirous of drowning. 

Pebbleton was home to several thousand fisherfolk, whose hovels huddled round the base 
of a square towerhouse with a turret at each corner. Twoscore of Aeron’s drowned men 
there awaited him, camped along a grey sand beach in sealskin tents and shelters built of 
driftwood. Their hands were roughened by brine, scarred by nets and lines, callused from 
oars and picks and axes, but now those hands gripped driftwood cudgels hard as iron, for 
the god had armed them from his arsenal beneath the sea. 

They had built a shelter for the priest just above the tideline. Gladly he crawled into it, 
after he had drowned his newest followers. My god, he prayed, speak to me in the rumble 
of the waves, and tell me what to do. The captains and the kings await your word. Who 
shall be our king in Balon’s place? Sing to me in the language of leviathan, that I may 
know his name. Tell me, O Lord beneath the waves, who has the strength to fight the 
storm on Pyke? 

Though his ride to Hammerhorn had left him weary, Aeron Damphair was restless in his 
driftwood shelter, roofed over with black weeds from the sea. The clouds rolled in to 
cloak the moon and stars, and the darkness lay as thick upon the sea as it did upon his 
soul. Balon favored Asha, the child of his body, but a woman cannot rule the ironborn. It 
must be Victarion. Nine sons had been born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, and 
Victarion was the strongest of them, a bull of a man, fearless and dutiful. And therein lies 
our danger. A younger brother owes obedience to an elder, and Victarion was not a man 
to sail against tradition. He has no love for Euron, though. Not since the woman died. 

Outside, beneath the snoring of his drowned men and the keening of the wind, he could 
hear the pounding of the waves, the hammer of his god calling him to battle. Aeron crept 
from his little shelter into the chill of the night. Naked he stood, pale and gaunt and tall, 
and naked he walked into the black salt sea. The water was icy cold, yet he did not flinch 
from his god’s caress. A wave smashed against his chest, staggering him. The next broke 
over his head. He could taste the salt on his lips and feel the god around him, and his ears 
rang with the glory of his song. Nine sons were born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, 
and I was the least of them, as weak and frightened as a girl. But no longer. That man is 
drowned, and the god has made me strong. The cold salt sea surrounded him, embraced 
him, reached down through his weak man’s flesh and touched his bones. Bones, he 


thought. The bones of the soul. Balon’s bones, and Urri’s. The truth is in our bones, for 
flesh decays and bone endures. And on the hill of Nagga, the bones of the Grey King’s 
Hall . . . 

And gaunt and pale and shivering, Aeron Damphair struggled back to the shore, a wiser 
man than he had been when he stepped into the sea. For he had found the answer in his 
bones, and the way was plain before him. The night was so cold that his body seemed to 
steam as he stalked back toward his shelter, but there was a fire burning in his heart, and 
sleep came easily for once, unbroken by the scream of iron hinges. 

When he woke the day was bright and windy. Aeron broke his fast on a broth of clams 
and seaweed cooked above a driftwood fire. No sooner had he finished than the Merlyn 
descended from his towerhouse with half a dozen guards to seek him out. “The king is 
dead,” the Damphair told him. 

“Aye. I had a bird. And now another.” The Merlyn was a bald round fleshy man who 
styled himself “Lord” in the manner of the green lands, and dressed in furs and velvets. 
“One raven summons me to Pyke, another to Ten Towers. You krakens have too many 
arms, you pull a man to pieces. What say you, priest? Where should I send my 
longships?” 

Aeron scowled. “Ten Towers, do you say? What kraken calls you there?” Ten Towers 
was the seat of the Lord of Harlaw. 

“The Princess Asha. She has set her sails for home. The Reader sends out ravens, 
summoning all her friends to Harlaw. He says that Balon meant for her to sit the Seastone 
Chair.” 

“The Drowned God shall decide who sits the Seastone Chair,” the priest said. “Kneel, 
that I might bless you.” Lord Merlyn sank to his knees, and Aeron uncorked his skin and 
poured a stream of seawater on his bald pate. “Lord God who drowned for us, let 
Meldred your servant be born again from the sea. Bless him with salt, bless him with 
stone, bless him with steel.” Water ran down Merlyn’s fat cheeks to soak his beard and 
fox-fur mantle. “What is dead may never die,” Aeron finished, “but rises again, harder 
and stronger.” But when Merlyn rose, he told him, “Stay and listen, that you may spread 
god’s word.” 

Three feet from the water’s edge the waves broke around a rounded granite boulder. It 
was there that Aeron Damphair stood, so all his school might see him, and hear the words 
he had to say. 

“We were born from the sea, and to the sea we all return,” he began, as he had a hundred 
times before. “The Storm God in his wrath plucked Balon from his castle and cast him 
down, and now he feasts beneath the waves.” He raised his hands. “The iron king is dead! 
Yet a king will come again! For what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and 
stronger!” 


“A king shall rise!” the drowned men cried. 

“He shall. He must. But who?” The Damphair listened a moment, but only the waves 
gave answer. “Who shall be our king?” 

The drowned men began to slam their driftwood cudgels one against the other. 
“Damphair!” they cried. “Damphair King! Aeron King! Give us Damphair!” 

Aeron shook his head. “If a father has two sons and gives to one an axe and to the other a 
net, which does he intend should be the warrior?” 

“The axe is for the warrior,” Rus shouted back, “the net for a fisher of the seas.” 

“Aye,” said Aeron. “The god took me deep beneath the waves and drowned the worthless 
thing I was. When he cast me forth again he gave me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a voice 
to spread his word, that I might be his prophet and teach his truth to those who have 
forgotten. I was not made to sit upon the Seastone Chair . . . no more than Euron Crow’s 
Eye. For I have heard the god, who says, No godless man may sit my Seastone Chair!” 

The Merlyn crossed his arms against his chest. “Is it Asha, then? Or Victarion? Tell us, 
priest!” 

“The Drowned God will tell you, but not here.” Aeron pointed at the Merlyn’s fat white 
face. “Look not to me, nor to the laws of men, but to the sea. Raise your sails and unship 
your oars, my lord, and take yourself to Old Wyk. You, and all the captains and the kings. 
Go not to Pyke, to bow before the godless, nor to Harlaw, to consort with scheming 
women. Point your prow toward Old Wyk, where stood the Grey King’s Hall. In the 
name of the Drowned God I summon you. I summon all of you! Leave your halls and 
hovels, your castles and your keeps, and return to Nagga’s hill to make a kingsmoot!” 

The Merlyn gaped at him. “A kingsmoot? There has not been a true kingsmoot in . . .” 

“. . . too long a time!” Aeron cried in anguish. “Yet in the dawn of days the ironborn 
chose their own kings, raising up the worthiest amongst them. It is time we returned to 
the Old Way, for only that shall make us great again. It was a kingsmoot that chose Urras 
Ironfoot for High King, and placed a driftwood crown upon his brows. Sylas Flatnose, 
Harrag Hoare, the Old Kraken, the kingsmoot raised them all. And from this kingsmoot 
shall emerge a man to finish the work King Balon has begun and win us back our 
freedoms. Go not to Pyke, nor to the Ten Towers of Harlaw, but to Old Wyk, I say again. 
Seek the hill of Nagga and the bones of the Grey King’s Hall, for in that holy place when 
the moon has drowned and come again we shall make ourselves a worthy king, a godly 
king.” He raised his bony hands on high again. “Listen! Listen to the waves! Listen to the 
god! He is speaking to us, and he says, We shall have no king but from the kingsmoot!” 

A roar went up at that, and the drowned men beat their cudgels one against the other. “A 
kingsmoot!” they shouted. “A kingsmoot, a kingsmoot. No king but from the kingsmoot!” 


And the clamor that they made was so thunderous that surely the Crow’s Eye heard the 
shouts on Pyke, and the vile Storm God in his cloudy hall. And Aeron Damphair knew he 
had done well. 


THE CAPTAIN OF GUARDS 

The blood oranges are well past ripe,” the prince observed in a weary voice, when the 
captain rolled him onto the terrace. 

After that he did not speak again for hours. 

It was true about the oranges. A few had fallen to burst open on the pale pink marble. The 
sharp sweet smell of them filled Hotah’s nostrils each time he took a breath. No doubt the 
prince could smell them too, as he sat beneath the trees in the rolling chair Maester 
Caleotte had made for him, with its goose-down cushions and rumbling wheels of ebony 
and iron. 

For a long while the only sounds were the children splashing in the pools and fountains, 
and once a soft plop as another orange dropped onto the terrace to burst. Then, from the 
far side of the palace, the captain heard the faint drumbeat of boots on marble. 

Obara. He knew her stride; long-legged, hasty, angry. In the stables by the gates, her 
horse would be lathered, and bloody from her spurs. She always rode stallions, and had 
been heard to boast that she could master any horse in Dorne . . . and any man as well. 
The captain could hear other footsteps as well, the quick soft scuffing of Maester Caleotte 
hurrying to keep up. 

Obara Sand always walked too fast. She is chasing after something she can never catch, 
the prince had told his daughter once, in the captain’s hearing. 

When she appeared beneath the triple arch, Areo Hotah swung his longaxe sideways to 
block the way. The head was on a shaft of mountain ash six feet long, so she could not go 
around. “My lady, no farther.” His voice was a bass grumble thick with the accents of 
Norvos. “The prince does not wish to be disturbed.” 

Her face had been stone before he spoke; then it hardened. “You are in my way, Hotah.” 
Obara was the eldest Sand Snake, a big-boned woman near to thirty, with the close-set 
eyes and rat-brown hair of the Oldtown whore who’d birthed her. Beneath a mottled 
sandsilk cloak of dun and gold, her riding clothes were old brown leather, worn and 


supple. They were the softest things about her. On one hip she wore a coiled whip, across 
her back a round shield of steel and copper. She had left her spear outside. For that, Areo 
Hotah gave thanks. Quick and strong as she was, the woman was no match for him, he 
knew . . . but she did not, and he had no wish to see her blood upon the pale pink marble. 

Maester Caleotte shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Lady Obara, I tried to tell you . . .” 

“Does he know that my father is dead?” Obara asked the captain, paying the maester no 
more mind than she would a fly, if any fly had been foolish enough to buzz about her 
head. 

“He does,” the captain said. “He had a bird.” 

Death had come to Dorne on raven wings, writ small and sealed with a blob of hard red 
wax. Caleotte must have sensed what was in that letter, for he’d given it Hotah to deliver. 
The prince thanked him, but for the longest time he would not break the seal. All 
afternoon he’d sat with the parchment in his lap, watching the children at their play. He 
watched until the sun went down and the evening air grew cool enough to drive them 
inside; then he watched the starlight on the water. It was moonrise before he sent Hotah 
to fetch a candle, so he might read his letter beneath the orange trees in the dark of night. 

Obara touched her whip. “Thousands are crossing the sands afoot to climb the Boneway, 
so they may help Ellaria bring my father home. The septs are packed to bursting, and the 
red priests have lit their temple fires. In the pillow houses women are coupling with every 
man who comes to them, and refusing any coin. In Sunspear, on the Broken Arm, along 
the Greenblood, in the mountains, out in the deep sand, everywhere, everywhere, women 
tear their hair and men cry out in rage. The same question is heard on every tongue— 
what will Doran do? What will his brother do to avenge our murdered prince?” She 
moved closer to the captain. “And you say, he does not wish to be disturbed!” 

“He does not wish to be disturbed,” Areo Hotah said again. 

The captain of guards knew the prince he guarded. Once, long ago, a callow youth had 
come from Norvos, a big broad-shouldered boy with a mop of dark hair. That hair was 
white now, and his body bore the scars of many battles . . . but his strength remained, and 
he kept his longaxe sharp, as the bearded priests had taught him. She shall not pass, he 
told himself, and said, “The prince is watching the children at their play. He is never to be 
disturbed when he is watching the children at their play.” 

“Hotah,” said Obara Sand, “you will remove yourself from my path, else I shall take that 
longaxe and—” 

“Captain,” came the command, from behind. “Let her pass. I will speak with her.” The 
prince’s voice was hoarse. 


Areo Hotah jerked his longaxe upright and stepped to one side. Obara gave him a 
lingering last look and strode past, the maester hurrying at her heels. Caleotte was no 
more than five feet tall and bald as an egg. His face was so smooth and fat that it was 
hard to tell his age, but he had been here before the captain, had even served the prince’s 
mother. Despite his age and girth, he was still nimble enough, and clever as they came, 
but meek. He is no match for any Sand Snake, the captain thought. 

In the shade of the orange trees, the prince sat in his chair with his gouty legs propped up 
before him, and heavy bags beneath his eyes . . . though whether it was grief or gout that 
kept him sleepless, Hotah could not say. Below, in the fountains and the pools, the 
children were still at their play. The youngest were no more than five, the oldest nine and 
ten. Half were girls and half were boys. Hotah could hear them splashing and shouting at 
each other in high, shrill voices. “It was not so long ago that you were one of the children 
in those pools, Obara,” the prince said, when she took one knee before his rolling chair. 

She snorted. “It has been twenty years, or near enough to make no matter. And I was not 
here long. I am the whore’s whelp, or had you forgotten?” When he did not answer, she 
rose again and put her hands upon her hips. “My father has been murdered.” 

“He was slain in single combat during a trial by battle,” Prince Doran said. “By law, that 
is no murder.” 

“He was your brother.” 

“He was.” 

“What do you mean to do about his death?” 

The prince turned his chair laboriously to face her. Though he was but two-and-fifty, 
Doran Martell seemed much older. His body was soft and shapeless beneath his linen 
robes, and his legs were hard to look upon. The gout had swollen and reddened his joints 
grotesquely; his left knee was an apple, his right a melon, and his toes had turned to dark 
red grapes, so ripe it seemed as though a touch would burst them. Even the weight of a 
coverlet could make him shudder, though he bore the pain without complaint. Silence is a 
prince’s friend, the captain had heard him tell his daughter once. Words are like arrows, 
Arianne. Once loosed, you cannot call them back. “I have written to Lord Tywin—” 

“Written? If you were half the man my father was—” 

“I am not your father.” 

“That I knew.” Obara’s voice was thick with contempt. 

“You would have me go to war.” 


“I know better. You need not even leave your chair. Let me avenge my father. You have a 
host in the Prince’s Pass. Lord Yronwood has another in the Boneway. Grant me the one 
and Nym the other. Let her ride the kingsroad, whilst I turn the marcher lords out of their 
castles and hook round to march on Oldtown.” 

“And how could you hope to hold Oldtown?” 

“It will be enough to sack it. The wealth of Hightower—” 

“Is it gold you want?” 

“It is blood I want.” 

“Lord Tywin shall deliver us the Mountain’s head.” 

“And who will deliver us Lord Tywin’s head? The Mountain has always been his pet.” 

The prince gestured toward the pools. “Obara, look at the children, if it please you.” 

“It does not please me. I’d get more pleasure from driving my spear into Lord Tywin’s 
belly. I’ll make him sing ‘The Rains of Castamere’ as I pull his bowels out and look for 
gold.” 

“Look,” the prince repeated. “I command you.” 

A few of the older children lay facedown upon the smooth pink marble, browning in the 
sun. Others paddled in the sea beyond. Three were building a sand castle with a great 
spike that resembled the Spear Tower of the Old Palace. A score or more had gathered in 
the big pool, to watch the battles as smaller children rode through the waist-deep 
shallows on the shoulders of the larger and tried to shove each other into the water. Every 
time a pair went down, the splash was followed by a roar of laughter. They watched a 
nut-brown girl yank a towheaded boy off his brother’s shoulders to tumble him headfirst 
into the pool. 

“Your father played that same game once, as I did before him,” said the prince. “We had 
ten years between us, so I had left the pools by the time he was old enough to play, but I 
would watch him when I came to visit Mother. He was so fierce, even as a boy. Quick as 
a water snake. I oft saw him topple boys much bigger than himself. He reminded me of 
that the day he left for King’s Landing. He swore that he would do it one more time, else 
I would never have let him go.” 

“Let him go?” Obara laughed. “As if you could have stopped him. The Red Viper of 
Dorne went where he would.” 

“He did. I wish I had some word of comfort to—” 


“I did not come to you for comfort.” Her voice was full of scorn. “The day my father 
came to claim me, my mother did not wish for me to go. ‘She is a girl,’ she said, ‘and I 
do not think that she is yours. I had a thousand other men.’ He tossed his spear at my feet 
and gave my mother the back of his hand across the face, so she began to weep. ‘Girl or 
boy, we fight our battles,’ he said, ‘but the gods let us choose our weapons.’ He pointed 
to the spear, then to my mother’s tears, and I picked up the spear. ‘I told you she was 
mine,’ my father said, and took me. My mother drank herself to death within the year. 
They say that she was weeping as she died.” Obara edged closer to the prince in his chair. 
“Let me use the spear; I ask no more.” 

“It is a deal to ask, Obara. I shall sleep on it.” 

“You have slept too long already.” 

“You may be right. I will send word to you at Sunspear.” 

“So long as the word is war.” Obara turned upon her heel and strode off as angrily as she 
had come, back to the stables for a fresh horse and another headlong gallop down the 
road. 

Maester Caleotte remained behind. “My prince?” the little round man asked. “Do your 
legs hurt?” 

The prince smiled faintly. “Is the sun hot?” 

“Shall I fetch a draught for the pain?” 

“No. I need my wits about me.” 

The maester hesitated. “My prince, is it . . . is it prudent to allow Lady Obara to return to 
Sunspear? She is certain to inflame the common people. They loved your brother well.” 

“So did we all.” He pressed his fingers to his temples. “No. You are right. I must return to 
Sunspear as well.” 

The little round man hesitated. “Is that wise?” 

“Not wise, but necessary. Best send a rider to Ricasso, and have him open my apartments 
in the Tower of the Sun. Inform my daughter Arianne that I will be there on the morrow.” 

My little princess. The captain had missed her sorely. 

“You will be seen,” the maester warned. 

The captain understood. Two years ago, when they had left Sunspear for the peace and 
isolation of the Water Gardens, Prince Doran’s gout had not been half so bad. In those 


days he had still walked, albeit slowly, leaning on a stick and grimacing with every step. 
The prince did not wish his enemies to know how feeble he had grown, and the Old 
Palace and its shadow city were full of eyes. Eyes, the captain thought, and steps he 
cannot climb. He would need to fly to sit atop the Tower of the Sun. 

“I must be seen. Someone must pour oil on the waters. Dorne must be reminded that it 
still has a prince.” He smiled wanly. “Old and gouty though he is.” 

“If you return to Sunspear, you will need to give audience to Princess Myrcella,” Caleotte 
said. “Her white knight will be with her . . . and you know he sends letters to his queen.” 

“I suppose he does.” 

The white knight. The captain frowned. Ser Arys had come to Dorne to attend his own 
princess, as Areo Hotah had once come with his. Even their names sounded oddly alike: 
Areo and Arys. Yet there the likeness ended. The captain had left Norvos and its bearded 
priests, but Ser Arys Oakheart still served the Iron Throne. Hotah had felt a certain 
sadness whenever he saw the man in the long snowy cloak, the times the prince had sent 
him down to Sunspear. One day, he sensed, the two of them would fight; on that day 
Oakheart would die, with the captain’s longaxe crashing through his skull. He slid his 
hand along the smooth ashen shaft of his axe and wondered if that day was drawing nigh. 

“The afternoon is almost done,” the prince was saying. “We will wait for morn. See that 
my litter is ready by first light.” 

“As you command.” Caleotte bobbed a bow. The captain stood aside to let him pass, and 
listened to his footsteps dwindle. 

“Captain?” The prince’s voice was soft. 

Hotah strode forward, one hand wrapped about his longaxe. The ash felt as smooth as a 
woman’s skin against his palm. When he reached the rolling chair he thumped its butt 
down hard to announce his presence, but the prince had eyes only for the children. “Did 
you have brothers, captain?” he asked. “Back in Norvos, when you were young? Sisters?” 

“Both,” Hotah said. “Two brothers, three sisters. I was the youngest.” The youngest, and 
unwanted. Another mouth to feed, a big boy who ate too much and soon outgrew his 
clothes. Small wonder they had sold him to the bearded priests. 

“I was the oldest,” the prince said, “and yet I am the last. After Mors and Olyvar died in 
their cradles, I gave up hope of brothers. I was nine when Elia came, a squire in service at 
Salt Shore. When the raven arrived with word that my mother had been brought to bed a 
month too soon, I was old enough to understand that meant the child would not live. Even 
when Lord Gargalen told me that I had a sister, I assured him that she must shortly die. 
Yet she lived, by the Mother’s mercy. And a year later Oberyn arrived, squalling and 


kicking. I was a man grown when they were playing in these pools. Yet here I sit, and 
they are gone.” 

Areo Hotah did not know what to say to that. He was only a captain of guards, and still a 
stranger to this land and its seven-faced god, even after all these years. Serve. Obey. 
Protect. He had sworn those vows at six-and-ten, the day he wed his axe. Simple vows for 
simple men, the bearded priests had said. He had not been trained to counsel grieving 
princes. 

He was still groping for some words to say when another orange fell with a heavy splat, 
no more than a foot from where the prince was seated. Doran winced at the sound, as if 
somehow it had hurt him. “Enough,” he sighed, “it is enough. Leave me, Areo. Let me 
watch the children for a few more hours.” 

When the sun set the air grew cool and the children went inside in search of supper, still 
the prince remained beneath his orange trees, looking out over the still pools and the sea 
beyond. A serving man brought him a bowl of purple olives, with flatbread, cheese, and 
chickpea paste. He ate a bit of it, and drank a cup of the sweet, heavy strongwine that he 
loved. When it was empty, he filled it once again. Sometimes in the deep black hours of 
the morning sleep found him in his chair. Only then did the captain roll him down the 
moonlit gallery, past a row of fluted pillars and through a graceful archway, to a great bed 
with crisp cool linen sheets in a chamber by the sea. Doran groaned as the captain moved 
him, but the gods were good and he did not wake. 

The captain’s sleeping cell adjoined his prince’s. He sat upon the narrow bed and found 
his whetstone and oilcloth in their niche, and set to work. Keep your longaxe sharp, the 
bearded priests had told him, the day they branded him. He always did. 

As he honed the axe, Hotah thought of Norvos, the high city on the hill and the low 
beside the river. He could still recall the sounds of the three bells, the way that Noom’s 
deep peals set his very bones to shuddering, the proud strong voice of Narrah, sweet 
Nyel’s silvery laughter. The taste of wintercake filled his mouth again, rich with ginger 
and pine nuts and bits of cherry, with nahsa to wash it down, fermented goat’s milk 
served in an iron cup and laced with honey. He saw his mother in her dress with the 
squirrel collar, the one she wore but once each year, when they went to see the bears 
dance down the Sinner’s Steps. And he smelled the stench of burning hair as the bearded 
priest touched the brand to the center of his chest. The pain had been so fierce that he 
thought his heart might stop, yet Areo Hotah had not flinched. The hair had never grown 
back over the axe. 

Only when both edges were sharp enough to shave with did the captain lay his ash-andiron 
wife down on the bed. Yawning, he pulled off his soiled clothes, tossed them on the 
floor, and stretched out on his straw-stuffed mattress. Thinking of the brand had made it 
itch, so he had to scratch himself before he closed his eyes. I should have gathered up the 
oranges that fell, he thought, and went to sleep dreaming of the tart sweet taste of them, 
and the sticky feel of the red juice on his fingers. 


Dawn came too soon. Outside the stables the smallest of the three horse litters stood 
ready, the cedarwood litter with the red silk draperies. The captain chose twenty spears to 
accompany it, out of the thirty who were posted at the Water Gardens; the rest would stay 
to guard the grounds and children, some of whom were the sons and daughters of great 
lords and wealthy merchants. 

Although the prince had spoken of departing at first light, Areo Hotah knew that he 
would dawdle. Whilst the maester helped Doran Martell to bathe and bandaged up his 
swollen joints in linen wraps soaked with soothing lotions, the captain donned a shirt of 
copper scales as befit his rank, and a billowing cloak of dun-and-yellow sandsilk to keep 
the sun off the copper. The day promised to be hot, and the captain had long ago 
discarded the heavy horsehair cape and studded leather tunic he had worn in Norvos, 
which were like to cook a man in Dorne. He had kept his iron halfhelm, with its crest of 
sharpened spikes, but now he wore it wrapped in orange silk, weaving the cloth in and 
around the spikes. Elsewise the sun beating down on the metal would have his head 
pounding before they saw the palace. 

The prince was still not ready to depart. He had decided to break his fast before he went, 
with a blood orange and a plate of gull’s eggs diced with bits of ham and fiery peppers. 
Then nought would do but he must say farewell to several of the children who had 
become especial favorites: the Dalt boy and Lady Blackmont’s brood and the round-faced 
orphan girl whose father had sold cloth and spices up and down the Greenblood. Doran 
kept a splendid Myrish blanket over his legs as he spoke with them, to spare the young 
ones the sight of his swollen, bandaged joints. 

It was midday before they got under way; the prince in his litter, Maester Caleotte riding 
on a donkey, the rest afoot. Five spearmen walked ahead and five behind, with five more 
flanking the litter to either side. Areo Hotah himself took his familiar place at the left 
hand of the prince, resting his longaxe on a shoulder as he walked. The road from 
Sunspear to the Water Gardens ran beside the sea, so they had a cool fresh breeze to 
soothe them as they made their way across a sparse red-brown land of stone and sand and 
twisted stunted trees. 

Halfway there, the second Sand Snake caught them. 

She appeared suddenly upon a dune, mounted on a golden sand steed with a mane like 
fine white silk. Even ahorse, the Lady Nym looked graceful, dressed all in shimmering 
lilac robes and a great silk cape of cream and copper that lifted at every gust of wind, and 
made her look as if she might take flight. Nymeria Sand was five-and-twenty, and slender 
as a willow. Her straight black hair, worn in a long braid bound up with red-gold wire, 
made a widow’s peak above her dark eyes, just as her father’s had. With her high 
cheekbones, full lips, and milk-pale skin, she had all the beauty that her elder sister 
lacked . . . but Obara’s mother had been an Oldtown whore, whilst Nym was born from 
the noblest blood of old Volantis. A dozen mounted spearmen tailed her, their round 
shields gleaming in the sun. They followed her down the dune. 


The prince had tied back the curtains on his litter, the better to enjoy the breeze blowing 
off the sea. Lady Nym fell in beside him, slowing her pretty golden mare to match the 
litter’s pace. “Well met, Uncle,” she sang out, as if it had been chance that brought her 
here. “May I ride with you to Sunspear?” The captain was on the opposite side of the 
litter from Lady Nym, yet he could hear every word she said. 

“I would be glad of it,” Prince Doran replied, though he did not sound glad to the 
captain’s ears. “Gout and grief make poor companions on the road.” By which the captain 
knew him to mean that every pebble drove a spike through his swollen joints. 

“The gout I cannot help,” she said, “but my father had no use for grief. Vengeance was 
more to his taste. Is it true that Gregor Clegane admitted slaying Elia and her children?” 

“He roared out his guilt for all the court to hear,” the prince admitted. “Lord Tywin has 
promised us his head.” 

“And a Lannister always pays his debts,” said Lady Nym, “yet it seems to me that Lord 
Tywin means to pay us with our own coin. I had a bird from our sweet Ser Daemon, who 
swears my father tickled that monster more than once as they fought. If so, Ser Gregor is 
as good as dead, and no thanks to Tywin Lannister.” 

The prince grimaced. Whether it was from the pain of gout or his niece’s words, the 
captain could not say. “It may be so.” 

“May be? I say ’tis.” 

“Obara would have me go to war.” 

Nym laughed. “Yes, she wants to set the torch to Oldtown. She hates that city as much as 
our little sister loves it.” 

“And you?” 

Nym glanced over a shoulder, to where her companions rode a dozen lengths behind. “I 
was abed with the Fowler twins when the word reached me,” the captain heard her say. 
“You know the Fowler words? Let Me Soar! That is all I ask of you. Let me soar, Uncle. 
I need no mighty host, only one sweet sister.” 

“Obara?” 

“Tyene. Obara is too loud. Tyene is so sweet and gentle that no man will suspect her. 
Obara would make Oldtown our father’s funeral pyre, but I am not so greedy. Four lives 
will suffice for me. Lord Tywin’s golden twins, as payment for Elia’s children. The old 
lion, for Elia herself. And last of all the little king, for my father.” 

“The boy has never wronged us.” 


“The boy is a bastard born of treason, incest, and adultery, if Lord Stannis can be 
believed.” The playful tone had vanished from her voice, and the captain found himself 
watching her through narrowed eyes. Her sister Obara wore her whip upon her hip and 
carried a spear where any man could see it. Lady Nym was no less deadly, though she 
kept her knives well hidden. “Only royal blood can wash out my father’s murder.” 

“Oberyn died during single combat, fighting in a matter that was none of his concern. I 
do not call that murder.” 

“Call it what you will. We sent them the finest man in Dorne, and they are sending back a 
bag of bones.” 

“He went beyond anything I asked of him. ‘Take the measure of this boy king and his 
council, and make note of their strengths and weaknesses,’ I told him, on the terrace. We 
were eating oranges. ‘Find us friends, if there are any to be found. Learn what you can of 
Elia’s end, but see that you do not provoke Lord Tywin unduly,’ those were my words to 
him. Oberyn laughed, and said, ‘When have I provoked any man . . . unduly? You would 
do better to warn the Lannisters against provoking me.’ He wanted justice for Elia, but he 
would not wait—” 

“He waited ten-and-seven years,” the Lady Nym broke in. “Were it you they’d killed, my 
father would have led his banners north before your corpse was cold. Were it you, the 
spears would be falling thick as rain upon the marches now.” 

“I do not doubt it.” 

“No more should you doubt this, my prince—my sisters and I shall not wait ten-andseven 
years for our vengeance.” She put her spurs into the mare and she was off, 
galloping toward Sunspear with her tail in hot pursuit. 

The prince leaned back against his pillows and closed his eyes, but Hotah knew he did 
not sleep. He is in pain. For a moment he considered calling Maester Caleotte up to the 
litter, but if Prince Doran had wanted him, he would have called himself. 

The shadows of the afternoon were long and dark and the sun was as red and swollen as 
the prince’s joints before they glimpsed the towers of Sunspear to the east. First the 
slender Spear Tower, a hundred-and-a-half feet tall and crowned with a spear of gilded 
steel that added another thirty feet to its height; then the mighty Tower of the Sun, with 
its dome of gold and leaded glass; last the dun-colored Sandship, looking like some 
monstrous dromond that had washed ashore and turned to stone. 

Only three leagues of coast road divided Sunspear from the Water Gardens, yet they were 
two different worlds. There children frolicked naked in the sun, music played in tiled 
courtyards, and the air was sharp with the smell of lemons and blood oranges. Here the 
air smelled of dust, sweat, and smoke, and the nights were alive with the babble of 
voices. In place of the pink marble of the Water Gardens, Sunspear was built from mud 


and straw, and colored brown and dun. The ancient stronghold of House Martell stood at 
the easternmost end of a little jut of stone and sand, surrounded on three sides by the sea. 
To the west, in the shadows of Sunspear’s massive walls, mud-brick shops and 
windowless hovels clung to the castle like barnacles to a galley’s hull. Stables and inns 
and winesinks and pillow houses had grown up west of those, many enclosed by walls of 
their own, and yet more hovels had risen beneath those walls. And so and so and so, as 
the bearded priests would say. Compared to Tyrosh or Myr or Great Norvos, the shadow 
city was no more than a town, yet it was the nearest thing to a true city that these Dornish 
had. 

Lady Nym’s arrival had preceded theirs by some hours, and no doubt she had warned the 
guards of their coming, for the Threefold Gate was open when they reached it. Only here 
were the gates lined up one behind the other to allow visitors to pass beneath all three of 
the Winding Walls directly to the Old Palace, without first making their way through 
miles of narrow alleys, hidden courts, and noisy bazaars. 

Prince Doran had closed the draperies of his litter as soon as the Spear Tower came in 
sight, yet still the smallfolk shouted out to him as the litter passed. The Sand Snakes have 
stirred them to a boil, the captain thought uneasily. They crossed the squalor of the outer 
crescent and went through the second gate. Beyond, the wind stank of tar and salt water 
and rotting seaweed, and the crowd grew thicker with every step. “Make way for Prince 
Doran!” Areo Hotah boomed out, thumping the butt of his longaxe on the bricks. “Make 
way for the Prince of Dorne!” 

“The prince is dead!” a woman shrilled behind him. 

“To spears!” a man bellowed from a balcony. 

“Doran!” called some highborn voice. “To the spears!” 

Hotah gave up looking for the speakers; the press was too thick, and a third of them were 
shouting. “To spears! Vengeance for the Viper!” By the time they reached the third gate, 
the guards were shoving people aside to clear a path for the prince’s litter, and the crowd 
was throwing things. One ragged boy darted past the spearmen with a half-rotten 
pomegranate in one hand, but when he saw Areo Hotah in his path, with longaxe at the 
ready, he let the fruit fall unthrown and beat a quick retreat. Others farther back let fly 
with lemons, limes, and oranges, crying “War! War! To the spears!” One of the guards 
was hit in the eye with a lemon, and the captain himself had an orange splatter off his 
foot. 

No answer came from within the litter. Doran Martell stayed cloaked within his silken 
walls until the thicker walls of the castle swallowed all of them, and the portcullis came 
down behind them with a rattling crunch. The sounds of shouting dwindled away slowly. 
Princess Arianne was waiting in the outer ward to greet her father, with half the court 
about her: the old blind seneschal Ricasso, Ser Manfrey Martell the castellan, young 
Maester Myles with his grey robes and silky perfumed beard, twoscore of Dornish 


knights in flowing linen of half a hundred hues. Little Myrcella Baratheon stood with her 
septa and Ser Arys of the Kingsguard, sweltering in his white-enameled scales. 

Princess Arianne strode to the litter on snakeskin sandals laced up to her thighs. Her hair 
was a mane of jet-black ringlets that fell to the small of her back, and around her brow 
was a band of copper suns. She is still a little thing, the captain thought. Where the Sand 
Snakes were tall, Arianne took after her mother, who stood but five foot two. Yet beneath 
her jeweled girdle and loose layers of flowing purple silk and yellow samite she had a 
woman’s body, lush and roundly curved. “Father,” she announced as the curtains opened, 
“Sunspear rejoices at your return.” 

“Yes, I heard the joy.” The prince smiled wanly and cupped his daughter’s cheek with a 
reddened, swollen hand. “You look well. Captain, be so good as to help me down from 
here.” 

Hotah slid his longaxe into its sling across his back and gathered the prince into his arms, 
tenderly so as not to jar his swollen joints. Even so, Doran Martell bit back a gasp of 
pain. 

“I have commanded the cooks to prepare a feast for this evening,” Arianne said, “with all 
your favorite dishes.” 

“I fear I could not do them justice.” The prince glanced slowly around the yard. “I do not 
see Tyene.” 

“She begs a private word. I sent her to the throne room to await your coming.” 

The prince sighed. “Very well. Captain? The sooner I am done with this, the sooner I 
may rest.” 

Hotah bore him up the long stone steps of the Tower of the Sun, to the great round 
chamber beneath the dome, where the last light of the afternoon was slanting down 
through thick windows of many-colored glass to dapple the pale marble with diamonds of 
half a hundred colors. There the third Sand Snake awaited them. 

She was sitting cross-legged on a pillow beneath the raised dais where the high seats 
stood, but she rose as they entered, dressed in a clinging gown of pale blue samite with 
sleeves of Myrish lace that made her look as innocent as the Maid herself. In one hand 
was a piece of embroidery she had been working on, in the other a pair of golden needles. 
Her hair was gold as well, and her eyes were deep blue pools . . . and yet somehow they 
reminded the captain of her father’s eyes, though Oberyn’s had been as black as night. All 
of Prince Oberyn’s daughters have his viper eyes, Hotah realized suddenly. The color 
does not matter. 

“Uncle,” said Tyene Sand, “I have been waiting for you.” 


“Captain, help me to the high seat.” 

There were two seats on the dais, near twin to one another, save that one had the Martell 
spear inlaid in gold upon its back, whilst the other bore the blazing Rhoynish sun that had 
flown from the masts of Nymeria’s ships when first they came to Dorne. The captain 
placed the prince beneath the spear and stepped away. 

“Does it hurt so much?” Lady Tyene’s voice was gentle, and she looked as sweet as 
summer strawberries. Her mother had been a septa, and Tyene had an air of almost 
otherworldy innocence about her. “Is there aught that I might do to ease your pain?” 

“Say what you would and let me rest. I am weary, Tyene.” 

“I made this for you, Uncle.” Tyene unfolded the piece she’d been embroidering. It 
showed her father, Prince Oberyn, mounted on a sand steed and armored all in red, 
smiling. “When I finish, it is yours, to help you remember him.” 

“I am not like to forget your father.” 

“That is good to know. Many have wondered.” 

“Lord Tywin has promised us the Mountain’s head.” 

“He is so kind . . . but a headsman’s sword is no fit end for brave Ser Gregor. We have 
prayed so long for his death, it is only fair that he pray for it as well. I know the poison 
that my father used, and there is none slower or more agonizing. Soon we may hear the 
Mountain screaming, even here in Sunspear.” 

Prince Doran sighed. “Obara cries to me for war. Nym will be content with murder. And 
you?” 

“War,” said Tyene, “though not my sister’s war. Dornishmen fight best at home, so I say 
let us hone our spears and wait. When the Lannisters and the Tyrells come down on us, 
we shall bleed them in the passes and bury them beneath the blowing sands, as we have a 
hundred times before.” 

“If they should come down on us.” 

“Oh, but they must, or see the realm riven once more, as it was before we wed the 
dragons. Father told me so. He said we had the Imp to thank, for sending us Princess 
Myrcella. She is so pretty, don’t you think? I wish that I had curls like hers. She was 
made to be a queen, just like her mother.” Dimples bloomed in Tyene’s cheeks. “I would 
be honored to arrange the wedding, and to see to the making of the crowns as well. 
Trystane and Myrcella are so innocent, I thought perhaps white gold . . . with emeralds, 
to match Myrcella’s eyes. Oh, diamonds and pearls would serve as well, so long as the 
children are wed and crowned. Then we need only hail Myrcella as the First of Her 


Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and lawful heir to the Seven 
Kingdoms of Westeros, and wait for the lions to come.” 

“The lawful heir?” The prince snorted. 
“She is older than her brother,” explained Tyene, as if he were some fool. “By law the 
Iron Throne should pass to her.” 


“By Dornish law.” 
“When good King Daeron wed Princess Myriah and brought us into his kingdom, it was 


agreed that Dornish law would always rule in Dorne. And Myrcella is in Dorne, as it 
happens.” 
“So she is.” His tone was grudging. “Let me think on it.” 
Tyene grew cross. “You think too much, Uncle.” 
“Do I?” 
“Father said so.” 
“Oberyn thought too little.” 
“Some men think because they are afraid to do.” 
“There is a difference between fear and caution.” 
“Oh, I must pray that I never see you frightened, Uncle. You might forget to breathe.” 


She raised a hand . . . 


The captain brought the butt of his longaxe down upon the marble with a thump. “My 
lady, you presume. Step from the dais, if it please you.” 
“I meant no harm, Captain. I love my uncle, as I know he loved my father.” Tyene went 


to one knee before the prince. “I have said all I came to say, Uncle. Forgive me if I gave 
offense; my heart is broken all to pieces. Do I still have your love?” 
“Always.” 


“Give me your blessing, then, and I shall go.” 
Doran hesitated half a heartbeat before placing his hand on his niece’s head. “Be brave, 
child.” 


“Oh, how not? I am his daughter.” 



No sooner had she taken her leave than Maester Caleotte hurried to the dais. “My prince, 
she did not . . . here, let me see your hand.” He examined the palm first, then gently 
turned it upside down to sniff at the back of the prince’s fingers. “No, good. That is good. 
There are no scratches, so . . .” 

The prince withdrew his hand. “Maester, could I trouble you for some milk of the poppy? 
A thimble cup will suffice.” 

“The poppy. Yes, to be sure.” 

“Now, I think,” Doran Martell urged gently, and Caleotte scurried to the stairs. 

Outside the sun had set. The light within the dome was the blue of dusk, and all the 
diamonds on the floor were dying. The prince sat in his high seat beneath the Martell 
spear, his face pale with pain. After a long silence he turned to Areo Hotah. “Captain,” he 
said, “how loyal are my guards?” 

“Loyal.” The captain did not know what else to say. 

“All of them? Or some?” 

“They are good men. Good Dornishmen. They will do as I command.” He thumped his 
longaxe on the floor. “I will bring the head of any man who would betray you.” 

“I want no heads. I want obedience.” 

“You have it.” Serve. Obey. Protect. Simple vows for a simple man. “How many men are 
needed?” 

“I will leave that for you to decide. It may be that a few good men will serve us better 
than a score. I want this done as quickly and as quietly as possible, with no blood 
spilled.” 

“Quick and quiet and bloodless, aye. What is your command?” 

“You will find my brother’s daughters, take them into custody, and confine them in the 
cells atop the Spear Tower.” 

“The Sand Snakes?” The captain’s throat was dry. “All . . . all eight, my prince? The little 
ones, also?” 

The prince considered. “Ellaria’s girls are too young to be a danger, but there are those 
who might seek to use them against me. It would be best to keep them safe in hand. Yes, 
the little ones as well . . . but first secure Tyene, Nymeria, and Obara.” 


“As my prince commands.” His heart was troubled. My little princess will mislike this. 
“What of Sarella? She is a woman grown, almost twenty.” 

“Unless she returns to Dorne, there’s naught I can do about Sarella save pray that she 
shows more sense than her sisters. Leave her to her . . . game. Gather up the others. I 
shall not sleep until I know that they are safe and under guard.” 

“It will be done.” The captain hesitated. “When this is known in the streets, the common 
folk will howl.” 

“All Dorne will howl,” said Doran Martell in a tired voice. “I only pray Lord Tywin hears 
them in King’s Landing, so he might know what a loyal friend he has in Sunspear.” 


CERSEI 

She dreamt she sat the Iron Throne, high above them all. 

The courtiers were brightly colored mice below. Great lords and proud ladies knelt before 
her. Bold young knights laid their swords at her feet and pleaded for her favors, and the 
queen smiled down at them. Until the dwarf appeared as if from nowhere, pointing at her 
and howling with laughter. The lords and ladies began to chuckle too, hiding their smiles 
behind their hands. Only then did the queen realize she was naked. 

Horrified, she tried to cover herself with her hands. The barbs and blades of the Iron 
Throne bit into her flesh as she crouched to hide her shame. Blood ran red down her legs, 
as steel teeth gnawed at her buttocks. When she tried to stand, her foot slipped through a 
gap in the twisted metal. The more she struggled the more the throne engulfed her, 
tearing chunks of flesh from her breasts and belly, slicing at her arms and legs until they 
were slick and red, glistening. 

And all the while her brother capered below, laughing. 

His merriment still echoed in her ears when she felt a light touch on her shoulder, and 
woke suddenly. For half a heartbeat the hand seemed part of the nightmare, and Cersei 
cried out, but it was only Senelle. The maid’s face was white and frightened. 

We are not alone, the queen realized. Shadows loomed around her bed, tall shapes with 
chainmail glimmering beneath their cloaks. Armed men had no business here. Where are 
my guards? Her bedchamber was dark, but for the lantern one of the intruders held on 


high. I must show no fear. Cersei pushed back sleep-tousled hair, and said, “What do you 
want of me?” A man stepped into the lantern light, and she saw his cloak was white. 
“Jaime?” I dreamt of one brother, but the other has come to wake me. 

“Your Grace.” The voice was not her brother’s. “The Lord Commander said come get 
you.” His hair curled, as Jaime’s did, but her brother’s hair was beaten gold, like hers, 
where this man’s was black and oily. She stared at him, confused, as he muttered about a 
privy and a crossbow, and said her father’s name. I am dreaming still, Cersei thought. I 
have not woken, nor has my nightmare ended. Tyrion will creep out from under the bed 
soon and begin to laugh at me. 

But that was folly. Her dwarf brother was down in the black cells, condemned to die this 
very day. She looked down at her hands, turning them over to make certain all her fingers 
were still there. When she ran a hand down her arm the skin was covered with 
gooseprickles, but unbroken. There were no cuts on her legs, no gashes on the soles of 
her feet. A dream, that’s all it was, a dream. I drank too much last night, these fears are 
only humors born of wine. I will be the one laughing, come dusk. My children will be 
safe, Tommen’s throne will be secure, and my twisted little valonqar will be short a head 
and rotting. 

Jocelyn Swyft was at her elbow, pressing a cup on her. Cersei took a sip: water, mixed 
with lemon squeezings, so tart she spit it out. She could hear the night wind rattling the 
shutters, and she saw with a strange sharp clarity. Jocelyn was trembling like a leaf, as 
frightened as Senelle. Ser Osmund Kettleblack loomed over her. Behind him stood Ser 
Boros Blount, with a lantern. At the door were Lannister guardsmen with gilded lions 
shining on the crests of their helmets. They looked afraid as well. Can it be? the queen 
wondered. Can it be true? 

She rose, and let Senelle slip a bedrobe over her shoulders to hide her nakedness. Cersei 
belted it herself, her fingers stiff and clumsy. “My lord father keeps guards about him, 
night and day,” she said. Her tongue felt thick. She took another swallow of lemon water 
and sloshed it round her mouth to freshen her breath. A moth had gotten into the lantern 
Ser Boros was holding; she could hear it buzzing and see the shadow of its wings as it 
beat against the glass. 

“The guards were at their posts, Your Grace,” said Osmund Kettleblack. “We found a 
hidden door behind the hearth. A secret passage. The Lord Commander’s gone down to 
see where it goes.” 

“Jaime?” Terror seized her, sudden as a storm. “Jaime should be with the king . . .” 

“The lad’s not been harmed. Ser Jaime sent a dozen men to look in on him. His Grace is 
sleeping peaceful.” 

Let him have a sweeter dream than mine, and a kinder waking. “Who is with the king?” 


“Ser Loras has that honor, if it please you.” 

It did not please her. The Tyrells were only stewards that the dragon-kings had upjumped 
far above their station. Their vanity was exceeded only by their ambition. Ser Loras 
might be as pretty as a maiden’s dream, but underneath his white cloak he was Tyrell to 
the bone. For all she knew, this night’s foul fruit had been planted and nurtured in 
Highgarden. 

But that was a suspicion she dare not speak aloud. “Allow me a moment to dress. Ser 
Osmund, you shall accompany me to the Tower of the Hand. Ser Boros, roust the gaolers 
and make certain the dwarf is still in his cell.” She would not say his name. He would 
never have found the courage to lift a hand against Father, she told herself, but she had 
to be certain. 

“As Your Grace commands.” Blount surrendered the lantern to Ser Osmund. Cersei was 
not displeased to see the back of him. Father should never have restored him to the white. 
The man had proved himself a craven. 

By the time they left Maegor’s Holdfast, the sky had turned a deep cobalt blue, though 
the stars still shone. All but one, Cersei thought. The bright star of the west has fallen, 
and the nights will be darker now. She paused upon the drawbridge that spanned the dry 
moat, gazing down at the spikes below. They would not dare lie to me about such a thing. 
“Who found him?” 

“One of his guards,” said Ser Osmund. “Lum. He felt a call of nature, and found his 
lordship in the privy.” 

No, that cannot be. That is not the way a lion dies. The queen felt strangely calm. She 
remembered the first time she had lost a tooth, when she was just a little girl. It hadn’t 
hurt, but the hole in her mouth felt so odd she could not stop touching it with her tongue. 

Now there is a hole in the world where Father stood, and holes want filling. 

If Tywin Lannister was truly dead, no one was safe . . . least of all her son upon his 
throne. When the lion falls the lesser beasts move in: the jackals and the vultures and the 
feral dogs. They would try to push her aside, as they always had. She would need to 
move quickly, as she had when Robert died. This might be the work of Stannis 
Baratheon, through some catspaw. It could well be the prelude to another attack upon the 
city. She hoped it was. Let him come. I will smash him, just as Father did, and this time 
he will die. Stannis did not frighten her, no more than Mace Tyrell did. No one frightened 
her. She was a daughter of the Rock, a lion. There will be no more talk of forcing me to 
wed again. Casterly Rock was hers now, and all the power of House Lannister. No one 
would ever disregard her again. Even when Tommen had no further need of a regent, the 
Lady of Casterly Rock would remain a power in the land. 

The rising sun had painted the tower tops a vivid red, but beneath the walls the night still 
huddled. The outer castle was so hushed that she could have believed all its people dead. 


They should be. It is not fitting for Tywin Lannister to die alone. Such a man deserves a 
retinue to attend his needs in hell. 

Four spearmen in red cloaks and lion-crested helms were posted at the door of the Tower 
of the Hand. “No one is to enter or leave without my permission,” she told them. The 
command came easily to her. My father had steel in his voice as well. 

Within the tower, the smoke from the torches irritated her eyes, but Cersei did not weep, 
no more than her father would have. I am the only true son he ever had. Her heels 
scraped against the stone as she climbed, and she could still hear the moth fluttering 
wildly inside Ser Osmund’s lantern. Die, the queen thought at it, in irritation, fly into the 
flame and be done with it. 

Two more red-cloaked guardsmen stood atop the steps. Red Lester muttered a 
condolence as she passed. The queen’s breath was coming fast and short, and she could 
feel her heart fluttering in her chest. The steps, she told herself, this cursed tower has too 
many steps. She had half a mind to tear it down. 

The hall was full of fools speaking in whispers, as if Lord Tywin were asleep and they 
were afraid to wake him. Guards and servants alike shrank back before her, mouths 
flapping. She saw their pink gums and waggling tongues, but their words made no more 
sense than the buzzing of the moth. What are they doing here? How did they know? By 
rights they should have called her first. She was the Queen Regent, had they forgotten 
that? 

Before the Hand’s bedchamber stood Ser Meryn Trant in his white armor and cloak. The 
visor of his helm was open, and the bags beneath his eyes made him look still half-asleep. 
“Clear these people away,” Cersei told him. “Is my father in the privy?” 

“They carried him back to his bed, m’lady.” Ser Meryn pushed the door open for her to 
enter. 

Morning light slashed through the shutters to paint golden bars upon the rushes strewn 
across the floor of the bedchamber. Her uncle Kevan was on his knees beside the bed, 
trying to pray, but he could scarcely get the words out. Guardsmen clustered near the 
hearth. The secret door that Ser Osmund had spoken of gaped open behind the ashes, no 
bigger than an oven. A man would need to crawl. But Tyrion is only half a man. The 
thought made her angry. No, the dwarf is locked in a black cell. This could not be his 
work. Stannis, she told herself, Stannis was behind it. He still has adherents in the city. 
Him, or the Tyrells . . . 

There had always been talk of secret passages within the Red Keep. Maegor the Cruel 
was supposed to have killed the men who built the castle to keep the knowledge of them 
secret. How many other bedchambers have hidden doors? Cersei had a sudden vision of 
the dwarf crawling out from behind a tapestry in Tommen’s bedchamber with blade in 


hand. Tommen is well guarded, she told herself. But Lord Tywin had been well guarded 
too. 

For a moment she did not recognize the dead man. He had hair like her father, yes, but 
this was some other man, surely, a smaller man, and much older. His bedrobe was hiked 
up around his chest, leaving him naked below the waist. The quarrel had taken him in his 
groin between his navel and his manhood, and was sunk so deep that only the fletching 
showed. His pubic hair was stiff with dried blood. More was congealing in his navel. 

The smell of him made her wrinkle her nose. “Take the quarrel out of him,” she 
commanded. “This is the King’s Hand!” And my father. My lord father. Should I scream 
and tear my hair? They said Catelyn Stark had clawed her own face to bloody ribbons 
when the Freys slew her precious Robb. Would you like that, Father? she wanted to ask 
him. Or would you want me to be strong? Did you weep for your own father? Her 
grandfather had died when she was only a year old, but she knew the story. Lord Tytos 
had grown very fat, and his heart burst one day when he was climbing the steps to his 
mistress. Her father was off in King’s Landing when it happened, serving as the Mad 
King’s Hand. Lord Tywin was often away in King’s Landing when she and Jaime were 
young. If he wept when they brought him word of his father’s death, he did it where no 
one could see the tears. 

The queen could feel her nails digging into her palms. “How could you leave him like 
this? My father was Hand to three kings, as great a man as ever strode the Seven 
Kingdoms. The bells must ring for him, as they rang for Robert. He must be bathed and 
dressed as befits his stature, in ermine and cloth-of-gold and crimson silk. Where is 
Pycelle? Where is Pycelle?” She turned to the guardsmen. “Puckens, bring Grand 
Maester Pycelle. He must see to Lord Tywin.” 

“He’s seen him, Your Grace,” said Puckens. “He came and saw and went, to summon the 
silent sisters.” 

They sent for me last. The realization made her almost too angry for words. And Pycelle 
runs off to send a message rather than soil his soft, wrinkled hands. The man is useless. 

“Find Maester Ballabar,” she commanded. “Find Maester Frenken. Any of them.” 
Puckens and Shortear ran to obey. “Where is my brother?” 

“Down the tunnel. There’s a shaft, with iron rungs set in the stone. Ser Jaime went to see 
how deep it goes.” 

He has only one hand, she wanted to shout at them. One of you should have gone. He has 
no business climbing ladders. The men who murdered Father might be down there, 
waiting for him. Her twin had always been too rash, and it would seem that even losing a 
hand had not taught him caution. She was about to command the guards to go down after 
him and bring him back when Puckens and Shortear returned with a grey-haired man 
between them. “Your Grace,” said Shortear, “this here claims he was a maester.” 


The man bowed low. “How may I serve Your Grace?” 

His face was vaguely familiar, though Cersei could not place him. Old, but not so old as 
Pycelle. This one has some strength in him still. He was tall, though slightly stooped, 
with crinkles around his bold blue eyes. His throat is naked. “You wear no maester’s 
chain.” 

“It was taken from me. My name is Qyburn, if it please Your Grace. I treated your 
brother’s hand.” 

“His stump, you mean.” She remembered him now. He had come with Jaime from 
Harrenhal. 

“I could not save Ser Jaime’s hand, it is true. My arts saved his arm, however, mayhaps 
his very life. The Citadel took my chain, but they could not take my knowledge.” 

“You may suffice,” she decided. “If you fail me you will lose more than a chain, I 
promise you. Remove the quarrel from my father’s belly and make him ready for the 
silent sisters.” 

“As my queen commands.” Qyburn went to the bedside, paused, looked back. “And how 
shall I deal with the girl, Your Grace?” 

“Girl?” Cersei had overlooked the second body. She strode to the bed, flung aside the 
heap of bloody coverlets, and there she was, naked, cold, and pink . . . save for her face, 
which had turned as black as Joff’s had at his wedding feast. A chain of linked golden 
hands was half-buried in the flesh of her throat, twisted so tight that it had broken the 
skin. Cersei hissed like an angry cat. “What is she doing here?” 

“We found her there, Your Grace,” said Shortear. “It’s the Imp’s whore.” As if that 
explained why she was here. 

My lord father had no use for whores, she thought. After our mother died he never 
touched a woman. She gave the guardsman a chilly look. “This is not . . . when Lord 
Tywin’s father died he returned to Casterly Rock to find a . . . a woman of this sort . . . 
bedecked in his lady mother’s jewels, wearing one of her gowns. He stripped them off 
her, and all else as well. For a fortnight she was paraded naked through the streets of 
Lannisport, to confess to every man she met that she was a thief and a harlot. That was 
how Lord Tywin Lannister dealt with whores. He never . . . this woman was here for 
some other purpose, not for . . .” 

“Perhaps his lordship was questioning the girl about her mistress,” Qyburn suggested. 
“Sansa Stark vanished the night the king was murdered, I have heard.” 

“That’s so.” Cersei seized on the suggestion eagerly. “He was questioning her, to be sure. 
There can be no doubt.” She could see Tyrion leering, his mouth twisted into a monkey’s 


grin beneath the ruin of his nose. And what better way to question her than naked, with 
her legs well spread? the dwarf whispered. That’s how I like to question her too. 

The queen turned away. I will not look at her. Suddenly it was too much even to be in the 
same room as the dead woman. She pushed past Qyburn, out into the hall. 

Ser Osmund had been joined by his brothers Osney and Osfryd. “There is a dead woman 
in the Hand’s bedchamber,” Cersei told the three Kettleblacks. “No one is ever to know 
that she was here.” 

“Aye, m’lady.” Ser Osney had faint scratches on his cheek where another of Tyrion’s 
whores had clawed him. “And what shall we do with her?” 

“Feed her to your dogs. Keep her for a bedmate. What do I care? She was never here. I’ll 
have the tongue of any man who dares to say she was. Do you understand me?” 

Osney and Osfryd exchanged a look. “Aye, Your Grace.” 

She followed them back inside and watched as they bundled the girl up in her father’s 
bloody blankets. Shae, her name was Shae. They had last spoken the night before the 
dwarf’s trial by combat, after that smiling Dornish snake offered to champion him. Shae 
had been asking about some jewels Tyrion had given her, and certain promises Cersei 
might have made, a manse in the city and a knight to marry her. The queen made it plain 
that the whore would have nothing of her until she told them where Sansa Stark had 
gone. “You were her maid. Do you expect me to believe that you knew nothing of her 
plans?” she had said. Shae left in tears. 

Ser Osfryd slung the bundled corpse up over his shoulder. “I want that chain,” Cersei 
said. “See that you do not scratch the gold.” Osfryd nodded and started toward the door. 
“No, not through the yard.” She gestured toward the secret passage. “There’s a shaft 
down to the dungeons. That way.” 

As Ser Osfryd went down on one knee before the hearth, the light brightened within, and 
the queen heard noises. Jaime emerged bent over like an old woman, his boots kicking up 
puffs of soot from Lord Tywin’s last fire. “Get out of my way,” he told the Kettleblacks. 

Cersei rushed toward him. “Did you find them? Did you find the killers? How many were 
there?” Surely there had been more than one. One man alone could not have killed her 
father. 

Her twin’s face had a haggard look. “The shaft goes down to a chamber where half a 
dozen tunnels meet. They’re closed off by iron gates, chained and locked. I need to find 
keys.” He glanced around the bedchamber. “Whoever did this might still be lurking in the 
walls. It’s a maze back there, and dark.” 


She imagined Tyrion creeping between the walls like some monstrous rat. No. You are 
being silly. The dwarf is in his cell. “Take hammers to the walls. Knock this tower down, 
if you must. I want them found. Whoever did this. I want them killed.” 

Jaime hugged her, his good hand pressing against the small of her back. He smelled of 
ash, but the morning sun was in his hair, giving it a golden glow. She wanted to draw his 
face to hers for a kiss. Later, she told herself, later he will come to me, for comfort. “We 
are his heirs, Jaime,” she whispered. “It will be up to us to finish his work. You must take 
Father’s place as Hand. You see that now, surely. Tommen will need you . . .” 

He pushed away from her and raised his arm, forcing his stump into her face. “A Hand 
without a hand? A bad jape, sister. Don’t ask me to rule.” 

Their uncle heard the rebuff. Qyburn as well, and the Kettleblacks, wrestling their bundle 
through the ashes. Even the guardsmen heard, Puckens and Hoke the Horseleg and 
Shortear. It will be all over the castle by nightfall. Cersei felt the heat rising up her 
cheeks. “Rule? I said naught of ruling. I shall rule until my son comes of age.” 

“I don’t know who I pity more,” her brother said. “Tommen, or the Seven Kingdoms.” 

She slapped him. Jaime’s arm rose to catch the blow, cat-quick . . . but this cat had a 
cripple’s stump in place of a right hand. Her fingers left red marks on his cheek. 

The sound brought their uncle to his feet. “Your father lies here dead. Have the decency 
to take your quarrel outside.” 

Jaime inclined his head in apology. “Forgive us, Uncle. My sister is sick with grief. She 
forgets herself.” 

She wanted to slap him again for that. I must have been mad to think he could be Hand. 
She would sooner abolish the office. When had a Hand ever brought her anything but 
grief? Jon Arryn put Robert Baratheon in her bed, and before he died he’d begun sniffing 
about her and Jaime as well. Eddard Stark took up right where Arryn had left off; his 
meddling had forced her to rid herself of Robert sooner than she would have liked, before 
she could deal with his pestilential brothers. Tyrion sold Myrcella to the Dornishmen, 
made one of her sons his hostage, and murdered the other. And when Lord Tywin 
returned to King’s Landing . . . 

The next Hand will know his place, she promised herself. It would have to be Ser Kevan. 
Her uncle was tireless, prudent, unfailingly obedient. She could rely on him, as her father 
had. The hand does not argue with the head. She had a realm to rule, but she would need 
new men to help her rule it. Pycelle was a doddering lickspittle, Jaime had lost his 
courage with his sword hand, and Mace Tyrell and his cronies Redwyne and Rowan 
could not be trusted. For all she knew they might have had a part in this. Lord Tyrell had 
to know that he would never rule the Seven Kingdoms so long as Tywin Lannister lived. 


I will need to move carefully with that one. The city was full of his men, and he’d even 
managed to plant one of his sons in the Kingsguard, and meant to plant his daughter in 
Tommen’s bed. It still made her furious to think that Father had agreed to betroth 
Tommen to Margaery Tyrell. The girl is twice his age and twice widowed. Mace Tyrell 
claimed his daughter was still virgin, but Cersei had her doubts. Joffrey had been 
murdered before he could bed the girl, but she had been wed to Renly first . . . A man may 
prefer the taste of hippocras, yet if you set a tankard of ale before him, he will quaff it 
quick enough. She must command Lord Varys to find out what he could. 

That stopped her where she stood. She had forgotten about Varys. He should be here. He 
is always here. Whenever anything of import happened in the Red Keep, the eunuch 
appeared as if from nowhere. Jaime is here, and Uncle Kevan, and Pycelle has come and 
gone, but not Varys. A cold finger touched her spine. He was part of this. He must have 
feared that Father meant to have his head, so he struck first. Lord Tywin had never had 
any love for the simpering master of whisperers. And if any man knew the Red Keep’s 
secrets, it was surely the master of whisperers. He must have made common cause with 
Lord Stannis. They served together on Robert’s council, after all . . . 

Cersei strode to the door of the bedchamber, to Ser Meryn Trant. “Trant, bring me Lord 
Varys. Squealing and squirming if need be, but unharmed.” 

“As Your Grace commands.” 

But no sooner had one Kingsguard departed than another one returned. Ser Boros Blount 
was red-faced and puffing from his headlong rush up the steps. “Gone,” he panted, when 
he saw the queen. He sank to one knee. “The Imp . . . his cell’s open, Your Grace . . . no 
sign of him anywhere . . .” 

The dream was true. “I gave orders,” she said. “He was to be kept under guard, night and 
day . . .” 

Blount’s chest was heaving. “One of the gaolers has gone missing too. Rugen, his name 
was. Two other men we found asleep.” 

It was all she could do not to scream. “I hope you did not wake them, Ser Boros. Let 
them sleep.” 

“Sleep?” He looked up, jowly and confused. “Aye, Your Grace. How long shall—” 

“Forever. See that they sleep forever, ser. I will not suffer guards to sleep on watch.” He 
is in the walls. He killed Father as he killed Mother, as he killed Joff. The dwarf would 
come for her as well, the queen knew, just as the old woman had promised her in the 
dimness of that tent. I laughed in her face, but she had powers. I saw my future in a drop 
of blood. My doom. Her legs were weak as water. Ser Boros tried to take her by the arm, 
but the queen recoiled from his touch. For all she knew he might be one of Tyrion’s 
creatures. “Get away from me,” she said. “Get away!” She staggered to a settle. 


“Your Grace?” said Blount. “Shall I fetch a cup of water?” 

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


BRIENNE 

I am looking for a maid of three-and-ten,” she told the grey-haired goodwife beside the 
village well. “A highborn maid and very beautiful, with blue eyes and auburn hair. She 
may have been traveling with a portly knight of forty years, or perhaps with a fool. Have 
you seen her?” 

“Not as I recall, ser,” the goodwife said, knuckling her forehead. “But I’ll keep my eye 
out, that I will.” 

The blacksmith had not seen her either, nor the septon in the village sept, the swineherd 
with his pigs, the girl pulling up onions from her garden, nor any of the other simple folk 
that the Maid of Tarth found amongst the daub-and-wattle huts of Rosby. Still, she 
persisted. This is the shortest road to Duskendale, Brienne told herself. If Sansa came this 
way, someone must have seen her. At the castle gates she posed her question to two 
spearmen whose badges showed three red chevronels on ermine, the arms of House 
Rosby. “If she’s on the roads these days she won’t be no maid for long,” said the older 
man. The younger wanted to know if the girl had that auburn hair between her legs as 
well. 

I will find no help here. As Brienne mounted up again, she glimpsed a skinny boy atop a 
piebald horse at the far end of the village. I have not talked with that one, she thought, but 
he vanished behind the sept before she could seek him out. She did not trouble to chase 
after him. Most like he knew no more than the others had. Rosby was scarce more than a 
wide place in the road; Sansa would have had no reason to linger here. Returning to the 
road, Brienne headed north and east past apple orchards and fields of barley, and soon 
left the village and its castle well behind. It was at Duskendale that she would find her 
quarry, she told herself. If she came this way at all. 

“I will find the girl and keep her safe,” Brienne had promised Ser Jaime, back at King’s 
Landing. “For her lady mother’s sake. And for yours.” Noble words, but words were 
easy. Deeds were hard. She had lingered too long and learned too little in the city. I 
should have set out earlier . . . but to where? Sansa Stark had vanished on the night King 


Joffrey died, and if anyone had seen her since, or had any inkling where she might have 
gone, they were not talking. Not to me, at least. 

Brienne believed the girl had left the city. If she were still in King’s Landing, the gold 
cloaks would have turned her up. She had to have gone elsewhere . . . but elsewhere is a 
big place. If I were a maiden newly flowered, alone and afraid, in desperate danger, what 
would I do? she had asked herself. Where would I go? For her, the answer came easy. 
She would make her way back to Tarth, to her father. Sansa’s father had been beheaded 
whilst she watched, however. Her lady mother was dead too, murdered at the Twins, and 
Winterfell, the great Stark stronghold, had been sacked and burned, its people put to the 
sword. She has no home to run to, no father, no mother, no brothers. She might be in the 
next town, or on a ship to Asshai; one seemed as likely as the other. 

Even if Sansa Stark had wanted to go home, how would she get there? The kingsroad was 
not safe; even a child would know that. The ironborn held Moat Cailin athwart the Neck, 
and at the Twins sat the Freys, who had murdered Sansa’s brother and lady mother. The 
girl could go by sea if she had the coin, but the harbor at King’s Landing was still in 
ruins, the river a jumble of broken quays and burned and sunken galleys. Brienne had 
asked along the docks, but no one could remember a ship leaving on the night King 
Joffrey died. A few trading ships were anchoring in the bay and off-loading by boat, one 
man told her, but more were continuing up the coast to Duskendale, where the port was 
busier than ever. 

Brienne’s mare was sweet to look upon and kept a pretty pace. There were more travelers 
than she would have thought. Begging brothers trundled by with their bowls dangling on 
thongs about their necks. A young septon galloped past upon a palfrey as fine as any 
lord’s, and later she met a band of silent sisters who shook their heads when Brienne put 
her question to them. A train of oxcarts lumbered south with grain and sacks of wool, and 
later she passed a swineherd driving pigs, and an old woman in a horse litter with an 
escort of mounted guards. She asked all of them if they had seen a highborn girl of three-
and-ten years with blue eyes and auburn hair. None had. She asked about the road ahead 
as well. “’Twixt here and Duskendale is safe enough,” one man told her, “but past 
Duskendale there’s outlaws, and broken men in the woods.” 

Only the soldier pines and sentinels still showed green; the broadleaf trees had donned 
mantles of russet and gold, or else uncloaked themselves to scratch against the sky with 
branches brown and bare. Every gust of wind drove swirling clouds of dead leaves across 
the rutted road. They made a rustling sound as they scuttled past the hooves of the big 
bay mare that Jaime Lannister had bestowed on her. As easy to find one leaf in the wind 
as one girl lost in Westeros. She found herself wondering whether Jaime had given her 
this task as some cruel jape. Perhaps Sansa Stark was dead, beheaded for her part in King 
Joffrey’s death, buried in some unmarked grave. How better to conceal her murder than 
by sending some big stupid wench from Tarth to find her? 

Jaime would not do that. He was sincere. He gave me the sword, and called it 
Oathkeeper. Anyway, it made no matter. She had promised Lady Catelyn that she would 


bring back her daughters, and no promise was as solemn as one sworn to the dead. The 
younger girl was long dead, Jaime claimed; the Arya the Lannisters sent north to marry 
Roose Bolton’s bastard was a fraud. That left only Sansa. Brienne had to find her. 

Near dusk she saw a campfire burning by a brook. Two men sat beside it grilling trout, 
their arms and armor stacked beneath a tree. One was old and one was somewhat 
younger, though far from young. The younger rose to greet her. He had a big belly 
straining at the laces of his spotted doeskin jerkin. A shaggy untrimmed beard covered 
his cheeks and chin, the color of old gold. “We have trout enough for three, ser,” he 
called out. 

It was not the first time Brienne had been mistaken for a man. She pulled off her 
greathelm, letting her hair spill free. It was yellow, the color of dirty straw, and near as 
brittle. Long and thin, it blew about her shoulders. “I thank you, ser.” 

The hedge knight squinted at her so earnestly that she realized he must be nearsighted. “A 
lady, is it? Armed and armored? Illy, gods be good, the size of her.” 

“I took her for a knight as well,” the older knight said, turning the trout. 

Had Brienne been a man, she would have been called big; for a woman, she was huge. 
Freakish was the word she had heard all her life. She was broad in the shoulder and 
broader in the hips. Her legs were long, her arms thick. Her chest was more muscle than 
bosom. Her hands were big, her feet enormous. And she was ugly besides, with a 
freckled, horsey face and teeth that seemed almost too big for her mouth. She did not 
need to be reminded of any of that. “Sers,” she said, “have you seen a maid of three-andten 
upon the road? She has blue eyes and auburn hair, and may have been in company 
with a portly red-faced man of forty years.” 

The nearsighted hedge knight scratched his head. “I recall no such maid. What sort of 
hair is auburn?” 

“Browny red,” said the older man. “No, we saw her not.” 

“We saw her not, m’lady,” the younger told her. “Come, dismount, the fish is almost 
done. Are you hungry?” 

She was, as it happened, but she was wary as well. Hedge knights had an unsavory 
reputation. “A hedge knight and a robber knight are two sides of the same sword,” it was 
said. These two do not look too dangerous. “Might I know your names, sers?” 

“I have the honor to be Ser Creighton Longbough, of whom the singers sing,” said the 
big-bellied one. “You will have heard of my deeds on the Blackwater, mayhaps. My 
companion is Ser Illifer the Penniless.” 


If there was a song about Creighton Longbough, it was not one Brienne had heard. Their 
names meant no more to her than did their arms. Ser Creighton’s green shield showed 
only a brown chief, and a deep gouge made by some battle-axe. Ser Illifer bore gold and 
ermine gyronny, though everything about him suggested that painted gold and painted 
ermine were the only sorts he’d ever known. He was sixty if he was a day, his face 
pinched and narrow beneath the hood of a patched roughspun mantle. Mail-clad he went, 
but flecks of rust spotted the iron like freckles. Brienne stood a head taller than either of 
them, and was better mounted and better armed in the bargain. If I fear the likes of these, 
I had as well swap my longsword for a pair of knitting needles. 

“I thank you, good sers,” she said. “I will gladly share your trout.” Swinging down, 
Brienne unsaddled her mare and watered her before hobbling her to graze. She stacked 
her arms and shield and saddlebags beneath an elm. By then the trout was crisply done. 
Ser Creighton brought her a fish, and she sat cross-legged on the ground to eat it. 

“We are bound for Duskendale, m’lady,” Longbough told her, as he pulled apart his own 
trout with his fingers. “You would do well to ride with us. The roads are perilous.” 

Brienne could have told him more about the perils of the roads than he might have cared 
to know. “I thank you, ser, but I have no need of your protection.” 

“I insist. A true knight must defend the gentler sex.” 

She touched her sword hilt. “This will defend me, ser.” 

“A sword is only as good as the man who wields it.” 

“I wield it well enough.” 

“As you will. It would not be courteous to argue with a lady. We will see you safe to 
Duskendale. Three together may ride more safely than one alone.” 

We were three when we set out from Riverrun, yet Jaime lost his hand and Cleos Frey his 
life. “Your mounts could not keep up with mine.” Ser Creighton’s brown gelding was an 
old swaybacked creature with rheumy eyes, and Ser Illifer’s horse looked weedy and 
half-starved. 

“My steed served me well enough on the Blackwater,” Ser Creighton insisted. “Why, I 
did great carnage there and won a dozen ransoms. Was m’lady familiar with Ser Herbert 
Bolling? You shall never meet him now. I slew him where he stood. When swords clash, 
you shall ne’er find Ser Creighton Longbough to the rear.” 

His companion gave a dry chuckle. “Creigh, leave off. The likes o’ her has no need for 
the likes o’ us.” 

“The likes of me?” Brienne was uncertain what he meant. 


Ser Illifer crooked a bony finger at her shield. Though its paint was cracked and peeling, 
the device it bore showed plain: a black bat on a field divided bendwise, silver and gold. 
“You bear a liar’s shield, to which you have no right. My grandfather’s grandfather 
helped kill the last o’ Lothston. None since has dared to show that bat, black as the deeds 
of them that bore it.” 

The shield was the one Ser Jaime had taken from the armory at Harrenhal. Brienne had 
found it in the stables with her mare, along with much else; saddle and bridle, chainmail 
hauberk and visored greathelm, purses of gold and silver and a parchment more valuable 
than either. “I lost mine own shield,” she explained. 

“A true knight is the only shield a maiden needs,” declared Ser Creighton stoutly. 

Ser Illifer paid him no mind. “A barefoot man looks for a boot, a chilly man a cloak. But 
who would cloak themselves in shame? Lord Lucas bore that bat, the Pander, and 
Manfryd o’ the Black Hood, his son. Why wear such arms, I ask myself, unless your own 
sin is fouler still . . . and fresher.” He unsheathed his dagger, an ugly piece of cheap iron. 
“A woman freakish big and freakish strong who hides her own true colors. Creigh, 
behold the Maid o’ Tarth, who opened Renly’s royal throat for him.” 

“That is a lie.” Renly Baratheon had been more than a king to her. She had loved him 
since first he came to Tarth on his leisurely lord’s progress, to mark his coming of age. 
Her father welcomed him with a feast and commanded her to attend; elsewise she would 
have hidden in her room like some wounded beast. She had been no older than Sansa, 
more afraid of sniggers than of swords. They will know about the rose, she told Lord 
Selwyn, they will laugh at me. But the Evenstar would not relent. 

And Renly Baratheon had shown her every courtesy, as if she were a proper maid, and 
pretty. He even danced with her, and in his arms she’d felt graceful, and her feet had 
floated across the floor. Later others begged a dance of her, because of his example. From 
that day forth, she wanted only to be close to Lord Renly, to serve him and protect him. 
But in the end she failed him. Renly died in my arms, but I did not kill him, she thought, 
but these hedge knights would never understand. “I would have given my life for King 
Renly, and died happy,” she said. “I did no harm to him. I swear it by my sword.” 

“A knight swears by his sword,” Ser Creighton said. 

“Swear it by the Seven,” urged Ser Illifer the Penniless. 

“By the Seven, then. I did no harm to King Renly. I swear it by the Mother. May I never 
know her mercy if I lie. I swear it by the Father, and ask that he might judge me justly. I 
swear it by the Maiden and Crone, by the Smith and the Warrior. And I swear it by the 
Stranger, may he take me now if I am false.” 

“She swears well, for a maid,” Ser Creighton allowed. 


“Aye.” Ser Illifer the Penniless gave a shrug. “Well, if she’s lied, the gods will sort her 
out.” He slipped his dagger back away. “The first watch is yours.” 

As the hedge knights slept, Brienne paced restlessly around the little camp, listening to 
the crackle of the fire. I should ride on whilst I can. She did not know these men, yet she 
could not bring herself to leave them undefended. Even in the black of night, there were 
riders on the road, and noises in the woods that might or might not have been owls and 
prowling foxes. So Brienne paced, and kept her blade loose in its scabbard. 

Her watch was easy, all in all. It was after that was hard, when Ser Illifer woke and said 
he would relieve her. Brienne spread a blanket on the ground, and curled up to close her 
eyes. I will not sleep, she told herself, bone weary though she was. She had never slept 
easily in the presence of men. Even in Lord Renly’s camps, the risk of rape was always 
there. It was a lesson she had learned beneath the walls of Highgarden, and again when 
she and Jaime had fallen into the hands of the Brave Companions. 

The cold in the earth seeped through Brienne’s blankets to soak into her bones. Before 
long every muscle felt clenched and cramped, from her jaw down to her toes. She 
wondered whether Sansa Stark was cold as well, wherever she might be. Lady Catelyn 
had said that Sansa was a gentle soul who loved lemon cakes, silken gowns, and songs of 
chivalry, yet the girl had seen her father’s head lopped off and been forced to marry one 
of his killers afterward. If half the tales were true, the dwarf was the cruelest Lannister of 
all. If she did poison King Joffrey, the Imp surely forced her hand. She was alone and 
friendless at that court. In King’s Landing, Brienne had hunted down a certain Brella, 
who had been one of Sansa’s maids. The woman told her that there was little warmth 
between Sansa and the dwarf. Perhaps she had been fleeing him as well as Joffrey’s 
murder. 

Whatever dreams Brienne dreamed were gone when dawn awoke her. Her legs were stiff 
as wood from the cold ground, but no one had molested her, and her goods remained 
untouched. The hedge knights were up and about. Ser Illifer was cutting up a squirrel for 
breakfast, while Ser Creighton stood facing a tree, having himself a good long piss. 
Hedge knights, she thought, old and vain and plump and nearsighted, yet decent men for 
all that. It cheered her to know that there were still decent men in the world. 

They broke their fast on roast squirrel, acorn paste, and pickles, whilst Ser Creighton 
regaled her with his exploits on the Blackwater, where he had slain a dozen fearsome 
knights that she had never heard of. “Oh, it was a rare fight, m’lady,” he said, “a rare and 
bloody fray.” He allowed that Ser Illifer had fought nobly in the battle as well. Illifer 
himself said little. 

When time came to resume their journey, the knights fell in on either side of her, like 
guards protecting some great lady . . . though this lady dwarfed both of her protectors and 
was better armed and armored in the nonce. “Did anyone pass by during your watches?” 
Brienne asked them. 


“Such as a maid of three-and-ten, with auburn hair?” said Ser Illifer the Penniless. “No, 
my lady. No one.” 

“I had a few,” Ser Creighton put in. “Some farm boy on a piebald horse went by, and an 
hour later half a dozen men afoot with staves and scythes. They caught sight of our fire, 
and stopped for a long look at our horses, but I showed them a glimpse of my steel and 
told them to be along their way. Rough fellows, by the look o’ them, and desperate too, 
but ne’er so desperate as to trifle with Ser Creighton Longbough.” 

No, Brienne thought, not so desperate as that. She turned away to hide her smile. 
Thankfully, Ser Creighton was too intent on the tale of his epic battle with the Knight of 
the Red Chicken to make note of the maiden’s mirth. It felt good to have companions on 
the road, even such companions as these two. 

It was midday when Brienne heard chanting drifting through the bare brown trees. “What 
is that sound?” Ser Creighton asked. 

“Voices, raised in prayer.” Brienne knew the chant. They are beseeching the Warrior for 
protection, asking the Crone to light their way. 

Ser Illifer the Penniless bared his battered blade and reined in his horse to wait their 
coming. “They are close now.” 

The chanting filled the woods like pious thunder. And suddenly the source of the sound 
appeared in the road ahead. A group of begging brothers led the way, scruffy bearded 
men in roughspun robes, some barefoot and some in sandals. Behind them marched 
threescore ragged men, women, and children, a spotted sow, and several sheep. Several 
of the men had axes, and more had crude wooden clubs and cudgels. In their midst there 
rolled a two-wheeled wayn of grey and splintered wood, piled high with skulls and 
broken bits of bone. When they saw the hedge knights, the begging brothers halted, and 
the chanting died away. “Good knights,” one said, “the Mother loves you.” 

“And you, brother,” said Ser Illifer. “Who are you?” 

“Poor fellows,” said a big man with an axe. Despite the chill of the autumnal wood, he 
was shirtless, and on his breast was carved a seven-pointed star. Andal warriors had 
carved such stars in their flesh when first they crossed the narrow sea to overwhelm the 
kingdoms of the First Men. 

“We are marching to the city,” said a tall woman in the traces of the wayn, “to bring these 
holy bones to Blessed Baelor, and seek succor and protection from the king.” 

“Join us, friends,” urged a spare small man in a threadbare septon’s robe, who wore a 
crystal on a thong about his neck. “Westeros has need of every sword.” 


“We were bound for Duskendale,” declared Ser Creighton, “but mayhaps we could see 
you safely to King’s Landing.” 

“If you have the coin to pay us for this escort,” added Ser Illifer, who seemed practical as 
well as penniless. 

“Sparrows need no gold,” the septon said. 

Ser Creighton was lost. “Sparrows?” 

“The sparrow is the humblest and most common of birds, as we are the humblest and 
most common of men.” The septon had a lean sharp face and a short beard, grizzled grey 
and brown. His thin hair was pulled back and knotted behind his head, and his feet were 
bare and black, gnarled and hard as tree roots. “These are the bones of holy men, 
murdered for their faith. They served the Seven even unto death. Some starved, some 
were tortured. Septs have been despoiled, maidens and mothers raped by godless men 
and demon worshipers. Even silent sisters have been molested. Our Mother Above cries 
out in her anguish. It is time for all anointed knights to forsake their worldly masters and 
defend our Holy Faith. Come with us to the city, if you love the Seven.” 

“I love them well enough,” said Illifer, “yet I must eat.” 

“So must all the Mother’s children.” 

“We are bound for Duskendale,” Ser Illifer said flatly. 

One of the begging brothers spat, and a woman gave a moan. “You are false knights,” 
said the big man with the star carved on his chest. Several others brandished their 
cudgels. 

The barefoot septon calmed them with a word. “Judge not, for judgment is the Father’s. 
Let them pass in peace. They are poor fellows too, lost upon the earth.” 

Brienne edged her mare forward. “My sister is lost as well. A girl of three-and-ten with 
auburn hair, fair to look upon.” 

“All the Mother’s children are fair to look upon. May the Maiden watch over this poor 
girl . . . and you as well, I think.” The septon lifted one of the traces of the wayn upon his 
shoulder, and began to pull. The begging brothers took up the chant once more. Brienne 
and the hedge knights sat upon their horses as the procession moved slowly past, 
following the rutted road toward Rosby. The sound of their chanting slowly dwindled 
away and died. 

Ser Creighton lifted one cheek off the saddle to scratch his arse. “What sort of man would 
slay a holy septon?” 


Brienne knew what sort. Near Maidenpool, she recalled, the Brave Companions had 
strung a septon up by his heels from the limb of a tree and used his corpse for archery 
practice. She wondered if his bones were piled in that wayn with all the rest. 

“A man would need to be a fool to rape a silent sister,” Ser Creighton was saying. “Even 
to lay hands upon one . . . it’s said they are the Stranger’s wives, and their female parts 
are cold and wet as ice.” He glanced at Brienne. “Uh . . . beg pardon.” 

Brienne spurred her mare toward Duskendale. After a moment, Ser Illifer followed, and 
Ser Creighton came bringing up the rear. 

Three hours later they came up upon another party struggling toward Duskendale; a 
merchant and his serving men, accompanied by yet another hedge knight. The merchant 
rode a dappled grey mare, whilst his servants took turns pulling his wagon. Four labored 
in the traces as the other two walked beside the wheels, but when they heard the sound of 
horses they formed up around the wagon with quarterstaffs of ash at the ready. The 
merchant produced a crossbow, the knight a blade. “You will forgive me if I am 
suspicious,” called the merchant, “but the times are troubled, and I have only good Ser 
Shadrich to defend me. Who are you?” 

“Why,” Ser Creighton said, affronted, “I am the famous Ser Creighton Longbough, fresh 
from battle on the Blackwater, and this is my companion, Ser Illifer the Penniless.” 

“We mean you no harm,” said Brienne. 

The merchant considered her doubtfully. “My lady, you should be safe at home. Why do 
you wear such unnatural garb?” 

“I am searching for my sister.” She dared not mention Sansa’s name, with her accused of 
regicide. “She is a highborn maid and beautiful, with blue eyes and auburn hair. Perhaps 
you saw her with a portly knight of forty years, or a drunken fool.” 

“The roads are full of drunken fools and despoiled maidens. As to portly knights, it is 
hard for any honest man to keep his belly round when so many lack for food . . . though 
your Ser Creighton has not hungered, it would seem.” 

“I have big bones,” Ser Creighton insisted. “Shall we ride together for a time? I do not 
doubt Ser Shadrich’s valor, but he seems small, and three blades are better than one.” 

Four blades, thought Brienne, but she held her tongue. 

The merchant looked to his escort. “What say you, ser?” 

“Oh, these three are nought to fear.” Ser Shadrich was a wiry, fox-faced man with a sharp 
nose and a shock of orange hair, mounted on a rangy chestnut courser. Though he could 


not have been more than five foot two, he had a cocksure manner. “The one is old, t’other 
fat, and the big one is a woman. Let them come.” 

“As you say.” The merchant lowered his crossbow. 
As they resumed their journey, the hired knight dropped back and looked her up and 
down as if she were a side of good salt pork. “You’re a strapping healthy wench, I’d say.” 


Ser Jaime’s mockery had cut her deep; the little man’s words hardly touched her. “A 
giant, compared to some.” 
He laughed. “I am big enough where it counts, wench.” 


“The merchant called you Shadrich.” 
“Ser Shadrich of the Shady Glen. Some call me the Mad Mouse.” He turned his shield to 
show her his sigil, a large white mouse with fierce red eyes, on bendy brown and blue. 
“The brown is for the lands I’ve roamed, the blue for the rivers that I’ve crossed. The 
mouse is me.” 


“And are you mad?” 


“Oh, quite. Your common mouse will run from blood and battle. The mad mouse seeks 
them out.” 
“It would seem he seldom finds them.” 
“I find enough. ’Tis true, I am no tourney knight. I save my valor for the battlefield, 


woman.” 


Woman was marginally better than wench, she supposed. “You and good Ser Creighton 
have much in common, then.” 
Ser Shadrich laughed. “Oh, I doubt that, but it may be that you and I share a quest. A 


little lost sister, is it? With blue eyes and auburn hair?” He laughed again. “You are not 


the only hunter in the woods. I seek for Sansa Stark as well.” 
Brienne kept her face a mask, to hide her dismay. “Who is this Sansa Stark, and why do 
you seek her?” 


“For love, why else?” 
She furrowed her brow. “Love?” 
“Aye, love of gold. Unlike your good Ser Creighton, I did fight upon the Blackwater, but 


on the losing side. My ransom ruined me. You know who Varys is, I trust? The eunuch 



has offered a plump bag of gold for this girl you’ve never heard of. I am not a greedy 
man. If some oversized wench would help me find this naughty child, I would split the 
Spider’s coin with her.” 

“I thought you were in this merchant’s hire.” 

“Only so far as Duskendale. Hibald is as niggardly as he is fearful. And he is very fearful. 
What say you, wench?” 

“I know no Sansa Stark,” she insisted. “I am searching for my sister, a highborn girl . . .” 

“. . . with blue eyes and auburn hair, aye. Pray, who is this knight who travels with your 
sister? Or did you name him fool?” Ser Shadrich did not wait for her answer, which was 
good, since she had none. “A certain fool vanished from King’s Landing the night King 
Joffrey died, a stout fellow with a nose full of broken veins, one Ser Dontos the Red, 
formerly of Duskendale. I pray your sister and her drunken fool are not mistaken for the 
Stark girl and Ser Dontos. That could be most unfortunate.” He put his heels into his 
courser and trotted on ahead. 

Even Jaime Lannister had seldom made Brienne feel such a fool. You are not the only 
hunter in the woods. The woman Brella had told her how Joffrey had stripped Ser Dontos 
of his spurs, how Lady Sansa begged Joffrey for his life. He helped her flee, Brienne had 
decided, when she heard the tale. Find Ser Dontos, and I will find Sansa. She should have 
known there would be others who would see it too. Some may even be less savory than 
Ser Shadrich. She could only hope that Ser Dontos had hidden Sansa well. But if so, how 
will I ever find her? 

She hunched her shoulders down and rode on, frowning. 

Night was gathering by the time their party came upon the inn, a tall, timbered building 
that stood beside a river junction, astride an old stone bridge. That was the inn’s name, 
Ser Creighton told them: the Old Stone Bridge. The innkeep was a friend of his. “Not a 
bad cook, and the rooms have no more fleas than most,” he vouched. “Who’s for a warm 
bed tonight?” 

“Not us, unless your friend is giving them away,” said Ser Illifer the Penniless. “We have 
no coin for rooms.” 

“I can pay for the three of us.” Brienne did not lack for coin; Jaime had seen to that. In 
her saddlebags she’d found a purse fat with silver stags and copper stars, a smaller one 
stuffed with golden dragons, and a parchment commanding all loyal subjects of the king 
to assist the bearer, Brienne of House Tarth, who was about His Grace’s business. It was 
signed in a childish hand by Tommen, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the 
Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. 


Hibald was for stopping too, and bid his men to leave the wagon near the stables. Warm 
yellow light shone through the diamond-shaped panes of the inn’s windows, and Brienne 
heard a stallion trumpet at the scent of her mare. She was loosening the saddle when a 
boy came out the stable door, and said, “Let me do that, ser.” 

“I am no ser,” she told him, “but you may take the horse. See that she is fed and brushed 
and watered.” 

The boy reddened. “Beg pardons, m’lady. I thought . . .” 

“It is a common mistake.” Brienne gave him the reins and followed the others into the 
inn, with her saddlebags across a shoulder and her bedroll tucked up beneath one arm. 

Sawdust covered the plank floor of the common room, and the air smelled of hops and 
smoke and meat. A roast was spitting and crackling over the fire, unattended for the 
moment. Six locals sat about a table, talking, but they broke off when the strangers 
entered. Brienne could feel their eyes. Despite chainmail, cloak, and jerkin, she felt 
naked. When one man said, “Have a look at that,” she knew he was not speaking of Ser 
Shadrich. 

The innkeep appeared, clutching three tankards in each hand and slopping ale at every 
step. 

“Do you have rooms, good man?” the merchant asked him. 

“I might,” the innkeep said, “for them as has coin.” 

Ser Creighton Longbough looked offended. “Naggle, is that how you would greet an old 
friend? ’Tis me, Longbough.” 

“’Tis you indeed. You owe me seven stags. Show me some silver and I’ll show you a 
bed.” The innkeep set the tankards down one by one, slopping more ale on the table in 
the process. 

“I will pay for one room for myself, and a second for my two companions.” Brienne 
indicated Ser Creighton and Ser Illifer. 

“I shall take a room as well,” said the merchant, “for myself and good Ser Shadrich. My 
serving men will bed down in your stables, if it please you.” 

The innkeep looked them over. “It don’t please me, but might be I’ll allow it. Will you be 
wanting supper? That’s good goat on the spit, that is.” 

“I shall judge its goodness for myself,” Hibald announced. “My men will content 
themselves with bread and drippings.” 


And so they supped. Brienne tried the goat herself, after following the innkeep up the 
steps, pressing some coins into his hand, and stashing her goods in the second room he 
showed her. She ordered goat for Ser Creighton and Ser Illifer as well, since they had 
shared their trout with her. The hedge knights and the septon washed down the meat with 
ale, but Brienne drank a cup of goat’s milk. She listened to the table talk, hoping against 
hope that she might hear something that would help her find Sansa. 

“You come from King’s Landing,” one of the locals said to Hibald. “Is it true that the 
Kingslayer’s been crippled?” 

“True enough,” Hibald said. “He’s lost his sword hand.” 

“Aye,” Ser Creighton said, “chewed off by a direwolf, I hear, one of them monsters come 
down from the north. Nought that’s good ever come from the north. Even their gods are 
queer.” 

“It was not a wolf,” Brienne heard herself say. “Ser Jaime lost his hand to a Qohorik 
sellsword.” 

“It is no easy thing to fight with your off hand,” observed the Mad Mouse. 

“Bah,” said Ser Creighton Longbough. “As it happens, I fight as well with either hand.” 

“Oh, I have no doubt of that.” Ser Shadrich lifted his tankard in salute. 

Brienne remembered her fight with Jaime Lannister in the woods. It had been all that she 
could do to keep his blade at bay. He was weak from his imprisonment, and chained at 
the wrists. No knight in the Seven Kingdoms could have stood against him at his full 
strength, with no chains to hamper him. Jaime had done many wicked things, but the man 
could fight! His maiming had been monstrously cruel. It was one thing to slay a lion, 
another to hack his paw off and leave him broken and bewildered. 

Suddenly the common room was too loud to endure a moment longer. She muttered her 
good-nights and took herself up to bed. The ceiling in her room was low; entering with a 
taper in her hand, Brienne had to duck or crack her head. The only furnishings were a bed 
wide enough to sleep six, and the stub of a tallow candle on the sill. She lit it with the 
taper, barred the door, and hung her sword belt from a bedpost. Her scabbard was a plain 
thing, wood wrapped in cracked brown leather, and her sword was plainer still. She had 
bought it in King’s Landing, to replace the blade the Brave Companions had stolen. 
Renly’s sword. It still hurt, knowing she had lost it. 

But she had another longsword hidden in her bedroll. She sat on the bed and took it out. 
Gold glimmered yellow in the candlelight and rubies smoldered red. When she slid 
Oathkeeper from the ornate scabbard, Brienne’s breath caught in her throat. Black and 
red the ripples ran, deep within the steel. Valyrian steel, spell-forged. It was a sword fit 
for a hero. When she was small, her nurse had filled her ears with tales of valor, regaling 


her with the noble exploits of Ser Galladon of Morne, Florian the Fool, Prince Aemon the 
Dragonknight, and other champions. Each man bore a famous sword, and surely 
Oathkeeper belonged in their company, even if she herself did not. “You’ll be defending 
Ned Stark’s daughter with Ned Stark’s own steel,” Jaime had promised. 

Kneeling between the bed and wall, she held the blade and said a silent prayer to the 
Crone, whose golden lamp showed men the way through life. Lead me, she prayed, light 
the way before me, show me the path that leads to Sansa. She had failed Renly, had failed 
Lady Catelyn. She must not fail Jaime. He trusted me with his sword. He trusted me with 
his honor. 

Afterward she stretched out on the bed as best she could. For all its width it was not long 
enough, so Brienne lay across it sideways. She could hear the clatter of tankards from 
below, and voices drifting up the steps. The fleas that Longbough had spoken of put in 
their appearance. Scratching helped keep her awake. 

She heard Hibald mount the stairs, and sometime later the knights as well. “. . . I never 
knew his name,” Ser Creighton was saying as he went by, “but upon his shield he bore a 
blood-red chicken, and his blade was dripping gore . . .” His voice faded, and somewhere 
up above, a door opened and closed. 

Her candle burned out. Darkness settled over the Old Stone Bridge, and the inn grew so 
still that she could hear the murmur of the river. Only then did Brienne rise to gather up 
her things. She eased the door open, listened, made her way barefoot down the steps. 
Outside she donned her boots and hurried to the stables to saddle her bay mare, asking a 
silent pardon of Ser Creighton and Ser Illifer as she mounted. One of Hibald’s serving 
men woke when she rode past him, but made no move to stop her. Her mare’s hooves 
rang upon the old stone bridge. Then the trees closed in around her, black as pitch and 
full of ghosts and memories. I am coming for you, Lady Sansa, she thought as she rode 
into the darkness. Be not afraid. I shall not rest until I’ve found you. 


SAMWELL 

Sam was reading about the Others when he saw the mouse. 

His eyes were red and raw. I ought not rub them so much, he always told himself as he 
rubbed them. The dust made them itch and water, and the dust was everywhere down 
here. Little puffs of it filled the air every time a page was turned, and it rose in grey 
clouds whenever he shifted a stack of books to see what might be hiding on the bottom. 


Sam did not know how long it had been since last he’d slept, but scarce an inch remained 
of the fat tallow candle he’d lit when starting on the ragged bundle of loose pages that 
he’d found tied up in twine. He was beastly tired, but it was hard to stop. One more book, 
he had told himself, then I’ll stop. One more folio, just one more. One more page, then 
I’ll go up and rest and get a bite to eat. But there was always another page after that one, 
and another after that, and another book waiting underneath the pile. I’ll just take a quick 
peek to see what this one is about, he’d think, and before he knew he would be halfway 
through it. He had not eaten since that bowl of bean-and-bacon soup with Pyp and Grenn. 
Well, except for the bread and cheese, but that was only a nibble, he thought. That was 
when he took a quick glance at the empty platter, and spied the mouse feasting on the 
bread crumbs. 

The mouse was half as long as his pinky finger, with black eyes and soft grey fur. Sam 
knew he ought to kill it. Mice might prefer bread and cheese, but they ate paper too. He 
had found plenty of mouse droppings amongst the shelves and stacks, and some of the 
leather covers on the books showed signs of being gnawed. 

It is such a little thing, though. And hungry. How could he begrudge it a few crumbs? It’s 
eating books, though . . . 

After hours in the chair Sam’s back was stiff as a board, and his legs were half-asleep. He 
knew he was not quick enough to catch the mouse, but it might be he could squash it. By 
his elbow rested a massive leather-bound copy of Annals of the Black Centaur, Septon 
Jorquen’s exhaustively detailed account of the nine years that Orbert Caswell had served 
as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. There was a page for each day of his term, 
every one of which seemed to begin, “Lord Orbert rose at dawn and moved his bowels,” 
except for the last, which said, “Lord Orbert was found to have died during the night.” 

No mouse is a match for Septon Jorquen. Very slowly, Sam took hold of the book with 
his left hand. It was thick and heavy, and when he tried to lift it one-handed, it slipped 
from his plump fingers and thumped back down. The mouse was gone in half a heartbeat, 
skittery-quick. Sam was relieved. Squishing the poor little thing would have given him 
nightmares. “You shouldn’t eat the books, though,” he said aloud. Maybe he should bring 
more cheese the next time he came down here. 

He was surprised at how low the candle had burned. Had the bean-and-bacon soup been 
today or yesterday? Yesterday. It must have been yesterday. The realization made him 
yawn. Jon would be wondering what had become of him, though Maester Aemon would 
no doubt understand. Before he had lost his sight, the maester had loved books as much 
as Samwell Tarly did. He understood the way that you could sometimes fall right into 
them, as if each page was a hole into another world. 

Pushing himself to his feet, Sam grimaced at the pins and needles in his calves. The chair 
was very hard and cut into the back of his thighs when he bent over a book. I need to 
remember to bring a cushion. It would be even better if he could sleep down here, in the 
cell he’d found half-hidden behind four chests full of loose pages that had gotten 


separated from the books they belonged to, but he did not want to leave Maester Aemon 
alone for so long. He had not been strong of late and required help, especially with the 
ravens. Aemon had Clydas, to be sure, but Sam was younger, and better with the birds. 

With a stack of books and scrolls under his left arm and the candle in his right hand, Sam 
made his way through the tunnels the brothers called the wormways. A pale shaft of light 
illuminated the steep stone steps that led up to the surface, so he knew that day had come 
up top. He left the candle burning in a wall niche and began the climb. By the fifth step 
he was puffing. At the tenth he stopped to shift the books to his right arm. 

He emerged beneath a sky the color of white lead. A snow sky, Sam thought, squinting 
up. The prospect made him uneasy. He remembered that night on the Fist of the First 
Men when the wights and the snows had come together. Don’t be so craven, he thought. 
You have your Sworn Brothers all around you, not to mention Stannis Baratheon and all 
his knights. Castle Black’s keeps and towers rose about him, dwarfed by the icy 
immensity of the Wall. A small army was crawling over the ice a quarter of the way up, 
where a new switchback stair was creeping upward to meet the remnants of the old one. 
The sounds of their saws and hammers echoed off the ice. Jon had the builders working 
night and day on the task. Sam had heard some of them complaining about it over supper, 
insisting that Lord Mormont never worked them half so hard. Without the great stair 
there was no way to reach the top of the Wall except by the chain winch, however. And 
as much as Samwell Tarly hated steps, he hated the winch cage more. He always closed 
his eyes when he was riding it, convinced that the chain was about to break. Every time 
the iron cage scraped against the ice his heart stopped beating for an instant. 

There were dragons here two hundred years ago, Sam found himself thinking, as he 
watched the cage making a slow descent. They would just have flown to the top of the 
Wall. Queen Alysanne had visited Castle Black on her dragon, and Jaehaerys, her king, 
had come after her on his own. Could Silverwing have left an egg behind? Or had Stannis 
found one egg on Dragonstone? Even if he has an egg, how can he hope to quicken it? 
Baelor the Blessed had prayed over his eggs, and other Targaryens had sought to hatch 
theirs with sorcery. All they got for it was farce and tragedy. 

“Samwell,” said a glum voice, “I was coming to fetch you. I was told to bring you to the 
Lord Commander.” 

A snowflake landed on Sam’s nose. “Jon wants to see me?” 

“As to that, I could not say,” said Dolorous Edd Tollett. “I never wanted to see half the 
things I’ve seen, and I’ve never seen half the things I wanted to. I don’t think wanting 
comes into it. You’d best go all the same. Lord Snow wishes to speak with you as soon as 
he is done with Craster’s wife.” 

“Gilly.” 


“That’s the one. If my wet nurse had looked like her, I’d still be on the teat. Mine had 
whiskers.” 

“Most goats do,” called Pyp, as he and Grenn emerged from around the corner, with 
longbows in hand and quivers of arrows on their backs. “Where have you been, Slayer? 
We missed you last night at supper. A whole roast ox went uneaten.” 

“Don’t call me Slayer.” Sam ignored the gibe about the ox. That was just Pyp. “I was 
reading. There was a mouse . . .” 

“Don’t mention mice to Grenn. He’s terrified of mice.” 

“I am not,” Grenn declared with indignation. 

“You’d be too scared to eat one.” 

“I’d eat more mice than you would.” 

Dolorous Edd Tollett gave a sigh. “When I was a lad, we only ate mice on special feast 
days. I was the youngest, so I always got the tail. There’s no meat on the tail.” 

“Where's your longbow, Sam?” asked Grenn. Ser Alliser used to call him Aurochs, and 
every day he seemed to grow into the name a little more. He had come to the Wall big but 
slow, thick of neck, thick of waist, red of face, and clumsy. Though his neck still 
reddened when Pyp twisted him around into some folly, hours of work with sword and 
shield had flattened his belly, hardened his arms, broadened his chest. He was strong, and 
shaggy as an aurochs too. “Ulmer was expecting you at the butts.” 

“Ulmer,” Sam said, abashed. Almost the first thing Jon Snow had done as Lord 
Commander was institute daily archery drill for the entire garrison, even stewards and 
cooks. The Watch had been placing too much emphasis on the sword and too little on the 
bow, he had said, a relic of the days when one brother in every ten had been a knight, 
instead of one in every hundred. Sam saw the sense in the decree, but he hated longbow 
practice almost as much as he hated climbing steps. When he wore his gloves he could 
never hit anything, but when he took them off he got blisters on his fingers. Those bows 
were dangerous. Satin had torn off half his thumbnail on a bowstring. “I forgot.” 

“You broke the heart of the wildling princess, Slayer,” said Pyp. Of late, Val had taken to 
watching them from the window of her chamber in the King’s Tower. “She was looking 
for you.” 

“She was not! Don’t say that!” Sam had only spoken to Val twice, when Maester Aemon 
called upon her to make sure the babes were healthy. The princess was so pretty that he 
oft found himself stammering and blushing in her presence. 


“Why not?” asked Pyp. “She wants to have your children. Maybe we should call you 
Sam the Seducer.” 

Sam reddened. King Stannis had plans for Val, he knew; she was the mortar with which 
he meant to seal the peace between the northmen and the free folk. “I don’t have time for 
archery today, I need to go see Jon.” 

“Jon? Jon? Do we know anyone named Jon, Grenn?” 

“He means the Lord Commander.” 

“Ohhh. The Great Lord Snow. To be sure. Why do you want to see him? He can’t even 
wiggle his ears.” Pyp wiggled his, to show he could. They were large ears, and red from 
cold. “He’s Lord Snow for true now, too bloody highborn for the likes of us.” 

“Jon has duties,” Sam said in his defense. “The Wall is his, and all that goes with it.” 

“A man has duties to his friends as well. If not for us, Janos Slynt might be our lord 
commander. Lord Janos would have sent Snow ranging naked on a mule. ‘Scamper on up 
to Craster’s Keep,’ he would have said, ‘and fetch me back the Old Bear’s cloak and 
boots.’ We saved him from that, but now he has too many duties to drink a cup of mulled 
wine by the fire?” 

Grenn agreed. “His duties don’t keep him from the yard. More days than not, he’s out 
there fighting someone.” 

That was true, Sam had to admit. Once, when Jon came to consult with Maester Aemon, 
Sam had asked him why he spent so much time at swordplay. “The Old Bear never 
trained much when he was Lord Commander,” he had pointed out. In answer, Jon had 
pressed Longclaw into Sam’s hand. He let him feel the lightness, the balance, had him 
turn the blade so that ripples gleamed in the smoke-dark metal. “Valyrian steel,” he said, 
“spell-forged and razor-sharp, nigh on indestructible. A swordsman should be as good as 
his sword, Sam. Longclaw is Valyrian steel, but I’m not. The Halfhand could have killed 
me as easy as you swat a bug.” 

Sam handed back the sword. “When I try to swat a bug, it always flies away. All I do is 
slap my arm. It stings.” 

That made Jon laugh. “As you will. Qhorin could have killed me as easy as you eat a 
bowl of porridge.” Sam was fond of porridge, especially when it was sweetened with 
honey. 

“I don’t have time for this.” Sam left his friends and made his way toward the armory, 
clutching his books to his chest. I am the shield that guards the realms of men, he 
remembered. He wondered what those men would say if they realized their realms were 
being guarded by the likes of Grenn, Pyp, and Dolorous Edd. 


The Lord Commander’s Tower had been gutted by fire, and Stannis Baratheon had 
claimed the King’s Tower for his own residence, so Jon Snow had established himself in 
Donal Noye’s modest quarters behind the armory. Gilly was leaving as Sam arrived, 
wrapped up in the old cloak he’d given her when they were fleeing Craster’s Keep. She 
almost rushed right past him, but Sam caught her arm, spilling two books as he did. 
“Gilly.” 

“Sam.” Her voice sounded raw. Gilly was dark-haired and slim, with the big brown eyes 
of a doe. She was swallowed by the folds of Sam’s old cloak, her face half-hidden by its 
hood, but shivering all the same. Her face looked wan and frightened. 

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked her. “How are the babes?” 

Gilly pulled loose from him. “They’re good, Sam. Good.” 

“Between the two of them it’s a wonder you can sleep,” Sam said pleasantly. “Which one 
was it that I heard crying last night? I thought he’d never stop.” 

“Dalla’s boy. He cries when he wants the teat. Mine . . . mine hardly ever cries. 
Sometimes he gurgles, but . . .” Her eyes filled with tears. “I have to go. It’s past time 
that I fed them. I’ll be leaking all over myself if I don’t go.” She rushed across the yard, 
leaving Sam perplexed behind her. 

He had to get down on his knees to gather up the books he’d dropped. I should not have 
brought so many, he told himself as he brushed the dirt off Colloquo Votar’s Jade 
Compendium, a thick volume of tales and legends from the east that Maester Aemon had 
commanded him to find. The book appeared undamaged. Maester Thomax’s Dragonkin, 
Being a History of House Targaryen from Exile to Apotheosis, with a Consideration of 
the Life and Death of Dragons had not been so fortunate. It had come open as it fell, and 
a few pages had gotten muddy, including one with a rather nice picture of Balerion the 
Black Dread done in colored inks. Sam cursed himself for a clumsy oaf as he smoothed 
the pages down and brushed them off. Gilly’s presence always flustered him and gave 
rise to . . . well, risings. A Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch should not be feeling the 
sorts of things that Gilly made him feel, especially when she would talk about her breasts 
and . . . 

“Lord Snow is waiting.” Two guards in black cloaks and iron halfhelms stood by the 
doors of the armory, leaning on their spears. Hairy Hal was the one who’d spoken. Mully 
helped Sam back to his feet. He blurted out thanks and hurried past them, clutching 
desperately at the stack of books as he made his way past the forge with its anvil and 
bellows. A shirt of ringmail rested on his workbench, half-completed. Ghost was 
stretched out beneath the anvil, gnawing on the bone of an ox to get at the marrow. The 
big white direwolf looked up when Sam went by, but made no sound. 

Jon’s solar was back beyond the racks of spears and shields. He was reading a parchment 
when Sam entered. Lord Commander Mormont’s raven was on his shoulder, peering 


down as if it were reading too, but when the bird spied Sam it spread its wings and 
flapped toward him crying, “Corn, corn!” 

Shifting the books, Sam thrust his arm into the sack beside the door and came out with a 
handful of kernels. The raven landed on his wrist and took one from his palm, pecking so 
hard that Sam yelped and snatched his hand back. The raven took to the air again, and 
yellow and red kernels went everywhere. 

“Close the door, Sam.” Faint scars still marked Jon’s cheek, where an eagle had once 
tried to rip his eye out. “Did that wretch break the skin?” 

Sam eased the books down and peeled off his glove. “He did.” He felt faint. “I’m 
bleeding.” 

“We all shed our blood for the Watch. Wear thicker gloves.” Jon shoved a chair toward 
him with a foot. “Sit, and have a look at this.” He handed him the parchment. 

“What is it?” asked Sam. The raven began to hunt out corn kernels amongst the rushes. 

“A paper shield.” 

Sam sucked at the blood on his palm as he read. He knew Maester Aemon’s hand on 
sight. His writing was small and precise, but the old man could not see where the ink had 
blotted, and sometimes he left unsightly smears. “A letter to King Tommen?” 

“At Winterfell Tommen fought my brother Bran with wooden swords. He wore so much 
padding he looked like a stuffed goose. Bran knocked him to the ground.” Jon went to the 
window. “Yet Bran’s dead, and pudgy pink-faced Tommen is sitting on the Iron Throne, 
with a crown nestled amongst his golden curls.” 

Bran’s not dead, Sam wanted to say. He’s gone beyond the Wall with Coldhands. The 
words caught in his throat. I swore I would not tell. “You haven’t signed the letter.” 

“The Old Bear begged the Iron Throne for help a hundred times. They sent him Janos 
Slynt. No letter will make the Lannisters love us better. Not once they hear that we’ve 
been helping Stannis.” 

“Only to defend the Wall, not in his rebellion.” Sam read the letter quickly once again. 
“That’s what it says here.” 

“The distinction may escape Lord Tywin.” Jon took the letter back. “Why would he help 
us now? He never did before.” 

“Well,” said Sam, “he will not want it said that Stannis rode to the defense of the realm 
whilst King Tommen was playing with his toys. That would bring scorn down upon 
House Lannister.” 


“It’s death and destruction I want to bring down upon House Lannister, not scorn.” Jon 
lifted up the letter. “The Night’s Watch takes no part in the wars of the Seven 
Kingdoms,” he read. “Our oaths are sworn to the realm, and the realm now stands in 
dire peril. Stannis Baratheon aids us against our foes from beyond the Wall, though we 
are not his men . . .” 

“Well,” said Sam, squirming, “we’re not. Are we?” 

“I gave Stannis food, shelter, and the Nightfort, plus leave to settle some free folk in the 
Gift. That’s all.” 

“Lord Tywin will say it was too much.” 

“Stannis says it’s not enough. The more you give a king the more he wants. We are 
walking on a bridge of ice with an abyss on either side. Pleasing one king is difficult 
enough. Pleasing two is hardly possible.” 

“Yes, but . . . if the Lannisters should prevail and Lord Tywin decides that we betrayed 
the king by aiding Stannis, it could mean the end of the Night’s Watch. He has the 
Tyrells behind him, with all the strength of Highgarden. And he did defeat Lord Stannis 
on the Blackwater.” The sight of blood might make Sam faint, but he knew how wars 
were won. His own father had seen to that. 

“The Blackwater was one battle. Robb won all his battles and still lost his head. If Stannis 
can raise the north . . .” 

He’s trying to convince himself, Sam realized, but he can’t. The ravens had gone forth 
from Castle Black in a storm of black wings, summoning the lords of the north to declare 
for Stannis Baratheon and join their strength to his. Sam had sent out most of them 
himself. Thusfar only one bird had returned, the one they’d sent to Karhold. Elsewise the 
silence had been thunderous. 

Even if he should somehow win the northmen to his side, Sam did not see how Stannis 
could hope to match the combined powers of Casterly Rock, Highgarden, and the Twins. 
Yet without the north, his cause was surely doomed. As doomed as the Night’s Watch, if 
Lord Tywin marks us down as traitors. “The Lannisters have northmen of their own. Lord 
Bolton and his bastard.” 

“Stannis has the Karstarks. If he can win White Harbor . . .” 

“If,” Sam stressed. “If not . . . my lord, even a paper shield is better than none.” 

Jon rattled the letter. “I suppose so.” He sighed, then took up a quill and scrawled a 
signature across the bottom of the letter. “Get the sealing wax.” Sam heated a stick of 
black wax over a candle and dribbled some onto the parchment, then watched as Jon 
pressed the Lord Commander’s seal down firmly on the puddle. “Take this to Maester 


Aemon when you leave,” he commanded, “and tell him to dispatch a bird to King’s 
Landing.” 

“I will.” Sam hesitated. “My lord, if I might ask . . . I saw Gilly leaving. She was almost 
crying.” 

“Val sent her to plead for Mance again.” 

“Oh.” Val was the sister of the woman the King-beyond-the-Wall had taken for his 
queen. The wildling princess was what Stannis and his men were calling her. Her sister 
Dalla had died during the battle, though no blade had ever touched her; she had perished 
giving birth to Mance Rayder’s son. Rayder himself would soon follow her to the grave, 
if the whispers Sam had heard had any truth to them. “What did you tell her?” 

“That I would speak to Stannis, though I doubt my words will sway him. A king’s first 
duty is to defend the realm, and Mance attacked it. His Grace is not like to forget that. 
My father used to say that Stannis Baratheon was a just man. No one has ever said he was 
forgiving.” Jon paused, frowning. “I would sooner take off Mance’s head myself. He was 
a man of the Night’s Watch, once. By rights, his life belongs to us.” 

“Pyp says that Lady Melisandre means to give him to the flames, to work some sorcery.” 

“Pyp should learn to hold his tongue. I have heard the same from others. King’s blood, to 
wake a dragon. Where Melisandre thinks to find a sleeping dragon, no one is quite sure. 
It’s nonsense. Mance’s blood is no more royal than mine own. He has never worn a 
crown nor sat a throne. He’s a brigand, nothing more. There’s no power in brigand’s 
blood.” 

The raven looked up from the floor. “Blood,” it screamed. 

Jon paid no mind. “I am sending Gilly away.” 

“Oh.” Sam bobbed his head. “Well, that’s . . . that’s good, my lord.” It would be the best 
thing for her, to go somewhere warm and safe, well away from the Wall and the fighting. 

“Her and the boy. We will need to find another wet nurse for his milk brother.” 

“Goat’s milk might serve, until you do. It’s better for a babe than cow’s milk.” Sam had 
read that somewhere. He shifted in his seat. “My lord, when I was looking through the 
annals I came on another boy commander. Four hundred years before the Conquest. Osric 
Stark was ten when he was chosen, but he served for sixty years. That’s four, my lord. 
You’re not even close to being the youngest ever chosen. You’re fifth youngest, so far.” 

“The younger four all being sons, brothers, or bastards of the King in the North. Tell me 
something useful. Tell me of our enemy.” 


“The Others.” Sam licked his lips. “They are mentioned in the annals, though not as often 
as I would have thought. The annals I’ve found and looked at, that is. There’s more I 
haven’t found, I know. Some of the older books are falling to pieces. The pages crumble 
when I try and turn them. And the really old books . . . either they have crumbled all 
away or they are buried somewhere that I haven’t looked yet or . . . well, it could be that 
there are no such books, and never were. The oldest histories we have were written after 
the Andals came to Westeros. The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything 
we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes 
from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the 
Citadel who question all of it. Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for 
hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights. 
You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night’s King . . . we say 
that you’re the nine hundred and ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, 
but the oldest list I’ve found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which 
suggests that it was written during . . .” 

“Long ago,” Jon broke in. “What about the Others?” 

“I found mention of dragonglass. The children of the forest used to give the Night’s 
Watch a hundred obsidian daggers every year, during the Age of Heroes. The Others 
come when it is cold, most of the tales agree. Or else it gets cold when they come. 
Sometimes they appear during snowstorms and melt away when the skies clear. They 
hide from the light of the sun and emerge by night . . . or else night falls when they 
emerge. Some stories speak of them riding the corpses of dead animals. Bears, 
direwolves, mammoths, horses, it makes no matter, so long as the beast is dead. The one 
that killed Small Paul was riding a dead horse, so that part’s plainly true. Some accounts 
speak of giant ice spiders too. I don’t know what those are. Men who fall in battle against 
the Others must be burned, or else the dead will rise again as their thralls.” 

“We knew all this. The question is, how do we fight them?” 

“The armor of the Others is proof against most ordinary blades, if the tales can be 
believed,” said Sam, “and their own swords are so cold they shatter steel. Fire will 
dismay them, though, and they are vulnerable to obsidian.” He remembered the one he 
had faced in the haunted forest, and how it had seemed to melt away when he stabbed it 
with the dragonglass dagger Jon had made for him. “I found one account of the Long 
Night that spoke of the last hero slaying Others with a blade of dragonsteel. Supposedly 
they could not stand against it.” 

“Dragonsteel?” Jon frowned. “Valyrian steel?” 

“That was my first thought as well.” 

“So if I can just convince the lords of the Seven Kingdoms to give us their Valyrian 
blades, all is saved? That won’t be hard.” His laugh had no mirth in it. “Did you find who 
the Others are, where they come from, what they want?” 


“Not yet, my lord, but it may be that I’ve just been reading the wrong books. There are 
hundreds I have not looked at yet. Give me more time and I will find whatever there is to 
be found.” 

“There is no more time.” Jon sounded sad. “You need to get your things together, Sam. 
You’re going with Gilly.” 

“Going?” For a moment Sam did not understand. “I’m going? To Eastwatch, my lord? Or 
. . . where am I . . .” 

“Oldtown.” 

“Oldtown?” It came out in a squeak. Horn Hill was close to Oldtown. Home. The notion 
made him light-headed. My father. 

“Aemon as well.” 

“Aemon? Maester Aemon? But . . . he’s one hundred and two years old, my lord, he can’t 
. . . you’re sending him and me? Who will tend the ravens? If they’re sick or wounded, 
who . . .” 

“Clydas. He’s been with Aemon for years.” 

“Clydas is only a steward, and his eyes are going bad. You need a maester. Maester 
Aemon is so frail, a sea voyage . . .” He thought of the Arbor and the Arbor Queen, and 
almost choked on his tongue. “It might . . . he’s old, and . . .” 

“His life will be at risk. I am aware of that, Sam, but the risk is greater here. Stannis 
knows who Aemon is. If the red woman requires king’s blood for her spells . . .” 

“Oh.” Sam paled. 

“Dareon will join you at Eastwatch. My hope is that his songs will win some men for us 
in the south. The Blackbird will deliver you to Braavos. From there you’ll arrange your 
own passage to Oldtown. If you still mean to claim Gilly’s babe as your bastard, send her 
and the child on to Horn Hill. Elsewise, Aemon will find a servant’s place for her at the 
Citadel.” 

“My b-b-bastard.” He had said that, yes, but . . . All that water. I could drown. Ships sink 
all the time, and autumn is a stormy season. Gilly would be with him, though, and the 
babe would grow up safe. “Yes, I . . . my mother and my sisters will help Gilly with the 
child.” I can send a letter, I won’t need to go to Horn Hill myself. “Dareon could see her 
to Oldtown just as well as me. I’m . . . I’ve been working at my archery every afternoon 
with Ulmer, as you commanded . . . well, except when I’m in the vaults, but you told me 
to find out about the Others. The longbow makes my shoulders ache and raises blisters on 
my fingers.” He showed Jon where one had burst. “I still do it, though. I can hit the target 


more often than not now, but I’m still the worst archer who ever bent a bow. I like 
Ulmer’s stories, though. Someone needs to write them down and put them in a book.” 

“You do it. They have parchment and ink at the Citadel, as well as longbows. I will 
expect you to continue with your practice. Sam, the Night’s Watch has hundreds of men 
who can loose an arrow, but only a handful who can read or write. I need you to become 
my new maester.” 

The word made him flinch. No, Father, please, I won’t speak of it again, I swear it by the 
Seven. Let me out, please let me out. “My lord, I . . . my work is here, the books . . .” 

“. . . will be here when you return to us.” 

Sam put a hand to his throat. He could almost feel the chain there, choking him. “My 
lord, the Citadel . . . they make you cut up corpses there.” They make you wear a chain 
about your neck. If it is chains you want, come with me. For three days and three nights 
Sam had sobbed himself to sleep, manacled hand and foot to a wall. The chain around his 
throat was so tight it broke the skin, and whenever he rolled the wrong way in his sleep it 
would cut off his breath. “I cannot wear a chain.” 

“You can. You will. Maester Aemon is old and blind. His strength is leaving him. Who 
will take his place when he dies? Maester Mullin at the Shadow Tower is more fighter 
than scholar, and Maester Harmune of Eastwatch is drunk more than he’s sober.” 

“If you ask the Citadel for more maesters . . .” 

“I mean to. We’ll have need of every one. Aemon Targaryen is not so easily replaced, 
however.” Jon seemed puzzled. “I was certain this would please you. There are so many 
books at the Citadel that no man can hope to read them all. You would do well there, 
Sam. I know you would.” 

“No. I could read the books, but . . . a m-maester must be a healer and b-b-blood makes 
me faint.” He held out a shaky hand for Jon to see. “I’m Sam the Scared, not Sam the 
Slayer.” 

“Scared? Of what? The chidings of old men? Sam, you saw the wights come swarming 
up the Fist, a tide of living dead men with black hands and bright blue eyes. You slew an 
Other.” 

“It was the d-d-d-dragonglass, not me.” 

“Be quiet. You lied and schemed and plotted to make me Lord Commander. You will 
obey me. You’ll go to the Citadel and forge a chain, and if you have to cut up corpses, so 
be it. At least in Oldtown the corpses won’t object.” 


He doesn’t understand. “My lord,” Sam said, “my f-f-f-father, Lord Randyll, he, he, he, 
he, he . . . the life of a maester is a life of servitude.” He was babbling, he knew. “No son 
of House Tarly will ever wear a chain. The men of Horn Hill do not bow and scrape to 
petty lords.” If it is chains you want, come with me. “Jon, I cannot disobey my father.” 

Jon, he’d said, but Jon was gone. It was Lord Snow who faced him now, grey eyes as 
hard as ice. “You have no father,” said Lord Snow. “Only brothers. Only us. Your life 
belongs to the Night’s Watch, so go and stuff your smallclothes into a sack, along with 
anything else you care to take to Oldtown. You leave an hour before sunrise. And here’s 
another order. From this day forth, you will not call yourself a craven. You’ve faced more 
things this past year than most men face in a lifetime. You can face the Citadel, but you’ll 
face it as a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch. I can’t command you to be brave, but I 
can command you to hide your fears. You said the words, Sam. Remember?” 

I am the sword in the darkness. But he was wretched with a sword, and the darkness 
scared him. “I . . . I’ll try.” 

“You won’t try. You will obey.” 

“Obey.” Mormont’s raven flapped its great black wings. 

“As my lord commands. Does . . . does Maester Aemon know?” 

“It was as much his idea as mine.” Jon opened the door for him. “No farewells. The fewer 
folk who know of this, the better. An hour before first light, by the lichyard.” 

Sam did not recall leaving the armory. The next thing he knew he was stumbling through 
mud and patches of old snow, toward Maester Aemon’s chambers. I could hide, he told 
himself. I could hide in the vaults amongst the books. I could live down there with the 
mouse and sneak up at night to steal food. Crazed thoughts, he knew, as futile as they 
were desperate. The vaults were the first place they would look for him. The last place 
they would look for him was beyond the Wall, but that was even madder. The wildlings 
would catch me and kill me slowly. They might burn me alive, the way the red woman 
means to burn Mance Rayder. 

When he found Maester Aemon in the rookery, he gave him Jon’s letter and blurted out 
his fears in a great green gush of words. “He does not understand.” Sam felt as if he 
might throw up. “If I don a chain, my lord f-f-f-father . . . he, he, he . . .” 

“My own father raised the same objections when I chose a life of service,” the old man 
said. “It was his father who sent me to the Citadel. King Daeron had sired four sons, and 
three had sons of their own. Too many dragons are as dangerous as too few, I heard His 
Grace tell my lord father, the day they sent me off.” Aemon raised a spotted hand to the 
chain of many metals that dangled loose about his thin neck. “The chain is heavy, Sam, 
but my grandsire had the right of it. So does your Lord Snow.” 


“Snow,” a raven muttered. “Snow,” another echoed. All of them picked it up then. 
“Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow.” Sam had taught them that word. There was no help 
here, he saw. Maester Aemon was as trapped as he was. He will die at sea, he thought, 
despairing. He is too old to survive such a voyage. Gilly’s little son may die as well, he’s 
not as large and strong as Dalla’s boy. Does Jon mean to kill us all? 

The next morning, Sam found himself saddling the mare he’d ridden from Horn Hill and 
leading her toward the lichyard beside the eastern road. Her saddlebags bulged with 
cheese and sausages and hard-cooked eggs, and half a salted ham that Three-Finger Hobb 
had given him on his name day. “You’re a man who appreciates cooking, Slayer,” the 
cook had said. “We need more o’ your sort.” The ham would help, no doubt. Eastwatch 
was a long cold ride away, and there were no towns nor inns in the shadow of the Wall. 

The hour before dawn was dark and still. Castle Black seemed strangely hushed. At the 
lichyard, a pair of two-wheeled wayns awaited him, along with Black Jack Bulwer and a 
dozen seasoned rangers, tough as the garrons they rode. Kedge Whiteye cursed loudly 
when his one good eye spied Sam. “Don’t mind him, Slayer,” said Black Jack. “He lost a 
wager, said we’d need to drag you out squealing from beneath some bed.” 

Maester Aemon was too frail to ride a horse, so a wayn had been made ready for him, its 
bed heaped high with furs, and a leather awning fastened overhead to keep off the rain 
and snow. Gilly and her child would ride with him. The second wayn would carry their 
clothing and possessions, along with a chest of rare old books that Aemon thought the 
Citadel might lack. Sam had spent half the night searching for them, though he’d found 
only one in four. And a good thing, or we’d need another wayn. 

When the maester appeared, he was bundled up in a bearskin three times his size. As 
Clydas led him toward the wayn, a gust of wind came up, and the old man staggered. 
Sam hurried to his side and put an arm about him. Another gust like that could blow him 
over the Wall. “Keep hold of my arm, maester. It’s not far.” 

The blind man nodded as the wind pushed back their hoods. “It is always warm in 
Oldtown. There is an inn on an island in the Honeywine where I used to go when I was a 
young novice. It will be pleasant to sit there once again, sipping cider.” 

By the time they got the maester into the wayn, Gilly had appeared, the child bundled in 
her arms. Beneath her hood her eyes were red from crying. Jon turned up at the same 
time, with Dolorous Edd. “Lord Snow,” Maester Aemon called, “I left a book for you in 
my chambers. The Jade Compendium. It was written by the Volantene adventurer 
Colloquo Votar, who traveled to the east and visited all the lands of the Jade Sea. There is 
a passage you may find of interest. I’ve told Clydas to mark it for you.” 

“I’ll be sure to read it,” Jon Snow replied. 


A line of pale snot ran from Maester Aemon’s nose. He wiped it away with the back of 
his glove. “Knowledge is a weapon, Jon. Arm yourself well before you ride forth to 
battle.” 

“I will.” A light snow had begun to fall, the big soft flakes drifting down lazily from the 
sky. Jon turned to Black Jack Bulwer. “Make as good a time as you can, but take no 
foolish risks. You have an old man and a suckling babe with you. See that you keep them 
warm and well fed.” 

“You do the same, m’lord,” said Gilly. “You do the same for t’other. Find another wet 
nurse, like you said. You promised me you would. The boy . . . Dalla’s boy . . . the little 
prince, I mean . . . you find him some good woman, so he grows up big and strong.” 

“You have my word,” Jon Snow said solemnly. 

“Don’t you name him. Don’t you do that till he’s past two years. It’s ill luck to name 
them when they’re still on the breast. You crows may not know that, but it’s true.” 

“As you command, my lady.” 

A spasm of anger flashed across Gilly’s face. “Don’t you call me that. I’m a mother, not a 
lady. I’m Craster’s wife and Craster’s daughter, and a mother.” 

Dolorous Edd took the babe as Gilly climbed into the wayn and covered her legs with 
some musty pelts. By then the eastern sky was more grey than black. Left Hand Lew was 
anxious to be off. Edd handed the infant up and Gilly put him to her breast. This may be 
the last I ever see of Castle Black, thought Sam as he hoisted himself atop his mare. As 
much as he had once hated Castle Black, it was tearing him apart to leave it. 

“Let’s do this,” Bulwer commanded. A whip snapped, and the wayns began to rumble 
slowly down the rutted road as the snow came down around them. Sam lingered beside 
Clydas and Dolorous Edd and Jon Snow. “Well,” he said, “farewell.” 

“And to you, Sam,” said Dolorous Edd. “Your boat’s not like to sink, I don’t think. Boats 
only sink when I’m aboard.” 

Jon was watching the wayns. “The first time I saw Gilly,” he said, “she was pressed back 
against the wall of Craster’s Keep, this skinny dark-haired girl with her big belly, 
cringing away from Ghost. He had gotten in among her rabbits, and I think she was 
frightened that he would tear her open and devour the babe . . . but it was not the wolf she 
should have been afraid of, was it?” 

No, Sam thought. Craster was the danger, her own father. 

“She has more courage than she knows.” 


“So do you, Sam. Have a swift, safe voyage, and take care of her and Aemon and the 
child.” Jon smiled a strange, sad smile. “And pull your hood up. The snowflakes are 
melting in your hair.” 


ARYA 

Faint and far away the light burned, low on the horizon, shining through the sea mists. 

“It looks like a star,” said Arya. 

“The star of home,” said Denyo. 

His father was shouting orders. Sailors scrambled up and down the three tall masts and 
moved along the rigging, reefing the heavy purple sails. Below, oarsmen heaved and 
strained over two great banks of oars. The decks tilted, creaking, as the galleas Titan’s 
Daughter heeled to starboard and began to come about. 

The star of home. Arya stood at the prow, one hand resting on the gilded figurehead, a 
maiden with a bowl of fruit. For half a heartbeat she let herself pretend that it was her 
home ahead. 

But that was stupid. Her home was gone, her parents dead, and all her brothers slain but 
Jon Snow on the Wall. That was where she had wanted to go. She told the captain as 
much, but even the iron coin did not sway him. Arya never seemed to find the places she 
set out to reach. Yoren had sworn to deliver her to Winterfell, only she had ended up in 
Harrenhal and Yoren in his grave. When she escaped Harrenhal for Riverrun, Lem and 
Anguy and Tom o’ Sevens took her captive and dragged her to the hollow hill instead. 
Then the Hound had stolen her and dragged her to the Twins. Arya had left him dying by 
the river and gone ahead to Saltpans, hoping to take passage for Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, 
only . . . 

Braavos might not be so bad. Syrio was from Braavos, and Jaqen might be there as well. 

It was Jaqen who had given her the iron coin. He hadn’t truly been her friend, the way 
that Syrio had, but what good had friends ever done her? I don’t need any friends, so long 
as I have Needle. She brushed the ball of her thumb across the sword’s smooth pommel, 
wishing, wishing . . . 

If truth be told, Arya did not know what to wish for, any more than she knew what 
awaited her beneath that distant light. The captain had given her passage but he had no 


time to speak with her. Some of the crew shunned her, but others gave her gifts—a silver 
fork, fingerless gloves, a floppy woolen hat patched with leather. One man showed her 
how to tie sailor’s knots. Another poured her thimble cups of fire wine. The friendly ones 
would tap their chests, repeating their names over and over until Arya said them back, 
though none ever thought to ask her name. They called her Salty, since she’d come 
aboard at Saltpans, near the mouth of the Trident. It was as good a name as any, she 
supposed. 

The last of the night’s stars had vanished . . . all but the pair dead ahead. “It’s two stars 
now.” 

“Two eyes,” said Denyo. “The Titan sees us.” 

The Titan of Braavos. Old Nan had told them stories of the Titan back in Winterfell. He 
was a giant as tall as a mountain, and whenever Braavos stood in danger he would wake 
with fire in his eyes, his rocky limbs grinding and groaning as he waded out into the sea 
to smash the enemies. “The Braavosi feed him on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn 
girls,” Nan would end, and Sansa would give a stupid squeak. But Maester Luwin said 
the Titan was only a statue, and Old Nan’s stories were only stories. 

Winterfell is burned and fallen, Arya reminded herself. Old Nan and Maester Luwin were 
both dead, most like, and Sansa too. It did no good to think of them. All men must die. 
That was what the words meant, the words that Jaqen H’ghar had taught her when he 
gave her the worn iron coin. She had learned more Braavosi words since they left 
Saltpans, the words for please and thank you and sea and star and fire wine, but she came 
to them knowing that all men must die. Most of the Daughter’s crew had a smattering of 
the Common Tongue from nights ashore in Oldtown and King’s Landing and 
Maidenpool, though only the captain and his sons spoke it well enough to talk to her. 
Denyo was the youngest of those sons, a plump, cheerful boy of twelve who kept his 
father’s cabin and helped his eldest brother do his sums. 

“I hope your Titan isn’t hungry,” Arya told him. 

“Hungry?” Denyo said, confused. 

“It takes no matter.” Even if the Titan did eat juicy pink girl flesh, Arya would not fear 
him. She was a scrawny thing, no proper meal for a giant, and almost eleven, practically a 
woman grown. And Salty isn’t highborn, either. “Is the Titan the god of Braavos?” she 
asked. “Or do you have the Seven?” 

“All gods are honored in Braavos.” The captain’s son loved to talk about his city almost 
as much as he loved to talk about his father’s ship. “Your Seven have a sept here, the 
Sept-Beyond-the-Sea, but only Westerosi sailors worship there.” 

They are not my Seven. They were my mother’s gods, and they let the Freys murder her 
at the Twins. She wondered whether she would find a godswood in Braavos, with a 


weirwood at its heart. Denyo might know, but she could not ask him. Salty was from 
Saltpans, and what would a girl from Saltpans know about the old gods of the north? The 
old gods are dead, she told herself, with Mother and Father and Robb and Bran and 
Rickon, all dead. A long time ago, she remembered her father saying that when the cold 
winds blow the lone wolf dies and the pack survives. He had it all backwards. Arya, the 
lone wolf, still lived, but the wolves of the pack had been taken and slain and skinned. 

“The Moonsingers led us to this place of refuge, where the dragons of Valyria could not 
find us,” Denyo said. “Theirs is the greatest temple. We esteem the Father of Waters as 
well, but his house is built anew whenever he takes his bride. The rest of the gods dwell 
together on an isle in the center of the city. That is where you will find the . . . the Many-
Faced God.” 

The Titan’s eyes seemed brighter now, and farther apart. Arya did not know any Many-
Faced God, but if he answered prayers, he might be the god she sought. Ser Gregor, she 
thought, Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei. Only six now. 
Joffrey was dead, the Hound had slain Polliver, and she’d stabbed the Tickler herself, and 
that stupid squire with the pimple. I wouldn’t have killed him if he hadn’t grabbed me. 
The Hound had been dying when she left him on the banks of the Trident, burning up 
with fever from his wound. I should have given him the gift of mercy and put a knife into 
his heart. 

“Salty, look!” Denyo took her by the arm and turned her. “Can you see? There.” He 
pointed. 

The mists gave way before them, ragged grey curtains parted by their prow. The Titan’s 
Daughter cleaved through the grey-green waters on billowing purple wings. Arya could 
hear the cries of seabirds overhead. There, where Denyo pointed, a line of stony ridges 
rose sudden from the sea, their steep slopes covered with soldier pines and black spruce. 
But dead ahead the sea had broken through, and there above the open water the Titan 
towered, with his eyes blazing and his long green hair blowing in the wind. 

His legs bestrode the gap, one foot planted on each mountain, his shoulders looming tall 
above the jagged crests. His legs were carved of solid stone, the same black granite as the 
sea monts on which he stood, though around his hips he wore an armored skirt of 
greenish bronze. His breastplate was bronze as well, and his head in his crested halfhelm. 
His blowing hair was made of hempen ropes dyed green, and huge fires burned in the 
caves that were his eyes. One hand rested atop the ridge to his left, bronze fingers coiled 
about a knob of stone; the other thrust up into the air, clasping the hilt of a broken sword. 

He is only a little bigger than King Baelor’s statue in King’s Landing, she told herself 
when they were still well off to sea. As the galleas drove closer to where the breakers 
smashed against the ridgeline, however, the Titan grew larger still. She could hear 
Denyo’s father bellowing commands in his deep voice, and up in the rigging men were 
bringing in the sails. We are going to row beneath the Titan’s legs. Arya could see the 
arrow slits in the great bronze breastplate, and stains and speckles on the Titan’s arms and 


shoulders where the seabirds nested. Her neck craned upward. Baelor the Blessed would 
not reach his knee. He could step right over the walls of Winterfell. 

Then the Titan gave a mighty roar. 

The sound was as huge as he was, a terrible groaning and grinding, so loud it drowned 
out even the captain’s voice and the crash of the waves against those pine-clad ridges. A 
thousand seabirds took to the air at once, and Arya flinched until she saw that Denyo was 
laughing. “He warns the Arsenal of our coming, that is all,” he shouted. “You must not be 
afraid.” 

“I never was,” Arya shouted back. “It was loud, is all.” 

Wind and wave had the Titan’s Daughter hard in hand now, driving her swiftly toward 
the channel. Her double bank of oars stroked smoothly, lashing the sea to white foam as 
the Titan’s shadow fell upon them. For a moment it seemed as though they must surely 
smash up against the stones beneath his legs. Huddled by Denyo at the prow, Arya could 
taste salt where the spray had touched her face. She had to look straight up to see the 
Titan’s head. “The Braavosi feed him on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn girls,” she 
heard Old Nan say again, but she was not a little girl, and she would not be frightened of 
a stupid statue. 

Even so, she kept one hand on Needle as they slipped between his legs. More arrow slits 
dotted the insides of those great stone thighs, and when Arya craned her neck around to 
watch the crow’s nest slip through with a good ten yards to spare, she spied murder holes 
beneath the Titan’s armored skirts, and pale faces staring down at them from behind the 
iron bars. 

And then they were past. 

The shadow lifted, the pine-clad ridges fell away to either side, the winds dwindled, and 
they found themselves moving through a great lagoon. Ahead rose another sea mont, a 
knob of rock that pushed up from the water like a spiked fist, its stony battlements 
bristling with scorpions, spitfires, and trebuchets. “The Arsenal of Braavos,” Denyo 
named it, as proud as if he’d built it. “They can build a war galley there in a day.” Arya 
could see dozens of galleys tied up at quays and perched on launching slips. The painted 
prows of others poked from innumerable wooden sheds along the stony shores, like 
hounds in a kennel, lean and mean and hungry, waiting for a hunter’s horn to call them 
forth. She tried to count them, but there were too many, and more docks and sheds and 
quays where the shoreline curved away. 

Two galleys had come out to meet them. They seemed to skim upon the water like 
dragonflies, their pale oars flashing. Arya heard the captain shouting to them and their 
own captains shouting back, but she did not understand the words. A great horn sounded. 
The galleys passed to either side of them, so close that she could hear the muffled sound 


of drums from within their purple hulls, bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom, like the 
beat of living hearts. 

Then the galleys were behind them, and the Arsenal as well. Ahead stretched a broad 
expanse of pea-green water rippled like a sheet of colored glass. From its wet heart arose 
the city proper, a great sprawl of domes and towers and bridges, grey and gold and red. 

The hundred isles of Braavos in the sea. 

Maester Luwin had taught them about Braavos, but Arya had forgotten much of what 
he’d said. It was a flat city, she could see that even from afar, not like King’s Landing on 
its three high hills. The only hills here were the ones that men had raised of brick and 
granite, bronze and marble. Something else was missing as well, though it took her a few 
moments to realize what it was. The city has no walls. But when she said as much to 
Denyo, he laughed at her. “Our walls are made of wood and painted purple,” he told her. 
“Our galleys are our walls. We need no other.” 

The deck creaked behind them. Arya turned to find Denyo’s father looming over them in 
his long captain’s coat of purple wool. Tradesman-Captain Ternesio Terys wore no 
whiskers and kept his grey hair cut short and neat, framing his square, windburnt face. On 
the crossing she had oft seen him jesting with his crew, but when he frowned men ran 
from him as if before a storm. He was frowning now. “Our voyage is at an end,” he told 
Arya. “We make for the Chequy Port, where the Sealord’s customs officers will come 
aboard to inspect our holds. They will be half a day at it, they always are, but there is no 
need for you to wait upon their pleasure. Gather your belongings. I shall lower a boat, 
and Yorko will put you ashore.” 

Ashore. Arya bit her lip. She had crossed the narrow sea to get here, but if the captain had 
asked she would have told him she wanted to stay aboard the Titan’s Daughter. Salty was 
too small to man an oar, she knew that now, but she could learn to splice ropes and reef 
the sails and steer a course across the great salt seas. Denyo had taken her up to the 
crow’s nest once, and she hadn’t been afraid at all, though the deck had seemed a tiny 
thing below her. I can do sums too, and keep a cabin neat. 

But the galleas had no need of a second boy. Besides, she had only to look at the 
captain’s face to know how anxious he was to be rid of her. So Arya only nodded. 
“Ashore,” she said, though ashore meant only strangers. 

“Valar dohaeris.” He touched two fingers to his brow. “I beg you remember Ternesio 
Terys and the service he has done you.” 

“I will,” Arya said in a small voice. The wind tugged at her cloak, insistent as a ghost. It 
was time she was away. 

Gather your belongings, the captain had said, but there were few enough of those. Only 
the clothes she was wearing, her little pouch of coins, the gifts the crew had given her, the 
dagger on her left hip and Needle on her right. 


The boat was ready before she was, and Yorko was at the oars. He was the captain’s son 
as well, but older than Denyo and less friendly. I never said farewell to Denyo, she 
thought as she clambered down to join him. She wondered if she would ever see the boy 
again. I should have said farewell. 

The Titan’s Daughter dwindled in their wake, while the city grew larger with every 
stroke of Yorko’s oars. A harbor was visible off to her right, a tangle of piers and quays 
crowded with big-bellied whalers out of Ibben, swan ships from the Summer Isles, and 
more galleys than a girl could count. Another harbor, more distant, was off to her left, 
beyond a sinking point of land where the tops of half-drowned buildings thrust 
themselves above the water. Arya had never seen so many big buildings all together in 
one place. King’s Landing had the Red Keep and the Great Sept of Baelor and the 
Dragonpit, but Braavos seemed to boast a score of temples and towers and palaces that 
were as large or even larger. I will be a mouse again, she thought glumly, the way I was 
in Harrenhal before I ran away. 

The city had seemed like one big island from where the Titan stood, but as Yorko rowed 
them closer she saw that it was many small islands close together, linked by arched stone 
bridges that spanned innumerable canals. Beyond the harbor she glimpsed streets of grey 
stone houses, built so close they leaned one upon the other. To Arya’s eyes they were 
queer-looking, four and five stories tall and very skinny, with sharp-peaked tile roofs like 
pointed hats. She saw no thatch, and only a few timbered houses of the sort she knew in 
Westeros. They have no trees, she realized. Braavos is all stone, a grey city in a green 
sea. 

Yorko swung them north of the docks and down the gullet of a great canal, a broad green 
waterway that ran straight into the heart of the city. They passed under the arches of a 
carved stone bridge, decorated with half a hundred kinds of fish and crabs and squids. A 
second bridge appeared ahead, this one carved in lacy leafy vines, and beyond that a 
third, gazing down on them from a thousand painted eyes. The mouths of lesser canals 
opened to either side, and others still smaller off of those. Some of the houses were built 
above the waterways, she saw, turning the canals into a sort of tunnel. Slender boats slid 
in and out among them, wrought in the shapes of water serpents with painted heads and 
upraised tails. Those were not rowed but poled, she saw, by men who stood at their sterns 
in cloaks of grey and brown and deep moss green. She saw huge flat-bottomed barges 
too, heaped high with crates and barrels and pushed along by twenty polemen to a side, 
and fancy floating houses with lanterns of colored glass, velvet drapes, and brazen 
figureheads. Off in the far distance, looming above canals and houses both, was a 
massive grey stone roadway of some kind, supported by three tiers of mighty arches 
marching away south into the haze. “What’s that?” Arya asked Yorko, pointing. “The 
sweetwater river,” he told her. “It brings fresh water from the mainland, across the 
mudflats and the briny shallows. Good sweet water for the fountains.” 

When she looked behind her, the harbor and lagoon were lost to sight. Ahead, a row of 
mighty statues stood along both sides of the channel, solemn stone men in long bronze 
robes, spattered with the droppings of the seabirds. Some held books, some daggers, 


some hammers. One clutched a golden star in his upraised hand. Another was upending a 
stone flagon to send an endless stream of water splashing down into the canal. “Are they 
gods?” asked Arya. 

“Sealords,” said Yorko. “The Isle of the Gods is farther on. See? Six bridges down, on 
the right bank. That is the Temple of the Moonsingers.” 

It was one of those that Arya had spied from the lagoon, a mighty mass of snow-white 
marble topped by a huge silvered dome whose milk glass windows showed all the phases 
of the moon. A pair of marble maidens flanked its gates, tall as the Sealords, supporting a 
crescent-shaped lintel. 

Beyond it stood another temple, a red stone edifice as stern as any fortress. Atop its great 
square tower a fire blazed in an iron brazier twenty feet across, whilst smaller fires 
flanked its brazen doors. “The red priests love their fires,” Yorko told her. “The Lord of 
Light is their god, red R’hllor.” 

I know. Arya remembered Thoros of Myr in his bits of old armor, worn over robes so 
faded that he had seemed more a pink priest than a red one. Yet his kiss had brought Lord 
Beric back from death. She watched the red god’s house drift by, wondering whether 
these Braavosi priests of his could do the same. 

Next came a huge brick structure festooned with lichen. Arya might have taken it for a 
storehouse had not Yorko said, “That is the Holy Refuge, where we honor the small gods 
the world has forgotten. You will hear it called the Warren too.” A small canal ran 
between the Warren’s looming lichen-covered walls, and there he swung them right. 
They passed through a tunnel and out again into the light. More shrines loomed up to 
either side. 

“I never knew there were so many gods,” Arya said. 

Yorko grunted. They went around a bend and beneath another bridge. On their left 
appeared a rocky knoll with a windowless temple of dark grey stone at its top. A flight of 
stone steps led from its doors down to a covered dock. 

Yorko backed the oars, and the boat bumped gently against stone pilings. He grasped an 
iron ring set to hold them for a moment. “Here I leave you.” 

The dock was shadowed, the steps steep. The temple’s black tile roof came to a sharp 
peak, like the houses along the canals. Arya chewed her lip. Syrio came from Braavos. 
He might have visited this temple. He might have climbed those steps. She grabbed a ring 
and pulled herself up onto the dock. 

“You know my name,” said Yorko from the boat. 

“Yorko Terys.” 


“Valar dohaeris.” He pushed off with his oar and drifted back off into the deeper water. 
Arya watched him row back the way they’d come, until he vanished in the shadows of 
the bridge. As the swish of oars faded, she could almost hear the beating of her heart. 
Suddenly she was somewhere else . . . back in Harrenhal with Gendry, maybe, or with the 
Hound in the woods along the Trident. Salty is a stupid child, she told herself. I am a 
wolf, and will not be afraid. She patted Needle’s hilt for luck and plunged into the 
shadows, taking the steps two at a time so no one could ever say she’d been afraid. 

At the top she found a set of carved wooden doors twelve feet high. The left-hand door 
was made of weirwood pale as bone, the right of gleaming ebony. In their center was a 
carved moon face; ebony on the weirwood side, weirwood on the ebony. The look of it 
reminded her somehow of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell. The doors are 
watching me, she thought. She pushed upon both doors at once with the flat of her gloved 
hands, but neither one would budge. Locked and barred. “Let me in, you stupid,” she 
said. “I crossed the narrow sea.” She made a fist and pounded. “Jaqen told me to come. I 
have the iron coin.” She pulled it from her pouch and held it up. “See? Valar morghulis.” 

The doors made no reply, except to open. 

They opened inward all in silence, with no human hand to move them. Arya took a step 
forward, and another. The doors closed behind her, and for a moment she was blind. 
Needle was in her hand, though she did not remember drawing it. 

A few candles burned along the walls, but gave so little light that Arya could not see her 
own feet. Someone was whispering, too softly for her to make out words. Someone else 
was weeping. She heard light footfalls, leather sliding over stone, a door opening and 
closing. Water, I hear water too. 

Slowly her eyes adjusted. The temple seemed much larger within than it had without. The 
septs of Westeros were seven-sided, with seven altars for the seven gods, but here there 
were more gods than seven. Statues of them stood along the walls, massive and 
threatening. Around their feet red candles flickered, as dim as distant stars. The nearest 
was a marble woman twelve feet tall. Real tears were trickling from her eyes, to fill the 
bowl she cradled in her arms. Beyond her was a man with a lion’s head seated on a 
throne, carved of ebony. On the other side of the doors, a huge horse of bronze and iron 
reared up on two great legs. Farther on she could make out a great stone face, a pale 
infant with a sword, a shaggy black goat the size of an aurochs, a hooded man leaning on 
a staff. The rest were only looming shapes to her, half-seen through the gloom. Between 
the gods were hidden alcoves thick with shadows, with here and there a candle burning. 

Silent as a shadow, Arya moved between rows of long stone benches, her sword in hand. 
The floor was made of stone, her feet told her; not polished marble like the floor of the 
Great Sept of Baelor, but something rougher. She passed some women whispering 
together. The air was warm and heavy, so heavy that she yawned. She could smell the 
candles. The scent was unfamiliar, and she put it down to some queer incense, but as she 
got deeper into the temple, they seemed to smell of snow and pine needles and hot stew. 


Good smells, Arya told herself, and felt a little braver. Brave enough to slip Needle back 
into its sheath. 

In the center of the temple she found the water she had heard; a pool ten feet across, 
black as ink and lit by dim red candles. Beside it sat a young man in a silvery cloak, 
weeping softly. She watched him dip a hand in the water, sending scarlet ripples racing 
across the pool. When he drew his fingers back he sucked them, one by one. He must be 
thirsty. There were stone cups along the rim of the pool. Arya filled one and brought it to 
him, so he could drink. The young man stared at her for a long moment when she offered 
it to him. “Valar morghulis,” he said. 

“Valar dohaeris,” she replied. 

He drank deep, and dropped the cup into the pool with a soft plop. Then he pushed 
himself to his feet, swaying, holding his belly. For a moment Arya thought he was going 
to fall. It was only then that she saw the dark stain below his belt, spreading as she 
watched. “You’re stabbed,” she blurted, but the man paid her no mind. He lurched 
unsteadily toward the wall and crawled into an alcove onto a hard stone bed. When Arya 
peered around, she saw other alcoves too. On some there were old people sleeping. 

No, a half-remembered voice seemed to whisper in her head. They are dead, or dying. 
Look with your eyes. 

A hand touched her arm. 

Arya spun away, but it was only a little girl: a pale little girl in a cowled robe that seemed 
to engulf her, black on the right side and white on the left. Beneath the cowl was a gaunt 
and bony face, hollow cheeks, and dark eyes that looked as big as saucers. “Don’t grab 
me,” Arya warned the waif. “I killed the boy who grabbed me last.” 

The girl said some words that Arya did not know. 

She shook her head. “Don’t you know the Common Tongue?” 

A voice behind her said, “I do.” 

Arya did not like the way they kept surprising her. The hooded man was tall, enveloped 
in a larger version of the black-and-white robe the girl was wearing. Beneath his cowl all 
she could see was the faint red glitter of candlelight reflecting off his eyes. “What place is 
this?” she asked him. 

“A place of peace.” His voice was gentle. “You are safe here. This is the House of Black 
and White, my child. Though you are young to seek the favor of the Many-Faced God.” 

“Is he like the southron god, the one with seven faces?” 


“Seven? No. He has faces beyond count, little one, as many faces as there are stars in the 
sky. In Braavos, men worship as they will . . . but at the end of every road stands Him of 
Many Faces, waiting. He will be there for you one day, do not fear. You need not rush to 
his embrace.” 

“I only came to find Jaqen H’ghar.” 
“I do not know this name.” 
Her heart sank. “He was from Lorath. His hair was white on one side and red on the 


other. He said he’d teach me secrets, and gave me this.” The iron coin was clutched in her 


fist. When she opened her fingers, it clung to her sweaty palm. 
The priest studied the coin, though he made no move to touch it. The waif with the big 
eyes was looking at it too. Finally, the cowled man said, “Tell me your name, child.” 


“Salty. I come from Saltpans, by the Trident.” 


Though she could not see his face, somehow she could feel him smiling. “No,” he said. 
“Tell me your name.” 
“Squab,” she answered this time. 
“Your true name, child.” 
“My mother named me Nan, but they call me Weasel—” 
“Your name.” 
She swallowed. “Arry. I’m Arry.” 
“Closer. And now the truth?” 
Fear cuts deeper than swords, she told herself. “Arya.” She whispered the word the first 


time. The second time she threw it at him. “I am Arya, of House Stark.” 


“You are,” he said, “but the House of Black and White is no place for Arya, of House 
Stark.” 
“Please,” she said. “I have no place to go.” 
“Do you fear death?” 
She bit her lip. “No.” 



“Let us see.” The priest lowered his cowl. Beneath he had no face; only a yellowed skull 
with a few scraps of skin still clinging to the cheeks, and a white worm wriggling from 
one empty eye socket. “Kiss me, child,” he croaked, in a voice as dry and husky as a 
death rattle. 

Does he think to scare me? Arya kissed him where his nose should be and plucked the 
grave worm from his eye to eat it, but it melted like a shadow in her hand. 

The yellow skull was melting too, and the kindliest old man that she had ever seen was 
smiling down at her. “No one has ever tried to eat my worm before,” he said. “Are you 
hungry, child?” 

Yes, she thought, but not for food. 


CERSEI 

A cold rain was falling, turning the walls and ramparts of the Red Keep dark as blood. 
The queen held the king’s hand and led him firmly across the muddy yard to where her 
litter waited with its escort. “Uncle Jaime said I could ride my horse and throw pennies to 
the smallfolk,” the boy objected. 

“Do you want to catch a chill?” She would not risk it; Tommen had never been as robust 
as Joffrey. “Your grandfather would want you to look a proper king at his wake. We will 
not appear at the Great Sept wet and bedraggled.” Bad enough I must wear mourning 
again. Black had never been a happy color on her. With her fair skin, it made her look 
half a corpse herself. Cersei had risen an hour before dawn to bathe and fix her hair, and 
she did not intend to let the rain destroy her efforts. 

Inside the litter, Tommen settled back against his pillows and peered out at the falling 
rain. “The gods are weeping for grandfather. Lady Jocelyn says the raindrops are their 
tears.” 

“Jocelyn Swyft is a fool. If the gods could weep, they would have wept for your brother. 
Rain is rain. Close the curtain before you let any more in. That mantle is sable, would you 
have it soaked?” 

Tommen did as he was bid. His meekness troubled her. A king had to be strong. Joffrey 
would have argued. He was never easy to cow. “Don’t slump so,” she told Tommen. “Sit 


like a king. Put your shoulders back and straighten your crown. Do you want it to tumble 
off your head in front of all your lords?” 

“No, Mother.” The boy sat straight and reached up to fix the crown. Joff’s crown was too 
big for him. Tommen had always inclined to plumpness, but his face seemed thinner 
now. Is he eating well? She must remember to ask the steward. She could not risk 
Tommen growing ill, not with Myrcella in the hands of the Dornishmen. He will grow 
into Joff’s crown in time. Until he did, a smaller one might be needed, one that did not 
threaten to swallow his head. She would take it up with the goldsmiths. 

The litter made its slow way down Aegon’s High Hill. Two Kingsguard rode before 
them, white knights on white horses with white cloaks hanging sodden from their 
shoulders. Behind came fifty Lannister guardsmen in gold and crimson. 

Tommen peered through the drapes at the empty streets. “I thought there would be more 
people. When Father died, all the people came out to watch us go by.” 

“This rain has driven them inside.” King’s Landing had never loved Lord Tywin. He 
never wanted love, though. “You cannot eat love, nor buy a horse with it, nor warm your 
halls on a cold night,” she heard him tell Jaime once, when her brother had been no older 
than Tommen. 

At the Great Sept of Baelor, that magnificence in marble atop Visenya’s Hill, the little 
knot of mourners were outnumbered by the gold cloaks that Ser Addam Marbrand had 
drawn up across the plaza. More will turn out later, the queen told herself as Ser Meryn 
Trant helped her from the litter. Only the highborn and their retinues were to be admitted 
to the morning service; there would be another in the afternoon for the commons, and the 
evening prayers were open to all. Cersei would need to return for that, so that the 
smallfolk might see her mourn. The mob must have its show. It was a nuisance. She had 
offices to fill, a war to win, a realm to rule. Her father would have understood that. 

The High Septon met them at the top of the steps. A bent old man with a wispy grey 
beard, he was so stooped by the weight of his ornate embroidered robes that his eyes 
were on a level with the queen’s breasts . . . though his crown, an airy confection of cut 
crystal and spun gold, added a good foot and a half to his height. 

Lord Tywin had given him that crown to replace the one that was lost when the mob 
killed the previous High Septon. They had pulled the fat fool from his litter and torn him 
apart, the day Myrcella sailed for Dorne. That one was a great glutton, and biddable. 
This one . . . This High Septon was of Tyrion’s making, Cersei recalled suddenly. It was a 
disquieting thought. 

The old man’s spotted hand looked like a chicken claw as it poked from a sleeve 
encrusted with golden scrollwork and small crystals. Cersei knelt on the wet marble and 
kissed his fingers, and bid Tommen to do the same. What does he know of me? How 
much did the dwarf tell him? The High Septon smiled as he escorted her into the sept. But 


was it a threatening smile full of unspoken knowledge, or just some vacuous twitch of an 
old man’s wrinkled lips? The queen could not be certain. 

They made their way through the Hall of Lamps beneath colored globes of leaded glass, 
Tommen’s hand in hers. Trant and Kettleblack flanked them, water dripping from their 
wet cloaks to puddle on the floor. The High Septon walked slowly, leaning on a 
weirwood staff topped by a crystal orb. Seven of the Most Devout attended him, 
shimmering in cloth-of-silver. Tommen wore cloth-of-gold beneath his sable mantle, the 
queen an old gown of black velvet lined with ermine. There’d been no time to have a new 
one made, and she could not wear the same dress she had worn for Joffrey, nor the one 
she’d buried Robert in. 

At least I will not be expected to don mourning for Tyrion. I shall dress in crimson silk 
and cloth-of-gold for that, and wear rubies in my hair. The man who brought her the 
dwarf’s head would be raised to lordship, she had proclaimed, no matter how mean and 
low his birth or station. Ravens were carrying her promise to every part of the Seven 
Kingdoms, and soon enough word would cross the narrow sea to the Nine Free Cities and 
the lands beyond. Let the Imp run to the ends of the earth, he will not escape me. 

The royal procession passed through the inner doors into the cavernous heart of the Great 
Sept, and down a wide aisle, one of seven that met beneath the dome. To right and left, 
highborn mourners sank to their knees as the king and queen went by. Many of her 
father’s bannermen were here, and knights who had fought beside Lord Tywin in half a 
hundred battles. The sight of them made her feel more confident. I am not without 
friends. 

Under the Great Sept’s lofty dome of glass and gold and crystal, Lord Tywin Lannister’s 
body rested upon a stepped marble bier. At its head Jaime stood at vigil, his one good 
hand curled about the hilt of a tall golden greatsword whose point rested on the floor. The 
hooded cloak he wore was as white as freshly fallen snow, and the scales of his long 
hauberk were mother-of-pearl chased with gold. Lord Tywin would have wanted him in 
Lannister gold and crimson, she thought. It always angered him to see Jaime all in white. 
Her brother was growing his beard again as well. The stubble covered his jaw and 
cheeks, and gave his face a rough, uncouth look. He might at least have waited till 
Father’s bones were interred beneath the Rock. 

Cersei led the king up three short steps, to kneel beside the body. Tommen’s eyes were 
filled with tears. “Weep quietly,” she told him, leaning close. “You are a king, not a 
squalling child. Your lords are watching you.” The boy swiped the tears away with the 
back of his hand. He had her eyes, emerald green, as large and bright as Jaime’s eyes had 
been when he was Tommen’s age. Her brother had been such a pretty boy . . . but fierce 
as well, as fierce as Joffrey, a true lion cub. The queen put her arm around Tommen and 
kissed his golden curls. He will need me to teach him how to rule and keep him safe from 
his enemies. Some of them stood around them even now, pretending to be friends. 


The silent sisters had armored Lord Tywin as if to fight some final battle. He wore his 
finest plate, heavy steel enameled a deep, dark crimson, with gold inlay on his gauntlets, 
greaves, and breastplate. His rondels were golden sunbursts; a golden lioness crouched 
upon each shoulder; a maned lion crested the greathelm beside his head. Upon his chest 
lay a longsword in a gilded scabbard studded with rubies, his hands folded about its hilt 
in gloves of gilded mail. Even in death his face is noble, she thought, although the mouth 
. . . The corners of her father’s lips curved upward ever so slightly, giving him a look of 
vague bemusement. That should not be. She blamed Pycelle; he should have told the 
silent sisters that Lord Tywin Lannister never smiled. The man is as useless as nipples on 
a breastplate. That half smile made Lord Tywin seem less fearful, somehow. That, and 
the fact that his eyes were closed. Her father’s eyes had always been unsettling; pale 
green, almost luminous, flecked with gold. His eyes could see inside you, could see how 
weak and worthless and ugly you were down deep. When he looked at you, you knew. 

Unbidden, a memory came to her, of the feast King Aerys had thrown when Cersei first 
came to court, a girl as green as summer grass. Old Merryweather had been nattering 
about raising the duty on wine when Lord Rykker said, “If we need gold, His Grace 
should sit Lord Tywin on his chamber pot.” Aerys and his lickspittles laughed loudly, 
whilst Father stared at Rykker over his wine cup. Long after the merriment had died that 
gaze had lingered. Rykker turned away, turned back, met Father’s eyes, then ignored 
them, drank a tankard of ale, and stalked off red-faced, defeated by a pair of unflinching 
eyes. 

Lord Tywin’s eyes are closed forever now, Cersei thought. It is my look they will flinch 
from now, my frown that they must fear. I am a lion too. 

It was gloomy within the sept with the sky so grey outside. If the rain ever stopped, the 
sun would slant down through the hanging crystals to drape the corpse in rainbows. The 
Lord of Casterly Rock deserved rainbows. He had been a great man. I shall be greater, 
though. A thousand years from now, when the maesters write about this time, you shall be 
remembered only as Queen Cersei’s sire. 

“Mother.” Tommen tugged her sleeve. “What smells so bad?” 

My lord father. “Death.” She could smell it too; a faint whisper of decay that made her 
want to wrinkle her nose. Cersei paid it no mind. The seven septons in the silver robes 
stood behind the bier, beseeching the Father Above to judge Lord Tywin justly. When 
they were done, seventy-seven septas gathered before the altar of the Mother and began 
to sing to her for mercy. Tommen was fidgeting by then, and even the queen’s knees had 
begun to ache. She glanced at Jaime. Her twin stood as if he had been carved from stone, 
and would not meet her eyes. 

On the benches, their uncle Kevan knelt with his shoulders slumped, his son beside him. 
Lancel looks worse than Father. Though only seventeen, he might have passed for 
seventy; grey-faced, gaunt, with hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and hair as white and brittle 


as chalk. How can Lancel be among the living when Tywin Lannister is dead? Have the 
gods taken leave of their wits? 

Lord Gyles was coughing more than usual and covering his nose with a square of red 
silk. He can smell it too. Grand Maester Pycelle had his eyes closed. If he has fallen 
asleep, I swear I will have him whipped. To the right of the bier knelt the Tyrells: the 
Lord of Highgarden, his hideous mother and vapid wife, his son Garlan and his daughter 
Margaery. Queen Margaery, she reminded herself; Joff’s widow and Tommen’s wife-tobe. 
Margaery looked very like her brother, the Knight of Flowers. The queen wondered if 
they had other things in common. Our little rose has a good many ladies waiting 
attendance on her, night and day. They were with her now, almost a dozen of them. 
Cersei studied their faces, wondering. Who is the most fearful, the most wanton, the 
hungriest for favor? Who has the loosest tongue? She would need to make a point of 
finding out. 

It was a relief when the singing finally ended. The smell coming off her father’s corpse 
seemed to have grown stronger. Most of the mourners had the decency to pretend that 
nothing was amiss, but Cersei saw two of Lady Margaery’s cousins wrinkling their little 
Tyrell noses. As she and Tommen were walking back down the aisle the queen thought 
she heard someone mutter “privy” and chortle, but when she turned her head to see who 
had spoken a sea of solemn faces gazed at her blankly. They would never have dared 
make japes about him when he was still alive. He would have turned their bowels to 
water with a look. 

Back out in the Hall of Lamps, the mourners buzzed about them thick as flies, eager to 
shower her with useless condolences. The Redwyne twins both kissed her hand, their 
father her cheeks. Hallyne the Pyromancer promised her that a flaming hand would burn 
in the sky above the city on the day her father’s bones went west. Between coughs, Lord 
Gyles told her that he had hired a master stonecarver to make a statue of Lord Tywin, to 
stand eternal vigil beside the Lion Gate. Ser Lambert Turnberry appeared with a patch 
over his right eye, swearing that he would wear it until he could bring her the head of her 
dwarf brother. 

No sooner had the queen escaped the clutches of that fool than she found herself cornered 
by Lady Falyse of Stokeworth and her husband, Ser Balman Byrch. “My lady mother 
sends her regrets, Your Grace,” Falyse burbled at her. “Lollys has been taken to bed with 
the child and she felt the need to stay with her. She begs that you forgive her, and said I 
should ask you . . . my mother admired your late father above all other men. Should my 
sister have a little boy, it is her wish that we might name him Tywin, if . . . if it please 
you.” 

Cersei stared at her, aghast. “Your lackwit sister gets herself raped by half of King’s 
Landing, and Tanda thinks to honor the bastard with my lord father’s name? I think not.” 


Falyse flinched back as if she’d been slapped, but her husband only stroked his thick 
blond mustache with a thumb. “I told Lady Tanda as much. We shall find a more, ah . . . 
a more fitting name for Lollys’s bastard, you have my word.” 

“See that you do.” Cersei showed them a shoulder and moved away. Tommen had fallen 
into the clutches of Margaery Tyrell and her grandmother, she saw. The Queen of Thorns 
was so short that for an instant Cersei took her for another child. Before she could rescue 
her son from the roses, the press brought her face-to-face with her uncle. When the queen 
reminded him of their meeting later, Ser Kevan gave a weary nod and begged leave to 
withdraw. But Lancel lingered, the very picture of a man with one foot in the grave. But 
is he climbing in or climbing out? 

Cersei forced herself to smile. “Lancel, I am happy to see you looking so much stronger. 
Maester Ballabar brought us such dire reports, we feared for your life. But I would have 
thought you on your way to Darry by now, to take up your lordship.” Her father had 
made Lancel a lord after the Battle of the Blackwater, as a sop to his brother Kevan. 

“Not as yet. There are outlaws in my castle.” Her cousin’s voice was as wispy as the 
mustache on his upper lip. Though his hair had gone white, his mustache fuzz remained a 
sandy color. Cersei had often gazed up at it while the boy was inside her, pumping 
dutifully away. It looks like a smudge of dirt on his lip. She used to threaten to scrub it off 
with a little spit. “The riverlands have need of a strong hand, my father says.” 

A pity that they’re getting yours, she wanted to say. Instead she smiled. “And you are to 
be wed as well.” 

A gloomy look passed across the young knight’s ravaged face. “A Frey girl, and not of 
my choosing. She is not even maiden. A widow, of Darry blood. My father says that will 
help me with the peasants, but the peasants are all dead.” He reached for her hand. “It is 
cruel, Cersei. Your Grace knows that I love—” 

“—House Lannister,” she finished for him. “No one can doubt that, Lancel. May your 
wife give you strong sons.” Best not let her lord grandfather host the wedding, though. “I 
know you will do many noble deeds in Darry.” 

Lancel nodded, plainly miserable. “When it seemed that I might die, my father brought 
the High Septon to pray for me. He is a good man.” Her cousin’s eyes were wet and 
shiny, a child’s eyes in an old man’s face. “He says the Mother spared me for some holy 
purpose, so I might atone for my sins.” 

Cersei wondered how he intended to atone for her. Knighting him was a mistake, and 
bedding him a bigger one. Lancel was a weak reed, and she liked his newfound piety not 
at all; he had been much more amusing when he was trying to be Jaime. What has this 
mewling fool told the High Septon? And what will he tell his little Frey when they lie 
together in the dark? If he confessed to bedding Cersei, well, she could weather that. 
Men were always lying about women; she would put it down as the braggadocio of a 


callow boy smitten by her beauty. If he sings of Robert and the strongwine, though . . . 
“Atonement is best achieved through prayer,” Cersei told him. “Silent prayer.” She left 
him to think about that and girded herself to face the Tyrell host. 

Margaery embraced her like a sister, which the queen found presumptuous, but this was 
not the place to reproach her. Lady Alerie and the cousins contented themselves with 
kissing fingers. Lady Graceford, who was large with child, asked the queen’s leave to 
name it Tywin if it were a boy, or Lanna if it were a girl. Another one? she almost 
groaned. The realm will drown in Tywins. She gave consent as graciously as she could, 
feigning delight. 

It was Lady Merryweather who truly pleased her. “Your Grace,” that one said, in her 
sultry Myrish tones, “I have sent word to my friends across the narrow sea, asking them 
to seize the Imp at once should he show his ugly face in the Free Cities.” 

“Do you have many friends across the water?” 

“In Myr, many. In Lys as well, and Tyrosh. Men of power.” 

Cersei could well believe it. The Myrish woman was too beautiful by half; long-legged 
and full-breasted, with smooth olive skin, ripe lips, huge dark eyes, and thick black hair 
that always looked as if she’d just come from bed. She even smells of sin, like some exotic 
lotus. “Lord Merryweather and I wish only to serve Your Grace and the little king,” the 
woman purred, with a look that was as pregnant as Lady Graceford. 

This one is ambitious, and her lord is proud but poor. “We must speak again, my lady. 
Taena, is it? You are most kind. I know that we shall be great friends.” 

Then the Lord of Highgarden descended on her. 

Mace Tyrell was no more than ten years older than Cersei, yet she thought of him as her 
father’s age, not her own. He was not quite so tall as Lord Tywin had been, but elsewise 
he was bigger, with a thick chest and a gut grown even thicker. His hair was chestnut-
colored, but there were specks of white and grey in his beard. His face was often red. 
“Lord Tywin was a great man, an extraordinary man,” he declared ponderously after he 
had kissed both her cheeks. “We shall never see his like again, I fear.” 

You are looking at his like, fool, Cersei thought. It is his daughter standing here before 
you. But she needed Tyrell and the strength of Highgarden to keep Tommen on his 
throne, so all she said was, “He will be greatly missed.” 

Tyrell put a hand upon her shoulder. “No man alive is fit to don Lord Tywin’s armor, that 
is plain. Still, the realm goes on, and must be ruled. If there is aught that I might do to 
serve in this dark hour, Your Grace need only ask.” 


If you want to be the King’s Hand, my lord, have the courage to say it plainly. The queen 
smiled. Let him read into that as much as he likes. “Surely my lord is needed in the 
Reach?” 

“My son Willas is an able lad,” the man replied, refusing to take her perfectly good hint. 
“His leg may be twisted but he has no want of wits. And Garlan will soon take 
Brightwater. Between them the Reach will be in good hands, if it happens that I am 
needed elsewhere. The governance of the realm must come first, Lord Tywin often said. 
And I am pleased to bring Your Grace good tidings in that regard. My uncle Garth has 
agreed to serve as master of coin, as your lord father wished. He is making his way to 
Oldtown to take ship. His sons will accompany him. Lord Tywin mentioned something 
about finding places for the two of them as well. Perhaps in the City Watch.” 

The queen’s smile had frozen so hard she feared her teeth might crack. Garth the Gross 
on the small council and his two bastards in the gold cloaks . . . do the Tyrells think I will 
just serve the realm up to them on a gilded platter? The arrogance of it took her breath 
away. 

“Garth has served me well as Lord Seneschal, as he served my father before me,” Tyrell 
was going on. “Littlefinger had a nose for gold, I grant you, but Garth—” 

“My lord,” Cersei broke in, “I fear there has been some misunderstanding. I have asked 
Lord Gyles Rosby to serve as our new master of coin, and he has done me the honor of 
accepting.” 

Mace gaped at her. “Rosby? That . . . cougher? But . . . the matter was agreed, Your 
Grace. Garth is on his way to Oldtown.” 

“Best send a raven to Lord Hightower and ask him to make certain your uncle does not 
take ship. We would hate for Garth to brave an autumn sea for nought.” She smiled 
pleasantly. 

A flush crept up Tyrell’s thick neck. “This . . . your lord father assured me . . .” He began 
to sputter. 

Then his mother appeared and slid her arm through his own. “It would seem that Lord 
Tywin did not share his plans with our regent, I can’t imagine why. Still, there ’tis, no use 
hectoring Her Grace. She is quite right, you must write Lord Leyton before Garth boards 
a ship. You know the sea will sicken him and make his farting worse.” Lady Olenna gave 
Cersei a toothless smile. “Your council chambers will smell sweeter with Lord Gyles, 
though I daresay that coughing would drive me to distraction. We all adore dear old uncle 
Garth, but the man is flatulent, that cannot be gainsaid. I do abhor foul smells.” Her 
wrinkled face wrinkled up even more. “I caught a whiff of something unpleasant in the 
holy sept, in truth. Mayhaps you smelled it too?” 

“No,” Cersei said coldly. “A scent, you say?” 


“More like a stink.” 

“Perhaps you miss your autumn roses. We have kept you here too long.” The sooner she 
rid the court of Lady Olenna the better. Lord Tyrell would doubtless dispatch a goodly 
number of knights to see his mother safely home, and the fewer Tyrell swords in the city, 
the more soundly the queen would sleep. 

“I do long for the fragrances of Highgarden, I confess it,” said the old lady, “but of course 
I cannot leave until I have seen my sweet Margaery wed to your precious little Tommen.” 

“I await that day eagerly as well,” Tyrell put in. “Lord Tywin and I were on the point of 
setting a date, as it happens. Perhaps you and I might take up that discussion, Your 
Grace.” 

“Soon.” 

“Soon will serve,” said Lady Olenna with a sniff. “Now come along, Mace, let Her Grace 
get on with her . . . grief.” 

I will see you dead, old woman, Cersei promised herself as the Queen of Thorns tottered 
off between her towering guardsmen, a pair of seven-footers that it amused her to call 
Left and Right. We’ll see how sweet a corpse you make. The old woman was twice as 
clever as her lord son, that was plain. 

The queen rescued her son from Margaery and her cousins, and made for the doors. 
Outside, the rain had finally stopped. The autumn air smelled sweet and fresh. Tommen 
took his crown off. “Put that back on,” Cersei commanded him. 

“It makes my neck hurt,” the boy said, but he did as he was bid. “Will I be married soon? 
Margaery says that as soon as we’re wed we can go to Highgarden.” 

“You are not going to Highgarden, but you can ride back to the castle.” Cersei beckoned 
to Ser Meryn Trant. “Bring His Grace a mount, and ask Lord Gyles if he would do me the 
honor of sharing my litter.” Things were moving more quickly than she had anticipated; 
there was no time to be squandered. 

Tommen was happy at the prospect of a ride, and of course Lord Gyles was honored by 
her invitation . . . though when she asked him to be her master of coin, he began coughing 
so violently that she feared he might die right then and there. But the Mother was 
merciful, and Gyles eventually recovered sufficiently to accept, and even began coughing 
out the names of men he wanted to replace, customs officers and wool factors appointed 
by Littlefinger, even one of the keepers of the keys. 

“Name the cow what you will, so long as the milk flows. And should the question arise, 
you joined the council yesterday.” 


“Yester—” A fit of coughing bent him over. “Yesterday. To be sure.” Lord Gyles 
coughed into a square of red silk, as if to hide the blood in his spittle. Cersei pretended 
not to notice. 

When he dies I will find someone else. Perhaps she would recall Littlefinger. The queen 
could not imagine that Petyr Baelish would be allowed to remain Lord Protector of the 
Vale for very long, with Lysa Arryn dead. The Vale lords were already stirring, if what 
Pycelle said was true. Once they take that wretched boy away from him, Lord Petyr will 
come crawling back. 

“Your Grace?” Lord Gyles coughed, and dabbed his mouth. “Might I . . .” He coughed 
again. “. . . ask who . . .” Another series of coughs racked him. “. . . who will be the 
King’s Hand?” 

“My uncle,” she replied absently. 

It was a relief to see the gates of the Red Keep looming large before her. She gave 
Tommen over to the charge of his squires and retired gratefully to her own chambers to 
rest. 

No sooner had she eased off her shoes than Jocelyn entered timidly to say that Qyburn 
was without and craved audience. “Send him in,” the queen commanded. A ruler gets no 
rest. 

Qyburn was old, but his hair still had more ash than snow in it, and the laugh lines around 
his mouth made him look like some little girl’s favorite grandfather. A rather shabby 
grandfather, though. The collar of his robe was frayed, and one sleeve had been torn and 
badly sewn. “I must beg Your Grace’s pardon for my appearance,” he said. “I have been 
down in the dungeons making inquiries into the Imp’s escape, as you commanded.” 

“And what have you discovered?” 

“The night that Lord Varys and your brother disappeared, a third man also vanished.” 

“Yes, the gaoler. What of him?” 

“Rugen was the man’s name. An undergaoler who had charge of the black cells. The 
chief undergaoler describes him as portly, unshaven, gruff of speech. He held his 
appointment of the old king, Aerys, and came and went as he pleased. The black cells 
have not oft been occupied in recent years. The other turnkeys were afraid of him, it 
seems, but none knew much about him. He had no friends, no kin. Nor did he drink or 
frequent brothels. His sleeping cell was damp and dreary, and the straw he slept upon was 
mildewed. His chamber pot was overflowing.” 

“I know all this.” Jaime had examined Rugen’s cell, and Ser Addam’s gold cloaks had 
examined it again. 


“Aye, Your Grace,” said Qyburn, “but did you know that under that stinking chamber pot 
was a loose stone, which opened on a small hollow? The sort of place where a man might 
hide valuables that he did not wish to be discovered?” 

“Valuables?” This was new. “Coin, you mean?” She had suspected all along that Tyrion 
had somehow bought this gaoler. 

“Beyond a doubt. To be sure, the hole was empty when I found it. No doubt Rugen took 
his ill-gotten treasure with him when he fled. But as I crouched over the hole with my 
torch, I saw something glitter, so I scratched in the dirt until I dug it out.” Qyburn opened 
his palm. “A gold coin.” 

Gold, yes, but the moment Cersei took it she could tell that it was wrong. Too small, she 
thought, too thin. The coin was old and worn. On one side was a king’s face in profile, on 
the other side the imprint of a hand. “This is no dragon,” she said. 

“No,” Qyburn agreed. “It dates from before the Conquest, Your Grace. The king is Garth 
the Twelfth, and the hand is the sigil of House Gardener.” 

Of Highgarden. Cersei closed her hand around the coin. What treachery is this? Mace 
Tyrell had been one of Tyrion’s judges, and had called loudly for his death. Was that 
some ploy? Could he have been plotting with the Imp all the while, conspiring at Father’s 
death? With Tywin Lannister in his grave, Lord Tyrell was an obvious choice to be 
King’s Hand, but even so . . . “You will not speak of this with anyone,” she commanded. 

“Your Grace may trust in my discretion. Any man who rides with a sellsword company 
learns to hold his tongue, else he does not keep it long.” 

“In my company as well.” The queen put the coin away. She would think about it later. 
“What of the other matter?” 

“Ser Gregor.” Qyburn shrugged. “I have examined him, as you commanded. The poison 
on the Viper’s spear was manticore venom from the east, I would stake my life on that.” 

“Pycelle says no. He told my lord father that manticore venom kills the instant it reaches 
the heart.” 

“And so it does. But this venom has been thickened somehow, so as to draw out the 
Mountain’s dying.” 

“Thickened? Thickened how? With some other substance?” 

“It may be as Your Grace suggests, though in most cases adulterating a poison only 
lessens its potency. It may be that the cause is . . . less natural, let us say. A spell, I 
think.” 


Is this one as big a fool as Pycelle? “So are you telling me that the Mountain is dying of 
some black sorcery?” 

Qyburn ignored the mockery in her voice. “He is dying of the venom, but slowly, and in 
exquisite agony. My efforts to ease his pain have proved as fruitless as Pycelle’s. Ser 
Gregor is overly accustomed to the poppy, I fear. His squire tells me that he is plagued by 
blinding headaches and oft quaffs the milk of the poppy as lesser men quaff ale. Be that 
as it may, his veins have turned black from head to heel, his water is clouded with pus, 
and the venom has eaten a hole in his side as large as my fist. It is a wonder that the man 
is still alive, if truth be told.” 

“His size,” the queen suggested, frowning. “Gregor is a very large man. Also a very 
stupid one. Too stupid to know when he should die, it seems.” She held out her cup, and 
Senelle filled it once again. “His screaming frightens Tommen. It has even been known to 
wake me of a night. I would say it is past time we summoned Ilyn Payne.” 

“Your Grace,” said Qyburn, “mayhaps I might move Ser Gregor to the dungeons? His 
screams will not disturb you there, and I will be able to tend to him more freely.” 

“Tend to him?” She laughed. “Let Ser Ilyn tend to him.” 

“If that is Your Grace’s wish,” Qyburn said, “but this poison . . . it would be useful to 
know more about it, would it not? Send a knight to slay a knight and an archer to kill an 
archer, the smallfolk often say. To combat the black arts . . .” He did not finish the 
thought, but only smiled at her. 

He is not Pycelle, that much is plain. The queen weighed him, wondering. “Why did the 
Citadel take your chain?” 

“The archmaesters are all craven at heart. The grey sheep, Marwyn calls them. I was as 
skilled a healer as Ebrose, but aspired to surpass him. For hundreds of years the men of 
the Citadel have opened the bodies of the dead, to study the nature of life. I wished to 
understand the nature of death, so I opened the bodies of the living. For that crime the 
grey sheep shamed me and forced me into exile . . . but I understand the nature of life and 
death better than any man in Oldtown.” 

“Do you?” That intrigued her. “Very well. The Mountain is yours. Do what you will with 
him, but confine your studies to the black cells. When he dies, bring me his head. My 
father promised it to Dorne. Prince Doran would no doubt prefer to kill Gregor himself, 
but we all must suffer disappointments in this life.” 

“Very good, Your Grace.” Qyburn cleared his throat. “I am not so well provided as 
Pycelle, however. I must needs equip myself with certain . . .” 

“I shall instruct Lord Gyles to provide you with gold sufficient for your needs. Buy 
yourself some new robes as well. You look as though you’ve wandered up from Flea 


Bottom.” She studied his eyes, wondering how far she dared trust this one. “Need I say 
that it will go ill for you if any word of your . . . labors . . . should pass beyond these 
walls?” 

“No, Your Grace.” Qyburn gave her a reassuring smile. “Your secrets are safe with me.” 

When he was gone, Cersei poured herself a cup of strongwine and drank it by the 
window, watching the shadows lengthen across the yard and thinking about the coin. 

Gold from the Reach. Why would an undergaoler in King’s Landing have gold from the 
Reach, unless he were paid to help bring about Father’s death? 

Try as she might, she could not seem to bring Lord Tywin’s face to mind without seeing 
that silly little half smile and remembering the foul smell coming off his corpse. She 
wondered whether Tyrion was somehow behind that as well. It is small and cruel, like 
him. Could Tyrion have made Pycelle his catspaw? He sent the old man to the black cells, 
and this Rugen had charge of those cells, she remembered. All the strings were tangled 
up together in ways she did not like. This High Septon is Tyrion’s creature too, Cersei 
recalled suddenly, and Father’s poor body was in his care from dark till dawn. 

Her uncle arrived promptly at sunset, wearing a quilted doublet of charcoal-colored wool 
as somber as his face. Like all the Lannisters, Ser Kevan was fair-skinned and blond, 
though at five-and-fifty he had lost most of his hair. No one would ever call him comely. 
Thick of waist, round of shoulder, with a square jutting chin that his close-cropped 
yellow beard did little to conceal, he reminded her of some old mastiff . . . but a faithful 
old mastiff was the very thing that she required. 

They ate a simple supper of beets and bread and bloody beef with a flagon of Dornish red 
to wash it all down. Ser Kevan said little and scarce touched his wine cup. He broods too 
much, she decided. He needs to be put to work to get beyond his grief. 

She said as much, when the last of the food had been cleared away and the servants had 
departed. “I know how much my father relied on you, Uncle. Now I must do the same.” 

“You need a Hand,” he said, “and Jaime has refused you.” 

He is blunt. Very well. “Jaime . . . I felt so lost with Father dead, I scarce knew what I 
was saying. Jaime is gallant, but a bit of a fool, let us be frank. Tommen needs a more 
seasoned man. Someone older . . .” 

“Mace Tyrell is older.” 

Her nostrils flared. “Never.” Cersei pushed a lock of hair off her brow. “The Tyrells 
overreach themselves.” 

“You would be a fool to make Mace Tyrell your Hand,” Ser Kevan admitted, “but a 
bigger fool to make him your foe. I’ve heard what happened in the Hall of Lamps. Mace 


should have known better than to broach such matters in public, but even so, you were 
unwise to shame him in front of half the court.” 

“Better that than suffer another Tyrell on the council.” His reproach annoyed her. “Rosby 
will make an adequate master of coin. You’ve seen that litter of his, with its carvings and 
silk draperies. His horses are better dressed than most knights. A man that rich should 
have no problem finding gold. As for Handship . . . who better to finish my father’s work 
than the brother who shared all his counsels?” 

“Every man needs someone he can trust. Tywin had me, and once your mother.” 

“He loved her very much.” Cersei refused to think about the dead whore in his bed. “I 
know they are together now.” 

“So I pray.” Ser Kevan studied her face for a long moment before he replied. “You ask 
much of me, Cersei.” 

“No more than my father did.” 

“I am tired.” Her uncle reached for his wine cup and took a swallow. “I have a wife I 
have not seen in two years, a dead son to mourn, another son about to marry and assume 
a lordship. Castle Darry must be made strong again, its lands protected, its burned fields 
plowed and planted anew. Lancel needs my help.” 

“As does Tommen.” Cersei had not expected Kevan to require coaxing. He never played 
coy with Father. “The realm needs you.” 

“The realm. Aye. And House Lannister.” He sipped his wine again. “Very well. I will 
remain and serve His Grace . . .” 

“Very good,” she started to say, but Ser Kevan raised his voice and bulled right over her. 

“. . . so long as you name me regent as well as Hand and take yourself back to Casterly 
Rock.” 

For half a heartbeat Cersei could only stare at him. “I am the regent,” she reminded him. 

“You were. Tywin did not intend that you continue in that role. He told me of his plans to 
send you back to the Rock and find a new husband for you.” 

Cersei could feel her anger rising. “He spoke of such, yes. And I told him it was not my 
wish to wed again.” 

Her uncle was unmoved. “If you are resolved against another marriage, I will not force it 
on you. As to the other, though . . . you are the Lady of Casterly Rock now. Your place is 
there.” 


How dare you? she wanted to scream. Instead, she said, “I am also the Queen Regent. My 
place is with my son.” 
“Your father thought not.” 


“My father is dead.” 
“To my grief, and the woe of all the realm. Open your eyes and look about you, Cersei. 
The kingdom is in ruins. Tywin might have been able to set matters aright, but . . .” 


“I shall set matters aright!” Cersei softened her tone. “With your help, Uncle. If you will 
serve me as faithfully as you served my father—” 

“You are not your father. And Tywin always regarded Jaime as his rightful heir.” 
“Jaime . . . Jaime has taken vows. Jaime never thinks, he laughs at everything and 
everyone and says whatever comes into his head. Jaime is a handsome fool.” 

“And yet he was your first choice to be the King’s Hand. What does that make you, 
Cersei?” 

“I told you, I was sick with grief, I did not think—” 
“No,” Ser Kevan agreed. “Which is why you should return to Casterly Rock and leave 
the king with those who do.” 


“The king is my son!” Cersei rose to her feet. 


“Aye,” her uncle said, “and from what I saw of Joffrey, you are as unfit a mother as you 
are a ruler.” 
She threw the contents of her wine cup full in his face. 
Ser Kevan rose with a ponderous dignity. “Your Grace.” Wine trickled down his cheeks 


and dripped from his close-cropped beard. “With your leave, might I withdraw?” 


“By what right do you presume to give me terms? You are no more than one of my 
father’s household knights.” 
“I hold no lands, that is true. But I have certain incomes, and chests of coin set aside. My 


own father forgot none of his children when he died, and Tywin knew how to reward 
good service. I feed two hundred knights and can double that number if need be. There 
are freeriders who will follow my banner, and I have the gold to hire sellswords. You 
would be wise not to take me lightly, Your Grace . . . and wiser still not to make of me a 
foe.” 


“Are you threatening me?” 

“I am counseling you. If you will not yield the regency to me, name me your castellan for 
Casterly Rock and make either Mathis Rowan or Randyll Tarly the Hand of the King.” 

Tyrell bannermen, both of them. The suggestion left her speechless. Is he bought? she 
wondered. Has he taken Tyrell gold to betray House Lannister? 

“Mathis Rowan is sensible, prudent, well liked,” her uncle went on, oblivious. “Randyll 
Tarly is the finest soldier in the realm. A poor Hand for peacetime, but with Tywin dead 
there’s no better man to finish this war. Lord Tyrell cannot take offense if you choose one 
of his own bannermen as Hand. Both Tarly and Rowan are able men . . . and loyal. Name 
either one, and you make him yours. You strengthen yourself and weaken Highgarden, 
yet Mace will likely thank you for it.” He gave a shrug. “That is my counsel, take it or no. 
You may make Moon Boy your Hand for all I care. My brother is dead, woman. I am 
going to take him home.” 

Traitor, she thought. Turncloak. She wondered how much Mace Tyrell had given him. 
“You would abandon your king when he needs you most,” she told him. “You would 
abandon Tommen.” 

“Tommen has his mother.” Ser Kevan’s green eyes met her own, unblinking. A last drop 
of wine trembled wet and red beneath his chin, and finally fell. “Aye,” he added softly, 
after a pause, “and his father too, I think.” 


JAIME 

Ser Jaime Lannister, all in white, stood beside his father’s bier, five fingers curled about 
the hilt of a golden greatsword. 

At dusk, the interior of the Great Sept of Baelor turned dim and eerie. The last light of 
day slanted down through the high windows, washing the towering likenesses of the 
Seven in a red gloom. Around their altars, scented candles flickered whilst deep shadows 
gathered in the transepts and crept silently across the marble floors. The echoes of the 
evensongs died away as the last mourners were departing. 

Balon Swann and Loras Tyrell remained when the rest had gone. “No man can stand a 
vigil for seven days and seven nights,” Ser Balon said. “When did you last sleep, my 
lord?” 


“When my lord father was alive,” said Jaime. 

“Allow me to stand tonight in your stead,” Ser Loras offered. 

“He was not your father.” You did not kill him. I did. Tyrion may have loosed the 
crossbow bolt that slew him, but I loosed Tyrion. “Leave me.” 

“As my lord commands,” said Swann. Ser Loras looked as if he might have argued 
further, but Ser Balon took his arm and drew him off. Jaime listened to the echoes of their 
footfalls die away. And then he was alone again with his lord father, amongst the candles 
and the crystals and the sickly sweet smell of death. His back ached from the weight of 
his armor, and his legs felt almost numb. He shifted his stance a bit and tightened his 
fingers around the golden greatsword. He could not wield a sword, but he could hold one. 
His missing hand was throbbing. That was almost funny. He had more feeling in the hand 
he’d lost than in the rest of the body that remained to him. 

My hand is hungry for a sword. I need to kill someone. Varys, for a start, but first I’d 
need to find the rock he’s hiding under. “I commanded the eunuch to take him to a ship, 
not to your bedchamber,” he told the corpse. “The blood is on his hands as much as . . . as 
Tyrion’s.” The blood is on his hands as much as mine, he meant to say, but the words 
stuck in his throat. Whatever Varys did, I made him do. 

He had waited in the eunuch’s chambers that night, when at last he had decided not to let 
his little brother die. As he waited, he had sharpened his dagger with one hand, taking a 
queer comfort from the scrape-scrape-scrape of steel on stone. At the sound of footsteps 
he stood beside the door. Varys entered in a wash of powder and lavender. Jaime stepped 
out behind him, kicked him in the back of the knee, knelt on his chest, and shoved the 
knife up under his soft white chin, forcing his head up. “Why, Lord Varys,” he’d said 
pleasantly, “fancy meeting you here.” 

“Ser Jaime?” Varys panted. “You frightened me.” 

“I meant to.” When he twisted the dagger, a trickle of blood ran down the blade. “I was 
thinking you might help me pluck my brother from his cell before Ser Ilyn lops his head 
off. It is an ugly head, I grant you, but he only has the one.” 

“Yes . . . well . . . if you would . . . remove the blade . . . yes, gently, as it please my lord, 
gently, oh, I’m pricked . . .” The eunuch touched his neck and gaped at the blood on his 
fingers. “I have always abhorred the sight of my own blood.” 

“You’ll have more to abhor shortly, unless you help me.” 

Varys struggled to a sitting position. “Your brother . . . if the Imp should vanish 
unaccountably from his cell, q-questions would be asked. I would f-fear for my life . . .” 


“Your life is mine. I do not care what secrets you know. If Tyrion dies, you will not long 
outlive him, I promise you.” 

“Ah.” The eunuch sucked the blood off his fingers. “You ask a dreadful thing . . . to loose 
the Imp who slew our lovely king. Or is it that you believe him innocent?” 

“Innocent or guilty,” Jaime had said, like the fool he was, “a Lannister pays his debts.” 
The words had come so easy. 

He had not slept since. He could see his brother now, the way the dwarf had grinned 
beneath the stub of his nose as the torchlight licked his face. “You poor stupid blind 
crippled fool,” he’d snarled, in a voice thick with malice. “Cersei is a lying whore, she’s 
been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and probably Moon Boy for all I know. 
And I am the monster they all say I am. Yes, I killed your vile son.” 

He never said he meant to kill our father. If he had, I would have stopped him. Then I 
would be the kinslayer, not him. 

Jaime wondered where Varys was hiding. Wisely, the master of whisperers had not 
returned to his own chambers, nor had a search of the Red Keep turned him up. It might 
be that the eunuch had taken ship with Tyrion, rather than remain to answer awkward 
questions. If so, the two of them were well out to sea by now, sharing a flagon of Arbor 
gold in the cabin of a galley. 

Unless my brother murdered Varys too, and left his corpse to rot beneath the castle. 

Down there, it might be years before his bones were found. Jaime had led a dozen guards 
below, with torches and ropes and lanterns. For hours they had groped through twisting 
passages, narrow crawl spaces, hidden doors, secret steps, and shafts that plunged down 
into utter blackness. Seldom had he felt so utterly a cripple. A man takes much for 
granted when he has two hands. Ladders, for an instance. Even crawling did not come 
easy; not for nought do they speak of hands and knees. Nor could he hold a torch and 
climb, as others could. 

And all for naught. They found only darkness, dust, and rats. And dragons, lurking down 
below. He remembered the sullen orange glow of the coals in the iron dragon’s mouth. 
The brazier warmed a chamber at the bottom of a shaft where half a dozen tunnels met. 
On the floor he’d found a scuffed mosaic of the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen 
done in tiles of black and red. I know you, Kingslayer, the beast seemed to be saying. I 
have been here all the time, waiting for you to come to me. And it seemed to Jaime that 
he knew that voice, the iron tones that had once belonged to Rhaegar, Prince of 
Dragonstone. 

The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. 
The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in 
rubies on his breastplate. “Your Grace,” Jaime had pleaded, “let Darry stay to guard the 
king this once, or Ser Barristan. Their cloaks are as white as mine.” 


Prince Rhaegar shook his head. “My royal sire fears your father more than he does our 
cousin Robert. He wants you close, so Lord Tywin cannot harm him. I dare not take that 
crutch away from him at such an hour.” 

Jaime’s anger had risen up in his throat. “I am not a crutch. I am a knight of the 
Kingsguard.” 

“Then guard the king,” Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. “When you donned that cloak, you 
promised to obey.” 

Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime’s shoulder. “When this battle’s done I mean to call a 
council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to 
speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return.” 

Those were the last words Rhaegar Targaryen ever spoke to him. Outside the gates an 
army had assembled, whilst another descended on the Trident. So the Prince of 
Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom. 

He was more right than he knew. When the battle was done, there were changes made. 

“Aerys thought no harm could come to him if he kept me near,” he told his father’s 
corpse. “Isn’t that amusing?” Lord Tywin seemed to think so; his smile was wider than 
before. He seems to enjoy being dead. 

It was queer, but he felt no grief. Where are my tears? Where is my rage? Jaime 
Lannister had never lacked for rage. “Father,” he told the corpse, “it was you who told 
me that tears were a mark of weakness in a man, so you cannot expect that I should cry 
for you.” 

A thousand lords and ladies had come that morning to file past the bier, and several 
thousand smallfolk after noon. They wore somber clothes and solemn faces, but Jaime 
suspected that many and more were secretly delighted to see the great man brought low. 
Even in the west, Lord Tywin had been more respected than beloved, and King’s Landing 
still remembered the Sack. 

Of all the mourners, Grand Maester Pycelle had seemed the most distraught. “I have 
served six kings,” he told Jaime after the second service, whilst sniffing doubtfully about 
the corpse, “but here before us lies the greatest man I ever knew. Lord Tywin wore no 
crown, yet he was all a king should be.” 

Without his beard, Pycelle looked not only old, but feeble. Shaving him was the cruelest 
thing Tyrion could have done, thought Jaime, who knew what it was to lose a part of 
yourself, the part that made you who you were. Pycelle’s beard had been magnificent, 
white as snow and soft as lambswool, a luxuriant growth that covered cheeks and chin 
and flowed down almost to his belt. The Grand Maester had been wont to stroke it when 
he pontificated. It had given him an air of wisdom, and concealed all manner of unsavory 
things: the loose skin dangling beneath the old man’s jaw, the small querulous mouth and 


missing teeth, warts and wrinkles and age spots too numerous to count. Though Pycelle 
was trying to regrow what he had lost, he was failing. Only wisps and tufts sprouted from 
his wrinkled cheeks and weak chin, so thin that Jaime could see the splotchy pink skin 
beneath. 

“Ser Jaime, I have seen terrible things in my time,” the old man said. “Wars, battles, 
murders most foul . . . I was a boy in Oldtown when the grey plague took half the city 
and three-quarters of the Citadel. Lord Hightower burned every ship in port, closed the 
gates, and commanded his guards to slay all those who tried to flee, be they men, women, 
or babes in arms. They killed him when the plague had run its course. On the very day he 
reopened the port, they dragged him from his horse and slit his throat, and his young 
son’s as well. To this day the ignorant in Oldtown will spit at the sound of his name, but 
Quenton Hightower did what was needed. Your father was that sort of man as well. A 
man who did what was needed.” 

“Is that why he looks so pleased with himself?” 

The vapors rising from the corpse were making Pycelle’s eyes water. “The flesh . . . as 
the flesh dries, the muscles grow taut and pull his lips upward. That is no smile, only a . . 
. a drying, that is all.” He blinked back tears. “You must excuse me. I am so very tired.” 
Leaning heavily on his cane, Pycelle tottered slowly from the sept. That one is dying too, 
Jaime realized. Small wonder Cersei called him useless. 

To be sure, his sweet sister seemed to think half the court was either useless or 
treasonous; Pycelle, the Kingsguard, the Tyrells, Jaime himself . . . even Ser Ilyn Payne, 
the silent knight who served as headsman. As King’s Justice, the dungeons were his 
responsibility. Since he lacked a tongue, Payne had largely left the running of those 
dungeons to his underlings, but Cersei held him to blame for Tyrion’s escape all the 
same. It was my work, not his, Jaime almost told her. Instead he had promised to find 
what answers he could from the chief undergaoler, a bentback old man named Rennifer 
Longwaters. 

“I see you wonder, what sort of name is that?” the man had cackled when Jaime went to 
question him. “It is an old name, ’tis true. I am not one to boast, but there is royal blood 
in my veins. I am descended from a princess. My father told me the tale when I was a tad 
of a lad.” Longwaters had not been a tad of a lad for many a year, to judge from his 
spotted head and the white hairs growing from his chin. “She was the fairest treasure of 
the Maidenvault. Lord Oakenfist the great admiral lost his heart to her, though he was 
married to another. She gave their son the bastard name of ‘Waters’ in honor of his 
father, and he grew to be a great knight, as did his own son, who put the ‘Long’ before 
the ‘Waters’ so men might know that he was not basely born himself. So I have a little 
dragon in me.” 

“Yes, I almost mistook you for Aegon the Conqueror,” Jaime had answered. “Waters” 
was a common bastard name about Blackwater Bay; old Longwaters was more like to be 


descended from some minor household knight than from a princess. “As it matters, 
though, I have more pressing concerns than your lineage.” 

Longwaters inclined his head. “The lost prisoner.” 

“And the missing gaoler.” 

“Rugen,” the old man supplied. “An undergaoler. He had charge of the third level, the 
black cells.” 

“Tell me of him,” Jaime had to say. A bloody farce. He knew who Rugen was, even if 
Longwaters did not. 

“Unkempt, unshaven, coarse of speech. I misliked the man, ’tis true, I do confess it. 
Rugen was here when I first came, twelve years past. He held his appointment from King 
Aerys. The man was seldom here, it must be said. I made note of it in my reports, my 
lord. I most suredly did, I give you my word upon it, the word of a man with royal 
blood.” 

Mention that royal blood once more and I may spill some of it, thought Jaime. “Who saw 
these reports?” 

“Certain of them went to the master of coin, others to the master of whisperers. All to the 
chief gaoler and the King’s Justice. It has always been so in the dungeons.” Longwaters 
scratched his nose. “Rugen was here when need be, my lord. That must be said. The 
black cells are little used. Before your lordship’s little brother was sent down, we had 
Grand Maester Pycelle for a time, and before him Lord Stark the traitor. There were three 
others, common men, but Lord Stark gave them to the Night’s Watch. I did not think it 
good to free those three, but the papers were in proper order. I made note of that in a 
report as well, you may be certain of it.” 

“Tell me of the two gaolers who went to sleep.” 

“Gaolers?” Longwaters sniffed. “Those were no gaolers. They were merely turnkeys. The 
crown pays wages for twenty turnkeys, my lord, a full score, but during my time we have 
never had more than twelve. We are supposed to have six undergaolers as well, two on 
each level, but there are only the three.” 

“You and two others?” 

Longwaters sniffed again. “I am the chief undergaoler, my lord. I am above the 
undergaolers. I am charged with keeping the counts. If my lord would like to look over 
my books, he will see that all the figures are exact.” Longwaters had consulted the great 
leather-bound book spread out before him. “At present, we have four prisoners on the 
first level and one on the second, in addition to your lordship’s brother.” The old man 


frowned. “Who is fled, to be sure. ’Tis true. I will strike him out.” He took up a quill and 
began to sharpen it. 

Six prisoners, Jaime thought sourly, while we pay wages for twenty turnkeys, six 
undergaolers, a chief undergaoler, a gaoler, and a King’s Justice. “I want to question 
these two turnkeys.” 

Rennifer Longwaters let up sharpening his quill and peered doubtfully up at Jaime. 
“Question them, my lord?” 

“You heard me.” 

“I did, my lord, I suredly did, and yet . . . my lord may question who he pleases, ’tis true, 
it is not my place to say that he may not. But, ser, if I may be so bold, I do not think them 
like to answer. They are dead, my lord.” 

“Dead? By whose command?” 

“Your own, I thought, or . . . the king’s, mayhaps? I did not ask. It . . . it is not my place 
to question the Kingsguard.” 

That was salt for his wound; Cersei had used his own men to do her bloody work, them 
and her precious Kettleblacks. 

“You witless fools,” Jaime had snarled at Boros Blount and Osmund Kettleblack later, in 
a dungeon that stank of blood and death. “What did you imagine you were doing?” 

“No more’n we was told, my lord.” Ser Boros was shorter than Jaime, but heavier. “Her 
Grace commanded it. Your sister.” 

Ser Osmund hooked a thumb through his swordbelt. “She said they were to sleep forever. 
So my brothers and me, we saw to it.” 

That you did. One corpse sprawled facedown upon the table, like a man passed out at a 
feast, but it was a puddle of blood beneath his head, not a puddle of wine. The second 
turnkey had managed to push back from the bench and draw his dagger before someone 
shoved a longsword through his ribs. His had been the longer, messier end. I told Varys 
no one was to be harmed in this escape, Jaime thought, but I should have told my brother 
and my sister. “This was ill done, ser.” 

Ser Osmund shrugged. “They won’t be missed. I’ll wager they was part of it, along with 
the one who’s gone missing.” 

No, Jaime could have told him. Varys dosed their wine to make them sleep. “If so, we 
might have coaxed the truth from them.” . . . she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund 
Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know . . . “If I had a suspicious nature I might wonder 


why you were in such haste to make certain these two were never put to the question. Did 
you need to silence them to conceal your own part in this?” 

“Us?” Kettleblack choked on that. “All we done was what the queen commanded. On my 
word as your Sworn Brother.” 

Jaime’s phantom fingers twitched as he said, “Get Osney and Osfryd down here and 
clean up this mess you’ve made. And the next time my sweet sister commands you to kill 
a man, come to me first. Elsewise, stay out of my sight, ser.” 

The words echoed in his head in the dimness of Baelor’s Sept. Above him, all the 
windows had gone black, and he could see the faint light of distant stars. The sun had set 
for good and all. The stench of death was growing stronger, despite the scented candles. 
The smell reminded Jaime Lannister of the pass below the Golden Tooth, where he had 
won a glorious victory in the first days of the war. On the morning after the battle, the 
crows had feasted on victors and vanquished alike, as once they had feasted on Rhaegar 
Targaryen after the Trident. How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine 
upon a king? 

There were crows circling the seven towers and great dome of Baelor’s Sept even now, 
Jaime suspected, their black wings beating against the night air as they searched for a 
way inside. Every crow in the Seven Kingdoms should pay homage to you, Father. From 
Castamere to the Blackwater, you fed them well. That notion pleased Lord Tywin; his 
smile widened further. Bloody hell, he’s grinning like a bridegroom at his bedding. 

That was so grotesque it made Jaime laugh aloud. 

The sound echoed through the transepts and crypts and chapels, as if the dead interred 
within the walls were laughing too. Why not? This is more absurd than a mummer’s 
farce, me standing vigil for a father I helped to slay, sending men forth to capture the 
brother I helped to free . . . He had commanded Ser Addam Marbrand to search the Street 
of Silk. “Look under every bed, you know how fond my brother is of brothels.” The gold 
cloaks would find more of interest beneath the whores’ skirts than beneath their beds. He 
wondered how many bastard children would be born of the pointless search. 

Unbidden, his thoughts went to Brienne of Tarth. Stupid stubborn ugly wench. He 
wondered where she was. Father, give her strength. Almost a prayer . . . but was it the 
god he was invoking, the Father Above whose towering gilded likeness glimmered in the 
candlelight across the sept? Or was he praying to the corpse that lay before him? Does it 
matter? They never listened, either one. The Warrior had been Jaime’s god since he was 
old enough to hold a sword. Other men might be fathers, sons, husbands, but never Jaime 
Lannister, whose sword was as golden as his hair. He was a warrior, and that was all he 
would ever be. 

I should tell Cersei the truth, admit that it was me who freed our little brother from his 
cell. The truth had worked so splendidly with Tyrion, after all. I killed your vile son, and 


now I’m off to kill your father too. Jaime could hear the Imp laughing in the gloom. He 
turned his head to look, but the sound was only his own laughter coming back at him. He 
closed his eyes, and just as quickly snapped them open. I must not sleep. If he slept, he 
might dream. Oh, how Tyrion was sniggering. . . . a lying whore . . . fucking Lancel and 
Osmund Kettleblack . . . 

At midnight the hinges on the Father’s Doors gave a groan as several hundred septons 
filed in for their devotions. Some were clad in the cloth-of-silver vestments and crystal 
coronals that marked the Most Devout; their humbler brethren wore their crystals on 
thongs about their necks and cinched white robes with seven-stranded belts, each plait a 
different color. Through the Mother’s Doors marched white septas from their cloister, 
seven abreast and singing softly, while the silent sisters came single file down the 
Stranger’s Steps. Death’s handmaidens were garbed in soft grey, their faces hooded and 
shawled so only their eyes could be seen. A host of brothers appeared as well, in robes of 
brown and butternut and dun and even undyed roughspun, belted with lengths of hempen 
rope. Some hung the iron hammer of the Smith about their necks, whilst others carried 
begging bowls. 

None of the devout paid Jaime any mind. They made a circuit of the sept, worshiping at 
each of the seven altars to honor the seven aspects of the deity. To each god they made 
sacrifice, to each they sang a hymn. Sweet and solemn rose their voices. Jaime closed his 
eyes to listen, but opened them again when he began to sway. I am more weary than I 
knew. 

It had been years since his last vigil. And I was younger then, a boy of fifteen years. He 
had worn no armor then, only a plain white tunic. The sept where he’d spent the night 
was not a third as large as any of the Great Sept’s seven transepts. Jaime had laid his 
sword across the Warrior’s knees, piled his armor at his feet, and knelt upon the rough 
stone floor before the altar. When dawn came his knees were raw and bloody. “All 
knights must bleed, Jaime,” Ser Arthur Dayne had said, when he saw. “Blood is the seal 
of our devotion.” With dawn he tapped him on the shoulder; the pale blade was so sharp 
that even that light touch cut through Jaime’s tunic, so he bled anew. He never felt it. A 
boy knelt; a knight rose. The Young Lion, not the Kingslayer. 

But that was long ago, and the boy was dead. 

He could not have said when the devotions ended. Perhaps he slept, still standing. When 
the devout had filed out, the Great Sept grew still once more. The candles were a wall of 
stars burning in the darkness, though the air was rank with death. Jaime shifted his grip 
upon the golden greatsword. Perhaps he should have let Ser Loras relieve him after all. 
Cersei would have hated that. The Knight of Flowers was still half a boy, arrogant and 
vain, but he had it in him to be great, to perform deeds worthy of the White Book. 

The White Book would be waiting when this vigil was done, his page open in dumb 
reproach. I’ll hack the bloody book to pieces before I’ll fill it full of lies. Yet if he would 
not lie, what could he write but truth? 


A woman stood before him. 

It is raining again, he thought when he saw how wet she was. The water was trickling 
down her cloak to puddle round her feet. How did she get here? I never heard her enter. 
She was dressed like a tavern wench in a heavy roughspun cloak, badly dyed in mottled 
browns and fraying at the hem. A hood concealed her face, but he could see the candles 
dancing in the green pools of her eyes, and when she moved he knew her. 

“Cersei.” He spoke slowly, like a man waking from a dream, still wondering where he 
was. “What hour is it?” 

“The hour of the wolf.” His sister lowered her hood, and made a face. “The drowned 
wolf, perhaps.” She smiled for him, so sweetly. “Do you remember the first time I came 
to you like this? It was some dismal inn off Weasel Alley, and I put on servant’s garb to 
get past Father’s guards.” 

“I remember. It was Eel Alley.” She wants something of me. “Why are you here, at this 
hour? What would you have of me?” His last word echoed up and down the sept, 
mememememememememememe, fading to a whisper. For a moment he dared to hope that 
all she wanted was the comfort of his arms. 

“Speak softly.” Her voice sounded strange . . . breathless, almost frightened. “Jaime, 
Kevan has refused me. He will not serve as Hand, he . . . he knows about us. He said as 
much.” 

“Refused?” That surprised him. “How could he know? He will have read what Stannis 
wrote, but there is no . . .” 

“Tyrion knew,” she reminded him. “Who can say what tales that vile dwarf may have 
told, or to whom? Uncle Kevan is the least of it. The High Septon . . . Tyrion raised him 
to the crown, when the fat one died. He may know as well.” She moved closer. “You 
must be Tommen’s Hand. I do not trust Mace Tyrell. What if he had a hand in Father’s 
death? He may have been conspiring with Tyrion. The Imp could be on his way to 
Highgarden . . .” 

“He’s not.” 

“Be my Hand,” she pleaded, “and we’ll rule the Seven Kingdoms together, like a king 
and his queen.” 

“You were Robert’s queen. And yet you won’t be mine.” 

“I would, if I dared. But our son—” 

“Tommen is no son of mine, no more than Joffrey was.” His voice was hard. “You made 
them Robert’s too.” 


His sister flinched. “You swore that you would always love me. It is not loving to make 
me beg.” 

Jaime could smell the fear on her, even through the rank stench of the corpse. He wanted 
to take her in his arms and kiss her, to bury his face in her golden curls and promise her 
that no one would ever hurt her . . . not here, he thought, not here in front of the gods, 
and Father. “No,” he said. “I cannot. Will not.” 

“I need you. I need my other half.” He could hear the rain pattering against the windows 
high above. “You are me, I am you. I need you with me. In me. Please, Jaime. Please.” 

Jaime looked to make certain Lord Tywin was not rising from his bier in wrath, but his 
father lay still and cold, rotting. “I was made for a battlefield, not a council chamber. And 
now it may be that I am unfit even for that.” 

Cersei wiped her tears away on a ragged brown sleeve. “Very well. If it is battlefields you 
want, battlefields I shall give you.” She jerked her hood up angrily. “I was a fool to come. 
I was a fool ever to love you.” Her footsteps echoed loudly in the quiet, and left damp 
splotches on the marble floor. 

Dawn caught Jaime almost unawares. As the glass in the dome began to lighten, suddenly 
there were rainbows shimmering off the walls and floors and pillars, bathing Lord 
Tywin’s corpse in a haze of many-colored light. The King’s Hand was rotting visibly. His 
face had taken on a greenish tinge, and his eyes were deeply sunken, two black pits. 
Fissures had opened in his cheeks, and a foul white fluid was seeping through the joints 
of his splendid gold-and-crimson armor to pool beneath his body. 

The septons were the first to see, when they returned for their dawn devotions. They sang 
their songs and prayed their prayers and wrinkled up their noses, and one of the Most 
Devout grew so faint he had to be helped from the sept. Shortly after, a flock of novices 
came swinging censers, and the air grew so thick with incense that the bier seemed 
cloaked in smoke. All the rainbows vanished in that perfumed mist, yet the stench 
persisted, a sweet rotten smell that made Jaime want to gag. 

When the doors were opened the Tyrells were amongst the first to enter, as befit their 
rank. Margaery had brought a great bouquet of golden roses. She placed them 
ostentatiously at the foot of Lord Tywin’s bier but kept one back and held it beneath her 
nose as she took her seat. So the girl is as clever as she is pretty. Tommen could do a deal 
worse for a queen. Others have. Margaery’s ladies followed her example. 

Cersei waited until the rest were in their places to make her entrance, with Tommen at 
her side. Ser Osmund Kettleblack paced beside them in his white enamel plate and white 
wool cloak. 

“. . . she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know . . 
.” 


Jaime had seen Kettleblack naked in the bathhouse, had seen the black hair on his chest, 
and the coarser thatch between his legs. He pictured that chest pressed against his sister’s, 
that hair scratching the soft skin of her breasts. She would not do that. The Imp lied. Spun 
gold and black wire tangled, sweaty. Kettleblack’s narrow cheeks clenching each time he 
thrust. Jaime could hear his sister moan. No. A lie. 

Red-eyed and pale, Cersei climbed the steps to kneel above their father, drawing 
Tommen down beside her. The boy recoiled at the sight, but his mother seized his wrist 
before he could pull away. “Pray,” she whispered, and Tommen tried. But he was only 
eight and Lord Tywin was a horror. One desperate breath of air, then the king began to 
sob. “Stop that!” Cersei said. Tommen turned his head and doubled over, retching. His 
crown fell off and rolled across the marble floor. His mother pulled back in disgust, and 
all at once the king was running for the doors, as fast as his eight-year-old legs could 
carry him. 

“Ser Osmund, relieve me,” Jaime said sharply, as Kettleblack turned to chase the crown. 
He handed the man the golden sword and went after his king. In the Hall of Lamps he 
caught him, beneath the eyes of two dozen startled septas. “I’m sorry,” Tommen wept. “I 
will do better on the morrow. Mother says a king must show the way, but the smell made 
me sick.” 

This will not do. Too many eager ears and watching eyes. “Best we go outside, Your 
Grace.” Jaime led the boy out to where the air was as fresh and clean as King’s Landing 
ever got. Twoscore gold cloaks had been posted around the plaza to guard the horses and 
the litters. He took the king off to the side, well away from everyone, and sat him down 
upon the marble steps. “I wasn’t scared,” the boy insisted. “The smell made me sick. 
Didn’t it make you sick? How could you bear it, Uncle, ser?” 

I have smelled my own hand rotting, when Vargo Hoat made me wear it for a pendant. 
“A man can bear most anything, if he must,” Jaime told his son. I have smelled a man 
roasting, as King Aerys cooked him in his own armor. “The world is full of horrors, 
Tommen. You can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing . . . go away 
inside.” 

Tommen considered that. “I . . . I used to go away inside sometimes,” he confessed, 
“when Joffy . . .” 

“Joffrey.” Cersei stood over them, the wind whipping her skirts around her legs. “Your 
brother’s name was Joffrey. He would never have shamed me so.” 

“I never meant to. I wasn’t frightened, Mother. It was only that your lord father smelled 
so bad . . .” 

“Do you think he smelled any sweeter to me? I have a nose too.” She caught his ear and 
pulled him to his feet. “Lord Tyrell has a nose. Did you see him retching in the holy sept? 
Did you see Lady Margaery bawling like a baby?” 


Jaime got to his feet. “Cersei, enough.” 

Her nostrils flared. “Ser? Why are you here? You swore to stand vigil over Father until 
the wake was done, as I recall.” 

“It is done. Go look at him.” 

“No. Seven days and seven nights, you said. Surely the Lord Commander remembers 
how to count to seven. Take the number of your fingers, then add two.” 

Others had begun to stream out onto the plaza, fleeing the noxious odors in the sept. 
“Cersei, keep your voice down,” Jaime warned. “Lord Tyrell is approaching.” 

That reached her. The queen drew Tommen to her side. Mace Tyrell bowed before them. 
“His Grace is not unwell, I hope?” 

“The king was overwhelmed by grief,” said Cersei. 

“As are we all. If there is aught that I can do . . .” 

High above, a crow screamed loudly. He was perched on the statue of King Baelor, 
shitting on his holy head. “There is much and more you can do for Tommen, my lord,” 
Jaime said. “Perhaps you would do Her Grace the honor of supping with her, after the 
evening services?” 

Cersei threw him a withering look, but for once she had the sense to bite her tongue. 

“Sup?” Tyrell seemed taken aback. “I suppose . . . of course, we should be honored. My 
lady wife and I.” 

The queen forced a smile and made pleasant noises. But when Tyrell had taken his leave 
and Tommen had been sent off with Ser Addam Marbrand, she turned on Jaime angrily. 
“Are you drunk or dreaming, ser? Pray tell, why am I having supper with that grasping 
fool and his puerile wife?” A gust of wind stirred her golden hair. “I will not name him 
Hand, if that’s what—” 

“You need Tyrell,” Jaime broke in, “but not here. Ask him to capture Storm’s End for 
Tommen. Flatter him, and tell him you need him in the field, to replace Father. Mace 
fancies himself a mighty warrior. Either he will deliver Storm’s End to you, or he will 
muck it up and look a fool. Either way, you win.” 

“Storm’s End?” Cersei looked thoughtful. “Yes, but . . . Lord Tyrell has made it tediously 
plain that he will not leave King’s Landing till Tommen marries Margaery.” 


Jaime sighed. “Then let them wed. It will be years before Tommen is old enough to 
consummate the marriage. And until he does, the union can always be set aside. Give 
Tyrell his wedding and send him off to play at war.” 

A wary smile crept across his sister’s face. “Even sieges have their dangers,” she 
murmured. “Why, our Lord of Highgarden might even lose his life in such a venture.” 

“There is that risk,” conceded Jaime. “Especially if his patience runs thin this time, and 
he elects to storm the gate.” 

Cersei gave him a lingering look. “You know,” she said, “for a moment you sounded 
quite like Father.” 


BRIENNE 

The gates of Duskendale were closed and barred. Through the predawn gloom the town 
walls shimmered palely. On their ramparts, wisps of fog moved like ghostly sentinels. A 
dozen wayns and oxcarts had drawn up outside the gates, waiting for the sun to rise. 
Brienne took her place behind some turnips. Her calves ached, and it felt good to 
dismount and stretch her legs. Before long another wayn came rumbling from the woods. 
By the time the sky began to lighten, the queue stretched back a quarter mile. 

The farm folk gave her curious glances, but no one spoke to her. It is for me to talk to 
them, Brienne told herself, but she had always found it hard to speak with strangers. Even 
as a girl she had been shy. Long years of scorn had only made her shyer. I must ask after 
Sansa. How else will I find her? She cleared her throat. “Goodwife,” she said to the 
woman on the turnip cart, “perhaps you saw my sister on the road? A young maid, three-
and-ten and fair of face, with blue eyes and auburn hair. She may be riding with a 
drunken knight.” 

The woman shook her head, but her husband said, “Then she’s no maid, I’ll wager. Does 
the poor girl have a name?” 

Brienne’s head was empty. I should have made up some name for her. Any name would 
do, but none came to her. 

“No name? Well, the roads are full of nameless girls.” 

“The lichyard’s even fuller,” said his wife. 


As dawn broke, guardsmen appeared on the parapets. The farmers climbed onto their 
wagons and shook the reins. Brienne mounted as well and took a glance behind her. Most 
of the queue waiting to enter Duskendale were farm folk with loads of fruits and 
vegetables to sell. A pair of wealthy townsmen sat on well-bred palfreys a dozen places 
behind her, and farther back she spied a skinny boy on a piebald rounsey. There was no 
sign of the two knights, nor Ser Shadrich the Mad Mouse. 

The guards were waving through the wayns with scarce a look, but when Brienne reached 
the gate she gave them pause. “Halt, you!” the captain cried. A pair of men in chainmail 
hauberks crossed their spears to bar her way. “State your purpose here.” 

“I seek the Lord of Duskendale, or his maester.” 

The captain’s eyes lingered on her shield. “The black bat of Lothston. Those are arms of 
ill repute.” 

“They are not mine. I mean to have the shield repainted.” 

“Aye?” The captain rubbed his stubbled chin. “My sister does such work, as it happens. 
You’ll find her at the house with the painted doors, across from the Seven Swords.” He 
gestured to the guards. “Let her pass, lads. It’s a wench.” 

The gatehouse opened on a market square, where those who had entered before her were 
unloading to hawk their turnips, yellow onions, and sacks of barleycorn. Others were 
selling arms and armor, and very cheaply to judge from the prices they shouted out as she 
rode by. The looters come with the carrion crows after every battle. Brienne walked her 
horse past mail shirts still caked with brown blood, dinted helms, notched longswords. 
There was clothing to be had as well: leather boots, fur cloaks, stained surcoats with 
suspicious rents. She knew many of the badges. The mailed fist, the moose, the white 
sun, the double-bladed axe, all those were northern sigils. Tarly men had perished here as 
well, though, and many from the stormlands. She saw red and green apples, a shield that 
bore the three thunderbolts of Leygood, horse trappings patterned with the ants of 
Ambrose. Lord Tarly’s own striding huntsman appeared on many a badge and brooch and 
doublet. Friend or foe, the crows care not. 

There were pine and linden shields to be had for pennies, but Brienne rode past them. She 
meant to keep the heavy oaken shield Jaime had given her, the one he’d borne himself 
from Harrenhal to King’s Landing. A pine shield had its advantages. It was lighter, and 
therefore easier to bear, and the soft wood was more like to trap a foeman’s axe or sword. 
But oak gave more protection, if you were strong enough to bear its weight. 

Duskendale was built around its harbor. North of town the chalk cliffs rose; to the south a 
rocky headland shielded the ships at anchor from storms coming up the narrow sea. The 
castle overlooked the port, its square keep and big drum towers visible from every part of 
town. In the crowded cobbled streets, it was easier to walk than ride, so Brienne put her 


mare up in a stable and continued on afoot, with her shield slung across her back and her 
bedroll tucked up beneath one arm. 

The captain’s sister was not hard to find. The Seven Swords was the largest inn in town, a 
four-story structure that towered over its neighbors, and the double doors on the house 
across the way were painted gorgeously. They showed a castle in an autumn wood, the 
trees done up in shades of gold and russet. Ivy crawled up the trunks of ancient oaks, and 
even the acorns had been done with loving care. When Brienne peered more closely, she 
saw creatures in the foliage: a sly red fox, two sparrows on a branch, and behind those 
leaves the shadow of a boar. 

“Your door is very pretty,” she told the dark-haired woman who answered when she 
knocked. “What castle is that meant to be?” 

“All castles,” said the captain’s sister. “The only one I know is the Dun Fort by the 
harbor. I made t’other in my head, what a castle ought to look like. I never seen a dragon 
neither, nor a griffin, nor a unicorn.” She had a cheerful manner, but when Brienne 
showed her the shield her face went dark. “My old ma used to say that giant bats flew out 
from Harrenhal on moonless nights, to carry bad children to Mad Danelle for her 
cookpots. Sometimes I’d hear them scrabbling at the shutters.” She sucked her teeth a 
moment, thoughtful. “What goes in its place?” 

The arms of Tarth were quartered rose and azure, and bore a yellow sun and crescent 
moon. But so long as men believed her to be a murderess, Brienne dare not carry them. 
“Your door reminded me of an old shield I once saw in my father’s armory.” She 
described the arms as best she could recall them. 

The woman nodded. “I can paint it straightaway, but the paint will need to dry. Take a 
room at the Seven Swords, if it please you. I’ll bring the shield to you by morning.” 

Brienne had not meant to overnight in Duskendale, but it might be for the best. She did 
not know if the lord of the castle was in residence, or whether he would consent to see 
her. She thanked the painter and crossed the cobblestones to the inn. Above its door, 
seven wooden swords swung beneath an iron spike. The whitewash that covered them 
was cracked and peeling, but Brienne knew their meaning. They stood for the seven sons 
of Darklyn who had worn the white cloaks of the Kingsguard. No other house in all the 
realm could claim as many. They were the glory of their House. And now they are a sign 
above an inn. She pushed into the common room and asked the innkeep for a room and a 
bath. 

He put her on the second floor, and a woman with a liver-colored birthmark on her face 
brought up a wooden tub, and then the water, pail by pail. “Do any Darklyns remain in 
Duskendale?” Brienne asked as she climbed into the tub. 

“Well, there’s Darkes, I’m one myself. My husband says I was Darke before we wed, and 
darker afterward.” She laughed. “Can’t throw a stone in Duskendale without you hit 


some Darke or Darkwood or Dargood, but the lordly Darklyns are all gone. Lord Denys 
was the last o’ them, the sweet young fool. Did you know the Darklyns were kings in 
Duskendale before the Andals come? You’d never know t’look at me, but I got me royal 
blood. Can you see it? ‘Your Grace, another cup of ale,’ I ought to make them say. ‘Your 
Grace, the chamber pot needs emptying, and fetch in some fresh faggots, Your Bloody 
Grace, the fire’s going out.’” She laughed again and shook the last drops from the pail. 
“Well, there you are. Is that water hot enough for you?” 

“It will serve.” The water was lukewarm. 

“I’d bring up more, but it’d just slop over. A girl the size o’ you, you fill a tub.” 

Only a cramped small tub like this one. At Harrenhal the tubs had been huge, and made 
of stone. The bathhouse had been thick with the steam rising off the water, and Jaime had 
come walking through that mist naked as his name day, looking half a corpse and half a 
god. He climbed into the tub with me, she remembered, blushing. She seized a chunk of 
hard lye soap and scrubbed under her arms, trying to call up Renly’s face again. 

By the time the water had gone cold, Brienne was as clean as she was like to get. She put 
on the same clothes she had taken off and girded her swordbelt tight around her hips, but 
her mail and helm she left behind, so as not to seem so threatening at the Dun Fort. It felt 
good to stretch her legs. The guards at the castle gates wore leather jacks with a badge 
that showed crossed warhammers upon a white saltire. “I would speak with your lord,” 
Brienne told them. 

One laughed. “Best shout out loud, then.” 

“Lord Rykker rode to Maidenpool with Randyll Tarly,” the other said. “He left Ser Rufus 
Leek as castellan, to look after Lady Rykker and the young ones.” 

It was to Leek that they escorted her. Ser Rufus was a short, stout greybeard whose left 
leg ended in a stump. “You will forgive me if I do not rise,” he said. Brienne offered him 
her letter, but Leek could not read, so he sent her to the maester, a bald man with a 
freckled scalp and a stiff red mustache. 

When he heard the name Hollard, the maester frowned with irritation. “How often must I 
sing this song?” Her face must have given her away. “Did you think you were the first to 
come seeking after Dontos? More like the twenty-first. The gold cloaks were here within 
days of the king’s murder, with Lord Tywin’s warrant. And what do you have, pray?” 

Brienne showed him the letter, with Tommen’s seal and childish signature. The maester 
hmmmmed and hrrrred, picked at the wax, and finally gave it back. “It seems in order.” 
He climbed onto a stool and gestured Brienne to another. “I never knew Ser Dontos. He 
was a boy when he left Duskendale. The Hollards were a noble House once, ’tis true. 
You know their arms? Barry red and pink, with three golden crowns upon a blue chief. 
The Darklyns were petty kings during the Age of Heroes, and three took Hollard wives. 


Later their little realm was swallowed up by larger kingdoms, yet the Darklyns endured 
and the Hollards served them . . . aye, even in defiance. You know of that?” 

“A little.” Her own maester used to say that it was the Defiance of Duskendale that had 
driven King Aerys mad. 

“In Duskendale they love Lord Denys still, despite the woe he brought them. ’Tis Lady 
Serala that they blame, his Myrish wife. The Lace Serpent, she is called. If Lord Darklyn 
had only wed a Staunton or a Stokeworth . . . well, you know how smallfolk will go on. 
The Lace Serpent filled her husband’s ear with Myrish poison, they say, until Lord Denys 
rose against his king and took him captive. In the taking, his master-at-arms Ser Symon 
Hollard cut down Ser Gwayne Gaunt of the Kingsguard. For half a year Aerys was held 
within these very walls, whilst the King’s Hand sat outside Duskendale with a mighty 
host. Lord Tywin had sufficient strength to storm the town any time he wished, but Lord 
Denys sent word that at the first sign of assault he’d kill the king.” 

Brienne remembered what came next. “The king was rescued,” she said. “Barristan the 
Bold brought him out.” 

“He did,” the maester said. “Once Lord Denys lost his hostage, he opened his gates and 
ended his defiance rather than let Lord Tywin take the town. He bent the knee and 
begged for mercy, but the king was not of a forgiving mind. Lord Denys lost his head, as 
did his brothers and his sister, uncles, cousins, all the lordly Darklyns. The Lace Serpent 
was burned alive, poor woman, though her tongue was torn out first, and her female 
parts, with which it was said that she had enslaved her lord. Half of Duskendale will still 
tell you that Aerys was too kind to her.” 

“And the Hollards?” 

“Attainted and destroyed,” said the maester. “I was forging my chain at the Citadel when 
this happened, but I have read the accounts of their trials and punishments. Ser Jon 
Hollard the Steward was wed to Lord Denys’s sister and died with his wife, as did their 
young son, who was half-Darklyn. Robin Hollard was a squire, and when the king was 
seized he danced around him and pulled his beard. He died upon the rack. Ser Symon 
Hollard was slain by Ser Barristan during the king’s escape. The Hollard lands were 
taken, their castle torn down, their villages put to the torch. As with the Darklyns, House 
Hollard was extinguished.” 

“Save for Dontos.” 

“True enough. Young Dontos was the son of Ser Steffon Hollard, the twin brother of Ser 
Symon, who had died of a fever some years before and had no part in the Defiance. 
Aerys would have taken the boy’s head off nonetheless, but Ser Barristan asked that his 
life be spared. The king could not refuse the man who’d saved him, so Dontos was taken 
to King’s Landing as a squire. To my knowledge he never returned to Duskendale, and 
why should he? He held no lands here, had neither kin nor castle. If Dontos and this 


northern girl helped murder our sweet king, it seems to me that they would want to put as 
many leagues as they could betwixt themselves and justice. Look for them in Oldtown, if 
you must, or across the narrow sea. Look for them in Dorne, or on the Wall. Look 
elsewhere.” He rose. “I hear my ravens calling. You will forgive me if I bid you good 
morrow.” 

The walk back to the inn seemed longer than the walk to the Dun Fort, though perhaps 
that was only her mood. She would not find Sansa Stark in Duskendale, that seemed 
plain. If Ser Dontos had taken her to Oldtown or across the narrow sea, as the maester 
seemed to think, Brienne’s quest was hopeless. What was there for her in Oldtown? she 
asked herself. The maester never knew her, no more than he knew Hollard. She would not 
have gone to strangers. 

In King’s Landing, Brienne had found one of Sansa’s former maids doing washing in a 
brothel. “I served with Lord Renly before m’lady Sansa, and both turned traitor,” the 
woman Brella complained bitterly. “No lord will touch me now, so I have to wash for 
whores.” But when Brienne asked about Sansa, she said, “I’ll tell you what I told Lord 
Tywin. That girl was always praying. She’d go to sept and light her candles like a proper 
lady, but near every night she went off to the godswood. She’s gone back north, she has. 
That’s where her gods are.” 

The north was huge, though, and Brienne had no notion which of her father’s bannermen 
Sansa might have been most inclined to trust. Or would she seek her own blood instead? 
Though all of her siblings had been slain, Brienne knew that Sansa still had an uncle and 
a bastard half brother on the Wall, serving in the Night’s Watch. Another uncle, Edmure 
Tully, was a captive at the Twins, but his uncle Ser Brynden still held Riverrun. And 
Lady Catelyn’s younger sister ruled the Vale. Blood calls to blood. Sansa might well 
have run to one of them. Which one, though? 

The Wall was too far, surely, and a bleak and bitter place besides. And to reach Riverrun 
the girl would need to cross the war-torn riverlands and pass through the Lannister siege 
lines. The Eyrie would be simpler, and Lady Lysa would surely welcome her sister’s 
daughter . . . 

Ahead, the alley bent. Somehow Brienne had taken a wrong turn. She found herself in a 
dead end, a small muddy yard where three pigs were rooting round a low stone well. One 
squealed at the sight of her, and an old woman drawing water looked her up and down 
suspiciously. “What would you be wanting?” 

“I was looking for the Seven Swords.” 

“Back the way you come. Left at the sept.” 

“I thank you.” Brienne turned to retrace her steps, and walked headfirst into someone 
hurrying round the bend. The collision knocked him off his feet, and he landed on his 
arse in the mud. “Pardons,” she murmured. He was only a boy; a scrawny lad with 


straight, thin hair and a sty beneath one eye. “Are you hurt?” She offered a hand to help 
him up, but the boy squirmed back away from her on heels and elbows. He could not 
have been more than ten or twelve, though he wore a chainmail byrnie and had a 
longsword in a leather sheath slung across his back. “Do I know you?” Brienne asked. 
His face seemed vaguely familiar, though she could not think from where. 

“No. You don’t. You never . . .” He scrambled to his feet. “F-f-forgive me. My lady. I 
wasn’t looking. I mean, I was, but down. I was looking down. At my feet.” The boy took 
to his heels, plunging headlong back the way he’d come. 

Something about him roused all of Brienne’s suspicions, but she was not about to chase 
him through the streets of Duskendale. Outside the gates this morning, that was where I 
saw him, she realized. He was riding a piebald rounsey. And it seemed as if she had seen 
him somewhere else as well, but where? 

By the time Brienne found the Seven Swords again, the common room was crowded. 
Four septas sat closest to the fire, in robes stained and dusty from the road. Elsewhere 
locals filled the benches, sopping up bowls of hot crab stew with chunks of bread. The 
smell made her stomach rumble, but she saw no empty seats. Then a voice behind her 
said, “M’lady, here, have my place.” Not until he hopped off the bench did Brienne 
realize that the speaker was a dwarf. The little man was not quite five feet tall. His nose 
was veined and bulbous, his teeth red from sourleaf, and he was dressed in the brown 
roughspun robes of a holy brother, with the iron hammer of the Smith dangling down 
about his thick neck. 

“Keep your seat,” she said. “I can stand as well as you.” 

“Aye, but my head is not so apt to knock upon the ceiling.” The dwarf’s speech was 
coarse but courteous. Brienne could see the crown of his scalp where he had shaved it. 
Many holy brothers wore such tonsures. Septa Roelle once told her that it was meant to 
show that they had nothing to hide from the Father. “Can’t the Father see through hair?” 
Brienne had asked. A stupid thing to say. She had been a slow child; Septa Roelle often 
told her so. She felt near as stupid now, so she took the little man’s place at the end of the 
bench, signaled for stew, and turned to thank the dwarf. “Do you serve some holy house 
in Duskendale, brother?” 

“’Twas nearer Maidenpool, m’lady, but the wolves burned us out,” the man replied, 
gnawing on a heel of bread. “We rebuilt as best we could, until some sellswords come. I 
could not say whose men they were, but they took our pigs and killed the brothers. I 
squeezed inside a hollow log and hid, but t’others were too big. It took me a long time to 
bury them all, but the Smith, he gave me strength. When that was done I dug up a few 
coins the elder brother had hid by and set off by myself.” 

“I met some other brothers going to King’s Landing.” 


“Aye, there’s hundreds on the roads. Not only brothers. Septons too, and smallfolk. 
Sparrows all. Might be I’m a sparrow too. The Smith, he made me small enough.” He 
chuckled. “And what’s your sad tale, m’lady?” 

“I am looking for my sister. She’s highborn, only three-and-ten, a pretty maid with blue 
eyes and auburn hair. You may have seen her traveling with a man. A knight, perhaps a 
fool. There’s gold for the man who helps me find her.” 

“Gold?” The brother gave her a red smile. “A bowl of that crab stew would be enough 
reward for me, but I fear I cannot help you. Fools I’ve met, and plenty, but not so many 
pretty maids.” He cocked his head and thought a moment. “There was a fool at 
Maidenpool, now that I think of it. He was clad in rags and dirt, as near as I could tell, but 
under the dirt was motley.” 

Did Dontos Hollard wear motley? No one had told Brienne that he did . . . but no one had 
ever said he didn’t, either. Why would the man be in rags, though? Had some misfortune 
overtaken him and Sansa after they fled King’s Landing? That could well be, with the 
roads so dangerous. It might not have been him at all. “Did this fool have a red nose, full 
of broken veins?” 

“I could not swear to that. I confess, I paid him little heed. I’d gone to Maidenpool after 
burying my brothers, thinking that I might find a ship to take me to King’s Landing. I 
first glimpsed the fool down by the docks. He had a furtive air to him and took care to 
avoid Lord Tarly’s soldiers. Later, I encountered him again, at the Stinking Goose.” 

“The Stinking Goose?” she said, uncertain. 

“An unsavory place,” the dwarf admitted. “Lord Tarly’s men patrol the port at 
Maidenpool, but the Goose is always full of sailors, and sailors have been known to 
smuggle men aboard their ships, if the price is right. This fool was seeking passage for 
three across the narrow sea. I oft saw him there, talking with oarsmen off the galleys. 
Sometimes he would sing a funny song.” 

“Seeking passage for three? Not two?” 

“Three, m’lady. That I’d swear to, by the Seven.” Three, she thought. Sansa, Ser Dontos . 
. . but who would be the third? The Imp? “Did the fool find his ship?” 

“That I could not say,” the dwarf told her, “but one night some of Lord Tarly’s soldiers 
visited the Goose looking for him, and a few days later I heard another man boasting that 
he’d fooled a fool and had the gold to prove it. He was drunk, and buying ale for 
everyone.” 

“‘Fooled a fool,’” she said. “What did he mean by that?” 


“I could not tell you. His name was Nimble Dick, though, that I do recall.” The dwarf 
spread his hands. “I fear that’s all that I can offer you, aside from a small man’s prayers.” 

True to her word, Brienne bought him his bowl of hot crab stew . . . and some hot fresh 
bread and a cup of wine as well. As he ate it, standing by her side, she mulled what he 
had told her. Could the Imp have joined them? If Tyrion Lannister were behind Sansa’s 
disappearance, and not Dontos Hollard, it stood to reason that they would need to flee 
across the narrow sea. 

When the little man was done with his bowl of stew, he finished what was left of hers as 
well. “You should eat more,” he said. “A woman big as you needs t’ keep her strength 
up. It is not far to Maidenpool, but the road is perilous these days.” 

I know. It was on that very road that Ser Cleos Frey had died, and she and Ser Jaime had 
been taken by the Bloody Mummers. Jaime tried to kill me, she remembered, though he 
was gaunt and weak, and his wrists were chained. It had been a close thing, even so, but 
that was before Zollo hacked his hand off. Zollo and Rorge and Shagwell would have 
raped her half a hundred times if Ser Jaime had not told them she was worth her weight in 
sapphires. 

“M’lady? You look sad. Are you thinking of your sister?” The dwarf patted her on the 
hand. “The Crone will light your way to her, never fear. The Maiden will keep her safe.” 

“I pray that you are right.” 

“I am.” He bowed. “But now I must be on my way. I’ve a long way yet to go to reach 
King’s Landing.” 

“Do you have a horse? A mule?” 

“Two mules.” The little man laughed. “There they are, at the bottom of my legs. They get 
me where I want t’ go.” He bowed, and waddled to the door, swaying with each step. 

She remained at the table after he had gone, lingering over a cup of watered wine. 
Brienne did not oft drink wine, but once in a great while she found it helped to settle her 
belly. And where do I want to go? she asked herself. To Maidenpool, to look for a man 
named Nimble Dick in a place called the Stinking Goose? 

When last she had seen Maidenpool, the town had been a desolation, its lord shut up 
inside his castle, its smallfolk dead or fled or hiding. She remembered burned houses and 
empty streets, smashed and broken gates. Feral dogs had skulked along behind their 
horses, whilst swollen corpses floated like huge pale water lilies atop the spring-fed pool 
that gave the town its name. Jaime sang “Six Maids in a Pool,” and laughed when I 
begged him to be quiet. And Randyll Tarly was at Maidenpool as well, another reason for 
her to avoid the town. She might do better to take ship for Gulltown or White Harbor. I 


could do both, though. Pay a call on the Stinking Goose and talk to this Nimble Dick, 
then find a ship at Maidenpool to take me farther north. 

The common room had begun to empty. Brienne tore a chunk of bread in half, listening 
to the talk at the other tables. Most of it concerned the death of Lord Tywin Lannister. 
“Murdered by his own son, they say,” a local man was saying, a cobbler by the look of 
him, “that vile little dwarf.” 

“And the king is just a boy,” said the oldest of the four septas. “Who is to rule us till he 
comes of age?” 

“Lord Tywin’s brother,” said a guardsman. “Or that Lord Tyrell, might be. Or the 
Kingslayer.” 

“Not him,” declared the innkeep. “Not that oathbreaker.” He spat into the fire. Brienne let 
the bread fall from her hands and wiped the crumbs off on her breeches. She’d heard 
enough. 

That night she dreamed herself in Renly’s tent again. All the candles were guttering out, 
and the cold was thick around her. Something was moving through green darkness, 
something foul and horrible was hurtling toward her king. She wanted to protect him, but 
her limbs felt stiff and frozen, and it took more strength than she had just to lift her hand. 
And when the shadow sword sliced through the green steel gorget and the blood began to 
flow, she saw that the dying king was not Renly after all but Jaime Lannister, and she had 
failed him. 

The captain’s sister found her in the common room, drinking a cup of milk and honey 
with three raw eggs mixed in. “You did beautifully,” she said, when the woman showed 
her the freshly painted shield. It was more a picture than a proper coat of arms, and the 
sight of it took her back through the long years, to the cool dark of her father’s armory. 
She remembered how she’d run her fingertips across the cracked and fading paint, over 
the green leaves of the tree, and along the path of the falling star. 

Brienne paid the captain’s sister half again the sum they had agreed, and slung the shield 
across one shoulder when she left the inn, after buying some hardbread, cheese, and flour 
from the cook. She left the town by the north gate, riding slowly through the fields and 
farms where the worst of the fighting had been, when the wolves came down on 
Duskendale. 

Lord Randyll Tarly had commanded Joffrey’s army, made up of westermen and 
stormlanders and knights from the Reach. Those men of his who had died here had been 
carried back inside the walls, to rest in heroes’ tombs beneath the septs of Duskendale. 
The northern dead, far more numerous, were buried in a common grave beside the sea. 
Above the cairn that marked their resting place, the victors had raised a rough-hewn 
wooden marker. HERE LIE THE WOLVES was all it said. Brienne stopped beside it and 


said a silent prayer for them, and for Catelyn Stark and her son Robb and all the men 
who’d died with them as well. 

She remembered the night that Lady Catelyn had learned her sons were dead, the two 
young boys she’d left at Winterfell to keep them safe. Brienne had known that something 
was terribly amiss. She had asked her if there had been news of her sons. “I have no sons 
but Robb,” Lady Catelyn had replied. She had sounded as if a knife were twisting her 
belly. Brienne had reached across the table to give her comfort, but she stopped before 
her fingers brushed the older woman’s, for fear that she would flinch away. Lady Catelyn 
had turned over her hands, to show Brienne the scars on her palms and fingers where a 
knife once bit deep into her flesh. Then she had begun to talk about her daughters. “Sansa 
was a little lady,” she had said, “always courteous and eager to please. She loved tales of 
knightly valor. She will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I, you can see that. I 
would often brush her hair myself. She had auburn hair, thick and soft . . . the red in it 
would shine like copper in the light of the torches.” 

She had spoken of Arya too, her younger daughter, but Arya was lost, most likely dead 
by now. Sansa, though . . . I will find her, my lady, Brienne swore to Lady Catelyn’s 
restless shade. I will never stop looking. I will give up my life if need be, give up my 
honor, give up all my dreams, but I will find her. 

Beyond the battleground the road ran beside the shore, between the surging grey-green 
sea and a line of low limestone hills. Brienne was not the only traveler on the road. There 
were fishing villages up along the coast for many leagues, and the fisherfolk used this 
road to take their fish to market. She rode past a fishwife and her daughters, walking 
home with empty baskets on their shoulders. In her armor, they took her for a knight until 
they saw her face. Then the girls whispered to one another and gave her looks. “Have you 
seen a maid of three-and-ten along the road?” she asked them. “A highborn maid with 
blue eyes and auburn hair?” Ser Shadrich had made her wary, but she had to keep on 
trying. “She may have been traveling with a fool.” But they only shook their heads and 
giggled at her behind their hands. 

In the first village she came to, barefoot boys ran along beside her horse. She had donned 
her helm, stung by the giggles of the fisherfolk, so they took her for a man. One boy 
offered to sell her clams, one offered crabs, and one offered her his sister. 

Brienne bought three crabs from the second boy. By the time she left the village it had 
begun to rain, and the wind was rising. Storm coming, she thought, glancing out to sea. 
The raindrops pinged against the steel of her helm, making her ears ring as she rode, but 
it was better than being out there in a boat. 

An hour farther north, the road divided at a pile of tumbled stones that marked the ruins 
of a small castle. The right-hand fork followed the coast, meandering up along the shore 
toward Crackclaw Point, a dismal land of bogs and pine barrens; the left-hand ran 
through hills and fields and woods to Maidenpool. The rain was falling more heavily by 
then. Brienne dismounted and led her mare off the road to take shelter amongst the ruins. 


The course of the castle walls could still be discerned amongst the brambles, weeds, and 
wild elms, but the stones that had made them up were strewn like a child’s blocks 
between the roads. Part of the main keep still stood, however. Its triple towers were grey 
granite, like the broken walls, but their merlons were yellow sandstone. Three crowns, 
she realized, as she gazed at them through the rain. Three golden crowns. This had been a 
Hollard castle. Ser Dontos had been born here, like as not. 

She led her mare through the rubble to the keep’s main entrance. Of the door only rusted 
iron hinges remained, but the roof was still sound, and it was dry within. Brienne tied her 
mare to a wall sconce, took off her helm, and shook out her hair. She was searching for 
some dry wood to light a fire when she heard the sound of another horse, coming closer. 
Some instinct made her step back into the shadows, where she could not be seen from the 
road. This was the very road where she and Ser Jaime had been captured. She did not 
intend to suffer that again. 

The rider was a small man. The Mad Mouse, she thought, at her first sight of him. 
Somehow he’s followed me. Her hand went to her sword hilt, and she found herself 
wondering if Ser Shadrich would think her easy prey just because she was a woman. Lord 
Grandison’s castellan had once made that error. Humfrey Wagstaff was his name; a 
proud old man of five-and-sixty, with a nose like a hawk and a spotted head. The day 
they were betrothed, he warned Brienne that he would expect her to be a proper woman 
once they’d wed. “I will not have my lady wife cavorting about in man’s mail. On this 
you shall obey me, lest I be forced to chastise you.” 

She was sixteen and no stranger to a sword, but still shy despite her prowess in the yard. 
Yet somehow she had found the courage to tell Ser Humfrey that she would accept 
chastisement only from a man who could outfight her. The old knight purpled, but agreed 
to don his own armor to teach her a woman’s proper place. They fought with blunted 
tourney weapons, so Brienne’s mace had no spikes. She broke Ser Humfrey’s collarbone, 
two ribs, and their betrothal. He was her third prospective husband, and her last. Her 
father did not insist again. 

If it was Ser Shadrich dogging her heels, she might well have a fight on her hands. She 
did not intend to partner with the man or let him follow her to Sansa. He had the sort of 
easy arrogance that comes with skill at arms, she thought, but he was small. I’ll have the 
reach on him, and I should be stronger too. 

Brienne was as strong as most knights, and her old master-at-arms used to say that she 
was quicker than any woman her size had any right to be. The gods had given her stamina 
too, which Ser Goodwin deemed a noble gift. Fighting with sword and shield was a 
wearisome business, and victory oft went to the man with most endurance. Ser Goodwin 
had taught her to fight cautiously, to conserve her strength while letting her foes spend 
theirs in furious attacks. “Men will always underestimate you,” he said, “and their pride 
will make them want to vanquish you quickly, lest it be said that a woman tried them 
sorely.” She had learned the truth of that once she went into the world. Even Jaime 
Lannister had come at her that way, in the woods by Maidenpool. If the gods were good, 


the Mad Mouse would make the same mistake. He may be a seasoned knight, she 
thought, but he is no Jaime Lannister. She slid her sword out of its scabbard. 

But it was not Ser Shadrich’s chestnut courser that drew up where the road forked, but a 
broken-down old piebald rounsey with a skinny boy upon his back. When Brienne saw 
the horse she drew back in confusion. Only some boy, she thought, until she glimpsed the 
face beneath his hood. The boy in Duskendale, the one who bumped into me. It’s him. 

The boy never gave the ruined castle a glance, but looked down one road, then the other. 
After a moment’s hesitation, he turned the rounsey toward the hills and plodded on. 
Brienne watched him vanish through the falling rain, and suddenly it came to her that she 
had seen this same boy in Rosby. He is stalking me, she realized, but that’s a game that 
two can play. She untied her mare, climbed back into the saddle, and went after him. 

The boy was staring at the ground as he rode, watching the ruts in the road fill up with 
water. The rain muffled the sound of her approach, and no doubt his hood played a part 
as well. He never looked back once, until Brienne trotted up behind him and gave the 
rounsey a whack across the rump with the flat of her longsword. 

The horse reared, and the skinny boy went flying, his cloak flapping like a pair of wings. 
He landed in the mud and came up with dirt and dead brown grass between his teeth to 
find Brienne standing over him. It was the same boy, beyond a doubt. She recognized the 
sty. “Who are you?” she demanded. 

The boy’s mouth worked soundlessly. His eyes were big as eggs. “Puh,” was all he could 
manage. “Puh.” His chainmail byrnie made a rattling sound when he shivered. “Puh. 
Puh.” 

“Please?” said Brienne. “Are you saying please?” She laid the point of her sword on the 
apple of his throat. “Please tell me who you are, and why you’re following me.” 

“Not puh-puh-please.” He stuck a finger in his mouth, and flicked away a clump of mud, 
spitting. “Puh-puh-Pod. My name. Puh-puh-Podrick. Puh-Payne.” 

Brienne lowered her sword. She felt a rush of sympathy for the boy. She remembered a 
day at Evenfall, and a young knight with a rose in his hand. He brought the rose to give 
to me. Or so her septa told her. All she had to do was welcome him to her father’s castle. 
He was eighteen, with long red hair that tumbled to his shoulders. She was twelve, tightly 
laced into a stiff new gown, its bodice bright with garnets. The two of them were of a 
height, but she could not look him in the eye, nor say the simple words her septa had 
taught her. Ser Ronnet. I welcome you to my lord father’s hall. It is good to look upon 
your face at last. 

“Why are you following me?” she demanded of the boy. “Were you told to spy upon me? 
Do you belong to Varys, or the queen?” 


“No. Not neither. No one.” 

Brienne put his age at ten, but she was terrible at judging how old a child was. She 
always thought they were younger than they were, perhaps because she had always been 
big for her age. Freakish big, Septa Roelle used to say, and mannish. “This road is too 
dangerous for a boy alone.” 

“Not for a squire. I’m his squire. The Hand’s squire.” 

“Lord Tywin?” Brienne sheathed her blade. 

“No. Not that Hand. The one before. His son. I fought with him in the battle. I shouted 
‘Halfman! Halfman!’” 

The Imp’s squire. Brienne had not even known he had one. Tyrion Lannister was no 
knight. He might have been expected to have a serving boy or two to attend him, she 
supposed, a page and a cupbearer, someone to help dress him. But a squire? “Why are 
you stalking after me?” she said. “What do you want?” 

“To find her.” The boy got to his feet. “His lady. You’re looking for her. Brella told me. 
She’s his wife. Not Brella, Lady Sansa. So I thought, if you found her . . .” His face 
twisted in sudden anguish. “I’m his squire,” he repeated, as the rain ran down his face, 
“but he left me.” 


SANSA 

Once, when she was just a little girl, a wandering singer had stayed with them at 
Winterfell for half a year. An old man he was, with white hair and windburnt cheeks, but 
he sang of knights and quests and ladies fair, and Sansa had cried bitter tears when he left 
them, and begged her father not to let him go. “The man has played us every song he 
knows thrice over,” Lord Eddard told her gently. “I cannot keep him here against his will. 
You need not weep, though. I promise you, other singers will come.” 

They hadn’t, though, not for a year or more. Sansa had prayed to the Seven in their sept 
and old gods of the heart tree, asking them to bring the old man back, or better still to 
send another singer, young and handsome. But the gods never answered, and the halls of 
Winterfell stayed silent. 


But that was when she was a little girl, and foolish. She was a maiden now, three-and-ten 
and flowered. All her nights were full of song, and by day she prayed for silence. 

If the Eyrie had been made like other castles, only rats and gaolers would have heard the 
dead man singing. Dungeon walls were thick enough to swallow songs and screams alike. 
But the sky cells had a wall of empty air, so every chord the dead man played flew free to 
echo off the stony shoulders of the Giant’s Lance. And the songs he chose . . . He sang of 
the Dance of the Dragons, of fair Jonquil and her fool, of Jenny of Oldstones and the 
Prince of Dragonflies. He sang of betrayals, and murders most foul, of hanged men and 
bloody vengeance. He sang of grief and sadness. 

No matter where she went in the castle, Sansa could not escape the music. It floated up 
the winding tower steps, found her naked in her bath, supped with her at dusk, and stole 
into her bedchamber even when she latched the shutters tight. It came in on the cold thin 
air, and like the air, it chilled her. Though it had not snowed upon the Eyrie since the day 
that Lady Lysa fell, the nights had all been bitter cold. 

The singer’s voice was strong and sweet. Sansa thought he sounded better than he ever 
had before, his voice richer somehow, full of pain and fear and longing. She did not 
understand why the gods would have given such a voice to such a wicked man. He would 
have taken me by force on the Fingers if Petyr had not set Ser Lothor to watch over me, 
she had to remind herself. And he played to drown out my cries when Aunt Lysa tried to 
kill me. 

That did not make the songs any easier to hear. “Please,” she begged Lord Petyr, “can’t 
you make him stop?” 

“I gave the man my word, sweetling.” Petyr Baelish, Lord of Harrenhal, Lord Paramount 
of the Trident, and Lord Protector of the Eyrie and the Vale of Arryn, looked up from the 
letter he was writing. He had written a hundred letters since Lady Lysa’s fall. Sansa had 
seen the ravens coming and going from the rookery. “I’d sooner suffer his singing than 
listen to his sobbing.” 

It is better that he sings, yes, but . . . “Must he play all night, my lord? Lord Robert 
cannot sleep. He cries . . .” 

“. . . for his mother. That cannot be helped, the wench is dead.” Petyr shrugged. “It will 
not be much longer. Lord Nestor is making his ascent on the morrow.” 

Sansa had met Lord Nestor Royce once before, after Petyr’s wedding to her aunt. Royce 
was the Keeper of the Gates of the Moon, the great castle that stood at the base of the 
mountain and guarded the steps up to the Eyrie. The wedding party had guested with him 
overnight before beginning their ascent. Lord Nestor had scarce looked at her twice, but 
the prospect of him coming here terrified her. He was High Steward of the Vale as well, 
Jon Arryn’s trusted liege man, and Lady Lysa’s. “He won’t . . . you won’t let Lord Nestor 
see Marillion, will you?” 


Her horror must have shown on her face, since Petyr put down his quill. “On the 
contrary. I shall insist on it.” He beckoned her to take the seat beside him. “We have 
come to an agreement, Marillion and I. Mord can be most persuasive. And if our singer 
disappoints us and sings a song we do not care to hear, why, you and I need only say he 
lies. Whom do you imagine Lord Nestor will believe?” 

“Us?” Sansa wished she could be certain. 

“Of course. Our lies will profit him.” 

The solar was warm, the fire crackling merrily, but Sansa shivered all the same. “Yes, but 
. . . but what if . . .” 

“What if Lord Nestor values honor more than profit?” Petyr put his arm around her. 
“What if it is truth he wants, and justice for his murdered lady?” He smiled. “I know Lord 
Nestor, sweetling. Do you imagine I’d ever let him harm my daughter?” 

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard’s daughter and Lady 
Catelyn’s, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though. If not for Petyr Baelish it 
would have been Sansa who went spinning through a cold blue sky to stony death six 
hundred feet below, instead of Lysa Arryn. He is so bold. Sansa wished she had his 
courage. She wanted to crawl back into bed and hide beneath her blanket, to sleep and 
sleep. She had not slept a whole night through since Lysa Arryn’s death. “Couldn’t you 
tell Lord Nestor that I am . . . indisposed, or . . .” 

“He will want to hear your account of Lysa’s death.” 

“My lord, if . . . if Marillion tells what truly . . .” 

“If he lies, you mean?” 

“Lies? Yes . . . if he lies, if it is my tale against his, and Lord Nestor looks in my eyes and 
sees how scared I am . . .” 

“A touch of fear will not be out of place, Alayne. You’ve seen a fearful thing. Nestor will 
be moved.” Petyr studied her eyes, as if seeing them for the first time. “You have your 
mother’s eyes. Honest eyes, and innocent. Blue as a sunlit sea. When you are a little 
older, many a man will drown in those eyes.” 

Sansa did not know what to say to that. 

“All you need do is tell Lord Nestor the same tale that you told Lord Robert,” Petyr went 
on. 

Robert is only a sick little boy, she thought, Lord Nestor is a man grown, stern and 
suspicious. Robert was not strong and had to be protected, even from the truth. “Some 


lies are love,” Petyr had assured her. She reminded him of that. “When we lied to Lord 
Robert, that was just to spare him,” she said. 

“And this lie may spare us. Else you and I must leave the Eyrie by the same door Lysa 
used.” Petyr picked up his quill again. “We shall serve him lies and Arbor gold, and he’ll 
drink them down and ask for more, I promise you.” 

He is serving me lies as well, Sansa realized. They were comforting lies, though, and she 
thought them kindly meant. A lie is not so bad if it is kindly meant. If only she believed 
them . . . 

The things her aunt had said just before she fell still troubled Sansa greatly. “Ravings,” 
Petyr called them. “My wife was mad, you saw that for yourself.” And so she had. All I 
did was build a snow castle, and she meant to push me out the Moon Door. Petyr saved 
me. He loved my mother well, and . . . 

And her? How could she doubt it? He had saved her. 

He saved Alayne, his daughter, a voice within her whispered. But she was Sansa too . . . 
and sometimes it seemed to her that the Lord Protector was two people as well. He was 
Petyr, her protector, warm and funny and gentle . . . but he was also Littlefinger, the lord 
she’d known at King’s Landing, smiling slyly and stroking his beard as he whispered in 
Queen Cersei’s ear. And Littlefinger was no friend of hers. When Joff had her beaten, the 
Imp defended her, not Littlefinger. When the mob sought to rape her, the Hound carried 
her to safety, not Littlefinger. When the Lannisters wed her to Tyrion against her will, Ser 
Garlan the Gallant gave her comfort, not Littlefinger. Littlefinger never lifted so much as 
his little finger for her. 

Except to get me out. He did that for me. I thought it was Ser Dontos, my poor old 
drunken Florian, but it was Petyr all the while. Littlefinger was only a mask he had to 
wear. Only sometimes Sansa found it hard to tell where the man ended and the mask 
began. Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them 
both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, 
Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, 
along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she 
ever returned to King’s Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she’d 
hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a 
captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I 
have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably, and no true friend but Petyr. 

That night the dead man sang “The Day They Hanged Black Robin,” “The Mother’s 
Tears,” and “The Rains of Castamere.” Then he stopped for a while, but just as Sansa 
began to drift off he started to play again. He sang “Six Sorrows,” “Fallen Leaves,” and 
“Alysanne.” Such sad songs, she thought. When she closed her eyes she could see him in 
his sky cell, huddled in a corner away from the cold black sky, crouched beneath a fur 
with his woodharp cradled against his chest. I must not pity him, she told herself. He was 


vain and cruel, and soon he will be dead. She could not save him. And why should she 
want to? Marillion tried to rape her, and Petyr had saved her life not once but twice. Some 
lies you have to tell. Lies had been all that kept her alive in King’s Landing. If she had 
not lied to Joffrey, his Kingsguard would have beat her bloody. 

After “Alysanne” the singer stopped again, long enough for Sansa to snatch an hour’s 
rest. But as the first light of dawn was prying at her shutters, she heard the soft strains of 
“On a Misty Morn” drifting up from below, and woke at once. That was more properly a 
woman’s song, a lament sung by a mother on the dawn after some terrible battle, as she 
searches amongst the dead for the body of her only son. The mother sings her grief for 
her dead son, Sansa thought, but Marillion grieves for his fingers, for his eyes. The words 
rose like arrows and pierced her in the darkness. 

Oh, have you seen my boy, good ser? 

His hair is chestnut brown 

He promised he’d come back to me 

Our home’s in Wendish Town. 

Sansa covered her ears with a goose down pillow to shut out the rest of it, but it was no 
good. Day had come and she had woken, and Lord Nestor Royce was coming up the 
mountain. 

The High Steward and his party reached the Eyrie in the late afternoon, with the valley 
gold and red beneath them and the wind rising. He brought his son Ser Albar, along with 
a dozen knights and a score of men-at-arms. So many strangers. Sansa looked at their 
faces anxiously, wondering if they were friends or foes. 

Petyr welcomed his visitors in a black velvet doublet with grey sleeves that matched his 
woolen breeches and lent a certain darkness to his grey-green eyes. Maester Colemon 
stood beside him, his chain of many metals hanging loose about his long, skinny neck. 
Although the maester was much the taller of the two men, it was the Lord Protector who 
drew the eye. He had put away his smiles for the day, it seemed. He listened solemnly as 
Royce introduced the knights who had accompanied him, then said, “My lords are 
welcome here. You know our Maester Colemon, of course. Lord Nestor, you will recall 
Alayne, my natural daughter?” 

“To be sure.” Lord Nestor Royce was a bullnecked, barrel-chested, balding man with a 
grey-shot beard and a stern look. He inclined his head a whole half inch in greeting. 


Sansa curtsied, too frightened to speak for fear she might misspeak. Petyr drew her to her 
feet. “Sweetling, be a good girl and bring Lord Robert to the High Hall to receive his 
guests.” 

“Yes, Father.” Her voice sounded thin and strained. A liar’s voice, she thought as she 
hurried up the steps and across the gallery to the Moon Tower. A guilty voice. 

Gretchel and Maddy were helping Robert Arryn squirm into his breeches when Sansa 
stepped into his bedchamber. The Lord of the Eyrie had been crying again. His eyes were 
red and raw, his lashes crusty, his nose swollen and runny. A trail of snot glistened 
underneath one nostril, and his lower lip was bloody where he’d bitten it. Lord Nestor 
must not see him like this, Sansa thought, despairing. “Gretchel, fetch me the washbasin.” 
She took the boy by the hand and drew him to the bed. “Did my Sweetrobin sleep well 
last night?” 

“No.” He sniffed. “I never slept one bit, Alayne. He was singing again, and my door was 
locked. I called for them to let me out, but no one ever came. Someone locked me in my 
room.” 

“That was wicked of them.” Dipping a soft cloth into the warm water, she began to clean 
his face . . . gently, oh so gently. If you scrubbed Robert too briskly, he might begin to 
shake. The boy was frail, and terribly small for his age. He was eight, but Sansa had 
known bigger five-year-olds. 

Robert’s lip quivered. “I was going to come sleep with you.” 

I know you were. Sweetrobin had been accustomed to crawling in beside his mother, until 
she wed Lord Petyr. Since Lady Lysa’s death he had taken to wandering the Eyrie in 
quest of other beds. The one he liked best was Sansa’s . . . which was why she had asked 
Ser Lothor Brune to lock his door last night. She would not have minded if he only slept, 
but he was always trying to nuzzle at her breasts, and when he had his shaking spells he 
often wet the bed. 

“Lord Nestor Royce has come up from the Gates to see you.” Sansa wiped beneath his 
nose. 

“I don’t want to see him,” he said. “I want a story. A story of the Winged Knight.” 

“After,” Sansa said. “First you must see Lord Nestor.” 

“Lord Nestor has a mole,” he said, squirming. Robert was afraid of men with moles. 
“Mommy said he was dreadful.” 

“My poor Sweetrobin.” Sansa smoothed his hair back. “You miss her, I know. Lord Petyr 
misses her too. He loved her just as you do.” That was a lie, though kindly meant. The 
only woman Petyr ever loved was Sansa’s murdered mother. He had confessed as much 


to Lady Lysa just before he pushed her out the Moon Door. She was mad and dangerous. 
She murdered her own lord husband, and would have murdered me if Petyr had not come 
along to save me. 

Robert did not need to know that, though. He was only a sick little boy who’d loved his 
mother. “There,” Sansa said, “you look a proper lord now. Maddy, fetch his cloak.” It 
was lambswool, soft and warm, a handsome sky-blue that set off the cream color of his 
tunic. She fastened it about his shoulders with a silver brooch in the shape of a crescent 
moon, and took him by the hand. Robert came meekly for once. 

The High Hall had been closed since Lady Lysa’s fall, and it gave Sansa a chill to enter it 
again. The hall was long and grand and beautiful, she supposed, but she did not like it 
here. It was a pale cold place at the best of times. The slender pillars looked like 
fingerbones, and the blue veins in the white marble brought to mind the veins in an old 
crone’s legs. Though fifty silver sconces lined the walls, less than a dozen torches had 
been lit, so shadows danced upon the floors and pooled in every corner. Their footsteps 
echoed off the marble, and Sansa could hear the wind rattling at the Moon Door. I must 
not look at it, she told herself, else I’ll start to shake as badly as Robert. 

With Maddy’s help, she got Robert seated on his weirwood throne with a stack of pillows 
underneath him and sent word that his lordship would receive his guests. Two guards in 
sky-blue cloaks opened the doors at the lower end of the hall, and Petyr ushered them in 
and down the long blue carpet that ran between the rows of bone-white pillars. 

The boy greeted Lord Nestor with squeaky courtesy and made no mention of his mole. 
When the High Steward asked about his lady mother, Robert’s hands began to tremble 
ever so slightly. “Marillion hurt my mother. He threw her out the Moon Door.” 

“Did your lordship see this happen?” asked Ser Marwyn Belmore, a lanky ginger-headed 
knight who had been Lysa’s captain of guards till Petyr had put Ser Lothor Brune in his 
place. 

“Alayne saw it,” the boy said. “And my lord stepfather.” 

Lord Nestor looked at her. Ser Albar, Ser Marwyn, Maester Colemon, all of them were 
looking. She was my aunt but she wanted to kill me, Sansa thought. She dragged me to 
the Moon Door and tried to push me out. I never wanted a kiss, I was building a castle in 
the snow. She hugged herself to keep from shaking. 

“Forgive her, my lords,” Petyr Baelish said softly. “She still has nightmares of that day. 
Small wonder if she cannot bear to speak of it.” He came up behind her and put his hands 
gently on her shoulders. “I know how hard this is for you, Alayne, but our friends must 
hear the truth.” 

“Yes.” Her throat felt so dry and tight it almost hurt to speak. “I saw . . . I was with the 
Lady Lysa when . . .” A tear rolled down her cheek. That’s good, a tear is good. “. . . 


when Marillion . . . pushed her.” And she told the tale again, hardly hearing the words as 
they spilled out of her. 

Before she was half-done Robert began to cry, the pillows shifting perilously beneath 
him. “He killed my mother. I want him to fly!” The trembling in his hands had grown 
worse, and his arms were shaking too. The boy’s head jerked and his teeth began to 
chatter. “Fly!” he shrieked. “Fly, fly.” His arms and legs flailed wildly. Lothor Brune 
strode to the dais in time to catch the boy as he slipped from his throne. Maester Colemon 
was just a step behind, though there was naught that he could do. 

Helpless as the rest, Sansa could only stand and watch as the shaking spell ran its course. 
One of Robert’s legs kicked Ser Lothor in the face. Brune cursed, but still held on as the 
boy twitched and flailed and wet himself. Their visitors said not a word; Lord Nestor at 
least had seen these fits before. It was long moments before Robert’s spasms began to 
subside, and seemed even longer. By the end, the little lordling was so weak he could not 
stand. “Best take his lordship back to bed and bleed him,” Lord Petyr said. Brune lifted 
the boy in his arms and carried him from the hall. Maester Colemon followed, grim-
faced. 

When their footsteps died away there was no sound in the High Hall of the Eyrie. Sansa 
could hear the night wind moaning outside and scratching at the Moon Door. She was 
very cold and very tired. Must I tell the tale again? she wondered. 

But she must have told it well enough. Lord Nestor cleared his throat. “I misliked that 
singer from the first,” he grumbled. “I urged Lady Lysa to send him away. Many a time I 
urged her.” 

“You always gave her good counsel, my lord,” Petyr said. 

“She took no heed of it,” Royce complained. “She heard me grudgingly and took no 
heed.” 

“My lady was too trusting for this world.” Petyr spoke so tenderly that Sansa would have 
believed he’d loved his wife. “Lysa could not see the evil in men, only the good. 
Marillion sang sweet songs, and she mistook that for his nature.” 

“He called us pigs,” Ser Albar Royce said. A blunt broad-shouldered knight who shaved 
his chin but cultivated thick black side-whiskers that framed his homely face like 
hedgerows, Ser Albar was a younger version of his father. “He made a song about two 
pigs snuffling round a mountain, eating a falcon’s leavings. That was meant to be us, but 
when I said so he laughed at me. ‘Why, ser, ’tis a song about some pigs,’ he said.” 

“He made mock of me as well,” Ser Marwyn Belmore said. “Ser Ding-Dong, he named 
me. When I vowed I’d cut his tongue out, he ran to Lady Lysa and hid behind her skirts.” 


“As oft he did,” Lord Nestor said. “The man was craven, but the favor Lady Lysa showed 
him made him insolent. She dressed him like a lord, gave him gold rings and a 
moonstone belt.” 

“Even Lord Jon’s favorite falcon.” The knight’s doublet showed the six white candles of 
Waxley. “His lordship loved that bird. King Robert gave it to him.” 

Petyr Baelish sighed. “It was unseemly,” he agreed, “and I put an end to it. Lysa agreed 
to send him away. That was why she met him here, that day. I should have been with her, 
but I never dreamt . . . if I had not insisted . . . it was I who killed her.” 

No, Sansa thought, you mustn’t say that, you mustn’t tell them, you mustn’t. But Albar 
Royce was shaking his head. “No, my lord, you must not blame yourself,” he said. 

“This was the singer’s work,” his father agreed. “Bring him up, Lord Petyr. Let us write 
an end to this sorry business.” 

Petyr Baelish composed himself, and said, “As you wish, my lord.” He turned to his 
guardsmen and spoke a command, and the singer was fetched up from the dungeons. The 
gaoler Mord came with him, a monstrous man with small black eyes and a lopsided, 
scarred face. One ear and part of his cheek had been cleaved off in some battle, but 
twenty stone of pallid white flesh remained. His clothes fit poorly and had a rank, ripe 
smell. 

Marillion by contrast looked almost elegant. Someone had bathed him and dressed him in 
a pair of sky-blue breeches and a loose-fitting white tunic with puffed sleeves, belted 
with a silvery sash that had been a gift from Lady Lysa. White silk gloves covered his 
hands, while a white silk bandage spared the lords the sight of his eyes. 

Mord stood behind him with a lash. When the gaoler prodded him in the ribs, the singer 
went to one knee. “Good lords, I beg your forgiveness.” 

Lord Nestor scowled. “You confess your crime?” 

“If I had eyes I should weep.” The singer’s voice, so strong and sure by night, was 
cracked and whispery now. “I loved her so, I could not bear to see her in another’s arms, 
to know she shared his bed. I meant no harm to my sweet lady, I swear it. I barred the 
door so no one could disturb us whilst I declared my passion, but Lady Lysa was so cold . 
. . when she told that she was carrying Lord Petyr’s child, a . . . a madness seized me . . .” 

Sansa stared at his hands while he spoke. Fat Maddy claimed that Mord had taken off 
three of his fingers, both pinkies and a ring finger. His little fingers did appear somewhat 
stiffer than the others, but with those gloves it was hard to be certain. It might have been 
no more than a story. How would Maddy know? 


“Lord Petyr has been kind enough to let me keep my harp,” the blind singer said. “My 
harp and . . . my tongue . . . so I may sing my songs. Lady Lysa dearly loved my singing . 
. .” 

“Take this creature away, or I’m like to kill him myself,” Lord Nestor growled. “It 
sickens me to look at him.” 

“Mord, take him back to his sky cell,” said Petyr. 

“Yes, m’lord.” Mord grabbed Marillion roughly by the collar. “No more mouth.” When 
he spoke, Sansa saw to her astonishment that the gaoler’s teeth were made of gold. They 
watched as he half dragged half shoved the singer toward the doors. 

“The man must die,” Ser Marywn Belmore declared when they were gone. “He should 
have followed Lady Lysa out the Moon Door.” 

“Without his tongue,” Ser Albar Royce added. “Without that lying, mocking tongue.” 

“I have been too gentle with him, I know,” Petyr Baelish said in an apologetic tone. “If 
truth be told, I pity him. He killed for love.” 

“For love or hate,” said Belmore, “he must die.” 

“Soon enough,” Lord Nestor said gruffly. “No man lingers long in the sky cells. The blue 
will call to him.” 

“It may,” said Petyr Baelish, “but whether Marillion will answer, only he can say.” He 
gestured, and his guardsmen opened the doors at the far end of the hall. “Sers, I know you 
must be weary after your ascent. Rooms have been prepared for all of you to spend the 
night, and food and wine await you in the Lower Hall. Oswell, show them the way, and 
see that they have all they need.” He turned to Nestor Royce. “My lord, will you join me 
in the solar for a cup of wine? Alayne, sweetling, come pour for us.” 

A low fire burned in the solar, where a flagon of wine awaited them. Arbor gold. Sansa 
filled Lord Nestor’s cup whilst Petyr prodded at the logs with an iron poker. 

Lord Nestor seated himself beside the fire. “This will not be the end of it,” he said to 
Petyr, as if Sansa were not there. “My cousin means to question the singer himself.” 

“Bronze Yohn mistrusts me.” Petyr pushed a log aside. 

“He means to come in force. Symond Templeton will join him, do not doubt it. And Lady 
Waynwood too, I fear.” 

“And Lord Belmore, Young Lord Hunter, Horton Redfort. They will bring Strong Sam 
Stone, the Tolletts, the Shetts, the Coldwaters, some Corbrays.” 


“You are well-informed. Which Corbrays? Not Lord Lyonel?” 

“No, his brother. Ser Lyn mislikes me, for some reason.” 

“Lyn Corbray is a dangerous man,” Lord Nestor said doggedly. “What do you intend to 
do?” 

“What can I do but make them welcome if they come?” Petyr gave the flames another stir 
and set the poker down. 

“My cousin means to remove you as Lord Protector.” 

“If so, I cannot stop him. I keep a garrison of twenty men. Lord Royce and his friends can 
raise twenty thousand.” Petyr went to the oaken chest that sat beneath the window. 
“Bronze Yohn will do what he will do,” he said, kneeling. He opened the chest, drew out 
a roll of parchment, and brought it to Lord Nestor. “My lord. This is a token of the love 
my lady bore you.” 

Sansa watched Royce unroll the parchment. “This . . . this is unexpected, my lord.” She 
was startled to see tears in his eyes. 

“Unexpected, but not undeserved. My lady valued you above all her other bannermen. 
You were her rock, she told me.” 

“Her rock.” Lord Nestor reddened. “She said that?” 

“Often. And this”—Petyr gestured at the parchment—“is the proof of it.” 

“That . . . that is good to know. Jon Arryn valued my service, I know, but Lady Lysa . . . 
she scorned me when I came to court her, and I feared . . .” Lord Nestor furrowed his 
brow. “It bears the Arryn seal, I see, but the signature . . .” 

“Lysa was murdered before the document could be presented for her signature, so I 
signed as Lord Protector. I knew that would have been her wish.” 

“I see.” Lord Nestor rolled the parchment. “You are . . . dutiful, my lord. Aye, and not 
without courage. Some will call this grant unseemly, and fault you for making it. The 
Keeper’s post has never been hereditary. The Arryns raised the Gates, in the days when 
they still wore the Falcon Crown and ruled the Vale as kings. The Eyrie was their 
summer seat, but when the snows began to fall the court would make its descent. Some 
would say the Gates were as royal as the Eyrie.” 

“There has been no king in the Vale for three hundred years,” Petyr Baelish pointed out. 


“The dragons came,” Lord Nestor agreed. “But even after, the Gates remained an Arryn 
castle. Jon Arryn himself was Keeper of the Gates whilst his father lived. After his 
ascent, he named his brother Ronnel to the honor, and later his cousin Denys.” 

“Lord Robert has no brothers, and only distant cousins.” 

“True.” Lord Nestor clutched the parchment tightly. “I will not say I had not hoped for 
this. Whilst Lord Jon ruled the realm as Hand, it fell to me to rule the Vale for him. I did 
all that he required of me and asked nothing for myself. But by the gods, I earned this!” 

“You did,” said Petyr, “and Lord Robert sleeps more easily knowing that you are always 
there, a staunch friend at the foot of his mountain.” He raised a cup. “So . . . a toast, my 
lord. To House Royce, Keepers of the Gates of the Moon . . . now and forever.” 

“Now and forever, aye!” The silver cups crashed together. 

Later, much later, after the flagon of Arbor gold was dry, Lord Nestor took his leave to 
rejoin his company of knights. Sansa was asleep on her feet by then, wanting only to 
crawl off to her bed, but Petyr caught her by the wrist. “You see the wonders that can be 
worked with lies and Arbor gold?” 

Why did she feel like weeping? It was good that Nestor Royce was with them. “Were 
they all lies?” 

“Not all. Lysa often called Lord Nestor a rock, though I do not think she meant it as a 
compliment. She called his son a clod. She knew Lord Nestor dreamed of holding the 
Gates in his own right, a lord in truth as well as name, but Lysa dreamed of other sons 
and meant the castle to go to Robert’s little brother.” He stood. “Do you understand what 
happened here, Alayne?” 

Sansa hesitated a moment. “You gave Lord Nestor the Gates of the Moon to be certain of 
his support.” 

“I did,” Petyr admitted, “but our rock is a Royce, which is to say he is overproud and 
prickly. Had I asked him his price, he would have swelled up like an angry toad at the 
slight upon his honor. But this way . . . the man is not utterly stupid, but the lies I served 
him were sweeter than the truth. He wants to believe that Lysa valued him above her 
other bannermen. One of those others is Bronze Yohn, after all, and Nestor is very much 
aware that he was born of the lesser branch of House Royce. He wants more for his son. 
Men of honor will do things for their children that they would never consider doing for 
themselves.” 

She nodded. “The signature . . . you might have had Lord Robert put his hand and seal to 
it, but instead . . .” 

“. . . I signed myself, as Lord Protector. Why?” 


“So . . . if you are removed, or . . . or killed . . .” 

“. . . Lord Nestor’s claim to the Gates will suddenly be called into question. I promise 
you, that is not lost on him. It was clever of you to see it. Though no more than I’d expect 
of mine own daughter.” 

“Thank you.” She felt absurdly proud for puzzling it out, but confused as well. “I’m not, 
though. Your daughter. Not truly. I mean, I pretend to be Alayne, but you know . . .” 

Littlefinger put a finger to her lips. “I know what I know, and so do you. Some things are 
best left unsaid, sweetling.” 

“Even when we are alone?” 

“Especially when we are alone. Elsewise a day will come when a servant walks into a 
room unannounced, or a guardsman at the door chances to hear something he should not. 
Do you want more blood on your pretty little hands, my darling?” 

Marillion’s face seemed to float before her, the bandage pale across his eyes. Behind him 
she could see Ser Dontos, the crossbow bolts still in him. “No,” Sansa said. “Please.” 

“I am tempted to say this is no game we play, daughter, but of course it is. The game of 
thrones.” 

I never asked to play. The game was too dangerous. One slip and I am dead. “Oswell . . . 
my lord, Oswell rowed me from King’s Landing the night that I escaped. He must know 
who I am.” 

“If he’s half as clever as a sheep pellet, you would think so. Ser Lothor knows as well. 
But Oswell has been in my service a long time, and Brune is close-mouthed by nature. 
Kettleblack watches Brune for me, and Brune watches Kettleblack. Trust no one, I once 
told Eddard Stark, but he would not listen. You are Alayne, and you must be Alayne all 
the time.” He put two fingers on her left breast. “Even here. In your heart. Can you do 
that? Can you be my daughter in your heart?” 

“I . . .” I do not know, my lord, she almost said, but that was not what he wanted to hear. 
Lies and Arbor gold, she thought. “I am Alayne, Father. Who else would I be?” 

Lord Littlefinger kissed her cheek. “With my wits and Cat’s beauty, the world will be 
yours, sweetling. Now off to bed.” 

Gretchel had laid a fire in her hearth and plumped her featherbed. Sansa undressed and 
slipped beneath the blankets. He will not sing tonight, she prayed, not with Lord Nestor 
and the others in the castle. He would not dare. She closed her eyes. 


Sometime during the night she woke, as little Robert climbed up into her bed. I forgot to 
tell Lothor to lock him in again, she realized. There was nothing to be done for it, so she 
put her arm around him. “Sweetrobin? You can stay, but try not to squirm around. Just 
close your eyes and sleep, little one.” 

“I will.” He cuddled close and laid his head between her breasts. “Alayne? Are you my 
mother now?” 

“I suppose I am,” she said. If a lie was kindly meant, there was no harm in it. 


THE KRAKEN’S DAUGHTER 

The hall was loud with drunken Harlaws, distant cousins all. Each lord had hung his 
banner behind the benches where his men were seated. Too few, thought Asha Greyjoy, 
looking down from the gallery, too few by far. The benches were three-quarters empty. 

Qarl the Maid had said as much, when the Black Wind was approaching from the sea. He 
had counted the longships moored beneath her uncle’s castle, and his mouth had 
tightened. “They have not come,” he observed, “or not enough of them.” He was not 
wrong, but Asha could not agree with him, out where her crew might hear. She did not 
doubt their devotion, but even ironborn will hesitate to give their lives for a cause that’s 
plainly lost. 

Do I have so few friends as this? Amongst the banners, she saw the silver fish of Botley, 
the stone tree of the Stonetrees, the black leviathan of Volmark, the nooses of the Myres. 
The rest were Harlaw scythes. Boremund placed his upon a pale blue field, Hotho’s was 
girdled within an embattled border, and the Knight had quartered his with the gaudy 
peacock of his mother’s House. Even Sigfryd Silverhair showed two scythes 
counterchanged on a field divided bendwise. Only the Lord Harlaw displayed the silver 
scythe plain upon a night-black field, as it had flown in the dawn of days: Rodrik, called 
the Reader, Lord of the Ten Towers, Lord of Harlaw, Harlaw of Harlaw . . . her favorite 
uncle. 

Lord Rodrik’s high seat was vacant. Two scythes of beaten silver crossed above it, so 
huge that even a giant would have difficulty wielding them, but beneath were only empty 
cushions. Asha was not surprised. The feast was long concluded. Only bones and greasy 
platters remained upon the trestle tables. The rest was drinking, and her uncle Rodrik had 
never been partial to the company of quarrelsome drunks. 


She turned to Three-Tooth, an old woman of fearful age who had been her uncle’s 
steward since she was known as Twelve-Tooth. “My uncle is with his books?” 

“Aye, where else?” The woman was so old that a septon had once said she must have 
nursed the Crone. That was when the Faith was still tolerated on the isles. Lord Rodrik 
had kept septons at Ten Towers, not for his soul’s sake but for his books. “With the 
books, and Botley. He was with him too.” 

Botley’s standard hung in the hall, a shoal of silver fish upon a pale green field, though 
Asha had not seen his Swiftfin amongst the other longships. “I had heard my nuncle 
Crow’s Eye had old Sawane Botley drowned.” 

“Lord Tristifer Botley, this one is.” 

Tris. She wondered what had happened to Sawane’s elder son, Harren. I will find out 
soon enough, no doubt. This should be awkward. She had not seen Tris Botley since . . . 
no, she ought not dwell on it. “And my lady mother?” 

“Abed,” said Three-Tooth, “in the Widow’s Tower.” 

Aye, where else? The widow the tower was named after was her aunt. Lady Gwynesse 
had come home to mourn after her husband had died off Fair Isle during Balon Greyjoy’s 
first rebellion. “I will only stay until my grief has passed,” she had told her brother, 
famously, “though by rights Ten Towers should be mine, for I am seven years your 
elder.” Long years had passed since then, but still the widow lingered, grieving, and 
muttering from time to time that the castle should be hers. And now Lord Rodrik has a 
second half-mad widowed sister beneath his roof, Asha reflected. Small wonder if he 
seeks solace in his books. 

Even now, it was hard to credit that frail, sickly Lady Alannys had outlived her husband 
Lord Balon, who had seemed so hard and strong. When Asha had sailed away to war, she 
had done so with a heavy heart, fearing that her mother might well die before she could 
return. Not once had she thought that her father might perish instead. The Drowned God 
plays savage japes upon us all, but men are crueler still. A sudden storm and a broken 
rope had sent Balon Greyjoy to his death. Or so they claim. 

Asha had last seen her mother when she stopped at Ten Towers to take on fresh water, on 
her way north to strike at Deepwood Motte. Alannys Harlaw never had the sort of beauty 
the singers cherished, but her daughter had loved her fierce strong face and the laughter 
in her eyes. On that last visit, though, she had found Lady Alannys in a window seat 
huddled beneath a pile of furs, staring out across the sea. Is this my mother, or her ghost? 
she remembered thinking as she’d kissed her cheek. 

Her mother’s skin had been parchment thin, her long hair white. Some pride remained in 
the way she held her head, but her eyes were dim and cloudy, and her mouth had 
trembled when she asked after Theon. “Did you bring my baby boy?” she had asked. 


Theon had been ten years old when he was carried off to Winterfell a hostage, and so far 
as Lady Alannys was concerned he would always be ten years old, it seemed. “Theon 
could not come,” Asha had to tell her. “Father sent him reaving along the Stony Shore.” 
Lady Alannys had naught to say to that. She only nodded slowly, yet it was plain to see 
how deep her daughter’s words had cut her. 

And now I must tell her that Theon is dead, and drive yet another dagger through her 
heart. There were two knives buried there already. On the blades were writ the words 
Rodrik and Maron, and many a time they twisted cruelly in the night. I will see her on the 
morrow, Asha vowed to herself. Her journey had been long and wearisome, she could not 
face her mother now. 

“I must speak with Lord Rodrik,” she told Three-Tooth. “See to my crew, once they’re 
done unloading Black Wind. They’ll bring captives. I want them to have warm beds and a 
hot meal.” 

“There’s cold beef in the kitchens. And mustard in a big stone jar, from Oldtown.” The 
thought of that mustard made the old woman smile. A single long brown tooth poked 
from her gums. 

“That will not serve. We had a rough crossing. I want something hot in their bellies.” 
Asha hooked a thumb through the studded belt about her hips. “Lady Glover and the 
children should not want for wood nor warmth. Put them in some tower, not the 
dungeons. The babe is sick.” 

“Babes are often sick. Most die, and folks are sorry. I shall ask my lord where to put 
these wolf folk.” 

She caught the woman’s nose between thumb and forefinger and pinched. “You will do 
as I say. And if this babe dies, no one will be sorrier than you.” Three-Tooth squealed and 
promised to obey, till Asha let her loose and went to find her uncle. 

It was good to walk these halls again. Ten Towers had always felt like home to Asha, 
more so than Pyke. Not one castle, ten castles squashed together, she had thought, the 
first time she had seen it. She remembered breathless races up and down the steps and 
along wallwalks and covered bridges, fishing off the Long Stone Quay, days and nights 
lost amongst her uncle’s wealth of books. His grandfather’s grandfather had raised the 
castle, the newest on the isles. Lord Theomore Harlaw had lost three sons in the cradle 
and laid the blame upon the flooded cellars, damp stones, and festering nitre of ancient 
Harlaw Hall. Ten Towers was airier, more comfortable, better sited . . . but Lord 
Theomore was a changeable man, as any of his wives might have testified. He’d had six 
of those, as dissimilar as his ten towers. 

The Book Tower was the fattest of the ten, octagonal in shape and made with great 
blocks of hewn stone. The stair was built within the thickness of the walls. Asha climbed 
quickly, to the fifth story and the room where her uncle read. Not that there are any 


rooms where he does not read. Lord Rodrik was seldom seen without a book in hand, be 
it in the privy, on the deck of his Sea Song, or whilst holding audience. Asha had oft seen 
him reading on his high seat beneath the silver scythes. He would listen to each case as it 
was laid before him, pronounce his judgment . . . and read a bit whilst his captain-ofguards 
went to bring in the next supplicant. 

She found him hunched over a table by a window, surrounded by parchment scrolls that 
might have come from Valyria before its Doom, and heavy leather-bound books with 
bronze-and-iron hasps. Beeswax candles as thick and tall as a man’s arm burned on either 
side of where he sat, on ornate iron holders. Lord Rodrik Harlaw was neither fat nor slim; 
neither tall nor short; neither ugly nor handsome. His hair was brown, as were his eyes, 
though the short, neat beard he favored had gone grey. All in all, he was an ordinary man, 
distinguished only by his love of written words, which so many ironborn found unmanly 
and perverse. 

“Nuncle.” She closed the door behind her. “What reading was so urgent that you leave 
your guests without a host?” 

“Archmaester Marwyn’s Book of Lost Books.” He lifted his gaze from the page to study 
her. “Hotho brought me a copy from Oldtown. He has a daughter he would have me 
wed.” Lord Rodrik tapped the book with a long nail. “See here? Marwyn claims to have 
found three pages of Signs and Portents, visions written down by the maiden daughter of 
Aenar Targaryen before the Doom came to Valyria. Does Lanny know that you are 
here?” 

“Not as yet.” Lanny was his pet name for her mother; only the Reader called her that. 
“Let her rest.” Asha moved a stack of books off a stool and seated herself. “Three-Tooth 
seems to have lost two more of her teeth. Do you call her One-Tooth now?” 

“I seldom call her at all. The woman frightens me. What hour is it?” Lord Rodrik glanced 
out the window, at the moonlit sea. “Dark, so soon? I had not noticed. You come late. We 
looked for you some days ago.” 

“The winds were against us, and I had captives to concern me. Robett Glover’s wife and 
children. The youngest is still at the breast, and Lady Glover’s milk dried up during our 
crossing. I had no choice but to beach Black Wind upon the Stony Shore and send my 
men out to find a wet nurse. They found a goat instead. The girl does not thrive. Is there a 
nursing mother in the village? Deepwood is important to my plans.” 

“Your plans must change. You come too late.” 

“Late and hungry.” She stretched her long legs out beneath the table and turned the pages 
of the nearest book, a septon’s discourse on Maegor the Cruel’s war against the Poor 
Fellows. “Oh, and thirsty too. A horn of ale would go down well, Nuncle.” 


Lord Rodrik pursed his lips. “You know I do not permit food nor drink in my library. The 
books—” 

“—might suffer harm.” Asha laughed. 

Her uncle frowned. “You do like to provoke me.” 

“Oh, don’t look so aggrieved. I have never met a man I didn’t provoke, you should know 
that well enough by now. But enough of me. You are well?” 

He shrugged. “Well enough. My eyes grow weaker. I have sent to Myr for a lens to help 
me read.” 

“And how fares my aunt?” 

Lord Rodrik sighed. “Still seven years my elder, and convinced Ten Towers should be 
hers. Gwynesse grows forgetful, but that she does not forget. She mourns for her dead 
husband as deeply as she did the day he died, though she cannot always recall his name.” 

“I am not certain she ever knew his name.” Asha closed the septon’s book with a thump. 
“Was my father murdered?” 

“So your mother believes.” 

There were times when she would gladly have murdered him herself, she thought. “And 
what does my nuncle believe?” 

“Balon fell to his death when a rope bridge broke beneath him. A storm was rising, and 
the bridge was swaying and twisting with each gust of wind.” Rodrik shrugged. “Or so 
we are told. Your mother had a bird from Maester Wendamyr.” 

Asha slid her dirk out of its sheath and began to clean the dirt from beneath her 
fingernails. “Three years away, and the Crow’s Eye returns the very day my father dies.” 

“The day after, we had heard. Silence was still out to sea when Balon died, or so it is 
claimed. Even so, I will agree that Euron’s return was . . . timely, shall we say?” 

“That is not how I would say it.” Asha slammed the point of the dirk into the table. 
“Where are my ships? I counted twoscore longships moored below, not near enough to 
throw the Crow’s Eye off my father’s chair.” 

“I sent the summons. In your name, for the love I bear you and your mother. House 
Harlaw has gathered. Stonetree as well, and Volmark. Some Myres . . .” 


“All from the isle of Harlaw . . . one isle out of seven. I saw one lonely Botley banner in 
the hall, from Pyke. Where are the ships from Saltcliffe, from Orkwood, from the 
Wyks?” 

“Baelor Blacktyde came from Blacktyde to consult with me, and just as soon set sail 
again.” Lord Rodrik closed The Book of Lost Books. “He is on Old Wyk by now.” 

“Old Wyk?” Asha had feared he was about to say that they all had gone to Pyke, to do 
homage to the Crow’s Eye. “Why Old Wyk?” 

“I thought you would have heard. Aeron Damphair has called a kingsmoot.” 

Asha threw back her head and laughed. “The Drowned God must have shoved a 
pricklefish up Uncle Aeron’s arse. A kingsmoot? Is this some jape, or does he mean it 
truly?” 

“The Damphair has not japed since he was drowned. And the other priests have taken up 
the call. Blind Beron Blacktyde, Tarle the Thrice-Drowned . . . even the Old Grey Gull 
has left that rock he lives on to preach this kingsmoot all across Harlaw. The captains are 
gathering on Old Wyk as we speak.” 

Asha was astonished. “Has the Crow’s Eye agreed to attend this holy farce and abide by 
its decision?” 

“The Crow’s Eye does not confide in me. Since he summoned me to Pyke to do him 
homage, I have had no word from Euron.” 

A kingsmoot. This is something new . . . or rather, something very old. “And my uncle 
Victarion? What does he make of the Damphair’s notion?” 

“Victarion was sent word of your father’s death. And of this kingsmoot too, I do not 
doubt. Beyond that, I cannot say.” 

Better a kingsmoot than a war. “I believe I’ll kiss the Damphair’s smelly feet and pluck 
the seaweed from out between his toes.” Asha wrenched loose her dirk and sheathed it 
once again. “A bloody kingsmoot!” 

“On Old Wyk,” confirmed Lord Rodrik. “Though I pray it is not bloody. I have been 
consulting Haereg’s History of the Ironborn. When last the salt kings and the rock kings 
met in kingsmoot, Urron of Orkmont let his axemen loose among them, and Nagga’s ribs 
turned red with gore. House Greyiron ruled unchosen for a thousand years from that dark 
day, until the Andals came.” 

“You must lend me Haereg’s book, Nuncle.” She would need to learn all she could of 
kingsmoots before she reached Old Wyk. 


“You may read it here. It is old and fragile.” He studied her, frowning. “Archmaester 
Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally 
unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again, he said. I think of 
that whenever I contemplate the Crow’s Eye. Euron Greyjoy sounds queerly like Urron 
Greyiron to these old ears. I shall not go to Old Wyk. Nor should you.” 

Asha smiled. “And miss the first kingsmoot called in . . . how long has it been, Nuncle?” 

“Four thousand years, if Haereg can be believed. Half that, if you accept Maester 
Denestan’s arguments in Questions. Going to Old Wyk serves no purpose. This dream of 
kingship is a madness in our blood. I told your father so the first time he rose, and it is 
more true now than it was then. It’s land we need, not crowns. With Stannis Baratheon 
and Tywin Lannister contending for the Iron Throne, we have a rare chance to improve 
our lot. Let us take one side or the other, help them to victory with our fleets, and claim 
the lands we need from a grateful king.” 

“That might be worth some thought, once I sit the Seastone Chair,” said Asha. 

Her uncle sighed. “You will not want to hear this, Asha, but you will not be chosen. No 
woman has ever ruled the ironborn. Gwynesse is seven years my elder, but when our 
father died the Ten Towers came to me. It will be the same for you. You are Balon’s 
daughter, not his son. And you have three uncles.” 

“Four.” 

“Three kraken uncles. I do not count.” 

“You do with me. So long as I have my nuncle of Ten Towers, I have Harlaw.” Harlaw 
was not the largest of the Iron Islands, but it was the richest and most populous, and Lord 
Rodrik’s power was not to be despised. On Harlaw, Harlaw had no rival. The Volmarks 
and Stonetrees had large holdings on the isle and boasted famous captains and fierce 
warriors of their own, but even the fiercest bent beneath the scythe. The Kennings and the 
Myres, once bitter foes, had long ago been beaten down to vassals. 

“My cousins do me fealty, and in war I should command their swords and sails. In 
kingsmoot, though . . .” Lord Rodrik shook his head. “Beneath the bones of Nagga every 
captain stands as equal. Some may shout your name, I do not doubt it. But not enough. 
And when the shouts ring out for Victarion or the Crow’s Eye, some of those now 
drinking in my hall will join the rest. I say again, do not sail into this storm. Your fight is 
hopeless.” 

“No fight is hopeless till it has been fought. I have the best claim. I am the heir of Balon’s 
body.” 

“You are still a willful child. Think of your poor mother. You are all that Lanny has left 
to her. I will put a torch to Black Wind if need be, to keep you here.” 


“What, and make me swim to Old Wyk?” 

“A long cold swim, for a crown you cannot keep. Your father had more courage than 
sense. The Old Way served the isles well when we were one small kingdom amongst 
many, but Aegon’s Conquest put an end to that. Balon refused to see what was plain 
before him. The Old Way died with Black Harren and his sons.” 

“I know that.” Asha had loved her father, but she did not delude herself. Balon had been 
blind in some respects. A brave man but a bad lord. “Does that mean we must live and 
die as thralls to the Iron Throne? If there are rocks to starboard and a storm to port, a wise 
captain steers a third course.” 

“Show me this third course.” 

“I shall . . . at my queensmoot. Nuncle, how can you even think of not attending? This 
will be history, alive . . .” 

“I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.” 

“Do you want to die old and craven in your bed?” 

“How else? Though not till I’m done reading.” Lord Rodrik went to the window. “You 
have not asked about your lady mother.” 

I was afraid. “How is she?” 

“Stronger. She may yet outlive us all. She will certainly outlive you, if you persist in this 
folly. She eats more than she did when she first came here, and oft sleeps through the 
night.” 

“Good.” In her final years on Pyke, Lady Alannys could not sleep. She would wander the 
halls at night with a candle, looking for her sons. “Maron?” she would call shrilly. 
“Rodrik, where are you? Theon, my baby, come to Mother.” Many a time Asha had 
watched the maester draw splinters from her mother’s heels of a morning, after she had 
crossed the swaying plank bridge to the Sea Tower on bare feet. “I will see her in the 
morning.” 

“She will ask for word of Theon.” 

The Prince of Winterfell. “What have you told her?” 

“Little and less. There was naught to tell.” He hesitated. “You are certain that he is 
dead?” 

“I am certain of nothing.” 


“You found a body?” 

“We found parts of many bodies. The wolves were there before us . . . the four-legged 
sort, but they showed scant reverence for their two-legged kin. The bones of the slain 
were scattered, cracked open for their marrow. I confess, it was hard to know what 
happened there. It seemed as though the northmen fought amongst themselves.” 

“Crows will fight over a dead man’s flesh and kill each other for his eyes.” Lord Rodrik 
stared across the sea, watching the play of moonlight on the waves. “We had one king, 
then five. Now all I see are crows, squabbling over the corpse of Westeros.” He fastened 
the shutters. “Do not go to Old Wyk, Asha. Stay with your mother. We shall not have her 
long, I fear.” 

Asha shifted in her seat. “My mother raised me to be bold. If I do not go, I will spend the 
rest of my life wondering what might have happened if I had.” 

“If you do go, the rest of your life may be too short for wondering.” 

“Better that than fill the remainder of my days complaining that the Seastone Chair by 
rights was mine. I am no Gwynesse.” 

That made him wince. “Asha, my two tall sons fed the crabs of Fair Isle. I am not like to 
wed again. Stay, and I shall name you heir to the Ten Towers. Be content with that.” 

“Ten Towers?” Would that I could. “Your cousins will not like that. The Knight, old 
Sigfryd, Hotho Humpback . . .” 

“They have lands and seats of their own.” 

True enough. Damp, decaying Harlaw Hall belonged to old Sigfryd Harlaw the 
Silverhair; humpbacked Hotho Harlaw had his seat at the Tower of Glimmering, on a 
crag above the western coast. The Knight, Ser Harras Harlaw, kept court at Grey Garden; 
Boremund the Blue ruled atop Harridan Hill. But each was subject to Lord Rodrik. 
“Boremund has three sons, Sigfryd Silverhair has grandsons, and Hotho has ambitions,” 
Asha said. “They all mean to follow you, even Sigfryd. That one intends to live forever.” 

“The Knight will be the Lord of Harlaw after me,” her uncle said, “but he can rule from 
Grey Garden as easily as from here. Do fealty to him for the castle and Ser Harras will 
protect you.” 

“I can protect myself. Nuncle, I am a kraken. Asha, of House Greyjoy.” She pushed to 
her feet. “It’s my father’s seat I want, not yours. Those scythes of yours look perilous. 
One could fall and slice my head off. No, I’ll sit the Seastone Chair.” 

“Then you are just another crow, screaming for carrion.” Rodrik sat again behind his 
table. “Go. I wish to return to Archmaester Marwyn and his search.” 


“Let me know if he should find another page.” Her uncle was her uncle. He would never 
change. But he will come to Old Wyk, no matter what he says. 

By now her crew would be eating in the hall. Asha knew she ought to join them, to speak 
of this gathering on Old Wyk and what it meant for them. Her own men would be solidly 
behind her, but she would need the rest as well, her Harlaw cousins, the Volmarks, and 
the Stonetrees. Those are the ones I must win. Her victory at Deepwood Motte would 
serve her in good stead, once her men began to boast of it, as she knew they would. The 
crew of her Black Wind took a perverse pride in the deeds of their woman captain. Half of 
them loved her like a daughter, and other half wanted to spread her legs, but either sort 
would die for her. And I for them, she was thinking as she shouldered through the door at 
the bottom of the steps, into the moonlit yard. 

“Asha?” A shadow stepped out from behind the well. 

Her hand went to her dirk at once . . . until the moonlight transformed the dark shape into 
a man in a sealskin cloak. Another ghost. “Tris. I’d thought to find you in the hall.” 

“I wanted to see you.” 

“What part of me, I wonder?” She grinned. “Well, here I stand, all grown up. Look all 
you like.” 

“A woman.” He moved closer. “And beautiful.” 

Tristifer Botley had filled out since last she’d seen him, but he had the same unruly hair 
that she remembered, and eyes as large and trusting as a seal’s. Sweet eyes, truly. That 
was the trouble with poor Tristifer; he was too sweet for the Iron Islands. His face has 
grown comely, she thought. As a boy Tris had been much troubled by pimples. Asha had 
suffered the same affliction; perhaps that had been what drew them together. 

“I was sorry to hear about your father,” she told him. 

“I grieve for yours.” 

Why? Asha almost asked. It was Balon who’d sent the boy away from Pyke, to be a ward 
of Baelor Blacktyde’s. “Is it true you are Lord Botley now?” 

“In name, at least. Harren died at Moat Cailin. One of the bog devils shot him with a 
poisoned arrow. But I am the lord of nothing. When my father denied his claim to the 
Seastone Chair, the Crow’s Eye drowned him and made my uncles swear him fealty. 
Even after that he gave half my father’s lands to Iron Holt. Lord Wynch was the first man 
to bend his knee and call him king.” 

House Wynch was strong on Pyke, but Asha took care not to let her dismay show. 
“Wynch never had your father’s courage.” 


“Your uncle bought him,” Tris said. “The Silence returned with holds full of treasure. 
Plate and pearls, emeralds and rubies, sapphires big as eggs, bags of coin so heavy that no 
man can lift them . . . the Crow’s Eye has been buying friends at every hand. My uncle 
Germund calls himself Lord Botley now, and rules in Lordsport as your uncle’s man.” 

“You are the rightful Lord Botley,” she assured him. “Once I hold the Seastone Chair, 
your father’s lands shall be restored.” 

“If you like. It’s nought to me. You look so lovely in the moonlight, Asha. A woman 
grown now, but I remember when you were a skinny girl with a face all full of pimples.” 

Why must they always mention the pimples? “I remember that as well.” Though not as 
fondly as you do. Of the five boys her mother had brought to Pyke to foster after Ned 
Stark had taken her last living son as hostage, Tris had been closest to Asha in age. He 
had not been the first boy she had ever kissed, but he was the first to undo the laces of her 
jerkin and slip a sweaty hand beneath to feel her budding breasts. 

I would have let him feel more than that if he’d been bold enough. Her first flowering had 
come upon her during the war and wakened her desire, but even before that Asha had 
been curious. He was there, he was mine own age, and he was willing, that was all it was 
. . . that, and the moon blood. Even so, she’d called it love, till Tris began to go on about 
the children she would bear him; a dozen sons at least, and oh, some daughters too. “I 
don’t want to have a dozen sons,” she had told him, appalled. “I want to have 
adventures.” Not long after, Maester Qalen found them at their play, and young Tristifer 
Botley was sent away to Blacktyde. 

“I wrote you letters,” he said, “but Maester Joseran would not send them. Once I gave a 
stag to an oarsman on a trader bound for Lordsport, who promised to put my letter in 
your hands.” 

“Your oarsman winkled you and threw your letter in the sea.” 

“I feared as much. They never gave me your letters either.” 

I wrote none. In truth, she had been relieved when Tris was sent away. By then his 
fumblings had begun to bore her. That was not something he would care to hear, 
however. “Aeron Damphair has called a kingsmoot. Will you come and speak for me?” 

“I will go anywhere with you, but . . . Lord Blacktyde says this kingsmoot is a dangerous 
folly. He thinks your uncle will descend on them and kill them all, as Urron did.” 

He’s mad enough. “He lacks the strength.” 

“You do not know his strength. He’s been gathering men on Pyke. Orkwood of Orkmont 
brought him twenty longships, and Pinchface Jon Myre a dozen. Left-Hand Lucas Codd 


is with them. And Harren Half-Hoare, the Red Oarsman, Kemmett Pyke the Bastard, 
Rodrik Freeborn, Torwold Browntooth . . .” 

“Men of small account.” Asha knew them, every one. “The sons of salt wives, the 
grandsons of thralls. The Codds . . . do you know their words?” 

“Though All Men Do Despise Us,” Tris said, “but if they catch you in those nets of 
theirs, you’ll be as dead as if they had been dragonlords. And there’s worse. The Crow’s 
Eye brought back monsters from the east . . . aye, and wizards too.” 

“Nuncle always had a fondness for freaks and fools,” said Asha. “My father used to fight 
with him about it. Let the wizards call upon their gods. The Damphair will call on ours, 
and drown them. Will I have your voice at the queensmoot, Tris?” 

“You shall have all of me. I am your man, forever. Asha, I would wed you. Your lady 
mother has given her consent.” 

She stifled a groan. You might have asked me first . . . though you might not have liked 
the answer half so well. 

“I am no second son now,” he went on. “I am the rightful Lord Botley, as you said 
yourself. And you are—” 

“What I am will be settled on Old Wyk. Tris, we are no longer children fumbling at each 
other and trying to see what fits where. You think you want to wed me, but you don’t.” 

“I do. All I dream about is you. Asha, I swear upon the bones of Nagga, I have never 
touched another woman.” 

“Go touch one . . . or two, or ten. I have touched more men than I can count. Some with 
my lips, more with my axe.” She had surrendered her virtue at six-and-ten, to a beautiful 
blond-haired sailor on a trading galley up from Lys. He only knew six words of the 
Common Tongue, but “fuck” was one of them—the very word she’d hoped to hear. 
Afterward, Asha had the sense to find a woods witch, who showed her how to brew moon 
tea to keep her belly flat. 

Botley blinked, as if he did not quite understand what she had said. “You . . . I thought 
you would wait. Why . . .” He rubbed his mouth. “Asha, were you forced?” 

“So forced I tore his tunic. You do not want to wed me, take my word on that. You are a 
sweet boy and always were, but I am no sweet girl. If we wed, soon enough you’d come 
to hate me.” 

“Never. Asha, I have ached for you.” 


She had heard enough of this. A sickly mother, a murdered father, and a plague of uncles 
were enough for any woman to contend with; she did not require a lovesick puppy too. 
“Find a brothel, Tris. They’ll cure you of that ache.” 

“I could never . . .” Tristifer shook his head. “You and I were meant to be, Asha. I have 
always known you would be my wife, and the mother of my sons.” He seized her upper 
arm. 

In a blink her dirk was at his throat. “Take your hand away or you won’t live long enough 
to breed a son. Now.” When he did, she lowered the blade. “You want a woman, well and 
good. I’ll put one in your bed tonight. Pretend she’s me, if that will give you pleasure, but 
do not presume to grab at me again. I am your queen, not your wife. Remember that.” 
Asha sheathed her dirk and left him standing there, with a fat drop of blood slowly 
creeping down his neck, black in the pale light of the moon. 


CERSEI 

Oh, I pray the Seven will not let it rain upon the king’s wedding,” Jocelyn Swyft said as 
she laced up the queen’s gown. 

“No one wants rain,” said Cersei. For herself, she wanted sleet and ice, howling winds, 
thunder to shake the very stones of the Red Keep. She wanted a storm to match her rage. 
To Jocelyn she said, “Tighter. Cinch it tighter, you simpering little fool.” 

It was the wedding that enraged her, though the slow-witted Swyft girl made a safer 
target. Tommen’s hold upon the Iron Throne was not secure enough for her to risk 
offending Highgarden. Not so long as Stannis Baratheon held Dragonstone and Storm’s 
End, so long as Riverrun continued in defiance, so long as ironmen prowled the seas like 
wolves. So Jocelyn must needs eat the meal Cersei would sooner have served to 
Margaery Tyrell and her hideous wrinkled grandmother. 

To break her fast the queen sent to the kitchens for two boiled eggs, a loaf of bread, and a 
pot of honey. But when she cracked the first egg and found a bloody half-formed chick 
inside, her stomach roiled. “Take this away and bring me hot spiced wine,” she told 
Senelle. The chill in the air was settling in her bones, and she had a long nasty day ahead 
of her. 

Nor did Jaime help her mood when he turned up all in white and still unshaven, to tell her 
how he meant to keep her son from being poisoned. “I will have men in the kitchens 
watching as each dish is prepared,” he said. “Ser Addam’s gold cloaks will escort the 


servants as they bring the food to table, to make certain no tampering takes place along 
the way. Ser Boros will be tasting every course before Tommen puts a bite into his 
mouth. And if all that should fail, Maester Ballabar will be seated in the back of the hall, 
with purges and antidotes for twenty common poisons on his person. Tommen will be 
safe, I promise you.” 

“Safe.” The word tasted bitter on her tongue. Jaime did not understand. No one 
understood. Only Melara had been in the tent to hear the old hag’s croaking threats, and 
Melara was long dead. “Tyrion will not kill the same way twice. He is too cunning for 
that. He could be under the floor even now, listening to every word we say and making 
plans to open Tommen’s throat.” 

“Suppose he was,” said Jaime. “Whatever plans he makes, he will still be small and 
stunted. Tommen will be surrounded by the finest knights in Westeros. The Kingsguard 
will protect him.” 

Cersei glanced at where the sleeve of her brother’s white silk tunic had been pinned up 
over his stump. “I remember how well they guarded Joffrey, these splendid knights of 
yours. I want you to remain with Tommen all night, is that understood?” 

“I will have a guardsman outside his door.” 

She seized his arm. “Not a guardsman. You. And inside his bedchamber.” 

“In case Tyrion crawls out of the hearth? He won’t.” 

“So you say. Will you tell me that you found all the hidden tunnels in these walls?” They 
both knew better. “I will not have Tommen alone with Margaery, not for so much as half 
a heartbeat.” 

“They will not be alone. Her cousins will be with them.” 

“As will you. I command it, in the king’s name.” Cersei had not wanted Tommen and his 
wife to share a bed at all, but the Tyrells had insisted. “Husband and wife should sleep 
together,” the Queen of Thorns had said, “even if they do no more than sleep. His 
Grace’s bed is big enough for two, surely.” Lady Alerie had echoed her good-mother. 
“Let the children warm each other in the night. It will bring them closer. Margaery oft 
shares her blankets with her cousins. They sing and play games and whisper secrets to 
each other when the candles are snuffed out.” 

“How delightful,” Cersei had said. “Let them continue, by all means. In the 
Maidenvault.” 

“I am sure Her Grace knows best,” Lady Olenna had said to Lady Alerie. “She is the 
boy’s own mother, after all, of that we are all sure. And surely we can agree about the 


wedding night? A man should not sleep apart from his wife on the night of their wedding. 
It is ill luck for their marriage if they do.” 

Someday I will teach you the meaning of “ill luck,” the queen had vowed. “Margaery 
may share Tommen’s bedchamber for that one night,” she had been forced to say. “No 
longer.” 

“Your Grace is so gracious,” the Queen of Thorns had replied, and everyone had 
exchanged smiles. 

Cersei’s fingers were digging into Jaime’s arm hard enough to leave bruises. “I need eyes 
inside that room,” she said. 

“To see what?” he said. “There can be no danger of a consummation. Tommen is much 
too young.” 

“And Ossifer Plumm was much too dead, but that did not stop him fathering a child, did 
it?” 

Her brother looked lost. “Who was Ossifer Plumm? Was he Lord Philip’s father, or . . . 
who?” 

He is near as ignorant as Robert. All his wits were in his sword hand. “Forget Plumm, 
just remember what I told you. Swear to me that you will stay by Tommen’s side until the 
sun comes up.” 

“As you command,” he said, as if her fears were groundless. “Do you still mean to go 
ahead and burn the Tower of the Hand?” 

“After the feast.” It was the only part of the day’s festivities that Cersei thought she might 
enjoy. “Our lord father was murdered in that tower. I cannot bear to look at it. If the gods 
are good, the fire may smoke a few rats from the rubble.” 

Jaime rolled his eyes. “Tyrion, you mean.” 

“Him, and Lord Varys, and this gaoler.” 

“If any of them were hiding in the tower, we would have found them. I’ve had a small 
army going at it with picks and hammers. We’ve knocked through walls and ripped up 
floors and uncovered half a hundred secret passages.” 

“And for all you know there may be half a hundred more.” Some of the secret crawlways 
had turned out to be so small that Jaime had needed pages and stableboys to explore 
them. A passage to the black cells had been found, and a stone well that seemed to have 
no bottom. They had found a chamber full of skulls and yellowed bones, and four sacks 
of tarnished silver coins from the reign of the first King Viserys. They had found a 


thousand rats as well . . . but neither Tyrion nor Varys had been amongst them, and Jaime 
had finally insisted on putting an end to the search. One boy had gotten stuck in a narrow 
passage and had to be pulled out by his feet, shrieking. Another fell down a shaft and 
broke his legs. And two guardsmen vanished exploring a side tunnel. Some of the other 
guards swore they could hear them calling faintly through the stone, but when Jaime’s 
men tore down the wall they found only earth and rubble on the far side. “The Imp is 
small and cunning. He may still be in the walls. If he is, the fire will smoke him out.” 

“Even if Tyrion were still hiding in the castle, he won’t be in the Tower of the Hand. 
We’ve reduced it to a shell.” 

“Would that we could do the same to the rest of this foul castle,” said Cersei. “After the 
war I mean to build a new palace beyond the river.” She had dreamed of it the night 
before last, a magnificent white castle surrounded by woods and gardens, long leagues 
from the stinks and noise of King’s Landing. “This city is a cesspit. For half a groat I 
would move the court to Lannisport and rule the realm from Casterly Rock.” 

“That would be an even greater folly than burning the Tower of the Hand. So long as 
Tommen sits the Iron Throne, the realm sees him as the true king. Hide him under the 
Rock and he becomes just another claimant to the throne, no different than Stannis.” 

“I am aware of that,” the queen said sharply. “I said that I wanted to move the court to 
Lannisport, not that I would. Were you always this slow, or did losing a hand make you 
stupid?” 

Jaime ignored that. “If these flames spread beyond the tower, you may end up burning 
down the castle whether you mean to or not. Wildfire is treacherous.” 

“Lord Hallyne has assured me that his pyromancers can control the fire.” The Guild of 
Alchemists had been brewing fresh wildfire for a fortnight. “Let all of King’s Landing 
see the flames. It will be a lesson to our enemies.” 

“Now you sound like Aerys.” 

Her nostrils flared. “Guard your tongue, ser.” 

“I love you too, sweet sister.” 

How could I ever have loved that wretched creature? she wondered after he had gone. He 
was your twin, your shadow, your other half, another voice whispered. Once, perhaps, 
she thought. No longer. He has become a stranger to me. 

Compared to the magnificence of Joffrey’s nuptials, the wedding of King Tommen was a 
modest affair, and small. No one wanted another lavish ceremony, least of all the queen, 
and no one wanted to pay for one, least of all the Tyrells. So the young king took 


Margaery Tyrell to wife in the Red Keep’s royal sept, with fewer than a hundred guests 
looking on in place of the thousands who had seen his brother joined to the same woman. 

The bride was fair and gay and beautiful, the groom still baby-faced and plump. He 
recited his vows in a high, childish voice, promising his love and devotion to Mace 
Tyrell’s twice-widowed daughter. Margaery wore the same gown she had worn to marry 
Joffrey, an airy confection of sheer ivory silk, Myrish lace, and seed pearls. Cersei herself 
was still in black, as a sign of mourning for her murdered firstborn. His widow might be 
pleased to laugh and drink and dance and put all memory of Joff aside, but his mother 
would not forget him so easily. 

This is wrong, she thought. It is too soon. A year, two years, that would have been time 
enough. Highgarden should have been content with a betrothal. Cersei stared back to 
where Mace Tyrell stood between his wife and mother. You forced me into this travesty 
of a wedding, my lord, and I shall not soon forget it. 

When it was time for the changing of the cloaks, the bride sank gracefully to her knees 
and Tommen covered her with the heavy cloth-of-gold monstrosity that Robert had 
cloaked Cersei in on their own wedding day, with the crowned stag of Baratheon worked 
upon its back in beads of onyx. Cersei had wanted to use the fine red silk cloak Joffrey 
had used. “It was the cloak my lord father used when he wed my lady mother,” she 
explained to the Tyrells, but the Queen of Thorns had balked her in that as well. “That 
old thing?” the crone had said. “It looks a bit threadbare to me . . . and dare I say, 
unlucky? And wouldn’t a stag be more fitting for King Robert’s trueborn son? In my day 
a bride donned her husband’s colors, not his lady mother’s.” 

Thanks to Stannis and his filthy letter, there were already too many rumors concerning 
Tommen’s parentage. Cersei dared not fan the fires by insisting that he drape his bride in 
Lannister crimson, so she yielded as gracefully as she could. But the sight of all that gold 
and onyx still filled her with resentment. The more we give these Tyrells, the more they 
demand of us. 

When all the vows were spoken, the king and his new queen stepped outside the sept to 
accept congratulations. “Westeros has two queens now, and the young one is as beautiful 
as the old one,” boomed Lyle Crakehall, an oaf of a knight who oft reminded Cersei of 
her late and unlamented husband. She could have slapped him. Gyles Rosby made to kiss 
her hand, and only succeeded in coughing on her fingers. Lord Redwyne kissed her on 
one cheek and Mace Tyrell on both. Grand Maester Pycelle told Cersei that she had not 
lost a son, but rather gained a daughter. At least she was spared Lady Tanda’s tearful 
embraces. None of the Stokeworth women had appeared, and for that much the queen 
was grateful. 

Amongst the last was Kevan Lannister. “I understand you mean to leave us for another 
wedding,” the queen said to him. 


“Hardstone has cleared the broken men from Darry castle,” he replied. “Lancel’s bride 
awaits us there.” 

“Will your lady wife be joining you for the nuptials?” 

“The riverlands are still too dangerous. Vargo Hoat’s scum remain abroad, and Beric 
Dondarrion has been hanging Freys. Is it true that Sandor Clegane has joined him?” 

How does he know that? “Some say. Reports are confused.” The bird had come last night, 
from a septry on an island hard by the mouth of the Trident. The nearby town of Saltpans 
had been savagely raided by a band of outlaws, and some of the survivors claimed a 
roaring brute in a hound’s head helm was amongst the raiders. Supposedly he’d killed a 
dozen men and raped a girl of twelve. “No doubt Lancel will be eager to hunt down 
Clegane and Lord Beric both, to restore the king’s peace to the riverlands.” 

Ser Kevan stared into her eyes for a moment. “My son is not the man to deal with Sandor 
Clegane.” 

We agree on that much, at least. “His father might be.” 

Her uncle’s mouth grew hard. “If my service is not required at the Rock . . .” 

Your service was required here. Cersei had named her cousin Damion Lannister her 
castellan for the Rock, and another cousin, Ser Daven Lannister, the Warden of the West. 
Insolence has its price, Uncle. “Bring us Sandor’s head, and I know His Grace will be 
most grateful. Joff may have liked the man, but Tommen was always afraid of him . . . 
with good reason, it would seem.” 

“When a dog goes bad, the fault lies with his master,” Ser Kevan said. Then he turned 
and walked away. 

Jaime escorted her to the Small Hall, where the feast was being readied. “I blame you for 
all this,” she whispered as they walked. “Let them wed, you said. Margaery should be 
mourning Joffrey, not marrying his brother. She should be as sick with grief as I am. I do 
not believe she is a maid. Renly had a cock, didn’t he? He was Robert’s brother, he surely 
had a cock. If that disgusting old crone thinks that I will allow my son to—” 

“You will be rid of Lady Olenna soon enough,” Jaime broke in quietly. “She’s returning 
to Highgarden on the morrow.” 

“So she says.” Cersei did not trust any Tyrell promise. 

“She’s leaving,” he insisted. “Mace is taking half the Tyrell strength to Storm’s End, and 
the other half will be going back to the Reach with Ser Garlan to make good his claim on 
Brightwater. A few more days, and the only roses left in King’s Landing will be 
Margaery and her ladies and a few guardsmen.” 


“And Ser Loras. Or have you forgotten your Sworn Brother?” 

“Ser Loras is a knight of the Kingsguard.” 

“Ser Loras is so Tyrell he pisses rosewater. He should never have been given a white 
cloak.” 

“He would not have been my choice, I’ll grant you. No one troubled to consult me. Loras 
will do well enough, I think. Once a man puts on that cloak, it changes him.” 

“It certainly changed you, and not for the better.” 

“I love you too, sweet sister.” He held the door for her, and walked her to the high table 
and her seat beside the king. Margaery was on the other side of Tommen, in the place of 
honor. When she entered, arm in arm with the little king, she made a point of stopping to 
kiss Cersei on the cheeks and throw her arms around her. “Your Grace,” the girl said, 
bold as polished brass, “I feel as though I have a second mother now. I pray that we shall 
be very close, united by our love for your sweet son.” 

“I loved both my sons.” 

“Joffrey is in my prayers as well,” said Margaery. “I loved him dearly, though I never 
had the chance to know him.” 

Liar, the queen thought. If you had loved him even for an instant, you would not have 
been in such unseemly haste to wed his brother. His crown was all you ever wanted. For 
half a groat she would have slapped the blushing bride right there upon the dais, in view 
of half the court. 

Like the service, the wedding feast was modest. Lady Alerie had made all the 
arrangements; Cersei had not had the stomach to face that daunting task again, after the 
way Joffrey’s wedding had ended. Only seven courses were served. Butterbumps and 
Moon Boy entertained the guests between dishes, and musicians played as they ate. They 
listened to pipers and fiddlers, a lute and a flute, a high harp. The only singer was some 
favorite of Lady Margaery’s, a dashing young cock-a-whoop clad all in shades of azure 
who called himself the Blue Bard. He sang a few love songs and retired. “What a 
disappointment,” Lady Olenna complained loudly. “I was hoping for ‘The Rains of 
Castamere.’” 

Whenever Cersei looked at the old crone, the face of Maggy the Frog seemed to float 
before her eyes, wrinkled and terrible and wise. All old women look alike, she tried to tell 
herself, that’s all it is. In truth, the bent-back sorceress had looked nothing like the Queen 
of Thorns, yet somehow the sight of Lady Olenna’s nasty little smile was enough to put 
her back in Maggy’s tent again. She could still remember the smell of it, redolent with 
queer eastern spices, and the softness of Maggy’s gums as she sucked the blood from 
Cersei’s finger. Queen you shall be, the old woman had promised, with her lips still wet 


and red and glistening, until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast 
you down and take all that you hold dear. 

Cersei glanced past Tommen, to where Margaery sat laughing with her father. She is 
pretty enough, she had to admit, but most of that is youth. Even peasant girls are pretty at 
a certain age, when they are still fresh and innocent and unspoiled, and most of them 
have the same brown hair and brown eyes as she does. Only a fool would ever claim she 
was more beautiful than I. The world was full of fools, however. So was her son’s court. 

Her mood was not improved when Mace Tyrell arose to lead the toasts. He raised a 
golden goblet high, smiling at his pretty little daughter, and in a booming voice said, “To 
the king and queen!” The other sheep all baaaaaaed along with him. “The king and 
queen!” they cried, smashing their cups together. “The king and queen!” She had no 
choice but to drink along with them, all the time wishing that the guests had but a single 
face, so she could throw her wine into their eyes and remind them that she was the true 
queen. The only one of Tyrell’s lickspittles who seemed to remember her at all was 
Paxter Redwyne, who rose to make his own toast, swaying slightly. “To both our 
queens!” he chirruped. “To the young queen and the old!” 

Cersei drank several cups of wine and pushed her food around a golden plate. Jaime ate 
even less, and seldom deigned to occupy his seat upon the dais. He is as anxious as I am, 
the queen realized as she watched him prowl the hall, twitching aside the tapestries with 
his good hand to assure himself that no one was hiding behind them. There were 
Lannister spearmen posted around the building, she knew. Ser Osmund Kettleblack 
guarded one door, Ser Meryn Trant the other. Balon Swann stood behind the king’s chair, 
Loras Tyrell behind the queen’s. No swords had been allowed inside the feast save for 
those the white knights bore. 

My son is safe, Cersei told herself. No harm can come to him, not here, not now. Yet 
every time she looked at Tommen, she saw Joffrey clawing at his throat. And when the 
boy began to cough the queen’s heart stopped beating for a moment. She knocked aside a 
serving girl in her haste to reach him. 

“Only a little wine that went down the wrong way,” Margaery Tyrell assured her, 
smiling. She took Tommen’s hand in her own and kissed his fingers. “My little love 
needs to take smaller sips. See, you scared your lady mother half to death.” 

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Tommen said, abashed. 

It was more than Cersei could stand. I cannot let them see me cry, she thought, when she 
felt the tears welling in her eyes. She walked past Ser Meryn Trant and out into the back 
passage. Alone beneath a tallow candle, she allowed herself a shuddering sob, then 
another. A woman may weep, but not a queen. 

“Your Grace?” said a voice behind her. “Do I intrude?” 


It was a woman’s voice, flavored with the accents of the east. For an instant she feared 
that Maggy the Frog was speaking to her from the grave. But it was only Merryweather’s 
wife, the sloe-eyed beauty Lord Orton had wed during his exile and fetched home with 
him to Longtable. “The Small Hall is so stuffy,” Cersei heard herself say. “The smoke 
was making my eyes water.” 

“And mine, Your Grace.” Lady Merryweather was as tall as the queen, but dark instead 
of fair, raven-haired and olive-skinned and younger by a decade. She offered the queen a 
pale blue handkerchief of silk and lace. “I have a son as well. I know that I shall weep 
rivers on the day he weds.” 

Cersei wiped her cheeks, furious that she had let her tears be seen. “My thanks,” she said 
stiffly. 

“Your Grace, I . . .” The Myrish woman lowered her voice. “There is something you 
must know. Your maid is bought and paid for. She tells Lady Margaery everything you 
do.” 

“Senelle?” Sudden fury twisted in the queen’s belly. Was there no one she could trust? 
“You are certain of this?” 

“Have her followed. Margaery never meets with her directly. Her cousins are her ravens, 
they bring her messages. Sometimes Elinor, sometimes Alla, sometimes Megga. All of 
them are as close to Margaery as sisters. They meet in the sept and pretend to pray. Put 
your own man in the gallery on the morrow, and he will see Senelle whispering to Megga 
beneath the altar of the Maiden.” 

“If this is true, why tell me? You are one of Margaery’s companions. Why would you 
betray her?” Cersei had learned suspicion at her father’s knee; this could well be some 
trap, a lie meant to sow discord between the lion and the rose. 

“Longtable may be sworn to Highgarden,” the woman replied, with a toss of her black 
hair, “but I am of Myr, and my loyalty is to my husband and my son. I want all that is 
best for them.” 

“I see.” In the closeness of the passage, the queen could smell the other woman’s 
perfume, a musky scent that spoke of moss and earth and wildflowers. Under it, she 
smelled ambition. She gave testimony at Tyrion’s trial, Cersei recalled suddenly. She saw 
the Imp put the poison in Joff’s cup and was not afraid to say so. “I shall look into this,” 
she promised. “If what you say is true, you will be rewarded.” And if you’ve lied to me, 
I’ll have your tongue, and your lord husband’s lands and gold as well. 

“Your Grace is kind. And beautiful.” Lady Merryweather smiled. Her teeth were white, 
her lips full and dark. 


When the queen returned to the Small Hall, she found her brother pacing restlessly. “It 
was only a gulp of wine that went down the wrong way. Though it startled me as well.” 

“My belly is such a knot that I cannot eat,” she growled at him. “The wine tastes of bile. 
This wedding was a mistake.” 

“This wedding was necessary. The boy is safe.” 

“Fool. No one who wears a crown is ever safe.” She looked about the hall. Mace Tyrell 
laughed amongst his knights. Lords Redwyne and Rowan were talking furtively. Ser 
Kevan sat brooding over his wine at the back of the hall, whilst Lancel whispered 
something to a septon. Senelle was moving down the table, filling the cups of the bride’s 
cousins with wine as red as blood. Grand Maester Pycelle had fallen asleep. There is no 
one I can rely upon, not even Jaime, she realized grimly. I will need to sweep them all 
away and surround the king with mine own people. 

Later, after sweets and nuts and cheese had been served and cleared away, Margaery and 
Tommen began the dancing, looking more than a bit ridiculous as they whirled about the 
floor. The Tyrell girl stood a good foot and a half taller than her little husband, and 
Tommen was a clumsy dancer at best, with none of Joffrey’s easy grace. He did his 
earnest best, though, and seemed oblivious to the spectacle he was making of himself. 
And no sooner was Maid Margaery done with him than her cousins swooped in, one after 
the other, insisting that His Grace must dance with them as well. They will have him 
stumbling and shuffling like a fool by the time they’re done, Cersei thought resentfully as 
she watched. Half the court will be laughing at him behind his back. 

Whilst Alla, Elinor, and Megga took their turns with Tommen, Margaery took a turn 
around the floor with her father, then another with her brother Loras. The Knight of 
Flowers was in white silk, with a belt of golden roses about his waist and a jade rose 
fastening his cloak. They could be twins, Cersei thought as she watched them. Ser Loras 
was a year older than his sister, but they had the same big brown eyes, the same thick 
brown hair falling in lazy ringlets to their shoulders, the same smooth unblemished skin. 
A ripe crop of pimples would teach them some humility. Loras was taller and had a few 
wisps of soft brown fuzz on his face, and Margaery had a woman’s shape, but elsewise 
they were more alike than she and Jaime. That annoyed her too. 

Her own twin interrupted her musings. “Would Your Grace honor her white knight with a 
dance?” 

She gave him a withering look. “And have you fumbling at me with that stump? No. I 
will let you fill my wine cup for me, though. If you think you can manage it without 
spilling.” 

“A cripple like me? Not likely.” He moved away and made another circuit of the hall. 
She had to fill her own cup. 


Cersei refused Mace Tyrell as well, and later Lancel. The others took the hint, and no one 
else approached her. Our fast friends and loyal lords. She could not even trust the 
westermen, her father’s sworn swords and bannermen. Not if her own uncle was 
conspiring with her enemies . . . 

Margaery was dancing with her cousin Alla, Megga with Ser Tallad the Tall. The other 
cousin, Elinor, was sharing a cup of wine with the handsome young Bastard of Driftmark, 
Aurane Waters. It was not the first time the queen had made note of Waters, a lean young 
man with grey-green eyes and long silver-gold hair. The first time she had seen him, for 
half a heartbeat she had almost thought Rhaegar Targaryen had returned from the ashes. 
It is his hair, she told herself. He is not half as comely as Rhaegar was. His face is too 
narrow, and he has that cleft in his chin. The Velaryons came from old Valyrian stock, 
however, and some had the same silvery hair as the dragonkings of old. 

Tommen returned to his seat to nibble at an applecake. Her uncle’s place was empty. The 
queen finally found him in a corner, talking intently with Mace Tyrell’s son Garlan. What 
do they have to talk about? The Reach might call Ser Garlan gallant, but she trusted him 
no more than Margaery or Loras. She had not forgotten the gold coin that Qyburn had 
discovered beneath the gaoler’s chamber pot. A golden hand from Highgarden. And 
Margaery is spying on me. When Senelle appeared to fill her wine cup, the queen had to 
resist an urge to take her by the throat and throttle her. Do not presume to smile at me, 
you treacherous little bitch. You will be begging me for mercy before I’m done with you. 

“I think Her Grace has had enough wine for one night,” she heard her brother Jaime say. 

No, the queen thought. All the wine in the world would not be enough to see me through 
this wedding. She rose so fast she almost fell. Jaime caught her by the arm and steadied 
her. She wrenched free and clapped her hands together. The music died, the voices 
stilled. “Lords and ladies,” Cersei called out loudly, “if you will be so good as to come 
outside with me, we shall light a candle to celebrate the union of Highgarden and 
Casterly Rock, and a new age of peace and plenty for our Seven Kingdoms.” 

Dark and forlorn stood the Tower of the Hand, with only gaping holes where oaken doors 
and shuttered windows had once been. Yet even ruined and slighted, it loomed above the 
outer ward. As the wedding guests filed out of the Small Hall, they passed beneath its 
shadow. When Cersei looked up she saw the tower’s crenellated battlements gnawing at a 
hunter’s moon, and wondered for a moment how many Hands of how many kings had 
made their home there over the past three centuries. 

A hundred yards from the tower, she took a breath to stop her head from spinning. “Lord 
Hallyne! You may commence.” 

Hallyne the pyromancer said “Hmmmmmm” and waved the torch he was holding, and the 
archers on the walls bent their bows and sent a dozen flaming arrows through the gaping 
windows. 


The tower went up with a whoosh. In half a heartbeat its interior was alive with light, red, 
yellow, orange . . . and green, an ominous dark green, the color of bile and jade and 
pyromancer’s piss. “The substance,” the alchemists named it, but common folk called it 
wildfire. Fifty pots had been placed inside the Tower of the Hand, along with logs and 
casks of pitch and the greater part of the worldly possessions of a dwarf named Tyrion 
Lannister. 

The queen could feel the heat of those green flames. The pyromancers said that only three 
things burned hotter than their substance: dragonflame, the fires beneath the earth, and 
the summer sun. Some of the ladies gasped when the first flames appeared in the 
windows, licking up the outer walls like long green tongues. Others cheered, and made 
toasts. 

It is beautiful, she thought, as beautiful as Joffrey, when they laid him in my arms. No 
man had ever made her feel as good as she had felt when he took her nipple in his mouth 
to nurse. 

Tommen stared wide-eyed at the fires, as fascinated as he was frightened, until Margaery 
whispered something in his ear that made him laugh. Some of the knights began to make 
wagers on how long it would be before the tower collapsed. Lord Hallyne stood 
humming to himself and rocking on his heels. 

Cersei thought of all the King’s Hands that she had known through the years: Owen 
Merryweather, Jon Connington, Qarlton Chelsted, Jon Arryn, Eddard Stark, her brother 
Tyrion. And her father, Lord Tywin Lannister, her father most of all. All of them are 
burning now, she told herself, savoring the thought. They are dead and burning, every 
one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my day now. It is my castle and 
my kingdom. 

The Tower of the Hand gave out a sudden groan, so loud that all the conversation stopped 
abruptly. Stone cracked and split, and part of the upper battlements fell away and landed 
with a crash that shook the hill, sending up a cloud of dust and smoke. As fresh air rushed 
in through the broken masonry, the fire surged upward. Green flames leapt into the sky 
and whirled around each other. Tommen shied away, till Margaery took his hand and 
said, “Look, the flames are dancing. Just as we did, my love.” 

“They are.” His voice was filled with wonder. “Mother, look, they’re dancing.” 

“I see them. Lord Hallyne, how long will the fires burn?” 

“All night, Your Grace.” 

“It makes a pretty candle, I grant you,” said Lady Olenna Tyrell, leaning on her cane 
between Left and Right. “Bright enough to see us safe to sleep, I think. Old bones grow 
weary, and these young ones have had enough excitement for one night. It is time the 
king and queen were put to bed.” 


“Yes.” Cersei beckoned to Jaime. “Lord Commander, escort His Grace and his little 
queen to their pillows, if you would.” 


“As you command. And you as well?” 
“No need.” Cersei felt too alive for sleep. The wildfire was cleansing her, burning away 
all her rage and fear, filling her with resolve. “The flames are so pretty. I want to watch 
them for a while.” 


Jaime hesitated. “You should not stay alone.” 


“I will not be alone. Ser Osmund can remain with me and keep me safe. Your Sworn 
Brother.” 
“If it please Your Grace,” said Kettleblack. 
“It does.” Cersei slid her arm through his, and side by side they watched the fire rage. 



THE SOILED KNIGHT 

The night was unseasonably cool, even for autumn. A brisk wet wind was swirling down 
the alleys, stirring up the day’s dust. A north wind, and full of chill. Ser Arys Oakheart 
pulled up his hood to cover his face. It would not do for him to be recognized. A fortnight 
past, a trader had been butchered in the shadow city, a harmless man who’d come to 
Dorne for fruit and found death instead of dates. His only crime was being from King’s 
Landing. 

The mob would find a sterner foe in me. He would almost have welcomed an attack. His 
hand drifted down to brush lightly over the hilt on the longsword that hung half-hidden 
amongst the folds of his layered linen robes, the outer with its turquoise stripes and rows 
of golden suns, and the lighter orange one beneath. The Dornish garb was comfortable, 
but his father would have been aghast had he lived to see his son so dressed. He was a 
man of the Reach, and the Dornish were his ancient foes, as the tapestries at Old Oak 
bore witness. Arys only had to close his eyes to see them still. Lord Edgerran the Open-
Handed, seated in splendor with the heads of a hundred Dornishmen piled round his feet. 
The Three Leaves in the Prince’s Pass, pierced by Dornish spears, Alester sounding his 
warhorn with his last breath. Ser Olyvar the Green Oak all in white, dying at the side of 
the Young Dragon. Dorne is no fit place for any Oakheart. 


Even before Prince Oberyn had died, the knight had been ill at ease whenever he left the 
grounds of Sunspear to walk the alleys of the shadow city. He could feel eyes upon him 
everywhere he went, small black Dornish eyes regarding him with thinly veiled hostility. 
The shopkeepers did their best to cheat him at every turn, and sometimes he wondered 
whether the taverners were spitting in his drinks. Once a group of ragged boys began 
pelting him with stones, until he drew his sword and ran them off. The Red Viper’s death 
had inflamed the Dornish even more, though the streets had quieted a bit since Prince 
Doran had confined the Sand Snakes to a tower. Even so, to wear his white cloak openly 
in the shadow city would be asking for attack. He had brought three with him: two of 
wool, one light and one heavy, the third of fine white silk. He felt naked without one 
hanging from his shoulders. 

Better naked than dead, he told himself. I am a Kingsguard still, even uncloaked. She 
must respect that. I must make her understand. He should never have let himself be 
drawn into this, but the singer said that love can make a fool of any man. 

Sunspear’s shadow city oft seemed deserted in the heat of the day, when only buzzing 
flies moved down the dusty streets, but once evening fell the same streets came to life. 
Ser Arys heard faint music drifting through louvered windows as he passed below, and 
somewhere finger drums were beating out the quick rhythm of a spear dance, giving the 
night a pulse. Where three alleys met beneath the second of the Winding Walls, a pillow 
girl called down from a balcony. She was dressed in jewels and oil. He took a look at her, 
hunched his shoulders, and pushed on, into the teeth of the wind. We men are so weak. 
Our bodies betray even the noblest of us. He thought of King Baelor the Blessed, who 
would fast to the point of fainting to tame the lusts that shamed him. Must he do the 
same? 

A short man stood in an arched doorway grilling chunks of snake over a brazier, turning 
them with wooden tongs as they crisped. The pungent smell of his sauces brought tears to 
the knight’s eyes. The best snake sauce had a drop of venom in it, he had heard, along 
with mustard seeds and dragon peppers. Myrcella had taken to Dornish food as quick as 
she had to her Dornish prince, and from time to time Ser Arys would try a dish or two to 
please her. The food seared his mouth and made him gasp for wine, and burned even 
worse coming out than it did going in. His little princess loved it, though. 

He had left her in her chambers, bent over a gaming table opposite Prince Trystane, 
pushing ornate pieces across squares of jade and carnelian and lapis lazuli. Myrcella’s 
full lips had been slightly parted, her green eyes narrowed with concentration. Cyvasse, 
the game was called. It had come to the Planky Town on a trading galley from Volantis, 
and the orphans had spread it up and down the Greenblood. The Dornish court was mad 
for it. 

Ser Arys just found it maddening. There were ten different pieces, each with its own 
attributes and powers, and the board would change from game to game, depending on 
how the players arrayed their home squares. Prince Trystane had taken to the game at 
once, and Myrcella had learned it so she could play with him. She was not quite one-and



ten, her betrothed three-and-ten; even so, she had been winning more oft than not of late. 
Trystane did not seem to mind. The two children could not have looked more different, 
him with his olive skin and straight black hair, her pale as milk with a mop of golden 
curls; light and dark, like Queen Cersei and King Robert. He prayed Myrcella would find 
more joy in her Dornish boy than her mother had found with her storm lord. 

It made him feel uneasy to leave her, though she should be safe enough within the castle. 
There were only two doors that gave access to Myrcella’s chambers in the Tower of the 
Sun, and Ser Arys kept two men on each; Lannister household guards, men who had 
come with them from King’s Landing, battle-tested, tough, and loyal to the bone. 
Myrcella had her maids and Septa Eglantine as well, and Prince Trystane was attended by 
his sworn shield, Ser Gascoyne of the Greenblood. No one will trouble her, he told 
himself, and in a fortnight we shall be safely away. 

Prince Doran had promised as much. Though Arys had been shocked to see how aged 
and infirm the Dornish prince appeared, he did not doubt the prince’s word. “I am sorry I 
could not see you until now, or meet Princess Myrcella,” Martell had said when Arys was 
admitted to his solar, “but I trust that my daughter Arianne has made you welcome here 
in Dorne, ser.” 

“She has, my prince,” he’d answered, and prayed that no blush would dare betray him. 

“Ours is a harsh land, and poor, yet not without its beauties. It grieves us that you have 
seen no more of Dorne than Sunspear, but I fear that neither you nor your princess would 
be safe beyond these walls. We Dornish are a hot-blooded people, quick to anger and 
slow to forgive. It would gladden my heart if I could assure you that the Sand Snakes 
were alone in wanting war, but I will not tell you lies, ser. You have heard my smallfolk 
in the streets, crying out for me to call my spears. Half my lords agree with them, I fear.” 

“And you, my prince?” the knight had dared to ask. 

“My mother taught me long ago that only madmen fight wars they cannot win.” If the 
bluntness of the question had offended him, Prince Doran hid it well. “Yet this peace is 
fragile . . . as fragile as your princess.” 

“Only a beast would harm a little girl.” 

“My sister Elia had a little girl as well. Her name was Rhaenys. She was a princess too.” 
The prince sighed. “Those who would plunge a knife into Princess Myrcella do not bear 
her any malice, no more than Ser Amory Lorch did when he killed Rhaenys, if indeed he 
did. They seek only to force my hand. For if Myrcella should be slain in Dorne whilst 
under my protection, who would believe my denials?” 

“No one shall ever harm Myrcella whilst I live.” 


“A noble vow,” said Doran Martell with a faint smile, “but you are only one man, ser. I 
had hoped that imprisoning my headstrong nieces would help to calm the waters, but all 
we’ve done is drive the roaches back beneath the rushes. Every night I hear them 
whispering and sharpening their knives.” 

He is afraid, Ser Arys realized then. Look, his hand is shaking. The Prince of Dorne is 
terrified. Words failed him. 

“My apologies, ser,” Prince Doran said. “I am frail and failing, and sometimes . . . 
Sunspear wearies me, with its noise and dirt and smells. As soon as my duty allows, I 
mean to return to the Water Gardens. When I do I shall take Princess Myrcella with me.” 
Before the knight could protest, the prince raised a hand, its knuckles red and swollen. 
“You shall go as well. And her septa, her maids, her guards. Sunspear’s walls are strong, 
but beneath them is the shadow city. Even within the castle hundreds come and go each 
day. The Gardens are my haven. Prince Maron raised them as a gift for his Targaryen 
bride, to mark Dorne’s marriage to the Iron Throne. Autumn is a lovely season there . . . 
hot days, cool nights, the salt breeze off the sea, the fountains and the pools. And there 
are other children, boys and girls of high and gentle birth. Myrcella will have friends of 
her own age to play with. She will not be lonely.” 

“As you say.” The prince’s words pounded in his head. She will be safe there. Only why 
had Doran Martell urged him not to write King’s Landing about the move? Myrcella will 
be safest if no one knows just where she is. Ser Arys had agreed, but what choice did he 
have? He was a knight of the Kingsguard, but only one man for all that, just as the prince 
had said. 

The alley opened suddenly onto a moonlit courtyard. Past the candlemaker’s shop, she 
wrote, a gate and a short flight of exterior steps. He pushed through the gate and climbed 
the worn steps to an unmarked door. Should I knock? He pushed the door open instead, 
and found himself in a large, dim room with a low ceiling, lit by a pair of scented candles 
that flickered in niches cut from the thick earthen walls. He saw patterned Myrish carpets 
underneath his sandals, a tapestry upon one wall, a bed. “My lady?” he called. “Where 
are you?” 

“Here.” She stepped out from the shadow behind the door. 

An ornate snake coiled around her right forearm, its copper and gold scales glimmering 
when she moved. It was all she wore. 

No, he meant to tell her, I only came to tell you I must go, but when he saw her shining in 
the candlelight he seemed to lose the power of speech. His throat felt as dry as the 
Dornish sands. Silent he stood, drinking in the glories of her body, the hollow of her 
throat, the round ripe breasts with their huge dark nipples, the lush curves at waist and 
hip. And then somehow he was holding her, and she was pulling off his robes. When she 
reached his undertunic she seized it by the shoulders and ripped the silk down to his 
navel, but Arys was past caring. Her skin was smooth beneath his fingers, as warm to the 


touch as sand baked by the Dornish sun. He raised her head and found her lips. Her 
mouth opened under his, and her breasts filled his hands. He felt her nipples stiffen as his 
thumbs brushed over them. Her hair was black and thick and smelled of orchids, a dark 
and earthy smell that made him so hard it almost hurt. 

“Touch me, ser,” the woman whispered in his ear. His hand slipped down her rounded 
belly to find the sweet wet place beneath the thicket of black hair. “Yes, there,” she 
murmured as he slipped a finger up inside her. She made a whimpering sound, drew him 
to the bed, and pushed him down. “More, oh more, yes, sweet, my knight, my knight, my 
sweet white knight, yes you, you, I want you.” Her hands guided him inside her, then 
slipped around his back to pull him closer. “Deeper,” she whispered. “Yes, oh.” When 
she wrapped her legs around him, they felt as strong as steel. Her nails raked his back as 
he drove into her, again and again and again, until she screamed and arched her back 
beneath him. As she did, her fingers found his nipples, pinching till he spent his seed 
within her. I could die now, happy, the knight thought, and for a dozen heartbeats at least 
he was at peace. 

He did not die. 

His desire was as deep and boundless as the sea, but when the tide receded, the rocks of 
shame and guilt thrust up as sharp as ever. Sometimes the waves would cover them, but 
they remained beneath the waters, hard and black and slimy. What am I doing? he asked 
himself. I am a knight of the Kingsguard. He rolled off of her to sprawl staring at the 
ceiling. A great crack ran across it, from one wall to the other. He had not noticed that 
before, no more than he had noticed the picture on the tapestry, a scene of Nymeria and 
her ten thousand ships. I see only her. A dragon might have been peering in the window, 
and I would never have seen anything but her breasts, her face, her smile. 

“There is wine,” she murmured against his neck. She slid a hand across his chest. “Are 
you thirsty?” 

“No.” He rolled away, and sat on the edge of the bed. The room was hot, and yet he 
shivered. 

“You bleed,” she said. “I scratched too hard.” 

When she touched his back, he flinched as if her fingers were afire. “Don’t.” Naked, he 
stood. “No more.” 

“I have balm. For the scratches.” 

But none for my shame. “The scratches are nothing. Forgive me, my lady, I must go . . .” 

“So soon?” She had a husky voice, a wide mouth made for whispers, full lips ripe for 
kissing. Her hair tumbled down across her bare shoulders to the tops of her full breasts, 


black and thick. It curled in big soft lazy ringlets. Even the hair upon her mound was soft 
and curly. “Stay with me tonight, ser. I still have much to teach you.” 

“I have learned too much from you already.” 

“You seemed glad enough for the lessons at the time, ser. Are you certain you are not off 
to some other bed, some other woman? Tell me who she is. I will fight her for you, bare-
breasted, knife to knife.” She smiled. “Unless she is a Sand Snake. If so, we can share 
you. I love my cousins well.” 

“You know I have no other woman. Only . . . duty.” 

She rolled onto one elbow to look up at him, her big black eyes shining in the candlelight. 
“That poxy bitch? I know her. Dry as dust between the legs, and her kisses leave you 
bleeding. Let duty sleep alone for once, and stay with me tonight.” 

“My place is at the palace.” 

She sighed. “With your other princess. You will make me jealous. I think you love her 
more than me. The maid is much too young for you. You need a woman, not a little girl, 
but I can play the innocent if that excites you.” 

“You should not say such things.” Remember, she is Dornish. In the Reach men said it 
was the food that made Dornishmen so hot-tempered and their women so wild and 
wanton. Fiery peppers and strange spices heat the blood, she cannot help herself. “I love 
Myrcella as a daughter.” He could never have a daughter of his own, no more than he 
could have a wife. He had a fine white cloak instead. “We are going to the Water 
Gardens.” 

“Eventually,” she agreed, “though with my father, everything takes four times as long as 
it should. If he says he means to leave upon the morrow, you will certainly set out within 
a fortnight. You will be lonely in the Gardens, I promise you. And where is the brave 
young gallant who said he wished to spend the rest of his life in my arms?” 

“I was drunk when I said that.” 

“You’d had three cups of watered wine.” 

“I was drunk on you. It had been ten years since . . . I never touched a woman until you, 
not since I took the white. I never knew what love could be, yet now . . . I am afraid.” 

“What would frighten my white knight?” 

“I fear for my honor,” he said, “and for yours.” 


“I can tend to my own honor.” She touched a finger to her breast, drawing it slowly round 
her nipple. “And to my own pleasures, if need be. I am a woman grown.” 

She was that, beyond a doubt. Seeing her there upon the featherbed, smiling that wicked 
smile, toying with her breast . . . was there ever a woman with nipples so large or so 
responsive? He could hardly look at them without wanting to grab them, to suckle them 
until they were hard and wet and shiny . . . 

He looked away. His smallclothes were strewn on the carpets. The knight bent to pick 
them up. 

“Your hands are shaking,” she pointed out. “They would sooner be caressing me, I think. 
Must you be in such haste to don your clothes, ser? I prefer you as you are. Abed, unclad, 
we are our truest selves, a man and a woman, lovers, one flesh, as close as two can be. 
Our clothes make us different people. I would sooner be flesh and blood than silks and 
jewels, and you . . . you are not your white cloak, ser.” 

“I am,” Ser Arys said. “I am my cloak. And this must end, for your sake as well as mine. 
If we should be discovered . . .” 

“Men will think you fortunate.” 

“Men will think me an oathbreaker. What if someone were to go to your father and tell 
him how I’d dishonored you?” 

“My father is many things, but no one has ever said he was a fool. The Bastard of 
Godsgrace had my maidenhead when we were both fourteen. Do you know what my 
father did when he learned of it?” She gathered the bedclothes in her fist and pulled them 
up under her chin, to hide her nakedness. “Nothing. My father is very good at doing 
nothing. He calls it thinking. Tell me true, ser, is it my dishonor that concerns you, or 
your own?” 

“Both.” Her accusation stung. “That is why this must be our last time.” 

“So you have said before.” 

I did, and meant it too. But I am weak, else I would not be here now. He could not tell her 
that; she was the sort of woman who despised weakness, he could sense that. She has 
more of her uncle in her than her father. He turned away and found his striped silk 
undertunic on a chair. She had ripped the fabric to the navel when she pulled it down over 
his arms. “This is ruined,” he complained. “How can I wear it now?” 

“Backwards,” she suggested. “Once you don your robes, no one will see the tear. Perhaps 
your little princess will sew it up for you. Or shall I send a new one to the Water 
Gardens?” 


“Send me no gifts.” That would only draw attention. He shook out the undertunic and 
pulled it over his head, backwards. The silk felt cool against his skin, though it clung to 
his back where she’d scratched him. It would serve to get him back to the palace, at the 
least. “All I want is to end this . . . this . . .” 

“Is that gallant, ser? You hurt me. I begin to think that all your words of love were lies.” 

I could never lie to you. Ser Arys felt as if she’d slapped him. “Why else would I have 
forsaken all my honor, but for love? When I am with you I . . . I can scarcely think, you 
are all I ever dreamt of, but . . .” 

“Words are wind. If you love me, do not leave me.” 

“I swore a vow . . .” 

“. . . not to wed or father children. Well, I have drunk my moon tea, and you know I 
cannot marry you.” She smiled. “Though I might be persuaded to keep you for my 
paramour.” 

“Now you mock me.” 

“Perhaps a little. Do you think you are the only Kingsguard who ever loved a woman?” 

“There have always been men who found it easier to speak vows than to keep them,” he 
admitted. Ser Boros Blount was no stranger to the Street of Silk, and Ser Preston 
Greenfield used to call at a certain draper’s house whenever the draper was away, but 
Arys would not shame his Sworn Brothers by speaking of their failings. “Ser Terrence 
Toyne was found abed with his king’s mistress,” he said instead. “’Twas love, he swore, 
but it cost his life and hers, and brought about the downfall of his House and the death of 
the noblest knight who ever lived.” 

“Yes, and what of Lucamore the Lusty, with his three wives and sixteen children? The 
song always makes me laugh.” 

“The truth is not so funny. He was never called Lucamore the Lusty whilst he lived. His 
name was Ser Lucamore Strong, and his whole life was a lie. When his deceit was 
discovered, his own Sworn Brothers gelded him, and the Old King sent him to the Wall. 
Those sixteen children were left weeping. He was no true knight, no more than Terrence 
Toyne . . .” 

“And the Dragonknight?” She flung the bedclothes aside and swung her legs to the floor. 
“The noblest knight who ever lived, you said, and he took his queen to bed and got her 
with child.” 

“I will not believe that,” he said, offended. “The tale of Prince Aemon’s treason with 
Queen Naerys was only that, a tale, a lie his brother told when he wished to set his 


trueborn son aside in favor of his bastard. Aegon was not called the Unworthy without 
cause.” He found his swordbelt and buckled it around his waist. Though it looked queer 
against the silken Dornish undertunic, the familiar weight of longsword and dagger 
reminded him of who and what he was. “I will not be remembered as Ser Arys the 
Unworthy,” he declared. “I will not soil my cloak.” 

“Yes,” she said, “that fine white cloak. You forget, my great-uncle wore the same cloak. 
He died when I was little, yet I still remember him. He was as tall as a tower and used to 
tickle me until I could not breathe for laughing.” 

“I never had the honor to know Prince Lewyn,” Ser Arys said, “but all agree that he was a 
great knight.” 

“A great knight with a paramour. She is an old woman now, but she was a rare beauty in 
her youth, men say.” 

Prince Lewyn? That tale Ser Arys had not heard. It shocked him. Terrence Toyne’s 
treason and the deceits of Lucamore the Lusty were recorded in the White Book, but 
there was no hint of a woman on Prince Lewyn’s page. 

“My uncle always said that it was the sword in a man’s hand that determined his worth, 
not the one between his legs,” she went on, “so spare me all your pious talk of soiled 
cloaks. It is not our love that has dishonored you, it is the monsters you have served and 
the brutes you’ve called your brothers.” 

That cut too close to the bone. “Robert was no monster.” 

“He climbed onto his throne over the corpses of children,” she said, “though I will grant 
you he was no Joffrey.” 

Joffrey. He had been a handsome lad, tall and strong for his age, but that was all the good 
that could be said of him. It still shamed Ser Arys to remember all the times he’d struck 
that poor Stark girl at the boy’s command. When Tyrion had chosen him to go with 
Myrcella to Dorne, he lit a candle to the Warrior in thanks. “Joffrey is dead, poisoned by 
the Imp.” He would never have thought the dwarf capable of such enormity. “Tommen is 
king now, and he is not his brother.” 

“Nor is he his sister.” 

It was true. Tommen was a good-hearted little man who always tried his best, but the last 
time Ser Arys saw him he had been weeping on the quay. Myrcella never shed a tear, 
though it was she who was leaving hearth and home to seal an alliance with her 
maidenhood. The truth was, the princess was braver than her brother, and brighter and 
more confident as well. Her wits were quicker, her courtesies more polished. Nothing 
ever daunted her, not even Joffrey. The women are the strong ones, truly. He was 
thinking not only of Myrcella, but of her mother and his own, of the Queen of Thorns, of 


the Red Viper’s pretty, deadly Sand Snakes. And of Princess Arianne Martell, her most 
of all. “I will not say that you are wrong.” His voice was hoarse. 

“Will not? Cannot! Myrcella is more fit for rule . . .” 

“A son comes before a daughter.” 

“Why? What god has made it so? I am my father’s heir. Should I give up my rights to my 
brothers?” 

“You twist my words. I never said . . . Dorne is different. The Seven Kingdoms have 
never had a ruling queen.” 

“The first Viserys intended his daughter Rhaenyra to follow him, do you deny it? But as 
the king lay dying the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard decided that it should be 
otherwise.” 

Ser Criston Cole. Criston the Kingmaker had set brother against sister and divided the 
Kingsguard against itself, bringing on the terrible war the singers named the Dance of the 
Dragons. Some claimed he acted from ambition, for Prince Aegon was more tractable 
than his willful older sister. Others allowed him nobler motives, and argued that he was 
defending ancient Andal custom. A few whispered that Ser Criston had been Princess 
Rhaenyra’s lover before he took the white and wanted vengeance on the woman who had 
spurned him. “The Kingmaker wrought grave harm,” Ser Arys said, “and gravely did he 
pay for it, but . . .” 

“. . . but perhaps the Seven sent you here so that one white knight might make right what 
another set awry. You do know that when my father returns to the Water Gardens he 
plans to take Myrcella with him?” 

“To keep her safe from those who would do her harm.” 

“No. To keep her away from those who’d seek to crown her. Prince Oberyn Viper would 
have placed the crown upon her head himself if he had lived, but my father lacks the 
courage.” She got to her feet. “You say you love the girl as you would a daughter of your 
own blood. Would you let your daughter be despoiled of her rights and locked away in 
prison?” 

“The Water Gardens are no prison,” he protested feebly. 

“A prison does not have fountains and fig trees, is that what you think? Yet once the girl 
is there, she will not be allowed to leave. No more than you will. Hotah will see to that. 
You do not know him as I do. He is terrible when aroused.” 


Ser Arys frowned. The big Norvoshi captain with the scarred face had always made him 
feel profoundly uneasy. They say he sleeps with that great axe beside him. “What would 
you have me do?” 

“No more than you have sworn. Protect Myrcella with your life. Defend her . . . and her 
rights. Set a crown upon her head.” 

“I swore an oath!” 

“To Joffrey, not to Tommen.” 

“Aye, but Tommen is a good-hearted boy. He will be a better king than Joffrey.” 

“But not better than Myrcella. She loves the boy as well. I know she will not let him 
come to any harm. Storm’s End is his by rights, since Lord Renly left no heir and Lord 
Stannis is attainted. In time, Casterly Rock will pass to the boy as well, through his lady 
mother. He will be as great a lord as any in the realm . . . but Myrcella by rights should sit 
the Iron Throne.” 

“The law . . . I do not know . . .” 

“I do.” When she stood, the long black tangle of her hair fell down to the small of her 
back. “Aegon the Dragon made the Kingsguard and its vows, but what one king does 
another can undo, or change. Formerly the Kingsguard served for life, yet Joffrey 
dismissed Ser Barristan so his dog could have a cloak. Myrcella would want you to be 
happy, and she is fond of me as well. She will give us leave to marry if we ask.” Arianne 
put her arms around him and laid her face against his chest. The top of her head came to 
just beneath his chin. “You can have me and your white cloak both, if that is what you 
want.” 

She is tearing me apart. “You know I do, but . . .” 

“I am a princess of Dorne,” she said in her husky voice, “and it is not meet that you 
should make me beg.” 

Ser Arys could smell the perfume in her hair and feel her heart beating as she pressed 
against him. His body was responding to her closeness, and he did not doubt that she 
could feel it too. When he put his arms upon her shoulders, he realized she was 
trembling. “Arianne? My princess? What is it, my love?” 

“Must I say it, ser? I am afraid. You call me love, yet you refuse me, when I have most 
desperate need of you. Is it so wrong of me to want a knight to keep me safe?” 

He had never heard her sound so vulnerable. “No,” he said, “but you have your father’s 
guards to keep you safe, why—” 


“It is my father’s guards I fear.” For a moment she sounded younger than Myrcella. “It 
was my father’s guards who dragged my sweet cousins off in chains.” 

“Not in chains. I have heard that they have every comfort.” 

She gave a bitter laugh. “Have you seen them? He will not permit me to see them, did 
you know that?” 

“They were speaking treason, fomenting war . . .” 

“Loreza is six, Dorea eight. What wars could they foment? Yet my father has imprisoned 
them with their sisters. You have seen him. Fear makes even strong men do things they 
might never do otherwise, and my father was never strong. Arys, my heart, hear me for 
the love you say you bear me. I have never been as fearless as my cousins, for I was 
made with weaker seed, but Tyene and I are of an age and have been close as sisters since 
we were little girls. We have no secrets between us. If she can be imprisoned, so can I, 
and for the same cause . . . this of Myrcella.” 

“Your father would never do that.” 

“You do not know my father. I have been disappointing him since I first arrived in this 
world without a cock. Half a dozen times he has tried to marry me to toothless 
greybeards, each more contemptible than the last. He never commanded me to wed them, 
I grant you, but the offers alone prove how little he regards me.” 

“Even so, you are his heir.” 

“Am I?” 

“He left you to rule in Sunspear when he took himself off to his Water Gardens, did he 
not?” 

“To rule? No. He left his cousin Ser Manfrey as castellan, old blind Ricasso as seneschal, 
his bailiffs to collect duties and taxes for his treasurer Alyse Ladybright to count, his 
shariffs to police the shadow city, his justiciars to sit in judgment, and Maester Myles to 
deal with any letters not requiring the prince’s own attention. Above them all he placed 
the Red Viper. My charge was feasts and frolics, and the entertainment of distinguished 
guests. Oberyn would visit the Water Gardens twice a fortnight. Me, he summoned twice 
a year. I am not the heir my father wants, he has made that plain. Our laws constrain him, 
but he would sooner have my brother follow him, I know it.” 

“Your brother?” Ser Arys put his hand beneath her chin and raised her head, the better to 
look her in the eyes. “You cannot mean Trystane, he is just a boy.” 

“Not Trys. Quentyn.” Her eyes were bold and black as sin, unflinching. “I have known 
the truth since I was four-and-ten, since the day that I went to my father’s solar to give 


him a good night kiss, and found him gone. My mother had sent for him, I learned later. 
He’d left a candle burning. When I went to blow it out, I found a letter lying incomplete 
beside it, a letter to my brother Quentyn, off at Yronwood. My father told Quentyn that 
he must do all that his maester and his master-at-arms required of him, because ‘one day 
you will sit where I sit and rule all Dorne, and a ruler must be strong of mind and body.’” 
A tear crept down Arianne’s soft cheek. “My father’s words, written in his own hand. 
They burned themselves into my memory. I cried myself to sleep that night, and many 
nights thereafter.” 

Ser Arys had yet to meet Quentyn Martell. The prince had been fostered by Lord 
Yronwood from a tender age, had served him as a page, then a squire, had even taken 
knighthood at his hands in preference to the Red Viper’s. If I were a father, I would want 
my son to follow me as well, he thought, but he could hear the hurt in her voice, and he 
knew that if he said what he was thinking, he would lose her. “Perhaps you 
misunderstood,” he said. “You were only a child. Perhaps the prince was only saying that 
to encourage your brother to be more diligent.” 

“You think so? Then tell me, where is Quentyn now?” 

“The prince is with Lord Yronwood’s host in the Boneway,” Ser Arys said cautiously. 
That was what Sunspear’s ancient castellan had told him, when first he came to Dorne. 
The maester with the silky beard said the same. 

Arianne demurred. “So my father wishes us to believe, but I have friends who tell me 
otherwise. My brother has crossed the narrow sea in secret, posing as a common 
merchant. Why?” 

“How would I know? There could be a hundred reasons.” 

“Or one. Are you aware that the Golden Company has broken its contract with Myr?” 

“Sellswords break their contracts all the time.” 

“Not the Golden Company. Our word is good as gold has been their boast since the days 
of Bittersteel. Myr is on the point of war with Lys and Tyrosh. Why break a contract that 
offered them the prospect of good wages and good plunder?” 

“Perhaps Lys offered them better wages. Or Tyrosh.” 

“No,” she said. “I would believe it of any of the other free companies, yes. Most of them 
would change sides for half a groat. The Golden Company is different. A brotherhood of 
exiles and the sons of exiles, united by the dream of Bittersteel. It’s home they want, as 
much as gold. Lord Yronwood knows that as well as I do. His forebears rode with 
Bittersteel during three of the Blackfyre Rebellions.” She took Ser Arys by the hand, and 
wove her fingers through his own. “Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of 
Ghost Hill?” 


He had to think a moment. “A dragon eating its own tail?” 

“The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again. 
Anders Yronwood is Criston Cole reborn. He whispers in my brother’s ear that he should 
rule after my father, that it is not right for men to kneel to women . . . that Arianne 
especially is unfit to rule, being the willful wanton that she is.” She tossed her hair 
defiantly. “So your two princesses share a common cause, ser . . . and they share as well a 
knight who claims to love them both, but will not fight for them.” 

“I will.” Ser Arys sank to one knee. “Myrcella is the elder, and better suited to the crown. 
Who will defend her rights if not her Kingsguard? My sword, my life, my honor, all 
belong to her . . . and to you, my heart’s delight. I swear, no man will steal your birthright 
whilst I still have the strength to lift a sword. I am yours. What would you have of me?” 

“All.” She knelt to kiss his lips. “All, my love, my true love, my sweet love, and forever. 
But first . . .” 

“Ask, and it is yours.” 

“. . . Myrcella.” 


BRIENNE 

The stone wall was old and crumbling, but the sight of it across the field made the hairs 
on Brienne’s neck stand up. 

That was where the archers hid and slew poor Cleos Frey, she thought . . . but half a mile 
farther on she passed another wall that looked much like the first and found herself 
uncertain. The rutted road turned and twisted, and the bare brown trees looked different 
from the green ones she remembered. Had she ridden past the place where Ser Jaime had 
snatched his cousin’s sword from its scabbard? Where were the woods they’d fought in? 
The stream where they’d splashed and slashed at one another until they drew the Brave 
Companions down upon them? 

“My lady? Ser?” Podrick never seemed certain what to call her. “What are you looking 
for?” 


Ghosts. “A wall I rode by once. It does not matter.” It was when Ser Jaime still had both 
his hands. How I loathed him, with all his taunts and smiles. “Stay quiet, Podrick. There 
may still be outlaws in these woods.” 

The boy looked at the bare brown trees, the wet leaves, the muddy road ahead. “I have a 
longsword. I can fight.” 

Not well enough. Brienne did not doubt the boy’s courage, only his training. A squire he 
might be, in name at least, but the men he’d squired for had served him ill. 

She had gotten his story out of him in fits and starts on the road from Duskendale. His 
was a lesser branch of House Payne, an impoverished offshoot sprouted from the loins of 
a younger son. His father had spent his life squiring for richer cousins and had sired 
Podrick upon a chandler’s daughter he’d wed before going off to die in the Greyjoy 
Rebellion. His mother had abandoned him with one of those cousins when he was four, 
so she could run after a wandering singer who had put another baby in her belly. Podrick 
did not remember what she looked like. Ser Cedric Payne had been the nearest thing to a 
parent the boy had ever known, though from his stammered stories it seemed to Brienne 
that cousin Cedric had treated Podrick more like a servant than a son. When Casterly 
Rock called its banners, the knight had taken him along to tend his horse and clean his 
mail. Then Ser Cedric had been slain in the riverlands whilst fighting in Lord Tywin’s 
host. 

Far from home, alone, and penniless, the boy had attached himself to a fat hedge knight 
named Ser Lorimer the Belly, who was part of Lord Lefford’s contingent, charged with 
protecting the baggage train. “The boys who guard the foodstuffs always eat the best,” 
Ser Lorimer liked to say, until he was discovered with a salted ham he’d stolen from Lord 
Tywin’s personal stores. Tywin Lannister chose to hang him as a lesson to other looters. 
Podrick had shared the ham and might have shared the rope as well, but his name had 
saved him. Ser Kevan Lannister took charge of him, and sometime later sent the boy to 
squire for his nephew Tyrion. 

Ser Cedric had taught Podrick how to groom a horse and check his shoes for stones, and 
Ser Lorimer had taught him how to steal, but neither had given him much training with a 
sword. The Imp at least had dispatched him to the Red Keep’s master-at-arms when they 
came to court. But during the bread riots Ser Aron Santagar had been amongst those 
slain, and that had been the end of Podrick’s training. 

Brienne cut two wooden swords from fallen branches to get a sense of Podrick’s skills. 
The boy was slow of speech but not of hand, she was pleased to learn. Though fearless 
and attentive, he was also underfed and skinny, and not near strong enough. If he had 
survived the Battle of the Blackwater as he claimed, it could only be because no one 
thought him worth the killing. “You may call yourself a squire,” she told him, “but I’ve 
seen pages half your age who could have beat you bloody. If you stay with me, you’ll go 
to sleep with blisters on your hands and bruises on your arms most every night, and 
you’ll be so stiff and sore you’ll hardly sleep. You don’t want that.” 


“I do,” the boy insisted. “I want that. The bruises and the blisters. I mean, I don’t, but I 
do. Ser. My lady.” 

So far he had been true to his word, and Brienne had been true to hers. Podrick had not 
complained. Every time he raised a new blister on his sword hand, he felt the need to 
show it to her proudly. He took good care of their horses too. He is still no squire, she 
reminded herself, but I am no knight, no matter how many times he calls me “ser.” She 
would have sent him on his way, but he had nowhere to go. Besides, though Podrick said 
he did not know where Sansa Stark had gone, it might be that he knew more than he 
realized. Some chance remark, half-remembered, might hold the key to Brienne’s quest. 

“Ser? My lady?” Podrick pointed. “There’s a cart ahead.” 

Brienne saw it: a wooden oxcart, two-wheeled and high-sided. A man and a woman were 
laboring in the traces, pulling the cart along the ruts toward Maidenpool. Farm folk, by 
the look of them. “Slowly now,” she told the boy. “They may take us for outlaws. Say no 
more than you must and be courteous.” 

“I will, ser. Be courteous. My lady.” The boy seemed almost pleased by the prospect of 
being taken for an outlaw. 

The farm folk watched them warily as they came trotting up, but once Brienne made it 
plain that she meant them no harm, they let her ride beside them. “We used to have an 
ox,” the old man told her as they made their way through the weed-choked fields, lakes of 
soft mud, and burnt and blackened trees, “but the wolves made off with him.” His face 
was red from the effort of pulling the cart. “They took off our daughter too and had their 
way with her, but she come wandering back after the battle down at Duskendale. The ox 
never did. The wolves ate him, I expect.” 

The woman had little to add. She was younger than the man by twenty years, but never 
spoke a word, only looked at Brienne the same way she might have looked at a two-
headed calf. The Maid of Tarth had seen such eyes before. Lady Stark had been kind to 
her, but most women were just as cruel as men. She could not have said which she found 
most hurtful, the pretty girls with their waspish tongues and brittle laughter or the cold-
eyed ladies who hid their disdain behind a mask of courtesy. And common women could 
be worse than either. “Maidenpool was all in ruins when last I saw it,” she said. “The 
gates were broken and half the town was burned.” 

“They rebuilt it some. This Tarly, he’s a hard man, but a braver lord than Mooton. 
There’s still outlaws in the woods, but not so many as there was. Tarly hunted down the 
worst o’ them and shortened them with that big sword o’ his.” He turned his head and 
spat. “You’ve seen no outlaws on the road?” 

“None.” Not this time. The farther they had come from Duskendale, the emptier the road 
had been. The only travelers they’d glimpsed had melted away into the woods before 
they reached them, save for a big, bearded septon they met walking south with twoscore 


footsore followers. Such inns as they passed had either been sacked and abandoned or 
turned into armed camps. Yesterday they had encountered one of Lord Randyll’s patrols, 
bristling with longbows and lances. The horsemen had surrounded them while their 
captain questioned Brienne, but in the end he’d let them continue on their way. “Be wary, 
woman. The next men you meet may not be as honest as my lads. The Hound has crossed 
the Trident with a hundred outlaws, and it’s said they’re raping every wench they come 
upon and cutting off their teats for trophies.” 

Brienne felt obligated to pass along that warning to the farmer and his wife. The man 
nodded as she told him, but when she was done he spat again and said, “Dogs and wolves 
and lions, may the Others take them all. These outlaws won’t dare come too near to 
Maidenpool. Not so long as Lord Tarly has the rule there.” 

Brienne knew Lord Randyll Tarly from her time with King Renly’s host. Though she 
could not find it in herself to like the man, she could not forget the debt she owed him 
either. If the gods are good, we will pass Maidenpool before he knows that I am there. 
“The town will be restored to Lord Mooton once the fighting’s done,” she told the 
farmer. “His lordship has been pardoned by the king.” 

“Pardoned?” The old man laughed. “For what? Sitting on his arse in his bloody castle? 
He sent men off to Riverrun to fight but never went himself. Lions sacked his town, then 
wolves, then sellswords, and his lordship just sat safe behind his walls. His brother ’ud 
never have hid like that. Ser Myles was bold as brass till that Robert killed him.” 

More ghosts, Brienne thought. “I am looking for my sister, a fair maid of three-and-ten. 
Perhaps you’ve seen her?” 

“I’ve not seen no maids, fair nor foul.” 

No one has. But she had to keep asking. 

“Mooton’s daughter, she’s a maid,” the man went on. “Till the bedding, anyways. These 
eggs, they’re for her wedding. Her and Tarly’s son. The cooks will need eggs for cakes.” 

“They will.” Lord Tarly’s son. Young Dickon’s to be wed. She tried to recall how old he 
was; eight or ten, she thought. Brienne had been betrothed at seven, to a boy three years 
her senior, Lord Caron’s younger son, a shy boy with a mole above his lip. They had only 
met the once, on the occasion of their betrothal. Two years later he was dead, carried off 
by the same chill that took Lord and Lady Caron and their daughters. Had he lived, they 
would have been wed within a year of her first flowering, and her whole life would have 
been different. She would not be here now, dressed in man’s mail and carrying a sword, 
hunting for a dead woman’s child. More like she’d be at Nightsong, swaddling a child of 
her own and nursing another. It was not a new thought for Brienne. It always made her 
feel a little sad, but a little relieved as well. 


The sun was half-hidden behind a bank of clouds when they emerged from the blackened 
trees to find Maidenpool before them, with the deep waters of the bay beyond. The 
town’s gates had been rebuilt and strengthened, Brienne saw at once, and crossbowmen 
walked its pink stone walls once more. Above the gatehouse floated King Tommen’s 
royal banner, a black stag and golden lion combatant on a field divided gold and crimson. 
Other banners displayed the Tarly huntsman, but the red salmon of House Mooton flew 
only from their castle on its hill. 

At the portcullis they came upon a dozen guards armed with halberds. Their badges 
marked them for soldiers of Lord Tarly’s host, though none was Tarly’s own. She saw 
two centaurs, a thunderbolt, a blue beetle and a green arrow, but not the striding 
huntsman of Horn Hill. Their serjeant had a peacock on his breast, its bright tail faded by 
the sun. When the farmers drew their cart up he gave a whistle. “What’s this now? 
Eggs?” He tossed one up, caught it, and grinned. “We’ll take them.” 

The old man squawked. “Our eggs is for Lord Mooton. For the wedding cakes and such.” 

“Have your hens lay more. I haven’t had an egg in half a year. Here, don’t say you 
weren’t paid.” He flung a handful of pennies at the old man’s feet. 

The farmer’s wife spoke up. “That’s not enough,” she said. “Not near enough.” 

“I say it is,” said the serjeant. “For them eggs, and you as well. Bring her here, boys. 
She’s too young for that old man.” Two of the guards leaned their halberds against the 
wall and pulled the woman away from the cart, struggling. The farmer watched grey-
faced, but dared not move. 

Brienne spurred her mare forward. “Release her.” 

Her voice made the guards hesitate long enough for the farmer’s wife to wrench free of 
their grasp. “This is none of your concern,” one man said. “You mind your mouth, 
wench.” 

Brienne drew her sword instead. 

“Well now,” the serjeant said, “naked steel. Seems to me I smell an outlaw. You know 
what Lord Tarly does with outlaws?” He still held the egg he’d taken from the cart. His 
hand closed, and the yolk oozed through his fingers. 

“I know what Lord Randyll does with outlaws,” Brienne said. “I know what he does with 
rapers too.” 

She had hoped the name might cow them, but the serjeant only flicked egg off his fingers 
and signaled to his men to spread out. Brienne found herself surrounded by steel points. 
“What was it you was saying, wench? What is it that Lord Tarly does to . . .” 


“. . . rapers,” a deeper voice finished. “He gelds them or sends them to the Wall. 
Sometimes both. And he cuts fingers off thieves.” A languid young man stepped from the 
gatehouse, a swordbelt buckled at his waist. The surcoat he wore above his steel had once 
been white, and here and there still was, beneath the grass stains and dried blood. His 
sigil was displayed across his chest: a brown deer, dead and bound and slung beneath a 
pole. 

Him. His voice was a punch in her stomach, his face a blade in her bowels. “Ser Hyle,” 
she said stiffly. 

“Best let her by, lads,” warned Ser Hyle Hunt. “This is Brienne the Beauty, the Maid of 
Tarth, who slew King Renly and half his Rainbow Guard. She’s as mean as she is ugly, 
and there’s no one uglier . . . except perhaps for you, Pisspot, but your father was the rear 
end of an aurochs, so you have a good excuse. Her father is the Evenstar of Tarth.” 

The guards laughed, but the halberds parted. “Shouldn’t we seize her, ser?” the serjeant 
asked. “For killing Renly?” 

“Why? Renly was a rebel. So were we all, rebels to a man, but now we’re Tommen’s 
loyal lads.” The knight waved the farm folk through the gate. “His lordship’s steward will 
be pleased to see those eggs. You’ll find him in the market.” 

The old man knuckled his forehead. “My thanks, m’lord. You’re a true knight, it’s plain 
to see. Come, wife.” They put their shoulders to the cart again and rumbled through the 
gate. 

Brienne trotted after them, with Podrick at her heels. A true knight, she thought, 
frowning. Inside the town she reined up. The ruins of a stable could be seen off to her 
left, fronting on a muddy alley. Across from it three half-dressed whores stood on the 
balcony of a brothel, whispering to one another. One looked a bit like a camp follower 
who had once come up to Brienne to ask if she had a cunt or a cock inside her breeches. 

“That rounsey may be the most hideous horse I’ve ever seen,” said Ser Hyle of Podrick’s 
mount. “I am surprised that you’re not riding it, my lady. Do you plan to thank me for my 
help?” 

Brienne swung down off her mare. She stood a head taller than Ser Hyle. “One day I’ll 
thank you in a mêlée, ser.” 

“The way you thanked Red Ronnet?” Hunt laughed. He had a full, rich laugh, though his 
face was plain. An honest face, she’d thought once, before she learned better; shaggy 
brown hair, hazel eyes, a little scar by his left ear. His chin had a cleft and his nose was 
crooked, but he did laugh well, and often. 

“Shouldn’t you be watching your gate?” 


He made a wry face at her. “My cousin Alyn is off hunting outlaws. Doubtless he’ll 
return with the Hound’s head, gloating and covered in glory. Meanwhile, I am 
condemned to guard this gate, thanks to you. I hope you’re pleased, my beauty. What is it 
that you’re looking for?” 

“A stable.” 

“Over by the east gate. This one burned.” 

I can see that. “What you said to those men . . . I was with King Renly when he died, but 
it was some sorcery that slew him, ser. I swear it on my sword.” She put her hand upon 
her hilt, ready to fight if Hunt named her a liar to her face. 

“Aye, and it was the Knight of Flowers who carved up the Rainbow Guard. On a good 
day you might have been able to defeat Ser Emmon. He was a rash fighter, and he tired 
easily. Royce, though? No. Ser Robar was twice the swordsman that you are . . . though 
you’re not a swordsman, are you? Is there such a word as swordswench? What quest 
brings the Maid to Maidenpool, I wonder?” 

Searching for my sister, a maid of three-and-ten, she almost said, but Ser Hyle would 
know she had no sisters. “There’s a man I seek, at a place called the Stinking Goose.” 

“I thought Brienne the Beauty had no use for men.” There was a cruel edge to his smile. 
“The Stinking Goose. An apt name, that . . . the stinking part, at least. It’s by the harbor. 
First you will come with me to see his lordship.” 

Brienne did not fear Ser Hyle, but he was one of Randyll Tarly’s captains. A whistle, and 
a hundred men would come running to defend him. “Am I to be arrested?” 

“What, for Renly? Who was he? We’ve changed kings since then, some of us twice. No 
one cares, no one remembers.” He laid a hand lightly on her arm. “This way, if you 
please.” 

She wrenched away. “I would thank you not to touch me.” 

“Thanks at last,” he said, with a wry smile. 

When last she had seen Maidenpool, the town had been a desolation, a grim place of 
empty streets and burned homes. Now the streets were full of pigs and children, and most 
of the burned buildings had been pulled down. Vegetables had been planted in the lots 
where some once stood; merchant’s tents and knight’s pavilions took the place of others. 
Brienne saw new houses going up, a stone inn rising where a wooden inn had burned, a 
new slate roof on the town sept. The cool autumn air rang to the sounds of saw and 
hammer. Men carried timber through the streets, and quarrymen drove their wagons 
down muddy lanes. Many wore the striding huntsman on their breasts. “The soldiers are 
rebuilding the town,” she said, surprised. 


“They would sooner be dicing, drinking, and fucking, I don’t doubt, but Lord Randyll 
believes in putting idle men to work.” 

She had expected to be taken to the castle. Instead, Hunt led them toward the busy 
harbor. The traders had returned to Maidenpool, she was pleased to see. A galley, a 
galleas, and a big two-masted cog were in port, along with a score of little fishing boats. 
More fishermen were visible out on the bay. If the Stinking Goose yields nothing, I will 
take passage on a ship, she decided. Gulltown was only a short voyage away. From there 
she could make her way to the Eyrie easily enough. 

They found Lord Tarly in the fishmarket, doing justice. 

A platform had been thrown up beside the water, from which his lordship could look 
down upon the men accused of crimes. To his left stood a long gallows, with ropes 
enough for twenty men. Four corpses swung beneath it. One looked fresh, but the other 
three had plainly been there for some time. A crow was pulling strips of flesh from the 
ripe ruins of one of the dead men. The other crows had scattered, wary of the crowd of 
townsfolk who’d gathered in hopes of someone’s being hanged. 

Lord Randyll shared the platform with Lord Mooton, a pale, soft, fleshy man in a white 
doublet and red breeches, his ermine cloak pinned at the shoulder by a red-gold brooch in 
the shape of a salmon. Tarly wore mail and boiled leather, and a breastplate of grey steel. 
The hilt of a greatsword poked up above his left shoulder. Heartsbane, it was named, the 
pride of his House. 

A stripling in a roughspun cloak and soiled jerkin was being heard when they came up. “I 
never hurt no one, m’lord,” Brienne heard him say. “I only took what the septons left 
when they run off. If you got to take my finger for that, do it.” 

“It is customary to take a finger from a thief,” Lord Tarly replied in a hard voice, “but a 
man who steals from a sept is stealing from the gods.” He turned to his captain of guards. 
“Seven fingers. Leave his thumbs.” 

“Seven?” The thief paled. When the guards seized hold of him he tried to fight, but 
feebly, as if he were already maimed. Watching him, Brienne could not help think of Ser 
Jaime, and the way he’d screamed when Zollo’s arakh came flashing down. 

The next man was a baker, accused of mixing sawdust in his flour. Lord Randyll fined 
him fifty silver stags. When the baker swore he did not have that much silver, his lordship 
declared that he could have a lash for every stag that he was short. He was followed by a 
haggard grey-faced whore, accused of giving the pox to four of Tarly’s soldiers. “Wash 
out her private parts with lye and throw her in a dungeon,” Tarly commanded. As the 
whore was dragged off sobbing, his lordship saw Brienne on the edge of the crowd, 
standing between Podrick and Ser Hyle. He frowned at her, but his eyes betrayed not a 
flicker of recognition. 


A sailor off the galleas came next. His accuser was an archer of Lord Mooton’s garrison, 
with a bandaged hand and a salmon on his breast. “If it please m’lord, this bastid put his 
dagger through my hand. He said I was cheating him at dice.” 

Lord Tarly took his gaze away from Brienne to consider the men before him. “Were 
you?” 

“No, m’lord. I never.” 

“For theft, I will take a finger. Lie to me and I will hang you. Shall I ask to see these 
dice?” 

“The dice?” The archer looked to Mooton, but his lordship was gazing at the fishing 
boats. The bowman swallowed. “Might be I . . . them dice, they’re lucky for me, ’s true, 
but I . . .” 

Tarly had heard enough. “Take his little finger. He can choose which hand. A nail 
through the palm for the other.” He stood. “We’re done. March the rest of them back to 
the dungeon, I’ll deal with them on the morrow.” He turned to beckon Ser Hyle forward. 
Brienne followed. “My lord,” she said, when she stood before him. She felt eight years 
old again. 

“My lady. To what do we owe this . . . honor?” 

“I have been sent to look for . . . for . . .” She hesitated. 

“How will you find him if you do not know his name? Did you slay Lord Renly?” 

“No.” 

Tarly weighed the word. He is judging me, as he judged those others. “No,” he said at 
last, “you only let him die.” 

He had died in her arms, his life’s blood drenching her. Brienne flinched. “It was sorcery. 
I never . . .” 

“You never?” His voice became a whip. “Aye. You never should have donned mail, nor 
buckled on a sword. You never should have left your father’s hall. This is a war, not a 
harvest ball. By all the gods, I ought to ship you back to Tarth.” 

“Do that and answer to the throne.” Her voice sounded high and girlish, when she wanted 
to sound fearless. “Podrick. In my bag you’ll find a parchment. Bring it to his lordship.” 

Tarly took the letter and unrolled it, scowling. His lips moved as he read. “The king’s 
business. What sort of business?” 


Lie to me and I will hang you. “S-sansa Stark.” 

“If the Stark girl were here, I’d know it. She’s run back north, I’ll wager. Hoping to find 
refuge with one of her father’s bannermen. She had best hope she chooses the right one.” 

“She might have gone to the Vale instead,” Brienne heard herself blurt out, “to her 
mother’s sister.” 

Lord Randyll gave her a contemptuous look. “Lady Lysa is dead. Some singer pushed her 
off a mountain. Littlefinger holds the Eyrie now . . . though not for long. The lords of the 
Vale are not the sort to bend their knees to some upjumped jackanapes whose only skill is 
counting coppers.” He handed her back her letter. “Go where you want and do as you will 
. . . but when you’re raped don’t look to me for justice. You will have earned it with your 
folly.” He glanced at Ser Hyle. “And you, ser, should be at your gate. I gave you the 
command there, did I not?” 

“You did, my lord,” said Hyle Hunt, “but I thought—” 

“You think too much.” Lord Tarly strode away. 

Lysa Tully is dead. Brienne stood beneath the gallows, the precious parchment in her 
hand. The crowd had dispersed, and the crows had returned to resume their feast. A 
singer pushed her off a mountain. Had the crows dined on Lady Catelyn’s sister too? 

“You spoke of the Stinking Goose, my lady,” said Ser Hyle. “If you want me to show 
you—” 

“Go back to your gate.” 

A look of annoyance flashed across his face. A plain face, not an honest one. “If that’s 
your wish.” 

“It is.” 

“It was only a game to pass the time. We meant no harm.” He hesitated. “Ben died, you 
know. Cut down on the Blackwater. Farrow too, and Will the Stork. And Mark 
Mullendore took a wound that cost him half his arm.” 

Good, Brienne wanted to say. Good, he deserved it. But she remembered Mullendore 
sitting outside his pavilion with his monkey on his shoulder in a little suit of chainmail, 
the two of them making faces at each other. What was it Catelyn Stark had called them, 
that night at Bitterbridge? The knights of summer. And now it was autumn and they were 
falling like leaves. . . . 

She turned her back on Hyle Hunt. “Podrick, come.” 


The boy trotted after her, leading their horses. “Are we going to find the place? The 
Stinking Goose?” 

“I am. You are going to the stables, by the east gate. Ask the stableman if there’s an inn 
where we can spend the night.” 

“I will, ser. My lady.” Podrick stared at the ground as they went, kicking stones from 
time to time. “Do you know where it is? The Goose? The Stinking Goose, I mean.” 

“No.” 

“He said he’d show us. That knight. Ser Kyle.” 

“Hyle.” 

“Hyle. What did he do to you, ser? I mean, my lady.” 

The boy may be a stumbletongue, but he’s not stupid. “At Highgarden, when King Renly 
called his banners, some men played a game with me. Ser Hyle was one of them. It was a 
cruel game, hurtful and unchivalrous.” She stopped. “The east gate is that way. Wait for 
me there.” 

“As you say, my lady. Ser.” 

No sign marked the Stinking Goose. It took her most of an hour to find it, down a flight 
of wooden steps beneath a knacker’s barn. The cellar was dim and the ceiling low, and 
Brienne thumped her head on a beam as she entered. No geese were in evidence. A few 
stools were scattered about, and a bench had been shoved up against one earthen wall. 
The tables were old wine casks, grey and wormholed. The promised stink pervaded 
everything. Mostly it was wine and damp and mildew, her nose told her, but there was a 
little of the privy too, and something of the lichyard. 

The only drinkers were three Tyroshi seamen in a corner, growling at each other through 
green and purple beards. They gave her a brief inspection, and one said something that 
made the others laugh. The proprietor stood behind a plank that had been placed across 
two barrels. She was a woman, round and pale and balding, with huge soft breasts 
swaying beneath a soiled smock. She looked as though the gods had made her out of 
uncooked dough. 

Brienne did not dare to ask for water here. She bought a cup of wine and said, “I am 
looking for a man called Nimble Dick.” 

“Dick Crabb. Comes in most every night.” The woman eyed Brienne’s mail and sword. 
“If you’re going to cut him, do it somewheres else. We don’t want no trouble with Lord 
Tarly.” 


“I want to talk with him. Why would I do him harm?” 

The woman shrugged. 

“If you would nod when he comes in I’d be thankful.” 

“How thankful?” 

Brienne put a copper star on the plank between them and found a place in the shadows 
with a good view of the steps. 

She tried the wine. It was oily on the tongue and there was a hair floating in it. A hair as 
slender as my hopes of finding Sansa, she thought as she plucked it out. Chasing after Ser 
Dontos had been fruitless, and with Lady Lysa dead the Vale no longer seemed a likely 
refuge. Where are you, Lady Sansa? Did you run home to Winterfell, or are you with 
your husband, as Podrick seems to think? Brienne did not want to chase the girl across 
the narrow sea, where even the language would be strange to her. I will be even more a 
freak there, grunting and gesturing to make myself understood. They will laugh at me, as 
they laughed at Highgarden. A blush stole up her cheeks as she remembered. 

When Renly donned his crown, the Maid of Tarth had ridden all the way across the 
Reach to join him. The king himself had greeted her courteously and welcomed her to his 
service. Not so his lords and knights. Brienne had not expected a warm welcome. She 
was prepared for coldness, for mockery, for hostility. She had supped upon such meat 
before. It was not the scorn of the many that left her confused and vulnerable, but the 
kindness of the few. The Maid of Tarth had been betrothed three times, but she had never 
been courted until she came to Highgarden. 

Big Ben Bushy was the first, one of the few men in Renly’s camp who overtopped her. 
He sent his squire to her to clean her mail, and made her a gift of a silver drinking horn. 
Ser Edmund Ambrose went him one better, bringing flowers and asking her to ride with 
him. Ser Hyle Hunt outdid them both. He gave her a book, beautifully illuminated and 
filled with a hundred tales of knightly valor. He brought apples and carrots for her horses, 
and a blue silk plume for her helm. He told her the gossip of the camp and said clever, 
cutting things that made her smile. He even trained with her one day, which meant more 
than all the rest. 

She thought it was because of him that the others started being courteous. More than 
courteous. At table men fought for the place beside her, offering to fill her wine cup or 
fetch her sweetbreads. Ser Richard Farrow played love songs on his lute outside her 
pavilion. Ser Hugh Beesbury brought her a pot of honey “as sweet as the maids of Tarth.” 
Ser Mark Mullendore made her laugh with the antics of his monkey, a curious little 
black-and-white creature from the Summer Islands. A hedge knight called Will the Stork 
offered to rub the knots from her shoulders. 


Brienne refused him. She refused them all. When Ser Owen Inchfield seized her one 
night and pressed a kiss upon her, she knocked him arse-backwards into a cookfire. 
Afterward she looked at herself in a glass. Her face was as broad and bucktoothed and 
freckled as ever, big-lipped, thick of jaw, so ugly. All she wanted was to be a knight and 
serve King Renly, yet now . . . 

It was not as if she were the only woman there. Even the camp followers were prettier 
than she was, and up in the castle Lord Tyrell feasted King Renly every night, whilst 
highborn maids and lovely ladies danced to the music of pipe and horn and harp. Why are 
you being kind to me? she wanted to scream, every time some strange knight paid her a 
compliment. What do you want? 

Randyll Tarly solved the mystery the day he sent two of his men-at-arms to summon her 
to his pavilion. His young son Dickon had overheard four knights laughing as they 
saddled up their horses, and had told his lord father what they said. 

They had a wager. 

Three of the younger knights had started it, he told her: Ambrose, Bushy, and Hyle Hunt, 
of his own household. As word spread through the camp, however, others had joined the 
game. Each man was required to buy into the contest with a golden dragon, the whole 
sum to go to whoever claimed her maidenhead. 

“I have put an end to their sport,” Tarly told her. “Some of these . . . challengers . . . are 
less honorable than others, and the stakes were growing larger every day. It was only a 
matter of time before one of them decided to claim the prize by force.” 

“They were knights,” she said, stunned, “anointed knights.” 

“And honorable men. The blame is yours.” 

The accusation made her flinch. “I would never . . . my lord, I did nought to encourage 
them.” 

“Your being here encouraged them. If a woman will behave like a camp follower, she 
cannot object to being treated like one. A war host is no place for a maiden. If you have 
any regard for your virtue or the honor of your House, you will take off that mail, return 
home, and beg your father to find a husband for you.” 

“I came to fight,” she insisted. “To be a knight.” 

“The gods made men to fight, and women to bear children,” said Randyll Tarly. “A 
woman’s war is in the birthing bed.” 

Someone was coming down the cellar steps. Brienne pushed her wine aside as a ragged, 
scrawny, sharp-faced man with dirty brown hair stepped into the Goose. He gave the 


Tyroshi sailors a quick look and Brienne a longer one, then went up to the plank. “Wine,” 
he said, “and none o’ your horse piss in it, thank’e.” 
The woman gave Brienne a look and nodded. 


“I’ll buy your wine,” she called out, “for a word.” 
The man looked her over, his eyes wary. “A word? I know a lot o’ words.” He sat down 
on the stool across from her. “Tell me which m’lady wants t’ hear, and Nimble Dick will 
say it.” 


“I heard you fooled a fool.” 


The ragged man sipped his wine, thinking. “Mighten be I did. Or not.” He wore a faded, 
torn doublet from which some lord’s badge had been ripped. “Who is it wants t’ know?” 
“King Robert.” She put a silver stag on the barrel between them. Robert’s head was on 


one side, the stag on the other. 


“Does he now?” The man took the coin and spun it, smiling. “I like to see a king dance, 
hey-nonny hey-nonny hey-nonny-ho. Mighten be I saw this fool of yours.” 
“Was there a girl with him?” 
“Two girls,” he said at once. 
“Two girls?” Could the other one be Arya? 
“Well,” the man said, “I never seen the little sweets, mind you, but he was wanting 


passage for three.” 
“Passage where?” 
“T’other side o’ the sea, as I recall.” 
“Do you remember what he looked like?” 
“A fool.” He snatched the spinning coin off the table as it began to slow, and made it 


vanish. “A frightened fool.” 
“Frightened why?” 
He shrugged. “He never said, but old Nimble Dick knows the smell o’ fear. He come here 


most every night, buying drinks for sailors, making japes, singing little songs. Only one 
night some men come in with that hunter on their teats, and your fool went white as milk 
and got quiet till they left.” He edged his stool closer to hers. “That Tarly’s got soldiers 


crawling over the docks, watching every ship that comes or goes. Man wants a deer, he 
goes t’ the woods. He wants a ship, he goes t’ the docks. Your fool didn’t dare. So I 
offered him some help.” 

“What sort of help?” 
“The sort that costs more than one silver stag.” 
“Tell me, and you’ll have another.” 
“Let’s see it,” he said. She put another stag on the barrel. He spun it, smiled, scooped it 


up. “A man who can’t go t’ the ships need for the ships t’ come t’ him. I told him I knew 


a place where that might happen. A hidden place, like.” 
Gooseprickles rose along Brienne’s arms. “A smugglers’ cove. You sent the fool to 
smugglers.” 


“Him and them two girls.” He chuckled. “Only thing, well, the place I sent them, been no 
ships there for a while. Thirty years, say.” He scratched his nose. “What’s this fool to 
you?” 

“Those two girls are my sisters.” 
“Are they, now? Poor little things. Had a sister once meself. Skinny girl with knobby 


knees, but then she grew a pair o’ teats and a knight’s son got between her legs. Last I 
saw her she was off for King’s Landing t’ make a living on her back.” 
“Where did you send them?” 
Another shrug. “As t’ that, I can’t recall.” 
“Where?” Brienne slapped another silver stag down. 
He flicked the coin back at her with his forefinger. “Someplace no stag ever found . . . 


though a dragon might.” 
Silver would not get the truth from him, she sensed. Gold might, or it might not. Steel 


would be more certain. Brienne touched her dagger, then reached into her purse instead. 
She found a golden dragon and put in on the barrel. “Where?” 
The ragged man snatched up the coin and bit it. “Sweet. Puts me in mind o’ Crackclaw 


Point. Up north o’ here, ’tis a wild land o’ hills and bogs, but it happens I was born and 
bred there. Dick Crabb, I’m named, though most call me Nimble Dick.” 
She did not offer her own name. “Where in Crackclaw Point?” 



“The Whispers. You heard o’ Clarence Crabb, o’ course.” 

“No.” 

That seemed to surprise him. “Ser Clarence Crabb, I said. I got his blood in me. He was 
eight foot tall, and so strong he could uproot pine trees with one hand and chuck them 
half a mile. No horse could bear his weight, so he rode an aurochs.” 

“What does he have to do with this smugglers’ cove?” 

“His wife was a woods witch. Whenever Ser Clarence killed a man, he’d fetch his head 
back home and his wife would kiss it on the lips and bring it back t’ life. Lords, they 
were, and wizards, and famous knights and pirates. One was king o’ Duskendale. They 
gave old Crabb good counsel. Being they was just heads, they couldn’t talk real loud, but 
they never shut up neither. When you’re a head, talking’s all you got to pass the day. So 
Crabb’s keep got named the Whispers. Still is, though it’s been a ruin for a thousand 
years. A lonely place, the Whispers.” The man walked the coin deftly across his 
knuckles. “One dragon by hisself gets lonely. Ten, now . . .” 

“Ten dragons are a fortune. Do you take me for a fool?” 

“No, but I can take you to one.” The coin danced one way, and back the other. “Take you 
to the Whispers, m’lady.” 

Brienne did not like the way his fingers played with that gold coin. Still . . . “Six dragons 
if we find my sister. Two if we only find the fool. Nothing if nothing is what we find.” 

Crabb shrugged. “Six is good. Six will serve.” 

Too quick. She caught his wrist before he could tuck the gold away. “Do not play me 
false. You’ll not find me easy meat.” 

When she let go, Crabb rubbed his wrist. “Bloody piss,” he muttered. “You hurt my 
hand.” 

“I am sorry for that. My sister is a girl of three-and-ten. I need to find her before—” 

“—before some knight gets in her slit. Aye, I hear you. She’s good as saved. Nimble 
Dick is with you now. Meet me by east gate at first light. I need t’ see this man about a 
horse.” 


SAMWELL 

The sea made Samwell Tarly greensick. 

It was not all his fear of drowning, though that was surely some of it. It was the motion of 
the ship as well, the way the decks rolled beneath his feet. “I have a queasy belly,” he 
confessed to Dareon the day they sailed from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. The singer slapped 
him on the back and said, “With a belly big as yours, Slayer, that is a lot of quease.” 

Sam tried to keep a brave face on him, for Gilly’s sake if little else. She had never seen 
the sea before. When they were struggling through the snows after fleeing Craster’s 
Keep, they had come on several lakes, and even those had been a wonder to her. As 
Blackbird slipped away from shore the girl began to tremble, and big salt tears rolled 
down her cheeks. “Gods be good,” Sam heard her whisper. Eastwatch vanished first, and 
the Wall grew smaller and smaller in the distance, until it finally disappeared. The wind 
was coming up by then. The sails were the faded grey of a black cloak that had been 
washed too often, and Gilly’s face was white with fear. “This is a good ship,” Sam tried 
to tell her. “You don’t have to be afraid.” But she only looked at him, held her baby 
tighter, and fled below. 

Sam soon found himself clutching tightly to the gunwale and watching the sweep of the 
oars. The way they all moved together was somehow beautiful to behold, and better than 
looking at the water. Looking at the water only made him think of drowning. When he 
was small his lord father had tried to teach him how to swim by throwing him into the 
pond beneath Horn Hill. The water had gotten in his nose and in his mouth and in his 
lungs, and he coughed and wheezed for hours after Ser Hyle pulled him out. After that he 
never dared go in any deeper than his waist. 

The Bay of Seals was a lot deeper than his waist, and not so friendly as that little 
fishpond below his father’s castle. Its waters were grey and green and choppy, and the 
wooded shore they followed was a snarl of rocks and whirlpools. Even if he could kick 
and crawl that far somehow, the waves were like to smash him up against some stone and 
break his head to pieces. 

“Looking for mermaids, Slayer?” asked Dareon when he saw Sam staring off across the 
bay. Fair-haired and hazel-eyed, the handsome young singer out of Eastwatch looked 
more like some dark prince than a black brother. 

“No.” Sam did not know what he was looking for, or what he was doing on this boat. 

Going to the Citadel to forge a chain and be a maester, to be of better service to the 


Watch, he told himself, but the thought just made him weary. He did not want to be a 
maester, with a heavy chain wrapped around his neck, cold against his skin. He did not 
want to leave his brothers, the only friends he’d ever had. And he certainly did not want 
to face the father who had sent him to the Wall to die. 

It was different for the others. For them, the voyage would have a happy ending. Gilly 
would be safe at Horn Hill, with all the width of West-eros between her and the horrors 
she had known in the haunted forest. As a serving maid in his father’s castle, she would 
be warm and well fed, a small part of a great world she could never have dreamed of as 
Craster’s wife. She would watch her son grow up big and strong, and become a huntsman 
or a stablehand or a smith. If the boy showed any aptitude for arms, some knight might 
even take him as a squire. 

Maester Aemon was going to a better place as well. It was pleasant to think of him 
spending whatever time remained him bathed by the warm breezes of Oldtown, 
conversing with his fellow maesters and sharing his wisdom with acolytes and novices. 
He had earned his rest, a hundred times over. 

Even Dareon would be happier. He had always claimed to be innocent of the rape that 
sent him to the Wall, insisting that he belonged at some lord’s court, singing for his 
supper. Now he would have that chance. Jon had named him a recruiter, to take the place 
of a man named Yoren, who had vanished and was presumed dead. His task would be to 
travel the Seven Kingdoms, singing of the valor of the Night’s Watch, and from time to 
time returning to the Wall with new recruits. 

The voyage would be long and rough, no one could deny that, but for the others at least 
there would be a happy end. That was Sam’s solace. I am going for them, he told himself, 
for the Night’s Watch, and for the happy ending. The longer he looked at the sea, though, 
the colder and deeper it appeared. 

But not looking at the water was even worse, Sam realized in the cramped cabin beneath 
the sterncastle that the passengers were sharing. He tried to take his mind off the roiling 
in his stomach by talking with Gilly as she nursed her son. “This ship will take us as far 
as Braavos,” he said. “We’ll find another ship to carry us to Oldtown. I read a book about 
Braavos when I was small. The whole city is built in a lagoon on a hundred little islands, 
and they have a titan there, a stone man hundreds of feet high. They have boats instead of 
horses, and their mummers play out written stories instead of just making up the usual 
stupid farces. The food is very good too, especially the fish. They have all kinds of clams 
and eels and oysters, fresh from their lagoon. We ought to have a few days between 
ships. If we do, we can go and see a mummer show, and have some oysters.” 

He thought that would excite her. He could not have been more wrong. Gilly peered at 
him with flat, dull eyes, looking through some strands of unwashed hair. “If you want, 
m’lord.” 

“What do you want?” Sam asked her. 


“Nothing.” She turned away from him and moved her son from one breast to the other. 

The motion of the boat was stirring up the eggs and bacon and fried bread that Sam had 
eaten before the ship set out. All at once he could not stand the cabin one more instant. 
He pushed himself back to his feet and clambered up the ladder to give his breakfast to 
the sea. The sickness came on Sam so strongly that he did not stop to gauge which way 
the wind was blowing, so he retched from the wrong rail and ended up spattering himself. 
Even so, he felt much better afterward . . . though not for long. 

The ship was Blackbird, the largest of the Watch’s galleys. Storm Crow and Talon were 
faster, Cotter Pyke told Maester Aemon back at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, but they were 
fighting ships, lean, swift birds of prey where the rowers sat on open decks. Blackbird 
was a better choice for the rough waters of the narrow sea beyond Skagos. “There have 
been storms,” Pyke warned them. “Winter storms are worse, but autumn’s are more 
frequent.” 

The first ten days were calm enough, as Blackbird crept across the Bay of Seals, never 
out of sight of land. It was cold when the wind was blowing, but there was something 
bracing about the salt smell in the air. Sam could hardly eat, and when he did force 
something down it did not stay down for long, but aside from that he did not do too 
badly. He tried to bolster Gilly’s courage and give her what cheer he could, but that 
proved hard. She would not come up on deck, no matter what he said, and seemed to 
prefer to huddle in the dark with her son. The babe liked the ship no more than his mother 
did, it seemed. When he was not squalling, he was retching up his mother’s milk. His 
bowels were loose and always moving, staining the furs that Gilly wrapped him in to 
keep him warm and filling the air with a brown stench. No matter how many tallow 
candles Sam lit, the smell of shit persisted. 

It was more pleasant out in the open air, especially when Dareon was singing. The singer 
was known to Blackbird’s oarsmen, and would play for them as they rowed. He knew all 
their favorite songs: sad ones like “The Day They Hanged Black Robin,” “The 
Mermaid’s Lament,” and “Autumn of My Day,” rousing ones like “Iron Lances” and 
“Seven Swords for Seven Sons,” bawdy ones like “Milady’s Supper,” “Her Little 
Flower,” and “Meggett Was a Merry Maid, a Merry Maid Was She.” When he sang “The 
Bear and the Maiden Fair,” all the oarsmen joined in, and Blackbird seemed to fly across 
the water. Dareon had not been much of a swordsman, Sam knew from their days training 
under Alliser Thorne, but he had a beautiful voice. “Honey poured over thunder,” 
Maester Aemon had once called it. He played woodharp and fiddle too, and even wrote 
his own songs . . . though Sam did not think them very good. Still, it was good to sit and 
listen, though the chest was so hard and splintery that Sam was almost grateful for his 
fleshy buttocks. Fat men take a cushion with them wherever they go, he thought. 

Maester Aemon preferred to spend his days on deck as well, huddled beneath a pile of 
furs and gazing out across the water. “What is he looking at?” Dareon wondered one day. 
“For him it’s as dark up here as it is down in the cabin.” 


The old man heard him. Though Aemon’s eyes had dimmed and gone dark, there was 
nothing wrong with his ears. “I was not born blind,” he reminded them. “When last I 
passed this way, I saw every rock and tree and whitecap, and watched the grey gulls 
flying in our wake. I was five-and-thirty and had been a maester of the chain for sixteen 
years. Egg wanted me to help him rule, but I knew my place was here. He sent me north 
aboard the Golden Dragon, and insisted that his friend Ser Duncan see me safe to 
Eastwatch. No recruit had arrived at the Wall with so much pomp since Nymeria sent the 
Watch six kings in golden fetters. Egg emptied out the dungeons too, so I would not need 
to say my vows alone. My honor guard, he called them. One was no less a man than 
Brynden Rivers. Later he was chosen lord commander.” 

“Bloodraven?” said Dareon. “I know a song about him. ‘A Thousand Eyes, and One,’ it’s 
called. But I thought he lived a hundred years ago.” 

“We all did. Once I was as young as you.” That seemed to make him sad. He coughed, 
and closed his eyes, and went to sleep, swaying in his furs whenever some wave rocked 
the ship. 

Beneath grey skies they sailed, east and south and east again, as the Bay of Seals widened 
about them. The captain, a grizzled brother with a belly like a keg of ale, wore blacks so 
stained and faded that the crew called him Old Tattersalt. He seldom said a word. His 
mate made up for him, blistering the salt air with curses whenever the wind died or the 
oarsmen seemed to flag. They ate oaten porridge in the mornings, pease porridge in the 
afternoons, and salt beef, salt cod, and salt mutton at night, and washed it down with ale. 
Dareon sang, Sam retched, Gilly cried and nursed her babe, Maester Aemon slept and 
shivered, and the winds grew colder and more blustery with every passing day. 

Even so, it was a better voyage than the last one Sam had taken. He had been no more 
than ten when he set sail on Lord Redwyne’s galleas, the Arbor Queen. Five times as 
large as Blackbird and magnificent to behold, she had three great burgundy sails and 
banks of oars that flashed gold and white in the sunlight. The way they rose and fell as 
the ship departed Oldtown had made Sam hold his breath . . . but that was the last good 
memory he had of the Redwyne Straits. Then as now the sea had made him sick, to his 
lord father’s disgust. 

And when they reached the Arbor, things had gone from bad to worse. Lord Redwyne’s 
twin sons had despised Sam on first sight. Every morn they found some fresh way to 
shame him in the practice yard. On the third day Horas Redwyne made him squeal like a 
pig when he begged for quarter. On the fifth his brother Hobber clad a kitchen girl in his 
own armor and let her beat Sam with a wooden sword until he began to cry. When she 
revealed herself, all the squires and pages and stableboys howled with laughter. 

“The boy needs a bit of seasoning, that’s all,” his father had told Lord Redwyne that 
night, but Redwyne’s fool rattled his rattle and replied, “Aye, a pinch of pepper, a few 
nice cloves, and an apple in his mouth.” Thereafter, Lord Randyll forbade Sam to eat 
apples so long as they remained beneath Paxter Redwyne’s roof. He had been seasick on 


their voyage home as well, but so relieved to be going that he almost welcomed the taste 
of vomit at the back of his throat. It was not until they were back at Horn Hill that his 
mother told Sam that his father had never meant for him to return. “Horas was to come 
with us in your place, whilst you remained on the Arbor as Lord Paxter’s page and 
cupbearer. If you had pleased him, you would have been betrothed to his daughter.” Sam 
could still recall the soft touch of his mother’s hand as she washed the tears off his face 
with a bit of lace, dampened with her spit. “My poor Sam,” she murmured. “My poor 
poor Sam.” 

It will be good to see her again, he thought, as he clung to Blackbird’s rail and watched 
waves breaking on the stony shore. If she saw me in my blacks, it might even make her 
proud. “I am a man now, Mother,” I could tell her, “a steward, and a man of the Night’s 
Watch. My brothers call me Sam the Slayer sometimes.” He would see his brother 
Dickon too, and his sisters. “See,” I could tell them, “see, I was good for something after 
all.” 

If he went to Horn Hill, though, his father might be there. 

The thought made his belly heave again. Sam bent over the gunwale and retched, but not 
into the wind. He had gone to the right rail this time. He was getting good at retching. 

Or so he thought, until Blackbird left the land behind and struck east across the bay for 
the shores of Skagos. 

The island sat at the mouth of the Bay of Seals, massive and mountainous, a stark and 
forbidding land peopled by savages. They lived in caves and grim mountain fastnesses, 
Sam had read, and rode great shaggy unicorns to war. Skagos meant “stone” in the Old 
Tongue. The Skagosi named themselves the stoneborn, but their fellow northmen called 
them Skaggs and liked them little. Only a hundred years ago Skagos had risen in 
rebellion. Their revolt had taken years to quell and claimed the life of the Lord of 
Winterfell and hundreds of his sworn swords. Some songs said the Skaggs were 
cannibals; supposedly their warriors ate the hearts and livers of the men they slew. In 
ancient days, the Skagosi had sailed to the nearby isle of Skane, seized its women, 
slaughtered its men, and ate them on a pebbled beach in a feast that lasted for a fortnight. 
Skane remained unpeopled to this day. 

Dareon knew the songs as well. When the bleak grey peaks of Skagos rose up from the 
sea, he joined Sam at Blackbird’s prow, and said, “If the gods are good, we may catch a 
glimpse of a unicorn.” 

“If the captain is good, we won’t come that close. The currents are treacherous around 
Skagos, and there are rocks that can crack a ship’s hull like an egg. But don’t you 
mention that to Gilly. She’s scared enough.” 


“Her and that squalling whelp of hers. I don’t know which of them is noisier. The only 
time he ever stops crying is when she shoves a nipple in his mouth, and then she starts to 
sob.” 

Sam had noticed that as well. “Maybe the babe is hurting her,” he said, feebly. “If his 
teeth are coming in . . .” 

Dareon plucked at his lute with one finger, sending up a derisive note. “I’d heard that 
wildlings were braver than that.” 

“She is brave,” Sam insisted, though even he had to admit that he had never seen Gilly in 
such a wretched state. Though she hid her face more oft than not and kept the cabin dark, 
he could see that her eyes were always red, her cheeks wet with tears. When he asked her 
what was wrong, though, she only shook her head, leaving him to find answers of his 
own. “The sea scares her, that’s all,” he told Dareon. “Before she came to the Wall, all 
she knew was Craster’s Keep and the woods around it. I don’t know that she went more 
than half a league from the place that she was born. She knows streams and rivers, but 
she had never seen a lake until we came on one, and the sea . . . the sea is a scary thing.” 

“We’ve never been out of sight of land.” 

“We will be.” Sam did not relish that part himself. 

“Surely a little water does not frighten the Slayer.” 

“No,” Sam lied, “not me. But Gilly . . . maybe if you played some lullabies for them, it 
would help the babe to sleep.” 

Dareon’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Only if she shoves a plug up his arse. I cannot abide 
the smell.” 

The next day the rains began, and the seas grew rougher. “We had best go below, where 
it’s dry,” Sam said to Aemon, but the old maester only smiled, and said, “The rain feels 
good against my face, Sam. It feels like tears. Let me stay a while longer, I pray you. It 
has been a long time since last I wept.” 

If Maester Aemon meant to stay on deck, old and frail as he was, Sam had no choice but 
to do the same. He stayed beside the old man for nigh unto an hour, huddled in his cloak 
as a soft, steady rain soaked him to his skin. Aemon hardly seemed to feel it. He sighed 
and closed his eyes, and Sam moved closer to him, to shield him from the worst of the 
wind. He will ask me to help him to the cabin soon, he told himself. He must. But he 
never did, and finally thunder began to rumble in the distance, off to the east. “We have 
to get below,” Sam said, shivering. Maester Aemon did not reply. It was only then that 
Sam realized the old man had gone to sleep. “Maester,” he said, shaking him gently by 
one shoulder. “Maester Aemon, wake up.” 


Aemon’s blind white eyes came open. “Egg?” he said, as the rain streamed down his 
cheeks. “Egg, I dreamed that I was old.” 

Sam did not know what to do. He knelt and scooped the old man up and carried him 
below. No one had ever called him strong, and the rain had soaked through Maester 
Aemon’s blacks and made him twice as heavy, but even so, he weighed no more than a 
child. 

When he shoved into the cabin with Aemon in his arms, he found that Gilly had let all the 
candles gutter out. The babe was asleep and she was curled up in a corner, sobbing softly 
in the folds of the big black cloak that Sam had given her. “Help me,” he said urgently. 
“Help me dry him off and get him warm.” 

She rose at once, and together they got the old maester out of his wet clothes and buried 
him beneath a pile of furs. His skin was damp and cold, though, clammy to the touch. 
“You get in with him,” Sam told Gilly. “Hold him. Warm him with your body. We have 
to warm him up.” She did that too, never saying a word, all the while still sniffling. 
“Where’s Dareon?” asked Sam. “We’d all be warmer if we were together. He needs to be 
here too.” He was headed back up top to find the singer when the deck rose up beneath 
him, then fell away beneath his feet. Gilly wailed, Sam slammed down hard and lost his 
legs, and the babe woke screaming. 

The next roll of the ship came as he was struggling back to his feet. It threw Gilly into his 
arms, and the wildling girl clung to him so fiercely that Sam could hardly breathe. “Don’t 
you be frightened,” he told her. “This is just an adventure. One day you’ll tell your son 
this tale.” That only made her dig her nails into his arm. She shuddered, her whole body 
shaking with the violence of her sobs. Whatever I say just makes her worse. He held her 
tightly, uncomfortably aware of her breasts pressing up against him. As frightened as he 
was, somehow that was enough to make him stiff. She’ll feel it, he thought, ashamed, but 
if she did, she gave no sign, only clung to him the harder. 

The days ran together after that. They never saw the sun. The days were grey and the 
nights black, except when lightning lit the sky above the peaks of Skagos. All of them 
were starved yet none could eat. The captain broached a cask of firewine to fortify the 
oarsmen. Sam tried a cup and sighed as hot snakes wriggled down his throat and through 
his chest. Dareon took a liking to the drink as well, and was seldom sober thereafter. 

The sails went up, the sails came down, and one ripped free of the mast and flew away 
like a great grey bird. As Blackbird rounded the south coast of Skagos, they spotted the 
wreckage of a galley on the rocks. Some of her crew had washed up on the shore, and the 
rooks and crabs had gathered to pay them homage. “Too bloody close,” grumbled Old 
Tattersalt when he saw. “One good blow, and we’ll be breaking up aside them.” 
Exhausted as they were, his rowers bent to their oars again, and the ship clawed south 
toward the narrow sea, till Skagos dwindled to no more than a few dark shapes in the sky 
that might have been thunderheads, or the tops of tall black mountains, or both. After 
that, they had eight days and seven nights of clear, smooth sailing. 


Then came more storms, worse than before. 

Was it three storms, or only one, broken up by lulls? Sam never knew, though he tried 
desperately to care. “What does it matter?” Dareon screamed at him once, when all of 
them were huddled in the cabin. It doesn’t, Sam wanted to tell him, but so long as I’m 
thinking about that I’m not thinking about drowning or being sick or Maester Aemon’s 
shivering. “It doesn’t,” he managed to squeak, but the thunder drowned out all the rest of 
it, and the deck lurched and knocked him sideways. Gilly was sobbing. The babe was 
shrieking. And up top he could hear Old Tattersalt bellowing at his crew, the ragged 
captain who never spoke at all. 

I hate the sea, Sam thought, I hate the sea, I hate the sea, I hate the sea. The next 
lightning flash was so bright it lit the cabin through the seams in the planking overhead. 
This is a good sound ship, a good sound ship, a good ship, he told himself. It will not 
sink. I am not afraid. 

During one of the lulls between the gales, as Sam clung white-knuckled to the rail 
wanting desperately to retch, he heard some of the crew muttering that this was what 
came of bringing a woman aboard ship, and a wildling woman at that. “Fucked her own 
father,” Sam heard one man say, as the wind was rising once again. “Worse than 
whoring, that. Worse than anything. We’ll all drown unless we get rid of her, and that 
abomination that she whelped.” 

Sam dared not confront them. They were older men, hard and sinewy, their arms and 
shoulders thickened by years at the oars. But he made certain that his knife was sharp, 
and whenever Gilly left the cabin to make water, he went with her. 

Even Dareon had no good to say about the wildling girl. Once, at Sam’s urging, the 
singer played a lullaby to soothe the babe, but partway through the first verse Gilly began 
to sob inconsolably. “Seven bloody hells,” Dareon snapped, “can’t you even stop 
weeping long enough to hear a song?” 

“Just play,” Sam pleaded, “just sing the song for her.” 

“She doesn’t need a song,” said Dareon. “She needs a good spanking, or maybe a hard 
fuck. Get out of my way, Slayer.” He shoved Sam aside and went from the cabin to find 
some solace in a cup of firewine and the rough brotherhood of the oars. 

Sam was at his wit’s end by then. He had almost gotten used to the smells, but between 
the storms and Gilly’s sobbing he had not slept for days. “Isn’t there something you can 
give her?” he asked Maester Aemon very softly, when he saw that the old man was 
awake. “Some herb or potion, so she won’t be so afraid?” 

“It is not fear you hear,” the old man told him. “That is the sound of grief, and there is no 
potion for that. Let her tears run their course, Sam. You cannot stem the flow.” 


Sam had not understood. “She’s going to a safe place. A warm place. Why should she be 
grieving?” 

“Sam,” the old man whispered, “you have two good eyes, and yet you do not see. She is a 
mother grieving for her child.” 

“He’s greensick, that’s all. We’re all greensick. Once we make port in Braavos . . .” 

“. . . the babe will still be Dalla’s son, and not the child of her body.” 

It took Sam a moment to grasp what Aemon was suggesting. “That couldn’t . . . she 
wouldn’t . . . of course he’s hers. Gilly would never have left the Wall without her son. 
She loves him.” 

“She nursed them both and loved them both,” said Aemon, “but not alike. No mother 
loves all her children the same, not even the Mother Above. Gilly did not leave the child 
willingly, I am certain. What threats the Lord Commander made, what promises, I can 
only guess . . . but threats and promises there surely were.” 

“No. No, that’s wrong. Jon would never . . .” 

“Jon would never. Lord Snow did. Sometimes there is no happy choice, Sam, only one 
less grievous than the others.” 

No happy choice. Sam thought of all the trials that he and Gilly suffered, Craster’s Keep 
and the death of the Old Bear, snow and ice and freezing winds, days and days and days 
of walking, the wights at Whitetree, Coldhands and the tree of ravens, the Wall, the Wall, 
the Wall, the Black Gate beneath the earth. What had it all been for? No happy choices 
and no happy endings. 

He wanted to scream. He wanted to howl and sob and shake and curl up in a little ball 
and whimper. He switched the babes, he told himself. He switched the babes to protect 
the little prince, to keep him away from Lady Melisandre’s fires, away from her red god. 
If she burns Gilly’s boy, who will care? No one but Gilly. He was only Craster’s whelp, 
an abomination born of incest, not the son of the King-beyond-the-Wall. He’s no good for 
a hostage, no good for a sacrifice, no good for anything, he doesn’t even have a name. 

Wordless, Sam staggered up onto the deck to retch, but there was nothing in his belly to 
bring up. Night had come upon them, a strange still night such as they had not seen for 
many days. The sea was black as glass. At the oars, the rowers rested. One or two were 
sleeping where they sat. The wind was in the sails, and to the north Sam could even see a 
scattering of stars, and the red wanderer the free folk called the Thief. That ought to be 
my star, Sam thought miserably. I helped to make Jon Lord Commander, and I brought 
him Gilly and the babe. There are no happy endings. 


“Slayer.” Dareon appeared beside him, oblivious to Sam’s pain. “A sweet night, for once. 
Look, the stars are coming out. We might even get a bit of moon. Might be the worst is 
done.” 

“No.” Sam wiped his nose, and pointed south with a fat finger, toward the gathering 
darkness. “There,” he said. No sooner had he spoken than lightning flashed, sudden and 
silent and blinding bright. The distant clouds glowed for half a heartbeat, mountains 
heaped on mountains, purple and red and yellow, taller than the world. “The worst isn’t 
done. The worst is just beginning, and there are no happy endings.” 

“Gods be good,” said Dareon, laughing. “Slayer, you are such a craven.” 


JAIME 

Lord Tywin Lannister had entered the city on a stallion, his enameled crimson armor 
polished and gleaming, bright with gems and goldwork. He left it in a tall wagon draped 
with crimson banners, with six silent sisters riding attendance on his bones. 

The funeral procession departed King’s Landing through the Gate of the Gods, wider and 
more splendid than the Lion Gate. The choice felt wrong to Jaime. His father had been a 
lion, that no one could deny, but even Lord Tywin never claimed to be a god. 

An honor guard of fifty knights surrounded Lord Tywin’s wagon, crimson pennons 
fluttering from their lances. The lords of the west followed close behind them. The winds 
snapped at their banners, making their charges dance and flutter. As he trotted up the 
column, Jaime passed boars, badgers, and beetles, a green arrow and a red ox, crossed 
halberds, crossed spears, a treecat, a strawberry, a maunch, four sunbursts 
counterchanged. 

Lord Brax was wearing a pale grey doublet slashed with cloth-of-silver, an amethyst 
unicorn pinned above his heart. Lord Jast was armored in black steel, three gold lion’s 
heads inlaid on his breastplate. The rumors of his death had not been far wrong, to look at 
him; wounds and imprisonment had left him a shadow of the man he’d been. Lord 
Banefort had weathered battle better, and looked ready to return to war at once. Plumm 
wore purple, Prester ermine, Moreland russet and green, but each had donned a cloak of 
crimson silk, in honor of the man they were escorting home. 

Behind the lords came a hundred crossbowmen and three hundred men-at-arms, and 
crimson flowed from their shoulders as well. In his white cloak and white scale armor, 
Jaime felt out of place amongst that river of red. 


Nor did his uncle make him more at ease. “Lord Commander,” Ser Kevan said, when 
Jaime trotted up beside him at the head of the column. “Does Her Grace have some last 
command for me?” 

“I am not here for Cersei.” A drum began to beat behind them, slow, measured, funereal. 
Dead, it seemed to say, dead, dead. “I came to make my farewells. He was my father.” 

“And hers.” 

“I am not Cersei. I have a beard, and she has breasts. If you are still confused, nuncle, 
count our hands. Cersei has two.” 

“Both of you have a taste for mockery,” his uncle said. “Spare me your japes, ser, I have 
no taste for them.” 

“As you will.” This is not going as well as I might have hoped. “Cersei would have 
wanted to see you off, but she has many pressing duties.” 

Ser Kevan snorted. “So do we all. How fares your king?” His tone made the question a 
reproach. 

“Well enough,” Jaime said defensively. “Balon Swann is with him during the mornings. 
A good and valiant knight.” 

“Once that went without saying when men spoke of those who wore the white cloak.” 

No man can choose his brothers, Jaime thought. Give me leave to pick my own men, and 
the Kingsguard will be great again. Put that baldly, though, it sounded feeble; an empty 
boast from a man the realm called Kingslayer. A man with shit for honor. Jaime let it go. 
He had not come to argue with his uncle. “Ser,” he said, “you need to make your peace 
with Cersei.” 

“Are we at war? No one told me.” 

Jaime ignored that. “Strife between Lannister and Lannister can only help the enemies of 
our House.” 

“If there is strife, it will not be my doing. Cersei wants to rule. Well and good. The realm 
is hers. All I ask is to be left in peace. My place is at Darry with my son. The castle must 
needs be restored, the lands planted and protected.” He gave a bark of bitter laughter. 
“And your sister has left me little else to occupy my time. I had as well see Lancel wed. 
His bride has grown impatient waiting for us to make our way to Darry.” 

His widow from the Twins. His cousin Lancel was riding ten yards behind them. With his 
hollow eyes and dry white hair, he looked older than Lord Jast. Jaime could feel his 
phantom fingers itching at the sight of him. . . . fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack 


and Moon Boy for all I know . . . He had tried to speak with Lancel more times than he 
could count, but never found him alone. If his father was not with him, some septon was. 

He may be Kevan’s son, but he has milk in his veins. Tyrion was lying to me. His words 
were meant to wound. 

Jaime put his cousin from his thoughts and turned back to his uncle. “Will you remain at 
Darry after the wedding?” 

“For a while, mayhaps. Sandor Clegane is raiding along the Trident, it would seem. Your 
sister wants his head. It may be that he has joined Dondarrion.” 

Jaime had heard about Saltpans. By now half the realm had heard. The raid had been 
exceptionally savage. Women raped and mutilated, children butchered in their mothers’ 
arms, half the town put to the torch. “Randyll Tarly is at Maidenpool. Let him deal with 
the outlaws. I would sooner have you go to Riverrun.” 

“Ser Daven has command there. The Warden of the West. He has no need of me. Lancel 
does.” 

“As you say, uncle.” Jaime’s head was pounding to the same beat as the drum. Dead, 
dead, dead. “You would do well to keep your knights around you.” 

His uncle gave him a cool stare. “Is that a threat, ser?” 

A threat? The suggestion took him aback. “A caution. I only meant . . . Sandor is 
dangerous.” 

“I was hanging outlaws and robber knights when you were still shitting in your swaddling 
clothes. I am not like to go off and face Clegane and Dondarrion by myself, if that is what 
you fear, ser. Not every Lannister is a fool for glory.” 

Why, nuncle, I believe you are talking about me. “Addam Marbrand could deal with these 
outlaws just as well as you. So could Brax, Banefort, Plumm, any of these others. But 
none would make a good King’s Hand.” 

“Your sister knows my terms. They have not changed. Tell her that, the next time you are 
in her bedchamber.” Ser Kevan put his heels into his courser and galloped ahead, putting 
an abrupt end to their conversation. 

Jaime let him go, his missing sword hand twitching. He had hoped against hope that 
Cersei had somehow misunderstood, but plainly that was wrong. He knows about the two 
of us. About Tommen and Myrcella. And Cersei knows he knows. Ser Kevan was a 
Lannister of Casterly Rock. He could not believe that she would ever do him harm, but . . 
. I was wrong about Tyrion, why not about Cersei? When sons were killing fathers, what 
was there to stop a niece from ordering an uncle slain? An inconvenient uncle, who knows 
too much. Though perhaps Cersei was hoping that the Hound might do her work for her. 


If Sandor Clegane cut down Ser Kevan, she would not need to bloody her own hands. 
And he will, if they should meet. Kevan Lannister had once been a stout man with a 
sword, but he was no longer young, and the Hound . . . 

The column had caught up to him. As his cousin rode past, flanked by his two septons, 
Jaime called out to him. “Lancel. Coz. I wanted to congratulate you upon your marriage. 
I only regret that my duties do not permit me to attend.” 

“His Grace must be protected.” 

“And will be. Still, I hate to miss your bedding. It is your first marriage and her second, I 
understand. I’m sure my lady will be pleased to show you what goes where.” 

The bawdy remark drew a laugh from several nearby lords and a disapproving look from 
Lancel’s septons. His cousin squirmed uncomfortably in the saddle. “I know enough to 
do my duty as a husband, ser.” 

“That’s just the thing a bride wants on her wedding night,” said Jaime. “A husband who 
knows how to do his duty.” 

A flush crept up Lancel’s cheeks. “I pray for you, cousin. And for Her Grace the queen. 
May the Crone lead her to her wisdom and the Warrior defend her.” 

“Why would Cersei need the Warrior? She has me.” Jaime turned his horse about, his 
white cloak snapping in the wind. The Imp was lying. Cersei would sooner have Robert’s 
corpse between her legs than a pious fool like Lancel. Tyrion, you evil bastard, you 
should have lied about someone more likely. He galloped past his lord father’s funeral 
wayn toward the city in the distance. 

The streets of King’s Landing seemed almost deserted as Jaime Lannister made his way 
back to the Red Keep atop Aegon’s High Hill. The soldiers who had crowded the city’s 
gambling dens and pot shops were largely gone now. Garlan the Gallant had taken half 
the Tyrell strength back to Highgarden, and his lady mother and grandmother had gone 
with him. The other half had marched south with Mace Tyrell and Mathis Rowan to 
invest Storm’s End. 

As for the Lannister host, two thousand seasoned veterans remained encamped outside 
the city walls, awaiting the arrival of Paxter Redwyne’s fleet to carry them across 
Blackwater Bay to Dragonstone. Lord Stannis appeared to have left only a small garrison 
behind him when he sailed north, so two thousand men would be more than sufficient, 
Cersei had judged. 

The rest of the westermen had gone back to their wives and children, to rebuild their 
homes, plant their fields, and bring in one last harvest. Cersei had taken Tommen round 
their camps before they marched, to let them cheer their little king. She had never looked 
more beautiful than she did that day, with a smile on her lips and the autumn sunlight 


shining on her golden hair. Whatever else one might say about his sister, she did know 
how to make men love her when she cared enough to try. 

As Jaime trotted through the castle gates, he came upon two dozen knights riding at a 
quintain in the outer yard. Something else I can no longer do, he thought. A lance was 
heavier and more cumbersome than a sword, and swords were proving trial enough. He 
supposed he might try holding the lance with his left hand, but that would mean shifting 
his shield to his right arm. In a tilt, a man’s foe was always to the left. A shield on his 
right arm would prove about as useful as nipples on his breastplate. No, my jousting days 
are done, he thought as he dismounted . . . but all the same, he stopped to watch a while. 

Ser Tallad the Tall lost his mount when the sandbag came around and thumped him in the 
head. Strongboar struck the shield so hard he cracked it. Kennos of Kayce finished the 
destruction. A new shield was hung for Ser Dermot of the Rainwood. Lambert Turnberry 
only struck a glancing blow, but Beardless Jon Bettley, Humfrey Swyft, and Alyn 
Stackspear all scored solid hits, and Red Ronnet Connington broke his lance clean. Then 
the Knight of Flowers mounted up and put the others all to shame. 

Jousting was three-quarters horsemanship, Jaime had always believed. Ser Loras rode 
superbly, and handled a lance as if he’d been born holding one . . . which no doubt 
accounted for his mother’s pinched expression. He puts the point just where he means to 
put it, and seems to have the balance of a cat. Perhaps it was not such a fluke that he 
unhorsed me. It was a shame that he would never have the chance to try the boy again. 
He left the whole men to their sport. 

Cersei was in her solar in Maegor’s Holdfast, with Tommen and Lord Merryweather’s 
dark-haired Myrish wife. The three of them were laughing at Grand Maester Pycelle. 
“Did I miss some clever jape?” Jaime said, as he shoved through the door. 

“Oh, look,” purred Lady Merryweather, “your brave brother has returned, Your Grace.” 

“Most of him.” The queen was in her cups, Jaime realized. Of late, Cersei always seemed 
to have a flagon of wine to hand, she who had once scorned Robert Baratheon for his 
drinking. He misliked that, but these days he seemed to mislike everything his sister did. 
“Grand Maester,” she said, “share the tidings with the Lord Commander, if you would.” 

Pycelle looked desperately uncomfortable. “There has been a bird,” he said. “From 
Stokeworth. Lady Tanda sends word that her daughter Lollys has been delivered of a 
strong, healthy son.” 

“And you will never guess what they have named the little bastard, brother.” 

“They wanted to name him Tywin, I recall.” 

“Yes, but I forbade it. I told Falyse that I would not have our father’s noble name 
bestowed upon the ill-gotten spawn of some pig boy and a feeble-witted sow.” 


“Lady Stokeworth insists the child’s name was not her doing,” Grand Maester Pycelle put 
in. Perspiration dotted his wrinkled forehead. “Lollys’s husband made the choice, she 
writes. This man Bronn, he . . . it would seem that he . . .” 

“Tyrion,” ventured Jaime. “He named the child Tyrion.” 

The old man gave a tremulous nod, mopping at his brow with the sleeve of his robe. 

Jaime had to laugh. “There you are, sweet sister. You have been looking everywhere for 
Tyrion, and all the time he’s been hiding in Lollys’s womb.” 

“Droll. You and Bronn are both so droll. No doubt the bastard is sucking on one of Lollys 
Lackwit’s dugs even as we speak, whilst this sellsword looks on, smirking at his little 
insolence.” 

“Perhaps this child bears some resemblance to your brother,” suggested Lady 
Merryweather. “He might have been born deformed, or without a nose.” She laughed a 
throaty laugh. 

“We shall have to send the darling boy a gift,” the queen declared. “Won’t we, 
Tommen?” 

“We could send him a kitten.” 

“A lion cub,” said Lady Merryweather. To rip his little throat out, her smile suggested. 

“I had a different sort of gift in mind,” said Cersei. 

A new stepfather, most like. Jaime knew the look in his sister’s eyes. He had seen it 
before, most recently on the night of Tommen’s wedding, when she burned the Tower of 
the Hand. The green light of the wildfire had bathed the face of the watchers, so they 
looked like nothing so much as rotting corpses, a pack of gleeful ghouls, but some of the 
corpses were prettier than others. Even in the baleful glow, Cersei had been beautiful to 
look upon. She’d stood with one hand on her breast, her lips parted, her green eyes 
shining. She is crying, Jaime had realized, but whether it was from grief or ecstasy he 
could not have said. 

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targ-aryen and the way a 
burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between 
Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart 
and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave 
a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. The day he burned 
his mace-and-dagger Hand, Jaime and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her 
bedchamber whilst the king took his pleasure. “You’re hurting me,” they had heard 
Rhaella cry through the oaken door. “You’re hurting me.” In some queer way, that had 


been worse than Lord Chelsted’s screaming. “We are sworn to protect her as well,” Jaime 
had finally been driven to say. “We are,” Darry allowed, “but not from him.” 

Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for 
Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the royal 
wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon’s High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard 
her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast 
had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, 
Jaime knew. 

By the end the Mad King had become so fearful that he would allow no blade in his 
presence, save for the swords his Kingsguard wore. His beard was matted and unwashed, 
his hair a silver-gold tangle that reached his waist, his fingernails cracked yellow claws 
nine inches long. Yet still the blades tormented him, the ones he could never escape, the 
blades of the Iron Throne. His arms and legs were always covered with scabs and half-
healed cuts. 

Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat, Jaime remembered, studying his 
sister’s smile. Let him be the king of ashes. “Your Grace,” he said, “might we have a 
private word?” 

“As you wish. Tommen, it is past time you had your lesson for the day. Go with the 
Grand Maester.” 

“Yes, Mother. We are learning about Baelor the Blessed.” 

Lady Merryweather took her leave as well, kissing the queen on both cheeks. “Shall I 
return for supper, Your Grace?” 

“I shall be very cross with you if you do not.” 

Jaime could not help but note the way the Myrish woman moved her hips as she walked. 
Every step is a seduction. When the door closed behind her, he cleared his throat and 
said, “First these Kettleblacks, then Qyburn, now her. It’s a queer menagerie you are 
keeping these days, sweet sister.” 

“I am growing very fond of Lady Taena. She amuses me.” 

“She is one of Margaery Tyrell’s companions,” Jaime reminded her. “She’s informing on 
you to the little queen.” 

“Of course she is.” Cersei went to the sideboard to fill her cup anew. “Margaery was 
thrilled when I asked her leave to take Taena on as my companion. You should have 
heard her. ‘She will be a sister to you, as she’s been to me. Of course you must have her! 
I have my cousins and my other ladies.’ Our little queen does not want me to be lonely.” 


“If you know she is a spy, why take her on?” 

“Margaery is not half so clever as she thinks. She has no notion what a sweet serpent she 
has in that Myrish slut. I use Taena to feed the little queen what I want her to know. 
Some of it is even true.” Cersei’s eyes were bright with mischief. “And Taena tells me 
everything Maid Margaery is doing.” 

“Does she? How much do you know about this woman?” 

“I know she is a mother, with a young son that she wants to rise high in this world. She 
will do whatever is required to see that he does. Mothers are all the same. Lady 
Merryweather may be a serpent, but she is far from stupid. She knows I can do more for 
her than Margaery, so she makes herself useful to me. You would be surprised at all the 
interesting things she’s told me.” 

“What sorts of things?” 

Cersei sat beneath the window. “Did you know that the Queen of Thorns keeps a chest of 
coins in her wheelhouse? Old gold from before the Conquest. Should any tradesman be 
so unwise as to name a price in golden coins, she pays him with hands from Highgarden, 
each half the weight of one of our dragons. What merchant would dare complain of being 
cheated by Mace Tyrell’s lady mother?” She sipped her wine, and said, “Did you enjoy 
your little ride?” 

“Our uncle remarked upon your absence.” 

“Our uncle’s remarks do not concern me.” 

“They should. You could make good use of him. If not at Riverrun or the Rock, then in 
the north against Lord Stannis. Father always relied upon Kevan when—” 

“Roose Bolton is our Warden of the North. He will deal with Stannis.” 

“Lord Bolton is trapped below the Neck, cut off from the north by the ironmen at Moat 
Cailin.” 

“Not for long. Bolton’s bastard son will soon remove that little obstacle. Lord Bolton will 
have two thousand Freys to augment his own strength, under Lord Walder’s sons Hosteen 
and Aenys. That should be more than enough to deal with Stannis and a few thousand 
broken men.” 

“Ser Kevan—” 

“—will have his hands full at Darry, teaching Lancel how to wipe his arse. Father’s death 
has unmanned him. He is an old done man. Daven and Damion will serve us better.” 


“They’ll suffice.” Jaime had no quarrel with his cousins. “You still require a Hand, 
however. If not our uncle, who?” 

His sister laughed. “Not you. Have no fear on that count. Perhaps Taena’s husband. His 
grandfather was Hand under Aerys.” 

The horn-of-plenty Hand. Jaime remembered Owen Merryweather well enough; an 
amiable man, but ineffectual. “As I recall, he did so well that Aerys exiled him and seized 
his lands.” 

“Robert gave them back. Some, at least. Taena would be pleased if Orton could recover 
the rest.” 

“Is this about pleasing some Myrish whore? Here I thought it was about governing the 
realm.” 

“I govern the realm.” 

Seven save us all, you do. His sister liked to think of herself as Lord Tywin with teats, but 
she was wrong. Their father had been as relentless and implacable as a glacier, where 
Cersei was all wildfire, especially when thwarted. She had been giddy as a maiden when 
she learned that Stannis had abandoned Dragonstone, certain that he had finally given up 
the fight and sailed away to exile. When word came down from the north that he had 
turned up again at the Wall, her fury had been fearful to behold. She does not lack for 
wits, but she has no judgment, and no patience. “You need a strong Hand to help you.” 

“A weak ruler needs a strong Hand, as Aerys needed Father. A strong ruler requires only 
a diligent servant to carry out his orders.” She swirled her wine. “Lord Hallyne might 
suit. He would not be the first pyromancer to serve as the King’s Hand.” 

No. I killed the last one. “There is talk that you mean to make Aurane Waters the master 
of ships.” 

“Has someone been informing on me?” When he did not answer, Cersei tossed her hair 
back, and said, “Waters is well suited to the office. He has spent half his life on ships.” 

“Half his life? He cannot be more than twenty.” 

“Two-and-twenty, and what of it? Father was not even one-and-twenty when Aerys 
Targaryen named him Hand. It is past time Tommen had some young men about him in 
place of all these wrinkled greybeards. Aurane is strong and vigorous.” 

Strong and vigorous and handsome, Jaime thought. . . . she’s been fucking Lancel and 
Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know . . . “Paxter Redwyne would be a better 
choice. He commands the largest fleet in Westeros. Aurane Waters could command a 
skiff, but only if you bought him one.” 


“You are a child, Jaime. Redwyne is Tyrell’s bannerman, and nephew to that hideous 
grandmother of his. I want none of Lord Tyrell’s creatures on my council.” 

“Tommen’s council, you mean.” 

“You know what I mean.” 

Too well. “I know that Aurane Waters is a bad idea, and Hallyne is a worse one. As for 
Qyburn . . . gods be good, Cersei, he rode with Vargo Hoat. The Citadel stripped him of 
his chain!” 

“The grey sheep. Qyburn has made himself most useful to me. And he is loyal, which is 
more than I can say of mine own kin.” 

The crows will feast upon us all if you go on this way, sweet sister. “Cersei, listen to 
yourself. You are seeing dwarfs in every shadow and making foes of friends. Uncle 
Kevan is not your enemy. I am not your enemy.” 

Her face twisted in fury. “I begged you for your help. I went down on my knees to you, 
and you refused me!” 

“My vows . . .” 

“. . . did not stop you slaying Aerys. Words are wind. You could have had me, but you 
chose a cloak instead. Get out.” 

“Sister . . .” 

“Get out, I said. I am sick of looking at that ugly stump of yours. Get out!” To speed him 
on his way, she heaved her wine cup at his head. She missed, but Jaime took the hint. 

Evenfall found him sitting alone in the common room of White Sword Tower, with a cup 
of Dornish red and the White Book. He was turning pages with the stump of his sword 
hand when the Knight of Flowers entered, removed his cloak and swordbelt and hung 
them on a wall peg next to Jaime’s. 

“I saw you in the yard today,” said Jaime. “You rode well.” 

“Better than well, surely.” Ser Loras poured himself a cup of wine, and took a seat across 
the half-moon table. 

“A more modest man might have answered ‘My lord is too kind,’ or ‘I had a good 
mount.’” 

“The horse was adequate, and my lord is as kind as I am modest.” Loras waved at the 
book. “Lord Renly always said that books were for maesters.” 


“This one is for us. The history of every man who has ever worn a white cloak is written 


here.” 
“I have glanced at it. The shields are pretty. I prefer books with more illuminations. Lord 
Renly owned a few with drawings that would turn a septon blind.” 


Jaime had to smile. “There’s none of that here, ser, but the histories will open your eyes. 


You would do well to know about the lives of those who went before.” 
“I do. Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, Ser Ryam Redwyne, the Greatheart, Barristan the 
Bold . . .” 


“. . . Gwayne Corbray, Alyn Connington, the Demon of Darry, aye. You will have heard 


of Lucamore Strong as well.” 
“Ser Lucamore the Lusty?” Ser Loras seemed amused. “Three wives and thirty children, 
was it? They cut his cock off. Shall I sing the song for you, my lord?” 


“And Ser Terrence Toyne?” 


“Bedded the king’s mistress and died screaming. The lesson is, men who wear white 
breeches need to keep them tightly laced.” 
“Gyles Greycloak? Orivel the Open-Handed?” 
“Gyles was a traitor, Orivel a coward. Men who shamed the white cloak. What is my lord 


suggesting?” 


“Little and less. Don’t take offense where none was meant, ser. How about Long Tom 
Costayne?” 
Ser Loras shook his head. 
“He was a Kingsguard knight for sixty years.” 
“When was that? I’ve never—” 
“Ser Donnel of Duskendale, then?” 
“I may have heard the name, but—” 
“Addison Hill? The White Owl, Michael Mertyns? Jeffory Norcross? They called him 


Neveryield. Red Robert Flowers? What can you tell me of them?” 
“Flowers is a bastard name. So is Hill.” 



“Yet both men rose to command the Kingsguard. Their tales are in the book. Rolland 
Darklyn is in here too. The youngest man ever to serve in the Kingsguard, until me. He 
was given his cloak on a battlefield and died within an hour of donning it.” 

“He can’t have been very good.” 

“Good enough. He died, but his king lived. A lot of brave men have worn the white 
cloak. Most have been forgotten.” 

“Most deserve to be forgotten. The heroes will always be remembered. The best.” 

“The best and the worst.” So one of us is like to live in song. “And a few who were a bit 
of both. Like him.” He tapped the page he had been reading. 

“Who?” Ser Loras craned his head around to see. “Ten black pellets on a scarlet field. I 
do not know those arms.” 

“They belonged to Criston Cole, who served the first Viserys and the second Aegon.” 
Jaime closed the White Book. “They called him Kingmaker.” 


CERSEI 

T hree wretched fools with a leather sack, the queen thought as they sank to their knees 
before her. The look of them did not encourage her. I suppose there is always a chance. 

“Your Grace,” said Qyburn quietly, “the small council . . .” 

“. . . will await my pleasure. It may be that we can bring them word of a traitor’s death.” 
Off across the city, the bells of Baelor’s Sept sang their song of mourning. No bells will 
ring for you, Tyrion, Cersei thought. I shall dip your head in tar and give your twisted 
body to the dogs. “Off your knees,” she told the would-be lords. “Show me what you’ve 
brought me.” 

They rose; three ugly men, and ragged. One had a boil on his neck, and none had washed 
in half a year. The prospect of raising such to lordship amused her. I could seat them next 
to Margaery at feasts. When the chief fool undid the drawstring on the sack and plunged 
his hand inside, the smell of decay filled her audience chamber like some rank rose. The 
head he pulled out was grey-green and crawling with maggots. It smells like Father. 
Dorcas gasped, and Jocelyn covered her mouth and retched. 


The queen considered her prize, unflinching. “You’ve killed the wrong dwarf,” she said 
at last, grudging every word. 

“We never did,” one of the fools dared to say. “This is got to be him, ser. A dwarf, see. 
He’s rotted some, is all.” 

“He has also grown a new nose,” Cersei observed. “A rather bulbous one, I’d say. 
Tyrion’s nose was hacked off in a battle.” 

The three fools exchanged a look. “No one told us,” said the one with head in hand. “This 
one come walking along as bold as you please, some ugly dwarf, so we thought . . .” 

“He said he were a sparrow,” the one with the boil added, “and you said he was lying.” 
That was directed at the third man. 

The queen was angry to think that she had kept her small council waiting for this 
mummer’s farce. “You have wasted my time and slain an innocent man. I should have 
your own heads off.” But if she did, the next man might hesitate and let the Imp slip the 
net. She would pile dead dwarfs ten feet high before she let that happen. “Remove 
yourselves from my sight.” 

“Aye, Your Grace,” said the boil. “We beg your pardons.” 

“Do you want the head?” asked the man who held it. 

“Give it to Ser Meryn. No, in the sack, you lackwit. Yes. Ser Osmund, see them out.” 

Trant removed the head and Kettleblack the headsmen, leaving only Lady Jocelyn’s 
breakfast as evidence of their visit. “Clean that up at once,” the queen commanded her. 
This was the third head that had been delivered to her. At least this one was a dwarf. The 
last had simply been an ugly child. 

“Someone will find the dwarf, never fear,” Ser Osmund assured her. “And when they do, 
we’ll kill him good.” 

Will you? Last night Cersei had dreamed of the old woman, with her pebbly jowls and 
croaking voice. Maggy the Frog, they had called her in Lannisport. If Father had known 
what she said to me, he would have had her tongue out. Cersei had never told anyone, 
though, not even Jaime. Melara said that if we never spoke about her prophecies, we 
would forget them. She said that a forgotten prophecy couldn’t come true. 

“I have informers sniffing after the Imp everywhere, Your Grace,” said Qyburn. He had 
garbed himself in something very like maester’s robes, but white instead of grey, 
immaculate as the cloaks of the Kingsguard. Whorls of gold decorated his hem, sleeves, 
and stiff high collar, and a golden sash was tied about his waist. “Oldtown, Gulltown, 
Dorne, even the Free Cities. Wheresoever he might run, my whisperers will find him.” 


“You assume he left King’s Landing. He could be hiding in Baelor’s Sept for all we 
know, swinging on the bell ropes to make that awful din.” Cersei made a sour face and let 
Dorcas help her to her feet. “Come, my lord. My council awaits.” She took Qyburn by the 
arm as they made their way down the stairs. “Have you attended to that little task I set 
you?” 

“I have, Your Grace. I am sorry that it took so long. Such a large head. It took the beetles 
many hours to clean the flesh. By way of pardon, I have lined a box of ebony and silver 
with felt, to make a fitting presentation for the skull.” 

“A cloth sack would serve as well. Prince Doran wants his head. He won’t give a fig 
what sort of box it comes in.” 

The pealing of the bells was louder in the yard. He was only a High Septon. How long 
must we endure this? The ringing was more melodious than the Mountain’s screams had 
been, but . . . 

Qyburn seemed to sense what she was thinking. “The bells will stop at sunset, Your 
Grace.” 

“That will be a great relief. How can you know?” 

“Knowing is the nature of my service.” 

Varys had all of us believing he was irreplaceable. What fools we were. Once the queen 
let it become known that Qyburn had taken the eunuch’s place, the usual vermin had 
wasted no time in making themselves known to him, to trade their whispers for a few 
coins. It was the silver all along, not the Spider. Qyburn will serve us just as well. She 
was looking forward to the look on Pycelle’s face when Qyburn took his seat. 

A knight of the Kingsguard was always posted outside the doors of the council chambers 
when the small council was in session. Today it was Ser Boros Blount. “Ser Boros,” the 
queen said pleasantly, “you look quite grey this morning. Something you ate, 
perchance?” Jaime had made him the king’s food taster. A tasty task, but shameful for a 
knight. Blount hated it. His sagging jowls quivered as he held the door for them. 

The councillors quieted as she entered. Lord Gyles coughed by way of greeting, loud 
enough to wake Pycelle. The others rose, mouthing pleasantries. Cersei allowed herself 
the faintest of smiles. “My lords, I know you will forgive my lateness.” 

“We are here to serve Your Grace,” said Ser Harys Swyft. “It is our pleasure to anticipate 
your coming.” 

“You all know Lord Qyburn, I am sure.” 


Grand Maester Pycelle did not disappoint her. “Lord Qyburn?” he managed, purpling. 
“Your Grace, this . . . a maester swears sacred vows, to hold no lands or lordships . . .” 

“Your Citadel took away his chain,” Cersei reminded him. “If he is not a maester, he 
cannot be held to a maester’s vows. We called the eunuch lord as well, you may recall.” 

Pycelle sputtered. “This man is . . . he is unfit . . .” 

“Do not presume to speak to me of fitness. Not after the stinking mockery you made of 
my lord father’s corpse.” 

“Your Grace cannot think . . .” He raised a spotted hand, as if to ward off a blow. “The 
silent sisters removed Lord Tywin’s bowels and organs, drained his blood . . . every care 
was taken . . . his body was stuffed with salts and fragrant herbs . . .” 

“Oh, spare me the disgusting details. I smelled the results of your care. Lord Qyburn’s 
healing arts saved my brother’s life, and I do not doubt that he will serve the king more 
ably than that simpering eunuch. My lord, you know your fellow councillors?” 

“I would be a poor informer if I did not, Your Grace.” Qyburn seated himself between 
Orton Merryweather and Gyles Rosby. 

My councillors. Cersei had uprooted every rose, and all those beholden to her uncle and 
her brothers. In their places were men whose loyalty would be to her. She had even given 
them new styles, borrowed from the Free Cities; the queen would have no “masters” at 
court beside herself. Orton Merryweather was her justiciar, Gyles Rosby her lord 
treasurer. Aurane Waters, the dashing young Bastard of Driftmark, would be her grand 
admiral. 

And for her Hand, Ser Harys Swyft. 

Soft, bald, and obsequious, Swyft had an absurd little white puff of beard where most 
men had a chin. The blue bantam rooster of his House was worked across the front of his 
plush yellow doublet in beads of lapis. Over that he wore a mantle of blue velvet 
decorated with a hundred golden hands. Ser Harys had been thrilled by his appointment, 
too dim to realize that he was more hostage than Hand. His daughter was her uncle’s 
wife, and Kevan loved his chinless lady, flat-chested and chicken-legged as she was. So 
long as she had Ser Harys in hand, Kevan Lannister must needs think twice about 
opposing her. To be sure, a good-father is not the ideal hostage, but better a flimsy shield 
than none. 

“Will the king be joining us?” asked Orton Merryweather. 

“My son is playing with his little queen. For the moment, his idea of kingship is stamping 
papers with the royal seal. His Grace is still too young to comprehend affairs of state.” 


“And our valiant Lord Commander?” 

“Ser Jaime is at his armorer’s being fitted for a hand. I know we were all tired of that 
ugly stump. And I daresay he would find these proceedings as tiresome as Tommen.” 
Aurane Waters chuckled at that. Good, Cersei thought, the more they laugh, the less he is 
a threat. Let them laugh. “Do we have wine?” 

“We do, Your Grace.” Orton Merryweather was not a comely man, with his big lumpish 
nose and shock of unruly reddish-orange hair, but he was never less than courteous. “We 
have Dornish red and Arbor gold, and a fine sweet hippocras from Highgarden.” 

“The gold, I think. I find Dornish wines as sour as the Dornish.” As Merryweather filled 
her cup, Cersei said, “I suppose we had as well begin with them.” 

Grand Maester Pycelle’s lips were still quivering, yet somehow he found his tongue. “As 
you command. Prince Doran has taken his brother’s unruly bastards into custody, yet 
Sunspear still seethes. The prince writes that he cannot hope to calm the waters until he 
receives the justice that was promised him.” 

“To be sure.” A tiresome creature, this prince. “His long wait is almost done. I am 
sending Balon Swann to Sunspear, to deliver him the head of Gregor Clegane.” Ser Balon 
would have another task as well, but that part was best left unsaid. 

“Ah.” Ser Harys Swyft fumbled at his funny little beard with thumb and forefinger. “He 
is dead then? Ser Gregor?” 

“I would think so, my lord,” Aurane Waters said dryly. “I am told that removing the head 
from the body is often mortal.” 

Cersei favored him with a smile; she liked a bit of wit, so long as she was not its target. 
“Ser Gregor perished of his wounds, just as Grand Maester Pycelle foretold.” 

Pycelle harrumphed and eyed Qyburn sourly. “The spear was poisoned. No man could 
have saved him.” 

“So you said. I recall it well.” The queen turned to her Hand. “What were you speaking 
of when I arrived, Ser Harys?” 

“Sparrows, Your Grace. Septon Raynard says there may be as many as two thousand in 
the city, and more arriving every day. Their leaders preach of doom and demon worship . 
. .” 

Cersei took a taste of wine. Very nice. “And long past time, wouldn’t you agree? What 
would you call this red god that Stannis worships, if not a demon? The Faith should 
oppose such evil.” Qyburn had reminded her of that, the clever man. “Our late High 
Septon let too much pass, I fear. Age had dimmed his sight and sapped his strength.” 


“He was an old done man, Your Grace.” Qyburn smiled at Pycelle. “His passing should 
not have surprised us. No man can ask for more than to die peacefully in his sleep, full of 
years.” 

“No,” said Cersei, “but we must hope that his successor is more vigorous. My friends 
upon the other hill tell me that it will most like be Torbert or Raynard.” 

Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat. “I have friends among the Most Devout as well, 
and they speak of Septon Ollidor.” 

“Do not discount this man Luceon,” Qyburn said. “Last night he feted thirty of the Most 
Devout on suckling pig and Arbor gold, and by day he hands out hardbread to the poor to 
prove his piety.” 

Aurane Waters seemed as bored as Cersei by all this prattle about septons. Seen up close, 
his hair was more silvery than gold, and his eyes were grey-green where Prince 
Rhaegar’s had been purple. Even so, the resemblance . . . She wondered if Waters would 
shave his beard for her. Though he was ten years her junior, he wanted her; Cersei could 
see it in the way he looked at her. Men had been looking at her that way since her breasts 
began to bud. Because I was so beautiful, they said, but Jaime was beautiful as well, and 
they never looked at him that way. When she was small she would sometimes don her 
brother’s clothing as a lark. She was always startled by how differently men treated her 
when they thought that she was Jaime. Even Lord Tywin himself . . . 

Pycelle and Merryweather were still quibbling about who the new High Septon was like 
to be. “One will serve as well as another,” the queen announced abruptly, “but whosoever 
dons the crystal crown must pronounce an anathema upon the Imp.” This last High 
Septon had been conspicuously silent regarding Tyrion. “As for these pink sparrows, so 
long as they preach no treason they are the Faith’s problem, not ours.” 

Lord Orton and Ser Harys murmured agreement. Gyles Rosby’s attempt to do the same 
dissolved into a fit of coughing. Cersei turned away in distaste as he was hacking up a 
gob of bloody phlegm. “Maester, have you brought the letter from the Vale?” 

“I have, Your Grace.” Pycelle plucked it from his pile of papers and smoothed it out. “It 
is a declaration, rather than a letter. Signed at Runestone by Bronze Yohn Royce, Lady 
Waynwood, Lords Hunter, Redfort, and Belmore, and Symond Templeton, the Knight of 
Ninestars. All have affixed their seals. They write—” 

A deal of rubbish. “My lords may read the letter if they wish. Royce and these others are 
massing men below the Eyrie. They mean to remove Littlefinger as Lord Protector of the 
Vale, forcibly if need be. The question is, ought we allow this?” 

“Does Lord Baelish seek our help?” asked Harys Swyft. 


“Not as yet. In truth, he seems quite unconcerned. His last letter mentions the rebels only 
briefly before beseeching me to ship him some old tapestries of Robert’s.” 

Ser Harys fingered his chin beard. “And these lords of the declaration, do they appeal to 
the king to take a hand?” 

“They do not.” 

“Then . . . mayhaps we need do nothing.” 

“A war in the Vale would be most tragic,” said Pycelle. 

“War?” Orton Merryweather laughed. “Lord Baelish is a most amusing man, but one 
does not fight a war with witticisms. I doubt there will be bloodshed. And does it matter 
who is regent for little Lord Robert, so long as the Vale remits its taxes?” 

No, Cersei decided. If truth be told, Littlefinger had been more use at court. He had a gift 
for finding gold, and never coughed. “Lord Orton has convinced me. Maester Pycelle, 
instruct these Lords Declarant that no harm must come to Petyr. Elsewise, the crown is 
content with whatever dispositions they might make for the governance of the Vale 
during Robert Arryn’s minority.” 

“Very good, Your Grace.” 

“Might we discuss the fleet?” asked Aurane Waters. “Fewer than a dozen of our ships 
survived the inferno on the Blackwater. We must needs restore our strength at sea.” 

Merryweather nodded. “Strength at sea is most essential.” 

“Could we make use of the ironmen?” asked Orton Merryweather. “The enemy of our 
enemy? What would the Seastone Chair want of us as the price of an alliance?” 

“They want the north,” Grand Maester Pycelle said, “which our queen’s noble father 
promised to House Bolton.” 

“How inconvenient,” said Merryweather. “Still, the north is large. The lands could be 
divided. It need not be a permanent arrangement. Bolton might consent, so long as we 
assure him that our strength will be his once Stannis is destroyed.” 

“Balon Greyjoy is dead, I had heard,” said Ser Harys Swyft. “Do we know who rules the 
isles now? Did Lord Balon have a son?” 

“Leo?” coughed Lord Gyles. “Theo?” 

“Theon Greyjoy was raised at Winterfell, a ward of Eddard Stark,” Qyburn said. “He is 
not like to be a friend of ours.” 


“I had heard he was slain,” said Merryweather. 

“Was there only one son?” Ser Harys Swyft tugged upon his chin beard. “Brothers. There 
were brothers. Were there not?” 

Varys would have known, Cersei thought with irritation. “I do not propose to climb in bed 
with that sorry pack of squids. Their turn will come, once we have dealt with Stannis. 
What we require is our own fleet.” 

“I propose we build new dromonds,” said Aurane Waters. “Ten, to start with.” 

“Where is the coin to come from?” asked Pycelle. 

Lord Gyles took that as an invitation to begin coughing again. He brought up more pink 
spittle and dabbed it away with a square of red silk. “There is no . . .” he managed, before 
the coughing ate his words. “. . . no . . . we do not . . .” 

Ser Harys proved swift enough at least to grasp the meaning between the coughs. “The 
crown incomes have never been greater,” he objected. “Ser Kevan told me so himself.” 

Lord Gyles coughed. “. . . expenses . . . gold cloaks . . .” 

Cersei had heard his objections before. “Our lord treasurer is trying to say that we have 
too many gold cloaks and too little gold.” Rosby’s coughing had begun to vex her. 
Perhaps Garth the Gross would not have been so ill. “Though large, the crown incomes 
are not large enough to keep abreast of Robert’s debts. Accordingly, I have decided to 
defer our repayment of the sums owed the Holy Faith and the Iron Bank of Braavos until 
war’s end.” The new High Septon would doubtless wring his holy hands, and the 
Braavosi would squeak and squawk at her, but what of it? “The monies saved will be 
used for the building of our new fleet.” 

“Your Grace is prudent,” said Lord Merryweather. “This is a wise measure. And needed, 
until the war is done. I concur.” 

“And I,” said Ser Harys. 

“Your Grace,” Pycelle said in a quavering voice, “this will cause more trouble than you 
know, I fear. The Iron Bank . . .” 

“. . . remains on Braavos, far across the sea. They shall have their gold, maester. A 
Lannister pays his debts.” 

“The Braavosi have a saying too.” Pycelle’s jeweled chain clinked softly. “The Iron Bank 
will have its due, they say.” 


“The Iron Bank will have its due when I say they will. Until such time, the Iron Bank will 
wait respectfully. Lord Waters, commence the building of your dromonds.” 

“Very good, Your Grace.” 

Ser Harys shuffled through some papers. “The next matter . . . we have had a letter from 
Lord Frey putting forth some claims . . .” 

“How many lands and honors does that man want?” snapped the queen. “His mother 
must have had three teats.” 

“My lords may not know,” said Qyburn, “but in the winesinks and pot shops of this city, 
there are those who suggest that the crown might have been somehow complicit in Lord 
Walder’s crime.” 

The other councillors stared at him uncertainly. “Do you refer to the Red Wedding?” 
asked Aurane Waters. “Crime?” said Ser Harys. Pycelle cleared his throat noisily. Lord 
Gyles coughed. 

“These sparrows are especially outspoken,” warned Qyburn. “The Red Wedding was an 
affront to all the laws of gods and men, they say, and those who had a hand in it are 
damned.” 

Cersei was not slow to take his meaning. “Lord Walder must soon face the Father’s 
judgment. He is very old. Let the sparrows spit upon his memory. It has nought to do 
with us.” 

“No,” said Ser Harys. “No,” said Lord Merryweather. “No one could think so,” said 
Pycelle. Lord Gyles coughed. 

“A little spittle on Lord Walder’s tomb is not like to disturb the grave worms,” Qyburn 
agreed, “but it would also be useful if someone were to be punished for the Red 
Wedding. A few Frey heads would do much to mollify the north.” 

“Lord Walder will never sacrifice his own,” said Pycelle. 

“No,” mused Cersei, “but his heirs may be less squeamish. Lord Walder will soon do us 
the courtesy of dying, we can hope. What better way for the new Lord of the Crossing to 
rid himself of inconvenient half brothers, disagreeable cousins, and scheming sisters than 
by naming them the culprits?” 

“Whilst we await Lord Walder’s death, there is another matter,” said Aurane Waters. 
“The Golden Company has broken its contract with Myr. Around the docks I’ve heard 
men say that Lord Stannis has hired them and is bringing them across the sea.” 


“What would he pay them with?” asked Merryweather. “Snow? They are called the 
Golden Company. How much gold does Stannis have?” 

“Little enough,” Cersei assured him. “Lord Qyburn has spoken to the crew of that Myrish 
galley in the bay. They claim the Golden Company is making for Volantis. If they mean 
to cross to Westeros, they are marching in the wrong direction.” 

“Perhaps they grew weary of fighting on the losing side,” suggested Lord Merryweather. 

“There is that as well,” agreed the queen. “Only a blind man could fail to see our war is 
all but won. Lord Tyrell has Storm’s End invested. Riverrun is besieged by the Freys and 
my cousin Daven, our new Warden of the West. Lord Redwyne’s ships have passed 
through the Straits of Tarth and are moving swiftly up the coast. Only a few fishing boats 
remain on Dragonstone to oppose Redwyne’s landing. The castle may hold for some 
time, but once we have the port we can cut the garrison off from the sea. Then only 
Stannis himself will remain to vex us.” 

“If Lord Janos can be believed, he is trying to make common cause with the wildlings,” 
warned Grand Maester Pycelle. 

“Savages in skins,” declared Lord Merryweather. “Lord Stannis must be desperate 
indeed, to seek such allies.” 

“Desperate and foolish,” the queen agreed. “The northmen hate the wildlings. Roose 
Bolton should have no trouble winning them to our cause. A few have already joined up 
with his bastard son to help him clear the wretched ironmen from Moat Cailin and clear 
the way for Lord Bolton to return. Umber, Ryswell . . . I forget the other names. Even 
White Harbor is on the point of joining us. Its lord has agreed to marry both his 
granddaughters to our friends of Frey and open his port to our ships.” 

“I thought we had no ships,” Ser Harys said, confused. 

“Wyman Manderly was a loyal bannerman to Eddard Stark,” said Grand Maester Pycelle. 
“Can such a man be trusted? 

No one can be trusted. “He’s a fat old man, and frightened. However, he is proving 
stubborn on one point. He insists that he will not bend the knee until his heir has been 
returned to him.” 

“Do we have this heir?” asked Ser Harys. 

“He will be at Harrenhal, if he is still alive. Gregor Clegane took him captive.” The 
Mountain had not always been gentle with his prisoners, even those worth a goodly 
ransom. “If he is dead, I suppose we will need to send Lord Manderly the heads of those 
who killed him, with our most sincere apologies.” If one head was enough to appease a 


prince of Dorne, a bag of them should be more than adequate for a fat northman wrapped 
in sealskins. 

“Will not Lord Stannis seek to win the allegiance of White Harbor as well?” asked Grand 
Maester Pycelle. 

“Oh, he has tried. Lord Manderly has sent his letters on to us and replied with evasions. 
Stannis demands White Harbor’s swords and silver, for which he offers . . . well, 
nothing.” One day she must light a candle to the Stranger for carrying Renly off and 
leaving Stannis. If it had been the other way around, her life would have been harder. 
“Just this morning there was another bird. Stannis has sent his onion smuggler to treat 
with White Harbor on his behalf. Manderly has clapped the wretch inside a cell. He asks 
us what he should do with him.” 

“Send him here, that we might question him,” suggested Lord Merryweather. “The man 
might know much of value.” 

“Let him die,” said Qyburn. “His death will be a lesson to the north, to show them what 
becomes of traitors.” 

“I quite agree,” the queen said. “I have instructed Lord Manderly to have his head off 
forthwith. That should put an end to any chance of White Harbor supporting Stannis.” 

“Stannis will need another Hand,” observed Aurane Waters with a chuckle. “The turnip 
knight, perhaps?” 

“A turnip knight?” said Ser Harys Swyft, confused. “Who is this man? I have not heard 
of him.” 

Waters did not reply, except to roll his eyes. 

“What if Lord Manderly should refuse?” asked Merryweather. 

“He dare not. The onion knight’s head is the coin he’ll need to buy his son’s life.” Cersei 
smiled. “The fat old fool may have been loyal to the Starks in his own way, but with the 
wolves of Winterfell extinguished—” 

“Your Grace has forgotten the Lady Sansa,” said Pycelle. 

The queen bristled. “I most certainly have not forgotten that little she-wolf.” She refused 
to say the girl’s name. “I ought to have shown her to the black cells as the daughter of a 
traitor, but instead I made her part of mine own household. She shared my hearth and 
hall, played with my own children. I fed her, dressed her, tried to make her a little less 
ignorant about the world, and how did she repay me for my kindness? She helped murder 
my son. When we find the Imp, we will find the Lady Sansa too. She is not dead . . . but 


before I am done with her, I promise you, she will be singing to the Stranger, begging for 
his kiss.” 

An awkward silence followed. Have they all swallowed their tongues? Cersei thought, 
with irritation. It was enough to make her wonder why she bothered with a council. 

“In any case,” the queen went on, “Lord Eddard’s younger daughter is with Lord Bolton, 
and will be wed to his son Ramsay as soon as Moat Cailin has fallen.” So long as the girl 
played her role well enough to cement their claim to Winterfell, neither of the Boltons 
would much care that she was actually some steward’s whelp tricked up by Littlefinger. 
“If the north must have a Stark, we’ll give them one.” She let Lord Merryweather fill her 
cup once again. “Another problem has arisen on the Wall, however. The brothers of the 
Night’s Watch have taken leave of their wits and chosen Ned Stark’s bastard son to be 
their Lord Commander.” 

“Snow, the boy is called,” Pycelle said unhelpfully. 

“I glimpsed him once at Winterfell,” the queen said, “though the Starks did their best to 
hide him. He looks very like his father.” Her husband’s by-blows had his look as well, 
though at least Robert had the grace to keep them out of sight. Once, after that sorry 
business with the cat, he had made some noises about bringing some baseborn daughter 
of his to court. “Do as you please,” she’d told him, “but you may find that the city is not a 
healthy place for a growing girl.” The bruise those words had won her had been hard to 
hide from Jaime, but they heard no more about the bastard girl. Catelyn Tully was a 
mouse, or she would have smothered this Jon Snow in his cradle. Instead, she’s left the 
filthy task to me. “Snow shares Lord Eddard’s taste for treason too,” she said. “The father 
would have handed the realm to Stannis. The son has given him lands and castles.” 

“The Night’s Watch is sworn to take no part in the wars of the Seven Kingdoms,” Pycelle 
reminded them. “For thousands of years the black brothers have upheld that tradition.” 

“Until now,” said Cersei. “The bastard boy has written us to avow that the Night’s Watch 
takes no side, but his actions give the lie to his words. He has given Stannis food and 
shelter, yet has the insolence to plead with us for arms and men.” 

“An outrage,” declared Lord Merryweather. “We cannot allow the Night’s Watch to join 
its strength to that of Lord Stannis.” 

“We must declare this Snow a traitor and a rebel,” agreed Ser Harys Swyft. “The black 
brothers must remove him.” 

Grand Maester Pycelle nodded ponderously. “I propose that we inform Castle Black that 
no more men will be sent to them until such time as Snow is gone.” 

“Our new dromonds will need oarsmen,” said Aurane Waters. “Let us instruct the lords to 
send their poachers and thieves to me henceforth, instead of to the Wall.” 


Qyburn leaned forward with a smile. “The Night’s Watch defends us all from snarks and 
grumkins. My lords, I say that we must help the brave black brothers.” 

Cersei gave him a sharp look. “What are you saying?” 

“This,” Qyburn said. “For years now, the Night’s Watch has begged for men. Lord 
Stannis has answered their plea. Can King Tommen do less? His Grace should send the 
Wall a hundred men. To take the black, ostensibly, but in truth . . .” 

“. . . to remove Jon Snow from the command,” Cersei finished, delighted. I knew I was 
right to want him on my council. “That is just what we shall do.” She laughed. If this 
bastard boy is truly his father’s son, he will not suspect a thing. Perhaps he will even 
thank me, before the blade slides between his ribs. “It will need to be done carefully, to 
be sure. Leave the rest to me, my lords.” This was how an enemy should be dealt with: 
with a dagger, not a declaration. “We have done good work today, my lords. I thank you. 
Is there aught else?” 

“One last thing, Your Grace,” said Aurane Waters, in an apologetic tone. “I hesitate to 
take up the council’s time with trifles, but there has been some queer talk heard along the 
docks of late. Sailors from the east. They speak of dragons . . .” 

“. . . and manticores, no doubt, and bearded snarks?” Cersei chuckled. “Come back to me 
when you hear talk of dwarfs, my lord.” She stood, to signal that the meeting was at an 
end. 

A blustery autumn wind was blowing when Cersei left the council chambers, and bells of 
Blessed Baelor still sang their song of mourning off across the city. In the yard twoscore 
knights were hammering each other with sword and shield, adding to the din. Ser Boros 
Blount escorted the queen back to her apartments, where she found Lady Merryweather 
chuckling with Jocelyn and Dorcas. “What is it you all find so amusing?” 

“The Redwyne twins,” said Taena. “Both of them have fallen in love with Lady 
Margaery. They used to fight over which would be the next Lord of the Arbor. Now both 
of them want to join the Kingsguard, just to be near the little queen.” 

“The Redwynes have always had more freckles than wits.” It was a useful thing to know, 
though. If Horror or Slobber were to be found abed with Margaery . . . Cersei wondered 
if the little queen liked freckles. “Dorcas, fetch me Ser Osney Kettleblack.” 

Dorcas blushed. “As you command.” 

When the girl was gone, Taena Merryweather gave the queen a quizzical look. “Why did 
she turn so red?” 

“Love.” It was Cersei’s turn to laugh. “She fancies our Ser Osney.” He was the youngest 
Kettleblack, the clean-shaved one. Though he had the same black hair, hooked nose, and 


easy smile as his brother Osmund, one cheek bore three long scratches, courtesy of one of 
Tyrion’s whores. “She likes his scars, I think.” 

Lady Merryweather’s dark eyes shone with mischief. “Just so. Scars make a man look 
dangerous, and danger is exciting.” 

“You shock me, my lady,” the queen said, teasing. “If danger excites you so, why wed 
Lord Orton? We all love him, it is true, but still . . .” Petyr had once remarked that the 
horn of plenty that adorned House Merryweather’s arms suited Lord Orton admirably, 
since he had carrot-colored hair, a nose as bulbous as a beetroot, and pease porridge for 
wits. 

Taena laughed. “My lord is more bountiful than dangerous, this is so. Yet . . . I hope 
Your Grace will not think the less of me, but I did not come a maid entire to Orton’s 
bed.” 

You are all whores in the Free Cities, aren’t you? That was good to know; one day, she 
might be able to make use of it. “And pray, who was this lover who was so . . . full of 
danger?” 

Taena’s olive skin turned even darker as she blushed. “Oh, I should not have spoken. 
Your Grace will keep my secret, yes?” 

“Men have scars, women mysteries.” Cersei kissed her cheek. I will have his name out of 
you soon enough. 

When Dorcas returned with Ser Osney Kettleblack, the queen dismissed her ladies. 
“Come sit with me by the window, Ser Osney. Will you take a cup of wine?” She poured 
for them herself. “Your cloak is threadbare. I have a mind to put you in a new one.” 

“What, a white one? Who’s died?” 

“No one, as yet,” the queen said. “Is that your wish, to join your brother Osmund in our 
Kingsguard?” 

“I’d rather be the queen’s guard, if it please Your Grace.” When Osney grinned, the scars 
on his cheek turned bright red. 

Cersei’s fingers traced their path across his cheek. “You have a bold tongue, ser. You will 
make me forget myself again.” 

“Good.” Ser Osney caught her hand and kissed her fingers roughly. “My sweet queen.” 

“You are a wicked man,” the queen whispered, “and no true knight, I think.” She let him 
touch her breasts through the silk of her gown. “Enough.” 


“It isn’t. I want you.” 

“You’ve had me.” 

“Only once.” He grabbed her left breast again and gave it a clumsy squeeze that reminded 
her of Robert. 

“One good night for one good knight. You did me valiant service, and you had your 
reward.” Cersei walked her fingers up his laces. She could feel him stiffening through his 
breeches. “Was that a new horse you were riding in the yard yestermorn?” 

“The black stallion? Aye. A gift from my brother Osfryd. Midnight, I call him.” 

How wonderfully original. “A fine mount for a battle. For pleasure, though, there is 
nothing to compare to a gallop on a spirited young filly.” She gave him a smile and a 
squeeze. “Tell me true. Do you think our little queen is pretty?” 

Ser Osney drew back, wary. “I suppose. For a girl. I’d sooner have a woman.” 

“Why not both?” she whispered. “Pluck the little rose for me, and you will not find me to 
be ungrateful.” 

“The little . . . Margaery, you mean?” Ser Osney’s ardor was wilting in his breeches. 
“She’s the king’s wife. Wasn’t there some Kingsguard who lost his head for bedding the 
king’s wife?” 

“Ages ago.” She was his king’s mistress, not his wife, and his head was the only thing he 
did not lose. Aegon dismembered him piece by piece, and made the woman watch. Cersei 
did not want Osney dwelling on that ancient unpleasantness, however. “Tommen is not 
Aegon the Unworthy. Have no fear, he will do as I bid him. I mean for Margaery to lose 
her head, not you.” 

That gave him pause. “Her maidenhead, you mean?” 

“That too. Assuming she has still one.” She traced his scars again. “Unless you think 
Margaery would prove unresponsive to your . . . charms?” 

Osney gave her a wounded look. “She likes me well enough. Them cousins of hers are 
always teasing with me about my nose. How big it is, and all. The last time Megga did 
that, Margaery told them to stop and said I had a lovely face.” 

“There you are, then.” 

“There I am,” the man agreed, in a doubtful tone, “but where am I going to be if she . . . if 

I . . . after we . . . ?” 

“. . . do the deed?” Cersei gave him a barbed smile. “Lying with a queen is treason. 
Tommen would have no choice but to send you to the Wall.” 

“The Wall?” he said with dismay. 
It was all she could do not to laugh. No, best not. Men hate being laughed at. “A black 
cloak would go well with your eyes, and that black hair of yours.” 


“No one returns from the Wall.” 
“You will. All you need to do is kill a boy.” 
“What boy?” 
“A bastard boy in league with Stannis. He’s young and green, and you’ll have a hundred 


men.” 
Kettleblack was afraid, she could smell it on him, but he was too proud to own up to that 


fear. Men are all alike. “I’ve killed more boys than I can count,” he insisted. “Once this 
boy is dead, I’d get my pardon from the king?” 
“That, and a lordship.” Unless Snow’s brothers hang you first. “A queen must have a 


consort. One who knows no fear.” 


“Lord Kettleblack?” A slow smile spread across his face, and his scars flamed red. “Aye, 
I like the sound o’ that. A lordly lord . . .” 
“. . . and fit to bed a queen.” 
He frowned. “The Wall is cold.” 
“And I am warm.” Cersei put her arms about his neck. “Bed a girl and kill a boy and I am 


yours. Do you have the courage?” 
Osney thought a moment before he nodded. “I am your man.” 
“You are, ser.” She kissed him, and let him have a little taste of tongue before she broke 


away. “Enough for now. The rest must wait. Will you dream of me tonight?” 
“Aye.” His voice was hoarse. 
“And when you’re abed with our Maid Margaery?” she asked him, teasing. “When 


you’re in her, will you dream of me then?” 
“I will,” swore Osney Kettleblack. 



“Good.” 

After he was gone, Cersei summoned Jocelyn to brush her hair out whilst she slipped off 
her shoes and stretched like a cat. I was made for this, she told herself. It was the sheer 
elegance of it that pleased her most. Even Mace Tyrell would not dare defend his darling 
daughter if she was caught in the act with the likes of Osney Kettleblack, and neither 
Stannis Baratheon nor Jon Snow would have cause to wonder why Osney was being sent 
to the Wall. She would see to it that Ser Osmund was the one to discover his brother with 
the little queen; that way the loyalty of the other two Kettleblacks need not be impugned. 

If Father could only see me now, he would not be so quick to speak of marrying me off 
again. A pity he’s so dead. Him and Robert, Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, Renly Baratheon, all 
dead. Only Tyrion remains, and not for long. 

That night the queen summoned Lady Merryweather to her bedchamber. “Will you take a 
cup of wine?” she asked her. 

“A small one.” The Myrish woman laughed. “A big one.” 

“On the morrow I want you to pay a call on my good-daughter,” Cersei said as Dorcas 
was dressing her for bed. 

“Lady Margaery is always happy to see me.” 

“I know.” The queen did not fail to note the style that Taena used when referring to 
Tommen’s little wife. “Tell her I’ve sent seven beeswax candles to the Baelor’s Sept in 
memory of our dear High Septon.” 

Taena laughed. “If so, she will send seven-and-seventy candles of her own, so as not to 
be outmourned.” 

“I will be very cross if she does not,” the queen said, smiling. “Tell her also that she has a 
secret admirer, a knight so smitten with her beauty that he cannot sleep at night.” 

“Might I ask Your Grace which knight?” Mischief sparkled in Taena’s big dark eyes. 
“Could it be Ser Osney?” 

“It could be,” the queen said, “but do not offer up that name freely. Make her worm it out 
of you. Will you do that?” 

“If it please you. That is all I wish, Your Grace.” 

Outside a cold wind was rising. They stayed up late into the morning, drinking Arbor 
gold and telling one another tales. Taena got quite drunk and Cersei pried the name of her 
secret lover from her. He was a Myrish sea captain, half a pirate, with black hair to the 
shoulders and a scar that ran across his face from chin to ear. “A hundred times I told him 


no, and he said yes,” the other woman told her, “until finally I was saying yes as well. He 
was not the sort of man to be denied.” 
“I know the sort,” the queen said with a wry smile. 
“Has Your Grace ever known a man like that, I wonder?” 


“Robert,” she lied, thinking of Jaime. 
Yet when she closed her eyes, it was the other brother that she dreamt of, and the three 
wretched fools with whom she had begun her day. In the dream it was Tyrion’s head they 
brought her in their sack. She had it bronzed, and kept it in her chamber pot. 



THE IRON CAPTAIN 

The wind was blowing from the north as the Iron Victory came round the point and 
entered the holy bay called Nagga’s Cradle. 

Victarion joined Nute the Barber at her prow. Ahead loomed the sacred shore of Old 
Wyk and the grassy hill above it, where the ribs of Nagga rose from the earth like the 
trunks of great white trees, as wide around as a dromond’s mast and twice as tall. 

The bones of the Grey King’s Hall. Victarion could feel the magic of this place. “Balon 
stood beneath those bones, when first he named himself a king,” he recalled. “He swore 
to win us back our freedoms, and Tarle the Thrice-Drowned placed a driftwood crown 
upon his head. ‘BALON!’ they cried. ‘BALON! BALON KING!’” 

“They will shout your name as loud,” said Nute. 

Victarion nodded, though he did not share the Barber’s certainty. Balon had three sons, 
and a daughter he loved well. 

He had said as much to his captains at Moat Cailin, when first they urged him to claim 
the Seastone Chair. “Balon’s sons are dead,” Red Ralf Stonehouse had argued, “and Asha 
is a woman. You were your brother’s strong right arm, you must pick up the sword that 
he let fall.” When Victarion reminded them that Balon had commanded him to hold the 
Moat against the northmen, Ralf Kenning said, “The wolves are broken, lord. What good 
to win this swamp and lose the isles?” And Ralf the Limper added, “The Crow’s Eye has 
been too long away. He knows us not.” 


Euron Greyjoy, King of the Isles and the North. The thought woke an old rage in his 
heart, but still . . . 

“Words are wind,” Victarion told them, “and the only good wind is that which fills our 
sails. Would you have me fight the Crow’s Eye? Brother against brother, ironborn against 
ironborn?” Euron was still his elder, no matter how much bad blood might be between 
them. No man is as accursed as the kinslayer. 

But when the Damphair’s summons came, the call to kingsmoot, then all was changed. 
Aeron speaks with the Drowned God’s voice, Victarion reminded himself, and if the 
Drowned God wills that I should sit the Seastone Chair . . . The next day he gave 
command of Moat Cailin to Ralf Kenning and set off overland for the Fever River where 
the Iron Fleet lay amongst the reeds and willows. Rough seas and fickle winds had 
delayed him, but only one ship had been lost, and he was home. 

Grief and Iron Vengeance were close behind as Iron Victory passed the headland. Behind 
came Hardhand, Iron Wind, Grey Ghost, Lord Quellon, Lord Vickon, Lord Dagon, and 
the rest, nine-tenths of the Iron Fleet, sailing on the evening tide in a ragged column that 
extended back long leagues. The sight of their sails filled Victarion Greyjoy with content. 
No man had ever loved his wives half as well as the Lord Captain loved his ships. 

Along the sacred strand of Old Wyk, longships lined the shore as far as the eye could see, 
their masts thrust up like spears. In the deeper waters rode prizes: cogs, carracks, and 
dromonds won in raid or war, too big to run ashore. From prow and stern and mast flew 
familiar banners. 

Nute the Barber squinted toward the strand. “Is that Lord Harlaw’s Sea Song?” The 
Barber was a thickset man with bandy legs and long arms, but his eyes were not so keen 
as they had been when he was young. In those days he could throw an axe so well that 
men said he could shave you with it. 

“Sea Song, aye.” Rodrik the Reader had left his books, it would seem. “And there’s old 
Drumm’s Thunderer, with Blacktyde’s Nightflyer beside her.” Victarion’s eyes were as 
sharp as they had ever been. Even with their sails furled and their banners hanging limp, 
he knew them, as befit the Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet. “Silverfin too. Some kin of 
Sawane Botley.” The Crow’s Eye had drowned Lord Botley, Victarion had heard, and his 
heir had died at Moat Cailin, but there had been brothers, and other sons as well. How 
many? Four? No, five, and none with any cause to love the Crow’s Eye. 

And then he saw her: a single-masted galley, lean and low, with a dark red hull. Her sails, 
now furled, were black as a starless sky. Even at anchor Silence looked both cruel and 
fast. On her prow was a black iron maiden with one arm outstretched. Her waist was 
slender, her breasts high and proud, her legs long and shapely. A windblown mane of 
black iron hair streamed from her head, and her eyes were mother-of-pearl, but she had 
no mouth. 


Victarion’s hands closed into fists. He had beaten four men to death with those hands, 
and one wife as well. Though his hair was flecked with hoarfrost, he was as strong as he 
had ever been, with a bull’s broad chest and a boy’s flat belly. The kinslayer is accursed 
in the eyes of gods and men, Balon had reminded him on the day he sent the Crow’s Eye 
off to sea. 

“He is here,” Victarion told the Barber. “Drop sail. We proceed on oars alone. Command 
Grief and Iron Vengeance to stand between Silence and the sea. The rest of the fleet to 
seal the bay. None is to leave save at my command, neither man nor crow.” 

The men upon the shore had spied their sails. Shouts echoed across the bay as friends and 
kin called out greetings. But not from Silence. On her decks a motley crew of mutes and 
mongrels spoke no word as the Iron Victory drew nigh. Men black as tar stared out at 
him, and others squat and hairy as the apes of Sothoros. Monsters, Victarion thought. 

They dropped anchor twenty yards from Silence. “Lower a boat. I would go ashore.” He 
buckled on his swordbelt as the rowers took their places; his longsword rested on one hip, 
a dirk upon the other. Nute the Barber fastened the Lord Captain’s cloak about his 
shoulders. It was made of nine layers of cloth-of-gold, sewn in the shape of the kraken of 
Greyjoy, arms dangling to his boots. Beneath he wore heavy grey chainmail over boiled 
black leather. In Moat Cailin he had taken to wearing mail day and night. Sore shoulders 
and an aching back were easier to bear than bloody bowels. The poisoned arrows of the 
bog devils need only scratch a man, and a few hours later he would be squirting and 
screaming as his life ran down his legs in gouts of red and brown. Whoever wins the 
Seastone Chair, I shall deal with the bog devils. 

Victarion donned a tall black warhelm, wrought in the shape of an iron kraken, its arms 
coiled down around his cheeks to meet beneath his jaw. By then the boat was ready. “I 
put the chests into your charge,” he told Nute as he climbed over the side. “See that they 
are strongly guarded.” Much depended on the chests. 

“As you command, Your Grace.” 

Victarion returned a sour scowl. “I am no king as yet.” He clambered down into the boat. 

Aeron Damphair was waiting for him in the surf with his waterskin slung beneath one 
arm. The priest was gaunt and tall, though shorter than Victarion. His nose rose like a 
shark’s fin from a bony face, and his eyes were iron. His beard reached to his waist, and 
tangled ropes of hair slapped at the back of his legs when the wind blew. “Brother,” he 
said as the waves broke white and cold around their ankles, “what is dead can never die.” 

“But rises again, harder and stronger.” Victarion lifted off his helm and knelt. The bay 
filled his boots and soaked his breeches as Aeron poured a stream of salt water down 
upon his brow. And so they prayed. 


“Where is our brother Crow’s Eye?” the Lord Captain demanded of Aeron Damphair 
when the prayers were done. 

“His is the great tent of cloth-of-gold, there where the din is loudest. He surrounds 
himself with godless men and monsters, worse than before. In him our father’s blood 
went bad.” 

“Our mother’s blood as well.” Victarion would not speak of kinslaying, here in this godly 
place beneath the bones of Nagga and the Grey King’s Hall, but many a night he dreamed 
of driving a mailed fist into Euron’s smiling face, until the flesh split and his bad blood 
ran red and free. I must not. I pledged my word to Balon. “All have come?” he asked his 
priestly brother. 

“All who matter. The captains and the kings.” On the Iron Islands they were one and the 
same, for every captain was a king on his own deck, and every king must be a captain. 
“Do you mean to claim our father’s crown?” 

Victarion imagined himself seated on the Seastone Chair. “If the Drowned God wills it.” 

“The waves will speak,” said Aeron Damphair as he turned away. “Listen to the waves, 
brother.” 

“Aye.” He wondered how his name would sound whispered by waves and shouted by the 
captains and the kings. If the cup should pass to me, I will not set it by. 

A crowd had gathered round to wish him well and seek his favor. Victarion saw men 
from every isle: Blacktydes, Tawneys, Orkwoods, Stonetrees, Wynches, and many more. 
The Goodbrothers of Old Wyk, the Goodbrothers of Great Wyk, and the Goodbrothers of 
Orkmont all had come. The Codds were there, though every decent man despised them. 
Humble Shepherds, Weavers, and Netleys rubbed shoulders with men from Houses 
ancient and proud; even humble Humbles, the blood of thralls and salt wives. A Volmark 
clapped Victarion on the back; two Sparrs pressed a wineskin into his hands. He drank 
deep, wiped his mouth, and let them bear him off to their cookfires, to listen to their talk 
of war and crowns and plunder, and the glory and the freedom of his reign. 

That night the men of the Iron Fleet raised a huge sailcloth tent above the tideline, so 
Victarion might feast half a hundred famous captains on roast kid, salted cod, and lobster. 
Aeron came as well. He ate fish and drank water, whilst the captains quaffed enough ale 
to float the Iron Fleet. Many promised him their voices: Fralegg the Strong, clever Alvyn 
Sharp, humpbacked Hotho Harlaw. Hotho offered him a daughter for his queen. “I have 
no luck with wives,” Victarion told him. His first wife died in childbed, giving him a 
stillborn daughter. His second had been stricken by a pox. And his third . . . 

“A king must have an heir,” Hotho insisted. “The Crow’s Eye brings three sons to show 
before the kingsmoot.” 


“Bastards and mongrels. How old is this daughter?” 

“Twelve,” said Hotho. “Fair and fertile, newly flowered, with hair the color of honey. 
Her breasts are small as yet, but she has good hips. She takes after her mother, more than 
me.” 

Victarion knew that to mean the girl did not have a hump. Yet when he tried to picture 
her, he only saw the wife he’d killed. He had sobbed each time he struck her, and 
afterward carried her down to the rocks to give her to the crabs. “I will gladly look at the 
girl once I am crowned,” he said. That was as much as Hotho dared hope for, and he 
shambled off, content. 

Baelor Blacktyde was more difficult to please. He sat by Victarion’s elbow in his 
lambswool tunic of black-and-green vairy, smooth-faced and comely. His cloak was 
sable, and pinned with a silver seven-pointed star. He had been eight years a hostage in 
Oldtown, and had returned a worshiper of the seven green land gods. “Balon was mad, 
Aeron is madder, and Euron is maddest of them all,” Lord Baelor said. “What of you, 
Lord Captain? If I shout your name, will you make an end of this mad war?” 

Victarion frowned. “Would you have me bend the knee?” 

“If need be. We cannot stand alone against all Westeros. King Robert proved that, to our 
grief. Balon would pay the iron price for freedom, he said, but our women bought 
Balon’s crowns with empty beds. My mother was one such. The Old Way is dead.” 

“What is dead can never die, but rises harder and stronger. In a hundred years men will 
sing of Balon the Bold.” 

“Balon the Widowmaker, call him. I will gladly trade his freedom for a father. Have you 
one to give me?” When Victarion did not answer, Blacktyde snorted and moved off. 

The tent grew hot and smoky. Two of Gorold Goodbrother’s sons knocked a table over 
fighting; Will Humble lost a wager and had to eat his boot; Little Lenwood Tawney 
fiddled whilst Romny Weaver sang “The Bloody Cup” and “Steel Rain” and other old 
reaving songs. Qarl the Maid and Eldred Codd danced the finger dance. A roar of 
laughter went up when one of Eldred’s fingers landed in Ralf the Limper’s wine cup. 

A woman was amongst those laughing. Victarion rose and saw her by the tent flap, 
whispering something in the ear of Qarl the Maid that made him laugh as well. He had 
hoped she would not be fool enough to come here, yet the sight of her made him smile all 
the same. “Asha,” he called in a commanding voice. “Niece.” 

She made her way to his side, lean and lithe in high boots of salt-stained leather, green 
woolen breeches, and brown quilted tunic, a sleeveless leather jerkin half-unlaced. 
“Nuncle.” Asha Greyjoy was tall for a woman, yet she had to stand on her toes to kiss his 
cheek. “I am pleased to see you at my queensmoot.” 


“Queensmoot?” Victarion laughed. “Are you drunk, niece? Sit. I did not spy your Black 


Wind on the strand.” 
“I beached her beneath Norne Goodbrother’s castle and rode across the island.” She sat 
upon a stool and helped herself unasked to Nute the Barber’s wine. Nute raised no 
objection; he had passed out drunk some time ago. “Who holds the Moat?” 


“Ralf Kenning. With the Young Wolf dead, only the bog devils remain to plague us.” 


“The Starks were not the only northmen. The Iron Throne has named the Lord of the 
Dreadfort as Warden of the North.” 
“Would you lesson me in warfare? I was fighting battles when you were sucking 


mother’s milk.” 
“And losing battles too.” Asha took a drink of wine. 
Victarion did not like to be reminded of Fair Isle. “Every man should lose a battle in his 


youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old. You have not come to make a claim, I 
hope.” 

She teased him with a smile. “And if I have?” 
“There are men who remember when you were a little girl, swimming naked in the sea 
and playing with your doll.” 


“I played with axes too.” 


“You did,” he had to grant, “but a woman wants a husband, not a crown. When I am king 
I’ll give you one.” 
“My nuncle is so good to me. Shall I find a pretty wife for you, when I am queen?” 
“I have no luck with wives. How long have you been here?” 
“Long enough to see that Uncle Damphair has woken more than he intended. The 


Drumm means to make a claim, and Tarle the Thrice-Drowned was heard to say that 
Maron Volmark is the true heir of the black line.” 


“The king must be a kraken.” 
“The Crow’s Eye is a kraken. The elder brother comes before the younger.” Asha leaned 
close. “But I am the child of King Balon’s body, so I come before you both. Hear me, 
nuncle . . .” 



But then a sudden silence fell. The singing died, Little Lenwood Tawney lowered his 
fiddle, men turned their heads. Even the clatter of plates and knives was hushed. 

A dozen newcomers had entered the feast tent. Victarion saw Pinchface Jon Myre, 
Torwold Browntooth, Left-Hand Lucas Codd. Germund Botley crossed his arms against 
the gilded breastplate he had taken off a Lannister captain during Balon’s first rebellion. 
Orkwood of Orkmont stood beside him. Behind them were Stonehand, Quellon Humble, 
and the Red Oarsman with his fiery hair in braids. Ralf the Shepherd too, and Ralf of 
Lordsport, and Qarl the Thrall. 

And the Crow’s Eye, Euron Greyjoy. 

He looks unchanged, Victarion thought. He looks the same as he did the day he laughed 
at me and left. Euron was the most comely of Lord Quellon’s sons, and three years of 
exile had not changed that. His hair was still black as a midnight sea, with never a 
whitecap to be seen, and his face was still smooth and pale beneath his neat dark beard. A 
black leather patch covered Euron’s left eye, but his right was blue as a summer sky. 

His smiling eye, thought Victarion. “Crow’s Eye,” he said. 

“King Crow’s Eye, brother.” Euron smiled. His lips looked very dark in the lamplight, 
bruised and blue. 

“We shall have no king but from the kingsmoot.” The Damphair stood. “No godless 
man—” 

“—may sit the Seastone Chair, aye.” Euron glanced about the tent. “As it happens as I 
have oft sat upon the Seastone Chair of late. It raises no objections.” His smiling eye was 
glittering. “Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of 
gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedar wood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods 
of empty air . . . I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, 
and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the 
prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, 
grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy . . . protect me! Protect 
me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside 
my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect 
me from the Silence.” He laughed. “Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to 
raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to 
Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray.” 

The priest raised a bony finger. “They pray to trees and golden idols and goat-headed 
abominations. False gods . . .” 

“Just so,” said Euron, “and for that sin I kill them all. I spill their blood upon the sea and 
sow their screaming women with my seed. Their little gods cannot stop me, so plainly 


they are false gods. I am more devout than even you, Aeron. Perhaps it should be you 
who kneels to me for blessing.” 

The Red Oarsman laughed loudly at that, and the others took their lead from him. 
“Fools,” said the priest, “fools and thralls and blind men, that is what you are. Do you 
not see what stands before you?” 

“A king,” said Quellon Humble. 
The Damphair spat, and strode out into the night. 
When he was gone, the Crow’s Eye turned his smiling eye upon Victarion. “Lord 


Captain, have you no greeting for a brother long away? Nor you, Asha? How fares your 
lady mother?” 

“Poorly,” Asha said. “Some man made her a widow.” 
Euron shrugged. “I had heard the Storm God swept Balon to his death. Who is this man 
who slew him? Tell me his name, niece, so I might revenge myself on him.” 


Asha got to her feet. “You know his name as well as I. Three years you were gone from 
us, and yet Silence returns within a day of my lord father’s death.” 

“Do you accuse me?” Euron asked mildly. 
“Should I?” The sharpness in Asha’s voice made Victarion frown. It was dangerous to 
speak so to the Crow’s Eye, even when his smiling eye was shining with amusement. 


“Do I command the winds?” the Crow’s Eye asked his pets. 
“No, Your Grace,” said Orkwood of Orkmont. 
“No man commands the winds,” said Germund Botley. 
“Would that you did,” the Red Oarsman said. “You would sail wherever you liked and 


never be becalmed.” 


“There you have it, from the mouths of three brave men,” Euron said. “The Silence was 
at sea when Balon died. If you doubt an uncle’s word, I give you leave to ask my crew.” 
“A crew of mutes? Aye, that would serve me well.” 
“A husband would serve you well.” Euron turned to his followers again. “Torwold, I 


misremember, do you have a wife?” 



“Only the one.” Torwold Browntooth grinned, and showed how he had won his name. 

“I am unwed,” announced Left-Hand Lucas Codd. 

“And for good reason,” Asha said. “All women do despise the Codds as well. Don’t look 
at me so mournful, Lucas. You still have your famous hand.” She made a pumping 
motion with her fist. 

Codd cursed, till the Crow’s Eye put a hand upon his chest. “Was that courteous, Asha? 
You have wounded Lucas to the quick.” 

“Easier than wounding him in the prick. I throw an axe as well as any man, but when the 
target is so small . . .” 

“This girl forgets herself,” snarled Pinchface Jon Myre. “Balon let her believe she was a 
man.” 

“Your father made the same mistake with you,” said Asha. 

“Give her to me, Euron,” suggested the Red Oarsman. “I’ll spank her till her arse is as red 
as my hair.” 

“Come try,” said Asha, “and hereafter we can call you the Red Eunuch.” A throwing axe 
was in her hand. She tossed it in the air and caught it deftly. “Here is my husband, 
Nuncle. Any man who wants me should take it up with him.” 

Victarion slammed his fist upon the table. “I’ll have no blood shed here. Euron, take your 
. . . pets . . . and go.” 

“I had looked for a warmer welcome from you, brother. I am your elder . . . and soon, 
your rightful king.” 

Victarion’s face darkened. “When the kingsmoot speaks, we shall see who wears the 
driftwood crown.” 

“On that we can agree.” Euron lifted two fingers to the patch that covered his left eye, 
and took his leave. The others followed at his heels like mongrel dogs. Silence lingered 
behind them, till Little Lenwood Tawney took up his fiddle. The wine and ale began to 
flow again, but several guests had lost their thirst. Eldred Codd slipped out, cradling his 
bloody hand. Then Will Humble, Hotho Harlaw, a goodly lot of Goodbrothers. 

“Nuncle.” Asha put a hand upon his shoulder. “Walk with me, if you would.” 

Outside the tent the wind was rising. Clouds raced across the moon’s pale face. They 
looked a bit like galleys, stroking hard to ram. The stars were few and faint. All along the 
strand the longships rested, tall masts rising like a forest from the surf. Victarion could 


hear their hulls creaking as they settled on the sand. He heard the keening of their lines, 
the sound of banners flapping. Beyond, in the deeper waters of the bay, larger ships 
bobbed at anchor, grim shadows wreathed in mist. 

They walked along the strand together just above the surf, far from the camps and the 
cookfires. “Tell me true, nuncle,” Asha said, “why did Euron go away so suddenly?” 

“The Crow’s Eye oft went reaving.” 

“Never for so long.” 

“He took the Silence east. A lengthy voyage.” 

“I asked why he went, not where.” When he did not answer, Asha said, “I was away when 
Silence sailed. I had taken Black Wind around the Arbor to the Stepstones, to steal a few 
trinkets from the Lyseni pirates. When I came home, Euron was gone and your new wife 
was dead.” 

“She was only a salt wife.” He had not touched another woman since he gave her to the 
crabs. I will need to take a wife when I am king. A true wife, to be my queen and bear me 
sons. A king must have an heir. 

“My father refused to speak of her,” said Asha. 

“It does no good to speak of things no man can change.” He was weary of the subject. “I 
saw the Reader’s longship.” 

“It took all my charm to winkle him out of his Book Tower.” 

She has the Harlaws, then. Victarion’s frown grew deeper. “You cannot hope to rule. 
You are a woman.” 

“Is that why I always lose the pissing contests?” Asha laughed. “Nuncle, it grieves me to 
say so, but you may be right. For four days and four nights, I have been drinking with the 
captains and the kings, listening to what they say . . . and what they will not say. Mine 
own are with me, and many Harlaws. I have Tris Botley too, and some few others. Not 
enough.” She kicked a rock, and sent it splashing into the water between two longships. 
“I am of a mind to shout my nuncle’s name.” 

“Which uncle?” he demanded. “You have three.” 

“Four. Nuncle, hear me. I will place the driftwood crown upon your brow myself . . . if 
you will agree to share the rule.” 

“Share the rule? How could that be?” The woman was not making sense. Does she want 
to be my queen? Victarion found himself looking at Asha in a way he had never looked at 


her before. He could feel his manhood beginning to stiffen. She is Balon’s daughter, he 
reminded himself. He remembered her as a little girl, throwing axes at a door. He crossed 
his arms against his chest. “The Seastone Chair seats but one.” 

“Then let my nuncle sit,” Asha said. “I will stand behind you, to guard your back and 
whisper in your ear. No king can rule alone. Even when the dragons sat the Iron Throne, 
they had men to help them. The King’s Hands. Let me be your Hand, Nuncle.” 

No King of the Isles had ever needed a Hand, much less one who was a woman. The 
captains and the kings would mock me in their cups. “Why would you wish to be my 
Hand?” 

“To end this war before this war ends us. We have won all that we are like to win . . . and 
stand to lose all just as quick, unless we make a peace. I have shown Lady Glover every 
courtesy, and she swears her lord will treat with me. If we hand back Deepwood Motte, 
Torrhen’s Square, and Moat Cailin, she says, the northmen will cede us Sea Dragon Point 
and all the Stony Shore. Those lands are thinly peopled, yet ten times larger than all the 
isles put together. An exchange of hostages will seal the pact, and each side will agree to 
make common cause with the other should the Iron Throne—” 

Victarion chuckled. “This Lady Glover plays you for a fool, niece. Sea Dragon Point and 
the Stony Shore are ours. Why hand back anything? Winterfell is burnt and broken, and 
the Young Wolf rots headless in the earth. We will have all the north, as your lord father 
dreamed.” 

“When longships learn to row through trees, perhaps. A fisherman may hook a grey 
leviathan, but it will drag him down to death unless he cuts it loose. The north is too large 
for us to hold, and too full of northmen.” 

“Go back to your dolls, niece. Leave the winning of wars to warriors.” Victarion showed 
her his fists. “I have two hands. No man needs three.” 

“I know a man who needs House Harlaw, though.” 

“Hotho Humpback has offered me his daughter for my queen. If I take her, I will have the 
Harlaws.” 

That took the girl aback. “Lord Rodrik rules House Harlaw.” 

“Rodrik has no daughters, only books. Hotho will be his heir, and I will be the king.” 
Once he had said the words aloud, they sounded true. “The Crow’s Eye has been too long 
away.” 

“Some men look larger at a distance,” Asha warned. “Walk amongst the cookfires if you 
dare, and listen. They are not telling tales of your strength, nor of my famous beauty. 
They talk only of the Crow’s Eye; the far places he has seen, the women he has raped and 


the men he’s killed, the cities he has sacked, the way he burnt Lord Tywin’s fleet at 
Lannisport . . .” 

“I burnt the lion’s fleet,” Victarion insisted. “With mine own hands I flung the first torch 
onto his flagship.” 

“The Crow’s Eye hatched the scheme.” Asha put her hand upon his arm. “And killed 
your wife as well . . . did he not?” 

Balon had commanded them not to speak of it, but Balon was dead. “He put a baby in her 
belly and made me do the killing. I would have killed him too, but Balon would have no 
kinslaying in his hall. He sent Euron into exile, never to return . . .” 

“. . . so long as Balon lived?” 

Victarion looked at his fists. “She gave me horns. I had no choice.” Had it been known, 
men would have laughed at me, as the Crow’s Eye laughed when I confronted him. “She 
came to me wet and willing,” he had boasted. “It seems Victarion is big everywhere but 
where it matters.” But he could not tell her that. 

“I am sorry for you,” said Asha, “and sorrier for her . . . but you leave me small choice 
but to claim the Seastone Chair myself.” 

You cannot. “Your breath is yours to waste, woman.” 

“It is,” she said, and left him. 


THE DROWNED MAN 

Only when his arms and legs were numb from the cold did Aeron Greyjoy struggle back 
to shore and don his robes again. 

He had run before the Crow’s Eye as if he were still the weak thing he had been, but 
when the waves broke over his head they reminded once more that that man was dead. I 
was reborn from the sea, a harder man and stronger. No mortal man could frighten him, 
no more than the darkness could, nor the bones of his soul, the grey and grisly bones of 
his soul. The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge. 


The priest’s robes crackled as he pulled them down, still stiff with salt from their last 
washing a fortnight past. The wool clung to his wet chest, drinking the brine that ran 
down from his hair. He filled his waterskin and slung it over his shoulder. 

As he strode across the strand, a drowned man returning from a call of nature stumbled 
into him in the darkness. “Damphair,” he murmured. Aeron laid a hand upon his head, 
blessed him, and moved on. The ground rose beneath his feet, gently at first, then more 
steeply. When he felt scrub grass between his toes, he knew that he had left the strand 
behind. Slowly he climbed, listening to the waves. The sea is never weary. I must be as 
tireless. 

On the crown of the hill four-and-forty monstrous stone ribs rose from the earth like the 
trunks of great pale trees. The sight made Aeron’s heart beat faster. Nagga had been the 
first sea dragon, the mightiest ever to rise from the waves. She fed on krakens and 
leviathans and drowned whole islands in her wrath, yet the Grey King had slain her and 
the Drowned God had changed her bones to stone so that men might never cease to 
wonder at the courage of the first of kings. Nagga’s ribs became the beams and pillars of 
his longhall, just as her jaws became his throne. For a thousand years and seven he 
reigned here, Aeron recalled. Here he took his mermaid wife and planned his wars 
against the Storm God. From here he ruled both stone and salt, wearing robes of woven 
seaweed and a tall pale crown made from Nagga’s teeth. 

But that was in the dawn of days, when mighty men still dwelt on earth and sea. The hall 
had been warmed by Nagga’s living fire, which the Grey King had made his thrall. On its 
walls hung tapestries woven from silver seaweed most pleasing to the eyes. The Grey 
King’s warriors had feasted on the bounty of the sea at a table in the shape of a great 
starfish, whilst seated upon thrones carved from mother-of-pearl. Gone, all the glory 
gone. Men were smaller now. Their lives had grown short. The Storm God drowned 
Nagga’s fire after the Grey King’s death, the chairs and tapestries had been stolen, the 
roof and walls had rotted away. Even the Grey King’s great throne of fangs had been 
swallowed by the sea. Only Nagga’s bones endured to remind the ironborn of all the 
wonder that had been. 

It is enough, thought Aeron Greyjoy. 

Nine wide steps had been hewn from the stony hilltop. Behind rose the howling hills of 
Old Wyk, with mountains in the distance black and cruel. Aeron paused where the doors 
once stood, pulled the cork from his waterskin, took a swallow of salt water, and turned 
to face the sea. We were born from the sea, and to the sea we must return. Even here he 
could hear the ceaseless rumble of the waves and feel the power of the god who lurked 
below the waters. Aeron went to his knees. You have sent your people to me, he prayed. 
They have left their halls and hovels, their castles and their keeps, and come here to 
Nagga’s bones, from every fishing village and every hidden vale. Now grant to them the 
wisdom to know the true king when he stands before them, and the strength to shun the 
false. All night he prayed, for when the god was in him Aeron Greyjoy had no need of 
sleep, no more than the waves did, nor the fishes of the sea. 


Dark clouds ran before the wind as the first light stole into the world. The black sky went 
grey as slate; the black sea turned grey-green; the black mountains of Great Wyk across 
the bay put on the blue-green hues of soldier pines. As color stole back into the world, a 
hundred banners lifted and began to flap. Aeron beheld the silver fish of Botley, the 
bloody moon of Wynch, the dark green trees of Orkwood. He saw warhorns and 
leviathans and scythes, and everywhere the krakens great and golden. Beneath them, 
thralls and salt wives begin to move about, stirring coals into new life and gutting fish for 
the captains and the kings to break their fasts. The dawnlight touched the stony strand, 
and he watched men wake from sleep, throwing aside their sealskin blankets as they 
called for their first horn of ale. Drink deep, he thought, for we have god’s work to do 
today. 

The sea was stirring too. The waves grew larger as the wind rose, sending plumes of 
spray to crash against the longships. The Drowned God wakes, thought Aeron. He could 
hear his voice welling from the depths of the sea. I shall be with you here this day, my 
strong and faithful servant, the voice said. No godless man will sit my Seastone Chair. 

It was there beneath the arch of Nagga’s ribs that his drowned men found him, standing 
tall and stern with his long black hair blowing in the wind. “Is it time?” Rus asked. Aeron 
gave a nod, and said, “It is. Go forth and sound the summons.” 

The drowned men took up their driftwood cudgels and began to beat them one against the 
other as they walked back down the hill. Others joined them, and the clangor spread 
along the strand. Such a fearful clacking and a clattering it made, as if a hundred trees 
were pummeling one another with their limbs. Kettledrums began to beat as well, boom-
boom-boom-boom-boom, boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. A warhorn bellowed, then 
another. AAAAAAoooooooooooooooooooooooo. 

Men left their fires to make their way toward the bones of the Grey King’s Hall; oarsmen, 
steersmen, sailmakers, shipwrights, the warriors with their axes and the fishermen with 
their nets. Some had thralls to serve them; some had salt wives. Others, who had sailed 
too often to the green lands, were attended by maesters and singers and knights. The 
common men crowded together in a crescent around the base of the knoll, with the 
thralls, children, and women toward the rear. The captains and the kings made their way 
up the slopes. Aeron Damphair saw cheerful Sigfry Stonetree, Andrik the Unsmiling, the 
knight Ser Harras Harlaw. Lord Baelor Blacktyde in his sable cloak stood beside The 
Stonehouse in ragged sealskin. Victarion loomed above all of them save Andrik. His 
brother wore no helm, but elsewise he was all in armor, his kraken cloak hanging golden 
from his shoulders. He shall be our king. What man could look on him and doubt it? 

When the Damphair raised his bony hands the kettledrums and the warhorns fell silent, 
the drowned men lowered their cudgels, and all the voices stilled. Only the sound of the 
waves pounding remained, a roar no man could still. “We were born from the sea, and to 
the sea we all return,” Aeron began, softly at first, so men would strain to hear. “The 
Storm God in his wrath plucked Balon from his castle and cast him down, yet now he 


feasts beneath the waves in the Drowned God’s watery halls.” He lifted his eyes to the 
sky. “Balon is dead! The iron king is dead!” 

“The king is dead!” his drowned men shouted. 

“Yet what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger!” he reminded 
them. “Balon has fallen, Balon my brother, who honored the Old Way and paid the iron 
price. Balon the Brave, Balon the Blessed, Balon Twice-Crowned, who won us back our 
freedoms and our god. Balon is dead . . . but an iron king shall rise again, to sit upon the 
Seastone Chair and rule the isles.” 

“A king shall rise!” they answered. “He shall rise!” 

“He shall. He must.” Aeron’s voice thundered like the waves. “But who? Who shall sit in 
Balon’s place? Who shall rule these holy isles? Is he here among us now?” The priest 
spread his hands wide. “Who shall be king over us?” 

A seagull screamed back at him. The crowd began to stir, like men waking from a dream. 
Each man looked at his neighbors, to see which of them might presume to claim a crown. 
The Crow’s Eye was never patient, Aeron Damphair told himself. Mayhaps he will speak 
first. If so, it would be his undoing. The captains and the kings had come a long way to 
this feast and would not choose the first dish set before them. They will want to taste and 
sample, a bite of him, a nibble of the other, until they find the one that suits them best. 

Euron must have known that as well. He stood with his arms crossed amongst his mutes 
and monsters. Only the wind and the waves answered Aeron’s call. 

“The ironborn must have a king,” the priest insisted, after a long silence. “I ask again. 
Who shall be king over us?” 

“I will,” came the answer from below. 

At once a ragged cry of “Gylbert! Gylbert King!” went up. The captains gave way to let 
the claimant and his champions ascend the hill to stand at Aeron’s side beneath the ribs of 
Nagga. 

This would-be king was a tall spare lord with a melancholy visage, his lantern jaw shaved 
clean. His three champions took up their position two steps below him, bearing his sword 
and shield and banner. They shared a certain look with the tall lord, and Aeron took them 
for his sons. One unfurled his banner, a great black longship against a setting sun. “I am 
Gylbert Farwynd, Lord of the Lonely Light,” the lord told the kingsmoot. 

Aeron knew some Farwynds, a queer folk who held lands on the westernmost shores of 
Great Wyk and the scattered isles beyond, rocks so small that most could support but a 
single household. Of those, the Lonely Light was the most distant, eight days’ sail to the 
northwest amongst rookeries of seals and sea lions and the boundless grey oceans. The 


Farwynds there were even queerer than the rest. Some said they were skinchangers, 
unholy creatures who could take on the forms of sea lions, walruses, even spotted whales, 
the wolves of the wild sea. 

Lord Gylbert began to speak. He told of a wondrous land beyond the Sunset Sea, a land 
without winter or want, where death had no dominion. “Make me your king, and I shall 
lead you there,” he cried. “We will build ten thousand ships as Nymeria once did and take 
sail with all our people to the land beyond the sunset. There every man shall be a king 
and every wife a queen.” 

His eyes, Aeron saw, were now grey, now blue, as changeable as the seas. Mad eyes, he 
thought, fool’s eyes. The vision he spoke of was doubtless a snare set by the Storm God 
to lure the ironborn to destruction. The offerings that his men spilled out before the 
kingsmoot included sealskins and walrus tusks, arm rings made of whalebone, warhorns 
banded in bronze. The captains looked and turned away, leaving lesser men to help 
themselves to the gifts. When the fool was done talking and his champions began to shout 
his name, only the Farwynds took up the cry, and not even all of them. Soon enough the 
cries of “Gylbert! Gylbert King!” faded away to silence. The gull screamed loudly above 
them, and landed atop one of Nagga’s ribs as the Lord of the Lonely Light made his way 
back down the hill. 

Aeron Damphair stepped forward once more. “I ask again. Who shall be king over us?” 

“Me!” a deep voice boomed, and once more the crowd parted. 

The speaker was borne up the hill in a carved driftwood chair carried on the shoulders of 
his grandsons. A great ruin of a man, twenty stones heavy and ninety years old, he was 
cloaked in a white bearskin. His own hair was snow white as well, and his huge beard 
covered him like a blanket from cheeks to thighs, so it was hard to tell where the beard 
ended and the pelt began. Though his grandsons were great strapping men, they struggled 
with his weight on the steep stone steps. Before the Grey King’s Hall they set him down, 
and three remained below him as his champions. 

Sixty years ago, this one might well have won the favor of the moot, Aeron thought, but 
his hour is long past. 

“Aye, me!” the man roared from where he sat, in a voice as huge as he was. “Why not? 
Who better? I am Erik Ironmaker, for them who’s blind. Erik the Just. Erik Anvil-
Breaker. Show them my hammer, Thormor.” One of his champions lifted it up for all to 
see; a monstrous thing it was, its haft wrapped in old leather, its head a brick of steel as 
large as a loaf of bread. “I can’t count how many hands I’ve smashed to pulp with that 
hammer,” Erik said, “but might be some thief could tell you. I can’t say how many heads 
I’ve crushed against my anvil neither, but there’s some widows could. I could tell you all 
the deeds I’ve done in battle, but I’m eight-and-eighty and won’t live long enough to 
finish. If old is wise, no one is wiser than me. If big is strong, no one’s stronger. You 


want a king with heirs? I’ve more’n I can count. King Erik, aye, I like the sound o’ that. 
Come, say it with me. ERIK! ERIK ANVIL-BREAKER! ERIK KING!” 

As his grandsons took up the cry, their own sons came forward with chests upon their 
shoulders. When they upended them at the base of the stone steps, a torrent of silver, 
bronze, and steel spilled forth; arm rings, collars, daggers, dirks, and throwing axes. A 
few captains snatched up the choicest items and added their voices to the swelling chant. 
But no sooner had the cry begun to build than a woman’s voice cut through it. “Erik!” 
Men moved aside to let her through. With one foot on the lowest step, she said, “Erik, 
stand up.” 

A hush fell. The wind blew, waves broke against the shore, men murmured in each 
other’s ears. Erik Ironmaker stared down at Asha Greyjoy. “Girl. Thrice-damned girl. 
What did you say?” 

“Stand up, Erik,” she called. “Stand up and I’ll shout your name with all the rest. Stand 
up and I’ll be the first to follow you. You want a crown, aye. Stand up and take it.” 

Elsewhere in the press, the Crow’s Eye laughed. Erik glared at him. The big man’s hands 
closed tight around the arms of his driftwood throne. His face went red, then purple. His 
arms trembled with effort. Aeron could see a thick blue vein pulsing in his neck as he 
struggled to rise. For a moment it seemed as though he might do it, but the breath went 
out of him all at once, and he groaned and sank back onto his cushion. Euron laughed all 
the louder. The big man hung his head and grew old, all in the blink of an eye. His 
grandsons carried him back down the hill. 

“Who shall rule the ironborn?” Aeron Damphair called again. “Who shall be king over 
us?” 

Men looked at one another. Some looked at Euron, some at Victarion, a few at Asha. 
Waves broke green and white against the longships. The gull cried once more, a raucous 
scream, forlorn. “Make your claim, Victarion,” the Merlyn called. “Let us have done with 
this mummer’s farce.” 

“When I am ready,” Victarion shouted back. 

Aeron was pleased. It is better if he waits. 

The Drumm came next, another old man, though not so old as Erik. He climbed the hill 
on his own two legs, and on his hip rode Red Rain, his famous sword, forged of Valyrian 
steel in the days before the Doom. His champions were men of note: his sons Denys and 
Donnel, both stout fighters, and between them Andrik the Unsmiling, a giant of a man 
with arms as thick as trees. It spoke well of the Drumm that such a man would stand for 
him. 


“Where is it written that our king must be a kraken?” Drumm began. “What right has 
Pyke to rule us? Great Wyk is the largest isle, Harlaw the richest, Old Wyk the most holy. 
When the black line was consumed by dragonfire, the ironborn gave the primacy to 
Vickon Greyjoy, aye . . . but as lord, not king.” 

It was a good beginning. Aeron heard shouts of approval, but they dwindled as the old 
man began to tell of the glory of the Drumms. He spoke of Dale the Dread, Roryn the 
Reaver, the hundred sons of Gormond Drumm the Oldfather. He drew Red Rain and told 
them how Hilmar Drumm the Cunning had taken the blade from an armored knight with 
wits and a wooden cudgel. He spoke of ships long lost and battles eight hundred years 
forgotten, and the crowd grew restive. He spoke and spoke, and then he spoke still more. 

And when Drumm’s chests were thrown open, the captains saw the niggard’s gifts he’d 
brought them. No throne was ever bought with bronze, the Damphair thought. The truth 
of that was plain to hear, as the cries of “Drumm! Drumm! Dunstan King!” died away. 

Aeron could feel a tightness in his belly, and it seemed to him that the waves were 
pounding louder than before. It is time, he thought. It is time for Victarion to make his 
claim. “Who shall be king over us?” the priest cried once more, but this time his fierce 
black eyes found his brother in the crowd. “Nine sons were born from the loins of 
Quellon Greyjoy. One was mightier than all the rest, and knew no fear.” 

Victarion met his eyes, and nodded. The captains parted before him as he climbed the 
steps. “Brother, give me blessing,” he said when he reached the top. He knelt and bowed 
his head. Aeron uncorked his waterskin and poured a stream of seawater down upon his 
brow. “What is dead can never die,” the priest said, and Victarion replied, “but rises 
again, harder and stronger.” 

When Victarion rose, his champions arrayed themselves beneath him; Ralf the Limper, 
Red Ralf Stonehouse, and Nute the Barber, noted warriors all. Stonehouse bore the 
Greyjoy banner; the golden kraken on a field as black as the midnight sea. As soon as it 
unfurled, the captains and the kings began to shout out the Lord Captain’s name. 
Victarion waited till they quieted, then said, “You all know me. If you want sweet words, 
look elsewhere. I have no singer’s tongue. I have an axe, and I have these.” He raised his 
huge mailed hands up to show them, and Nute the Barber displayed his axe, a fearsome 
piece of steel. “I was a loyal brother,” Victarion went on. “When Balon was wed, it was 
me he sent to Harlaw to bring him back his bride. I led his longships into many a battle, 
and never lost but one. The first time Balon took a crown, it was me sailed into 
Lannisport to singe the lion’s tail. The second time, it was me he sent to skin the Young 
Wolf should he come howling home. All you’ll get from me is more of what you got 
from Balon. That’s all I have to say.” 

With that his champions began to chant: “VICTARION! VICTARION! VICTARION 
KING!” Below, his men were spilling out his chests, a cascade of silver, gold, and gems, 
a wealth of plunder. Captains scrambled to seize the richest pieces, shouting as they did 
so. “VICTARION! VICTARION! VICTARION KING!” Aeron watched the Crow’s Eye. 


Will he speak now, or let the kingsmoot run its course? Orkwood of Orkmont was 
whispering in Euron’s ear. 

But it was not Euron who put an end to the shouting, it was the woman. She put two 
fingers in her mouth and whistled, a sharp shrill sound that cut through the tumult like a 
knife through curds. “Nuncle! Nuncle!” Bending, she snatched up a twisted golden collar 
and bounded up the steps. Nute seized her by the arm, and for half a heartbeat Aeron was 
hopeful that his brother’s champions would keep her silent, but Asha wrenched free of 
the Barber’s hand and said something to Red Ralf that made him step aside. As she 
pushed past, the cheering died away. She was Balon Greyjoy’s daughter, and the crowd 
was curious to hear her speak. 

“It was good of you to bring such gifts to my queensmoot, Nuncle,” she told Victarion, 
“but you need not have worn so much armor. I promise not to hurt you.” Asha turned to 
face the captains. “There’s no one braver than my nuncle, no one stronger, no one fiercer 
in a fight. And he counts to ten as quick as any man, I have seen him do it . . . though 
when he needs to go to twenty he does take off his boots.” That made them laugh. “He 
has no sons, though. His wives keep dying. The Crow’s Eye is his elder and has a better 
claim . . .” 

“He does!” the Red Oarsman shouted from below. 

“Ah, but my claim is better still.” Asha set the collar on her head at a jaunty angle, so the 
gold gleamed against her dark hair. “Balon’s brother cannot come before Balon’s son!” 

“Balon’s sons are dead,” cried Ralf the Limper. “All I see is Balon’s little daughter!” 

“Daughter?” Asha slipped a hand beneath her jerkin. “Oho! What’s this? Shall I show 
you? Some of you have not seen one since they weaned you.” They laughed again. “Teats 
on a king are a terrible thing, is that the song? Ralf, you have me, I am a woman . . . 
though not an old woman like you. Ralf the Limper . . . shouldn’t that be Ralf the Limp?” 
Asha drew a dirk from between her breasts. “I’m a mother too, and here’s my suckling 
babe!” She held it up. “And here, my champions.” They pushed past Victarion’s three to 
stand below her: Qarl the Maid, Tristifer Botley, and the knight Ser Harras Harlaw, 
whose sword Nightfall was as storied as Dunstan Drumm’s Red Rain. “My nuncle said 
you know him. You know me too—” 

“I want to know you better!” someone shouted. 

“Go home and know your wife,” Asha shot back. “Nuncle says he’ll give you more of 
what my father gave you. Well, what was that? Gold and glory, some will say. Freedom, 
ever sweet. Aye, it’s so, he gave us that . . . and widows too, as Lord Blacktyde will tell 
you. How many of you had your homes put to the torch when Robert came? How many 
had daughters raped and despoiled? Burnt towns and broken castles, my father gave you 
that. Defeat was what he gave you. Nuncle here will give you more. Not me.” 


“What will you give us?” asked Lucas Codd. “Knitting?” 

“Aye, Lucas. I’ll knit us all a kingdom.” She tossed her dirk from hand to hand. “We 
need to take a lesson from the Young Wolf, who won every battle . . . and lost all.” 

“A wolf is not a kraken,” Victarion objected. “What the kraken grasps it does not lose, be 
it longship or leviathan.” 

“And what have we grasped, Nuncle? The north? What is that, but leagues and leagues of 
leagues and leagues, far from the sound of the sea? We have taken Moat Cailin, 
Deepwood Motte, Torrhen’s Square, even Winterfell. What do we have to show for it?” 
She beckoned, and her Black Wind men pushed forward, chests of oak and iron on their 
shoulders. “I give you the wealth of the Stony Shore,” Asha said as the first was upended. 
An avalanche of pebbles clattered forth, cascading down the steps; pebbles grey and 
black and white, worn smooth by the sea. “I give you the riches of Deepwood,” she said, 
as the second chest was opened. Pinecones came pouring out, to roll and bounce down 
into the crowd. “And last, the gold of Winterfell.” From the third chest came yellow 
turnips, round and hard and big as a man’s head. They landed amidst the pebbles and the 
pinecones. Asha stabbed one with her dirk. “Harmund Sharp,” she shouted, “your son 
Harrag died at Winterfell, for this.” She pulled the turnip off her blade and tossed it to 
him. “You have other sons, I think. If you’d trade their lives for turnips, shout my 
nuncle’s name!” 

“And if I shout your name?” Harmund demanded. “What then?” 

“Peace,” said Asha. “Land. Victory. I’ll give you Sea Dragon Point and the Stony Shore, 
black earth and tall trees and stones enough for every younger son to build a hall. We’ll 
have the northmen too . . . as friends, to stand with us against the Iron Throne. Your 
choice is simple. Crown me, for peace and victory. Or crown my nuncle, for more war 
and more defeat.” She sheathed her dirk again. “What will you have, ironmen?” 

“VICTORY!” shouted Rodrik the Reader, his hands cupped about his mouth. “Victory, 
and Asha!” 

“ASHA!” Lord Baelor Blacktyde echoed. “ASHA QUEEN!” 

Asha’s own crew took up the cry. “ASHA! ASHA! ASHA QUEEN!” They stamped their 
feet and shook their fists and yelled, as the Damphair listened in disbelief. She would 
leave her father’s work undone! Yet Tristifer Botley was shouting for her, with many 
Harlaws, some Goodbrothers, red-faced Lord Merlyn, more men than the priest would 
ever have believed . . . for a woman! 

But others were holding their tongues, or muttering asides to their neighbors. “No 
craven’s peace!” Ralf the Limper roared. Red Ralf Stonehouse swirled the Greyjoy 
banner and bellowed, “Victarion! VICTARION! VICTARION!” Men began to shove at 
one another. Someone flung a pinecone at Asha’s head. When she ducked, her makeshift 


crown fell off. For a moment it seemed to the priest as if he stood atop a giant anthill, 
with a thousand ants in a boil at his feet. Shouts of “Asha!” and “Victarion!” surged 
back and forth, and it seemed as though some savage storm was about to engulf them all. 
The Storm God is amongst us, the priest thought, sowing fury and discord. 

Sharp as a swordthrust, the sound of a horn split the air. 

Bright and baneful was its voice, a shivering hot scream that made a man’s bones seem to 
thrum within him. The cry lingered in the damp sea air: 
aaaaRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. 

All eyes turned toward the sound. It was one of Euron’s mongrels winding the call, a 
monstrous man with a shaved head. Rings of gold and jade and jet glistened on his arms, 
and on his broad chest was tattooed some bird of prey, talons dripping blood. 

aaaaRRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. 

The horn he blew was shiny black and twisted, and taller than a man as he held it with 
both hands. It was bound about with bands of red gold and dark steel, incised with 
ancient Valyrian glyphs that seemed to glow redly as the sound swelled. 

aaaaaaaRRREEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. 

It was a terrible sound, a wail of pain and fury that seemed to burn the ears. Aeron 
Damphair covered his, and prayed for the Drowned God to raise a mighty wave and 
smash the horn to silence, yet still the shriek went on and on. It is the horn of hell, he 
wanted to scream, though no man would have heard him. The cheeks of the tattooed man 
were so puffed out they looked about to burst, and the muscles in his chest twitched in a 
way that it made it seem as if the bird were about to rip free of his flesh and take wing. 
And now the glyphs were burning brightly, every line and letter shimmering with white 
fire. On and on and on the sound went, echoing amongst the howling hills behind them 
and across the waters of Nagga’s Cradle to ring against the mountains of Great Wyk, on 
and on and on until it filled the whole wet world. 

And when it seemed the sound would never end, it did. 

The hornblower’s breath failed at last. He staggered and almost fell. The priest saw 
Orkwood of Orkmont catch him by one arm to hold him up, whilst Left-Hand Lucas 
Codd took the twisted black horn from his hands. A thin wisp of smoke was rising from 
the horn, and the priest saw blood and blisters upon the lips of the man who’d sounded it. 
The bird on his chest was bleeding too. 

Euron Greyjoy climbed the hill slowly, with every eye upon him. Above the gull 
screamed and screamed again. No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair, Aeron 
thought, but he knew that he must let his brother speak. His lips moved silently in prayer. 


Asha’s champions stepped aside, and Victarion’s as well. The priest took a step backward 
and put one hand upon the cold rough stone of Nagga’s ribs. The Crow’s Eye stopped 
atop the steps, at the doors of the Grey King’s Hall, and turned his smiling eye upon the 
captains and the kings, but Aeron could feel his other eye as well, the one that he kept 
hidden. 

“IRONMEN,” said Euron Greyjoy, “you have heard my horn. Now hear my words. I am 
Balon’s brother, Quellon’s eldest living son. Lord Vickon’s blood is in my veins, and the 
blood of the Old Kraken. Yet I have sailed farther than any of them. Only one living 
kraken has never known defeat. Only one has never bent his knee. Only one has sailed to 
Asshai by the Shadow, and seen wonders and terrors beyond imagining . . .” 

“If you liked the Shadow so well, go back there,” called out pink-cheeked Qarl the Maid, 
one of Asha’s champions. 

The Crow’s Eye ignored him. “My little brother would finish Balon’s war, and claim the 
north. My sweet niece would give us peace and pinecones.” His blue lips twisted in a 
smile. “Asha prefers victory to defeat. Victarion wants a kingdom, not a few scant yards 
of earth. From me, you shall have both. 

“Crow’s Eye, you call me. Well, who has a keener eye than the crow? After every battle 
the crows come in their hundreds and their thousands to feast upon the fallen. A crow can 
espy death from afar. And I say that all of Westeros is dying. Those who follow me will 
feast until the end of their days. 

“We are the ironborn, and once we were conquerors. Our writ ran everywhere the sound 
of the waves was heard. My brother would have you be content with the cold and dismal 
north, my niece with even less . . . but I shall give you Lannisport. Highgarden. The 
Arbor. Oldtown. The riverlands and the Reach, the kingswood and the rainwood, Dorne 
and the marches, the Mountains of the Moon and the Vale of Arryn, Tarth and the 
Stepstones. I say we take it all! I say, we take Westeros.” He glanced at the priest. “All 
for the greater glory of our Drowned God, to be sure.” 

For half a heartbeat even Aeron was swept away by the boldness of his words. The priest 
had dreamed the same dream, when first he’d seen the red comet in the sky. We shall 
sweep over the green lands with fire and sword, root out the seven gods of the septons 
and the white trees of the northmen . . . 

“Crow’s Eye,” Asha called, “did you leave your wits at Asshai? If we cannot hold the 
north—and we cannot—how can we win the whole of the Seven Kingdoms?” 

“Why, it has been done before. Did Balon teach his girl so little of the ways of war? 
Victarion, our brother’s daughter has never heard of Aegon the Conqueror, it would 
seem.” 


“Aegon?” Victarion crossed his arms against his armored chest. “What has the Conqueror 
to do with us?” 

“I know as much of war as you do, Crow’s Eye,” Asha said. “Aegon Targaryen 
conquered Westeros with dragons.” 

“And so shall we,” Euron Greyjoy promised. “That horn you heard I found amongst the 
smoking ruins that were Valyria, where no man has dared to walk but me. You heard its 
call, and felt its power. It is a dragon horn, bound with bands of red gold and Valyrian 
steel graven with enchantments. The dragonlords of old sounded such horns, before the 
Doom devoured them. With this horn, ironmen, I can bind dragons to my will.” 

Asha laughed aloud. “A horn to bind goats to your will would be of more use, Crow’s 
Eye. There are no more dragons.” 

“Again, girl, you are wrong. There are three, and I know where to find them. Surely that 
is worth a driftwood crown.” 

“EURON!” shouted Left-Hand Lucas Codd. 

“EURON! CROW’S EYE! EURON!” cried the Red Oarsman. 

The mutes and mongrels from the Silence threw open Euron’s chests and spilled out his 
gifts before the captains and the kings. Then it was Hotho Harlaw the priest heard, as he 
filled his hands with gold. Gorold Goodbrother shouted out as well, and Erik Anvil-
Breaker. “EURON! EURON! EURON!” The cry swelled, became a roar. “EURON! 
EURON! CROW’S EYE! EURON KING!” It rolled up Nagga’s hill, like the Storm God 
rattling the clouds. “EURON! EURON! EURON! EURON! EURON! EURON!” 

Even a priest may doubt. Even a prophet may know terror. Aeron Damphair reached 
within himself for his god and discovered only silence. As a thousand voices shouted out 
his brother’s name, all he could hear was the scream of a rusted iron hinge. 


BRIENNE 

East of Maidenpool the hills rose wild, and the pines closed in about them like a host of 
silent grey-green soldiers. 


Nimble Dick said the coast road was the shortest way, and the easiest, so they were 
seldom out of sight of the bay. The towns and villages along the shore grew smaller as 
they went, and less frequent. At nightfall they would seek an inn. Crabb would share the 
common bed with other travelers, whilst Brienne took a room for her and Podrick. 
“Cheaper if we all shared the same bed, m’lady,” Nimble Dick would say. “You could 
lay your sword between us. Old Dick’s a harmless fellow. Chivalrous as a knight, and 
honest as the day is long.” 

“The days are growing shorter,” Brienne pointed out. 

“Well, that may be. If you don’t trust me in the bed, I could just curl up on the floor, 
m’lady.” 

“Not on my floor.” 

“A man might think you don’t trust me none.” 

“Trust is earned. Like gold.” 

“As you say, m’lady,” said Crabb, “but up north where the road gives out, you’ll need t’ 
trust Dick then. If I wanted t’ take your gold at swordpoint, who’s to stop me?” 

“You don’t own a sword. I do.” 

She shut the door between them and stood there listening until she was certain he had 
moved away. However nimble he might be, Dick Crabb was no Jaime Lannister, no Mad 
Mouse, not even a Humfrey Wagstaff. He was scrawny and ill fed, his only armor a 
dinted halfhelm spotted with rust. In place of a sword, he carried an old, nicked dagger. 
So long as she was awake, he posed no danger to her. “Podrick,” she said, “there will 
come a time when there are no more inns to shelter us. I do not trust our guide. When we 
make camp, can you watch over me as I sleep?” 

“Stay awake, my lady? Ser.” He thought. “I have a sword. If Crabb tries to hurt you, I 
could kill him.” 

“No,” she said sternly. “You are not to try and fight him. All I ask is that you watch him 
as I sleep, and wake me if he does anything suspicious. I wake quickly, you will find.” 

Crabb showed his true colors the next day, when they stopped to water the horses. 
Brienne had to step behind some bushes to empty her bladder. As she was squatting, she 
heard Podrick say, “What are you doing? You get away from there.” She finished her 
business, hiked up her breeches, and returned to the road to find Nimble Dick wiping 
flour off his fingers. “You won’t find any dragons in my saddlebags,” she told him. “I 
keep my gold upon my person.” Some of it was in the pouch at her belt, the rest hidden in 
a pair of pockets sewn inside her clothing. The fat purse inside her saddlebag was filled 
with coppers large and small, pennies and halfpennies, groats and stars . . . and fine white 


flour, to make it fatter still. She had bought the flour from the cook at the Seven Swords 
the morning she rode out from Duskendale. 

“Dick meant no harm, m’lady.” He wriggled his flour-spotted fingers to show he held no 
weapon. “I was only looking to see if you had these dragons what you promised me. The 
world’s full o’ liars, ready to cheat an honest man. Not that you’re one.” 

Brienne hoped he was a better guide than he was a thief. “We had best be going.” She 
mounted up again. 

Dick would oft sing as they rode along together; never a whole song, only a snatch of this 
and a verse of that. She suspected that he meant to charm her, to put her off her guard. 
Sometimes he would try to get her and Podrick to sing along with him, to no avail. The 
boy was too shy and tongue-tied, and Brienne did not sing. Did you sing for your father? 
Lady Stark had asked her once, at Riverrun. Did you sing for Renly? She had not, not 
ever, though she had wanted . . . she had wanted . . . 

When he was not singing, Nimble Dick would talk, regaling them with tales of 
Crackclaw Point. Every gloomy valley had its lord, he said, the lot of them united only by 
their mistrust of outsiders. In their veins the blood of the First Men ran dark and strong. 
“The Andals tried t’ take Crackclaw, but we bled them in the valleys and drowned them 
in the bogs. Only what their sons couldn’t win with swords, their pretty daughters won 
with kisses. They married into the houses they couldn’t conquer, aye.” 

The Darklyn kings of Duskendale had tried to impose their rule on Crackclaw Point; the 
Mootons of Maidenpool had tried as well, and later the haughty Celtigars of Crab Isle. 
But the Crackclaws knew their bogs and forests as no outsider could, and if hard pressed 
would vanish into the caverns that honeycombed their hills. When not fighting would-be 
conquerors, they fought each other. Their blood feuds were as deep and dark as the bogs 
between their hills. From time to time some champion would bring peace to the Point, but 
it never lasted longer than his lifetime. Lord Lucifer Hardy, he was a great one, and the 
Brothers Brune as well. Old Crackbones even more so, but the Crabbs were the mightiest 
of all. Dick still refused to believe that Brienne had never heard of Ser Clarence Crabb 
and his exploits. 

“Why would I lie?” she asked him. “Every place has its local heroes. Where I come from, 
the singers sing of Ser Galladon of Morne, the Perfect Knight.” 

“Ser Gallawho of What?” He snorted. “Never heard o’ him. Why was he so bloody 
perfect?” 

“Ser Galladon was a champion of such valor that the Maiden herself lost her heart to him. 
She gave him an enchanted sword as a token of her love. The Just Maid, it was called. No 
common sword could check her, nor any shield withstand her kiss. Ser Galladon bore the 
Just Maid proudly, but only thrice did he unsheathe her. He would not use the Maid 
against a mortal man, for she was so potent as to make any fight unfair.” 


Crabb thought that was hilarious. “The Perfect Knight? The Perfect Fool, he sounds like. 
What’s the point o’ having some magic sword if you don’t bloody well use it?” 

“Honor,” she said. “The point is honor.” 

That only made him laugh the louder. “Ser Clarence Crabb would have wiped his hairy 
arse with your Perfect Knight, m’lady. If they’d ever have met, there’d be one more 
bloody head sitting on the shelf at the Whispers, you ask me. ‘I should have used the 
magic sword,’ it’d be saying to all the other heads. ‘I should have used the bloody 
sword.’” 

Brienne could not help but smile. “Perhaps,” she allowed, “but Ser Galladon was no fool. 
Against a foe eight feet tall mounted on an aurochs, he might well have unsheathed the 
Just Maid. He used her once to slay a dragon, they say.” 

Nimble Dick was unimpressed. “Crackbones fought a dragon too, but he didn’t need no 
magic sword. He just tied its neck in a knot, so every time it breathed fire it roasted its 
own arse.” 

“And what did Crackbones do when Aegon and his sisters came?” Brienne asked him. 

“He was dead. M’lady must know that.” Crabb gave her a sideways look. “Aegon sent his 
sister up to Crackclaw, that Visenya. The lords had heard o’ Harren’s end. Being no 
fools, they laid their swords at her feet. The queen took them as her own men, and said 
they’d owe no fealty to Maidenpool, Crab Isle, or Duskendale. Don’t stop them bloody 
Celtigars from sending men to t’ eastern shore to collect his taxes. If he sends enough, a 
few come back to him . . . elsewise, we bow only to our own lords, and the king. The true 
king, not Robert and his ilk.” He spat. “There was Crabbs and Brunes and Boggses with 
Prince Rhaegar on the Trident, and in the Kingsguard too. A Hardy, a Cave, a Pyne, and 
three Crabbs, Clement and Rupert and Clarence the Short. Six foot tall, he was, but short 
compared to the real Ser Clarence. We’re all good dragon men, up Crackclaw way.” 

The traffic continued to dwindle as they moved north and east, until finally there were no 
inns to be found. By then the bayside road was more weeds than ruts. That night they 
took shelter in a fishing village. Brienne paid the villagers a few coppers to allow them to 
bed down in a hay barn. She claimed the loft for Podrick and herself, and pulled the 
ladder up after them. 

“You leave me down here alone, I could bloody well steal your horses,” Crabb called up 
from below. “Best you get them up the ladder too, m’lady.” When she ignored him, he 
went on to say, “It’s going to rain tonight. A cold hard rain. You and Pods will sleep all 
snug and warm, and poor old Dick will be shivering down here by myself.” He shook his 
head, muttering, as he made a bed on a pile of hay. “I never knew such a mistrustful maid 
as you.” 


Brienne curled up beneath her cloak, with Podrick yawning at her side. I was not always 
wary, she might have shouted down at Crabb. When I was a little girl I believed that all 
men were as noble as my father. Even the men who told her what a pretty girl she was, 
how tall and bright and clever, how graceful when she danced. It was Septa Roelle who 
had lifted the scales from her eyes. “They only say those things to win your lord father’s 
favor,” the woman had said. “You’ll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues 
of men.” It was a harsh lesson, one that left her weeping, but it had stood her in good 
stead at Harrenhal when Ser Hyle and his friends had played their game. A maid has to be 
mistrustful in this world, or she will not be a maid for long, she was thinking, as the rain 
began to fall. 

In the mêlée at Bitterbridge she had sought out her suitors and battered them one by one, 
Farrow and Ambrose and Bushy, Mark Mullendore and Raymond Nayland and Will the 
Stork. She had ridden over Harry Sawyer and broken Robin Potter’s helm, giving him a 
nasty scar. And when the last of them had fallen, the Mother had delivered Connington to 
her. This time Ser Ronnet held a sword and not a rose. Every blow she dealt him was 
sweeter than a kiss. 

Loras Tyrell had been the last to face her wroth that day. He’d never courted her, had 
hardly looked at her at all, but he bore three golden roses on his shield that day, and 
Brienne hated roses. The sight of them had given her a furious strength. She went to sleep 
dreaming of the fight they’d had, and of Ser Jaime fastening a rainbow cloak about her 
shoulders. 

It was still raining the next morning. As they broke their fast, Nimble Dick suggested that 
they wait for it to stop. 

“When will that be? On the morrow? In a fortnight? When summer comes again? No. We 
have cloaks, and leagues to ride.” 

It rained all that day. The narrow track they followed soon turned to mud beneath them. 
What trees they saw were naked, and the steady rain had turned their fallen leaves into a 
sodden brown mat. Despite its squirrel-skin lining, Dick’s cloak soaked through, and she 
could see him shivering. Brienne felt a moment’s pity for the man. He has not eaten well, 
that’s plain. She wondered if there truly was a smugglers’ cove, or a ruined castle called 
the Whispers. Hungry men do desperate things. This all might be some ploy to cozen her. 
Suspicion soured her stomach. 

For a time it seemed as though the steady wash of rain was the only sound in the world. 
Nimble Dick plowed on, heedless. She watched closely, noting how he bent his back, as 
if huddling low in the saddle would keep him dry. This time there was no village close at 
hand when darkness came upon them. Nor were there any trees to give them shelter. 
They were forced to camp amongst some rocks, fifty yards above the tideline. The rocks 
at least would keep the wind off. “Best we keep a watch tonight, m’lady,” Crabb told her, 
as she was struggling to get a driftwood fire lit. “A place like this, there might be 
squishers.” 


“Squishers?” Brienne gave him a suspicious look. 

“Monsters,” Nimble Dick said, with relish. “They look like men till you get close, but 
their heads is too big, and they got scales where a proper man’s got hair. Fish-belly white 
they are, with webs between their fingers. They’re always damp and fishy-smelling, but 
behind these blubbery lips they got rows of green teeth sharp as needles. Some say the 
First Men killed them all, but don’t you believe it. They come by night and steal bad little 
children, padding along on them webbed feet with a little squish-squish sound. The girls 
they keep to breed with, but the boys they eat, tearing at them with those sharp green 
teeth.” He grinned at Podrick. “They’d eat you, boy. They’d eat you raw.” 

“If they try, I’ll kill them.” Podrick touched his sword. 

“You try that. You just try. Squishers don’t die easy.” He winked at Brienne. “You a bad 
little girl, m’lady?” 

“No.” Just a fool. The wood was too damp to light, no matter how many sparks Brienne 
struck off her flint and steel. The kindling sent up some smoke, but that was all. 
Disgusted, she settled down with her back to a rock, pulled her cloak over herself, and 
resigned herself to a cold, wet night. Dreaming of a hot meal, she gnawed on a strip of 
hard salt beef whilst Nimble Dick talked about the time Ser Clarence Crabb had fought 
the squisher king. He tells a lively tale, she had to admit, but Mark Mullendore was 
amusing too, with his little monkey. 

It was too wet to see the sun go down, too grey to see the moon come up. The night was 
black and starless. Crabb ran out of tales and went to sleep. Podrick was soon snoring 
too. Brienne sat with her back to the rock, listening to the waves. Are you near the sea, 
Sansa? she wondered. Are you waiting at the Whispers for a ship that will never come? 
Who do you have with you? Passage for three, he said. Has the Imp joined you and Ser 
Dontos, or did you find your little sister? 

The day had been a long one, and Brienne was tired. Even sitting up against the rock, 
with rain pattering softly all around her, she found her eyelids growing heavy. Twice she 
dozed. The second time she woke all at once, heart pounding, convinced that someone 
was looming over her. Her limbs were stiff, and her cloak had gotten tangled round her 
ankles. She kicked free of it and stood. Nimble Dick was curled against a rock, half-
buried in wet, heavy sand, asleep. A dream. It was a dream. 

Perhaps she had made a mistake in abandoning Ser Creighton and Ser Illifer. They had 
seemed like honest men. Would that Jaime had come with me, she thought . . . but he was 
a knight of the Kingsguard, his rightful place was with his king. Besides, it was Renly 
that she wanted. I swore I would protect him, and I failed. Then I swore I would avenge 
him, and I failed at that as well. I ran off with Lady Catelyn instead, and failed her too. 

The wind had shifted, and the rain was running down her face. 


The next day the road dwindled to a pebbled thread, and finally to a mere suggestion. 
Near midday, it came to an abrupt end at the foot of a wind-carved cliff. Above, a small 
castle stood frowning over the waves, its three crooked towers outlined against a leaden 
sky. “Is that the Whispers?” Podrick asked. 

“That look a bloody ruin t’ you?” Crabb spat. “That’s the Dyre Den, where old Lord 
Brune keeps his seat. Road ends here, though. It’s the pines for us from here on.” 

Brienne studied the cliff. “How do we get up there?” 

“Easy.” Nimble Dick turned his horse. “Stay close t’ Dick. The squishers are apt t’ take 
the laggards.” 

The way up proved to be a steep stony path hidden within a cleft in the rock. Most of it 
was natural, but here and there steps had been carved to ease the climb. Sheer walls of 
rock, eaten away by centuries of wind and spray, hemmed them in to either side. In some 
places they had assumed fantastic shapes. Nimble Dick pointed out a few as they 
climbed. “There’s an ogre’s head, see?” he said, and Brienne smiled when she saw it. 
“And that there’s a stone dragon. T’other wing fell off when my father was a boy. Above 
it, that’s the dugs drooping down, like some hag’s teats.” He glanced back at her own 
chest. 

“Ser? My lady?” said Podrick. “There’s a rider.” 

“Where?” None of the rocks suggested a rider to her. 

“On the road. Not a rock rider. A real rider. Following us. Down there.” He pointed. 

Brienne twisted in her saddle. They had climbed high enough to see for leagues along the 
shore. The horse was coming up the same road they had taken, two or three miles behind 
them. Again? She glanced at Nimble Dick suspiciously. 

“Don’t squint at me,” Crabb said. “He’s naught t’ do with old Nimble Dick, whoever he 
is. Some man o’ Brune’s, most like, come back from the wars. Or one o’ them singers, 
wandering from place to place.” He turned his head and spat. “He’s no squisher, that’s 
bloody certain. Their sort don’t ride horses.” 

“No,” said Brienne. On that, at least, they could agree. 

The last hundred feet of the climb proved the steepest and most treacherous. Loose 
pebbles rolled beneath their horse’s hooves and went rattling down the stony path behind 
them. When they emerged from the cleft in the rock, they found themselves under the 
castle walls. On a parapet above, a face peered down at them, then vanished. Brienne 
thought it might have been a woman, and said as much to Nimble Dick. 


He agreed. “Brune’s too old to go climbing wallwalks, and his sons and grandsons went 
off to the wars. No one left in there but wenches, and a snot-nosed babe or three.” 

It was on her lips to ask her guide which king Lord Brune had espoused, but it made no 
matter any longer. Brune’s sons were gone; some might not be coming back. We will 
have no hospitality here tonight. A castle full of old men, women, and children was not 
like to open its doors to armed strangers. “You speak of Lord Brune as if you know him,” 
she said to Nimble Dick. 

“Might be I did, once.” 

She glanced at the breast of his doublet. Loose threads and a ragged patch of darker 
fabric showed where some badge had been torn away. Her guide was a deserter, she did 
not doubt. Could the rider behind them be one of his brothers-in-arms? 

“We should ride on,” he urged, “before Brune starts to wonder why we’re here beneath 
his walls. Even a wench can wind a bloody crossbow.” Dick gestured toward the 
limestone hills that rose beyond the castle, with their wooded slopes. “No more roads 
from here on, only streams and game trails, but m’lady need not fear. Nimble Dick knows 
these parts.” 

That was what Brienne was afraid of. The wind was gusting along the top of the cliff, but 
all she could smell was a trap. “What about that rider?” Unless his horse could walk on 
waves, he would soon be coming up the cliff. 

“What about him? If he’s some fool from Maidenpool, he might not even find the bloody 
path. And if he does, we’ll lose him in the woods. He won’t have no road to follow 
there.” 

Only our tracks. Brienne wondered if it wouldn’t be better to meet the rider here, with her 
blade in hand. I’ll look an utter fool if it is a wandering singer or one of Lord Brune’s 
sons. Crabb had the right of it, she supposed. If he is still behind us on the morrow, I can 
deal with him then. “As you will,” she said, turning her mare toward the trees. 

Lord Brune’s castle dwindled at their backs, and soon was lost to sight. Sentinels and 
soldier pines rose all around them, towering green-clad spears thrusting toward the sky. 
The forest floor was a bed of fallen needles as thick as a castle wall, littered with 
pinecones. The hooves of their horses seemed to make no sound. It rained a bit, stopped 
for a time, then started once again, but amongst the pines they scarce felt a drop. 

The going was much slower in the woods. Brienne prodded her mare through the green 
gloom, weaving in and out amongst the trees. It would be very easy to get lost here, she 
realized. Every way she looked appeared the same. The very air seemed grey and green 
and still. Pine boughs scratched against her arms and scraped noisily against her newly 
painted shield. The eerie stillness grated on her more with every passing hour. 


It bothered Nimble Dick as well. Late that day, as dusk was coming on, he tried to sing. 
“A bear there was, a bear, a bear, all black and brown, and covered with hair,” he sang, 
his voice as scratchy as a pair of woolen breeches. The pines drank his song, as they 
drank the wind and rain. After a little while he stopped. 

“It’s bad here,” Podrick said. “This is a bad place.” 

Brienne felt the same, but it would not serve to admit it. “A pine wood is a gloomy place, 
but in the end it’s just a wood. There’s naught here that we need fear.” 

“What about the squishers? And the heads?” 

“There’s a clever lad,” said Nimble Dick, laughing. 

Brienne gave him a look of annoyance. “There are no squishers,” she told Podrick, “and 
no heads.” 

The hills went up, the hills went down. Brienne found herself praying that Nimble Dick 
was honest, and knew where he was taking them. By herself, she was not even certain she 
could have found the sea again. Day or night, the sky was solid grey and overcast, with 
neither sun nor stars to help her find her way. 

They made camp early that night, after they came down a hill and found themselves on 
the edge of a glistening green bog. In the grey-green light, the ground ahead looked solid 
enough, but when they’d ridden out it had swallowed their horses up to their withers. 
They had to turn and fight their way back onto more solid footing. “It’s no matter,” Crabb 
assured them. “We’ll go back up the hill and come down another way.” 

The next day was the same. They rode through pines and bogs, under dark skies and 
intermittent rain, past sinkholes and caves and the ruins of ancient strongholds whose 
stones were blanketed in moss. Every heap of stones had a story, and Nimble Dick told 
them all. To hear him tell it, the men of Crackclaw Point had watered their pine trees with 
blood. Brienne’s patience soon began to fray. “How much longer?” she demanded 
finally. “We must have seen every tree in Crackclaw Point by now.” 

“Not hardly,” said Crabb. “We’re close now. See, the woods is thinning out. We’re near 
the narrow sea.” 

This fool he promised me is like to be my own reflection in a pond, Brienne thought, but it 
seemed pointless to turn back when she had come so far. She was weary, though, she 
could not deny that. Her thighs were hard as iron from the saddle, and of late she had 
been sleeping only four hours a night, whilst Podrick watched over her. If Nimble Dick 
meant to try and murder them, she was convinced it would happen here, on ground that 
he knew well. He could be taking them to some robbers’ den where he had kin as 
treacherous as he was. Or perhaps he was just leading them in circles, waiting for that 


rider to catch up. They had not seen any sign of the man since leaving Lord Brune’s 
castle, but that did not mean he had given up the hunt. 

It may be that I will need to kill him, she told herself one night as she paced about the 
camp. The notion made her queasy. Her old master-at-arms had always questioned 
whether she was hard enough for battle. “You have a man’s strength in your arms,” Ser 
Goodwin had said to her, more than once, “but your heart is as soft as any maid’s. It is 
one thing to train in the yard with a blunted sword in hand, and another to drive a foot of 
sharpened steel into a man’s gut and see the light go out of his eyes.” To toughen her, Ser 
Goodwin used to send her to her father’s butcher to slaughter lambs and suckling pigs. 
The piglets squealed and the lambs screamed like frightened children. By the time the 
butchering was done Brienne had been blind with tears, her clothes so bloody that she 
had given them to her maid to burn. But Ser Goodwin still had doubts. “A piglet is a 
piglet. It is different with a man. When I was a squire young as you, I had a friend who 
was strong and quick and agile, a champion in the yard. We all knew that one day he 
would be a splendid knight. Then war came to the Stepstones. I saw my friend drive his 
foeman to his knees and knock the axe from his hand, but when he might have finished 
he held back for half a heartbeat. In battle half a heartbeat is a lifetime. The man slipped 
out his dirk and found a chink in my friend’s armor. His strength, his speed, his valor, all 
his hard-won skill . . . it was worth less than a mummer’s fart, because he flinched from 
killing. Remember that, girl.” 

I will, she promised his shade, there in the piney wood. She sat down on a rock, took out 
her sword, and began to hone its edge. I will remember, and I pray I will not flinch. 

The next day dawned bleak and cold and overcast. They never saw the sun come up, but 
when the blackness turned to grey Brienne knew it was time to saddle up again. With 
Nimble Dick leading the way, they rode back into the pines. Brienne followed close 
behind him, with Podrick bringing up the rear upon his rounsey. 

The castle came upon them without warning. One moment they were in the depths of the 
forest, with nothing but pines to see for leagues and leagues. Then they rode around a 
boulder, and a gap appeared ahead. A mile farther on, the forest ended abruptly. Beyond 
was sky and sea . . . and an ancient, tumbledown castle, abandoned and overgrown on the 
edge of a cliff. “The Whispers,” said Nimble Dick. “Have a listen. You can hear the 
heads.” 

Podrick’s mouth gaped open. “I hear them.” 

Brienne heard them too. A faint, soft murmuring that seemed to be coming from the 
ground as much as from the castle. The sound grew louder as she neared the cliffs. It was 
the sea, she realized suddenly. The waves had eaten holes in the cliffs below and were 
rumbling through caves and tunnels beneath the earth. “There are no heads,” she said. 
“It’s the waves you hear whispering.” 

“Waves don’t whisper. It’s heads.” 


The castle was built of old, unmortared stones, no two the same. Moss grew thick in 
clefts between the rocks, and trees were growing up from the foundations. Most old 
castles had a godswood. By the look of it, the Whispers had little else. Brienne walked 
her mare to the cliff’s edge, where the curtain wall had collapsed. Mounds of poisonous 
red ivy grew over the heap of broken stones. She tied the horse to a tree and edged as 
close to the precipice as she dared. Fifty feet below, the waves were swirling in and over 
the remnants of a shattered tower. Behind it, she glimpsed the mouth of a large cavern. 

“That’s the old beacon tower,” said Nimble Dick as he came up behind her. “It fell when 
I was half as old as Pods here. Used to be steps down to the cove, but when the cliff 
collapsed they went too. The smugglers stopped landing here after that. Time was, they 
could row their boats into the cave, but no more. See?” He put one hand on her back, and 
pointed with the other. 

Brienne’s flesh prickled. One shove, and I’ll be down there with the tower. She stepped 
back. “Keep your hands off me.” 

Crabb made a face. “I was only . . .” 

“I don’t care what you were only. Where’s the gate?” 

“Around t’other side.” He hesitated. “This fool o’ yours, he’s not a man to hold a grudge, 
is he?” he said nervously. “I mean, last night I got to thinking that he might be angry at 
old Nimble Dick, on account o’ that map I sold him, and how I left out that the smugglers 
don’t land here no more.” 

“With the gold that you’ve got coming, you can give him back whatever he paid you for 
your help.” Brienne could not imagine Dontos Hollard posing a threat. “That is, if he’s 
even here.” 

They made a circuit of the walls. The castle had been triangular, with square towers at 
each corner. Its gates were badly rotted. When Brienne tugged at one, the wood cracked 
and peeled away in long wet splinters, and half the gate came down on her. She could see 
more green gloom inside. The forest had breached the walls, and swallowed keep and 
bailey. But there was a portcullis behind the gate, its teeth sunk deep into the soft muddy 
ground. The iron was red with rust, but it held when Brienne rattled it. “No one’s used 
this gate for a long time.” 

“I could climb over,” offered Podrick. “By the cliff. Where the wall fell down.” 

“It’s too dangerous. Those stones looked loose to me, and that red ivy’s poisonous. There 
has to be a postern gate.” 

They found it on the north side of the castle, half-hidden behind a huge blackberry 
bramble. The berries had all been picked, and half the bush had been hacked down to cut 


a path to the door. The sight of the broken branches filled Brienne with disquiet. 
“Someone’s been through here, and recently.” 

“Your fool and those girls,” said Crabb. “I told you.” 

Sansa? Brienne could not believe it. Even a wine-soaked sot like Dontos Hollard would 
have better sense than to bring her to this bleak place. Something about the ruins filled 
her with unease. She would not find the Stark girl here . . . but she had to have a look. 
Someone was here, she thought. Someone who needed to stay hidden. “I’m going in,” she 
said. “Crabb, you’ll come with me. Podrick, I want you to watch the horses.” 

“I want to come too. I’m a squire. I can fight.” 

“That’s why I want you to stay here. There may be outlaws in these woods. We dare not 
leave the horses unprotected.” 

Podrick scuffed at a rock with his boot. “As you say.” 

She shouldered through the blackberries and pulled at a rusted iron ring. The postern door 
resisted for a moment, then jerked open, its hinges screaming protest. The sound made 
the hairs on the back of Brienne’s neck stand up. She drew her sword. Even in mail and 
boiled leather, she felt naked. 

“Go on, m’lady,” urged Nimble Dick, behind her. “What are you waiting for? Old 
Crabb’s been dead a thousand years.” 

What was she waiting for? Brienne told herself that she was being foolish. The sound was 
just the sea, echoing endlessly through the caverns beneath the castle, rising and falling 
with each wave. It did sound like whispering, though, and for a moment she could almost 
see the heads, sitting on their shelves and muttering to one another. “I should have used 
the sword” one of them was saying. “I should have used the magic sword.” 

“Podrick,” said Brienne. “There’s a sword and scabbard wrapped up in my bedroll. Bring 
them here to me.” 

“Yes, ser. My lady. I will.” The boy went running off. 

“A sword?” Nimble Dick scratched behind his ear. “You got a sword in your hand. What 
do you need another for?” 

“This one’s for you.” Brienne offered him the hilt. 

“For true?” Crabb reached out hesitantly, as if the blade might bite him. “The mistrustful 
maid’s giving old Dick a sword?” 

“You do know how to use one?” 


“I’m a Crabb.” He snatched the longsword from her hand. “I got the same blood as old 
Ser Clarence.” He slashed the air and grinned at her. “It’s the sword that makes the lord, 
some say.” 

When Podrick Payne returned, he held Oathkeeper as gingerly as if it were a child. 
Nimble Dick gave a whistle at the sight of the ornate scabbard with its row of lion’s 
heads, but grew quiet when she drew the blade and tried a cut. Even the sound of it is 
sharper than an ordinary sword. “With me,” she told Crabb. She slipped sideways 
through the postern, ducking her head to pass beneath the doorway’s arch. 

The bailey opened up before her, overgrown. To her left was the main gate, and the 
collapsed shell of what might have been a stable. Saplings were poking out of half the 
stalls and growing up through the dry brown thatch of its roof. To her right she saw rotted 
wooden steps descending into the darkness of a dungeon or a root cellar. Where the keep 
had been was a pile of collapsed stones, overgrown with green and purple moss. The yard 
was all weeds and pine needles. Soldier pines were everywhere, drawn up in solemn 
ranks. In their midst was a pale stranger; a slender young weirwood with a trunk as white 
as a cloistered maid. Dark red leaves sprouted from its reaching branches. Beyond was 
the emptiness of sky and sea where the wall had collapsed . . . 

. . . and the remnants of a fire. 

The whispers nibbled at her ears, insistent. Brienne knelt beside the fire. She picked up a 
blackened stick, sniffed at it, stirred the ashes. Someone was trying to keep warm last 
night. Or else they were trying to send a signal to a passing ship. 

“Halloooooo,” called Nimble Dick. “Anyone here?” 

“Be quiet,” Brienne told him. 

“Someone might be hiding. Wanting to get a look at us before they show themself.” He 
walked to where the steps went down beneath the ground, and peered down into the 
darkness. “Hallooooo,” he called again. “Anyone down there?” 

Brienne saw a sapling sway. From the bushes slid a man, so caked with dirt that he 
looked as if he had sprouted from the earth. A broken sword was in his hand, but it was 
his face that gave her pause, the small eyes and wide flat nostrils. 

She knew that nose. She knew those eyes. Pyg, his friends had called him. 

Everything seemed to happen in a heartbeat. A second man slipped over the lip of the 
well, making no more noise than a snake might make slithering across a pile of wet 
leaves. He wore an iron halfhelm wrapped in stained red silk, and had a short, thick 
throwing spear in hand. Brienne knew him too. From behind her came a rustling as a 
head poked down through the red leaves. Crabb was standing underneath the weirwood. 
He looked up and saw the face. “Here,” he called to Brienne. “It’s your fool.” 


“Dick,” she called urgently, “to me.” 

Shagwell dropped from the weirwood, braying laughter. He was garbed in motley, but so 
faded and stained that it showed more brown than grey or pink. In place of a jester’s flail 
he had a triple morningstar, three spiked balls chained to a wooden haft. He swung it hard 
and low, and one of Crabb’s knees exploded in a spray of blood and bone. “That’s 
funny,” Shagwell crowed as Dick fell. The sword she’d given him went flying from his 
hand and vanished in the weeds. He writhed on the ground, screaming and clutching at 
the ruins of his knee. “Oh, look,” said Shagwell, “it’s Smuggler Dick, the one who made 
the map for us. Did you come all this way to give us back our gold?” 

“Please,” Dick whimpered, “please don’t, my leg . . .” 

“Does it hurt? I can make it stop.” 

“Leave him be,” said Brienne. 

“DON’T!” shrieked Dick, lifting bloody hands to shield his head. Shagwell whirled the 
spiked ball once around his head and brought it down in the middle of Crabb’s face. 
There was a sickening crunch. In the silence that followed, Brienne could hear the sound 
of her own heart. 

“Bad Shags,” said the man who’d come creeping from the well. When he saw Brienne’s 
face, he laughed. “You again, woman? What, come to hunt us down? Or did you miss our 
friendly faces?” 

Shagwell danced from foot to foot and spun his flail. “It’s me she come for. She dreams 
of me every night, when she sticks her fingers up her slit. She wants me, lads, the big 
horse missed her merry Shags! I’m going to fuck her up the arse and pump her full of 
motley seed, until she whelps a little me.” 

“You need to use a different hole for that, Shags,” said Timeon, in his Dornish drawl. 

“I best use all her holes, then. Just to make certain.” He moved to her right as Pyg was 
circling around to her left, forcing her back toward the ragged edge of the cliff. Passage 
for three, Brienne remembered. “There are only three of you.” 

Timeon shrugged. “We all went our own ways, after we left Harrenhal. Urswyck and his 
lot rode south for Oldtown. Rorge thought he might slip out at Saltpans. Me and my lads 
made for Maidenpool, but we couldn’t get near a ship.” The Dornishman hefted his spear. 
“You did for Vargo with that bite, you know. His ear turned black and started leaking 
pus. Rorge and Urswyck were for leaving, but the Goat says we got to hold his castle. 
Lord of Harrenhal, he says he is, no one was going to take it off him. He said it slobbery, 
the way he always talked. We heard the Mountain killed him piece by piece. A hand one 
day, a foot the next, lopped off neat and clean. They bandaged up the stumps so Hoat 


didn’t die. He was saving his cock for last, but some bird called him to King’s Landing, 
so he finished it and rode off.” 

“I am not here for you. I am looking for my . . .” She almost said my sister. “. . . for a 
fool.” 

“I’m a fool,” Shagwell announced happily. 

“The wrong fool,” blurted Brienne. “The one I want is with a highborn girl, the daughter 
of Lord Stark of Winterfell.” 

“Then it’s the Hound you want,” said Timeon. “He’s not here neither, as it happens. Just 
us.” 

“Sandor Clegane?” said Brienne. “What do you mean?” 

“He’s the one that’s got the Stark girl. The way I hear it, she was making for Riverrun, 
and he stole her. Damned dog.” 

Riverrun, thought Brienne. She was making for Riverrun. For her uncles. “How do you 
know?” 

“Had it from one of Beric’s bunch. The lightning lord is looking for her too. He’s sent his 
men all up and down the Trident, sniffing after her. We chanced on three of them after 
Harrenhal, and winkled the tale from one before he died.” 

“He might have lied.” 

“He might have, but he didn’t. Later on, we heard how the Hound slew three of his 
brother’s men at an inn by the crossroads. The girl was with him there. The innkeep 
swore to it before Rorge killed him, and the whores said the same. An ugly bunch, they 
were. Not so ugly as you, mind you, but still . . .” 

He is trying to distract me, Brienne realized, to lull me with his voice. Pyg was edging 
closer. Shagwell took a hop toward her. She backed away from them. They will back me 
off the cliff if I let them. “Stay away,” she warned them. 

“I think I’m going to fuck you up the nose, wench,” Shagwell announced. “Won’t that be 
amusing?” 

“He has a very small cock,” Timeon explained. “Drop that pretty sword and might be 
we’ll go gentle on you, woman. We need gold to pay these smugglers, that’s all.” 

“And if I give you gold, you’ll let us go?” 


“We will.” Timeon smiled. “Once you’ve fucked the lot of us. We’ll pay you like a 
proper whore. A silver for each fuck. Or else we’ll take the gold and rape you anyway, 
and do you like the Mountain did Lord Vargo. What’s your choice?” 

“This.” Brienne threw herself toward Pyg. 

He jerked his broken blade up to protect his face, but as he went high she went low. 
Oathkeeper bit through leather, wool, skin, and muscle, into the sellsword’s thigh. Pyg 
cut back wildly as his leg went out from under him. His broken sword scraped against her 
chainmail before he landed on his back. Brienne stabbed him through the throat, gave the 
blade a hard turn, and slid it out, whirling just as Timeon’s spear came flashing past her 
face. I did not flinch, she thought, as blood ran red down her cheek. Did you see, Ser 
Goodwin? She hardly felt the cut. 

“Your turn,” she told Timeon, as the Dornishman pulled out a second spear, shorter and 
thicker than the first. “Throw it.” 

“So you can dance away and charge me? I’d end up dead as Pyg. No. Get her, Shags.” 

“You get her,” Shagwell said. “Did you see what she did to Pyg? She’s mad with moon 
blood.” The fool was behind her, Timeon in front. No matter how she turned, one was at 
her back. 

“Get her,” urged Timeon, “and you can fuck her corpse.” 

“Oh, you do love me.” The morningstar was whirling. Choose one, Brienne told herself. 
Choose one and kill him quickly. Then a stone came out of nowhere, and hit Shagwell in 
the head. Brienne did not hesitate. She flew at Timeon. 

He was better than Pyg, but he had only a short throwing spear, and she had a Valyrian 
steel blade. Oathkeeper was alive in her hands. She had never been so quick. The blade 
became a grey blur. He wounded her in the shoulder as she came at him, but she slashed 
off his ear and half his cheek, hacked the head off his spear, and put a foot of rippled steel 
into his belly through the links of the chainmail byrnie he was wearing. 

Timeon was still trying to fight as she pulled her blade from him, its fullers running red 
with blood. He clawed at his belt and came up with a dagger, so Brienne cut his hand off. 
That one was for Jaime. “Mother have mercy,” the Dornishman gasped, the blood 
bubbling from his mouth and spurting from his wrist. “Finish it. Send me back to Dorne, 
you bloody bitch.” 

She did. 

Shagwell was on his knees when she turned, looking dazed as he fumbled for the 
morningstar. As he staggered to his feet, another stone slammed him in the ear. Podrick 


had climbed the fallen wall and was standing amongst the ivy glowering, a fresh rock in 


his hand. “I told you I could fight!” he shouted down. 
Shagwell tried to crawl away. “I yield,” the fool cried, “I yield. You mustn’t hurt sweet 
Shagwell, I’m too droll to die.” 


“You are no better than the rest of them. You have robbed and raped and murdered.” 


“Oh, I have, I have, I shan’t deny it . . . but I’m amusing, with all my japes and capers. I 
make men laugh.” 
“And women weep.” 
“Is that my fault? Women have no sense of humor.” 
Brienne lowered Oathkeeper. “Dig a grave. There, beneath the weirwood.” She pointed 


with her blade. 
“I have no spade.” 
“You have two hands.” One more than you left Jaime. 
“Why bother? Leave them for the crows.” 
“Timeon and Pyg can feed the crows. Nimble Dick will have a grave. He was a Crabb. 


This is his place.” 
The ground was soft from rain, but even so it took the fool the rest of the day to dig down 
deep enough. Night was falling by the time he was done, and his hands were bloody and 
blistered. Brienne sheathed Oathkeeper, gathered up Dick Crabb, and carried him to the 

hole. His face was hard to look on. “I’m sorry that I never trusted you. I don’t know how 
to do that anymore.” 
As she knelt to lay the body down, she thought, The fool will make his try now, whilst my 

back is turned. 

She heard his ragged breathing half a heartbeat before Podrick cried out his warning. 
Shagwell had a jagged chunk of rock clutched in one hand. Brienne had her dagger up 
her sleeve. 

A dagger will beat a rock almost every time. 

She knocked aside his arm and punched the steel into his bowels. “Laugh,” she snarled at 
him. He moaned instead. “Laugh,” she repeated, grabbing his throat with one hand and 
stabbing at his belly with the other. “Laugh!” She kept saying it, over and over, until her 
hand was red up to the wrist and the stink of the fool’s dying was like to choke her. But 


Shagwell never laughed. The sobs that Brienne heard were all her own. When she 


realized that, she threw down her knife and shuddered. 
Podrick helped her lower Nimble Dick into his hole. By the time they were done the 
moon was rising. Brienne rubbed the dirt from her hands and tossed two dragons down 
into the grave. 


“Why did you do that, my lady? Ser?” asked Pod. 
“It was the reward I promised him for finding me the fool.” 
Laughter sounded from behind them. She ripped Oathkeeper from her sheath and 


whirled, expecting more Bloody Mummers . . . but it was only Hyle Hunt atop the 
crumbling wall, his legs crossed. “If there are brothels down in hell, the wretch will thank 
you,” the knight called down. “Elsewise, that’s a waste of good gold.” 

“I keep my promises. What are you doing here?” 
“Lord Randyll bid me follow you. If by some freak’s chance you stumbled onto Sansa 


Stark, he told me to bring her back to Maidenpool. Have no fear, I was commanded not to 
harm you.” 
Brienne snorted. “As if you could.” 
“What will you do now, my lady?” 
“Cover him.” 
“About the girl, I meant. The Lady Sansa.” 
Brienne thought a moment. “She was making for Riverrun, if Timeon told it true. 


Somewhere along the way she was taken by the Hound. If I find him . . .” 
“. . . he’ll kill you.” 
“Or I’ll kill him,” she said stubbornly. “Will you help me cover up poor Crabb, ser?” 
“No true knight could refuse such beauty.” Ser Hyle climbed down from the wall. 


Together, they shoved the dirt on top of Nimble Dick as the moon rose higher in the sky, 
and down below the ground the heads of forgotten kings whispered secrets. 


THE QUEENMAKER 

Beneath the burning sun of Dorne, wealth was measured as much in water as in gold, so 
every well was zealously guarded. The well at Shandystone had gone dry a hundred years 
before, however, and its guardians had departed for some wetter place, abandoning their 
modest holdfast with its fluted columns and triple arches. Afterward the sands had crept 
back in to reclaim their own. 

Arianne Martell arrived with Drey and Sylva just as the sun was going down, with the 
west a tapestry of gold and purple and the clouds all glowing crimson. The ruins seemed 
aglow as well; the fallen columns glimmered pinkly, red shadows crept across the 
cracked stone floors, and the sands themselves turned from gold to orange to purple as 
the light faded. Garin had arrived a few hours earlier, and the knight called Darkstar the 
day before. 

“It is lovely here,” Drey observed as he was helping Garin water the horses. They had 
carried their own water with them. The sand steeds of Dorne were swift and tireless, and 
would keep going for long leagues after other horses had given out, but even such as they 
could not run dry. “How did you know of this place?” 

“My uncle brought me here, with Tyene and Sarella.” The memory made Arianne smile. 
“He caught some vipers and showed Tyene the safest way to milk them for their venom. 
Sarella turned over rocks, brushed sand off the mosaics, and wanted to know everything 
there was to know about the people who had lived here.” 

“And what did you do, princess?” asked Spotted Sylva. 

I sat beside the well and pretended that some robber knight had brought me here to have 
his way with me, she thought, a tall hard man with black eyes and a widow’s peak. The 
memory made her uneasy. “I dreamed,” she said, “and when the sun went down I sat 
cross-legged at my uncle’s feet and begged him for a story.” 

“Prince Oberyn was full of stories.” Garin had been with them as well that day; he was 
Arianne’s milk brother, and they had been inseparable since before they learned to walk. 
“He told about Prince Garin, I remember, the one that I was named for.” 

“Garin the Great,” offered Drey, “the wonder of the Rhoyne.” 

“That’s the one. He made Valyria tremble.” 


“They trembled,” said Ser Gerold, “then they killed him. If I led a quarter of a million 
men to death, would they call me Gerold the Great?” He snorted. “I shall remain 
Darkstar, I think. At least it is mine own.” He unsheathed his longsword, sat upon the lip 
of the dry well, and began to hone the blade with an oilstone. 

Arianne watched him warily. He is highborn enough to make a worthy consort, she 
thought. Father would question my good sense, but our children would be as beautiful as 
dragonlords. If there was a handsomer man in Dorne, she did not know him. Ser Gerold 
Dayne had an aquiline nose, high cheekbones, a strong jaw. He kept his face clean-
shaven, but his thick hair fell to his collar like a silver glacier, divided by a streak of 
midnight black. He has a cruel mouth, though, and a crueler tongue. His eyes seemed 
black as he sat outlined against the dying sun, sharpening his steel, but she had looked at 
them from a closer vantage and she knew that they were purple. Dark purple. Dark and 
angry. 

He must have felt her gaze upon him, for he looked up from his sword, met her eyes, and 
smiled. Arianne felt heat rushing to her face. I should never have brought him. If he gives 
me such a look when Arys is here, we will have blood on the sand. Whose, she could not 
say. By tradition the Kingsguard were the finest knights in all the Seven Kingdoms . . . 
but Darkstar was Darkstar. 

The Dornish nights grow cold out upon the sands. Garin gathered wood for them, 
bleached white branches from trees that had withered up and died a hundred years ago. 
Drey built a fire, whistling as he struck sparks off his flint. 

Once the kindling caught, they sat around the flames and passed a skin of summerwine 
from hand to hand . . . all but Darkstar, who preferred to drink unsweetened lemonwater. 
Garin was in a lively mood and entertained them with the latest tales from the Planky 
Town at the mouth of the Greenblood, where the orphans of the river came to trade with 
the carracks, cogs, and galleys from across the narrow sea. If the sailors could be 
believed, the east was seething with wonders and terrors: a slave revolt in Astapor, 
dragons in Qarth, grey plague in Yi Ti. A new corsair king had risen in the Basilisk Isles 
and raided Tall Trees Town, and in Qohor followers of the red priests had rioted and tried 
to burn down the Black Goat. “And the Golden Company broke its contract with Myr, 
just as the Myrmen were about to go to war with Lys.” 

“The Lyseni bought them off,” suggested Sylva. 

“Clever Lyseni,” Drey said. “Clever, craven Lyseni.” 

Arianne knew better. If Quentyn has the Golden Company behind him . . . “Beneath the 
gold the bitter steel,” was their cry. You will need bitter steel and more, brother, if you 
think to set me aside. Arianne was loved in Dorne, Quentyn little known. No company of 
sellswords could change that. 

Ser Gerold rose. “I believe I’ll have a piss.” 


“Watch where you set your feet,” Drey cautioned. “It has been a while since Prince 
Oberyn milked the local vipers.” 

“I was weaned on venom, Dalt. Any viper takes a bite of me will rue it.” Ser Gerold 
vanished through a broken arch. 

When he was gone, the others exchanged glances. “Forgive me, princess,” said Garin 
softly, “but I do not like that man.” 

“A pity,” Drey said. “I believe he’s half in love with you.” 

“We need him,” Arianne reminded them. “It may be that we will need his sword, and we 
will surely need his castle.” 

“High Hermitage is not the only castle in Dorne,” Spotted Sylva pointed out, “and you 
have other knights who love you well. Drey is a knight.” 

“I am,” he affirmed. “I have a wonderful horse and a very fine sword, and my valor is 
second to . . . well, several, actually.” 

“More like several hundred, ser,” said Garin. 

Arianne left them to their banter. Drey and Spotted Sylva were her dearest friends, aside 
from her cousin Tyene, and Garin had been teasing her since both of them were drinking 
from his mother’s teats, but just now she was in no mood for japery. The sun was gone, 
and the sky was full of stars. So many. She leaned her back against a fluted pillar and 
wondered if her brother was looking at the same stars tonight, wherever he might be. Do 
you see the white one, Quentyn? That is Nymeria’s star, burning bright, and that milky 
band behind her, those are ten thousand ships. She burned as bright as any man, and so 
shall I. You will not rob me of my birthright! 

Quentyn had been very young when he was sent to Yronwood; too young, according to 
their mother. Norvoshi did not foster out their children, and Lady Mellario had never 
forgiven Prince Doran for taking her son away from her. “I like it no more than you do,” 
Arianne had overheard her father say, “but there is a blood debt, and Quentyn is the only 
coin Lord Ormond will accept.” 

“Coin?” her mother had screamed. “He is your son. What sort of father uses his own 
flesh and blood to pay his debts?” 

“The princely sort,” Doran Martell had answered. 

Prince Doran was still pretending that her brother was with Lord Yronwood, but Garin’s 
mother had seen him at the Planky Town, posing as a merchant. One of his companions 
had a lazy eye, the same as Cletus Yronwood, Lord Anders’s randy son. A maester 
traveled with them too, a maester skilled in tongues. My brother is not as clever as he 


thinks. A clever man would have left from Oldtown, even if it meant a longer voyage. In 
Oldtown he might have gone unrecognized. Arianne had friends amongst the orphans of 
the Planky Town, and some had grown curious as to why a prince and a lord’s son might 
be traveling under false names and seeking passage across the narrow sea. One of them 
had crept through a window of a night, tickled the lock on Quentyn’s little strongbox, and 
found the scrolls within. 

Arianne would have given much and more to know that this secret trip across the narrow 
sea was Quentyn’s own doing, and his alone . . . but parchments he had carried had been 
sealed with the sun and spear of Dorne. Garin’s cousin had not dared break the seal to 
read them, but . . . 

“Princess.” Ser Gerold Dayne stood behind her, half in starlight and half in shadow. 

“How was your piss?” Arianne inquired archly. 

“The sands were duly grateful.” Dayne put a foot upon the head of a statue that might 
have been the Maiden till the sands had scoured her face away. “It occurred to me as I 
was pissing that this plan of yours may not yield you what you want.” 

“And what is it I want, ser?” 

“The Sand Snakes freed. Vengeance for Oberyn and Elia. Do I know the song? You want 
a little taste of lion blood.” 

That, and my birthright. I want Sunspear, and my father’s seat. I want Dorne. “I want 
justice.” 

“Call it what you will. Crowning the Lannister girl is a hollow gesture. She will never sit 
the Iron Throne. Nor will you get the war you want. The lion is not so easily provoked.” 

“The lion’s dead. Who knows which cub the lioness prefers?” 

“The one in her own den.” Ser Gerold drew his sword. It glimmered in the starlight, sharp 
as lies. “This is how you start a war. Not with a crown of gold, but with a blade of steel.” 

I am no murderer of children. “Put that away. Myrcella is under my protection. And Ser 
Arys will permit no harm to come to his precious princess, you know that.” 

“No, my lady. What I know is that Daynes have been killing Oakhearts for several 
thousand years.” 

His arrogance took her breath away. “It seems to me that Oakhearts have been killing 
Daynes for just as long.” 


“We all have our family traditions.” Darkstar sheathed his sword. “The moon is rising, 
and I see your paragon approaching.” 

His eyes were sharp. The horseman on the tall grey palfrey did indeed prove to be Ser 
Arys, white cloak fluttering bravely as he spurred across the sand. Princess Myrcella rode 
pillion behind him, swaddled in a cowled robe that hid her golden curls. 

As Ser Arys helped her from the saddle, Drey went to one knee before her. “Your 
Grace.” 

“My lady liege.” Spotted Sylva knelt beside him. 

“My queen, I am your man.” Garin dropped to both knees. 

Confused, Myrcella clutched Arys Oakheart by the arm. “Why do they call me Grace?” 
she asked in a plaintive voice. “Ser Arys, what is this place, and who are they?” 

Has he told her nought? Arianne moved forward in a swirl of silk, smiling to put the 
child at ease. “They are my true and loyal friends, Your Grace . . . and would be your 
friends as well.” 

“Princess Arianne?” The girl threw her arms around her. “Why do they call me queen? 
Did something bad happen to Tommen?” 

“He fell in with evil men, Your Grace,” Arianne said, “and I fear they have conspired 
with him to steal your throne.” 

“My throne? You mean, the Iron Throne?” The girl was more confused than ever. “He 
never stole that, Tommen is . . .” 

“. . . younger than you, surely?” 

“I am older by a year.” 

“That means the Iron Throne by rights is yours,” Arianne said. “Your brother is only a 
little boy, you must not blame him. He has bad counselors . . . but you have friends. May 
I have the honor of presenting them?” She took the child by the hand. “Your Grace, I 
give you Ser Andrey Dalt, the heir to Lemonwood.” 

“My friends call me Drey,” he said, “and I should be greatly honored if Your Grace 
would do the same.” 

Though Drey had an open face and an easy smile, Myrcella regarded him warily. “Until I 
know you I must call you ser.” 

“Whatever name Your Grace prefers, I am her man.” 


Sylva cleared her throat, till Arianne said, “Might I present Lady Sylva Santagar, my 
queen? My dearest Spotted Sylva.” 

“Why do they call you that?” Myrcella asked. 

“For my freckles, Your Grace,” Sylva answered, “though they all pretend it is because I 
am the heir to Spottswood.” 

Garin was next, a loose-limbed, swarthy, long-nosed fellow with a jade stud in one ear. 
“Here is gay Garin of the orphans, who makes me laugh,” said Arianne. “His mother was 
my wet nurse.” 

“I am sorry she is dead,” Myrcella said. 

“She’s not, sweet queen.” Garin flashed the golden tooth Arianne had bought him to 
replace the one she’d broken. “I’m of the orphans of the Greenblood, is what my lady 
means.” 

Myrcella would have time enough to learn the history of the orphans on her voyage up 
the river. Arianne led her queen-to-be to the final member of her little band. “Last, but 
first in valor, I give you Ser Gerold Dayne, a knight of Starfall.” 

Ser Gerold went to one knee. The moonlight shone in his dark eyes as he studied the 
child coolly. 

“There was an Arthur Dayne,” Myrcella said. “He was a knight of the Kingsguard in the 
days of Mad King Aerys.” 

“He was the Sword of the Morning. He is dead.” 

“Are you the Sword of the Morning now?” 

“No. Men call me Darkstar, and I am of the night.” 

Arianne drew the child away. “You must be hungry. We have dates and cheese and 
olives, and lemonsweet to drink. You ought not eat or drink too much, though. After a 
little rest, we must ride. Out here on the sands it is always best to travel by night, before 
the sun ascends the sky. It is kinder to the horses.” 

“And the riders,” Spotted Sylva said. “Come, Your Grace, warm yourself. I should be 
honored if you’d let me serve you.” 

As she led the princess to the fire, Arianne found Ser Gerold behind her. “My House goes 
back ten thousand years, unto the dawn of days,” he complained. “Why is it that my 
cousin is the only Dayne that anyone remembers?” 


“He was a great knight,” Ser Arys Oakheart put in. 

“He had a great sword,” Darkstar said. 

“And a great heart.” Ser Arys took Arianne by the arm. “Princess, I beg a moment’s 
word.” 

“Come.” She led Ser Arys deeper into the ruins. Beneath his cloak, the knight wore a 
cloth-of-gold doublet embroidered with the three green oak leaves of his House. On his 
head was a light steel helm topped by a jagged spike, wound about with a yellow scarf in 
the Dornish fashion. He might have passed for any knight, but for the cloak. Of 
shimmering white silk it was, pale as moonlight and airy as a breeze. A Kingsguard cloak 
beyond all doubt, the gallant fool. “How much does the child know?” 

“Little enough. Before we left King’s Landing, her uncle reminded her that I was her 
protector and that any commands that I might give her were meant to keep her safe. She 
has heard them in the streets as well, shouting out for vengeance. She knew this was no 
game. The girl is brave, and wise beyond her years. She did all I asked of her, and never 
asked a question.” The knight took her arm, glanced about, lowered his voice. “There are 
other tidings you should hear. Tywin Lannister is dead.” 

That was a shock. “Dead?” 

“Murdered by the Imp. The queen has assumed the regency.” 

“Has she?” A woman on the Iron Throne? Arianne thought about that for a moment and 
decided it was all to the good. If the lords of the Seven Kingdoms grew accustomed to 
Queen Cersei’s rule, it would be that much easier for them to bend their knees to Queen 
Myrcella. And Lord Tywin had been a dangerous foe; without him, Dorne’s enemies 
would be much weaker. Lannisters are killing Lannisters, how sweet. “What became of 
the dwarf?” 

“He’s fled,” Ser Arys said. “Cersei is offering a lordship to whosoever delivers her his 
head.” In a tiled inner courtyard half-buried by the drifting sands, he pushed her back 
against a column to kiss her, and his hand went to her breast. He kissed her long and hard 
and would have pushed her skirts up, but Arianne broke free of him, laughing. “I see that 
queenmaking excites you, ser, but we have no time for this. Later, I promise you.” She 
touched his cheek. “Did you meet with any problems?” 

“Only Trystane. He wanted to sit beside Myrcella’s bedside and play cyvasse with her.” 

“He had redspots when he was four, I told you. You can only get it once. You should 
have put out that Myrcella was suffering from greyscale, that would have kept him well 
away.” 

“The boy perhaps, but not your father’s maester.” 


“Caleotte,” she said. “Did he try to see her?” 

“Not once I described the red spots on her face. He said that nothing could be done until 
the disease had run its course, and gave me a pot of salve to soothe her itching.” 

No one under ten ever died of redspots, but it could be mortal in adults, and Maester 
Caleotte had never suffered it as a child. Arianne learned that when she suffered her own 
spots, at eight. “Good,” she said. “And the handmaid? Is she convincing?” 

“From a distance. The Imp picked her for this purpose, over many girls of nobler birth. 
Myrcella helped her curl her hair, and painted the dots on her face herself. They are 
distant kin. Lannisport teems with Lannys, Lannetts, Lantells, and lesser Lannisters, and 
half of them have that yellow hair. Dressed in Myrcella’s bedrobe with the maester’s 
salve smeared across her face . . . she might even have fooled me, in a dim light. It was a 
deal harder to find a man to take my place. Dake is closest to my height, but he’s too fat, 
so I put Rolder in my armor and told him to keep his visor down. The man is three inches 
shorter than I am, but perhaps no one will notice if I’m not there to stand beside him. 
He’ll keep to Myrcella’s chambers in any case.” 

“All we need is a few days. By that time the princess will be beyond my father’s reach.” 

“Where?” He drew her close and nuzzled at her neck. “It’s time you told me the rest of 
the plan, don’t you think?” 

She laughed, pushing him away. “No, it’s time we rode.” 

The moon had crowned the Moonmaid as they set out from the dust-dry ruins of 
Shandystone, striking south and west. Arianne and Ser Arys took the lead, with Myrcella 
on a frisky mare between them. Garin followed close behind with Spotted Sylva, whilst 
her two Dornish knights took the rear. We are seven, Arianne realized as they rode. She 
had not thought of that before, but it seemed a good omen for their cause. Seven riders on 
their way to glory. One day the singers will make all of us immortal. Drey had wanted a 
larger party, but that might have attracted unwelcome attention, and every additional man 
doubled the risk of betrayal. That much my father taught me, at the least. Even when he 
was younger and stronger, Doran Martell had been a cautious man much given to silences 
and secrets. It is time he put his burdens down, but I will suffer no slights to his honor or 
his person. She would return him to his Water Gardens, to live out what years remained 
him surrounded by laughing children and the smell of limes and oranges. Yes, and 
Quentyn can keep him company. Once I crown Myrcella and free the Sand Snakes, all 
Dorne will rally to my banners. The Yronwoods might declare for Quentyn, but alone 
they were no threat. If they went over to Tommen and the Lannisters, she would have 
Darkstar destroy them root and branch. 

“I am tired,” Myrcella complained, after several hours in the saddle. “Is it much farther? 
Where are we going?” 


“Princess Arianne is taking Your Grace to a place where you’ll be safe,” Ser Arys 
assured her. 

“It is a long journey,” Arianne said, “but it will go easier once we reach the Greenblood. 
Some of Garin’s people will meet us there, the orphans of the river. They live on boats, 
and pole them up and down the Greenblood and its vassals, fishing and picking fruit and 
doing whatever work needs doing.” 

“Aye,” Garin called out cheerfully, “and we sing and play and dance on water, and know 
much and more of healing. My mother is the best midwife in Westeros, and my father can 
cure warts.” 

“How can you be orphans if you have mothers and fathers?” the girl asked. 

“They are the Rhoynar,” Arianne explained, “and their Mother was the river Rhoyne.” 

Myrcella did not understand. “I thought you were the Rhoynar. You Dornishmen, I 
mean.” 

“We are in part, Your Grace. Nymeria’s blood is in me, along with that of Mors Martell, 
the Dornish lord she married. On the day they wed, Nymeria fired her ships, so her 
people would understand that there could be no going back. Most were glad to see those 
flames, for their voyagings had been long and terrible before they came to Dorne, and 
many and more had been lost to storm, disease, and slavery. There were a few who 
mourned, however. They did not love this dry red land or its seven-faced god, so they 
clung to their old ways, hammered boats together from the hulks of the burned ships, and 
became the orphans of the Greenblood. The Mother in their songs is not our Mother, but 
Mother Rhoyne, whose waters nourished them from the dawn of days.” 

“I’d heard the Rhoynar had some turtle god,” said Ser Arys. 

“The Old Man of the River is a lesser god,” said Garin. “He was born from Mother River 
too, and fought the Crab King to win dominion over all who dwell beneath the flowing 
waters.” 

“Oh,” said Myrcella. 

“I understand you’ve fought some mighty battles too, Your Grace,” said Drey in his most 
cheerful voice. “It is said you show our brave Prince Trystane no mercy at the cyvasse 
table.” 

“He always sets his squares up the same way, with all the mountains in the front and his 
elephants in the passes,” said Myrcella. “So I send my dragon through to eat his 
elephants.” 

“Does your handmaid play the game as well?” asked Drey. 


“Rosamund?” asked Myrcella. “No. I tried to teach her, but she said the rules were too 
hard.” 

“She is a Lannister as well?” said Lady Sylva. 

“A Lannister of Lannisport, not a Lannister of Casterly Rock. Her hair is the same color 
as mine, but straight instead of curly. Rosamund doesn’t truly favor me, but when she 
dresses up in my clothes people who don’t know us think she’s me.” 

“You have done this before, then?” 

“Oh, yes. We traded places on the Seaswift, on the way to Braavos. Septa Eglantine put 
brown dye in my hair. She said we were doing it as a game, but it was meant to keep me 
safe in case the ship was taken by my uncle Stannis.” 

The girl was plainly growing tired, so Arianne called a halt. They watered the horses 
once again, rested for a bit, and had some cheese and fruit. Myrcella split an orange with 
Spotted Sylva, whilst Garin ate olives and spit the stones at Drey. 

Arianne had hoped to reach the river before the sun came up, but they had started much 
later than she’d planned, so they were still in the saddle when the eastern sky turned red. 
Darkstar cantered up beside her. “Princess,” he said, “I’d set a faster pace, unless you 
mean to kill the child after all. We have no tents, and by day the sands are cruel.” 

“I know the sands as well as you do, ser,” she told him. All the same, she did as he 
suggested. It was hard on their mounts, but better she should lose six horses than one 
princess. 

Soon enough the wind came gusting from the west, hot and dry and full of grit. Arianne 
drew her veil across her face. It was made of shimmering silk, pale green above and 
yellow below, the colors blending into one another. Small green pearls gave it weight, 
and rattled softly against each other as she rode. 

“I know why my princess wears a veil,” Ser Arys said as she was fastening it to the 
temples of her copper helm. “Elsewise her beauty would outshine the sun above.” 

She had to laugh. “No, your princess wears a veil to keep the glare out of her eyes and the 
sand out of her mouth. You should do the same, ser.” She wondered how long her white 
knight had been polishing his ponderous gallantry. Ser Arys was pleasant company abed, 
but wit and he were strangers. 

Her Dornishmen covered their faces as she did, and Spotted Sylva helped veil the little 
princess from the sun, but Ser Arys stayed stubborn. Before long the sweat was running 
down his face, and his cheeks had taken on a rosy blush. Much longer and he will cook in 
those heavy clothes, she reflected. He would not be the first. In centuries past, many a 
host had come down from the Prince’s Pass with banners streaming, only to wither and 


broil on the hot red Dornish sands. “The arms of House Martell display the sun and spear, 
the Dornishman’s two favored weapons,” the Young Dragon had once written in his 
boastful Conquest of Dorne, “but of the two, the sun is the more deadly.” 

Thankfully, they did not need to cross the deep sands but only a sliver of the drylands. 
When Arianne spied a hawk wheeling high above them against a cloudless sky, she knew 
the worst was behind them. Soon they came upon a tree. It was a gnarled and twisted 
thing with as many thorns as leaves, of the sort called sandbeggars, but it meant that they 
were not far from water. 

“We’re almost there, Your Grace,” Garin told Myrcella cheerfully when they spied more 
sandbeggars up ahead, a thicket of them growing all around the dry bed of a stream. The 
sun was beating down like a fiery hammer, but it did not matter with their journey at its 
end. They stopped to water the horses again, drank deep from their skins and wet their 
veils, then mounted for the last push. Within half a league they were riding over 
devilgrass and past olive groves. Beyond a line of stony hills the grass grew greener and 
more lush, and there were lemon orchards watered by a spider’s web of old canals. Garin 
was the first to spy the river glimmering green. He gave a shout and raced ahead. 

Arianne Martell had crossed the Mander once, when she had gone with three of the Sand 
Snakes to visit Tyene’s mother. Compared to that mighty waterway, the Greenblood was 
scarce worthy of the name of river, yet it remained the life of Dorne. It took its name 
from the murky green of its sluggish waters; but as they approached, the sunlight seemed 
to turn those waters gold. She had seldom seen a sweeter sight. The next part should be 
slow and simple, she thought, up the Greenblood and onto the Vaith, as far as a poleboat 
can go. That would give her time enough to prepare Myrcella for all that was to come. 
Beyond Vaith the deep sands waited. They would need help from Sandstone and the 
Hellholt to make that crossing, but she did not doubt that it would be forthcoming. The 
Red Viper had been fostered at Sandstone, and Prince Oberyn’s paramour Ellaria Sand 
was Lord Uller’s natural daughter; four of the Sand Snakes were his granddaughters. I 
will crown Myrcella at the Hellholt and raise my banners there. 

They found the boat half a league downstream, hidden beneath the drooping branches of 
a great green willow. Low of roof and wide abeam, the poleboats had hardly any draft to 
speak of; the Young Dragon had disparaged them as “hovels built on rafts,” but that was 
hardly fair. All but the poorest orphan boats were wonderfully carved and painted. This 
one was done in shades of green, with a curved wooden tiller shaped like a mermaid, and 
fish faces peering through her rails. Poles and ropes and jars of olive oil cluttered her 
decks, and iron lanterns swung fore and aft. Arianne saw no orphans. Where is her crew? 
she wondered. 

Garin reined up beneath the willow. “Wake up, you fish-eyed lagabeds,” he called as he 
leapt down from the saddle. “Your queen is here, and wants her royal welcome. Come 
up, come out, we’ll have some songs and sweetwine. My mouth is set for—” 


The door on the poleboat slammed open. Out into the sunlight stepped Areo Hotah, 
longaxe in hand. 

Garin jerked to a halt. Arianne felt as though an axe had caught her in the belly. It was 
not supposed to end this way. This was not supposed to happen. When she heard Drey 
say, “There’s the last face I’d hoped to see,” she knew she had to act. “Away!” she cried, 
vaulting back into the saddle. “Arys, protect the princess—” 

Hotah thumped the butt of his longaxe upon the deck. Behind the ornate rails of the 
poleboat, a dozen guardsmen rose, armed with throwing spears or crossbows. Still more 
appeared atop the cabin. “Yield, my princess,” the captain called, “else we must slay all 
but the child and yourself, by your father’s word.” 

Princess Myrcella sat motionless upon her mount. Garin backed slowly from the 
poleboat, his hands in the air. Drey unbuckled his swordbelt. “Yielding seems the wisest 
course,” he called to Arianne, as his sword thumped to the ground. 

“No!” Ser Arys Oakheart put his horse between Arianne and the crossbows, his blade 
shining silver in his hand. He had unslung his shield and slipped his left arm through the 
straps. “You will not take her whilst I still draw breath.” 

You reckless fool, was all that Arianne had time to think, what do you think you’re doing? 

Darkstar’s laughter rang out. “Are you blind or stupid, Oakheart? There are too many. 
Put up your sword.” 

“Do as he says, Ser Arys,” Drey urged. 

We are taken, ser, Arianne might have called out. Your death will not free us. If you love 
your princess, yield. But when she tried to speak, the words caught in her throat. 

Ser Arys Oakheart gave her one last longing look, then put his golden spurs into his horse 
and charged. 

He rode headlong for the poleboat, his white cloak streaming behind him. Arianne 
Martell had never seen anything half so gallant, or half so stupid. “Noooo,” she shrieked, 
but she had found her tongue too late. A crossbow thrummed, then another. Hotah 
bellowed a command. At such close range, the white knight’s armor had as well been 
made of parchment. The first bolt punched right through his heavy oaken shield, pinning 
it to his shoulder. The second grazed his temple. A thrown spear took Ser Arys’s mount 
in the flank, yet still the horse came on, staggering as he hit the gangplank. “No,” some 
girl was shouting, some foolish little girl, “no, please, this was not supposed to happen.” 
She could hear Myrcella shrieking too, her voice shrill with fear. 

Ser Arys’s longsword slashed right and left, and two spearmen went down. His horse 
reared, and kicked a crossbowman in the face as he was trying to reload, but the other 


crossbows were firing, feathering the big courser with their quarrels. The bolts hit home 
so hard they knocked the horse sideways. His legs went out from under him and sent him 
crashing down the deck. Somehow Arys Oakheart leapt free. He even managed to keep 
hold of his sword. He struggled to his knees beside his dying horse . . . 

. . . and found Areo Hotah standing over him. 

The white knight raised his blade, too slowly. Hotah’s longaxe took his right arm off at 
the shoulder, spun away spraying blood, and came flashing back again in a terrible two-
handed slash that removed the head of Arys Oakheart and sent it spinning through the air. 
It landed amongst the reeds, and the Greenblood swallowed the red with a soft splash. 

Arianne did not remember climbing from her horse. Perhaps she’d fallen. She did not 
remember that either. Yet she found herself on her hands and feet in the sand, shaking 
and sobbing and retching up her supper. No, was all that she could think, no, no one was 
to be hurt, it was all planned, I was so careful. She heard Areo Hotah roar, “After him. 
He must not escape. After him!” Myrcella was on the ground, wailing, shaking, her pale 
face in her hands, blood streaming through her fingers. Arianne did not understand. Men 
were scrambling onto horses whilst others swarmed over her and her companions, but 
none of it made sense. She had fallen into a dream, some terrible red nightmare. This 
cannot be real. I will wake soon, and laugh at my night terrors. 

When they sought to bind her hands behind her back, she did not resist. One of the 
guardsmen jerked her to her feet. He wore her father’s colors. Another bent and seized 
the throwing knife inside her boot, a gift from her cousin Lady Nym. 

Areo Hotah took it from the man and frowned at it. “The prince said I must bring you 
back to Sunspear,” he announced. His cheeks and brow were freckled with the blood of 
Arys Oakheart. “I am sorry, little princess.” 

Arianne raised a tear-streaked face. “How could he know?” she asked the captain. “I was 
so careful. How could he know?” 

“Someone told.” Hotah shrugged. “Someone always tells.” 


ARYA 

Each night before sleep, she murmured her prayer into her pillow. “Ser Gregor,” it went. 
“Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei.” She would have 


whispered the names of the Freys of the Crossing too, if she had known them. One day 
I’ll know, she told herself, and then I’ll kill them all. 

No whisper was too faint to be heard in the House of Black and White. “Child,” said the 
kindly man one day, “what are those names you whisper of a night?” 

“I don’t whisper any names,” she said. 

“You lie,” he said. “All men lie when they are afraid. Some tell many lies, some but a 
few. Some have only one great lie they tell so often that they almost come to believe it . . 
. though some small part of them will always know that it is still a lie, and that will show 
upon their faces. Tell me of these names.” 

She chewed her lip. “The names don’t matter.” 

“They do,” the kindly man insisted. “Tell me, child.” 

Tell me, or we will turn you out, she heard. “They’re people I hate. I want them to die.” 

“We hear many such prayers in this House.” 

“I know,” said Arya. Jaqen H’ghar had granted three of her prayers once. All I had to do 
was whisper . . . 

“Is that why you have come to us?” the kindly man went on. “To learn our arts, so you 
may kill these men you hate?” 

Arya did not know how to answer that. “Maybe.” 

“Then you have come to the wrong place. It is not for you to say who shall live and who 
shall die. That gift belongs to Him of Many Faces. We are but his servants, sworn to do 
his will.” 

“Oh.” Arya glanced at the statues that stood along the walls, candles glimmering round 
their feet. “Which god is he?” 

“Why, all of them,” said the priest in black and white. 

He never told her his name. Neither did the waif, the little girl with the big eyes and 
hollow face who reminded her of another little girl, named Weasel. Like Arya, the waif 
lived below the temple, along with three acolytes, two serving men, and a cook called 
Umma. Umma liked to talk as she worked, but Arya could not understand a word she 
said. The others had no names, or did not choose to share them. One serving man was 
very old, his back bent like a bow. The second was red-faced, with hair growing from his 
ears. She took them both for mutes until she heard them praying. The acolytes were 
younger. The eldest was her father’s age; the other two could not have been much older 


than Sansa, who had been her sister. The acolytes wore black and white too, but their 
robes had no cowls, and were black on the left side and white on the right. With the 
kindly man and the waif, it was the opposite. Arya was given servant’s garb: a tunic of 
undyed wool, baggy breeches, linen smallclothes, cloth slippers for her feet. 

Only the kindly man knew the Common Tongue. “Who are you?” he would ask her every 
day. 

“No one,” she would answer, she who had been Arya of House Stark, Arya Underfoot, 
Arya Horseface. She had been Arry and Weasel too, and Squab and Salty, Nan the 
cupbearer, a grey mouse, a sheep, the ghost of Harrenhal . . . but not for true, not in her 
heart of hearts. In there she was Arya of Winterfell, the daughter of Lord Eddard Stark 
and Lady Catelyn, who had once had brothers named Robb and Bran and Rickon, a sister 
named Sansa, a direwolf called Nymeria, a half brother named Jon Snow. In there she 
was someone . . . but that was not the answer that he wanted. 

Without a common language, Arya had no way of talking to the others. She listened to 
them, though, and repeated the words she heard to herself as she went about her work. 
Though the youngest acolyte was blind, he had charge of the candles. He would walk the 
temple in soft slippers, surrounded by the murmurings of the old women who came each 
day to pray. Even without eyes, he always knew which candles had gone out. “He has the 
scent to guide him,” the kindly man explained, “and the air is warmer where a candle 
burns.” He told Arya to close her eyes and try it for herself. 

They prayed at dawn before they broke their fast, kneeling around the still, black pool. 
Some days the kindly man led the prayer. Other days it was the waif. Arya only knew a 
few words of Braavosi, the ones that were the same in High Valyrian. So she prayed her 
own prayer to the Many-Faced God, the one that went, “Ser Gregor, Dunsen, Raff the 
Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei.” She prayed in silence. If the Many-Faced 
God was a proper god, he would hear her. 

Worshipers came to the House of Black and White every day. Most came alone and sat 
alone; they lit candles at one altar or another, prayed beside the pool, and sometimes 
wept. A few drank from the black cup and went to sleep; more did not drink. There were 
no services, no songs, no paeans of praise to please the god. The temple was never full. 
From time to time, a worshiper would ask to see a priest, and the kindly man or the waif 
would take him down into the sanctum, but that did not happen often. 

Thirty different gods stood along the walls, surrounded by their little lights. The Weeping 
Woman was the favorite of old women, Arya saw; rich men preferred the Lion of Night, 
poor men the Hooded Wayfarer. Soldiers lit candles to Bakkalon, the Pale Child, sailors 
to the Moon-Pale Maiden and the Merling King. The Stranger had his shrine as well, 
though hardly anyone ever came to him. Most of the time only a single candle stood 
flickering at his feet. The kindly man said it did not matter. “He has many faces, and 
many ears to hear.” 


The knoll on which the temple stood was honeycombed with passageways hewn from the 
rock. The priests and acolytes had their sleeping cells on the first level, Arya and the 
servants on the second. The lowest level was forbidden to all save the priests. That was 
where the holy sanctum lay. 

When she was not working, Arya was free to wander as she would amongst the vaults 
and storerooms, so long as she did not leave the temple, nor descend to the third cellar. 
She found a room full of weapons and armor: ornate helms and curious old breastplates, 
longswords, daggers, and dirks, crossbows and tall spears with leaf-shaped heads. 
Another vault was crammed with clothing, thick furs and splendid silks in half a hundred 
colors, next to piles of foul-smelling rags and threadbare roughspuns. There must be 
treasure chambers too, Arya decided. She pictured stacks of golden plates, bags of silver 
coins, sapphires blue as the sea, ropes of fat green pearls. 

One day the kindly man came on her unexpectedly and asked what she was doing. She 
told him that she had gotten lost. 

“You lie. Worse, you lie poorly. Who are you?” 

“No one.” 

“Another lie.” He sighed. 

Weese would have beaten her bloody if he had caught her in a lie, but it was different in 
the House of Black and White. When she was helping in the kitchen, Umma would 
sometimes smack her with her spoon if she got in the way, but no one else ever raised a 
hand to her. They only raise their hands to kill, she thought. 

She got along well enough with the cook. Umma would slap a knife into her hand and 
point at an onion, and Arya would chop it. Umma would shove her toward a mound of 
dough, and Arya would knead it until the cook said stop (stop was the first Braavosi word 
she learned). Umma would hand her a fish, and Arya would bone it and fillet it and roll it 
in the nuts the cook was crushing. The brackish waters that surrounded Braavos teemed 
with fish and shellfish of every sort, the kindly man explained. A slow brown river 
entered the lagoon from the south, wandering through a wide expanse of reeds, tidal 
pools, and mudflats. Clams and cockles abounded hereabouts; mussels and muskfish, 
frogs and turtles, mud crabs and leopard crabs and climber crabs, red eels, black eels, 
striped eels, lampreys, and oysters; all made frequent appearances on the carved wooden 
table where the servants of the Many-Faced God took their meals. Some nights Umma 
spiced the fish with sea salt and cracked peppercorns, or cooked the eels with chopped 
garlic. Once in a great while the cook would even use some saffron. Hot Pie would have 
liked it here, Arya thought. 

Supper was her favorite time. It had been a long while since Arya had gone to sleep every 
night with a full belly. Some nights the kindly man would allow her to ask him questions. 
Once she asked him why the people who came to the temple always seemed so peaceful; 


back home, people were scared to die. She remembered how that pimply squire had wept 
when she stabbed him in the belly, and the way Ser Amory Lorch had begged when the 
Goat had him thrown in the bear pit. She remembered the village by the God’s Eye, and 
the way the villagers shrieked and screamed and whimpered whenever the Tickler started 
asking after gold. 

“Death is not the worst thing,” the kindly man replied. “It is His gift to us, an end to want 
and pain. On the day that we are born the Many-Faced God sends each of us a dark angel 
to walk through life beside us. When our sins and our sufferings grow too great to be 
borne, the angel takes us by the hand to lead us to the nightlands, where the stars burn 
ever bright. Those who come to drink from the black cup are looking for their angels. If 
they are afraid, the candles soothe them. When you smell our candles burning, what does 
it make you think of, my child?” 

Winterfell, she might have said. I smell snow and smoke and pine needles. I smell the 
stables. I smell Hodor laughing, and Jon and Robb battling in the yard, and Sansa 
singing about some stupid lady fair. I smell the crypts where the stone kings sit, I smell 
hot bread baking, I smell the godswood. I smell my wolf, I smell her fur, almost as if she 
were still beside me. “I don’t smell anything,” she said, to see what he would say. 

“You lie,” he said, “but you may keep your secrets if you wish, Arya of House Stark.” He 
only called her that when she displeased him. “You know that you may leave this place. 
You are not one of us, not yet. You may go home anytime you wish.” 

“You told me that if I left, I couldn’t come back.” 

“Just so.” 

Those words made her sad. Syrio used to say that too, Arya remembered. He said it all 
the time. Syrio Forel had taught her needlework and died for her. “I don’t want to leave.” 

“Then stay . . . but remember, the House of Black and White is not a home for orphans. 
All men must serve beneath this roof. Valar dohaeris is how we say it here. Remain if 
you will, but know that we shall require your obedience. At all times and in all things. If 
you cannot obey, you must depart.” 

“I can obey.” 

“We shall see.” 

She had other tasks besides helping Umma. She swept the temple floors; she served and 
poured at meals; she sorted piles of dead men’s clothing, emptied their purses, and 
counted out stacks of queer coins. Every morning she walked beside the kindly man as he 
made his circuit of the temple to find the dead. Silent as a shadow, she would tell herself, 
remembering Syrio. She carried a lantern with thick iron shutters. At each alcove, she 
would open the shutter a crack, to look for corpses. 


The dead were never hard to find. They came to the House of Black and White, prayed 
for an hour or a day or a year, drank sweet dark water from the pool, and stretched out on 
a stone bed behind one god or another. They closed their eyes, and slept, and never woke. 
“The gift of the Many-Faced God takes myriad forms,” the kindly man told her, “but here 
it is always gentle.” When they found a body he would say a prayer and make certain life 
had fled, and Arya would fetch the serving men, whose task it was to carry the dead 
down to the vaults. There acolytes would strip and wash the bodies. The dead men’s 
clothes and coins and valuables went into a bin for sorting. Their cold flesh would be 
taken to the lower sanctum where only the priests could go; what happened in there Arya 
was not allowed to know. Once, as she was eating her supper, a terrible suspicion seized 
hold of her, and she put down her knife and stared suspiciously at a slice of pale white 
meat. The kindly man saw the horror on her face. “It is pork, child,” he told her, “only 
pork.” 

Her bed was stone, and reminded her of Harrenhal and the bed she’d slept in when 
scrubbing steps for Weese. The mattress was stuffed with rags instead of straw, which 
made it lumpier than the one she’d had at Harrenhal, but less scratchy too. She was 
allowed as many blankets as she wished; thick woolen blankets, red and green and plaid. 
And her cell was hers alone. She kept her treasures there: the silver fork and floppy hat 
and fingerless gloves given her by the sailors on the Titan’s Daughter, her dagger, boots, 
and belt, her small store of coins, the clothes she had been wearing . . . 

And Needle. 

Though her duties left her little time for needlework, she practiced when she could, 
dueling with her shadow by the light of a blue candle. One night the waif happened to be 
passing and saw Arya at her swordplay. The girl did not say a word, but the next day, the 
kindly man walked Arya back to her cell. “You need to rid yourself of all this,” he said of 
her treasures. 

Arya felt stricken. “They’re mine.” 

“And who are you?” 

“No one.” 

He picked up her silver fork. “This belongs to Arya of House Stark. All these things 
belong to her. There is no place for them here. There is no place for her. Hers is too proud 
a name, and we have no room for pride. We are servants here.” 

“I serve,” she said, wounded. She liked the silver fork. 

“You play at being a servant, but in your heart you are a lord’s daughter. You have taken 
other names, but you wore them as lightly as you might wear a gown. Under them was 
always Arya.” 


“I don’t wear gowns. You can’t fight in a stupid gown.” 

“Why would you wish to fight? Are you some bravo, strutting through the alleys, spoiling 
for blood?” He sighed. “Before you drink from the cold cup, you must offer up all you 
are to Him of Many Faces. Your body. Your soul. Yourself. If you cannot bring yourself 
to do that, you must leave this place.” 

“The iron coin—” 

“—has paid your passage here. From this point you must pay your own way, and the cost 
is dear.” 

“I don’t have any gold.” 

“What we offer cannot be bought with gold. The cost is all of you. Men take many paths 
through this vale of tears and pain. Ours is the hardest. Few are made to walk it. It takes 
uncommon strength of body and spirit, and a heart both hard and strong.” 

I have a hole where my heart should be, she thought, and nowhere else to go. “I’m 
strong. As strong as you. I’m hard.” 

“You believe this is the only place for you.” It was as if he’d heard her thoughts. “You 
are wrong in that. You would find softer service in the household of some merchant. Or 
would you sooner be a courtesan, and have songs sung of your beauty? Speak the word, 
and we will send you to the Black Pearl or the Daughter of the Dusk. You will sleep on 
rose petals and wear silken skirts that rustle when you walk, and great lords will beggar 
themselves for your maiden’s blood. Or if it is marriage and children you desire, tell me, 
and we shall find a husband for you. Some honest apprentice boy, a rich old man, a 
seafarer, whatever you desire.” 

She wanted none of that. Wordless, she shook her head. 

“Is it Westeros you dream of, child? Luco Prestayn’s Lady Bright leaves upon the 
morrow, for Gulltown, Duskendale, King’s Landing, and Tyrosh. Shall we find you 
passage on her?” 

“I only just came from Westeros.” Sometimes it seemed a thousand years since she had 
fled King’s Landing, and sometimes it seemed like only yesterday, but she knew she 
could not go back. “I’ll go if you don’t want me, but I won’t go there.” 

“My wants do not matter,” said the kindly man. “It may be that the Many-Faced God has 
led you here to be His instrument, but when I look at you I see a child . . . and worse, a 
girl child. Many have served Him of Many Faces through the centuries, but only a few of 
His servants have been women. Women bring life into the world. We bring the gift of 
death. No one can do both.” 


He is trying to scare me away, Arya thought, the way he did with the worm. “I don’t care 
about that.” 

“You should. Stay, and the Many-Faced God will take your ears, your nose, your tongue. 
He will take your sad grey eyes that have seen so much. He will take your hands, your 
feet, your arms and legs, your private parts. He will take your hopes and dreams, your 
loves and hates. Those who enter His service must give up all that makes them who they 
are. Can you do that?” He cupped her chin and gazed deep into her eyes, so deep it made 
her shiver. “No,” he said, “I do not think you can.” 

Arya knocked his hand away. “I could if I wanted to.” 

“So says Arya of House Stark, eater of grave worms.” 

“I can give up anything I want!” 

He gestured at her treasures. “Then start with these.” 

That night after supper, Arya went back to her cell and took off her robe and whispered 
her names, but sleep refused to take her. She tossed on her mattress stuffed with rags, 
gnawing on her lip. She could feel the hole inside her where her heart had been. 

In the black of night she rose again, donned the clothes she’d worn from Westeros, and 
buckled on her swordbelt. Needle hung from one hip, her dagger from the other. With her 
floppy hat on her head, her fingerless gloves tucked into her belt, and her silver fork in 
one hand, she went stealing up the steps. There is no place here for Arya of House Stark, 
she was thinking. Arya’s place was Winterfell, only Winterfell was gone. When the 
snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. She had no 
pack, though. They had killed her pack, Ser Ilyn and Ser Meryn and the queen, and when 
she tried to make a new one all of them ran off, Hot Pie and Gendry and Yoren and 
Lommy Greenhands, even Harwin, who had been her father’s man. She shoved through 
the doors, out into the night. 

It was the first time she had been outside since entering the temple. The sky was overcast, 
and fog covered the ground like a frayed grey blanket. Off to her right she heard paddling 
from the canal. Braavos, the Secret City, she thought. The name seemed very apt. She 
crept down the steep steps to the covered dock, the mists swirling round her feet. It was 
so foggy she could not see the water, but she heard it lapping softly at stone pilings. In 
the distance, a light glowed through the gloom: the nightfire at the temple of the red 
priests, she thought. 

At the water’s edge she stopped, the silver fork in hand. It was real silver, solid through 
and through. It’s not my fork. It was Salty that he gave it to. She tossed it underhand, 
heard the soft plop as it sank below the water. 


Her floppy hat went next, then the gloves. They were Salty’s too. She emptied her pouch 
into her palm; five silver stags, nine copper stars, some pennies and halfpennies and 
groats. She scattered them across the water. Next her boots. They made the loudest 
splashes. Her dagger followed, the one she’d gotten off the archer who had begged the 
Hound for mercy. Her swordbelt went into the canal. Her cloak, tunic, breeches, 
smallclothes, all of it. All but Needle. 

She stood on the end of the dock, pale and goosefleshed and shivering in the fog. In her 
hand, Needle seemed to whisper to her. Stick them with the pointy end, it said, and, don’t 
tell Sansa! Mikken’s mark was on the blade. It’s just a sword. If she needed a sword, 
there were a hundred under the temple. Needle was too small to be a proper sword, it was 
hardly more than a toy. She’d been a stupid little girl when Jon had it made for her. “It’s 
just a sword,” she said, aloud this time . . . 

. . . but it wasn’t. 

Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle 
was Winterfell’s grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer 
snows, Old Nan’s stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm 
earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her 
room. Needle was Jon Snow’s smile. He used to mess my hair and call me “little sister,” 
she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes. 

Polliver had stolen the sword from her when the Mountain’s men took her captive, but 
when she and the Hound walked into the inn at the crossroads, there it was. The gods 
wanted me to have it. Not the Seven, nor Him of Many Faces, but her father’s gods, the 
old gods of the north. The Many-Faced God can have the rest, she thought, but he can’t 
have this. 

She padded up the steps as naked as her name day, clutching Needle. Halfway up, one of 
the stones rocked beneath her feet. Arya knelt and dug around its edges with her fingers. 
It would not move at first, but she persisted, picking at the crumbling mortar with her 
nails. Finally, the stone shifted. She grunted and got both hands in and pulled. A crack 
opened before her. 

“You’ll be safe here,” she told Needle. “No one will know where you are but me.” She 
pushed the sword and sheath behind the step, then shoved the stone back into place, so it 
looked like all the other stones. As she climbed back to the temple, she counted steps, so 
she would know where to find the sword again. One day she might have need of it. “One 
day,” she whispered to herself. 

She never told the kindly man what she had done, yet he knew. The next night he came to 
her cell after supper. “Child,” he said, “come sit with me. I have a tale to tell you.” 

“What kind of tale?” she asked, wary. 


“The tale of our beginnings. If you would be one of us, you had best know who we are 
and how we came to be. Men may whisper of the Faceless Men of Braavos, but we are 
older than the Secret City. Before the Titan rose, before the Unmasking of Uthero, before 
the Founding, we were. We have flowered in Braavos amongst these northern fogs, but 
we first took root in Valyria, amongst the wretched slaves who toiled in the deep mines 
beneath the Fourteen Flames that lit the Freehold’s nights of old. Most mines are dank 
and chilly places, cut from cold dead stone, but the Fourteen Flames were living 
mountains with veins of molten rock and hearts of fire. So the mines of old Valyria were 
always hot, and they grew hotter as the shafts were driven deeper, ever deeper. The slaves 
toiled in an oven. The rocks around them were too hot to touch. The air stank of 
brimstone and would sear their lungs as they breathed it. The soles of their feet would 
burn and blister, even through the thickest sandals. Sometimes, when they broke through 
a wall in search of gold, they would find steam instead, or boiling water, or molten rock. 
Certain shafts were cut so low that the slaves could not stand upright, but had to crawl or 
bend. And there were wyrms in that red darkness too.” 

“Earthworms?” she asked, frowning. 

“Firewyrms. Some say they are akin to dragons, for wyrms breathe fire too. Instead of 
soaring through the sky, they bore through stone and soil. If the old tales can be believed, 
there were wyrms amongst the Fourteen Flames even before the dragons came. The 
young ones are no larger than that skinny arm of yours, but they can grow to monstrous 
size and have no love for men.” 

“Did they kill the slaves?” 

“Burnt and blackened corpses were oft found in shafts where the rocks were cracked or 
full of holes. Yet still the mines drove deeper. Slaves perished by the score, but their 
masters did not care. Red gold and yellow gold and silver were reckoned to be more 
precious than the lives of slaves, for slaves were cheap in the old Freehold. During war, 
the Valyrians took them by the thousands. In times of peace they bred them, though only 
the worst were sent down to die in the red darkness.” 

“Didn’t the slaves rise up and fight?” 

“Some did,” he said. “Revolts were common in the mines, but few accomplished much. 
The dragonlords of the old Freehold were strong in sorcery, and lesser men defied them 
at their peril. The first Faceless Man was one who did.” 

“Who was he?” Arya blurted, before she stopped to think. 

“No one,” he answered. “Some say he was a slave himself. Others insist he was a 
freeholder’s son, born of noble stock. Some will even tell you he was an overseer who 
took pity on his charges. The truth is, no one knows. Whoever he was, he moved amongst 
the slaves and would hear them at their prayers. Men of a hundred different nations 
labored in the mines, and each prayed to his own god in his own tongue, yet all were 


praying for the same thing. It was release they asked for, an end to pain. A small thing, 
and simple. Yet their gods made no answer, and their suffering went on. Are their gods 
all deaf? he wondered . . . until a realization came upon him, one night in the red 
darkness. 

“All gods have their instruments, men and women who serve them and help to work their 
will on earth. The slaves were not crying out to a hundred different gods, as it seemed, 
but to one god with a hundred different faces . . . and he was that god’s instrument. That 
very night he chose the most wretched of the slaves, the one who had prayed most 
earnestly for release, and freed him from his bondage. The first gift had been given.” 

Arya drew back from him. “He killed the slave?” That did not sound right. “He should 
have killed the masters!” 

“He would bring the gift to them as well . . . but that is a tale for another day, one best 
shared with no one.” He cocked his head. “And who are you, child?” 

“No one.” 

“A lie.” 

“How do you know? Is it magic?” 

“A man does not need to be a wizard to know truth from falsehood, not if he has eyes. 
You need only learn to read a face. Look at the eyes. The mouth. The muscles here, at the 
corners of the jaw, and here, where the neck joins the shoulders.” He touched her lightly 
with two fingers. “Some liars blink. Some stare. Some look away. Some lick their lips. 
Many cover their mouths just before they tell a lie, as if to hide their deceit. Other signs 
may be more subtle, but they are always there. A false smile and a true one may look 
alike, but they are as different as dusk from dawn. Can you tell dusk from dawn?” 

Arya nodded, though she was not certain that she could. 

“Then you can learn to see a lie . . . and once you do, no secret will be safe from you.” 

“Teach me.” She would be no one if that was what it took. No one had no holes inside 
her. 

“She will teach you,” said the kindly man as the waif appeared outside her door. “Starting 
with the tongue of Braavos. What use are you if you cannot speak or understand? And 
you shall teach her your own tongue. The two of you shall learn together, each from the 
other. Will you do this?” 

“Yes,” she said, and from that moment she was a novice in the House of Black and 
White. Her servant’s garb was taken away, and she was given a robe to wear, a robe of 
black and white as buttery soft as the old red blanket she’d once had at Winterfell. 


Beneath it she wore smallclothes of fine white linen, and a black undertunic that hung 
down past her knees. 

Thereafter she and the waif spent their time together touching things and pointing, as 
each tried to teach the other a few words of her own tongue. Simple words at first, cup 
and candle and shoe; then harder words; then sentences. Once Syrio Forel used to make 
Arya stand on one leg until she was trembling. Later he sent her chasing after cats. She 
had danced the water dance on the limbs of trees, a stick sword in her hand. Those things 
had all been hard, but this was harder. 

Even sewing was more fun than tongues, she told herself, after a night when she had 
forgotten half the words she thought she knew, and pronounced the other half so badly 
that the waif had laughed at her. My sentences are as crooked as my stitches used to be. If 
the girl had not been so small and starved, Arya would have smashed her stupid face. 
Instead she gnawed her lip. Too stupid to learn and too stupid to give up. 

The Common Tongue came to the waif more quickly. One day at supper she turned to 
Arya, and asked, “Who are you?” 

“No one,” Arya answered, in Braavosi. 

“You lie,” said the waif. “You must lie gooder.” 

Arya laughed. “Gooder? You mean better, stupid.” 

“Better stupid. I will show you.” 

The next day they began the lying game, asking questions of one another, taking turns. 
Sometimes they would answer truly, sometimes they would lie. The questioner had to try 
and tell what was true and what was false. The waif always seemed to know. Arya had to 
guess. Most of the time she guessed wrong. 

“How many years have you?” the waif asked her once, in the Common Tongue. “Ten,” 
said Arya, and raised ten fingers. She thought she was still ten, though it was hard to 
know for certain. The Braavosi counted days differently than they did in Westeros. For 
all she knew her name day had come and gone. 

The waif nodded. Arya nodded back, and in her best Braavosi said, “How many years 
have you?” 

The waif showed ten fingers. Then ten again, and yet again. Then six. Her face remained 
as smooth as still water. She can’t be six-and-thirty, Arya thought. She’s a little girl. 
“You’re lying,” she said. The waif shook her head and showed her once again: ten and 
ten and ten and six. She said the words for six-and-thirty, and made Arya say them too. 


The next day she told the kindly man what the waif had claimed. “She did not lie,” the 
priest said, chuckling. “The one you call waif is a woman grown who has spent her life 
serving Him of Many Faces. She gave Him all she was, all she ever might have been, all 
the lives that were within her.” 

Arya bit her lip. “Will I be like her?” 

“No,” he said, “not unless you wish it. It is the poisons that have made her as you see 
her.” 

Poisons. She understood then. Every evening after prayer the waif emptied a stone flagon 
into the waters of the black pool. 

The waif and kindly man were not the only servants of the Many-Faced God. From time 
to time others would visit the House of Black and White. The fat fellow had fierce black 
eyes, a hook nose, and a wide mouth full of yellow teeth. The stern face never smiled; his 
eyes were pale, his lips full and dark. The handsome man had a beard of a different color 
every time she saw him, and a different nose, but he was never less than comely. Those 
three came most often, but there were others: the squinter, the lordling, the starved man. 
One time the fat fellow and the squinter came together. Umma sent Arya to pour for 
them. “When you are not pouring, you must stand as still as if you had been carved of 
stone,” the kindly man told her. “Can you do that?” 

“Yes.” Before you can learn to move you must learn to be still, Syrio Forel had taught her 
long ago at King’s Landing, and she had. She had served as Roose Bolton’s cupbearer at 
Harrenhal, and he would flay you if you spilled his wine. 

“Good,” the kindly man said. “It would be best if you were blind and deaf as well. You 
may hear things, but you must let them pass in one ear and out the other. Do not listen.” 

Arya heard much and more that night, but almost all of it was in the tongue of Braavos, 
and she hardly understood one word in ten. Still as stone, she told herself. The hardest 
part was struggling not to yawn. Before the night was done, her wits were wandering. 
Standing there with the flagon in her hands, she dreamed she was a wolf, running free 
through a moonlit forest with a great pack howling at her heels. 

“Are the other men all priests?” she asked the kindly man the next morning. “Were those 
their real faces?” 

“What do you think, child?” 

She thought no. “Is Jaqen H’ghar a priest too? Do you know if Jaqen will be coming back 
to Braavos?” 

“Who?” he said, all innocence. 


“Jaqen H’ghar. He gave me the iron coin.” 
“I know no one by this name, child.” 
“I asked him how he changed his face, and he said it was no harder than taking a new 


name, if you knew the way.” 
“Did he?” 
“Will you show me how to change my face?” 
“If you wish.” He cupped her chin in his hand and turned her head. “Puff up your cheeks 


and stick out your tongue.” 
Arya puffed up her cheeks and stuck out her tongue. 
“There. Your face is changed.” 
“That’s not how I meant. Jaqen used magic.” 
“All sorcery comes at a cost, child. Years of prayer and sacrifice and study are required to 


work a proper glamor.” 
“Years?” she said, dismayed. 
“If it were easy all men would do it. You must walk before you run. Why use a spell, 


where mummer’s tricks will serve?” 
“I don’t know any mummer’s tricks either.” 
“Then practice making faces. Beneath your skin are muscles. Learn to use them. It is your 


face. Your cheeks, your lips, your ears. Smiles and scowls should not come upon you like 


sudden squalls. A smile should be a servant, and come only when you call it. Learn to 


rule your face.” 

“Show me how.” 
“Puff up your cheeks.” She did. “Lift your eyebrows. No, higher.” She did that too. 
“Good. See how long you can hold that. It will not be long. Try it again on the morrow. 


You will find a Myrish mirror in the vaults. Train before it for an hour every day. Eyes, 
nostrils, cheeks, ears, lips, learn to rule them all.” He cupped her chin. “Who are you?” 
“No one.” 
“A lie. A sad little lie, child.” 



She found the Myrish mirror the next day, and every morn and every night she sat before 
it with a candle on each side of her, making faces. Rule your face, she told herself, and 
you can lie. 

Soon thereafter the kindly man commanded her to help the other acolytes prepare the 
corpses. The work was not near as hard as scrubbing steps for Weese. Sometimes if the 
corpse was big or fat she would struggle with the weight, but most of the dead were old 
dry bones in wrinkled skins. Arya would look at them as she washed them, wondering 
what brought them to the black pool. She remembered a tale she had heard from Old Nan, 
about how sometimes during a long winter men who’d lived beyond their years would 
announce that they were going hunting. And their daughters would weep and their sons 
would turn their faces to the fire, she could hear Old Nan saying, but no one would stop 
them, or ask what game they meant to hunt, with the snows so deep and the cold wind 
howling. She wondered what the old Braavosi told their sons and daughters, before they 
set off for the House of Black and White. 

The moon turned and turned again, though Arya never saw it. She served, washed the 
dead, made faces at the mirrors, learned the Braavosi tongue, and tried to remember that 
she was no one. 

One day the kindly man sent for her. “Your accent is a horror,” he said, “but you have 
enough words to make your wants understood after a fashion. It is time that you left us 
for a while. The only way you will ever truly master our tongue is if you speak it every 
day from dawn to dusk. You must go.” 

“When?” she asked him. “Where?” 

“Now,” he answered. “Beyond these walls you will find the hundred isles of Braavos in 
the sea. You have been taught the words for mussels, cockles, and clams, have you not?” 

“Yes.” She repeated them, in her best Braavosi. 

Her best Braavosi made him smile. “It will serve. Along the wharves below the Drowned 
Town you will find a fishmonger named Brusco, a good man with a bad back. He has 
need of a girl to push his barrow and sell his cockles, clams, and mussels to the sailors off 
the ships. You shall be that girl. Do you understand?” 

“Yes.” 

“And when Brusco asks, who are you?” 

“No one.” 

“No. That will not serve, outside this House.” 

She hesitated. “I could be Salty, from Saltpans.” 


“Salty is known to Ternesio Terys and the men of the Titan’s Daughter. You are marked 
by the way you speak, so you must be some girl of Westeros . . . but a different girl, I 
think.” 

She bit her lip. “Could I be Cat?” 

“Cat.” He considered. “Yes. Braavos is full of cats. One more will not be noticed. You 
are Cat, an orphan of . . .” 

“King’s Landing.” She had visited White Harbor with her father twice, but she knew 
King’s Landing better. 

“Just so. Your father was oarmaster on a galley. When your mother died, he took you off 
to sea with him. Then he died as well, and his captain had no use for you, so he put you 
off the ship in Braavos. And what was the name of the ship?” 

“Nymeria,” she said at once. 

That night she left the House of Black and White. A long iron knife rode on her right hip, 
hidden by her cloak, a patched and faded thing of the sort an orphan might wear. Her 
shoes pinched her toes and her tunic was so threadbare that the wind cut right through it. 
But Braavos lay before her. The night air smelled of smoke and salt and fish. The canals 
were crooked, the alleys crookeder. Men gave her curious looks as she went past, and 
beggar children called out words she could not understand. Before long she was 
completely lost. 

“Ser Gregor,” she chanted, as she crossed a stone bridge supported by four arches. From 
the center of its span she could see the masts of ships in the Ragman’s Harbor. “Dunsen, 
Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei.” Rain began to fall. Arya turned 
her face up to let the raindrops wash her cheeks, so happy she could dance. “Valar 
morghulis,” she said, “valar morghulis, valar morghulis.” 


ALAYNE 

As the rising sun came streaming through the windows, Alayne sat up in bed and 
stretched. Gretchel heard her stir and rose at once to fetch her bedrobe. The rooms had 
grown chilly during the night. It will be worse when winter has us in its grip, she thought. 
Winter will make this place as cold as any tomb. Alayne slipped into the robe and belted 


it about her waist. “The fire’s almost out,” she observed. “Put another log on, if you 
would.” 

“As my lady wishes,” the old woman said. 

Alayne’s apartments in the Maiden’s Tower were larger and more lavish than the little 
bedchamber where she’d been kept when Lady Lysa was alive. She had a dressing room 
and a privy of her own now, and a balcony of carved white stone that looked off across 
the Vale. While Gretchel was tending to the fire, Alayne padded barefoot across the room 
and slipped outside. The stone was cold beneath her feet, and the wind was blowing 
fiercely, as it always did up here, but the view made her forget all that for half a 
heartbeat. Maiden’s was the easternmost of the Eyrie’s seven slender towers, so she had 
the Vale before her, its forests and rivers and fields all hazy in the morning light. The 
way the sun was hitting the mountains made them look like solid gold. 

So lovely. The snow-clad summit of the Giant’s Lance loomed above her, an immensity 
of stone and ice that dwarfed the castle perched upon its shoulder. Icicles twenty feet long 
draped the lip of the precipice where Alyssa’s Tears fell in summer. A falcon soared 
above the frozen waterfall, blue wings spread wide against the morning sky. Would that I 
had wings as well. 

She rested her hands on the carved stone balustrade and made herself peer over the edge. 
She could see Sky six hundred feet below, and the stone steps carved into the mountain, 
the winding way that led past Snow and Stone all the way down to the valley floor. She 
could see the towers and keeps of the Gates of the Moon, as small as a child’s toys. 
Around the walls the hosts of Lords Declarant were stirring, emerging from their tents 
like ants from an anthill. If only they were truly ants, she thought, we could step on them 
and crush them. 

Young Lord Hunter and his levies had joined the others two days past. Nestor Royce had 
closed the Gates against them, but he had fewer than three hundred men in his garrison. 
Each of the Lords Declarant had brought a thousand, and there were six of them. Alayne 
knew their names as well as her own. Benedar Belmore, Lord of Strongsong. Symond 
Templeton, the Knight of Ninestars. Horton Redfort, Lord of Redfort. Anya Waynwood, 
Lady of Ironoaks. Gilwood Hunter, called Young Lord Hunter by all and sundry, Lord of 
Longbow Hall. And Yohn Royce, mightiest of them all, the redoubtable Bronze Yohn, 
Lord of Runestone, Nestor’s cousin and the chief of the senior branch of House Royce. 
The six had gathered at Runestone after Lysa Arryn’s fall, and there made a pact 
together, vowing to defend Lord Robert, the Vale, and one another. Their declaration 
made no mention of the Lord Protector, but spoke of “misrule” that must be ended, and of 
“false friends and evil counselors” as well. 

A cold gust of wind blew up her legs. She went inside to choose a gown to break her fast 
in. Petyr had given her his late wife’s wardrobe, a wealth of silks, satins, velvets, and furs 
far beyond anything she had ever dreamed, though the great bulk of it was far too large 
for her; Lady Lysa had grown very stout during her long succession of pregnancies, 


stillbirths, and miscarriages. A few of the oldest gowns had been made for young Lysa 
Tully of Riverrun, however, and others Gretchel had been able to alter to fit Alayne, who 
was almost as long of leg at three-and-ten as her aunt had been at twenty. 

This morning her eye was caught by a parti-colored gown of Tully red and blue, lined 
with vair. Gretchel helped her slide her arms into the belled sleeves and laced her back, 
then brushed and pinned her hair. Alayne had darkened it again last night before she went 
to bed. The wash her aunt had given her changed her own rich auburn into Alayne’s burnt 
brown, but it was seldom long before the red began creeping back at the roots. And what 
must I do when the dye runs out? The wash had come from Tyrosh, across the narrow 
sea. 

As she went down to break her fast, Alayne was struck again by the stillness of the Eyrie. 
There was no quieter castle in all the Seven Kingdoms. The servants here were few and 
old and kept their voices down so as not to excite the young lord. There were no horses 
on the mountain, no hounds to bark and growl, no knights training in the yard. Even the 
footsteps of the guards seemed strangely muffled as they walked the pale stone halls. She 
could hear the wind moaning and sighing round the towers, but that was all. When she 
had first come to Eyrie, there had been the murmur of Alyssa’s Tears as well, but the 
waterfall was frozen now. Gretchel said it would stay silent till the spring. 

She found Lord Robert alone in the Morning Hall above the kitchens, pushing a wooden 
spoon listlessly through a big bowl of porridge and honey. “I wanted eggs,” he 
complained when he saw her. “I wanted three eggs boiled soft, and some back bacon.” 

They had no eggs, no more than they had bacon. The Eyrie’s granaries held sufficient 
oats and corn and barley to feed them for a year, but they depended on a bastard girl 
named Mya Stone to bring fresh foodstuffs up from the valley floor. With the Lords 
Declarant encamped at the foot of the mountain there was no way for Mya to get through. 
Lord Belmore, first of the six to reach the Gates, had sent a raven to tell Littlefinger that 
no more food would go up to the Eyrie until he sent Lord Robert down. It was not quite a 
siege, not as yet, but it was the next best thing. 

“You can have eggs when Mya comes, as many as you like,” Alayne promised the little 
lordling. “She’ll bring eggs and butter and melons, all sorts of tasty things.” 

The boy was unappeased. “I wanted eggs today.” 

“Sweetrobin, there are no eggs, you know that. Please, eat your porridge, it’s very nice.” 
She ate a spoonful of her own. 

Robert pushed his spoon across the bowl and back, but never brought it to his lips. “I am 
not hungry,” he decided. “I want to go back to bed. I never slept last night. I heard 
singing. Maester Colemon gave me dreamwine but I could still hear it.” 


Alayne put down her spoon. “If there had been singing, I should have heard it too. You 
had a bad dream, that’s all.” 

“No, it wasn’t a dream.” Tears filled his eyes. “Marillion was singing again. Your father 
says he’s dead, but he isn’t.” 

“He is.” It frightened her to hear him talk like this. Bad enough that he is small and 
sickly, what if he is mad as well? “Sweetrobin, he is. Marillion loved your lady mother 
too much and could not live with what he’d done to her, so he walked into the sky.” 
Alayne had not seen the body, no more than Robert had, but she did not doubt the fact of 
the singer’s death. “He’s gone, truly.” 

“But I hear him every night. Even when I close the shutters and put a pillow on my head. 
Your father should have cut his tongue out. I told him to, but he wouldn’t.” 

He needed a tongue to confess. “Be a good boy and eat your porridge,” Alayne pleaded. 
“Please? For me?” 

“I don’t want porridge.” Robert flung his spoon across the hall. It bounced off a hanging 
tapestry, and left a smear of porridge upon a white silk moon. “The lord wants eggs!” 

“The lord shall eat porridge and be thankful for it,” said Petyr’s voice, behind them. 

Alayne turned, and saw him in the doorway arch with Maester Colemon at his side. “You 
should heed the Lord Protector, my lord,” the maester said. “Your lord’s bannermen are 
coming up the mountain to pay you homage, so you will need all your strength.” 

Robert rubbed at his left eye with a knuckle. “Send them away. I don’t want them. If they 
come, I’ll make them fly.” 

“You tempt me sorely, my lord, but I fear I promised them safe conduct,” said Petyr. “In 
any case, it is too late to turn them back. By now they may have climbed as far as Stone.” 

“Why won’t they leave us be?” wailed Alayne. “We never did them any harm. What do 
they want of us?” 

“Just Lord Robert. Him, and the Vale.” Petyr smiled. “There will be eight of them. Lord 
Nestor is showing them up, and they have Lyn Corbray with them. Ser Lyn is not the sort 
of man to stay away when blood is in the offing.” 

His words did little to soothe her fears. Lyn Corbray had slain almost as many men in 
duels as he had in battle. He had won his spurs during Robert’s Rebellion, she knew, 
fighting first against Lord Jon Arryn at the gates of Gulltown, and later beneath his 
banners on the Trident, where he had cut down Prince Lewyn of Dorne, a white knight of 
the Kingsguard. Petyr said that Prince Lewyn had been sorely wounded by the time the 
tide of battle swept him to his final dance with Lady Forlorn, but added, “That’s not a 


point you’ll want to raise with Corbray, though. Those who do are soon given the chance 
to ask Martell himself the truth of it, down in the halls of hell.” If even half of what she 
had heard from Lord Robert’s guards was true, Lyn Corbray was more dangerous than all 
six of the Lords Declarant put together. “Why is he coming?” she asked. “I thought the 
Corbrays were for you.” 

“Lord Lyonel Corbray is well disposed toward my rule,” said Petyr, “but his brother goes 
his own way. On the Trident, when their father fell wounded, it was Lyn who snatched up 
Lady Forlorn and slew the man who’d cut him down. Whilst Lyonel was carrying the old 
man back to the maesters in the rear, Lyn led his charge against the Dornishmen 
threatening Robert’s left, broke their lines to pieces, and slew Lewyn Martell. So when 
old Lord Corbray died, he bestowed the Lady upon his younger son. Lyonel got his lands, 
his title, his castle, and all his coin, yet still feels he was cheated of his birthright, whilst 
Ser Lyn . . . well, he loves Lyonel as much as he loves me. He wanted Lysa’s hand for 
himself.” 

“I don’t like Ser Lyn,” Robert insisted. “I won’t have him here. You send him back 
down. I never said that he could come. Not here. The Eyrie is impregnable, Mother said.” 

“Your mother is dead, my lord. Until your sixteenth name day, I rule the Eyrie.” Petyr 
turned to the stoop-backed serving woman hovering near the kitchen steps. “Mela, fetch 
his lordship a new spoon. He wants to eat his porridge.” 

“I do not! Let my porridge fly!” This time Robert flung the bowl, porridge and honey and 
all. Petyr Baelish ducked aside nimbly, but Maester Colemon was not so quick. The 
wooden bowl caught him square in the chest, and its contents exploded upward over his 
face and shoulders. He yelped in a most unmaesterlike fashion, while Alayne turned to 
soothe the little lordling, but too late. The fit was on him. A pitcher of milk went flying as 
his hand caught it, flailing. When he tried to rise he knocked his chair backwards and fell 
on top of it. One foot caught Alayne in the belly, so hard it knocked the wind from her. 
“Oh, gods be good,” she heard Petyr say, disgusted. 

Globs of porridge dotted Maester Colemon’s face and hair as he knelt over his charge, 
murmuring soothing words. One gobbet crept slowly down his right cheek, like a lumpy 
grey-brown tear. It is not so bad a spell as the last one, Alayne thought, trying to be 
hopeful. By the time the shaking stopped, two guards in sky-blue cloaks and silvery mail 
shirts had come at Petyr’s summons. “Take him back to bed and leech him,” the Lord 
Protector said, and the taller guardsman scooped the boy up in his arms. I could carry him 
myself, Alayne thought. He is no heavier than a doll. 

Colemon lingered a moment before following. “My lord, this parley might best be left for 
another day. His lordship’s spells have grown worse since Lady Lysa’s death. More 
frequent and more violent. I bleed the child as often as I dare, and mix him dreamwine 
and milk of the poppy to help him sleep, but . . .” 

“He sleeps twelve hours a day,” Petyr said. “I require him awake from time to time.” 


The maester combed his fingers through his hair, dribbling globs of porridge on the floor. 
“Lady Lysa would give his lordship her breast whenever he grew overwrought. 
Archmaester Ebrose claims that mother’s milk has many heathful properties.” 

“Is that your counsel, maester? That we find a wet nurse for the Lord of the Eyrie and 
Defender of the Vale? When shall we wean him, on his wedding day? That way he can 
move directly from his nurse’s nipples to his wife’s.” Lord Petyr’s laugh made it plain 
what he thought of that. “No, I think not. I suggest you find another way. The boy is fond 
of sweets, is he not?” 

“Sweets?” said Colemon. 

“Sweets. Cakes and pies, jams and jellies, honey on the comb. Perhaps a pinch of 
sweetsleep in his milk, have you tried that? Just a pinch, to calm him and stop his 
wretched shaking.” 

“A pinch?” The apple in the maester’s throat moved up and down as he swallowed. “One 
small pinch . . . perhaps, perhaps. Not too much, and not too often, yes, I might try . . .” 

“A pinch,” Lord Petyr said, “before you bring him forth to meet the lords.” 

“As you command, my lord.” The maester hurried out, his chain clinking softly with 
every step. 

“Father,” Alayne asked when he was gone, “will you have a bowl of porridge to break 
your fast?” 

“I despise porridge.” He looked at her with Littlefinger’s eyes. “I’d sooner break my fast 
with a kiss.” 

A true daughter would not refuse her sire a kiss, so Alayne went to him and kissed him, a 
quick dry peck upon the cheek, and just as quickly stepped away. 

“How . . . dutiful.” Littlefinger smiled with his mouth, but not his eyes. “Well, I have 
other duties for you, as it happens. Tell the cook to mull some red wine with honey and 
raisins. Our guests will be cold and thirsty after their long climb. You are to meet them 
when they arrive, and offer them refreshment. Wine, bread, and cheese. What sort of 
cheese is left to us?” 

“The sharp white and the stinky blue.” 

“The white. And you’d best change as well.” 

Alayne looked down at her dress, the deep blue and rich dark red of Riverrun. “Is it too— 
” 


“It is too Tully. The Lords Declarant will not be pleased by the sight of my bastard 
daughter prancing about in my dead wife’s clothes. Choose something else. Need I 
remind you to avoid sky blue and cream?” 

“No.” Sky blue and cream were the colors of House Arryn. “Eight, you said . . . Bronze 
Yohn is one of them?” 

“The only one who matters.” 

“Bronze Yohn knows me,” she reminded him. “He was a guest at Winterfell when his son 
rode north to take the black.” She had fallen wildly in love with Ser Waymar, she 
remembered dimly, but that was a lifetime ago, when she was a stupid little girl. “And 
that was not the only time. Lord Royce saw . . . he saw Sansa Stark again at King’s 
Landing, during the Hand’s tourney.” 

Petyr put a finger under her chin. “That Royce glimpsed this pretty face I do not doubt, 
but it was one face in a thousand. A man fighting in a tourney has more to concern him 
than some child in the crowd. And at Winterfell, Sansa was a little girl with auburn hair. 
My daughter is a maiden tall and fair, and her hair is chestnut. Men see what they expect 
to see, Alayne.” He kissed her nose. “Have Maddy lay a fire in the solar. I shall receive 
our Lords Declarant there.” 

“Not the High Hall?” 

“No. Gods forbid they glimpse me near the high seat of the Arryns, they might think that 
I mean to sit in it. Cheeks born so low as mine must never aspire to such lofty cushions.” 

“The solar.” She should have stopped with that, but the words came tumbling out of her. 
“If you gave them Robert . . .” 

“. . . and the Vale?” 

“They have the Vale.” 

“Oh, much of it, that’s true. Not all, however. I am well loved in Gulltown, and have 
some lordly friends of mine own as well. Grafton, Lynderly, Lyonel Corbray . . . though 
I’ll grant you, they are no match for the Lords Declarant. Still, where would you have us 
go, Alayne? Back to my mighty stronghold on the Fingers?” 

She had thought about that. “Joffrey gave you Harrenhal. You are lord in your own right 
there.” 

“By title. I needed a great seat to marry Lysa, and the Lannisters were not about to grant 
me Casterly Rock.” 

“Yes, but the castle is yours.” 


“Ah, and what a castle it is. Cavernous halls and ruined towers, ghosts and draughts, 
ruinous to heat, impossible to garrison . . . and there’s that small matter of a curse.” 

“Curses are only in songs and stories.” 

That seemed to amuse him. “Has someone made a song about Gregor Clegane dying of a 
poisoned spear thrust? Or about the sellsword before him, whose limbs Ser Gregor 
removed a joint at a time? That one took the castle from Ser Amory Lorch, who received 
it from Lord Tywin. A bear killed one, your dwarf the other. Lady Whent’s died as well, I 
hear. Lothstons, Strongs, Harroways, Strongs . . . Harrenhal has withered every hand to 
touch it.” 

“Then give it to Lord Frey.” 

Petyr laughed. “Perhaps I shall. Or better still, to our sweet Cersei. Though I should not 
speak harshly of her, she is sending me some splendid tapestries. Isn’t that kind of her?” 

The mention of the queen’s name made her stiffen. “She’s not kind. She scares me. If she 
should learn where I am—” 

“—I might have to remove her from the game sooner than I’d planned. Provided she does 
not remove herself first.” Petyr teased her with a little smile. “In the game of thrones, 
even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. Sometimes they refuse to make the 
moves you’ve planned for them. Mark that well, Alayne. It’s a lesson that Cersei 
Lannister still has yet to learn. Now, don’t you have some duties to perform?” 

She did indeed. She saw to the mulling of the wine first, found a suitable wheel of sharp 
white cheese, and commanded the cook to bake bread enough for twenty, in case the 
Lords Declarant brought more men than expected. Once they eat our bread and salt they 
are our guests and cannot harm us. The Freys had broken all the laws of hospitality when 
they’d murdered her lady mother and her brother at the Twins, but she could not believe 
that a lord as noble as Yohn Royce would ever stoop to do the same. 

The solar next. Its floor was covered by a Myrish carpet, so there was no need to lay 
down rushes. Alayne asked two serving men to erect the trestle table and bring up eight 
of the heavy oak-and-leather chairs. For a feast she would have placed one at the head of 
the table, one at the foot, and three along each side, but this was no feast. She had the 
men arrange six chairs on one side of the table, two on the other. By now the Lords 
Declarant might have climbed as far as Snow. It took most of a day to make the climb, 
even on muleback. Afoot, most men took several days. 

It might be that the lords would talk late into the night. They would need fresh candles. 
After Maddy laid the fire, she sent her down to find the scented beeswax candles Lord 
Waxley had given Lady Lysa when he sought to win her hand. Then she visited the 
kitchens once again, to make certain of the wine and bread. All seemed well in hand, and 
there was still time enough for her to bathe and wash her hair and change. 


There was a gown of purple silk that gave her pause, and another of dark blue velvet 
slashed with silver that would have woken all the color in her eyes, but in the end she 
remembered that Alayne was after all a bastard, and must not presume to dress above her 
station. The dress she picked was lambswool, dark brown and simply cut, with leaves and 
vines embroidered around the bodice, sleeves, and hem in golden thread. It was modest 
and becoming, though scarce richer than something a serving girl might wear. Petyr had 
given her all of Lady Lysa’s jewels as well, and she tried on several necklaces, but they 
all seemed ostentatious. In the end she chose a simple velvet ribbon in autumn gold. 
When Gretchel fetched her Lysa’s silvered looking glass, the color seemed just perfect 
with Alayne’s mass of dark brown hair. Lord Royce will never know me, she thought. 
Why, I hardly know myself. 

Feeling near as bold as Petyr Baelish, Alayne Stone donned her smile and went down to 
meet their guests. 

The Eyrie was the only castle in the Seven Kingdoms where the main entrance was 
underneath the dungeons. Steep stone steps crept up the mountainside past the waycastles 
Stone and Snow, but they came to an end at Sky. The final six hundred feet of the ascent 
were vertical, forcing would-be visitors to dismount their mules and make a choice. They 
could ride the swaying wooden basket that was used to lift supplies, or clamber up a 
rocky chimney using handholds carved into the rock. 

Lord Redfort and Lady Waynwood, the most elderly of the Lords Declarant, chose to be 
drawn up by the winch, after which the basket was lowered once more for fat Lord 
Belmore. The other lords made the climb. Alayne met them in the Crescent Chamber 
beside a warming fire, where she welcomed them in Lord Robert’s name and served them 
bread and cheese and cups of hot mulled wine in silver cups. 

Petyr had given her a roll of arms to study, so she knew their heraldry if not their faces. 
The red castle was Redfort, plainly; a short man with a neat grey beard and mild eyes. 
Lady Anya was the only woman amongst the Lords Declarant, and wore a deep green 
mantle with the broken wheel of Waynwood picked out in beads of jet. Six silver bells on 
purple, that was Belmore, pear-bellied and round of shoulder. His beard was a ginger-
grey horror sprouting from a multiplicity of chins. Symond Templeton’s, by contrast, was 
black and sharply pointed. A beak of a nose and icy blue eyes made the Knight of 
Ninestars look like some elegant bird of prey. His doublet displayed nine black stars 
within a golden saltire. Young Lord Hunter’s ermine cloak confused her till she spied the 
brooch that pinned it, five silver arrows fanned. Alayne would have put his age closer to 
fifty than to forty. His father had ruled at Longbow Hall for nigh on sixty years, only to 
die so abruptly that some whispered the new lord had hastened his inheritance. Hunter’s 
cheeks and nose were red as apples, which bespoke a certain fondness for the grape. She 
made certain to fill his cup as often as he emptied it. 

The youngest man in the party had three ravens on his chest, each clutching a blood-red 
heart in its talons. His brown hair was shoulder length; one stray lock curled down across 


his forehead. Ser Lyn Corbray, Alayne thought, with a wary glance at his hard mouth and 
restless eyes. 

Last of all came the Royces, Lord Nestor and Bronze Yohn. The Lord of Runestone stood 
as tall as the Hound. Though his hair was grey and his face lined, Lord Yohn still looked 
as though he could break most younger men like twigs in those huge gnarled hands. His 
seamed and solemn face brought back all of Sansa’s memories of his time at Winterfell. 
She remembered him at table, speaking quietly with her mother. She heard his voice 
booming off the walls when he rode back from a hunt with a buck behind his saddle. She 
could see him in the yard, a practice sword in hand, hammering her father to the ground 
and turning to defeat Ser Rodrik as well. He will know me. How could he not? She 
considered throwing herself at his feet to beg for his protection. He never fought for 
Robb, why should he fight for me? The war is finished and Winterfell is fallen. “Lord 
Royce,” she asked timidly, “will you have a cup of wine, to take the chill off?” 

Bronze Yohn had slate-grey eyes, half-hidden beneath the bushiest eyebrows she had 
ever seen. They crinkled when he looked down at her. “Do I know you, girl?” 

Alayne felt as though she had swallowed her tongue, but Lord Nestor rescued her. 
“Alayne is the Lord Protector’s natural daughter,” he told his cousin gruffly. 

“Littlefinger’s little finger has been busy,” said Lyn Corbray, with a wicked smile. 
Belmore laughed, and Alayne could feel the color rising in her cheeks. 

“How old are you, child?” asked Lady Waynwood. 

“Four-fourteen, my lady.” For a moment she forgot how old Alayne should be. “And I 
am no child, but a maiden flowered.” 

“But not deflowered, one can hope.” Young Lord Hunter’s bushy mustache hid his mouth 
entirely. 

“Yet,” said Lyn Corbray, as if she were not there. “But ripe for plucking soon, I’d say.” 

“Is that what passes for courtesy at Heart’s Home?” Anya Waynwood’s hair was greying 
and she had crow’s-feet around her eyes and loose skin beneath her chin, but there was 
no mistaking the air of nobility about her. “The girl is young and gently bred, and has 
suffered enough horrors. Mind your tongue, ser.” 

“My tongue is my concern,” Corbray replied. “Your ladyship should take care to mind 
her own. I have never taken kindly to chastisement, as any number of dead men could tell 
you.” 

Lady Waynwood turned away from him. “Best take us to your father, Alayne. The sooner 
we are done with this, the better.” 


“The Lord Protector awaits you in the solar. If my lords would follow me.” From the 
Crescent Chamber they climbed a steep flight of marble steps that bypassed both 
undercrofts and dungeons and passed beneath three murder holes, which the Lords 
Declarant pretended not to notice. Belmore was soon puffing like a bellows, and 
Redfort’s face turned as grey as his hair. The guards atop the stairs raised the portcullis at 
their coming. “This way, if it please my lords.” Alayne led them down the arcade past a 
dozen splendid tapestries. Ser Lothor Brune stood outside the solar. He opened the door 
for them and followed them inside. 

Petyr was seated at the trestle table with a cup of wine to hand, looking over a crisp white 
parchment. He glanced up as the Lords Declarant filed in. “My lords, be welcome. And 
you as well, my lady. The ascent is wearisome, I know. Please be seated. Alayne, my 
sweet, more wine for our noble guests.” 

“As you say, Father.” The candles had been lighted, she was pleased to see; the solar 
smelled of nutmeg and other costly spices. She went to fetch the flagon whilst the visitors 
arranged themselves side by side . . . all save Nestor Royce, who hesitated before walking 
around the table to take the empty chair beside Lord Petyr, and Lyn Corbray, who went to 
stand beside the hearth instead. The heart-shaped ruby in the pommel of his sword shone 
redly as he warmed his hands. Alayne saw him smile at Ser Lothor Brune. Ser Lyn is very 
handsome, for an older man, she thought, but I do not like the way he smiles. 

“I have been reading this remarkable declaration of yours,” Petyr began. “Splendid. 
Whatever maester wrote this has a gift for words. I only wish you had invited me to sign 
as well.” 

That took them unawares. “You?” said Belmore. “Sign?” 

“I wield a quill as well as any man, and no one loves Lord Robert more than I do. As for 
these false friends and evil counselors, by all means let us root them out. My lords, I am 
with you, heart and hand. Show me where to sign, I beg you.” 

Alayne, pouring, heard Lyn Corbray chuckle. The others seemed at a loss till Bronze 
Yohn Royce cracked his knuckles, and said, “We did not come for your signature. Nor do 
we mean to bandy words with you, Littlefinger.” 

“What a pity. I do so love a nicely bandied word.” Petyr set the parchment to one side. 
“As you wish. Let us be blunt. What would you have of me, my lords and lady?” 

“We will have naught of you.” Symond Templeton fixed the Lord Protector with his cold 
blue stare. “We will have you gone.” 

“Gone?” Petyr feigned surprise. “Where would I go?” 

“The crown has made you Lord of Harrenhal,” Young Lord Hunter pointed out. “That 
should be enough for any man.” 


“The riverlands have need of a lord,” old Horton Redfort said. “Riverrun stands besieged, 
Bracken and Blackwood are at open war, and outlaws roam freely on both sides of the 
Trident, stealing and killing as they will. Unburied corpses litter the landscape 
everywhere you go.” 

“You make it sound so wonderfully attractive, Lord Redfort,” Petyr answered, “but as it 
happens I have pressing duties here. And there is Lord Robert to consider. Would you 
have me drag a sickly child into the midst of such carnage?” 

“His lordship will remain in the Vale,” declared Yohn Royce. 

“I mean to take the boy with me to Runestone, and raise him up to be a knight that Jon 
Arryn would be proud of.” 

“Why Runestone?” Petyr mused. “Why not Ironoaks or the Redfort? Why not Longbow 
Hall?” 

“Any of these would serve as well,” declared Lord Belmore, “and his lordship will visit 
each in turn, in due time.” 

“Will he?” Petyr’s tone seemed to hint at doubts. 

Lady Waynwood sighed. “Lord Petyr, if you think to set us one against the other, you 
may spare yourself the effort. We speak with one voice here. Runestone suits us all. Lord 
Yohn raised three fine sons of his own, there is no man more fit to foster his young 
lordship. Maester Helliweg is a good deal older and more experienced than your own 
Maester Colemon, and better suited to treat Lord Robert’s frailties. In Runestone the boy 
will learn the arts of war from Strong Sam Stone. No man could hope for a finer masterat-
arms. Septon Lucos will instruct him in matters of the spirit. At Runestone he will also 
find other boys his own age, more suitable companions than the old women and 
sellswords that presently surround him.” 

Petyr Baelish fingered his beard. “His lordship needs companions, I do not disagree. 
Alayne is hardly an old woman, though. Lord Robert loves my daughter dearly, he will 
be glad to tell you so himself. And as it happens, I have asked Lord Grafton and Lord 
Lynderly to send me each a son to ward. Each of them has a boy of an age with Robert.” 

Lyn Corbray laughed. “Two pups from a pair of lapdogs.” 

“Robert should have an older boy about him too. A promising young squire, say. 
Someone he could admire and try to emulate.” Petyr turned to Lady Waynwood. “You 
have such a boy at Ironoaks, my lady. Perhaps you might agree to send me Harrold 
Hardyng.” 

Anya Waynwood seemed amused. “Lord Petyr, you are as bold a thief as I’d ever care to 
meet.” 


“I do not wish to steal the boy,” said Petyr, “but he and Lord Robert should be friends.” 

Bronze Yohn Royce leaned forward. “It is meet and proper that Lord Robert should 
befriend young Harry, and he shall . . . at Runestone, under my care, as my ward and 
squire.” 

“Give us the boy,” said Lord Belmore, “and you may depart the Vale unmolested for 
your proper seat at Harrenhal.” 

Petyr gave him a look of mild reproach. “Are you suggesting that elsewise I might come 
to harm, my lord? I cannot think why. My late wife seemed to think this was my proper 
seat.” 

“Lord Baelish,” Lady Waynwood said, “Lysa Tully was Jon Arryn’s widow and the 
mother of his child, and ruled here as his regent. You . . . let us be frank, you are no 
Arryn, and Lord Robert is no blood of yours. By what right do you presume to rule us?” 

“Lysa named me Lord Protector, I do seem to recall.” 

Young Lord Hunter said, “Lysa Tully was never truly of the Vale, nor had she the right to 
dispose of us.” 

“And Lord Robert?” Petyr asked. “Will your lordship also claim that Lady Lysa had no 
right to dispose of her own son?” 

Nestor Royce had been silent all this while, but now he spoke up loudly. “I once hoped to 
wed Lady Lysa myself. As did Lord Hunter’s father and Lady Anya’s son. Corbray 
scarce left her side for half a year. Had she chosen any one of us, no man here would 
dispute his right to be the Lord Protector. It happens that she chose Lord Littlefinger, and 
entrusted her son to his care.” 

“He was Jon Arryn’s son as well, cousin,” Bronze Yohn said, frowning at the Keeper. 
“He belongs to the Vale.” 

Petyr feigned puzzlement. “The Eyrie is as much a part of the Vale as Runestone. Unless 
someone has moved it?” 

“Jape all you like, Littlefinger,” Lord Belmore blustered. “The boy shall come with us.” 

“I am loath to disappoint you, Lord Belmore, but my stepson will be remaining here with 
me. He is not a robust child, as all of you know well. The journey would tax him sorely. 
As his stepfather and Lord Protector, I cannot permit it.” 

Symond Templeton cleared his throat, and said, “Each of us has a thousand men at the 
foot of this mountain, Littlefinger.” 


“What a splendid place for them.” 
“If need be, we can summon many more.” 
“Are you threatening me with war, ser?” Petyr did not sound the least afraid. 
Bronze Yohn said, “We shall have Lord Robert.” 
For a moment it seemed as though they had come to an impasse, until Lyn Corbray 


turned from the fire. “All this talk makes me ill. Littlefinger will talk you out of your 
smallclothes if you listen long enough. The only way to settle his sort is with steel.” He 
drew his longsword. 

Petyr spread his hands. “I wear no sword, ser.” 
“Easily remedied.” Candlelight rippled along the smoke-grey steel of Corbray’s blade, so 


dark that it put Sansa in mind of Ice, her father’s greatsword. “Your apple-eater holds a 
blade. Tell him to give it to you, or draw that dagger.” 
She saw Lothor Brune reach for his own sword, but before the blades could meet Bronze 

Yohn rose in wrath. “Put up your steel, ser! Are you a Corbray or a Frey? We are guests 
here.” 

Lady Waynwood pursed her lips, and said, “This is unseemly.” 
“Sheathe your sword, Corbray,” Young Lord Hunter echoed. “You shame us all with 
this.” 


“Come, Lyn,” chided Redfort in a softer tone. “This will serve for nought. Put Lady 


Forlorn to bed.” 
“My lady has a thirst,” Ser Lyn insisted. “Whenever she comes out to dance, she likes a 
drop of red.” 


“Your lady must go thirsty.” Bronze Yohn put himself squarely in Corbray’s path. 
“The Lords Declarant.” Lyn Corbray snorted. “You should have named yourselves the 

Six Old Women.” He slid the dark sword back into its scabbard and left them, 
shouldering Brune aside as if he were not there. Alayne listened to his footsteps recede. 
Anya Waynwood and Horton Redfort exchanged a look. Hunter drained his wine cup and 


held it out to be refilled. “Lord Baelish,” Ser Symond said, “you must forgive us that 
display.” 
“Must I?” Littlefinger’s voice had grown cold. “You brought him here, my lords.” 



Bronze Yohn said, “It was never our intent—” 

“You brought him here. I would be well within my rights to call my guards and have all 
of you arrested.” 

Hunter lurched to his feet so wildly that he almost knocked the flagon out of Alayne’s 
hands. “You gave us safe conduct!” 

“Yes. Be grateful that I have more honor than some.” Petyr sounded as angry as she had 
ever heard him. “I have read your declaration and heard your demands. Now hear mine. 
Remove your armies from this mountain. Go home and leave my son in peace. Misrule 
there has been, I will not deny it, but that was Lysa’s work, not mine. Grant me but a 
year, and with Lord Nestor’s help I promise that none of you shall have any cause for 
grievance.” 

“So you say,” said Belmore. “Yet how shall we trust you?” 

“You dare call me untrustworthy? It was not me who bared steel at a parley. You write of 
defending Lord Robert even as you deny him food. That must end. I am no warrior, but I 
will fight you if you do not lift this siege. There are other lords besides you in the Vale, 
and King’s Landing will send men as well. If it is war you want, say so now and the Vale 
will bleed.” 

Alayne could see the doubt blooming in the eyes of the Lords Declarant. “A year is not so 
long a time,” Lord Redfort said uncertainly. “Mayhaps . . . if you gave assurances . . .” 

“None of us wants war,” acknowledged Lady Waynwood. “Autumn wanes, and we must 
gird ourselves for winter.” 

Belmore cleared his throat. “At the end of this year . . .” 

“. . . if I have not set the Vale to rights, I shall willingly step down as Lord Protector,” 
Petyr promised them. 

“I call that more than fair,” Lord Nestor Royce put in. 

“There must be no reprisals,” insisted Templeton. “No talk of treason or rebellion. You 
must swear to that as well.” 

“Gladly,” said Petyr. “It is friends I want, not foes. I shall pardon all of you, in writing if 
you wish. Even Lyn Corbray. His brother is a good man, there is no need to bring down 
shame upon a noble House.” 

Lady Waynwood turned to her fellow Lords Declarant. “My lords, perhaps we might 
confer?” 


“There is no need. It is plain that he has won.” Bronze Yohn’s grey eyes considered Petyr 
Baelish. “I like it not, but it would seem you have your year. Best use it well, my lord. 
Not all of us are fooled.” He opened the door so forcefully that he all but wrenched it off 
its hinges. 

Later there was a feast of sorts, though Petyr was forced to make apologies for the 
humble fare. Robert was trotted out in a doublet of cream and blue, and played the little 
lord quite graciously. Bronze Yohn was not there to see; he had already departed from the 
Eyrie to begin the long descent, as had Ser Lyn Corbray before him. The other lords 
remained with them till morn. 

He bewitched them, Alayne thought as she lay abed that night listening to the wind howl 
outside her windows. She could not have said where the suspicion came from, but once it 
crossed her mind it would not let her sleep. She tossed and turned, worrying at it like a 
dog at some old bone. Finally, she rose and dressed herself, leaving Gretchel to her 
dreams. 

Petyr was still awake, scratching out a letter. “Alayne,” he said. “My sweet. What brings 
you here so late?” 

“I had to know. What will happen in a year?” 

He put down his quill. “Redfort and Waynwood are old. One or both of them may die. 
Gilwood Hunter will be murdered by his brothers. Most likely by young Harlan, who 
arranged Lord Eon’s death. In for a penny, in for a stag, I always say. Belmore is corrupt 
and can be bought. Templeton I shall befriend. Bronze Yohn Royce will continue to be 
hostile, I fear, but so long as he stands alone he is not so much a threat.” 

“And Ser Lyn Corbray?” 

The candlelight was dancing in his eyes. “Ser Lyn will remain my implacable enemy. He 
will speak of me with scorn and loathing to every man he meets, and lend his sword to 
every secret plot to bring me down.” 

That was when her suspicion turned to certainty. “And how shall you reward him for this 
service?” 

Littlefinger laughed aloud. “With gold and boys and promises, of course. Ser Lyn is a 
man of simple tastes, my sweetling. All he likes is gold and boys and killing.” 



CERSEI 


The king was pouting. “I want to sit on the Iron Throne,” he told her. “You always let 
Joff sit up there.” 
“Joffrey was twelve.” 
“But I’m the king. The throne belongs to me.” 
“Who told you that?” Cersei took a deep breath, so Dorcas could lace her up more tightly. 


She was a big girl, much stronger than Senelle, though clumsier as well. 
Tommen’s face turned red. “No one told me.” 
“No one? Is that what you call your lady wife?” The queen could smell Margaery Tyrell 


all over this rebellion. “If you lie to me, I will have no choice but to send for Pate and 
have him beaten till he bleeds.” Pate was Tommen’s whipping boy, as he had been 
Joffrey’s. “Is that what you want?” 

“No,” the king muttered sullenly. 
“Who told you?” 
He shuffled his feet. “Lady Margaery.” He knew better than to call her queen in his 


mother’s hearing. 
“That is better. Tommen, I have grave matters to decide, matters that you are far too 
young to understand. I do not need a silly little boy fidgeting on the throne behind me and 


distracting me with childish questions. I suppose Margaery thinks you ought to be at my 
council meetings too?” 
“Yes,” he admitted. “She says I have to learn to be king.” 
“When you are older, you can attend as many councils as you wish,” Cersei told him. “I 


promise you, you will soon grow sick of them. Robert used to doze through the sessions.” 
When he troubled to attend at all. “He preferred to hunt and hawk, and leave the tedium 
to old Lord Arryn. Do you remember him?” 

“He died of a bellyache.” 
“So he did, poor man. As you are so eager to learn, perhaps you should learn the names 


of all the kings of Westeros and the Hands who served them. You may recite them to me 
on the morrow.” 
“Yes, Mother,” he said meekly. 



“That’s my good boy.” The rule was hers; Cersei did not mean to give it up until 
Tommen came of age. I waited, so can he. I waited half my life. She had played the 
dutiful daughter, the blushing bride, the pliant wife. She had suffered Robert’s drunken 
groping, Jaime’s jealousy, Renly’s mockery, Varys with his titters, Stannis endlessly 
grinding his teeth. She had contended with Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and her vile, 
treacherous, murderous dwarf brother, all the while promising herself that one day it 
would be her turn. If Margaery Tyrell thinks to cheat me of my hour in the sun, she had 
bloody well think again. 

Still, it was an ill way to break her fast, and Cersei’s day did not soon improve. She spent 
the rest of the morning with Lord Gyles and his ledger books, listening to him cough 
about stars and stags and dragons. After him Lord Waters arrived, to report that the first 
three dromonds were nearing completion and beg for more gold to finish them in the 
splendor they deserved. The queen was pleased to grant him his request. Moon Boy 
capered as she took her midday meal with members of the merchant guilds and listened 
to them complain about sparrows wandering the streets and sleeping in the squares. I may 
need to use the gold cloaks to chase these sparrows from the city, she was thinking, when 
Pycelle intruded. 

The Grand Maester had been especially querulous in council of late. At the last session he 
had complained bitterly about the men that Aurane Waters had chosen to captain her new 
dromonds. Waters meant to give the ships to younger men, whilst Pycelle argued for 
experience, insisting that the commands should go to those captains who had survived the 
fires of the Blackwater. “Seasoned men of proven loyalty,” he called them. Cersei called 
them old, and sided with Lord Waters. “The only thing these captains proved was that 
they know how to swim,” she’d said. “No mother should outlive her children, and no 
captain should outlive his ship.” Pycelle had taken the rebuke with ill grace. 

He seemed less choleric today, and even managed a sort of tremulous smile. “Your 
Grace, glad tidings,” he announced. “Wyman Manderly has done as you commanded, and 
beheaded Lord Stannis’s onion knight.” 

“We know this for a certainty?” 

“The man’s head and hands have been mounted above the walls of White Harbor. Lord 
Wyman avows this, and the Freys confirm. They have seen the head there, with an onion 
in its mouth. And the hands, one marked by his shortened fingers.” 

“Very good,” said Cersei. “Send a bird to Manderly and inform him that his son will be 
returned forthwith, now that he has demonstrated his loyalty.” White Harbor would soon 
return to the king’s peace, and Roose Bolton and his bastard son were closing in on Moat 
Cailin from south and north. Once the Moat was theirs, they would join their strength and 
clear the ironmen out of Torrhen’s Square and Deepwood Motte as well. That should win 
them the allegiance of Ned Stark’s remaining bannermen when the time came to march 
against Lord Stannis. 


To the south, meanwhile, Mace Tyrell had raised a city of tents outside Storm’s End and 
had two dozen mangonels flinging stones against the castle’s massive walls, thus far to 
small effect. Lord Tyrell the warrior, the queen mused. His sigil ought to be a fat man 
sitting on his arse. 

That afternoon the dour Braavosi envoy turned up for his audience. Cersei had put him 
off for a fortnight and would have gladly put him off another year, but Lord Gyles 
claimed he could no longer deal with the man . . . though the queen was starting to 
wonder if Gyles was capable of doing anything but coughing. 

Noho Dimittis, the Braavosi named himself. An irritating name for an irritating man. His 
voice was irritating too. Cersei shifted in her seat as he went on, wondering how long she 
must endure his hectoring. Behind her loomed the Iron Throne, its barbs and blades 
throwing twisted shadows across the floor. Only the king or his Hand could sit upon the 
throne itself. Cersei sat by its foot, in a seat of gilded wood piled with crimson cushions. 

When the Braavosi paused for breath, she saw her chance. “This is more properly a 
matter for our lord treasurer.” 

That answer did not please the noble Noho, it would seem. “I have spoken with Lord 
Gyles six times. He coughs at me and makes excuses, Your Grace, but the gold is not 
forthcoming.” 

“Speak to him a seventh time,” Cersei suggested pleasantly. “The number seven is sacred 
to our gods.” 

“It pleases Your Grace to make a jest, I see.” 

“When I make a jest I smile. Do you see me smiling? Do you hear laughter? I assure you, 
when I make a jest, men laugh.” 

“King Robert—” 

“—is dead,” she said sharply. “The Iron Bank will have its gold when this rebellion has 
been put down.” 

He had the insolence to scowl at her. “Your Grace—” 

“This audience is at an end.” Cersei had suffered quite enough for one day. “Ser Meryn, 
show the noble Noho Dimittis to the door. Ser Osmund, you may escort me back to my 
apartments.” Her guests would soon arrive, and she had to bathe and change. Supper 
promised to be a tedious affair as well. It was hard work to rule a kingdom, much less 
seven of them. 


Ser Osmund Kettleblack fell in beside her on the steps, tall and lean in his Kingsguard 
whites. When Cersei was certain they were quite alone, she slid her arm through his. 
“How is your little brother faring, pray?” 

Ser Osmund looked uneasy. “Ah . . . well enough, only . . .” 

“Only?” The queen let a hint of anger edge her words. “I must confess, I am running 
short of patience with dear Osney. It is past time he broke in that little filly. I named him 
Tommen’s sworn shield so he could spend part of every day in Margaery’s company. He 
should have plucked the rose by now. Is the little queen blind to his charms?” 

“His charms is fine. He’s a Kettleblack, ain’t he? Begging your pardon.” Ser Osmund ran 
his fingers through his oily black hair. “It’s her that’s the trouble.” 

“And why is that?” The queen had begun to nurse doubts about Ser Osney. Perhaps 
another man would have been more to Margaery’s liking. Aurane Waters, with that 
silvery hair, or a big strapping fellow like Ser Tallad. “Would the maid prefer someone 
else? Does your brother’s face displease her?” 

“She likes his face. She touched his scars two days ago, he told me. ‘What woman gave 
you these?’ she asked. Osney never said it was a woman, but she knew. Might be 
someone told her. She’s always touching him when they talk, he says. Straightening the 
clasp on his cloak, brushing back his hair, and like that. One time at the archery butts she 
had him show her how to hold a longbow, so he had to put his arms around her. Osney 
tells her bawdy jests, and she laughs and comes back with ones that are even bawdier. 
No, she wants him, that’s plain, but . . .” 

“But?” Cersei prompted. 

“They are never alone. The king’s with them most all the time, and when he’s not, there’s 
someone else. Two of her ladies share her bed, different ones every night. Two others 
bring her breakfast and help her dress. She prays with her septa, reads with her cousin 
Elinor, sings with her cousin Alla, sews with her cousin Megga. When she’s not off 
hawking with Janna Fossoway and Merry Crane, she’s playing come-into-my-castle with 
that little Bulwer girl. She never goes riding but she takes a tail, four or five companions 
and a dozen guards at least. And there’s always men about her, even in the Maidenvault.” 

“Men.” That was something. That had possibilities. “What men are these, pray tell?” 

Ser Osmund shrugged. “Singers. She’s a fool for singers and jugglers and such. Knights, 
come round to moon over her cousins. Ser Tallad’s the worst, Osney says. That big oaf 
don’t seem to know if it’s Elinor or Alla he wants, but he knows he wants her awful bad. 
The Redwyne twins come calling too. Slobber brings flowers and fruit, and Horror’s 
taken up the lute. To hear Osney tell it, you could make a sweeter sound strangling a cat. 
The Summer Islander’s always underfoot as well.” 


“Jalabhar Xho?” Cersei gave a derisive snort. “Begging her for gold and swords to win 
his homeland back, most like.” Beneath his jewels and feathers, Xho was little more than 
a wellborn beggar. Robert could have put an end to his importuning for good with one 
firm “No,” but the notion of conquering the Summer Isles had appealed to her drunken 
lout of a husband. No doubt he dreamt of brown-skinned wenches naked beneath 
feathered cloaks, with nipples black as coal. So instead of “No,” Robert always told Xho, 
“Next year,” though somehow next year never came. 

“I couldn’t say if he was begging, Your Grace,” Ser Osmund answered. “Osney says he’s 
teaching them the Summer Tongue. Not Osney, the quee—the filly and her cousins.” 

“A horse that speaks the Summer Tongue would make a great sensation,” the queen said 
dryly. “Tell your brother to keep his spurs well honed. I shall find some way for him to 
mount his filly soon, you may rely on that.” 

“I’ll tell him, Your Grace. He’s eager for that ride, don’t think he ain’t. She’s a pretty 
little thing, that filly.” 

It is me he’s eager for, fool, the queen thought. All he wants of Margaery is the lordship 
between her legs. As fond as she was of Osmund, at times he seemed as slow as Robert. I 
hope his sword is quicker than his wits. The day may come that Tommen has some need 
of it. 

They were crossing beneath the shadow of the broken Tower of the Hand when the sound 
of cheers swept over them. Across the yard, some squire had made a pass at the quintain 
and sent the crossarm spinning. The cheers were being led by Margaery Tyrell and her 
hens. A lot of uproar for very little. You would think the boy had won a tourney. Then she 
was startled to see that it was Tommen on the courser, clad all in gilded plate. 

The queen had little choice but to don a smile and go to see her son. She reached him as 
the Knight of Flowers was helping him from his horse. The boy was breathless with 
excitement. “Did you see?” he was asking everyone. “I did it just the way Ser Loras said. 
Did you see, Ser Osney?” 

“I did,” said Osney Kettleblack. “A pretty sight.” 

“You have a better seat than me, sire,” put in Ser Dermot. 

“I broke the lance too. Ser Loras, did you hear it?” 

“As loud as a crack of thunder.” A rose of jade and gold clasped Ser Loras’s white cloak 
at the shoulder, and the wind was riffling artfully through his brown locks. “You rode a 
splendid course, but once is not enough. You must do it again upon the morrow. You 
must ride every day, until every blow lands true and straight, and your lance is as much a 
part of you as your arm.” 


“I want to.” 

“You were glorious.” Margaery went to one knee, kissed the king upon his cheek, and put 
an arm around him. “Brother, take care,” she warned Loras. “My gallant husband will be 
unhorsing you in a few more years, I think.” Her three cousins all agreed, and the 
wretched little Bulwer girl began to hop about, chanting, “Tommen will be the champion, 
the champion, the champion.” 

“When he is a man grown,” said Cersei. 

Their smiles withered like roses kissed by frost. The pock-faced old septa was the first to 
bend her knee. The rest followed, save for the little queen and her brother. 

Tommen did not seem to notice the sudden chill in the air. “Mother, did you see me?” he 
burbled happily. “I broke my lance on the shield, and the bag never hit me!” 

“I was watching from across the yard. You did very well, Tommen. I would expect no 
less of you. Jousting is in your blood. One day you shall rule the lists, as your father did.” 

“No man will stand before him.” Margaery Tyrell gave the queen a coy smile. “But I 
never knew that King Robert was so accomplished at the joust. Pray tell us, Your Grace, 
what tourneys did he win? What great knights did he unseat? I know the king should like 
to hear about his father’s victories.” 

A flush crept up Cersei’s neck. The girl had caught her out. Robert Baratheon had been 
an indifferent jouster, in truth. During tourneys he had much preferred the mêlée, where 
he could beat men bloody with blunted axe or hammer. It had been Jaime she had been 
thinking of when she spoke. It is not like me to forget myself. “Robert won the tourney of 
the Trident,” she had to say. “He overthrew Prince Rhaegar and named me his queen of 
love and beauty. I am surprised you do not know that story, good-daughter.” She gave 
Margaery no time to frame a reply. “Ser Osmund, help my son from his armor, if you 
would be so good. Ser Loras, walk with me. I need a word with you.” 

The Knight of Flowers had no recourse but to follow at her heels like the puppy he was. 
Cersei waited until they were on the serpentine steps before she said, “Whose notion was 
that, pray?” 

“My sister’s,” he admitted. “Ser Tallad, Ser Dermot, and Ser Portifer were riding at the 
quintain, and the queen suggested that His Grace might like to have a turn.” 

He calls her that to irk me. “And your part?” 

“I helped His Grace to don his armor and showed him how to couch his lance,” he 
answered. 


“That horse was much too large for him. What if he had fallen off? What if the sandbag 
had smashed his head in?” 

“Bruises and bloody lips are all part of being a knight.” 

“I begin to understand why your brother is a cripple.” That wiped the smile off his pretty 
face, she was pleased to see. “Perhaps my brother failed to explain your duties to you, 
ser. You are here to protect my son from his enemies. Training him for knighthood is the 
province of the master-at-arms.” 

“The Red Keep has had no master-at-arms since Aron Santagar was slain,” Ser Loras 
said, with a hint of reproach in his voice. “His Grace is almost nine, and eager to learn. At 
his age he should be a squire. Someone has to teach him.” 

Someone will, but it will not be you. “Pray, who did you squire for, ser?” she asked 
sweetly. “Lord Renly, was it not?” 

“I had that honor.” 

“Yes, I thought as much.” Cersei had seen how tight the bonds grew between squires and 
the knights they served. She did not want Tommen growing close to Loras Tyrell. The 
Knight of Flowers was no sort of man for any boy to emulate. “I have been remiss. With 
a realm to rule, a war to fight, and a father to mourn, somehow I overlooked the crucial 
matter of naming a new master-at-arms. I shall rectify that error at once.” 

Ser Loras pushed back a brown curl that had fallen across his forehead. “Your Grace will 
not find any man half so skilled with sword and lance as I.” 

Humble, aren’t we? “Tommen is your king, not your squire. You are to fight for him and 
die for him, if need be. No more.” 

She left him on the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat with its bed of iron spikes and 
entered Maegor’s Holdfast alone. Where am I to find a master-at-arms? she wondered as 
she climbed to her apartments. Having refused Ser Loras, she dare not turn to any of the 
Kingsguard knights; that would be salt in the wound, certain to anger Highgarden. Ser 
Tallad? Ser Dermot? There must be someone. Tommen was growing fond of his new 
sworn shield, but Osney was proving himself less capable than she had hoped in the 
matter of Maid Margaery, and she had a different office in mind for his brother Osfryd. It 
was rather a pity that the Hound had gone rabid. Tommen had always been frightened of 
Sandor Clegane’s harsh voice and burned face, and Clegane’s scorn would have been the 
perfect antidote to Loras Tyrell’s simpering chivalry. 

Aron Santagar was Dornish, Cersei recalled. I could send to Dorne. Centuries of blood 
and war lay between Sunspear and Highgarden. Yes, a Dornishman might suit my needs 
admirably. There must be some good swords in Dorne. 


When she entered her solar, Cersei found Lord Qyburn reading in a window seat. “If it 
please Your Grace, I have reports.” 

“More plots and treasons?” Cersei asked. “I have had a long and tiring day. Tell me 
quickly.” 

He smiled sympathetically. “As you wish. There is talk that the Archon of Tyrosh has 
offered terms to Lys, to end their present trade war. It had been rumored that Myr was 
about to enter the war on the Tyroshi side, but without the Golden Company the Myrish 
did not believe they . . .” 

“What the Myrish believe does not concern me.” The Free Cities were always fighting 
one another. Their endless betrayals and alliances meant little and less to Westeros. “Do 
you have any news of more import?” 

“The slave revolt in Astapor has spread to Meereen, it would seem. Sailors off a dozen 
ships speak of dragons . . .” 

“Harpies. It is harpies in Meereen.” She remembered that from somewhere. Meereen was 
at the far end of the world, out east beyond Valyria. “Let the slaves revolt. Why should I 
care? We keep no slaves in Westeros. Is that all you have for me?” 

“There is some news from Dorne that Your Grace may find of more interest. Prince 
Doran has imprisoned Ser Daemon Sand, a bastard who once squired for the Red Viper.” 

“I recall him.” Ser Daemon had been amongst the Dornish knights who had accompanied 
Prince Oberyn to King’s Landing. “What did he do?” 

“He demanded that Prince Oberyn’s daughters be set free.” 

“More fool him.” 

“Also,” Lord Qyburn said, “the daughter of the Knight of Spottswood was betrothed 
quite unexpectedly to Lord Estermont, our friends in Dorne inform us. She was sent to 
Greenstone that very night, and it is said she and Estermont have already wed.” 

“A bastard in the belly would explain that.” Cersei toyed with a lock of her hair. “How 
old is the blushing bride?” 

“Three-and-twenty, Your Grace. Whereas Lord Estermont—” 

“—must be seventy. I am aware of that.” The Estermonts were her good-kin through 
Robert, whose father had taken one of them to wife in what must have been a fit of lust or 
madness. By the time Cersei wed the king, Robert’s lady mother was long dead, though 
both of her brothers had turned up for the wedding and stayed for half a year. Robert had 
later insisted on returning the courtesy with a visit to Estermont, a mountainous little 


island off Cape Wrath. The dank and dismal fortnight Cersei spent at Greenstone, the seat 
of House Estermont, was the longest of her young life. Jaime dubbed the castle 
“Greenshit” at first sight, and soon had Cersei doing it too. Elsewise she passed her days 
watching her royal husband hawk, hunt, and drink with his uncles, and bludgeon various 
male cousins senseless in Greenshit’s yard. 

There had been a female cousin too, a chunky little widow with breasts as big as melons 
whose husband and father had both died at Storm’s End during the siege. “Her father was 
good to me,” Robert told her, “and she and I would play together when the two of us 
were small.” It did not take him long to start playing with her again. As soon as Cersei 
closed her eyes, the king would steal off to console the poor lonely creature. One night 
she had Jaime follow him, to confirm her suspicions. When her brother returned he asked 
her if she wanted Robert dead. “No,” she had replied, “I want him horned.” She liked to 
think that was the night when Joffrey was conceived. 

“Eldon Estermont has taken a wife fifty years his junior,” she said to Qyburn. “Why 
should that concern me?” 

He shrugged. “I do not say it should . . . but Daemon Sand and this Santagar girl were 
both close to Prince Doran’s own daughter, Arianne, or so the Dornishmen would have us 
believe. Perhaps it means little or less, but I thought Your Grace should know.” 

“Now I do.” She was losing patience. “Do you have more?” 

“One more thing. A trifling matter.” He gave her an apologetic smile and told her of a 
puppet show that had recently become popular amongst the city’s smallfolk; a puppet 
show wherein the kingdom of the beasts was ruled by a pride of haughty lions. “The 
puppet lions grow greedy and arrogant as this treasonous tale proceeds, until they begin 
to devour their own subjects. When the noble stag makes objection, the lions devour him 
as well, and roar that it is their right as the mightiest of beasts.” 

“And is that the end of it?” Cersei asked, amused. Looked at in the right light, it could be 
seen as a salutary lesson. 

“No, Your Grace. At the end a dragon hatches from an egg and devours all of the lions.” 

The ending took the puppet show from simple insolence to treason. “Witless fools. Only 
cretins would hazard their heads upon a wooden dragon.” She considered a moment. 
“Send some of your whisperers to these shows and make note of who attends. If any of 
them should be men of note, I would know their names.” 

“What will be done with them, if I may be so bold?” 

“Any men of substance shall be fined. Half their worth should be sufficient to teach them 
a sharp lesson and refill our coffers, without quite ruining them. Those too poor to pay 
can lose an eye, for watching treason. For the puppeteers, the axe.” 


“There are four. Perhaps Your Grace might allow me two of them for mine own 
purposes. A woman would be especially . . .” 

“I gave you Senelle,” the queen said sharply. 

“Alas. The poor girl is quite . . . exhausted.” 

Cersei did not like to think about that. The girl had come with her unsuspecting, thinking 
she was along to serve and pour. Even when Qyburn clapped the chain around her wrist, 
she had not seemed to understand. The memory still made the queen queasy. The cells 
were bitter cold. Even the torches shivered. And that foul thing screaming in the darkness 
. . . “Yes, you may take a woman. Two, if it please you. But first I will have names.” 

“As you command.” Qyburn withdrew. 

Outside, the sun was setting. Dorcas had prepared a bath for her. The queen was soaking 
pleasantly in the warm water and contemplating what she would say to her supper guests 
when Jaime came bursting through the door and ordered Jocelyn and Dorcas from the 
room. Her brother looked rather less than immaculate and had a smell of horse about him. 
He had Tommen with him too. “Sweet sister,” he said, “the king requires a word.” 

Cersei’s golden tresses floated in the bathwater. The room was steamy. A drop of sweat 
trickled down her cheek. “Tommen?” she said, in a dangerously soft voice. “What is it 
now?” 

The boy knew that tone. He shrank back. 

“His Grace wants his white courser on the morrow,” Jaime said. “For his jousting 
lesson.” 

She sat up in the tub. “There will be no jousting.” 

“Yes, there will.” Tommen puffed out his lower lip. “I have to ride every day.” 

“And you shall,” the queen declared, “once we have a proper master-at-arms to supervise 
your training.” 

“I don’t want a proper master-at-arms. I want Ser Loras.” 

“You make too much of that boy. Your little wife has filled your head with foolish 
notions of his prowess, I know, but Osmund Kettleblack is thrice the knight that Loras 
is.” 

Jaime laughed. “Not the Osmund Kettleblack I know.” 


She could have throttled him. Perhaps I need to command Ser Loras to allow Ser 
Osmund to unhorse him. That might chase the stars from Tommen’s eyes. Salt a slug and 
shame a hero, and they shrink right up. “I am sending for a Dornishman to train you,” 
she said. “The Dornish are the finest jousters in the realm.” 

“They are not,” said Tommen. “Anyway, I don’t want any stupid Dornishman, I want Ser 
Loras. I command it.” 

Jaime laughed. He is no help at all. Does he think this is amusing? The queen slapped the 
water angrily. “Must I send for Pate? You do not command me. I am your mother.” 

“Yes, but I’m the king. Margaery says that everyone has to do what the king says. I want 
my white courser saddled on the morrow so Ser Loras can teach me how to joust. I want 
a kitten too, and I don’t want to eat beets.” He crossed his arms. 

Jaime was still laughing. The queen ignored him. “Tommen, come here.” When he hung 
back, she sighed. “Are you afraid? A king should not show fear.” The boy approached the 
tub, his eyes downcast. She reached out and stroked his golden curls. “King or no, you 
are a little boy. Until you come of age, the rule is mine. You will learn to joust, I promise 
you. But not from Loras. The knights of the Kingsguard have more important duties than 
playing with a child. Ask the Lord Commander. Isn’t that so, ser?” 

“Very important duties.” Jaime smiled thinly. “Riding round the city walls, for an 
instance.” 

Tommen looked close to tears. “Can I still have a kitten?” 

“Perhaps,” the queen allowed. “So long as I hear no more nonsense about jousting. Can 
you promise me that?” 

He shuffled his feet. “Yes.” 

“Good. Now run along. My guests will be here shortly.” 

Tommen ran along, but before he left he turned back to say, “When I’m king in my own 
right, I’m going to outlaw beets.” 

Her brother shoved the door shut with his stump. “Your Grace,” he said, when he and 
Cersei were alone, “I was wondering. Are you drunk, or merely stupid?” 

She slapped the water once again, sending up another splash to wash across his feet. 
“Guard your tongue, or—” 

“—or what? Will you send me to inspect the city walls again?” He sat and crossed his 
legs. “Your bloody walls are fine. I’ve crawled over every inch of them and had a look at 
all seven of the gates. The hinges on the Iron Gate are rusted, and the King’s Gate and 


Mud Gate need to be replaced after the pounding Stannis gave them with his rams. The 
walls are as strong as they have ever been . . . but perchance Your Grace has forgotten 
that our friends of Highgarden are inside the walls?” 

“I forget nothing,” she told him, thinking of a certain gold coin, with a hand on one face 
and the head of a forgotten king on the other. How did some miserable wretch of a gaoler 
come to have such a coin hidden beneath his chamber pot? How does a man like Rugen 
come to have old gold from Highgarden? 

“This is the first I have heard of a new master-at-arms. You’ll need to look long and hard 
to find a better jouster than Loras Tyrell. Ser Loras is—” 

“I know what he is. I won’t have him near my son. You had best remind him of his 
duties.” Her bath was growing cool. 

“He knows his duties, and there’s no better lance—” 

“You were better, before you lost your hand. Ser Barristan, when he was young. Arthur 
Dayne was better, and Prince Rhaegar was a match for even him. Do not prate at me 
about how fierce the Flower is. He’s just a boy.” She was tired of Jaime balking her. No 
one had ever balked her lord father. When Tywin Lannister spoke, men obeyed. When 
Cersei spoke, they felt free to counsel her, to contradict her, even refuse her. It is all 
because I am a woman. Because I cannot fight them with a sword. They gave Robert 
more respect than they give me, and Robert was a witless sot. She would not suffer it, 
especially not from Jaime. I need to rid myself of him, and soon. Once upon a time she 
had dreamt that the two of them might rule the Seven Kingdoms side by side, but Jaime 
had become more of a hindrance than a help. 

Cersei rose from the bath. Water ran down her legs and trickled from her hair. “When I 
want your counsel I will ask for it. Leave me, ser. I must needs dress.” 

“Your supper guests, I know. What plot is this, now? There are so many I lose track.” His 
glance fell to the water beading in the golden hair between her legs. 

He still wants me. “Pining for what you’ve lost, brother?” 

Jaime raised his eyes. “I love you too, sweet sister. But you’re a fool. A beautiful golden 
fool.” 

The words stung. You called me kinder words at Greenstone, the night you planted Joff 
inside me, Cersei thought. “Get out.” She turned her back to him and listened to him 
leave, fumbling at the door with his stump. 

Whilst Jocelyn was making certain that all was in readiness for the supper, Dorcas helped 
the queen into her new gown. It had stripes of shiny green satin alternating with stripes of 
plush black velvet, and intricate black Myrish lace above the bodice. Myrish lace was 


costly, but it was necessary for a queen to look her best at all times, and her wretched 
washerwomen had shrunk several of her old gowns so they no longer fit. She would have 
whipped them for their carelessness, but Taena had urged her to be merciful. “The 
smallfolk will love you more if you are kind,” she had said, so Cersei had ordered the 
value of the gowns deducted from the women’s wages, a much more elegant solution. 

Dorcas put a silver looking glass into her hand. Very good, the queen thought, smiling at 
her reflection. It was pleasant to be out of mourning. Black made her look too pale. A pity 
I am not supping with Lady Merryweather, the queen reflected. It had been a long day, 
and Taena’s wit always cheered her. Cersei had not had a friend she so enjoyed since 
Melara Hetherspoon, and Melara had turned out to be a greedy little schemer with ideas 
above her station. I should not think ill of her. She’s dead and drowned, and she taught 
me never to trust anyone but Jaime. 

By the time she joined them in the solar, her guests had made a good start on the 
hippocras. Lady Falyse not only looks like a fish, she drinks like one, she reflected, when 
she made note of the half-empty flagon. “Sweet Falyse,” she exclaimed, kissing the 
woman’s cheek, “and brave Ser Balman. I was so distraught when I heard about your 
dear, dear mother. How fares our Lady Tanda?” 

Lady Falyse looked as if she were about to cry. “Your Grace is good to ask. Mother’s hip 
was shattered by the fall, Maester Frenken says. He did what he could. Now we pray, but 
. . .” 

Pray all you like, she will still be dead before the moon turns. Women as old as Tanda 
Stokeworth did not survive a broken hip. “I shall add my prayers to your own,” said 
Cersei. “Lord Qyburn tells me that Tanda was thrown from her horse.” 

“Her saddle girth burst whilst she was riding,” said Ser Balman Byrch. “The stableboy 
should have seen the strap was worn. He has been chastised.” 

“Severely, I hope.” The queen seated herself and indicated that her guests should sit as 
well. “Will you have another cup of hippocras, Falyse? You were always fond of it, I 
seem to recall.” 

“It is so good of you to remember, Your Grace.” 

How could I have forgotten? Cersei thought. Jaime said it was a wonder you did not piss 
the stuff. “How was your journey?” 

“Uncomfortable,” complained Falyse. “It rained most of the day. We thought to spend the 
night at Rosby, but that young ward of Lord Gyles refused us hospitality.” She sniffed. 
“Mark my word, when Gyles dies that ill-born wretch will make off with his gold. He 
may even try and claim the lands and lordship, though by rights Rosby should come to us 
when Gyles passes. My lady mother was aunt to his second wife, third cousin to Gyles 
himself.” 


Is your sigil a lamb, my lady, or some sort of grasping monkey? Cersei thought. “Lord 
Gyles has been threatening to die for as long as I have known him, but he is still with us, 
and will be for many years, I do hope.” She smiled pleasantly. “No doubt he will cough 
the whole lot of us into our graves.” 

“Like as not,” Ser Balman agreed. “Rosby’s ward was not the only one to vex us, Your 
Grace. We encountered ruffians on the road as well. Filthy, unkempt creatures, with 
leather shields and axes. Some had stars sewn on their jerkins, sacred stars of seven 
points, but they had an evil look about them all the same.” 

“They were lice-ridden, I am certain,” added Falyse. 

“They call themselves sparrows,” said Cersei. “A plague upon the land. Our new High 
Septon will need to deal with them, once he is crowned. If not, I shall deal with them 
myself.” 

“Has His High Holiness been chosen yet?” asked Falyse. 

“No,” the queen had to confess. “Septon Ollidor was on the verge of being chosen, until 
some of these sparrows followed him to a brothel and dragged him naked out into the 
street. Luceon seems the likely choice now, though our friends on the other hill say that 
he is still a few votes short of the required number.” 

“May the Crone guide the deliberations with her golden lamp of wisdom,” said Lady 
Falyse, most piously. 

Ser Balman shifted in his seat. “Your Grace, an awkward matter, but . . . lest bad feeling 
fester between us, you should know that neither my good wife nor her mother had any 
hand in the naming of this bastard child. Lollys is a simple creature, and her husband is 
given to black humors. I told him to choose a more fitting name for the boy. He laughed.” 

The queen sipped her wine and studied him. Ser Balman had been a noted jouster once, 
and one of the handsomest knights in the Seven Kingdoms. He could still boast a 
handsome mustache; elsewise, he had not aged well. His wavy blond hair had retreated, 
whilst his belly advanced inexorably against his doublet. As a catspaw he leaves much to 
be desired, she reflected. Still, he should serve. “Tyrion was a king’s name before the 
dragons came. The Imp has despoiled it, but perhaps this child can restore the name to 
honor.” If the bastard lives so long. “I know you are not to blame. Lady Tanda is the 
sister that I never had, and you . . .” Her voice broke. “Forgive me. I live in fear.” 

Falyse opened and closed her mouth, which made her look like some especially stupid 
fish. “In . . . in fear, Your Grace?” 

“I have not slept a whole night through since Joffrey died.” Cersei filled the goblets with 
hippocras. “My friends . . . you are my friends, I hope? And King Tommen’s?” 


“That sweet lad,” Ser Balman declared. “Your Grace, the very words of House 
Stokeworth are Proud to Be Faithful.” 

“Would that there were more like you, good ser. I tell you truly, I have grave doubts 
about Ser Bronn of the Blackwater.” 

Husband and wife exchanged a look. “The man is insolent, Your Grace,” Falyse said. 
“Uncouth and foul-mouthed.” 

“He is no true knight,” Ser Balman said. 

“No.” Cersei smiled, all for him. “And you are a man who would know true knighthood. I 
remember watching you joust in . . . which tourney was it where you fought so brilliantly, 
ser?” 

He smiled modestly. “That affair at Duskendale six years ago? No, you were not there, 
else you would surely have been crowned the queen of love and beauty. Was it the 
tourney at Lannisport after Greyjoy’s Rebellion? I unhorsed many a good knight in that 
one . . .” 

“That was the one.” Her face grew somber. “The Imp vanished the night my father died, 
leaving two honest gaolers behind in pools of blood. Some claim he fled across the 
narrow sea, but I wonder. The dwarf is cunning. Perhaps he still lurks near, planning 
more murders. Perhaps some friend is hiding him.” 

“Bronn?” Ser Balman stroked his bushy mustache. 

“He was ever the Imp’s creature. Only the Stranger knows how many men he’s sent to 
hell at Tyrion’s behest.” 

“Your Grace, I think I should have noticed a dwarf skulking about our lands,” said Ser 
Balman. 

“My brother is small. He was made for skulking.” Cersei let her hand shake. “A child’s 
name is a small thing . . . but insolence unpunished breeds rebellion. And this man Bronn 
has been gathering sellswords to him, Qyburn has told me.” 

“He has taken four knights into his household,” said Falyse. 

Ser Balman snorted. “My good wife flatters them, to call them knights. They’re 
upjumped sellswords, with not a thimble of chivalry to be found amongst the four of 
them.” 

“As I feared. Bronn is gathering swords for the dwarf. May the Seven save my little son. 
The Imp will kill him as he killed his brother.” She sobbed. “My friends, I put my honor 
in your hands . . . but what is a queen’s honor against a mother’s fears?” 


“Say on, Your Grace,” Ser Balman assured her. “Your words shall ne’er leave this 
room.” 

Cersei reached across the table and gave his hand a squeeze. “I . . . I would sleep more 
easily of a night if I were to hear that Ser Bronn had suffered a . . . a mishap . . . whilst 
hunting, perhaps.” 

Ser Balman considered a moment. “A mortal mishap?” 

No, I desire you to break his little toe. She had to bite her lip. My enemies are everywhere 
and my friends are fools. “I beg you, ser,” she whispered, “do not make me say it . . .” 

“I understand.” Ser Balman raised a finger. 

A turnip would have grasped it quicker. “You are a true knight indeed, ser. The answer to 
a frightened mother’s prayers.” Cersei kissed him. “Do it quickly, if you would. Bronn 
has only a few men about him now, but if we do not act, he will surely gather more.” She 
kissed Falyse. “I shall never forget this, my friends. My true friends of Stokeworth. 
Proud to Be Faithful. You have my word, we shall find Lollys a better husband when this 
is done.” A Kettleblack, perhaps. “We Lannisters pay our debts.” 

The rest was hippocras and buttered beets, hot-baked bread, herb-crusted pike, and ribs of 
wild boar. Cersei had become very fond of boar since Robert’s death. She did not even 
mind the company, though Falyse simpered and Balman preened from soup to sweet. It 
was past midnight before she could rid herself of them. Ser Balman proved a great one 
for suggesting yet another flagon, and the queen did not think it prudent to refuse. I could 
have hired a Faceless Man to kill Bronn for half of what I’ve spent on hippocras, she 
reflected when they were gone at last. 

At that hour, her son was fast asleep, but Cersei looked in upon him before seeking her 
own bed. She was surprised to find three black kittens cuddled up beside him. “Where 
did those come from?” she asked Ser Meryn Trant, outside the royal bedchamber. 

“The little queen gave them to him. She only meant to give him one, but he couldn’t 
decide which one he liked the best.” 

Better than cutting them out of their mother with a dagger, I suppose. Margaery’s clumsy 
attempts at seduction were so obvious as to be laughable. Tommen is too young for kisses, 
so she gives him kittens. Cersei rather wished they were not black, though. Black cats 
brought ill luck, as Rhaegar’s little girl had discovered in this very castle. She would have 
been my daughter, if the Mad King had not played his cruel jape on Father. It had to 
have been the madness that led Aerys to refuse Lord Tywin’s daughter and take his son 
instead, whilst marrying his own son to a feeble Dornish princess with black eyes and a 
flat chest. 


The memory of the rejection still rankled, even after all these years. Many a night she had 
watched Prince Rhaegar in the hall, playing his silver-stringed harp with those long, 
elegant fingers of his. Had any man ever been so beautiful? He was more than a man, 
though. His blood was the blood of old Valyria, the blood of dragons and gods. When she 
was just a little girl, her father had promised her that she would marry Rhaegar. She could 
not have been more than six or seven. “Never speak of it, child,” he had told her, smiling 
his secret smile that only Cersei ever saw. “Not until His Grace agrees to the betrothal. It 
must remain our secret for now.” And so it had, though once she had drawn a picture of 
herself flying behind Rhaegar on a dragon, her arms wrapped tight about his chest. When 
Jaime had discovered it she told him it was Queen Alysanne and King Jaehaerys. 

She was ten when she finally saw her prince in the flesh, at the tourney her lord father 
had thrown to welcome King Aerys to the west. Viewing stands had been raised beneath 
the walls of Lannisport, and the cheers of the smallfolk had echoed off Casterly Rock like 
rolling thunder. They cheered Father twice as loudly as they cheered the king, the queen 
recalled, but only half as loudly as they cheered Prince Rhaegar. 

Seventeen and new to knighthood, Rhaegar Targaryen had worn black plate over golden 
ringmail when he cantered onto the lists. Long streamers of red and gold and orange silk 
had floated behind his helm, like flames. Two of her uncles fell before his lance, along 
with a dozen of her father’s finest jousters, the flower of the west. By night the prince 
played his silver harp and made her weep. When she had been presented to him, Cersei 
had almost drowned in the depths of his sad purple eyes. He has been wounded, she 
recalled thinking, but I will mend his hurt when we are wed. Next to Rhaegar, even her 
beautiful Jaime had seemed no more than a callow boy. The prince is going to be my 
husband, she had thought, giddy with excitement, and when the old king dies I’ll be the 
queen. Her aunt had confided that truth to her before the tourney. “You must be 
especially beautiful,” Lady Genna told her, fussing with her dress, “for at the final feast it 
shall be announced that you and Prince Rhaegar are betrothed.” 

Cersei had been so happy that day. Elsewise she would never have dared visit the tent of 
Maggy the Frog. She had only done it to show Jeyne and Melara that the lioness fears 
nothing. I was going to be a queen. Why should a queen be afraid of some hideous old 
woman? The memory of that foretelling still made her flesh crawl a lifetime later. Jeyne 
ran shrieking from the tent in fear, the queen remembered, but Melara stayed and so did 

I. We let her taste our blood, and laughed at her stupid prophecies. None of them made 
the least bit of sense. She was going to be Prince Rhaegar’s wife, no matter what the 
woman said. Her father had promised it, and Tywin Lannister’s word was gold. 
Her laughter died at tourney’s end. There had been no final feast, no toasts to celebrate 
her betrothal to Prince Rhaegar. Only cold silences and chilly looks between the king and 
her father. Later, when Aerys and his son and all his gallant knights had departed for 
King’s Landing, the girl had gone to her aunt in tears, not understanding. “Your father 
proposed the match,” Lady Genna told her, “but Aerys refused to hear of it. ‘You are my 
most able servant, Tywin,’ the king said, ‘but a man does not marry his heir to his 


servant’s daughter.’ Dry those tears, little one. Have you ever seen a lion weep? Your 
father will find another man for you, a better man than Rhaegar.” 

Her aunt had lied, though, and her father had failed her, just as Jaime was failing her 
now. Father found no better man. Instead he gave me Robert, and Maggy’s curse 
bloomed like some poisonous flower. If she had only married Rhaegar as the gods 
intended, he would never have looked twice at the wolf girl. Rhaegar would be our king 
today and I would be his queen, the mother of his sons. 

She had never forgiven Robert for killing him. 

But then, lions were not good at forgiving. As Ser Bronn of the Blackwater would shortly 
learn. 


BRIENNE 

It was Hyle Hunt who insisted that they take the heads. “Tarly will want them for the 
walls,” he said. 

“We have no tar,” Brienne pointed out. “The flesh will rot. Leave them.” She did not 
want to travel through the green gloom of the piney woods with the heads of the men 
she’d killed. 

Hunt would not listen. He hacked through the dead men’s necks himself, tied the three 
heads together by the hair, and slung them from his saddle. Brienne had no choice but to 
try and pretend they were not there, but sometimes, especially at night, she could feel 
their dead eyes on her back, and once she dreamed she heard them whispering to one 
another. 

It was cold and wet on Crackclaw Point as they retraced their steps. Some days it rained 
and some days it threatened rain. They were never warm. Even when they made camp, it 
was hard to find enough dry wood for a fire. 

By the time they reached the gates of Maidenpool, a host of flies attended them, a crow 
had eaten Shagwell’s eyes, and Pyg and Timeon were crawling with maggots. Brienne 
and Podrick had long since taken to riding a hundred yards ahead, to keep the smell of rot 
well behind them. Ser Hyle claimed to have lost all sense of smell by then. “Bury them,” 
she told him every time they made camp for a night, but Hunt was nothing if not 
stubborn. He will most like tell Lord Randyll that he slew all three of them. 


To his honor, though, the knight did nothing of the sort. 
“The stammering squire threw a rock,” he said, when he and Brienne were ushered into 
Tarly’s presence in the yard of Mooton’s castle. The heads had been presented to a 


serjeant of the guard, who was told to have them cleaned and tarred and mounted above 
the gate. “The swordswench did the rest.” 
“All three?” Lord Randyll was incredulous. 
“The way she fought, she could have killed three more.” 
“And did you find the Stark girl?” Tarly demanded of her. 
“No, my lord.” 
“Instead you slew some rats. Did you enjoy it?” 
“No, my lord.” 
“A pity. Well, you’ve had your taste of blood. Proved whatever it is you meant to prove. 


It’s time you took off that mail and donned proper clothes again. There are ships in port. 
One’s bound to stop at Tarth. I’ll have you on it.” 


“Thank you, my lord, but no.” 
Lord Tarly’s face suggested he would have liked nothing better than to stick her own 
head on a spike and mount it above the gates of Maidenpool with Timeon, Pyg, and 
Shagwell. “You mean to continue with this folly?” 


“I mean to find the Lady Sansa.” 


“If it please my lord,” Ser Hyle said, “I watched her fight the Mummers. She is stronger 
than most men, and quick—” 
“The sword is quick,” Tarly snapped. “That is the nature of Valyrian steel. Stronger than 


most men? Aye. She’s a freak of nature, far be it from me to deny it.” 


His sort will never love me, Brienne thought, no matter what I do. “My lord, it may be 
that Sandor Clegane has some knowledge of the girl. If I could find him . . .” 
“Clegane’s turned outlaw. He rides with Beric Dondarrion now, it would seem. Or not, 


the tales vary. Show me where they’re hiding, I will gladly slit their bellies open, pull 
their entrails out, and burn them. We’ve hanged dozens of outlaws, but the leaders still 
elude us. Clegane, Dondarrion, the red priest, and now this woman Stoneheart . . . how do 
you propose to find them, when I cannot?” 



“My lord, I . . .” She had no good answer for him. “All I can do is try.” 
“Try, then. You have your letter, you do not need my leave, but I’ll give it nonetheless. If 
you’re fortunate, all you’ll get for your trouble are saddle sores. If not, perhaps Clegane 


will let you live after he and his pack are done raping you. You can crawl back to Tarth 
with some dog’s bastard in your belly.” 
Brienne ignored that. “If it please my lord, how many men ride with the Hound?” 
“Six or sixty or six hundred. It would seem to depend on whom we ask.” Randyll Tarly 


had plainly had enough of the conversation. He started to turn away. 
“If my squire and I might beg your hospitality until—” 
“Beg all you want. I will not suffer you beneath my roof.” 
Ser Hyle Hunt stepped forward. “If it please my lord, I had understood that it was still 


Lord Mooton’s roof.” 
Tarly gave the knight a venomous look. “Mooton has the courage of a worm. You will 
not speak to me of Mooton. As for you, my lady, it is said that your father is a good man. 
If so, I pity him. Some men are blessed with sons, some with daughters. No man deserves 


to be cursed with such as you. Live or die, Lady Brienne, do not return to Maidenpool 
whilst I rule here.” 
Words are wind, Brienne told herself. They cannot hurt you. Let them wash over you. “As 


you command, my lord,” she tried to say, but Tarly had gone before she got it out. She 
walked from the yard like one asleep, not knowing where she was going. 
Ser Hyle fell in beside her. “There are inns.” 
She shook her head. She did not want words with Hyle Hunt. 
“Do you recall the Stinking Goose?” 


Her cloak still smelled of it. “Why?” 
“Meet me there on the morrow, at midday. My cousin Alyn was one of those sent out to 
find the Hound. I’ll speak with him.” 


“Why would you do that?” 
“Why not? If you succeed where Alyn failed, I shall be able to taunt him with that for 
years.” 



There were still inns in Maidenpool; Ser Hyle had not been wrong. Some had burned 
during one sack or the other, however, and had yet to be rebuilt, and those that remained 
were full to bursting with men from Lord Tarly’s host. She and Podrick visited all of 
them that afternoon, but there were no beds to be had anywhere. 

“Ser? My lady?” Podrick said as the sun was going down. “There are ships. Ships have 
beds. Hammocks. Or bunks.” 

Lord Randyll’s men still prowled the docks, as thick as the flies had been on the heads of 
the three Bloody Mummers, but their serjeant knew Brienne by sight and let her pass. 
The local fisherfolk were tying up for the night and crying the day’s catch, but her 
interest was in the larger ships that plied the stormy waters of the narrow sea. Half a 
dozen were in port, though one, a galleas called the Titan’s Daughter, was casting off her 
lines to ride out on the evening tide. She and Podrick Payne made the rounds of the ships 
that remained. The master of the Gulltown Girl took Brienne for a whore and told them 
that his ship was not a bawdy house, and a harpooner on the Ibbenese whaler offered to 
buy her boy, but they had better fortune elsewhere. She purchased Podrick an orange on 
the Seastrider, a cog just in from Oldtown by way of Tyrosh, Pentos, and Duskendale. 
“Gulltown next,” her captain told her, “thence around the Fingers to Sisterton and White 
Harbor, if the storms allow. She’s a clean ship, ’Strider, not so many rats as most, and 
we’ll have fresh eggs and new-churned butter aboard. Is m’lady seeking passage north?” 

“No.” Not yet. She was tempted, but . . . 

As they were making their way to the next pier, Podrick shuffled his feet, and said, “Ser? 
My lady? What if my lady did go home? My other lady, I mean. Ser. Lady Sansa.” 

“They burned her home.” 

“Still. That’s where her gods are. And gods can’t die.” 

Gods cannot die, but girls can. “Timeon was a cruel man and a murderer, but I do not 
think he lied about the Hound. We cannot go north until we know for certain. There will 
be other ships.” 

At the east end of the harbor they finally found shelter for the night, aboard a storm-
wracked trading galley called the Lady of Myr. She was listing badly, having lost her 
mast and half her crew in a storm, but her master did not have the coin he needed to refit 
her, so he was glad to take a few pennies from Brienne and allow her and Pod to share an 
empty cabin. 

They had a restless night. Thrice Brienne woke. Once when the rain began, and once at a 
creak that made her think Nimble Dick was creeping in to kill her. The second time, she 
woke with knife in hand, but it was nothing. In the darkness of the cramped little cabin, it 
took her a moment to remember that Nimble Dick was dead. When she finally drifted 
back to sleep, she dreamed about the men she’d killed. They danced around her, mocking 


her, pinching at her as she slashed at them with her sword. She cut them all to bloody 
ribbons, yet still they swarmed around her . . . Shagwell, Timeon, and Pyg, aye, but 
Randyll Tarly too, and Vargo Hoat, and Red Ronnet Connington. Ronnet had a rose 
between his fingers. When he held it out to her, she cut his hand off. 

She woke sweating, and spent the rest of the night huddled under her cloak, listening to 
rain pound against the deck over her head. It was a wild night. From time to time she 
heard the sound of distant thunder, and thought of the Braavosi ship that had sailed upon 
the evening tide. 

The next morning she found the Stinking Goose again, woke its slatternly proprietor, and 
paid her for some greasy sausages, fried bread, half a cup of wine, a flagon of boiled 
water, and two clean cups. The woman squinted at Brienne as she was putting the water 
on to boil. “You’re the big one went off with Nimble Dick. I remember. He cheat you?” 

“No.” 

“Rape you?” 

“No.” 

“Steal your horse?” 

“No. He was slain by outlaws.” 

“Outlaws?” The woman seemed more curious than upset. “I always figured Dick would 
hang, or get sent off to that Wall.” 

They ate the fried bread and half the sausages. Podrick Payne washed his down with 
wine-flavored water whilst Brienne nursed a cup of watered wine and wondered why 
she’d come. Hyle Hunt was no true knight. His honest face was just a mummer’s mask. I 
do not need his help, I do not need his protection, and I do not need him, she told herself. 
He is probably not even coming. Telling me to meet him here was just another jape. 

She was getting up to go when Ser Hyle arrived. “My lady. Podrick.” He glanced at the 
cups and plates and the half-eaten sausages cooling in a puddle of grease, and said, 
“Gods, I hope you did not eat the food here.” 

“What we ate is no concern of yours,” Brienne said. “Did you find your cousin? What did 
he tell you?” 

“Sandor Clegane was last seen in Saltpans, the day of the raid. Afterward he rode west, 
along the Trident.” 

She frowned. “The Trident is a long river.” 


“Aye, but I don’t think our dog will have wandered too far from its mouth. Westeros has 
lost its charm for him, it would seem. At Saltpans he was looking for a ship.” Ser Hyle 
drew a roll of sheepskin from his boot, pushed the sausages aside, and unrolled it. It 
proved to be a map. “The Hound butchered three of his brother’s men at the old inn by 
the crossroads, here. He led the raid on Saltpans, here.” He tapped Saltpans with his 
finger. “He may be trapped. The Freys are up here at the Twins, Darry and Harrenhal are 
south across the Trident, west he’s got the Blackwoods and the Brackens fighting, and 
Lord Randyll’s here at Maidenpool. The high road to the Vale is closed by snow, even if 
he could get past the mountain clans. Where’s a dog to go?” 

“If he is with Dondarrion . . . ?” 

“He’s not. Alyn is certain of that. Dondarrion’s men are looking for him too. They have 
put out word that they mean to hang him for what he did at Saltpans. They had no part of 
that. Lord Randyll is putting it about that they did in hopes of turning the commons 
against Beric and his brotherhood. He will never take the lightning lord so long as the 
smallfolk are protecting him. And there’s this other band, led by this woman Stoneheart . 
. . Lord Beric’s lover, according to one tale. Supposedly she was hanged by the Freys, but 
Dondarrion kissed her and brought her back to life, and now she cannot die, no more than 
he can.” Brienne considered the map. “If Clegane was last seen at Saltpans, that would be 
the place to find his trail.” 

“There is no one left at Saltpans but an old knight hiding in his castle, Alyn said.” 

“Still, it would be a place to start.” 

“There’s a man,” Ser Hyle said. “A septon. He came in through my gate the day before 
you turned up. Meribald, his name is. River-born and river-bred and he’s served here all 
his life. He’s departing on the morrow to make his circuit, and he always calls at 
Saltpans. We should go with him.” 

Brienne looked up sharply. “We?” 

“I am going with you.” 

“You’re not.” 

“Well, I’m going with Septon Meribald to Saltpans. You and Podrick can go wherever 
you bloody well like.” 

“Did Lord Randyll command you to follow me again?” 

“He commanded me to stay away from you. Lord Randyll is of the view that you might 
benefit from a good hard raping.” 

“Then why would you come with me?” 


“It was that, or return to gate duty.” 

“If your lord commanded—” 

“He is no longer my lord.” 

That took her aback. “You left his service?” 

“His lordship informed me that he had no further need of my sword, or my insolence. It 
amounts to the same thing. Henceforth I shall enjoy the adventuresome life of a hedge 
knight . . . though if we do find Sansa Stark, I imagine we will be well rewarded.” 

Gold and land, that’s what he sees in this. “I mean to save the girl, not sell her. I swore a 
vow.” 

“I don’t recall that I did.” 

“That is why you will not be coming with me.” 

They left the next morning, as the sun was coming up. 

It was a queer procession: Ser Hyle on a chestnut courser and Brienne on her tall grey 
mare, Podrick Payne astride his swayback stot, and Septon Meribald walking beside them 
with his quarterstaff, leading a small donkey and a large dog. The donkey carried such a 
heavy load that Brienne was half afraid its back would break. “Food for the poor and 
hungry of the riverlands,” Septon Meribald told them at the gates of Maidenpool. “Seeds 
and nuts and dried fruit, oaten porridge, flour, barley bread, three wheels of yellow 
cheese from the inn by the Fool’s Gate, salt cod for me, salt mutton for Dog . . . oh, and 
salt. Onions, carrots, turnips, two sacks of beans, four of barley, and nine of oranges. I 
have a weakness for the orange, I confess. I got these from a sailor, and I fear they will be 
the last I’ll taste till spring.” 

Meribald was a septon without a sept, only one step up from a begging brother in the 
hierarchy of the Faith. There were hundreds like him, a ragged band whose humble task it 
was to trudge from one flyspeck of a village to the next, conducting holy services, 
performing marriages, and forgiving sins. Those he visited were expected to feed and 
shelter him, but most were as poor as he was, so Meribald could not linger in one place 
too long without causing hardship to his hosts. Kindly innkeeps would sometimes allow 
him to sleep in their kitchens or their stables, and there were septries and holdfasts and 
even a few castles where he knew he would be given hospitality. Where no such places 
were at hand, he slept beneath the trees or under hedges. “There are many fine hedges in 
the riverlands,” Meribald said. “The old ones are the best. There’s nothing beats a 
hundred-year-old hedge. Inside one of those a man can sleep as snug as at an inn, and 
with less fear of fleas.” 


The septon could neither read nor write, as he cheerfully confessed along the road, but he 
knew a hundred different prayers and could recite long passages from The Seven-Pointed 
Star from memory, which was all that was required in the villages. He had a seamed, 
windburnt face, a shock of thick grey hair, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Though a 
big man, six feet tall, he had a way of hunching forward as he walked that made him 
seem much shorter. His hands were large and leathery, with red knuckles and dirt beneath 
the nails, and he had the biggest feet that Brienne had ever seen, bare and black and hard 
as horn. 

“I have not worn a shoe in twenty years,” he told Brienne. “The first year, I had more 
blisters than I had toes, and my soles would bleed like pigs whenever I trod on a hard 
stone, but I prayed and the Cobbler Above turned my skin to leather.” 

“There is no cobbler above,” Podrick protested. 

“There is, lad . . . though you may call him by another name. Tell me, which of the seven 
gods do you love best?” 

“The Warrior,” said Podrick without a moment’s hesitation. 

Brienne cleared her throat. “At Evenfall my father’s septon always said that there was but 
one god.” 

“One god with seven aspects. That’s so, my lady, and you are right to point it out, but the 
mystery of the Seven Who Are One is not easy for simple folk to grasp, and I am nothing 
if not simple, so I speak of seven gods.” Meribald turned back to Podrick. “I have never 
known a boy who did not love the Warrior. I am old, though, and being old, I love the 
Smith. Without his labor, what would the Warrior defend? Every town has a smith, and 
every castle. They make the plows we need to plant our crops, the nails we use to build 
our ships, iron shoes to save the hooves of our faithful horses, the bright swords of our 
lords. No one could doubt the value of a smith, and so we name one of the Seven in his 
honor, but we might as easily have called him the Farmer or the Fisherman, the Carpenter 
or the Cobbler. What he works at makes no matter. What matters is, he works. The Father 
rules, the Warrior fights, the Smith labors, and together they perform all that is rightful 
for a man. Just as the Smith is one aspect of the godhead, the Cobbler is one aspect of the 
Smith. It was he who heard my prayer and healed my feet.” 

“The gods are good,” Ser Hyle said in a dry voice, “but why trouble them, when you 
might just have kept your shoes?” 

“Going barefoot was my penance. Even holy septons can be sinners, and my flesh was 
weak as weak could be. I was young and full of sap, and the girls . . . a septon can seem 
as gallant as a prince if he is the only man you know who has ever been more than a mile 
from your village. I would recite to them from The Seven-Pointed Star. The Maiden’s 
Book worked best. Oh, I was a wicked man, before I threw away my shoes. It shames me 
to think of all the maidens I deflowered.” 


Brienne shifted in the saddle uncomfortably, thinking back to the camp below the walls 
of Highgarden and the wager Ser Hyle and the others had made to see who could bed her 
first. 

“We’re looking for a maiden,” confided Podrick Payne. “A highborn girl of three-andten, 
with auburn hair.” 

“I had understood that you were seeking outlaws.” 

“Them too,” Podrick admitted. 

“Most travelers do all they can to avoid such men,” said Septon Meribald, “yet you 
would seek them out.” 

“We only seek one outlaw,” Brienne said. “The Hound.” 

“So Ser Hyle told me. May the Seven save you, child. It’s said he leaves a trail of 
butchered babes and ravished maids behind him. The Mad Dog of Saltpans, I have heard 
him called. What would good folk want with such a creature?” 

“The maid that Podrick spoke of may be with him.” 

“Truly? Then we must pray for the poor girl.” 

And for me, thought Brienne, a prayer for me as well. Ask the Crone to raise her lamp 
and lead me to the Lady Sansa, and the Warrior to give strength to my arm so that I 
might defend her. She did not say the words aloud, though; not where Hyle Hunt might 
hear her and mock her for her woman’s weakness. 

With Septon Meribald afoot and his donkey bearing such a heavy load, the going was 
slow all that day. They did not take the main road west, the road that Brienne had once 
ridden with Ser Jaime when they came the other way to find Maidenpool sacked and full 
of corpses. Instead they struck off toward the northwest, following the shore of the Bay 
of Crabs on a crooked track so small that it did not appear on either of Ser Hyle’s 
precious sheepskin maps. The steep hills, black bogs, and piney woods of Crackclaw 
Point were nowhere to be found this side of Maidenpool. The lands they traveled through 
were low and wet, a wilderness of sandy dunes and salt marshes beneath a vast blue-grey 
vault of sky. The road was prone to vanishing amongst the reeds and tidal pools, only to 
appear again a mile farther on; without Meribald, Brienne knew, they surely would have 
lost their way. The ground was often soft, so in places the septon would walk ahead, 
tapping with his quarterstaff to make certain of the footing. There were no trees for 
leagues around, just sea and sky and sand. 

No land could have been more different from Tarth, with its mountains and waterfalls, its 
high meadows and shadowed vales, yet this place had its own beauty, Brienne thought. 
They crossed a dozen slow-flowing streams alive with frogs and crickets, watched terns 


floating high above the bay, heard the sandpipers calling from amongst the dunes. Once a 
fox crossed their path, and set Meribald’s dog to barking wildly. 

And there were people too. Some lived amongst the reeds in houses built of mud and 
straw, whilst others fished the bay in leather coracles and built their homes on rickety 
wooden stilts above the dunes. Most seemed to live alone, out of sight of any human 
habitation but their own. They seemed a shy folk for the most part, but near midday the 
dog began to bark again, and three women emerged from the reeds to give Meribald a 
woven basket full of clams. He gave each of them an orange in return, though clams were 
as common as mud in this world, and oranges were rare and costly. One of the women 
was very old, one was heavy with child, and one was a girl as fresh and pretty as a flower 
in spring. When Meribald took them off to hear their sins, Ser Hyle chuckled, and said, 
“It would seem the gods walk with us . . . at least the Maiden, the Mother, and the 
Crone.” Podrick looked so astonished that Brienne had to tell him no, they were only 
three marsh women. 

Afterward, when they resumed their journey, she turned to the septon, and said, “These 
people live less than a day’s ride from Maidenpool, and yet the fighting has not touched 
them.” 

“They have little to touch, my lady. Their treasures are shells and stones and leather 
boats, their finest weapons knives of rusted iron. They are born, they live, they love, they 
die. They know Lord Mooton rules their lands, but few have ever seen him, and Riverrun 
and King’s Landing are only names to them.” 

“And yet they know the gods,” said Brienne. “That is your work, I think. How long have 
you walked the riverlands?” 

“It will be forty years soon,” the septon said, and his dog gave a loud bark. “From 
Maidenpool to Maidenpool, my circuit takes me half a year and ofttimes more, but I will 
not say I know the Trident. I glimpse the castles of the great lords only at a distance, but I 
know the market towns and holdfasts, the villages too small to have a name, the hedges 
and the hills, the rills where a thirsty man can drink and the caves where he can shelter. 
And the roads the smallfolk use, the crooked muddy tracks that do not appear on 
parchment maps, I know them too.” He chuckled. “I should. My feet have trod every mile 
of them, ten times over.” 

The back roads are the ones the outlaws use, and the caves would make fine places for 
hunted men to hide. A prickle of suspicion made Brienne wonder just how well Ser Hyle 
knew this man. “It must make for a lonely life, septon.” 

“The Seven are always with me,” said Meribald, “and I have my faithful servant, and 
Dog.” 

“Does your dog have a name?” asked Podrick Payne. 


“He must,” said Meribald, “but he is not my dog. Not him.” 

The dog barked and wagged his tail. He was a huge, shaggy creature, ten stone of dog at 
least, but friendly. 

“Who does he belong to?” asked Podrick. 

“Why, to himself, and to the Seven. As to his name, he has not told me what it is. I call 
him Dog.” 

“Oh.” Podrick did not know what to make of a dog named Dog, plainly. The boy chewed 
on that a while, then said, “I used to have a dog when I was little. I called him Hero.” 

“Was he?” 

“Was he what?” 

“A hero.” 

“No. He was a good dog, though. He died.” 

“Dog keeps me safe upon the roads, even in such trying times as these. Neither wolf nor 
outlaw dare molest me when Dog is at my side.” The septon frowned. “The wolves have 
grown terrible of late. There are places where a man alone would do well to find a tree to 
sleep in. In all my years the biggest pack I ever saw had fewer than a dozen wolves in it, 
but the great pack that prowls along the Trident now numbers in the hundreds.” 

“Have you come on them yourself?” Ser Hyle asked. 

“I have been spared that, Seven save me, but I have heard them in the night, and more 
than once. So many voices . . . a sound to curdle a man’s blood. It even set Dog to 
shivering, and Dog has killed a dozen wolves.” He ruffled the dog’s head. “Some will tell 
you that they are demons. They say the pack is led by a monstrous she-wolf, a stalking 
shadow grim and grey and huge. They will tell you that she has been known to bring 
aurochs down all by herself, that no trap nor snare can hold her, that she fears neither 
steel nor fire, slays any wolf that tries to mount her, and devours no other flesh but man.” 

Ser Hyle Hunt laughed. “Now you’ve done it, septon. Poor Podrick’s eyes are big as 
boiled eggs.” 

“They’re not,” said Podrick, indignant. Dog barked. 

That night they made a cold camp in the dunes. Brienne sent Podrick walking by the 
shore to find some driftwood for a fire, but he came back empty-handed, with mud up to 
his knees. “The tide’s out, ser. My lady. There’s no water, only mudflats.” 


“Stay off the mud, child,” counseled Septon Meribald. “The mud is not fond of strangers. 
If you walk in the wrong place, it will open up and swallow you.” 

“It’s only mud,” insisted Podrick. 

“Until it fills your mouth and starts creeping up your nose. Then it’s death.” He smiled to 
take the chill off his words. “Wipe off that mud and have a slice of orange, lad.” 

The next day was more of the same. They broke their fast on salt cod and more orange 
slices, and were on their way before the sun was wholly risen, with a pink sky behind 
them and a purple sky ahead. Dog led the way, sniffing at every clump of reeds and 
stopping every now and then to piss on one; he seemed to know the road as well as 
Meribald. The cries of terns shivered through the morning air as the tide came rushing in. 

Near midday they stopped at a tiny village, the first they had encountered, where eight of 
the stilt-houses loomed above a small stream. The men were out fishing in their coracles, 
but the women and young boys clambered down dangling rope ladders and gathered 
around Septon Meribald to pray. After the service he absolved their sins and left them 
with some turnips, a sack of beans, and two of his precious oranges. 

Back on the road, the septon said, “We would do well to keep a watch tonight, my 
friends. The villagers say they’ve seen three broken men skulking round the dunes, west 
of the old watchtower.” 

“Only three?” Ser Hyle smiled. “Three is honey to our swordswench. They’re not like to 
trouble armed men.” 

“Unless they’re starving,” the septon said. “There is food in these marshes, but only for 
those with the eyes to find it, and these men are strangers here, survivors from some 
battle. If they should accost us, ser, I beg you, leave them to me.” 

“What will you do with them?” 

“Feed them. Ask them to confess their sins, so that I might forgive them. Invite them to 
come with us to the Quiet Isle.” 

“That’s as good as inviting them to slit our throats as we sleep,” Hyle Hunt replied. “Lord 
Randyll has better ways to deal with broken men—steel and hempen rope.” 

“Ser? My lady?” said Podrick. “Is a broken man an outlaw?” 

“More or less,” Brienne answered. 

Septon Meribald disagreed. “More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just 
as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they 
are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to 


fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are 
the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the 
gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though 
they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never 
been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came 
round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his 
banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they 
made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with 
brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They’ve heard the songs and stories, so 
they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and 
glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever 
know. 

“Then they get a taste of battle. 

“For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose 
count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred 
fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose 
their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted 
by an axe. 

“They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are 
his now. They take a wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is 
never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn 
and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. 

“If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to 
take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the 
smallfolk whose lands they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They 
slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to 
carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their 
friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they 
hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord 
they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to 
form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their 
ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron 
thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . . 

“And the man breaks. 

“He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in 
the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, 
and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let 
him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The 
broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady 


Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and 
fear them . . . but he should pity them as well.” 

When Meribald was finished a profound silence fell upon their little band. Brienne could 
hear the wind rustling through a clump of pussywillows, and farther off the faint cry of a 
loon. She could hear Dog panting softly as he loped along beside the septon and his 
donkey, tongue lolling from his mouth. The quiet stretched and stretched, until finally she 
said, “How old were you when they marched you off to war?” 

“Why, no older than your boy,” Meribald replied. “Too young for such, in truth, but my 
brothers were all going, and I would not be left behind. Willam said I could be his squire, 
though Will was no knight, only a potboy armed with a kitchen knife he’d stolen from the 
inn. He died upon the Stepstones, and never struck a blow. It was fever did for him, and 
for my brother Robin. Owen died from a mace that split his head apart, and his friend Jon 
Pox was hanged for rape.” 

“The War of the Ninepenny Kings?” asked Hyle Hunt. 

“So they called it, though I never saw a king, nor earned a penny. It was a war, though. 
That it was.” 


SAMWELL 

Sam stood before the window, rocking nervously as he watched the last light of the sun 
vanish behind a row of sharp-peaked rooftops. He must have gotten drunk again, he 
thought glumly. Or else he’s met another girl. He did not know whether to curse or weep. 
Dareon was supposed to be his brother. Ask him to sing, and no one could be better. Ask 
him to do aught else . . . 

The mists of evening had begun to rise, sending grey fingers up the walls of the buildings 
that lined the old canal. “He promised he’d be back,” Sam said. “You heard him too.” 

Gilly looked at him with eyes red-rimmed and puffy. Her hair hung about her face, 
unwashed and tangled. She looked like some wary animal peering through a bush. It had 
been days since they’d last had a fire, yet the wildling girl liked to huddle near the hearth, 
as if the cold ashes still held some lingering warmth. “He doesn’t like it here with us,” 
she said, whispering so as not to wake the babe. “It’s sad here. He likes it where the wine 
is, and the smiles.” 


Yes, thought Sam, and the wine is everywhere but here. Braavos was full of inns, 
alehouses, and brothels. And if Dareon preferred a fire and a cup of mulled wine to stale 
bread and the company of a weeping woman, a fat craven, and a sick old man, who could 
blame him? I could blame him. He said he would be back before the gloaming; he said he 
would bring us wine and food. 

He looked out the window once more, hoping against hope to see the singer hurrying 
home. Darkness was falling across the secret city, creeping through the alleys and down 
the canals. The good folk of Braavos would soon be shuttering their windows and sliding 
bars across their doors. Night belonged to the bravos and the courtesans. Dareon’s new 
friends, Sam thought bitterly. They were all the singer could talk about of late. He was 
trying to write a song about one courtesan, a woman called the Moonshadow who had 
heard him singing beside the Moon Pool and rewarded him with a kiss. “You should have 
asked her for silver,” Sam had said. “It’s coin we need, not kisses.” But the singer only 
smiled. “Some kisses are worth more than yellow gold, Slayer.” 

That made him angry too. Dareon was not supposed to be making up songs about 
courtesans. He was supposed to be singing about the Wall and the valor of the Night’s 
Watch. Jon had hoped that perhaps his songs might persuade a few young men to take the 
black. Instead he sang of golden kisses, silvery hair, and red, red lips. No one ever took 
the black for red, red lips. 

Sometimes his playing would wake the babe too. Then the child would begin to wail, 
Dareon would shout at him to be quiet, Gilly would weep, and the singer would storm out 
and not return for days. “All that weeping makes me want to slap her,” he complained, 
“and I can scarce sleep for her sobbing.” 

You would weep as well if you had a son and lost him, Sam almost said. He could not 
blame Gilly for her grief. Instead, he blamed Jon Snow and wondered when Jon’s heart 
had turned to stone. Once he asked Maester Aemon that very question, when Gilly was 
down at the canal fetching water for them. “When you raised him up to be the lord 
commander,” the old man answered. 

Even now, rotting here in this cold room beneath the eaves, part of Sam did not want to 
believe that Jon had done what Maester Aemon thought. It must be true, though. Why else 
would Gilly weep so much? All he had to do was ask her whose child she was nursing at 
her breast, but he did not have the courage. He was afraid of the answer he might get. I 
am still a craven, Jon. No matter where he went in this wide world, his fears went with 
him. 

A hollow rumbling echoed off the roofs of Braavos, like the sound of distant thunder; the 
Titan, sounding nightfall from across the lagoon. The noise was loud enough to wake the 
babe, and his sudden wail woke Maester Aemon. As Gilly went to give the boy the 
breast, the old man’s eyes opened, and he stirred feebly in his narrow bed. “Egg? It’s 
dark. Why is it so dark?” 


Because you’re blind. Aemon’s wits were wandering more and more since they arrived at 
Braavos. Some days he did not seem to know where he was. Some days he would lose his 
way when saying something and begin to ramble on about his father or his brother. He is 
one hundred and two, Sam reminded himself, but he had been just as old at Castle Black 
and his wits had never wandered there. 

“It’s me,” he had to say. “Samwell Tarly. Your steward.” 

“Sam.” Maester Aemon licked his lips, and blinked. “Yes. And this is Braavos. Forgive 
me, Sam. Is morning come?” 

“No.” Sam felt the old man’s brow. His skin was damp with sweat, cool and clammy to 
the touch, his every breath a soft wheeze. “It’s night, maester. You’ve been asleep.” 

“Too long. It’s cold in here.” 

“We have no wood,” Sam told him, “and the innkeep will not give us more unless we 
have the coin.” It was the fourth or fifth time they’d had this same conversation. I should 
have used our coin for wood, Sam chided himself every time. I should have had the sense 
to keep him warm. 

Instead he had squandered the last of their silver on a healer from the House of the Red 
Hands, a tall pale man in robes embroidered with swirling stripes of red and white. All 
that the silver bought him was half a flask of dreamwine. “This may help gentle his 
passing,” the Braavosi had said, not unkindly. When Sam asked if there wasn’t any more 
that he could do, he shook his head. “Ointments I have, potions and infusions, tinctures 
and venoms and poultices. I might bleed him, purge him, leech him . . . but why? No 
leech can make him young again. This is an old man, and death is in his lungs. Give him 
this and let him sleep.” 

And so he had, all night and all day, but now the old man was struggling to sit. “We must 
go down to the ships.” 

The ships again. “You’re too weak to go out,” he had to say. A chill had gotten inside 
Maester Aemon during the voyage and settled in his chest. By the time they got to 
Braavos, he had been so weak they’d had to carry him ashore. They’d still had a fat bag 
of silver then, so Dareon had asked for the inn’s biggest bed. The one they’d gotten was 
large enough to sleep eight, so the innkeep insisted on charging them for that many. 

“On the morrow we can go to the docks,” Sam promised. “You can ask about and find 
which ship is departing next for Oldtown.” Even in autumn, Braavos was still a busy port. 
Once Aemon was strong enough to travel, they should have no trouble finding a suitable 
vessel to take them where they had to go. Paying for their passage would prove more 
difficult. A ship from the Seven Kingdoms would be their best hope. A trader out of 
Oldtown, maybe, with kin in the Night’s Watch. There must still be some who honor the 
men who walk the Wall. 


“Oldtown,” Maester Aemon wheezed. “Yes. I dreamt of Oldtown, Sam. I was young 
again and my brother Egg was with me, with that big knight he served. We were drinking 
in the old inn where they make the fearsomely strong cider.” He tried to rise again, but 
the effort proved too much for him. After a moment he settled back. “The ships,” he said 
again. “We will find our answer there. About the dragons. I need to know.” 

No, thought Sam, it’s food and warmth you need, a full belly and a hot fire crackling in 
the hearth. “Are you hungry, maester? We have some bread left, and a bit of cheese.” 

“Not just now, Sam. Later, when I’m feeling stronger.” 

“How will you get stronger unless you eat?” None of them had eaten much at sea, not 
after Skagos. The autumn gales had hounded them all across the narrow sea. Sometimes 
they came up from the south, roiling with thunder and lightning and black rains that fell 
for days. Sometimes they came down from the north, cold and grim, with savage winds 
that cut right through a man. Once it got so cold that Sam had woken to find the whole 
ship coated in ice, shining as white as pearl. The captain had taken down their mast and 
tied it to the deck, to finish the crossing on oars alone. No one had been eating by the 
time they saw the Titan. 

Once safe ashore, though, Sam had found himself ravenously hungry. It was the same for 
Dareon and Gilly. Even the babe had begun to suck more lustily. Aemon, though . . . 

“The bread’s gone stale, but I can beg some gravy from the kitchens to soak it in,” Sam 
told the old man. The innkeep was a hard man, cold-eyed and suspicious of these black-
clad strangers beneath his roof, but his cook was kinder. 

“No. Perhaps a sip of wine, though?” 

They had no wine. Dareon had promised to buy some with the coin from his singing. 
“We’ll have wine later,” Sam had to say. “There’s water, but it’s not the good water.” 
The good water came over the arches of the great brick aqueduct the Braavosi called the 
sweetwater river. Rich men had it piped into their homes; the poor filled their pails and 
buckets at public fountains. Sam had sent Gilly out to get some, forgetting that the 
wildling girl had lived her whole life in sight of Craster’s Keep and never seen so much 
as a market town. The stony maze of islands and canals that was Braavos, devoid of grass 
and trees and teeming with strangers who spoke to her in words she could not understand, 
frightened her so badly that she lost the map and soon herself. Sam found her weeping at 
the stony feet of some long-dead sealord. “All we have is canal water,” he told Maester 
Aemon, “but the cook gave it a boil. There’s dreamwine too, if you need more of that.” 

“I have dreamt enough for now. Canal water will suffice. Help me, if you would.” 

Sam eased the old man up and held the cup to his dry, cracked lips. Even so, half the 
water dribbled down the maester’s chest. “Enough,” Aemon coughed, after a few sips. 
“You’ll drown me.” He shivered in Sam’s arms. “Why is the room so cold?” 


“There’s no more wood.” Dareon had paid the innkeep double for a room with a hearth, 
but none of them had realized that wood would be so costly here. Trees did not grow on 
Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty. Nor would the Braavosi cut the 
pines that covered the outlying islands around their great lagoon and acted as windbreaks 
to shield them from storms. Instead, firewood was brought in by barge, up the rivers and 
across the lagoon. Even dung was dear here; the Braavosi used boats in place of horses. 
None of that would have mattered if they had departed as planned for Oldtown, but that 
had proved impossible with Maester Aemon so weak. Another voyage on the open sea 
would kill him. 

Aemon’s hand crept across the blankets, groping for Sam’s arm. “We must go to the 
docks, Sam.” 

“When you are stronger.” The old man was in no state to brave the salt spray and wet 
winds along the waterfront, and Braavos was all waterfront. To the north was the Purple 
Harbor, where Braavosi traders tied up beneath the domes and towers of the Sealord’s 
Palace. To the west lay the Ragman’s Harbor, crowded with ships from the other Free 
Cities, from Westeros and Ibben and the fabled, far-off lands of the east. And everywhere 
else were little piers and ferry berths and old grey wharves where shrimpers and crabbers 
and fisherfolk moored after working the mudflats and river mouths. “It would be too 
great a strain on you.” 

“Then go in my stead,” Aemon urged, “and bring me someone who has seen these 
dragons.” 

“Me?” Sam was dismayed by the suggestion. “Maester, it was only a story. A sailor’s 
story.” Dareon was to blame for this as well. The singer had been bringing back all 
manner of queer tales from the alehouses and brothels. Unfortunately, he had been in his 
cups when he heard the one about the dragons and could not recall the details. “Dareon 
may have made up the whole story. Singers do that. They make things up.” 

“They do,” said Maester Aemon, “but even the most fanciful song may hold a kernel of 
truth. Find that truth for me, Sam.” 

“I wouldn’t know who to ask, or how to ask him. I only have a little High Valyrian, and 
when they speak to me in Braavosi I cannot understand half of what they’re saying. You 
speak more tongues than I do, once you are stronger you can . . .” 

“When will I be stronger, Sam? Tell me that.” 

“Soon. If you rest and eat. When we reach Oldtown . . .” 

“I shall not see Oldtown again. I know that now.” The old man tightened his grip on 
Sam’s arm. “I will be with my brothers soon. Some were bound to me by vows and some 
by blood, but they were all my brothers. And my father . . . he never thought the throne 
would pass to him, and yet it did. He used to say that was his punishment for the blow 


that slew his brother. I pray he found the peace in death that he never knew in life. The 
septons sing of sweet surcease, of laying down our burdens and voyaging to a far sweet 
land where we may laugh and love and feast until the end of days . . . but what if there is 
no land of light and honey, only cold and dark and pain beyond the wall called death?” 

He is afraid, Sam realized. “You are not dying. You’re ill, that’s all. It will pass.” 

“Not this time, Sam. I dreamed . . . in the black of night a man asks all the questions he 
dare not ask by daylight. For me, these past years, only one question has remained. Why 
would the gods take my eyes and my strength, yet condemn me to linger on so long, 
frozen and forgotten? What use could they have for an old done man like me?” Aemon’s 
fingers trembled, twigs sheathed in spotted skin. “I remember, Sam. I still remember.” 

He was not making sense. “Remember what?” 

“Dragons,” Aemon whispered. “The grief and glory of my House, they were.” 

“The last dragon died before you were born,” said Sam. “How could you remember 
them?” 

“I see them in my dreams, Sam. I see a red star bleeding in the sky. I still remember red. I 
see their shadows on the snow, hear the crack of leathern wings, feel their hot breath. My 
brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one. Sam, we tremble 
on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies, of wonders and terrors that no man now 
living could hope to comprehend . . . or . . .” 

“Or?” said Sam. 

“. . . or not.” Aemon chuckled softly. “Or I am an old man, feverish and dying.” He 
closed his white eyes wearily, then forced them open once again. “I should not have left 
the Wall. Lord Snow could not have known, but I should have seen it. Fire consumes, but 
cold preserves. The Wall . . . but it is too late to go running back. The Stranger waits 
outside my door and will not be denied. Steward, you have served me faithfully. Do this 
one last brave thing for me. Go down to the ships, Sam. Learn all you can about these 
dragons.” 

Sam eased his arm out of the old man’s grasp. “I will. If you want. I only . . .” He did not 
know what else to say. I cannot refuse him. He could look for Dareon as well, along the 
docks and wharves of the Ragman’s Harbor. I will find Dareon first, and we’ll go to the 
ships together. And when we come back, we’ll bring food and wine and wood. We’ll have 
a fire and a good hot meal. He rose. “Well. I should go, then. If I am going. Gilly will be 
here. Gilly, bar the door when I am gone.” The Stranger waits outside the door. 

Gilly nodded, cradling the babe against her breast, her eyes welling full of tears. She is 
going to weep again, Sam realized. It was more than he could take. His swordbelt hung 
from a peg on the wall, beside the old cracked horn that Jon had given him. He ripped it 


down and buckled it about him, then swept his black wool cloak about his rounded 
shoulders, slumped through the door, and clattered down a wooden stair whose steps 
creaked beneath his weight. The inn had two front doors, one opening on a street and one 
on a canal. Sam went out through the former, to avoid the common room where the 
innkeep was sure to give him the sour eye that he reserved for guests who had overstayed 
their welcome. 

There was a chill in the air, but the night was not half so foggy as some. Sam was grateful 
for that much. Sometimes the mists covered the ground so thick that a man could not see 
his own feet. Once he had come within a step of walking into a canal. 

As a boy Sam had read a history of Braavos and dreamed of one day coming here. He 
wanted to behold the Titan rising stern and fearsome from the sea, glide down the canals 
in a serpent boat past all the palaces and temples, and watch the bravos do their water 
dance, blades flashing in the starlight. But now that he was here, all he wanted was to 
leave and go to Oldtown. 

With his hood up and his cloak flapping, he made his way along the cobblestones toward 
the Ragman’s Harbor. His swordbelt kept threatening to fall down about his ankles, so he 
had to keep tugging it back up as he went. He stayed to the smaller, darker streets, where 
he was less likely to encounter anyone, yet every passing cat still made his heart thump . . 
. and Braavos crawled with cats. I need to find Dareon, he thought. He is a man of the 
Night’s Watch, my Sworn Brother; he and I will puzzle out what to do. Maester Aemon’s 
strength was gone, and Gilly would have been lost here even if she had not been grief-
stricken, but Dareon . . . I should not think ill of him. He could be hurt, perhaps that is 
why he did not come back. He could be dead, lying in some alley in a pool of blood, or 
floating facedown in one of the canals. At night the bravos swaggered through the city in 
their parti-colored finery, spoiling to prove their skill with those slender swords they 
wore. Some would fight for any cause, some for none at all, and Dareon had a loose 
tongue and quick temper, especially when he’d been drinking. Just because a man can 
sing about battles doesn’t mean he’s fit to fight one. 

The best alehouses, inns, and brothels were near the Purple Harbor or the Moon Pool, but 
Dareon preferred the Ragman’s Harbor, where the patrons were more apt to speak the 
Common Tongue. Sam began his search at the Inn of the Green Eel, the Black Bargeman, 
and Moroggo’s, places where Dareon had played before. He was not to be found at any of 
them. Outside the Foghouse several serpent boats were tied up awaiting patrons, and Sam 
tried to ask the polemen if they had seen a singer all in black, but none of the polemen 
understood his High Valyrian. That, or they do not chose to understand. Sam peered into 
the dingy winesink beneath the second arch of Nabbo’s Bridge, barely large enough to 
accommodate ten people. Dareon was not one of them. He tried the Outcast Inn, the 
House of Seven Lamps, and the brothel called the Cattery, where he got strange looks but 
no help. 

Leaving, he almost bumped into two young men beneath the Cattery’s red lantern. One 
was dark and one was fair. The dark-haired one said something in Braavosi. “I am sorry,” 


Sam had to say. “I do not understand.” He edged away from them, afraid. In the Seven 
Kingdoms nobles draped themselves in velvets, silks, and samites of a hundred hues 
whilst peasants and smallfolk wore raw wool and dull brown roughspun. In Braavos it 
was otherwise. The bravos swaggered about like peacocks, fingering their swords, whilst 
the mighty dressed in charcoal grey and purple, blues that were almost black and blacks 
as dark as a moonless night. 

“My friend Terro says you are so fat you make him sick,” said the fair-haired bravo, 
whose jacket was green velvet on one side and cloth-of-silver on the other. “My friend 
Terro says that the rattle of your sword makes his head ache.” He was speaking in the 
Common Tongue. The other one, the dark-haired bravo in the burgundy brocade and 
yellow cloak whose name would appear to have been Terro, made some comment in 
Braavosi, and his fair-haired friend laughed, and said, “My friend Terro says you dress 
above your station. Are you some great lord, to wear the black?” 

Sam wanted to run, but if he did was like to trip over his own swordbelt. Do not touch 
your sword, he told himself. Even a finger on the hilt might be enough for one or the 
other of the bravos to take as a challenge. He tried to think of words that might appease 
them. “I’m not—” was all he managed. 

“He is not a lord,” a child’s voice put in. “He’s in the Night’s Watch, stupid. From 
Westeros.” A girl edged into the light, pushing a barrow full of seaweed; a scruffy, skinny 
creature in big boots, with ragged unwashed hair. “There’s another one down at the 
Happy Port, singing songs to the Sailor’s Wife,” she informed the two bravos. To Sam 
she said, “If they ask who is the most beautiful woman in the world, say the Nightingale 
or else they’ll challenge you. Do you want to buy some clams? I sold all my oysters.” 

“I have no coin,” Sam said. 

“He has no coin,” mocked the fair-haired bravo. His dark-haired friend grinned and said 
something in Braavosi. “My friend Terro is chilly. Be our good fat friend and give him 
your cloak.” 

“Don’t do that either,” said the barrow girl, “or else they’ll ask for your boots next, and 
before long you’ll be naked.” 

“Little cats who howl too loud get drowned in the canals,” warned the fair-haired bravo. 

“Not if they have claws.” And suddenly there was a knife in the girl’s left hand, a blade 
as skinny as she was. The one called Terro said something to his fair-haired friend and 
the two of them moved off, chuckling at one another. 

“Thank you,” Sam told the girl when they were gone. 

Her knife vanished. “If you wear a sword at night it means you can be challenged. Did 
you want to fight them?” 


“No.” It came out in a squeak that made Sam wince. 

“Are you truly in the Night’s Watch? I never saw a black brother like you before.” The 
girl gestured at the barrow. “You can have the last clams if you want. It’s dark, no one 
will buy them now. Are you sailing to the Wall?” 

“To Oldtown.” Sam took one of the baked clams and wolfed it down. “We’re between 
ships.” The clam was good. He ate another. 

“The bravos never bother anyone without a sword. Not even stupid camel cunts like 
Terro and Orbelo.” 

“Who are you?” 

“No one.” She stank of fish. “I used to be someone, but now I’m not. You can call me 
Cat, if you like. Who are you?” 

“Samwell, of House Tarly. You speak the Common Tongue.” 

“My father was the oarmaster on Nymeria. A bravo killed him for saying that my mother 
was more beautiful than the Nightingale. Not one of those camel cunts you met, a real 
bravo. Someday I’ll slit his throat. The captain said Nymeria had no need of little girls, so 
he put me off. Brusco took me in and gave me a barrow.” She looked up at him. “What 
ship will you be sailing on?” 

“We bought passage on the Lady Ushanora.” 

The girl squinted at him suspiciously. “She’s gone. Don’t you know? She left days and 
days ago.” 

I know, Sam might have said. He and Dareon had stood on the dock watching the rise and 
fall of her oars as she beat for the Titan and the open sea. “Well,” the singer said, “that’s 
done.” If Sam had been a braver man, he would have shoved him into the water. When it 
came to talking girls out of their clothes Dareon had a honeyed tongue, yet in the 
captain’s cabin somehow Sam had done all the talking, trying to persuade the Braavosi to 
wait for them. “Three days I have waited for this old man,” the captain had said. “My 
holds are full, and my men have fucked their wives farewell. With you or without, my 
Lady leaves on the tide.” 

“Please,” Sam had pleaded. “Just a few more days, that’s all I ask. So Maester Aemon 
can recover his strength.” 

“He has no strength.” The captain had visited the inn the night before to see Maester 
Aemon for himself. “He is old and ill and I will not have him dying on my Lady. Stay 
with him or leave him, it matters not to me. I sail.” Even worse, he had refused to return 
the passage money they had paid him, the silver that was meant to see them safe to 


Oldtown. “You bought my finest cabin. It is there, awaiting you. If you do not choose to 
occupy it, that is no fault of mine. Why should I bear the loss?” 

By now we might be at Duskendale, Sam thought mournfully. We might even have 
reached Pentos, if the winds were kind. 

But none of that would matter to the barrow girl. “You said you saw a singer . . .” 

“At the Happy Port. He’s going to wed the Sailor’s Wife.” 

“Wed?” 

“She only beds the ones who marry her.” 

“Where is this Happy Port?” 

“Across from the Mummer’s Ship. I can show you the way.” 

“I know the way.” Sam had seen the Mummer’s Ship. Dareon cannot wed! He said the 
words! “I have to go.” 

He ran. It was a long way over slick cobbles. Before long he was puffing, his big black 
cloak flapping noisily behind him. He had to keep one hand on his swordbelt as he ran. 
What few people he encountered gave him curious looks, and once a cat reared up and 
hissed at him. By the time he reached the ship he was staggering. The Happy Port was 
just across the alley. 

No sooner had he entered, flushed and out of breath, than a one-eyed woman threw her 
arms around his neck. “Don’t,” Sam told her, “I’m not here for that.” She answered in 
Braavosi. “I do not speak that tongue,” Sam said in High Valyrian. There were candles 
burning and a fire crackling in the hearth. Someone was sawing on a fiddle, and he saw 
two girls dancing around a red priest, holding hands. The one-eyed woman pressed her 
breasts against his chest. “Don’t do that! I’m not here for that!” 

“Sam!” Dareon’s familiar voice rang out. “Yna, let him go, that’s Sam the Slayer. My 
Sworn Brother!” 

The one-eyed woman peeled away, though she kept one hand on his arm. One of the 
dancers called out, “He can slay me if he likes,” and the other said, “Do you think he’d 
let me touch his sword?” Behind them a purple galleas had been painted on the wall, 
crewed by women clad in thigh-high boots and nothing else. A Tyroshi sailor was passed 
out in a corner, snoring into his huge scarlet beard. Elsewhere an older woman with huge 
breasts was turning tiles with a massive Summer Islander in black-and-scarlet feathers. In 
the center of it all sat Dareon, nuzzling at the neck of the woman in his lap. She was 
wearing his black cloak. 


“Slayer,” the singer called out drunkenly, “come meet my lady wife.” His hair was sand 
and honey, his smile warm. “I sang her love songs. Women melt like butter when I sing. 
How could I resist this face?” He kissed her nose. “Wife, give Slayer a kiss, he’s my 
brother.” When the girl got to her feet, Sam saw that she was naked underneath the cloak. 
“Don’t go fondling my wife now, Slayer,” said Dareon, laughing. “But if you want one of 
her sisters, you feel free. I still have coin enough, I think.” 

Coin that might have bought us food, Sam thought, coin that might have bought wood, so 
Maester Aemon could keep warm. “What have you done? You can’t marry. You said the 
words, the same as me. They could have your head for this.” 

“We’re only wed for this one night, Slayer. Even in Westeros no one takes your head for 
that. Haven’t you ever gone to Mole’s Town to dig for buried treasure?” 

“No.” Sam reddened. “I would never . . .” 

“What about your wildling wench? You must have fucked her a time or three. All those 
nights in the woods, huddled together under your cloak, don’t you tell me that you never 
stuck it in her.” He waved a hand toward a chair. “Sit down, Slayer. Have a cup of wine. 
Have a whore. Have both.” 

Sam did not want a cup of wine. “You promised to come back before the gloaming. To 
bring back wine and food.” 

“Is this how you killed that Other? Scolding him to death?” Dareon laughed. “She’s my 
wife, not you. If you will not drink to my marriage, go away.” 

“Come with me,” said Sam. “Maester Aemon’s woken up and wants to hear about these 
dragons. He’s talking about bleeding stars and white shadows and dreams and . . . if we 
could find out more about these dragons, it might help give him ease. Help me.” 

“On the morrow. Not on my wedding night.” Dareon pushed himself to his feet, took his 
bride by the hand, and started toward the stairs, pulling her behind him. 

Sam blocked his way. “You promised, Dareon. You said the words. You’re supposed to 
be my brother.” 

“In Westeros. Does this look like Westeros to you?” 

“Maester Aemon—” 

“—is dying. That stripey healer you wasted all our silver on said as much.” Dareon’s 
mouth had turned hard. “Have a girl or go away, Sam. You’re ruining my wedding.” 

“I’ll go,” said Sam, “but you’ll come with me.” 


“No. I’m done with you. I’m done with black.” Dareon tore his cloak off his naked bride 
and tossed it in Sam’s face. “Here. Throw that rag on the old man, it may keep him a little 
warmer. I shan’t be needing it. I’ll be clad in velvet soon. Next year I’ll be wearing furs 
and eating—” 

Sam hit him. 

He did not think about it. His hand came up, curled into a fist, and crashed into the 
singer’s mouth. Dareon cursed and his naked wife gave a shriek and Sam threw himself 
onto the singer and knocked him backwards over a low table. They were almost of a 
height, but Sam weighed twice as much, and for once he was too angry to be afraid. He 
punched the singer in the face and in the belly, then began to pummel him about the 
shoulders with both hands. When Dareon grabbed his wrists, Sam butted him with his 
head and broke his lip. The singer let go and he smashed him in the nose. Somewhere a 
man was laughing, a woman cursing. The fight seemed to slow, as if they were two black 
flies struggling in amber. Then someone dragged Sam off the singer’s chest. He hit that 
person too, and something hard crashed into his head. 

The next he knew he was outside, flying headfirst through the fog. For half a heartbeat he 
saw black water underneath him. Then the canal came up and smashed him in the face. 

Sam sank like a stone, like a boulder, like a mountain. The water got into his eyes and up 
his nose, dark and cold and salty. When he tried to shout for help he swallowed more. 
Kicking and gasping, he rolled over, bubbles bursting from his nose. Swim, he told 
himself, swim. The brine stung his eyes when he opened them, blinding him. He popped 
to the surface for just an instant, sucked down air, and slapped desperately with one hand 
whilst the other scrabbled at the wall of the canal. But the stones were slick and slimy and 
he could not get a grasp. He sank again. 

Sam could feel the cold against his skin as the water soaked through his clothes. His 
swordbelt slipped down his legs and tangled round his ankles. I’m going to drown, he 
thought, in a blind black panic. He thrashed, trying to claw his way back to the surface, 
but instead his face bumped the bottom of the canal. I’m upside down, he realized, I’m 
drowning. Something moved beneath one flailing hand, an eel or a fish, slithering 
through his fingers. I can’t drown, Maester Aemon will die without me, and Gilly will 
have no one. I have to swim, I have to . . . 

There was a huge splash, and something coiled around him, under his arms and around 
his chest. The eel, was his first thought, the eel has got me, it’s going to pull me down. He 
opened his mouth to scream, and swallowed more water. I’m drowned, was his last 
thought. Oh, gods be good, I’m drowned. 

When he opened his eyes he was on his back and a big black Summer Islander was 
pounding on his belly with fists the size of hams. Stop that, you’re hurting me, Sam tried 
to scream. Instead of words he retched out water, and gasped. He was sodden and 
shivering, lying on the cobbles in a puddle of canal water. The Summer Islander punched 


him in the belly again, and more water came squirting out his nose. “Stop that,” Sam 
gasped. “I haven’t drowned. I haven’t drowned.” 

“No.” His rescuer leaned over him, huge and black and dripping. “You owe Xhondo 
many feathers. The water ruined Xhondo’s fine cloak.” 

It had, Sam saw. The feathered cloak clung to the black man’s huge shoulders, sodden 
and soiled. “I never meant . . .” 

“. . . to be swimming? Xhondo saw. Too much splashing. Fat men should float.” He 
grabbed Sam’s doublet with a huge black fist and hauled him to his feet. “Xhondo mates 
on Cinnamon Wind. Many tongues he speaks, a little. Inside Xhondo laughs, to see you 
punch the singer. And Xhondo hears.” A broad white smile spread across his face. 
“Xhondo knows these dragons.” 


JAIME 

I had hoped that by now you would have grown tired of that wretched beard. All that hair 
makes you look like Robert.” His sister had put aside her mourning for a jade-green gown 
with sleeves of silver Myrish lace. An emerald the size of a pigeon’s egg hung on a 
golden chain about her neck. 

“Robert’s beard was black. Mine is gold.” 

“Gold? Or silver?” Cersei plucked a hair from beneath his chin and held it up. It was 
grey. “All the color is draining out of you, brother. You’ve become a ghost of what you 
were, a pale crippled thing. And so bloodless, always in white.” She flicked the hair 
away. “I prefer you garbed in crimson and gold.” 

I prefer you dappled in sunlight, with water beading on your naked skin. He wanted to 
kiss her, carry her to her bedchamber, throw her on the bed. . . . she’s been fucking Lancel 
and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy . . . “I will make a bargain with you. Relieve me 
of this duty, and my razor is yours to command.” 

Her mouth tightened. She had been drinking hot spiced wine and smelled of nutmeg. 
“You presume to dicker with me? Need I remind you, you are sworn to obey.” 

“I am sworn to protect the king. My place is at his side.” 


“Your place is wherever he sends you.” 

“Tommen puts his seal on every paper that you put in front of him. This is your doing, 
and it’s folly. Why name Daven your Warden of the West if you have no faith in him?” 

Cersei took a seat beneath the window. Behind her Jaime could see the blackened ruin of 
the Tower of the Hand. “Why so reluctant, ser? Did you lose your courage with your 
hand?” 

“I swore an oath to Lady Stark, never again to take up arms against the Starks or Tullys.” 

“A drunken promise made with a sword at your throat.” 

“How can I defend Tommen if I am not with him?” 

“By defeating his enemies. Father always said that a swift sword stroke is a better defense 
than any shield. Admittedly, most sword strokes require a hand. Still, even a crippled lion 
may inspire fear. I want Riverrun. I want Brynden Tully chained or dead. And someone 
needs to set Harrenhal to rights. We have urgent need of Wylis Manderly, assuming he is 
still alive and captive, but the garrison has not replied to any of our ravens.” 

“Those are Gregor’s men at Harrenhal,” Jaime reminded her. “The Mountain liked them 
cruel and stupid. Most like they ate your ravens, messages and all.” 

“That’s why I’m sending you. They may eat you as well, brave brother, but I trust you’ll 
give them indigestion.” Cersei smoothed her skirt. “I want Ser Osmund to command the 
Kingsguard in your absence.” 

. . . she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know . . . 

“That’s not your choice. If I must go, Ser Loras will command here in my stead.” 
“Is that a jape? You know how I feel about Ser Loras.” 
“If you had not sent Balon Swann to Dorne—” 
“I need him there. These Dornishmen cannot be trusted. That red snake championed 


Tyrion, have you forgotten that? I will not leave my daughter to their mercy. And I will 
not have Loras Tyrell commanding the Kingsguard.” 
“Ser Loras is thrice the man Ser Osmund is.” 


“Your notions of manhood have changed somewhat, brother.” 
Jaime felt his anger rising. “True, Loras does not leer at your teats the way Ser Osmund 
does, but I hardly think—” 



“Think about this.” Cersei slapped his face. 

Jaime made no attempt to block the blow. “I see I need a thicker beard, to cushion me 
against my queen’s caresses.” He wanted to rip her gown off and turn her blows to kisses. 
He’d done it before, back when he had two good hands. 

The queen’s eyes were green ice. “You had best go, ser.” 

. . . Lancel, Osmund Kettleblack, and Moon Boy . . . 

“Are you deaf as well as maimed? You’ll find the door behind you, ser.” 

“As you command.” Jaime turned on his heel and left her. 

Somewhere the gods were laughing. Cersei had never taken kindly to being balked, he 
knew that. Softer words might have swayed her, yet of late the very sight of her made him 
angry. 

Part of him would be glad to put King’s Landing behind him. He had no taste for the 
company of the lickspittles and fools who surrounded Cersei. “The smallest council,” 
they were calling them in Flea Bottom, according to Addam Marbrand. And Qyburn . . . 
he might have saved Jaime’s life, but he was still a Bloody Mummer. “Qyburn stinks of 
secrets,” he warned Cersei. That only made her laugh. “We all have secrets, brother,” she 
replied. 

. . . she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know . . . 

Forty knights and as many esquires awaited him outside the Red Keep’s stables. Half 
were westermen sworn to House Lannister, the others recent foes turned doubtful friends. 
Ser Dermot of the Rainwood would carry Tommen’s standard, Red Ronnet Connington 
the white banner of the Kingsguard. A Paege, a Piper, and a Peckledon would share the 
honor of squiring for the Lord Commander. “Keep friends at your back and foes where 
you can see them,” Sumner Crakehall had once counseled him. Or had that been Father? 

His palfrey was a blood bay, his destrier a magnificent grey stallion. It had been long 
years since Jaime had named any of his horses; he had seen too many die in battle, and 
that was harder when you named them. But when the Piper boy started calling them 
Honor and Glory, he laughed and let the names stand. Glory wore trappings of Lannister 
crimson; Honor was barded in Kingsguard white. Josmyn Peckledon held the palfrey’s 
reins as Ser Jaime mounted. The squire was skinny as a spear, with long arms and legs, 
greasy mouse-brown hair, and cheeks soft with peach fuzz. His cloak was Lannister 
crimson, but his surcoat showed the ten purple mullets of his own House arrayed upon a 
yellow field. “My lord,” the lad asked, “will you be wanting your new hand?” 

“Wear it, Jaime,” urged Ser Kennos of Kayce. “Wave at the smallfolk and give them a 
tale to tell their children.” 


“I think not.” Jaime would not show the crowds a golden lie. Let them see the stump. Let 
them see the cripple. “But feel free to make up for my lack, Ser Kennos. Wave with both 
hands, and waggle your feet if it please you.” He gathered the reins in his left hand and 
wheeled his horse around. “Payne,” he called as the rest were forming up, “you’ll ride be- 
side me.” 

Ser Ilyn Payne made his way to Jaime’s side, looking like the beggar at the ball. His 
ringmail was old and rusted, worn over a stained jack of boiled leather. Neither the man 
nor his mount showed any heraldry; his shield was so hacked and battered it was hard to 
say what color paint might once have covered it. With his grim face and deep-sunk 
hollow eyes, Ser Ilyn might have passed for death himself . . . as he had, for years. 

No longer, though. Ser Ilyn had been half of Jaime’s price, for swallowing his boy king’s 
command like a good little Lord Commander. The other half had been Ser Addam 
Marbrand. “I need them,” he had told his sister, and Cersei had not put up a fight. Most 
like she’s pleased to rid herself of them. Ser Addam was a boyhood friend of Jaime’s, and 
the silent headsman had belonged to their father, if he belonged to anyone. Payne had 
been the captain of the Hand’s guard when he had been heard boasting that it was Lord 
Tywin who ruled the Seven Kingdoms and told King Aerys what to do. Aerys Targaryen 
took his tongue for that. 

“Open the gates,” said Jaime, and Strongboar, in his booming voice, called out, “OPEN 
THE GATES!” 

When Mace Tyrell had marched out through the Mud Gate to the sound of drums and 
fiddles, thousands lined the streets to cheer him off. Little boys had joined the march, 
striding along beside the Tyrell soldiers with heads held high and legs pumping, whilst 
their sisters threw down kisses from the windows. 

Not so today. A few whores called out invitations as they passed, and a meat pie man 
cried his wares. In Cobbler’s Square two threadbare sparrows were haranguing several 
hundred smallfolk, crying doom upon the heads of godless men and demon worshipers. 
The crowd parted for the column. Sparrows and cobblers alike looked on with dull eyes. 
“They like the smell of roses but have no love for lions,” Jaime observed. “My sister 
would be wise to take note of that.” Ser Ilyn made no reply. The perfect companion for a 
long ride. I will enjoy his conversation. 

The greater part of his command awaited him beyond the city walls; Ser Addam 
Marbrand with his outriders, Ser Steffon Swyft and the baggage train, the Holy Hundred 
of old Ser Bonifer the Good, Sarsfield’s mounted archers, Maester Gulian with four cages 
full of ravens, two hundred heavy horse under Ser Flement Brax. Not a great host, all in 
all; fewer than a thousand men in total. Numbers were the last thing needed at Riverrun. 
A Lannister army already invested the castle, and an even larger force of Freys; the last 
bird they’d received suggested that the besiegers were having difficulty keeping 
themselves fed. Brynden Tully had scoured the land clean before retiring behind his 
walls. 


Not that it required much scouring. From what Jaime had seen of the riverlands, scarce a 
field remained unburnt, a town unsacked, a maiden undespoiled. And now my sweet sister 
sends me to finish the work that Amory Lorch and Gregor Clegane began. It left a bitter 
taste in his mouth. 

This near to King’s Landing, the kingsroad was as safe as any road could be in such 
times, yet Jaime sent Marbrand and his outriders ahead to scout. “Robb Stark took me 
unawares in the Whispering Wood,” he said. “That will never happen again.” 

“You have my word on it.” Marbrand seemed visibly relieved to be ahorse again, wearing 
the smoke-grey cloak of his own House instead of the gold wool of the City Watch. “If 
any foe should come within a dozen leagues, you will know of them beforehand.” 

Jaime had given stern commands that no man was to depart the column without his leave. 
Elsewise, he knew he would have bored young lordlings racing through the fields, 
scattering livestock and trampling down the crops. There were still cows and sheep to be 
seen near the city; apples on the trees and berries in the brush, stands of barleycorn and 
oats and winter wheat, wayns and oxcarts on the road. Farther afield, things would not be 
so rosy. 

Riding at the front of the host with Ser Ilyn silent by his side, Jaime felt almost content. 
The sun was warm on his back and the wind riffled through his hair like a woman’s 
fingers. When Little Lew Piper came galloping up with a helm full of blackberries, Jaime 
ate a handful and told the boy to share the rest with his fellow squires and Ser Ilyn Payne. 

Payne seemed as comfortable in his silence as in his rusted ringmail and boiled leather. 
The clop of his gelding’s hooves and the rattle of sword in scabbard whenever he shifted 
his seat were the only sounds he made. Though his pox-scarred face was grim and his 
eyes as cold as ice on a winter lake, Jaime sensed that he was glad he’d come. I gave the 
man a choice, he reminded himself. He could have refused me and remained King’s 
Justice. 

Ser Ilyn’s appointment had been a wedding gift from Robert Baratheon to the father of 
his bride, a sinecure to compensate Payne for the tongue he’d lost in the service of House 
Lannister. He made a splendid headsman. He had never botched an execution, and 
seldom required as much as a second stroke. And there was something about his silence 
that inspired terror. Seldom had a King’s Justice seemed so well fitted for his office. 

When Jaime decided to take him, he had sought out Ser Ilyn’s chambers at the end of 
Traitor’s Walk. The upper floor of the squat, half-round tower was divided into cells for 
prisoners who required some measure of comfort, captive knights or lordlings awaiting 
ransom or exchange. The entrance to the dungeons proper was at ground level, behind a 
door of hammered iron and a second of splintery grey wood. On the floors between were 
rooms set aside for the use of the Chief Gaoler, the Lord Confessor, and the King’s 
Justice. The Justice was a headsman, but by tradition he also had charge of the dungeons 
and the men who kept them. 


And for that task, Ser Ilyn Payne was singularly ill suited. As he could neither read, nor 
write, nor speak, Ser Ilyn had left the running of the dungeons to his underlings, such as 
they were. The realm had not had a Lord Confessor since the second Daeron, however, 
and the last Chief Gaoler had been a cloth merchant who purchased the office from 
Littlefinger during Robert’s reign. No doubt he’d had good profit from it for a few years, 
until he made the error of conspiring with some other rich fools to give the Iron Throne to 
Stannis. They called themselves “Antler Men,” so Joff had nailed antlers to their heads 
before flinging them over the city walls. So it had been left to Rennifer Longwaters, the 
head undergaoler with the twisted back who claimed at tedious length to have a “drop of 
dragon” in him, to unlock the dungeon doors for Jaime and conduct him up the narrow 
steps inside the walls to the place where Ilyn Payne had lived for fifteen years. 

The chambers stank of rotted food, and the rushes were crawling with vermin. As Jaime 
entered, he almost trod upon a rat. Payne’s greatsword rested on a trestle table, beside a 
whetstone and a greasy oilcloth. The steel was immaculate, the edge glimmering blue in 
the pale light, but elsewhere piles of soiled clothing were strewn about the floors, and the 
bits of mail and armor scattered here and there were red with rust. Jaime could not count 
the broken wine jars. The man cares for naught but killing, he thought, as Ser Ilyn 
emerged from a bedchamber that reeked of overflowing chamber pots. “His Grace bids 
me win back his riverlands,” Jaime told him. “I would have you with me . . . if you can 
bear to give up all of this.” 

Silence was his answer, and a long, unblinking stare. But just as he was about to turn and 
take his leave, Payne had given him a nod. And here he rides. Jaime glanced at his 
companion. Perhaps there is yet hope for the both of us. 

That night they made camp beneath the hilltop castle of the Hayfords. As the sun went 
down, a hundred tents sprouted beneath the hill, along the banks of the stream that ran 
beside it. Jaime set the sentries himself. He did not expect trouble this close to the city, 
but his uncle Stafford had once thought himself safe on the Oxcross too. It was best to 
take no chances. 

When the invitation came down from the castle for him to sup with Lady Hayford’s 
castellan, Jaime took Ser Ilyn with him, along with Ser Addam Marbrand, Ser Bonifer 
Hasty, Red Ronnet Connington, Strongboar, and a dozen other knights and lordlings. “I 
suppose I ought to wear the hand,” he said to Peck before making his ascent. 

The lad fetched it straightaway. The hand was wrought of gold, very lifelike, with inlaid 
nails of mother-of-pearl, its fingers and thumb half closed so as to slip around a goblet’s 
stem. I cannot fight, but I can drink, Jaime reflected as the lad was tightening the straps 
that bound it to his stump. “Men shall name you Goldenhand from this day forth, my 
lord,” the armorer had assured him the first time he’d fitted it onto Jaime’s wrist. He was 
wrong. I shall be the Kingslayer till I die. 

The golden hand was the occasion for much admiring comment over supper, at least until 
Jaime knocked over a goblet of wine. Then his temper got the best of him. “If you admire 


the bloody thing so much, lop off your own sword hand and you can have it,” he told 
Flement Brax. After that there was no more talk about his hand, and he managed to drink 
some wine in peace. 

The lady of the castle was a Lannister by marriage, a plump toddler who had been wed to 
his cousin Tyrek before she was a year old. Lady Ermesande was duly trotted out for 
their approval, all trussed up in a little gown of cloth-of-gold, with the green fretty and 
green pale wavy of House Hayford rendered in tiny beads of jade. But soon enough the 
girl began to squall, whereupon she was promptly whisked off to bed by her wet nurse. 

“Has there been no word of our Lord Tyrek?” her castellan asked as a course of trout was 
served. 

“None.” Tyrek Lannister had vanished during the riots in King’s Landing whilst Jaime 
himself was still captive at Riverrun. The boy would be fourteen by now, assuming he 
was still alive. 

“I led a search myself, at Lord Tywin’s command,” offered Addam Marbrand as he 
boned his fish, “but I found no more than Bywater had before me. The boy was last seen 
ahorse, when the press of the mob broke the line of gold cloaks. Afterward . . . well, his 
palfrey was found, but not the rider. Most like they pulled him down and slew him. But if 
that’s so, where is his body? The mob let the other corpses lie, why not his?” 

“He would be of more value alive,” suggested Strongboar. “Any Lannister would bring a 
hefty ransom.” 

“No doubt,” Marbrand agreed, “yet no ransom demand was ever made. The boy is simply 
gone.” 

“The boy is dead.” Jaime had drunk three cups of wine, and his golden hand seemed to be 
growing heavier and clumsier by the moment. A hook would serve me just as well. “If 
they realized whom they’d killed, no doubt they threw him in the river for fear of my 
father’s wrath. They know the taste of that in King’s Landing. Lord Tywin always paid 
his debts.” 

“Always,” Strongboar agreed, and that was the end of that. 

Yet afterward, alone in the tower room he had been offered for the night, Jaime found 
himself wondering. Tyrek had served King Robert as a squire, side by side with Lancel. 
Knowledge could be more valuable than gold, more deadly than a dagger. It was Varys 
he thought of then, smiling and smelling of lavender. The eunuch had agents and 
informers all over the city. It would have been a simple matter for him to arrange to have 
Tyrek snatched during the confusion . . . provided he knew beforehand that the mob was 
like to riot. And Varys knew all, or so he would have us believe. Yet he gave Cersei no 
warning of that riot. Nor did he ride down to the ships to see Myrcella off. 


He opened the shutters. The night was growing cold, and a horned moon rode the sky. 
His hand shone dully in its light. No good for throttling eunuchs, but heavy enough to 
smash that slimy smile into a fine red ruin. He wanted to hit someone. 

Jaime found Ser Ilyn honing his greatsword. “It’s time,” he told the man. The headsman 
rose and followed, his cracked leather boots scraping against the steep stone steps as they 
went down the stair. A small courtyard opened off the armory. Jaime found two shields 
there, two halfhelms, and a pair of blunted tourney swords. He offered one to Payne and 
took the other in his left hand as he slid his right through the loops of the shield. His 
golden fingers were curved enough to hook, but could not grasp, so his hold upon the 
shield was loose. “You were a knight once, ser,” Jaime said. “So was I. Let us see what 
we are now.” 

Ser Ilyn raised his blade in reply, and Jaime moved at once to the attack. Payne was as 
rusty as his ringmail, and not so strong as Brienne, yet he met every cut with his own 
blade, or interposed his shield. They danced beneath the horned moon as the blunted 
swords sang their steely song. The silent knight was content to let Jaime lead the dance 
for a while, but finally he began to answer stroke for stroke. Once he shifted to the attack, 
he caught Jaime on the thigh, on the shoulder, on the forearm. Thrice he made his head 
ring with cuts to the helm. One slash ripped the shield off his right arm, and almost burst 
the straps that bound his golden hand to his stump. By the time they lowered their swords 
he was bruised and battered, but the wine had burned away and his head was clear. “We 
will dance again,” he promised Ser Ilyn. “On the morrow, and the morrow. Every day 
we’ll dance, till I am as good with my left hand as ever I was with the right.” 

Ser Ilyn opened his mouth and made a clacking sound. A laugh, Jaime realized. 
Something twisted in his gut. 

Come morning, none of the others was so bold as to make mention of his bruises. Not 
one of them had heard the sound of swordplay in the night, it would seem. Yet when they 
climbed back down to camp, Little Lew Piper voiced the question the knights and 
lordlings dared not ask. Jaime grinned at him. “They have lusty wenches in House 
Hayford. These are love bites, lad.” 

Another bright and blustery day was followed by a cloudy one, then three days of rain. 
Wind and water made no matter. The column kept its pace, north along the kingsroad, 
and each night Jaime found some private place to win himself more love bites. They 
fought inside a stable as a one-eyed mule looked on, and in the cellar of an inn amongst 
the casks of wine and ale. They fought in the blackened shell of a big stone barn, on a 
wooded island in a shallow stream, and in an open field as the rain pattered softly against 
their helms and shields. 

Jaime made excuses for his nightly forays, but he was not so foolish as to think that they 
were believed. Addam Marbrand knew what he was about, surely, and some of his other 
captains must have suspected. But no one spoke of it in his hearing . . . and since the only 


witness lacked a tongue, he need not fear anyone learning just how inept a swordsman the 
Kingslayer had become. 

Soon the signs of war could be seen on every hand. Weeds and thorns and brushy trees 
grew high as a horse’s head in fields where autumn wheat should be ripening, the 
kingsroad was bereft of travelers, and wolves ruled the weary world from dusk till dawn. 
Most of the animals were wary enough to keep their distance, but one of Marbrand’s 
outriders had his horse run off and killed when he dismounted for a piss. “No beast would 
be so bold,” declared Ser Bonifer the Good, of the stern sad face. “These are demons in 
the skins of wolves, sent to chastise us for our sins.” 

“This must have been an uncommonly sinful horse,” Jaime said, standing over what 
remained of the poor animal. He gave orders for the rest of the carcass to be cut apart and 
salted down; it might be they would need the meat. 

At a place called Sow’s Horn they found a tough old knight named Ser Roger Hogg 
squatting stubbornly in his towerhouse with six men-at-arms, four crossbowmen, and a 
score of peasants. Ser Roger was as big and bristly as his name and Ser Kennos suggested 
that he might be some lost Crakehall, since their sigil was a brindled boar. Strongboar 
seemed to believe it and spent an earnest hour questioning Ser Roger about his ancestors. 

Jaime was more interested in what Hogg had to say of wolves. “We had some trouble 
with a band of them white star wolves,” the old knight told him. “They come round 
sniffing after you, my lord, but we saw them off, and buried three down by the turnips. 
Before them there was a pack of bloody lions, begging your pardon. The one who led 
them had a manticore on his shield.” 

“Ser Amory Lorch,” Jaime offered. “My lord father commanded him to harry the 
riverlands.” 

“Which we’re no part of,” Ser Roger Hogg said stoutly. “My fealty’s owed to House 
Hayford, and Lady Ermesande bends her little knee at King’s Landing, or will when she’s 
old enough to walk. I told him that, but this Lorch wasn’t much for listening. He 
slaughtered half my sheep and three good milk goats, and tried to roast me in my tower. 
My walls are solid stone and eight feet thick, though, so after his fire burned out he rode 
off bored. The wolves come later, the ones on four legs. They ate the sheep the manticore 
left me. I got a few good pelts in recompense, but fur don’t fill your belly. What should 
we do, my lord?” 

“Plant,” said Jaime, “and pray for one last harvest.” It was not a hopeful answer, but it 
was the only one he had. 

The next day, the column crossed the stream that formed the boundary between the lands 
that did fealty to King’s Landing and those beholden to Riverrun. Maester Gulian 
consulted a map and announced that these hills were held by the brothers Wode, a pair of 


landed knights sworn to Harrenhal . . . but their halls had been earth and timber, and only 
blackened beams remained of them. 

No Wodes appeared, nor any of their smallfolk, though some outlaws had taken shelter in 
the root cellar beneath the second brother’s keep. One of them wore the ruins of a 
crimson cloak, but Jaime hanged him with the rest. It felt good. This was justice. Make a 
habit of it, Lannister, and one day men might call you Goldenhand after all. Goldenhand 
the Just. 

The world grew ever greyer as they drew near to Harrenhal. They rode beneath slate 
skies, beside waters that shone old and cold as a sheet of beaten steel. Jaime found 
himself wondering if Brienne might have passed this way before him. If she thought that 
Sansa Stark had made for Riverrun . . . Had they encountered other travelers, he might 
have stopped to ask if any of them had chance to see a pretty maid with auburn hair, or a 
big ugly one with a face that would curdle milk. But there was no one on the roads but 
wolves, and their howling held no answers. 

Across the pewter waters of the lake the towers of Black Harren’s folly appeared at last, 
five twisted fingers of black, misshapen stone grasping for the sky. Though Littlefinger 
had been named the Lord of Harrenhal, he seemed in no great haste to occupy his new 
seat, so it had fallen to Jaime Lannister to “sort out” Harrenhal on his way to Riverrun. 

That it needed sorting out he did not doubt. Gregor Clegane had wrested the immense, 
gloomy castle away from the Bloody Mummers before Cersei recalled him to King’s 
Landing. No doubt the Mountain’s men were still rattling around inside like so many 
dried peas in a suit of plate, but they were not ideally suited to restore the king’s peace to 
the Trident. The only peace Ser Gregor’s lot had ever given anyone was the peace of the 
grave. 

Ser Addam’s outriders had reported that the gates of Harrenhal were closed and barred. 
Jaime drew his men up before them and commanded Ser Kennos of Kayce to sound the 
Horn of Herrock, black and twisted and banded in old gold. 

When three blasts had echoed off the walls, they heard the groan of iron hinges and the 
gates swung slowly open. So thick were the walls of Black Harren’s folly that Jaime 
passed beneath a dozen murder holes before emerging into sudden sunlight in the yard 
where he’d bid farewell to the Bloody Mummers, not so long ago. Weeds were sprouting 
from the hard-packed earth, and flies buzzed about the carcass of a horse. 

A handful of Ser Gregor’s men emerged from the towers to watch him dismount; hard-
eyed, hard-mouthed men, the lot of them. They would have to be, to ride beside the 
Mountain. About the best that could be said for Gregor’s men was that they were not 
quite as vile and violent a bunch as the Brave Companions. “Fuck me, Jaime Lannister,” 
blurted one grey and grizzled man-at-arms. “It’s the bleeding Kingslayer, boys. Fuck me 
with a spear!” 


“Who might you be?” Jaime asked. 

“Ser used to call me Shitmouth, if it please m’lord.” He spit in his hands and wiped his 
cheeks with them, as if that would somehow make him more presentable. 

“Charming. Do you command here?” 

“Me? Shit, no. M’lord. Bugger me with a bloody spear.” Shitmouth had enough crumbs 
in his beard to feed the garrison. Jaime had to laugh. The man took that for 
encouragement. “Bugger me with a bloody spear,” he said again, and started laughing 
too. 

“You heard the man,” Jaime said to Ilyn Payne. “Find a nice long spear, and shove it up 
his arse.” 

Ser Ilyn did not have a spear, but Beardless Jon Bettley was glad to toss him one. 
Shitmouth’s drunken laughter stopped abruptly. “You keep that bloody thing away from 
me.” 

“Make up your mind,” said Jaime. “Who has the command here? Did Ser Gregor name a 
castellan?” 

“Polliver,” another man said, “only the Hound killed him, m’lord. Him and the Tickler 
both, and that Sarsfield boy.” 

The Hound again. “You know it was Sandor? You saw him?” 

“Not us, m’lord. That innkeep told us.” 

“It happened at the crossroads inn, my lord.” The speaker was a younger man with a mop 
of sandy hair. He wore the chain of coins that had once belonged to Vargo Hoat; coins 
from half a hundred distant cities, silver and gold, copper and bronze, square coins and 
round coins, triangles and rings and bits of bone. “The innkeep swore the man had one 
side of his face all burned. His whores told the same tale. Sandor had some boy with him, 
a ragged peasant lad. They hacked Polly and the Tickler to bloody bits and rode off down 
the Trident, we were told.” 

“Did you send men after them?” 

Shitmouth frowned, as if the thought were painful. “No, m’lord. Fuck us all, we never 
did.” 

“When a dog goes mad you cut his throat.” 

“Well,” the man said, rubbing his mouth, “I never much liked Polly, that shit, and the 
dog, he were Ser’s brother, so . . .” 


“We’re bad, m’lord,” broke in the man who wore the coins, “but you’d need to be mad to 
face the Hound.” 

Jaime looked him over. Bolder than the rest, and not as drunk as Shitmouth. “You were 
afraid of him.” 

“I wouldn’t say afraid, m’lord. I’d say we was leaving him for our betters. Someone like 
Ser. Or you.” 

Me, when I had two hands. Jaime did not delude himself. Sandor would make short work 
of him now. “You have a name?” 

“Rafford, if it pleases. Most call me Raff.” 

“Raff, gather the garrison together in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths. Your captives as 
well. I’ll want to see them. Those whores from the crossroads too. Oh, and Hoat. I was 
distraught to hear that he had died. I’d like to look upon his head.” 

When they brought it to him, he found that the Goat’s lips had been sliced off, along with 
his ears and most of his nose. The crows had supped upon his eyes. It was still 
recognizably Hoat, however. Jaime would have known his beard anywhere; an absurd 
rope of hair two feet long, dangling from a pointed chin. Elsewise, only a few leathery 
strips of flesh still clung to the Qohorik’s skull. “Where is the rest of him?” he asked. 

No one wanted to tell him. Finally, Shitmouth lowered his eyes, and muttered, “Rotted, 
ser. And et.” 

“One of the captives was always begging food,” Rafford admitted, “so Ser said to give 
him roast goat. The Qohorik didn’t have much meat on him, though. Ser took his hands 
and feet first, then his arms and legs.” 

“The fat bugger got most, m’lord,” Shitmouth offered, “but Ser, he said to see that all the 
captives had a taste. And Hoat too, his own self. That whoreson ’ud slobber when we fed 
him, and the grease’d run down into that skinny beard o’ his.” 

Father, Jaime thought, your dogs have both gone mad. He found himself remembering 
tales he had first heard as a child at Casterly Rock, of mad Lady Lothston who bathed in 
tubs of blood and presided over feasts of human flesh within these very walls. 

Somehow revenge had lost its savor. “Take this and throw it in the lake.” Jaime tossed 
Hoat’s head to Peck, and turned to address the garrison. “Until such time as Lord Petyr 
arrives to claim his seat, Ser Bonifer Hasty shall hold Harrenhal in the name of the 
crown. Those of you who wish may join him, if he’ll have you. The rest will ride with me 
to Riverrun.” 


The Mountain’s men looked at one another. “We’re owed,” said one. “Ser promised us. 
Rich rewards, he said.” 

“His very words,” Shitmouth agreed. “Rich rewards, for them as rides with me.” A 
dozen others began to yammer their assent. 

Ser Bonifer raised a gloved hand. “Any man who remains with me shall have a hide of 
land to work, a second hide when he takes a wife, a third at the birth of his first child.” 

“Land, ser?” Shitmouth spat. “Piss on that. If we wanted to grub in the bloody dirt, we 
could have bloody well stayed home, begging your pardon, ser. Rich rewards, Ser said. 
Meaning gold.” 

“If you have a grievance, go to King’s Landing and take it up with my sweet sister.” 
Jaime turned to Rafford. “I’ll see those captives now. Starting with Ser Wylis Manderly.” 

“He the fat one?” asked Rafford. 

“I devoutly hope so. And tell me no sad stories of how he died, or the lot of you are apt to 
do the same.” 

Any hopes he might have nursed of finding Shagwell, Pyg, or Zollo languishing in the 
dungeons were sadly disappointed. The Brave Companions had abandoned Vargo Hoat to 
a man, it would seem. Of Lady Whent’s people, only three remained—the cook who had 
opened the postern gate for Ser Gregor, a bent-back armorer called Ben Blackthumb, and 
a girl named Pia, who was not near as pretty as she had been when Jaime saw her last. 
Someone had broken her nose and knocked out half her teeth. The girl fell at Jaime’s feet 
when she saw him, sobbing and clinging to his leg with hysterical strength till Strongboar 
pulled her off. “No one will hurt you now,” he told her, but that only made her sob the 
louder. 

The other captives had been better treated. Ser Wylis Manderly was amongst them, along 
with several other highborn northmen taken prisoner by the Mountain That Rides in the 
fighting at the fords of the Trident. Useful hostages, all worth a goodly ransom. They 
were ragged, filthy, and shaggy to a man, and some had fresh bruises, cracked teeth, and 
missing fingers, but their wounds had been washed and bandaged, and none of them had 
gone hungry. Jaime wondered if they had any inkling what they’d been eating, and 
decided it was better not to inquire. 

None had any defiance left; especially not Ser Wylis, a bushy-faced tub of suet with dull 
eyes and sallow, sagging jowls. When Jaime told him that he would be escorted to 
Maidenpool and there put on a ship for White Harbor, Ser Wylis collapsed into a puddle 
on the floor and sobbed longer and louder than Pia had. It took four men to lift him back 
onto his feet. Too much roast goat, Jaime reflected. Gods, but I hate this bloody castle. 
Harrenhal had seen more horror in its three hundred years than Casterly Rock had 
witnessed in three thousand. 


Jaime commanded that fires be lit in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths and sent the cook 
hobbling back to the kitchens to prepare a hot meal for the men of his column. “Anything 
but goat.” 

He took his own supper in Hunter’s Hall with Ser Bonifer Hasty, a solemn stork of a man 
prone to salting his speech with appeals to the Seven. “I want none of Ser Gregor’s 
followers,” he declared as he was cutting up a pear as withered as he was, so as to make 
certain that its nonexistent juice did not stain his pristine purple doublet, embroidered 
with the white bend cotised of his House. “I will not have such sinners in my service.” 

“My septon used to say all men were sinners.” 

“He was not wrong,” Ser Bonifer allowed, “but some sins are blacker than others, and 
fouler in the nostrils of the Seven.” 

And you have no more nose than my little brother, or my own sins would have you 
choking on that pear. “Very well. I’ll take Gregor’s lot off your hands.” He could always 
find a use for fighters. If nothing else, he could send them up the ladders first, should he 
need to storm the walls of Riverrun. 

“Take the whore as well,” Ser Bonifer urged. “You know the one. The girl from the 
dungeons.” 

“Pia.” The last time he had been here, Qyburn had sent the girl to his bed, thinking that 
would please him. But the Pia they had brought up from the dungeons was a different 
creature from the sweet, simple, giggly creature who’d crawled beneath his blankets. She 
had made the mistake of speaking when Ser Gregor wanted quiet, so the Mountain had 
smashed her teeth to splinters with a mailed fist and broken her pretty little nose as well. 
He would have done worse, no doubt, if Cersei had not called him down to King’s 
Landing to face the Red Viper’s spear. Jaime would not mourn him. “Pia was born in this 
castle,” he told Ser Bonifer. “It is the only home she has ever known.” 

“She is a font of corruption,” said Ser Bonifer. “I won’t have her near my men, flaunting 
her . . . parts.” 

“I expect her flaunting days are done,” he said, “but if you find her that objectionable, I’ll 
take her.” He could make her a washerwoman, he supposed. His squires did not mind 
raising his tent, grooming his horse, or cleaning his armor, but the task of caring for his 
clothes struck them as unmanly. “Can you hold Harrenhal with just your Holy Hundred?” 
Jaime asked. They should actually be called the Holy Eighty-Six, having lost fourteen 
men upon the Blackwater, but no doubt Ser Bonifer would fill up his ranks again as soon 
as he found some sufficiently pious recruits. 

“I anticipate no difficulty. The Crone will light our way, and the Warrior will give 
strength to our arms.” 


Or else the Stranger will turn up for the whole holy lot of you. Jaime could not be certain 
who had convinced his sister that Ser Bonifer should be named castellan of Harrenhal, 
but the appointment smelled of Orton Merryweather. Hasty had once served 
Merryweather’s grandsire, he seemed to recall dimly. And the carrot-haired justiciar was 
just the sort of simpleminded fool to assume that someone called “the Good” was the 
very potion the riverlands required to heal the wounds left by Roose Bolton, Vargo Hoat, 
and Gregor Clegane. 

But he might not be wrong. Hasty hailed from the stormlands, so had neither friends nor 
foes along the Trident; no blood feuds, no debts to pay, no cronies to reward. He was 
sober, just, and dutiful, and his Holy Eighty-Six were as well disciplined as any soldiers 
in the Seven Kingdoms, and made a lovely sight as they wheeled and pranced their tall 
grey geldings. Littlefinger had once quipped that Ser Bonifer must have gelded the riders 
too, so spotless was their repute. 

All the same, Jaime wondered about any soldiers who were better known for their lovely 
horses than for the foes they’d slain. They pray well, I suppose, but can they fight? They 
had not disgraced themselves on the Blackwater, so far as he knew, but they had not 
distinguished themselves either. Ser Bonifer himself had been a promising knight in his 
youth, but something had happened to him, a defeat or a disgrace or a near brush with 
death, and afterward he had decided that jousting was an empty vanity and put away his 
lance for good and all. 

Harrenhal must be held, though, and Baelor Butthole here is the man that Cersei chose 
to hold it. “This castle has an ill repute,” he warned him, “and one that’s well deserved. 
It’s said that Harren and his sons still walk the halls by night, afire. Those who look upon 
them burst into flame.” 

“I fear no shade, ser. It is written in The Seven-Pointed Star that spirits, wights, and 
revenants cannot harm a pious man, so long as he is armored in his faith.” 

“Then armor yourself in faith, by all means, but wear a suit of mail and plate as well. 
Every man who holds this castle seems to come to a bad end. The Mountain, the Goat, 
even my father . . .” 

“If you will forgive my saying so, they were not godly men, as we are. The Warrior 
defends us, and help is always near, if some dread foe should threaten. Maester Gulian 
will be remaining with his ravens, Lord Lancel is nearby at Darry with his garrison, and 
Lord Randyll holds Maidenpool. Together we three shall hunt down and destroy 
whatever outlaws prowl these parts. Once that is done, the Seven will guide the goodfolk 
back to their villages to plow and plant and build anew.” 

The ones the Goat didn’t kill, at least. Jaime hooked his golden fingers round the stem of 
his wine goblet. “If any of Hoat’s Brave Companions fall into your hands, send word to 
me at once.” The Stranger might have made off with the Goat before Jaime could get 


around to him, but fat Zollo was still out there, with Shagwell, Rorge, Faithful Urswyck, 
and the rest. 

“So you can torture them and kill them?” 

“I suppose you would forgive them, in my place?” 

“If they made sincere repentance for their sins . . . yes, I would embrace them all as 
brothers and pray with them before I sent them to the block. Sins may be forgiven. 
Crimes require punishment.” Hasty folded his hands before him like a steeple, in a way 
that reminded Jaime uncomfortably of his father. “If it is Sandor Clegane that we 
encounter, what would you have me do?” 

Pray hard, Jaime thought, and run. “Send him to join his beloved brother and be glad the 
gods made seven hells. One would never be enough to hold both of the Cleganes.” He 
pushed himself awkwardly to his feet. “Beric Dondarrion is a different matter. Should 
you capture him, hold him for my return. I’ll want to march him back to King’s Landing 
with a rope about his neck, and have Ser Ilyn take his head off where half the realm can 
see.” 

“And this Myrish priest who runs with him? It is said he spreads his false faith 
everywhere.” 

“Kill him, kiss him, or pray with him, as you please.” 

“I have no wish to kiss the man, my lord.” 

“No doubt he’d say the same of you.” Jaime’s smile turned into a yawn. “My pardons. I 
shall take my leave of you, if you have no objections.” 

“None, my lord,” said Hasty. No doubt he wished to pray. 

Jaime wished to fight. He took the steps two at a time, out to where the night air was cold 
and crisp. In the torchlit yard Strongboar and Ser Flement Brax were having at each other 
whilst a ring of men-at-arms cheered them on. Ser Lyle will have the best of that one, he 
knew. I need to find Ser Ilyn. His fingers had the itch again. His footsteps took him away 
from the noise and the light. He passed beneath the covered bridge and through the 
Flowstone Yard before he realized where he was headed. 

As he neared the bear pit, he saw the glow of a lantern, its pale wintry light washing over 
the tiers of steep stone seats. Someone has come before me, it would seem. The pit would 
be a fine place to dance; perhaps Ser Ilyn had anticipated him. 

But the knight standing over the pit was bigger; a husky, bearded man in a red-and-white 
surcoat adorned with griffins. Connington. What’s he doing here? Below, the carcass of 
the bear still sprawled upon the sands, though only bones and ragged fur remained, half



buried. Jaime felt a pang of pity for the beast. At least he died in battle. “Ser Ronnet,” he 
called, “have you lost your way? It is a large castle, I know.” 

Red Ronnet raised his lantern. “I wished to see where the bear danced with the maiden 
not-so-fair.” His beard shone in the light as if it were afire. Jaime could smell wine on his 
breath. “Is it true the wench fought naked?” 

“Naked? No.” He wondered how that wrinkle had been added to the story. “The 
Mummers put her in a pink silk gown and shoved a tourney sword into her hand. The 
Goat wanted her death to be amuthing. Elsewise . . .” 

“. . . the sight of Brienne naked might have made the bear flee in terror.” Connington 
laughed. 

Jaime did not. “You speak as if you know the lady.” 

“I was betrothed to her.” 

That took him by surprise. Brienne had never mentioned a betrothal. “Her father made a 
match for her . . .” 

“Thrice,” said Connington. “I was the second. My father’s notion. I had heard the wench 
was ugly, and I told him so, but he said all women were the same once you blew the 
candle out.” 

“Your father.” Jaime eyed Red Ronnet’s surcoat, where two griffins faced each other on a 
field of red and white. Dancing griffins. “Our late Hand’s . . . brother, was he?” 

“Cousin. Lord Jon had no brothers.” 

“No.” It all came back to him. Jon Connington had been Prince Rhaegar’s friend. When 
Merryweather failed so dismally to contain Robert’s Rebellion and Prince Rhaegar could 
not be found, Aerys had turned to the next best thing, and raised Connington to the 
Handship. But the Mad King was always chopping off his Hands. He had chopped Lord 
Jon after the Battle of the Bells, stripping him of honors, lands, and wealth, and packing 
him off across the sea to die in exile, where he soon drank himself to death. The cousin, 
though—Red Ronnet’s father—had joined the rebellion and been rewarded with Griffin’s 
Roost after the Trident. He only got the castle, though; Robert kept the gold, and 
bestowed the greater part of the Connington lands on more fervent supporters. 

Ser Ronnet was a landed knight, no more. For any such, the Maid of Tarth would have 
been a sweet plum indeed. “How is it that you did not wed?” Jaime asked him. 

“Why, I went to Tarth and saw her. I had six years on her, yet the wench could look me 
in the eye. She was a sow in silk, though most sows have bigger teats. When she tried to 
talk she almost choked on her own tongue. I gave her a rose and told her it was all that 


she would ever have from me.” Connington glanced into the pit. “The bear was less hairy 
than that freak, I’ll—” 

Jaime’s golden hand cracked him across the mouth so hard the other knight went 
stumbling down the steps. His lantern fell and smashed, and the oil spread out, burning. 
“You are speaking of a highborn lady, ser. Call her by her name. Call her Brienne.” 

Connington edged away from the spreading flames on his hands and knees. “Brienne. If it 
please my lord.” He spat a glob of blood at Jaime’s foot. “Brienne the Beauty.” 


CERSEI 

It was a slow climb to the top of Visenya’s Hill. As the horses labored upward, the queen 
leaned back against a plump red cushion. From outside came the voice of Ser Osmund 
Kettleblack. “Make way. Clear the street. Make way for Her Grace the queen.” 

“Margaery does keep a lively court,” Lady Merryweather was saying. “We have jugglers, 
mummers, poets, puppets . . .” 

“Singers?” prompted Cersei. 

“Many and more, Your Grace. Hamish the Harper plays for her once a fortnight, and 
sometimes Alaric of Eysen will entertain us of an evening, but the Blue Bard is her 
favorite.” 

Cersei recalled the bard from Tommen’s wedding. Young, and fair to look upon. Could 
there be something there? “There are other men as well, I hear. Knights and courtiers. 
Admirers. Tell me true, my lady. Do you think Margaery is still a maiden?” 

“She says she is, Your Grace.” 

“So she does. What do you say?” 

Taena’s black eyes sparkled with mischief. “When she wed Lord Renly at Highgarden, I 
helped disrobe him for the bedding. His lordship was a well-made man, and lusty. I saw 
the proof when we tumbled him into the wedding bed where his bride awaited him as 
naked as her name day, blushing prettily beneath the coverlets. Ser Loras had carried her 
up the steps himself. Margaery may say that the marriage was never consummated, that 


Lord Renly had drunk too much wine at the wedding feast, but I promise you, the bit 
between his legs was anything but weary when last I saw it.” 

“Did you chance to see the marriage bed the morning after?” Cersei asked. “Did she 
bleed?” 

“No sheet was shown, Your Grace.” 

A pity. Still, the absence of a bloody sheet meant little, by itself. Common peasant girls 
bled like pigs upon their wedding nights, she had heard, but that was less true of highborn 
maids like Margaery Tyrell. A lord’s daughter was more like to give her maidenhead to a 
horse than a husband, it was said, and Margaery had been riding since she was old 
enough to walk. “I understand the little queen has many admirers amongst our household 
knights. The Redwyne twins, Ser Tallad . . . who else, pray tell?” 

Lady Merryweather gave a shrug. “Ser Lambert, the fool who hides a good eye behind a 
patch. Bayard Norcross. Courtenay Greenhill. The brothers Woodwright, sometimes 
Portifer and often Lucantine. Oh, and Grand Maester Pycelle is a frequent visitor.” 

“Pycelle? Truly?” Had that doddering old worm forsaken the lion for the rose? If so, he 
will regret it. “Who else?” 

“The Summer Islander in his feathered cloak. How could I have forgotten him, with his 
skin as black as ink? Others come to pay court to her cousins. Elinor is promised to the 
Ambrose boy, but loves to flirt, and Megga has a new suitor every fortnight. Once she 
kissed a potboy in the kitchen. I have heard talk of her marrying Lady Bulwer’s brother, 
but if Megga were to choose for herself, she would sooner have Mark Mullendore, I am 
certain.” 

Cersei laughed. “The butterfly knight who lost his arm on the Blackwater? What good is 
half a man?” 

“Megga thinks him sweet. She has asked Lady Margaery to help her find a monkey for 
him.” 

“A monkey.” The queen did not know what to say to that. Sparrows and monkeys. Truly, 
the realm is going mad. “What of our brave Ser Loras? How often does he call upon his 
sister?” 

“More than any of the others.” When Taena frowned, a tiny crease appeared between her 
dark eyes. “Every morn and every night he visits, unless duty interferes. Her brother is 
devoted to her, they share everything with . . . oh . . .” For a moment, the Myrish woman 
looked almost shocked. Then a smile spread across her face. “I have had a most wicked 
thought, Your Grace.” 


“Best keep it to yourself. The hill is thick with sparrows, and we all know how sparrows 
abhor wickedness.” 

“I have heard they abhor soap and water too, Your Grace.” 

“Perhaps too much prayer robs a man of his sense of smell. I shall be sure to ask His 
High Holiness.” 

The draperies swayed back and forth in a wash of crimson silk. “Orton told me that the 
High Septon has no name,” Lady Taena said. “Can that be true? In Myr we all have 
names.” 

“Oh, he had a name once. They all do.” The queen waved a hand dismissively. “Even 
septons born of noble blood go only by their given names once they have taken their 
vows. When one of them is elevated to High Septon, he puts aside that name as well. The 
Faith will tell you he no longer has any need of a man’s name, for he has become the 
avatar of the gods.” 

“How do you distinguish one High Septon from another?” 

“With difficulty. One has to say, ‘the fat one,’ or ‘the one before the fat one,’ or ‘the old 
one who died in his sleep.’ You can always winkle out their birth names if you like, but 
they take umbrage if you use them. It reminds them that they were born ordinary men, 
and they do not like that.” 

“My lord husband tells me this new one was born with filth beneath his fingernails.” 

“So I suspect. As a rule the Most Devout elevate one of their own, but there have been 
exceptions.” Grand Maester Pycelle had informed her of the history, at tedious length. 
“During the reign of King Baelor the Blessed a simple stonemason was chosen as High 
Septon. He worked stone so beautifully that Baelor decided he was the Smith reborn in 
mortal flesh. The man could neither read nor write, nor recall the words of the simplest of 
prayers.” Some still claimed that Baelor’s Hand had the man poisoned to spare the realm 
embarrassment. “After that one died, an eight-year-old boy was elevated, once more at 
King Baelor’s urging. The boy worked miracles, His Grace declared, though even his 
little healing hands could not save Baelor during his final fast.” 

Lady Merryweather gave a laugh. “Eight years old? Perhaps my son could be High 
Septon. He is almost seven.” 

“Does he pray a lot?” the queen asked. 

“He prefers to play with swords.” 

“A real boy, then. Can he name all seven gods?” 


“I think so.” 

“I shall have to take him under consideration.” Cersei did not doubt that there were any 
number of boys who would do more honor to the crystal crown than the wretch on whom 
the Most Devout had chosen to bestow it. This is what comes of letting fools and cowards 
rule themselves. Next time, I will choose their master for them. And the next time might 
not be long in coming, if the new High Septon continued to annoy her. Baelor’s Hand had 
little to teach Cersei Lannister where such matters were concerned. 

“Clear the way!” Ser Osmund Kettleblack was shouting. “Make way for the Queen’s 
Grace!” 

The litter began to slow, which could only mean that they were near the top of the hill. 
“You should bring this son of yours to court,” Cersei told Lady Merryweather. “Six is not 
too young. Tommen needs other boys about him. Why not your son?” Joffrey had never 
had a close friend of his own age, that she recalled. The poor boy was always alone. I had 
Jaime when I was a child . . . and Melara, until she fell into the well. Joff had been fond 
of the Hound, to be sure, but that was not friendship. He was looking for the father he 
never found in Robert. A little foster brother might be just what Tommen needs to wean 
him away from Margaery and her hens. In time they might grow as close as Robert and 
his boyhood friend Ned Stark. A fool, but a loyal fool. Tommen will have need of loyal 
friends to watch his back. 

“Your Grace is kind, but Russell has never known any home but Longtable. I fear he 
would be lost in this great city.” 

“In the beginning,” the queen allowed, “but he will soon outgrow that, as I did. When my 
father sent for me to court I wept and Jaime raged, until my aunt sat me down in the 
Stone Garden and told me there was no one in King’s Landing that I need ever fear. ‘You 
are a lioness,’ she said, ‘and it is for all the lesser beasts to fear you.’ Your son will find 
his courage too. Surely you would prefer to have him close at hand, where you could see 
him every day? He is your only child, is he not?” 

“For the present. My lord husband has asked the gods to bless us with another son, in 
case . . .” 

“I know.” She thought of Joffrey, clawing at his neck. In his last moments he had looked 
to her in desperate appeal, and a sudden memory had stopped her heart; a drop of red 
blood hissing in a candle flame, a croaking voice that spoke of crowns and shrouds, of 
death at the hands of the valonqar. 

Outside the litter, Ser Osmund was shouting something, and someone was shouting back. 
The litter jerked to a halt. “Are you all dead?” roared Kettleblack. “Get out of the bloody 
way!” 


The queen pulled back a corner of the curtain and beckoned to Ser Meryn Trant. “What 
seems to be the trouble?” 

“The sparrows, Your Grace.” Ser Meryn wore white scale armor beneath his cloak. His 
helm and shield were slung from his saddle. “Camping in the street. We’ll make them 
move.” 

“Do that, but gently. I do not care to be caught up in another riot.” Cersei let the curtain 
fall. “This is absurd.” 

“It is, Your Grace,” Lady Merryweather agreed. “The High Septon should have come to 
you. And these wretched sparrows . . .” 

“He feeds them, coddles them, blesses them. Yet will not bless the king.” The blessing 
was an empty ritual, she knew, but rituals and ceremonies had power in the eyes of the 
ignorant. Aegon the Conqueror himself had dated the start of his realm from the day the 
High Septon anointed him in Oldtown. “This wretched priest will obey, or learn how 
weak and human he still is.” 

“Orton says it is the gold he really wants. That he means to withhold his blessing until the 
crown resumes its payments.” 

“The Faith will have its gold as soon as we have peace.” Septon Torbert and Septon 
Raynard had been most understanding of her plight . . . unlike the wretched Braavosi, 
who had hounded poor Lord Gyles so mercilessly that he had taken to his bed, coughing 
up blood. We had to have those ships. She could not rely upon the Arbor for her navy; the 
Redwynes were too close to the Tyrells. She needed her own strength at sea. 

The dromonds rising on the river would give her that. Her flagship would dip twice as 
many oars as King Robert’s Hammer. Aurane had asked her leave to name her Lord 
Tywin, which Cersei had been pleased to grant. She looked forward to hearing men speak 
of her father as a “she.” Another of the ships would be named Sweet Cersei, and would 
bear a gilded figurehead carved in her likeness, clad in mail and lion helm, with spear in 
hand. Brave Joffrey, Lady Joanna, and Lioness would follow her to sea, along with 
Queen Margaery, Golden Rose, Lord Renly, Lady Olenna, and Princess Myrcella. The 
queen had made the mistake of telling Tommen he might name the last five. He had 
actually chosen Moon Boy for one. Only when Lord Aurane suggested that men might 
not want to serve on a ship named for a fool had the boy reluctantly agreed to honor his 
sister instead. 

“If this ragged septon thinks to make me buy Tommen’s blessing, he will soon learn 
better,” she told Taena. The queen did not intend to truckle to a pack of priests. 

The litter halted yet again, so suddenly that Cersei jerked. “Oh, this is infuriating.” She 
leaned out once more, and saw that they had reached the top of Visenya’s Hill. Ahead 
loomed the Great Sept of Baelor, with its magnificent dome and seven shining towers, 


but between her and the marble steps lay a sullen sea of humanity, brown and ragged and 
unwashed. Sparrows, she thought, sniffing, though no sparrows had ever smelled so rank. 

Cersei was appalled. Qyburn had brought her reports of their numbers, but hearing about 
them was one thing and seeing them another. Hundreds were encamped upon the plaza, 
hundreds more in the gardens. Their cookfires filled the air with smoke and stinks. 
Roughspun tents and miserable hovels made of mud and scrap wood besmirched the 
pristine white marble. They were even huddled on the steps, beneath the Great Sept’s 
towering doors. 

Ser Osmund came trotting back to her. Beside him rode Ser Osfryd, mounted on a 
stallion as golden as his cloak. Osfryd was the middle Kettleblack, quieter than his 
siblings, more apt to scowl than smile. And crueler as well, if the tales are true. Perhaps I 
should have sent him to the Wall. 

Grand Maester Pycelle had wanted an older man “more seasoned in the ways of war” to 
command the gold cloaks, and several of her other councillors had agreed with him. “Ser 
Osfryd is seasoned quite sufficiently,” she had told them, but even that did not shut them 
up. They yap at me like a pack of small, annoying dogs. Her patience with Pycelle had all 
but run its course. He had even had the temerity to object to her sending to Dorne for a 
master-at-arms, on the grounds that it might offend the Tyrells. “Why do you think I’m 
doing it?” she had asked him scornfully. 

“Beg pardon, Your Grace,” said Ser Osmund. “My brother’s summoning more gold 
cloaks. We’ll clear a path, never fear.” 

“I do not have the time. I will continue on afoot.” 

“Please, Your Grace.” Taena caught her arm. “They frighten me. There are hundreds of 
them, and so dirty.” 

Cersei kissed her cheek. “The lion does not fear the sparrow . . . but it is good of you to 
care. I know you love me well, my lady. Ser Osmund, kindly help me down.” 

If I had known I was going to have to walk, I would have dressed for it. She wore a white 
gown slashed with cloth-of-gold, lacy but demure. It had been several years since the last 
time she had donned it, and the queen found it uncomfortably tight about the middle. “Ser 
Osmund, Ser Meryn, you will accompany me. Ser Osfryd, see that my litter comes to no 
harm.” Some of the sparrows looked gaunt and hollow-eyed enough to eat her horses. 

As she made her way through the ragged throng, past their cookfires, wagons, and crude 
shelters, the queen found herself remembering another crowd that had once gathered on 
this plaza. The day she wed Robert Baratheon, thousands had turned out to cheer for 
them. All the women wore their best, and half the men had children on their shoulders. 
When she had emerged from inside the sept, hand in hand with the young king, the crowd 
sent up a roar so loud it could be heard in Lannisport. “They like you well, my lady,” 


Robert whispered in her ear. “See, every face is smiling.” For that one short moment she 
had been happy in her marriage . . . until she chanced to glance at Jaime. No, she 
remembered thinking, not every face, my lord. 

No one was smiling now. The looks the sparrows gave her were dull, sullen, hostile. 
They made way but reluctantly. If they were truly sparrows, a shout would send them 
flying. A hundred gold cloaks with staves and swords and maces could clear this rabble 
quick enough. That was what Lord Tywin would have done. He would have ridden over 
them instead of walking through. 

When she saw what they had done to Baelor the Beloved, the queen had cause to rue her 
soft heart. The great marble statue that had smiled serenely over the plaza for a hundred 
years was waist-deep in a heap of bones and skulls. Some of the skulls had scraps of flesh 
still clinging to them. A crow sat atop one such, enjoying a dry, leathery feast. Flies were 
everywhere. “What is the meaning of this?” Cersei demanded of the crowd. “Do you 
mean to bury Blessed Baelor in a mountain of carrion?” 

A one-legged man stepped forward, leaning on a wooden crutch. “Your Grace, these are 
the bones of holy men and women, murdered for their faith. Septons, septas, brothers 
brown and dun and green, sisters white and blue and grey. Some were hanged, some 
disemboweled. Septs have been despoiled, maidens and mothers raped by godless men 
and demon worshipers. Even silent sisters have been molested. The Mother Above cries 
out in her anguish. We have brought their bones here from all over the realm, to bear 
witness to the agony of the Holy Faith.” 

Cersei could feel the weight of eyes upon her. “The king shall know of these atrocities,” 
she answered solemnly. “Tommen will share your outrage. This is the work of Stannis 
and his red witch, and the savage northmen who worship trees and wolves.” She raised 
her voice. “Good people, your dead shall be avenged!” 

A few cheered, but only a few. “We ask no vengeance for our dead,” said the one-legged 
man, “only protection for the living. For the septs and holy places.” 

“The Iron Throne must defend the Faith,” growled a hulking lout with a seven-pointed 
star painted on his brow. “A king who does not protect his people is no king at all.” 
Mutters of assent went up from those around him. One man had the temerity to grasp Ser 
Meryn by the wrist, and say, “It is time for all anointed knights to forsake their worldly 
masters and defend our Holy Faith. Stand with us, ser, if you love the Seven.” 

“Unhand me,” said Ser Meryn, wrenching free. 

“I hear you,” Cersei said. “My son is young, but he loves the Seven well. You shall have 
his protection, and mine own.” 

The man with the star upon his brow was not appeased. “The Warrior will defend us,” he 
said, “not this fat boy king.” 


Meryn Trant reached for his sword, but Cersei stopped him before he could unsheathe it. 
She had only two knights amidst a sea of sparrows. She saw staves and scythes, cudgels 
and clubs, several axes. “I will have no blood shed in this holy place, ser.” Why are all 
men such children? Cut him down, and the rest will tear us limb from limb. “We are all 
the Mother’s children. Come, His High Holiness awaits us.” But as she made her way 
through the press to the steps of the sept, a gaggle of armed men stepped out to block the 
doors. They wore mail and boiled leather, with here and there a bit of dinted plate. Some 
had spears and some had longswords. More favored axes, and had sewn red stars upon 
their bleached white surcoats. Two had the insolence to cross their spears and bar her 
way. 

“Is this how you receive your queen?” she demanded of them. “Pray, where are Raynard 
and Torbert?” It was not like those two to miss a chance to fawn on her. Torbert always 
made a show of getting down on his knees to wash her feet. 

“I do not know the men you speak of,” said one of the men with a red star on his surcoat, 
“but if they are of the Faith, no doubt the Seven had need of their service.” 

“Septon Raynard and Septon Torbert are of the Most Devout,” Cersei said, “and will be 
furious to learn that you obstructed me. Do you mean to deny me entrance to Baelor’s 
holy sept?” 

“Your Grace,” said a greybeard with a stooped shoulder. “You are welcome here, but 
your men must leave their swordbelts. No weapons are allowed within, by command of 
the High Septon.” 

“Knights of the Kingsguard do not set aside their swords, not even in the presence of the 
king.” 

“In the king’s house, the king’s word must rule,” replied the aged knight, “but this is the 
house of the gods.” 

Color rose to her cheeks. One word to Meryn Trant, and the stoop-backed greybeard 
would be meeting his gods sooner than he might have liked. Not here, though. Not now. 
“Wait for me,” she told the Kingsguard curtly. Alone, she climbed the steps. The 
spearmen uncrossed their spears. Two other men put their weight against the doors, and 
with a great groan they swung apart. 

In the Hall of Lamps, Cersei found a score of septons on their knees, but not in prayer. 
They had pails of soap and water, and were scrubbing at the floor. Their roughspun robes 
and sandals led Cersei to take them for sparrows, until one raised his head. His face was 
red as a beet, and there were broken blisters on his hands, bleeding. “Your Grace.” 

“Septon Raynard?” The queen could scarce believe what she was seeing. “What are you 
doing on your knees?” 


“He is cleaning the floor.” The speaker was shorter than the queen by several inches and 
as thin as a broom handle. “Work is a form of prayer, most pleasing to the Smith.” He 
stood, scrub brush in hand. “Your Grace. We have been expecting you.” 

The man’s beard was grey and brown and closely trimmed, his hair tied up in a hard knot 
behind his head. Though his robes were clean, they were frayed and patched as well. He 
had rolled his sleeves up his elbows as he scrubbed, but below the knees the cloth was 
soaked and sodden. His face was sharply pointed, with deep-set eyes as brown as mud. 
His feet are bare, she saw with dismay. They were hideous as well, hard and horny 
things, thick with callus. “You are His High Holiness?” 

“We are.” 

Father, give me strength. The queen knew that she should kneel, but the floor was wet 
with soap and dirty water and she did not wish to ruin her gown. She glanced over at the 
old men on their knees. “I do not see my friend Septon Torbert.” 

“Septon Torbert has been confined to a penitent’s cell on bread and water. It is sinful for 
any man to be so plump when half the realm is starving.” 

Cersei had suffered quite enough for one day. She let him see her anger. “Is this how you 
greet me? With a scrub brush in your hand, dripping water? Do you know who I am?” 

“Your Grace is the Queen Regent of the Seven Kingdoms,” the man said, “but in The 
Seven-Pointed Star it is written that as men bow to their lords, and lords to their kings, so 
kings and queens must bow before the Seven Who Are One.” 

Is he telling me to kneel? If so, he did not know her very well. “By rights you should 
have met me on the steps in your finest robes, with the crystal crown upon your head.” 

“We have no crown, Your Grace.” 

Her frown deepened. “My lord father gave your predecessor a crown of rare beauty, 
wrought in crystal and spun gold.” 

“And for that gift we honor him in our prayers,” the High Septon said, “but the poor need 
food in their bellies more than we need gold and crystal on our head. That crown has 
been sold. So have the others in our vaults, and all our rings, and our robes of cloth-ofgold 
and cloth-of-silver. Wool will keep a man as warm. That is why the Seven gave us 
sheep.” 

He is utterly mad. The Most Devout must have been mad as well, to elevate this creature . 
. . mad, or terrified of the beggars at their doors. Qyburn’s whisperers claimed that 
Septon Luceon had been nine votes from elevation when those doors had given way, and 
the sparrows came pouring into the Great Sept with their leader on their shoulders and 
their axes in their hands. 


She fixed the small man with an icy stare. “Is there someplace where we may speak more 
privily, Your Holiness?” 

The High Septon surrendered his scrub brush to one of the Most Devout. “If Your Grace 
will follow us?” 

He led her through the inner doors, into the sept proper. Their footsteps echoed off the 
marble floor. Dust motes swam in the beams of colored light slanting down through the 
leaded glass of the great dome. Incense sweetened the air, and beside the seven altars 
candles shone like stars. A thousand twinkled for the Mother and near as many for the 
Maid, but you could count the Stranger’s candles on two hands and still have fingers left. 

Even here the sparrows had invaded. A dozen scruffy hedge knights were kneeling before 
the Warrior, beseeching him to bless the swords they had piled at his feet. At the 
Mother’s altar, a septon was leading a hundred sparrows in prayer, their voices as distant 
as waves upon the shore. The High Septon led Cersei to where the Crone raised her 
lantern. When he knelt before the altar, she had no choice but to kneel beside him. 
Mercifully, this High Septon was not as long-winded as the fat one had been. I should be 
grateful for that much, I suppose. 

His High Holiness made no move to rise when his prayer was done. It would seem they 
must confer upon their knees. A small man’s ploy, she thought, amused. “High Holiness,” 
she said, “these sparrows are frightening the city. I want them gone.” 

“Where should they go, Your Grace?” 

There are seven hells, any one of them will serve. “Back where they came from, I would 
imagine.” 

“They came from everywhere. As the sparrow is the humblest and most common of the 
birds, they are the humblest and most common of men.” 

They are common, we agree on that much. “Have you seen what they have done to 
Blessed Baelor’s statue? They befoul the plaza with their pigs and goats and night soil.” 

“Night soil can be washed away more easily than blood, Your Grace. If the plaza was 
befouled, it was befouled by the execution that was done here.” 

He dares throw Ned Stark in my face? “We all regret that. Joffrey was young, and not as 
wise as he might have been. Lord Stark should have been beheaded elsewhere, out of 
respect for Blessed Baelor . . . but the man was a traitor, let us not forget.” 

“King Baelor forgave those who conspired against him.” 

King Baelor imprisoned his own sisters, whose only crime was being beautiful. The first 
time Cersei heard that tale, she had gone to Tyrion’s nursery and pinched the little 


monster till he cried. I should have pinched his nose shut and stuffed my sock into his 
mouth. She forced herself to smile. “King Tommen will forgive the sparrows too, once 
they have returned to their homes.” 

“Most have lost their homes. Suffering is everywhere . . . and grief, and death. Before 
coming to King’s Landing, I tended to half a hundred little villages too small to have a 
septon of their own. I walked from each one to the next, performing marriages, absolving 
sinners of their sins, naming newborn children. Those villages are no more, Your Grace. 
Weeds and thorns grow where gardens once flourished, and bones litter the roadsides.” 

“War is a dreadful thing. These atrocities are the work of the northmen, and of Lord 
Stannis and his demon-worshipers.” 

“Some of my sparrows speak of bands of lions who despoiled them . . . and of the Hound, 
who was your own sworn man. At Saltpans he slew an aged septon and despoiled a girl 
of twelve, an innocent child promised to the Faith. He wore his armor as he raped her and 
her tender flesh was torn and crushed by his iron mail. When he was done he gave her to 
his men, who cut off her nose and nipples.” 

“His Grace cannot be held responsible for the crimes of every man who ever served 
House Lannister. Sandor Clegane is a traitor and a brute. Why do you think I dismissed 
him from our service? He fights for the outlaw Beric Dondarrion now, not for King 
Tommen.” 

“As you say. Yet it must be asked—where were the king’s knights when these things 
were being done? Did not Jaehaerys the Conciliator once swear upon the Iron Throne 
itself that the crown would always protect and defend the Faith?” 

Cersei had no idea what Jaehaerys the Conciliator might have sworn. “He did,” she 
agreed, “and the High Septon blessed him and anointed him as king. It is traditional for 
every new High Septon to give the king his blessing . . . and yet you have refused to bless 
King Tommen.” 

“Your Grace is mistaken. We have not refused.” 

“You have not come.” 

“The hour is not yet ripe.” 

Are you a priest or a greengrocer? “And what might I do to make it . . . riper?” If he 
dares mention gold, I will deal with this one as I did the last and find a pious eight-yearold 
to wear the crystal crown. 

“The realm is full of kings. For the Faith to exalt one above the rest we must be certain. 
Three hundred years ago, when Aegon the Dragon landed beneath this very hill, the High 
Septon locked himself within the Starry Sept of Oldtown and prayed for seven days and 


seven nights, taking no nourishment but bread and water. When he emerged he 
announced that the Faith would not oppose Aegon and his sisters, for the Crone had lifted 
up her lamp to show him what lay ahead. If Oldtown took up arms against the Dragon, 
Oldtown would burn, and the Hightower and the Citadel and the Starry Sept would be 
cast down and destroyed. Lord Hightower was a godly man. When he heard the 
prophecy, he kept his strength at home and opened the city gates to Aegon when he came. 
And His High Holiness anointed the Conqueror with the seven oils. I must do as he did, 
three hundred years ago. I must pray, and fast.” 

“For seven days and seven nights?” 

“For as long as need be.” 

Cersei itched to slap his solemn, pious face. I could help you fast, she thought. I could 
shut you up in some tower and see that no one brings you food until the gods have 
spoken. “These false kings espouse false gods,” she reminded him. “Only King Tommen 
defends the Holy Faith.” 

“Yet everywhere septs are burned and looted. Even silent sisters have been raped, crying 
their anguish to the sky. Your Grace has seen the bones and skulls of our holy dead?” 

“I have,” she had to say. “Give Tommen your blessing, and he shall put an end to these 
outrages.” 

“And how shall he do that, Your Grace? Will he send a knight to walk the roads with 
every begging brother? Will he give us men to guard our septas against the wolves and 
lions?” 

I will pretend you did not mention lions. “The realm is at war. His Grace has need of 
every man.” Cersei did not intend to squander Tommen’s strength playing wet nurse to 
sparrows, or guarding the wrinkled cunts of a thousand sour septas. Half of them are 
probably praying for a good raping. “Your sparrows have clubs and axes. Let them 
defend themselves.” 

“King Maegor’s laws prohibit that, as Your Grace must know. It was by his decree that 
the Faith laid down its swords.” 

“Tommen is king now, not Maegor.” What did she care what Maegor the Cruel had 
decreed three hundred years ago? Instead of taking the swords out of the hands of the 
faithful, he should have used them for his own ends. She pointed to where the Warrior 
stood above his altar of red marble. “What is that he holds?” 

“A sword.” 

“Has he forgotten how to use it?” 


“Maegor’s laws—” 

“—could be undone.” She let that hang there, waiting for the High Sparrow to rise to the 
bait. 

He did not disappoint her. “The Faith Militant reborn . . . that would be the answer to 
three hundred years of prayer, Your Grace. The Warrior would lift his shining sword 
again and cleanse this sinful realm of all its evil. If His Grace were to allow me to restore 
the ancient blessed orders of the Sword and Star, every godly man in the Seven 
Kingdoms would know him to be our true and rightful lord.” 

That was sweet to hear, but Cersei took care not to seem too eager. “Your High Holiness 
spoke of forgiveness earlier. In these troubled times, King Tommen would be most 
grateful if you could see your way to forgiving the crown’s debt. It seems to me we owe 
the Faith some nine hundred thousand dragons.” 

“Nine hundred thousand six hundred and seventy-four dragons. Gold that could feed the 
hungry and rebuild a thousand septs.” 

“Is it gold you want?” the queen asked. “Or do you want these dusty laws of Maegor’s set 
aside?” 

The High Septon pondered that a moment. “As you wish. This debt shall be forgiven, and 
King Tommen will have his blessing. The Warrior’s Sons shall escort me to him, shining 
in the glory of their Faith, whilst my sparrows go forth to defend the meek and humble of 
the land, reborn as Poor Fellows as of old.” 

The queen got to her feet and smoothed her skirts. “I shall have the papers drawn up, and 
His Grace will sign them and affix them with the royal seal.” If there was one part of 
kingship that Tommen loved, it was playing with his seal. 

“Seven save His Grace. Long may he reign.” The High Septon made a steeple of his 
hands and raised his eyes to heaven. “Let the wicked tremble!” 

Do you hear that, Lord Stannis? Cersei could not help but smile. Even her lord father 
could have done no better. At a stroke, she had rid King’s Landing of the plague of 
sparrows, secured Tommen’s blessing, and lessened the crown’s debt by close to a 
million dragons. Her heart was soar-ing as she allowed the High Septon to escort her 
back to the Hall of Lamps. 

Lady Merryweather shared the queen’s delight, though she had never heard of the 
Warrior’s Sons or the Poor Fellows. “They date from before Aegon’s Conquest,” Cersei 
explained to her. “The Warrior’s Sons were an order of knights who gave up their lands 
and gold and swore their swords to His High Holiness. The Poor Fellows . . . they were 
humbler, though far more numerous. Begging brothers of a sort, though they carried axes 
instead of bowls. They wandered the roads, escorting travelers from sept to sept and town 


to town. Their badge was the seven-pointed star, red on white, so the smallfolk named 
them Stars. The Warrior’s Sons wore rainbow cloaks and inlaid silver armor over hair 
shirts, and bore star-shaped crystals in the pommels of their longswords. They were the 
Swords. Holy men, ascetics, fanatics, sorcerers, dragonslayers, demonhunters . . . there 
were many tales about them. But all agree that they were implacable in their hatred for all 
enemies of the Holy Faith.” 

Lady Merryweather understood at once. “Enemies such as Lord Stannis and his red 
sorceress, perhaps?” 

“Why, yes, as it happens,” said Cersei, giggling like a girl. “Shall we broach a flagon of 
hippocras and drink to the fervor of the Warrior’s Sons on our way home?” 

“To the fervor of the Warrior’s Sons and the brilliance of the Queen Regent. To Cersei, 
the First of Her Name!” 

The hippocras was as sweet and savory as Cersei’s triumph, and the queen’s litter seemed 
almost to float back across the city. But at the base of Aegon’s High Hill, they 
encountered Margaery Tyrell and her cousins returning from a ride. She dogs me 
everywhere I go, Cersei thought with annoyance when she laid eyes on the little queen. 

Behind Margaery came a long tail of courtiers, guards, and servants, many of them laden 
with baskets of fresh flowers. Each of her cousins had an admirer in thrall; the gangly 
squire Alyn Ambrose rode with Elinor, to whom he was betrothed, Ser Tallad with shy 
Alla, one-armed Mark Mullendore with Megga, plump and laughing. The Redwyne twins 
were escorting two of Margaery’s other ladies, Meredyth Crane and Janna Fossoway. The 
women all wore flowers in their hair. Jalabhar Xho had attached himself to the party too, 
as had Ser Lambert Turnberry with his eye patch, and the handsome singer known as the 
Blue Bard. 

And of course a knight of the Kingsguard must accompany the little queen, and of course 
it is the Knight of Flowers. In white scale armor chased with gold, Ser Loras glittered. 
Though he no longer presumed to train Tommen at arms, the king still spent far too much 
time in his company. Every time the boy returned from an afternoon with his little wife, 
he had some new tale to tell about something that Ser Loras had said or done. 

Margaery hailed them when the two columns met and fell in beside the queen’s litter. Her 
cheeks were flushed, her brown ringlets tumbling loosely about her shoulders, stirred by 
every puff of wind. “We have been picking autumn flowers in the kingswood,” she told 
them. 

I know where you were, the queen thought. Her informers were very good about keeping 
her apprised of Margaery’s movements. Such a restless girl, our little queen. She seldom 
let more than three days pass without going off for a ride. Some days they would ride 
along the Rosby road to hunt for shells and eat beside the sea. Other times she would take 
her entourage across the river for an afternoon of hawking. The little queen was fond of 


going out on boats as well, sailing up and down the Blackwater Rush to no particular 
purpose. When she was feeling pious she would leave the castle to pray at Baelor’s Sept. 
She gave her custom to a dozen different seamstresses, was well-known amongst the 
city’s goldsmiths, and had even been known to visit the fish market by the Mud Gate for 
a look at the day’s catch. Wherever she went, the smallfolk fawned on her, and Lady 
Margaery did all she could to fan their ardor. She was forever giving alms to beggars, 
buying hot pies off bakers’ carts, and reining up to speak to common tradesmen. 

Had it been up to her, she would have had Tommen doing all these things as well. She 
was forever inviting him to accompany her and her hens on their adventures, and the boy 
was forever pleading with his mother for leave to go along. The queen had given her 
consent a few times, if only to allow Ser Osney to spend a few more hours in Margaery’s 
company. For all the good it has done. Osney has proved a grievous disappointment. 
“Do you remember the day your sister sailed for Dorne?” Cersei asked her son. “Do you 
recall the mob howling on our way back to the castle? The stones, the curses?” 

But the king was deaf to sense, thanks to his little queen. “If we mingle with the 
commons, they will love us better.” 

“The mob loved the fat High Septon so well they tore him limb from limb, and him a 
holy man,” she reminded him. All it did was make him sullen with her. Just as Margaery 
wants, I wager. Every day in every way she tries to steal him from me. Joffrey would 
have seen through her schemer’s smile and let her know her place, but Tommen was 
more gullible. She knew Joff was too strong for her, Cersei thought, remembering the 
gold coin Qyburn had found. For House Tyrell to hope to rule, he had to be removed. It 
came back to her that Margaery and her hideous grandmother had once plotted to marry 
Sansa Stark to the little queen’s crippled brother Willas. Lord Tywin had forestalled that 
by stealing a march on them and wedding Sansa to Tyrion, but the link had been there. 
They are all in it together, she realized with a start. The Tyrells bribed the gaolers to free 
Tyrion, and whisked him down the roseroad to join his vile bride. By now the both of 
them are safe in Highgarden, hidden away behind a wall of roses. 

“You should have come along with us, Your Grace,” the little schemer prattled on as they 
climbed the slope of Aegon’s High Hill. “We could have had such a lovely time together. 
The trees are gowned in gold and red and orange, and there are flowers everywhere. 
Chestnuts too. We roasted some on our way home.” 

“I have no time for riding through the woods and picking flowers,” Cersei said. “I have a 
kingdom to rule.” 

“Only one, Your Grace? Who rules the other six?” Margaery laughed a merry little laugh. 
“You will forgive me my jest, I hope. I know what a burden you bear. You should let me 
share the load. There must be some things I could do to help you. It would put to rest all 
this talk that you and I are rivals for the king.” 


“Is that what they say?” Cersei smiled. “How foolish. I have never looked upon you as a 
rival, not even for a moment.” 

“I am so pleased to hear that.” The girl did not seem to realize that she had been cut. 
“You and Tommen must come with us the next time. I know His Grace would love it. 
The Blue Bard played for us, and Ser Tallad showed us how to fight with a staff the way 
the smallfolk do. The woods are so beautiful in autumn.” 

“My late husband loved the forest too.” In the early years of their marriage, Robert was 
forever imploring her to hunt with him, but Cersei had always begged off. His hunting 
trips allowed her time with Jaime. Golden days and silver nights. It was a dangerous 
dance that they had danced, to be sure. Eyes and ears were everywhere within the Red 
Keep, and one could never be certain when Robert would return. Somehow the peril had 
only served to make their times together that much more thrilling. “Still, beauty can 
sometimes mask deadly danger,” she warned the little queen. “Robert lost his life in the 
woods.” 

Margaery smiled at Ser Loras; a sweet sisterly smile, full of fondness. “Your Grace is 
kind to fear for me, but my brother keeps me well protected.” 

Go and hunt, Cersei had urged Robert, half a hundred times. My brother keeps me well 
protected. She recalled what Taena had told her earlier, and a laugh came bursting from 
her lips. 

“Your Grace laughs so prettily.” Lady Margaery gave her a quizzical smile. “Might we 
share the jest?” 

“You will,” the queen said. “I promise you, you will.” 


THE REAVER 

The drums were pounding out a battle beat as the Iron Victory swept forward, her ram 
cutting through the choppy green waters. The smaller ship ahead was turning, oars 
slapping at the sea. Roses streamed upon her banners; fore and aft a white rose upon a red 
escutcheon, atop her mast a golden one on a field as green as grass. The Iron Victory 
raked her side so hard that half the boarding party lost their feet. Oars snapped and 
splintered, sweet music to the captain’s ears. 


He vaulted over the gunwale, landing on the deck below with his golden cloak billowing 
behind him. The white roses drew back, as men always did at the sight of Victarion 
Greyjoy armed and armored, his face hidden behind his kraken helm. They were 
clutching swords and spears and axes, but nine of every ten wore no armor, and the tenth 
had only a shirt of sewn scales. These are no ironmen, Victarion thought. They still fear 
drowning. 

“Get him!” one man shouted. “He’s alone!” 

“COME!” he roared back. “Come kill me, if you can.” 

From all sides the rosey warriors converged, with grey steel in their hands and terror 
behind their eyes. Their fear was so ripe Victarion could taste it. Left and right he laid 
about, hewing off the first man’s arm at the elbow, cleaving through the shoulder of the 
second. The third buried his own axehead in the soft pine of Victarion’s shield. He 
slammed it into the fool’s face, knocked him off his feet, and slew him when he tried to 
rise again. As he was struggling to free his axe from the dead man’s rib cage, a spear 
jabbed him between the shoulder blades. It felt as though someone had slapped him on 
the back. Victarion spun and slammed his axe down onto the spearman’s head, feeling 
the impact in his arm as the steel went crunching through helm and hair and skull. The 
man swayed for half a heartbeat, till the iron captain wrenched the steel free and sent his 
corpse staggering loose-limbed across the deck, looking more drunk than dead. 

By then his ironborn had followed him down onto the deck of the broken longship. He 
heard Wulfe One-Ear let out a howl as he went to work, glimpsed Ragnor Pyke in his 
rusted mail, saw Nute the Barber send a throwing axe spinning through the air to catch a 
man in the chest. Victarion slew another man, and another. He would have killed a third, 
but Ragnor cut him down first. “Well struck,” Victarion bellowed at him. 

When he turned to find the next victim for his axe, he spied the other captain across the 
deck. His white surcoat was spotted with blood and gore, but Victarion could make out 
the arms upon his breast, the white rose within its red escutcheon. The man bore the same 
device upon his shield, on a white field with a red embattled border. “You!” the iron 
captain called across the carnage. “You of the rose! Be you the lord of Southshield?” 

The other raised his visor to show a beardless face. “His son and heir. Ser Talbert Serry. 
And who are you, kraken?” 

“Your death.” Victarion bulled toward him. 

Serry leapt to meet him. His longsword was good castle-forged steel, and the young 
knight made it sing. His first cut was low, and Victarion deflected it off his axe. His 
second caught the iron captain on the helm before he got his shield up. Victarion 
answered with a sidearm blow of his axe. Serry’s shield got in the way. Wooden splinters 
flew, and the white rose split lengthwise with a sweet sharp crack. The young knight’s 
longsword hammered at his thigh, once, twice, thrice, screaming against the steel. This 


boy is quick, the iron captain realized. He smashed his shield in Serry’s face and sent him 
staggering back against the gunwale. Victarion raised his axe and put all his weight 
behind his cut, to open the boy from neck to groin, but Serry spun away. The axehead 
crashed through the rail, sending splinters flying, and lodged there when he tried to pull it 
free. The deck moved under his feet, and he stumbled to one knee. 

Ser Talbert cast away his broken shield and slashed down with his longsword. Victarion’s 
own shield had twisted half around when he stumbled. He caught Serry’s blade in an iron 
fist. Lobstered steel crunched, and a stab of pain made him grunt, yet Victarion held on. 
“I am quick as well, boy,” he said as he ripped the sword from the knight’s hand and 
flung it into the sea. 

Ser Talbert’s eyes went wide. “My sword . . .” 

Victarion caught the lad about the throat with a bloody fist. “Go and get it,” he said, 
forcing him backwards over the side into the bloodstained waters. 

That won him a respite to pull his axe loose. The white roses were falling back before the 
iron tide. Some tried to flee belowdecks, as others cried for quarter. Victarion could feel 
warm blood trickling down his fingers beneath the mail and leather and lobstered plate, 
but that was nothing. Around the mast a thick knot of foemen fought on, standing 
shoulder to shoulder in a ring. These few are men, at least. They would sooner die than 
yield. Victarion would grant some of them that wish. He beat his axe against his shield 
and charged them. 

The Drowned God had not shaped Victarion Greyjoy to fight with words at kingsmoots, 
nor struggle against furtive sneaking foes in endless bogs. This was why he had been put 
on earth; to stand steel-clad with an axe red and dripping in his hand, dealing death with 
every blow. 

They hacked at him from front and back, but their swords might have been willow 
switches for all the harm they did him. No blade could cut through Victarion Greyjoy’s 
heavy plate, nor did he give his foes the time to find the weak points at the joints, where 
only mail and leather warded him. Let three men assail him, or four, or five; it made no 
matter. He slew them one at a time, trusting in his steel to protect him from the others. As 
each foe fell he turned his wroth upon the next. 

The last man to face him must have been a smith; he had shoulders like a bull, and one 
much more muscular than the other. His armor was a studded brigandine and a cap of 
boiled leather. The only blow he landed completed the ruin of Victarion’s shield, but the 
cut the captain dealt in answer split his head in two. Would that I could deal with the 
Crow’s Eye as simply. When he jerked his axehead free again, the smith’s skull seemed 
to burst. Bone and blood and brain went everywhere, and the corpse fell forward, up 
against his legs. Too late to plead for quarter now, Victarion thought as he untangled 
himself from the dead man. 


By then the deck was slick beneath his feet, and the dead and the dying lay in heaps on 
every side. He threw his shield away and sucked in air. “Lord Captain,” he heard the 
Barber say beside him, “the day is ours.” 

All around the sea was full of ships. Some were burning, some were sinking, some had 
been smashed to splinters. Between the hulls the water was thick as stew, full of corpses, 
broken oars, and men clinging to the wreckage. In the distance, half a dozen of southron 
longships were racing back toward the Mander. Let them go, Victarion thought, let them 
tell the tale. Once a man had turned his tail and run from battle he ceased to be a man. 

His eyes were stinging from the sweat that had run down into them during the fight. Two 
of his oarsmen helped undo his kraken helm so he might lift it off. Victarion mopped at 
his brow. “That knight,” he grumbled, “the knight of the white rose. Did any of you pull 
him out?” A lord’s son would be worth a goodly ransom; from his father, if Lord Serry 
had survived the day. From his liege at Highgarden, if not. 

None of his men had seen what became of the knight after he went over the side, 
however. Most like the man had drowned. “May he feast as he fought, in the Drowned 
God’s watery halls.” Though the men of the Shield Islands called themselves sailors, they 
crossed the seas in dread and went lightly clad in battle for fear of drowning. Young 
Serry had been different. A brave man, thought Victarion. Almost ironborn. 

He gave the captured ship to Ragnor Pyke, named a dozen men to crew her, and 
clambered back up onto his own Iron Victory. “Strip the captives of arms and armor and 
have their wounds bound up,” he told Nute the Barber. “Throw the dying in the sea. If 
any beg for mercy, cut their throats first.” He had only contempt for such; better to drown 
on seawater than on blood. “I want a count of the ships we won and all the knights and 
lordlings we took captive. I want their banners too.” One day he would hang them in his 
hall, so when he grew old and feeble he could remember all the foes he had slain when he 
was young and strong. 

“It will be done.” Nute grinned. “It is a great victory.” 

Aye, he thought, a great victory for the Crow’s Eye and his wizards. The other captains 
would shout his brother’s name anew when the tidings reached Oakenshield. Euron had 
seduced them with his glib tongue and smiling eye and bound them to his cause with the 
plunder of half a hundred distant lands; gold and silver, ornate armor, curved swords with 
gilded pommels, daggers of Valyrian steel, striped tiger pelts and the skins of spotted 
cats, jade manticores and ancient Valyrian sphinxes, chests of nutmeg, cloves, and 
saffron, ivory tusks and the horns of unicorns, green and orange and yellow feathers from 
the Summer Sea, bolts of fine silk and shimmering samite . . . and yet all that was little 
and less, compared to this. Now he has given them conquest, and they are his for good 
and all, the captain thought. The taste was bitter on his tongue. This was my victory, not 
his. Where was he? Back on Oakenshield, lazing in a castle. He stole my wife and he 
stole my throne, and now he steals my glory. 


Obedience came naturally to Victarion Greyjoy; he had been born to it. Growing to 
manhood in the shadow of his brothers, he had followed Balon dutifully in everything he 
did. Later, when Balon’s sons were born, he had grown to accept that one day he would 
kneel to them as well, when one of them took his father’s place upon the Seastone Chair. 
But the Drowned God had summoned Balon and his sons down to his watery halls, and 
Victarion could not call Euron “king” without tasting bile in his throat. 

The wind was freshening, and his thirst was raging. After a battle he always wanted wine. 
He gave the deck to Nute and went below. In his cramped cabin aft, he found the dusky 
woman wet and ready; perhaps the battle had warmed her blood as well. He took her 
twice, in quick succession. When they were done there was blood smeared across her 
breasts and thighs and belly, but it was his blood, from the gash in his palm. The dusky 
woman washed it out for him with boiled vinegar. 

“The plan was good, I grant him,” Victarion said as she knelt beside him. “The Mander is 
open to us now, as it was of old.” It was a lazy river, wide and slow and treacherous with 
snags and sandbars. Most seagoing vessels dared not sail beyond Highgarden, but 
longships with their shallow draughts could navigate as far upstream as Bitterbridge. In 
ancient days, the ironborn had boldly sailed the river road and plundered all along the 
Mander and its vassal streams . . . until the kings of the green hand had armed the 
fisherfolk on the four small islands off the Mander’s mouth and named them his shields. 

Two thousand years had passed, but in the watchtowers along their craggy shores, 
greybeards still kept the ancient vigil. At the first glimpse of longships the old men would 
light their beacon fires, and the call would leap from hill to hill and island to island. Fear! 
Foes! Raiders! Raiders! When the fisherfolk saw the fires burning on the high places 
they would put their nets and plows aside and take up their swords and axes. Their lords 
would rush from their castles, attended by their knights and men-at-arms. Warhorns 
would echo across the waters, from Greenshield and Greyshield, Oakenshield and 
Southshield, and their longships would come sliding out from moss-covered stone pens 
along the shores, oars flashing as they swarmed across the straits to seal the Mander and 
hound and harry the raiders upriver to their doom. 

Euron had sent Torwold Browntooth and the Red Oarsman up the Mander with a dozen 
swift longships, so the lords of the Shield Islands would spill forth in pursuit. By the time 
his main fleet arrived, only a handful of fighting men remained to defend the isles 
themselves. The ironborn had come in on the evening tide, so the glare of the setting sun 
would keep them hidden from the greybeards in the watchtowers until it was too late. The 
wind was at their backs, as it had been all the way down from Old Wyk. It was whispered 
about the fleet that Euron’s wizards had much and more to do with that, that the Crow’s 
Eye appeased the Storm God with blood sacrifice. How else would he have dared sail so 
far to the west, instead of following the shoreline as was the custom? 

The ironborn ran their longships up onto the stony shingles and spilled out into the purple 
dusk with steel glimmering in their hands. By then the fires were burning in the high 
places, but few remained to take up arms. Greyshield, Greenshield, and Southshield fell 


before the sun came up. Oakenshield lasted half a day longer. And when the men of the 
Four Shields broke off their pursuit of Torwold and the Red Oarsman and turned 
downriver, they found the Iron Fleet waiting at the Mander’s mouth. 

“All fell out as Euron said it would,” Victarion told the dusky woman as she bound up his 
hand with linen. “His wizards must have seen it.” He had three aboard the Silence, 
Quellon Humble had confided in a whisper. Queer men and terrible, they were, but the 
Crow’s Eye had made them slaves. “He still needs me to fight his battles, though,” 
Victarion insisted. “Wizards may be well and good, but blood and steel win wars.” The 
vinegar made his wound hurt worse than ever. He shoved the woman away and closed his 
fist, glowering. “Bring me wine.” 

He drank in the darkness, brooding on his brother. If I do not strike the blow with mine 
own hand, am I still a kinslayer? Victarion feared no man, but the Drowned God’s curse 
gave him pause. If another strikes him down at my command, will his blood still stain my 
hands? Aeron Damphair would know the answer, but the priest was somewhere back on 
the Iron Islands, still hoping to raise the ironborn against their new-crowned king. Nute 
the Barber can shave a man with a thrown axe from twenty yards away. And none of 
Euron’s mongrels could stand against Wulfe One-Ear or Andrik the Unsmiling. Any of 
them could do it. But what a man can do and what a man will do are two different things, 
he knew. 

“Euron’s blasphemies will bring down the Drowned God’s wroth upon us all,” Aeron had 
prophesied, back on Old Wyk. “We must stop him, brother. We are still of Balon’s blood, 
are we not?” 

“So is he,” Victarion had said. “I like it no more than you, but Euron is the king. Your 
kingsmoot raised him up, and you put the driftwood crown upon his head yourself!” 

“I placed the crown upon his head,” said the priest, seaweed dripping in his hair, “and 
gladly will I wrest it off again and crown you in his stead. Only you are strong enough to 
fight him.” 

“The Drowned God raised him up,” Victarion complained. “Let the Drowned God cast 
him down.” 

Aeron gave him a baleful look, the look that had been known to sour wells and make 
women barren. “It was not the god who spoke. Euron is known to keep wizards and foul 
sorcerers on that red ship of his. They sent some spell among us, so we could not hear the 
sea. The captains and the kings were drunk with all this talk of dragons.” 

“Drunk, and fearful of that horn. You heard the sound it made. It makes no matter. Euron 
is our king.” 


“Not mine,” the priest declared. “The Drowned God helps bold men, not those who 
cower below their decks when the storm is rising. If you will not bestir yourself to 
remove the Crow’s Eye from the Seastone Chair, I must take the task upon myself.” 

“How? You have no ships, no swords.” 

“I have my voice,” the priest replied, “and the god is with me. Mine is the strength of the 
sea, a strength the Crow’s Eye cannot hope to withstand. The waves may break upon the 
mountain, yet still they come, wave upon wave, and in the end only pebbles remain 
where once the mountain stood. And soon even the pebbles are swept away, to be ground 
beneath the sea for all eternity.” 

“Pebbles?” Victarion grumbled. “You are mad if you think to bring the Crow’s Eye down 
with talk of waves and pebbles.” 

“The ironborn shall be waves,” the Damphair said. “Not the great and lordly, but the 
simple folk, tillers of the soil and fishers of the sea. The captains and the kings raised 
Euron up, but the common folk shall tear him down. I shall go to Great Wyk, to Harlaw, 
to Orkmont, to Pyke itself. In every town and village shall my words be heard. No 
godless man may sit the Seastone Chair!” He shook his shaggy head and stalked back out 
into the night. When the sun came up the next day, Aeron Greyjoy had vanished from 
Old Wyk. Even his drowned men knew not where. They said the Crow’s Eye only 
laughed when he was told. 

But though the priest was gone, his dire warnings lingered. Victarion found himself 
remembering Baelor Blacktyde’s words as well. “Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and 
Euron is maddest of them all.” The young lord had tried to sail home after the kingsmoot, 
refusing to accept Euron as his liege. But the Iron Fleet had closed the bay, the habit of 
obedience was rooted deep in Victarion Greyjoy, and Euron wore the driftwood crown. 
Nightflyer was seized, Lord Blacktyde delivered to the king in chains. Euron’s mutes and 
mongrels had cut him into seven parts, to feed the seven green land gods he worshiped. 

As a reward for his leal service, the new-crowned king had given Victarion the dusky 
woman, taken off some slaver bound for Lys. “I want none of your leavings,” he had told 
his brother scornfully, but when the Crow’s Eye said that the woman would be killed 
unless he took her, he had weakened. Her tongue had been torn out, but elsewise she was 
undamaged, and beautiful besides, with skin as brown as oiled teak. Yet sometimes when 
he looked at her, he found himself remembering the first woman his brother had given 
him, to make a man of him. 

Victarion wanted to use the dusky woman once again, but found himself unable. “Fetch 
me another skin of wine,” he told her, “then get out.” When she returned with a skin of 
sour red, the captain took it up on deck, where he could breathe the clean sea air. He 
drank half the skin and poured the rest into the sea for all the men who’d died. 


The Iron Victory lingered for hours off the mouth of the Mander. As the greater part of 
the Iron Fleet got under way for Oakenshield, Victarion kept Grief, Lord Dagon, Iron 
Wind, and Maiden’s Bane about him as a rear guard. They pulled survivors from the sea, 
and watched Hardhand sink slowly, dragged under by the wreck that she had rammed. 
By the time she vanished beneath the waters Victarion had the count he’d asked for. He 
had lost six ships, and captured eight-and-thirty. “It will serve,” he told Nute. “To the 
oars. We return to Lord Hewett’s Town.” 

His oarsmen bent their backs toward Oakenshield, and the iron captain went belowdecks 
once again. “I could kill him,” he told the dusky woman. “Though it is a great sin to kill 
your king, and a worse one to kill your brother.” He frowned. “Asha should have given 
me her voice.” How could she have ever hoped to win the captains and the kings, her 
with her pinecones and her turnips? Balon’s blood is in her, but she is still a woman. She 
had run after the kingsmoot. The night the driftwood crown was placed on Euron’s head, 
she and her crew had melted away. Some small part of Victarion was glad she had. If the 
girl keeps her wits about her, she will wed some northern lord and live with him in his 
castle, far from the sea and Euron Crow’s Eye. 

“Lord Hewett’s Town, Lord Captain,” a crewman called. 

Victarion rose. The wine had dulled the throbbing in his hand. Perhaps he would have 
Hewett’s maester look at it, if the man had not been killed. He returned to deck as they 
came around a headland. The way Lord Hewett’s castle sat above the harbor reminded 
him of Lordsport, though this town was twice as big. A score of longships prowled the 
waters beyond the port, the golden kraken writhing on their sails. Hundreds more were 
beached along the shingles and drawn up to the piers that lined the harbor. At a stone 
quay stood three great cogs and a dozen smaller ones, taking on plunder and provisions. 
Victarion gave orders for the Iron Victory to drop anchor. “Have a boat made ready.” 

The town seemed strangely still as they approached. Most of the shops and houses had 
been looted, as their smashed doors and broken shutters testified, but only the sept had 
been put to the torch. The streets were strewn with corpses, each with a small flock of 
carrion crows in attendance. A gang of sullen survivors moved amongst them, chasing off 
the black birds and tossing the dead into the back of a wagon for burial. The notion filled 
Victarion with disgust. No true son of the sea would want to rot beneath the ground. How 
would he ever find the Drowned God’s watery halls, to drink and feast for all eternity? 

The Silence was amongst the ships they passed. Victarion’s gaze was drawn to the iron 
figurehead at her prow, the mouthless maiden with the windblown hair and outstretched 
arm. Her mother-of-pearl eyes seemed to follow him. She had a mouth like any other 
woman, till the Crow’s Eye sewed it shut. 

As they neared the shore, he noticed a line of women and children herded up onto the 
deck of one of the great cogs. Some had their hands bound behind their backs, and all 
wore loops of hempen rope about their necks. “Who are they?” he asked the men who 
helped tie up their boat. 


“Widows and orphans. They’re to be sold as slaves.” 

“Sold?” There were no slaves in the Iron Islands, only thralls. A thrall was bound to 
service, but he was not chattel. His children were born free, so long as they were given to 
the Drowned God. And thralls were never bought nor sold for gold. A man paid the iron 
price for thralls, or else had none. “They should be thralls, or salt wives,” Victarion 
complained. 

“It’s by the king’s decree,” the man said. 

“The strong have always taken from the weak,” said Nute the Barber. “Thralls or slaves, 
it makes no matter. Their men could not defend them, so now they are ours, to do with as 
we will.” 

It is not the Old Way, he might have said, but there was no time. His victory had preceded 
him, and men were gathering round to offer congratulations. Victarion let them fawn, 
until one began to praise Euron’s daring. “It is daring to sail out of sight of land, so no 
word of our coming could reach these islands before us,” he growled, “but crossing half 
the world to hunt for dragons, that is something else.” He did not wait for a reply, but 
shouldered through the press and on up to the keep. 

Lord Hewett’s castle was small but strong, with thick walls and studded oaken gates that 
evoked his House’s ancient arms, an oak escutcheon studded with iron upon a field of 
undy blue and white. But it was the kraken of House Greyjoy that flew atop his green-
roofed towers now, and they found the great gates burned and broken. On the ramparts 
walked ironborn with spears and axes, and some of Euron’s mongrels too. 

In the yard Victarion came on Gorold Goodbrother and old Drumm, speaking quietly 
with Rodrik Harlaw. Nute the Barber gave a hoot at the sight of them. “Reader,” he 
called out, “why is your face so long? Your misgivings were for nought. The day is ours, 
and ours the prize!” 

Lord Rodrik’s mouth puckered. “These rocks, you mean? All four together wouldn’t 
make Harlaw. We have won some stones and trees and trinkets, and the enmity of House 
Tyrell.” 

“The roses?” Nute laughed. “What rose can harm the krakens of the deep? We have taken 
their shields from them, and smashed them all to pieces. Who will protect them now?” 

“Highgarden,” replied the Reader. “Soon enough all the power of the Reach will be 
marshaled against us, Barber, and then you may learn that some roses have steel thorns.” 

Drumm nodded, one hand on the hilt of his Red Rain. “Lord Tarly bears the greatsword 
Heartsbane, forged of Valyrian steel, and he is always in Lord Tyrell’s van.” 


Victarion’s hunger flared. “Let him come. I will take his sword for mine own, as your 
own forebear took Red Rain. Let them all come, and bring the Lannisters as well. A lion 
may be fierce enough on land, but at sea the kraken rules supreme.” He would give half 
his teeth for the chance to try his axe against the Kingslayer or the Knight of Flowers. 
That was the sort of battle that he understood. The kinslayer was accursed in the eyes of 
gods and men, but the warrior was honored and revered. 

“Have no fear, Lord Captain,” said the Reader. “They will come. His Grace desires it. 
Why else would he have commanded us to let Hewett’s ravens fly?” 

“You read too much and fight too little,” Nute said. “Your blood is milk.” But the Reader 
made as if he had not heard. 

A riotous feast was in progress when Victarion entered the hall. Ironborn filled the tables, 
drinking and shouting and jostling each other, boasting of the men that they had slain, the 
deeds that they had done, the prizes they had won. Many were bedecked with plunder. 
Left-Hand Lucas Codd and Quellon Humble had torn tapestries off the walls to serve as 
cloaks. Germund Botley wore a rope of pearls and garnets over his gilded Lannister 
breastplate. Andrik the Unsmiling staggered by with a woman under each arm; though he 
remained unsmiling, he had rings on every finger. Instead of trenchers carved from old 
stale bread, the captains were eating off solid silver platters. 

Nute the Barber’s face grew dark with anger as he looked about. “The Crow’s Eye sends 
us forth to face the longships, whilst his own men take the castles and the villages and 
grab all the loot and women. What has he left for us?” 

“We have the glory.” 

“Glory is good,” said Nute, “but gold is better.” 

Victarion shrugged. “The Crow’s Eye says we shall have all of Westeros. The Arbor, 
Oldtown, Highgarden . . . that’s where you’ll find your gold. But enough talk. I’m 
hungry.” 

By right of blood Victarion might have claimed a seat on the dais, but he did not care to 
eat with Euron and his creatures. Instead, he chose a place by Ralf the Limper, the 
captain of the Lord Quellon. “A great victory, Lord Captain,” said the Limper. “A victory 
worthy of a lordship. You should have an island.” 

Lord Victarion. Aye, and why not? It might not be the Seastone Chair, but it would be 
something. 

Hotho Harlaw was across the table, sucking meat off a bone. He flicked it aside and 
hunched forward. “The Knight’s to have Greyshield. My cousin. Did you hear?” 


“No.” Victarion looked across the hall, to where Ser Harras Harlaw sat drinking wine 
from a golden cup; a tall man, long-faced and austere. “Why would Euron give that one 
an island?” 

Hotho held out his empty wine cup, and a pale young woman in a gown of blue velvet 
and gilt lace refilled it for him. “The Knight took Grimston by himself. He planted his 
standard beneath the castle and defied the Grimms to face him. One did, and then 
another, and another. He slew them all . . . well, near enough, two yielded. When the 
seventh man went down, Lord Grimm’s septon decided the gods had spoken and 
surrendered the castle.” Hotho laughed. “He’ll be the Lord of Greyshield, and welcome to 
it. With him gone, I am the Reader’s heir.” He thumped his wine cup against his chest. 
“Hotho the Humpback, Lord of Harlaw.” 

“Seven, you say.” Victarion wondered how Nightfall would fare against his axe. He had 
never fought a man armed with a Valyrian steel blade, though he had thrashed young 
Harras Harlaw many a time when both of them were young. As a boy Harlaw had been 
fast friends with Balon’s eldest son, Rodrik, who had died beneath the walls of Seagard. 

The feast was good. The wine was of the best, and there was roast ox, rare and bloody, 
and stuffed ducks as well, and buckets of fresh crabs. The serving wenches wore fine 
woolens and plush velvets, the Lord Captain did not fail to note. He took them for 
scullions dressed up in the clothes of Lady Hewett and her ladies, until Hotho told him 
they were Lady Hewett and her ladies. It amused the Crow’s Eye to make them wait and 
pour. There were eight of them: her ladyship herself, still handsome though grown 
somewhat stout, and seven younger women aged from twenty-five to ten, her daughters 
and good-daughters. 

Lord Hewett himself sat in his accustomed place upon the dais, dressed in all his heraldic 
finery. His arms and legs had been tied to his chair, and a huge white radish shoved 
between his teeth so he could not speak . . . though he could see and hear. The Crow’s 
Eye had claimed the place of honor at his lordship’s right hand. A pretty, buxom girl of 
seventeen or eighteen years was in his lap, barefoot and disheveled, her arms around his 
neck. “Who is that?” Victarion asked the men around him. 

“His lordship’s bastard daughter,” laughed Hotho. “Before Euron took the castle, she was 
made to wait at table on the rest and take her own meals with the servants.” 

Euron put his blue lips to her throat, and the girl giggled and whispered something in his 
ear. Smiling, he kissed her throat again. Her white skin was covered with red marks 
where his mouth had been; they made a rosy necklace about her neck and shoulders. 
Another whisper in his ear, and this time the Crow’s Eye laughed aloud, then slammed 
his wine cup down for silence. “Good ladies,” he called out to his highborn serving 
women, “Falia is concerned for your fine gowns. She would not have them stained with 
grease and wine and dirty groping fingers, since I have promised that she may choose her 
own clothes from your wardrobes after the feast. So you had best disrobe.” 


A roar of laughter washed over the great hall, and Lord Hewett’s face turned so red that 
Victarion thought his head might burst. The women had no choice but to obey. The 
youngest one cried a little, but her mother comforted her and helped undo the laces down 
her back. Afterward, they continued to serve as before, moving along the tables with 
flagons full of wine to fill each empty cup, only now they did so naked. 

He shames Hewett as he once shamed me, the captain thought, remembering how his 
wife had sobbed as he was beating her. The men of the Four Shields oft married one 
another, he knew, just as the ironborn did. One of these naked serving wenches might 
well be Ser Talbert Serry’s wife. It was one thing to kill a foe, another to dishonor him. 
Victarion made a fist. His hand was bloody where his wound had soaked through the 
linen. 

On the dais, Euron pushed aside his slattern and climbed upon the table. The captains 
began to bang their cups and stamp their feet upon the floor. “EURON!” they shouted. 
“EURON! EURON! EURON!” It was kingsmoot come again. 

“I swore to give you Westeros,” the Crow’s Eye said when the tumult died away, “and 
here is your first taste. A morsel, nothing more . . . but we shall feast before the fall of 
night!” The torches along the walls were burning bright, and so was he, blue lips, blue 
eye, and all. “What the kraken grasps it does not loose. These isles were once ours, and 
now they are again . . . but we need strong men to hold them. So rise, Ser Harras Harlaw, 
Lord of Greyshield.” The Knight stood, one hand upon Nightfall’s moonstone pommel. 
“Rise, Andrik the Unsmiling, Lord of Southshield.” Andrik shoved away his women and 
lurched to his feet, like a mountain rising sudden from the sea. “Rise, Maron Volmark, 
Lord of Greenshield.” A beardless boy of six-and-ten years, Volmark stood hesitantly, 
looking like the lord of rabbits. “And rise, Nute the Barber, Lord of Oakenshield.” 

Nute’s eyes grew wary, as if he feared he was the butt of some cruel jape. “A lord?” he 
croaked. 

Victarion had expected the Crow’s Eye to give the lordships to his own creatures, 
Stonehand and the Red Oarsman and Left-Hand Lucas Codd. A king must needs be openhanded, 
he tried to tell himself, but another voice whispered, Euron’s gifts are poisoned. 
When he turned it over in his head, he saw it plain. The Knight was the Reader’s chosen 
heir, and Andrik the Unsmiling the strong right arm of Dunstan Drumm. Volmark is a 
callow boy, but he has Black Harren’s blood in him through his mother. And the Barber . 
. . 

Victarion grabbed him by the forearm. “Refuse him!” 

Nute looked at him as if he had gone mad. “Refuse him? Lands and lordship? Will you 
make me a lord?” He wrenched his arm away and stood, basking in the cheers. 

And now he steals my men away, Victarion thought. 


King Euron called to Lady Hewett for a fresh cup of wine and raised it high above his 
head. “Captains and kings, lift your cups to the Lords of the Four Shields!” Victarion 
drank with the rest. There is no wine so sweet as wine taken from a foe. Someone had told 
him that once. His father, or his brother Balon. One day I shall drink your wine, Crow’s 
Eye, and take from you all that you hold dear. But was there anything Euron held dear? 

“On the morrow we prepare once more to sail,” the king was saying. “Fill our casks anew 
with spring water, take every sack of grain and cask of beef, and as many sheep and goats 
as we can carry. The wounded who are still hale enough to pull an oar will row. The rest 
shall remain here, to help hold these isles for their new lords. Torwold and the Red 
Oarsman will soon be back with more provisions. Our decks will stink of pigs and 
chickens on the voyage east, but we’ll return with dragons.” 

“When?” The voice was Lord Rodrik’s. “When shall we return, Your Grace? A year? 
Three years? Five? Your dragons are a world away, and autumn is upon us.” The Reader 
walked forward, sounding all the hazards. “Galleys guard the Redwyne Straits. The 
Dornish coast is dry and bleak, four hundred leagues of whirlpools, cliffs, and hidden 
shoals with hardly a safe landing anywhere. Beyond wait the Stepstones, with their 
storms and their nests of Lysene and Myrish pirates. If a thousand ships set sail, three 
hundred may reach the far side of the narrow sea . . . and then what? Lys will not 
welcome us, nor will Volantis. Where will you find fresh water, food? The first storm 
will scatter us across half the earth.” 

A smile played across Euron’s blue lips. “I am the storm, my lord. The first storm, and 
the last. I have taken the Silence on longer voyages than this, and ones far more 
hazardous. Have you forgotten? I have sailed the Smoking Sea and seen Valyria.” 

Every man there knew that the Doom still ruled Valyria. The very sea there boiled and 
smoked, and the land was overrun with demons. It was said that any sailor who so much 
as glimpsed the fiery mountains of Valyria rising above the waves would soon die a 
dreadful death, yet the Crow’s Eye had been there, and returned. 

“Have you?” the Reader asked, so softly. 

Euron’s blue smile vanished. “Reader,” he said into the quiet, “you would do well to keep 
your nose in your books.” 

Victarion could feel the unease in the hall. He pushed himself to his feet. “Brother,” he 
boomed. “You have not answered Harlaw’s questions.” 

Euron shrugged. “The price of slaves is rising. We will sell our slaves in Lys and 
Volantis. That, and the plunder we have taken here, will give us sufficient gold to buy 
provisions.” 

“Are we slavers now?” asked the Reader. “And for what? Dragons that no man here has 
seen? Shall we chase some drunken sailor’s fancy to the far ends of the earth?” 


His words drew mutters of assent. “Slaver’s Bay is too far,” called out Ralf the Limper. 
“And too close to Valyria,” shouted Quellon Humble. Fralegg the Strong said, 
“Highgarden’s close. I say, look for dragons there. The golden kind!” Alvyn Sharp said, 
“Why sail the world, when the Mander lies before us?” Red Ralf Stonehouse bounded to 
his feet. “Oldtown is richer, and the Arbor richer still. Redwyne’s fleet is off away. We 
need only reach out our hand to pluck the ripest fruit in Westeros.” 

“Fruit?” The king’s eye looked more black than blue. “Only a craven would steal a fruit 
when he could take the orchard.” 

“It is the Arbor we want,” said Red Ralf, and other men took up the cry. The Crow’s Eye 
let the shouts wash over him. Then he leapt down from the table, grabbed his slattern by 
the arm, and pulled her from the hall. 

Fled, like a dog. Euron’s hold upon the Seastone Chair suddenly did not seem as secure 
as it had a few moments before. They will not follow him to Slaver’s Bay. Perhaps they 
are not such dogs and fools as I had feared. That was such a merry thought that Victarion 
had to wash it down. He drained a cup with the Barber, to show him that he did not 
begrudge him his lordship, even if it came from Euron’s hand. 

Outside the sun went down. Darkness gathered beyond the walls, but inside the torches 
burned with a ruddy orange glow, and their smoke gathered under the rafters like a grey 
cloud. Drunken men began to dance the finger dance. At some point Left-Hand Lucas 
Codd decided he wanted one of Lord Hewett’s daughters, so he took her on a table whilst 
her sisters screamed and sobbed. 

Victarion felt a tap upon his shoulder. One of Euron’s mongrel sons stood behind him, a 
boy of ten with woolly hair and skin the color of mud. “My father wishes words with 
you.” 

Victarion rose unsteadily. He was a big man, with a large capacity for wine, but even so, 
he had drunk too much. I beat her to death with mine own hands, he thought, but the 
Crow’s Eye killed her when he shoved himself inside her. I had no choice. He followed 
the bastard boy from the hall and up a winding stone stair. The sounds of rape and revelry 
diminished as they climbed, until there was only the soft scrape of boots on stone. 

The Crow’s Eye had taken Lord Hewett’s bedchamber along with his bastard daughter. 
When he entered, the girl was sprawled naked on the bed, snoring softly. Euron stood by 
the window, drinking from a silver cup. He wore the sable cloak he took from Blacktyde, 
his red leather eye patch, and nothing else. “When I was a boy, I dreamt that I could fly,” 
he announced. “When I woke, I couldn’t . . . or so the maester said. But what if he lied?” 

Victarion could smell the sea through the open window, though the room stank of wine 
and blood and sex. The cold salt air helped to clear his head. “What do you mean?” 


Euron turned to face him, his bruised blue lips curled in a half smile. “Perhaps we can fly. 
All of us. How will we ever know unless we leap from some tall tower?” The wind came 
gusting through the window and stirred his sable cloak. There was something obscene 
and disturbing about his nakedness. “No man ever truly knows what he can do unless he 
dares to leap.” 

“There is the window. Leap.” Victarion had no patience for this. His wounded hand was 
troubling him. “What do you want?” 

“The world.” Firelight glimmered in Euron’s eye. His smiling eye. “Will you take a cup 
of Lord Hewett’s wine? There’s no wine half so sweet as wine taken from a beaten foe.” 

“No.” Victarion glanced away. “Cover yourself.” 

Euron seated himself and gave his cloak a twitch, so it covered his private parts. “I had 
forgotten what a small and noisy folk they are, my ironborn. I would bring them dragons, 
and they shout out for grapes.” 

“Grapes are real. A man can gorge himself on grapes. Their juice is sweet, and they make 
wine. What do dragons make?” 

“Woe.” The Crow’s Eye sipped from his silver cup. “I once held a dragon’s egg in this 
hand, brother. This Myrish wizard swore he could hatch it if I gave him a year and all the 
gold that he required. When I grew bored with his excuses, I slew him. As he watched his 
entrails sliding through his fingers he said, ‘But it has not been a year.’” He laughed. 
“Cragorn’s died, you know.” 

“Who?” 

“The man who blew my dragon horn. When the maester cut him open, his lungs were 
charred as black as soot.” 

Victarion shuddered. “Show me this dragon’s egg.” 

“I threw it in the sea during one of my dark moods.” Euron gave a shrug. “It comes to me 
that the Reader was not wrong. Too large a fleet could never hold together over such a 
distance. The voyage is too long, too perilous. Only our finest ships and crews could hope 
to sail to Slaver’s Bay and back. The Iron Fleet.” 

The Iron Fleet is mine, Victarion thought. He said nothing. 

The Crow’s Eye filled two cups with a strange black wine that flowed as thick as honey. 
“Drink with me, brother. Have a taste of this.” He offered one of the cups to Victarion. 

The captain took the cup Euron had not offered, sniffed at its contents suspiciously. Seen 
up close, it looked more blue than black. It was thick and oily, with a smell like rotted 


flesh. He tried a small swallow, and spit it out at once. “Foul stuff. Do you mean to 
poison me?” 

“I mean to open your eyes.” Euron drank deep from his own cup, and smiled. “Shade-ofthe-
evening, the wine of the warlocks. I came upon a cask of it when I captured a certain 
galleas out of Qarth, along with some cloves and nutmeg, forty bolts of green silk, and 
four warlocks who told a curious tale. One presumed to threaten me, so I killed him and 
fed him to the other three. They refused to eat of their friend’s flesh at first, but when 
they grew hungry enough they had a change of heart. Men are meat.” 

Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is maddest of them all. Victarion was 
turning to go when the Crow’s Eye said, “A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. 
Brother, I have need of you. Will you go to Slaver’s Bay and bring my love to me?” 

I had a love once too. Victarion’s hands coiled into fists, and a drop of blood fell to patter 
on the floor. I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did 
her. “You have sons,” he told his brother. 

“Baseborn mongrels, born of whores and weepers.” 

“They are of your body.” 

“So are the contents of my chamber pot. None is fit to sit the Seastone Chair, much less 
the Iron Throne. No, to make an heir that’s worthy of him, I need a different woman. 
When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware.” 

“What dragon?” said Victarion, frowning. 

“The last of her line. They say she is the fairest woman in the world. Her hair is silver-
gold, and her eyes are amethysts . . . but you need not take my word for it, brother. Go to 
Slaver’s Bay, behold her beauty, and bring her back to me.” 

“Why should I?” Victarion demanded. 

“For love. For duty. Because your king commands it.” Euron chuckled. “And for the 
Seastone Chair. It is yours, once I claim the Iron Throne. You shall follow me as I 
followed Balon . . . and your own trueborn sons shall one day follow you.” 

My own sons. But to have a trueborn son a man must first have a wife. Victarion had no 
luck with wives. Euron’s gifts are poisoned, he reminded himself, but still . . . 

“The choice is yours, brother. Live a thrall or die a king. Do you dare to fly? Unless you 
take the leap, you’ll never know.” 

Euron’s smiling eye was bright with mockery. “Or do I ask too much of you? It is a 
fearsome thing to sail beyond Valyria.” 


“I could sail the Iron Fleet to hell if need be.” When Victarion opened his hand, his palm 
was red with blood. “I’ll go to Slaver’s Bay, aye. I’ll find this dragon woman, and I’ll 
bring her back.” But not for you. You stole my wife and despoiled her, so I’ll have yours. 
The fairest woman in the world, for me. 


JAIME 

The fields outside the walls of Darry were being tilled once more. The burned crops had 
been plowed under, and Ser Addam’s scouts reported seeing women in the furrows 
pulling weeds, whilst a team of oxen broke new ground on the edge of a nearby wood. A 
dozen bearded men with axes stood guard over them as they worked. 

By the time Jaime and his column reached the castle, all of them had fled within the 
walls. He found Darry closed to him, just as Harrenhal had been. A chilly welcome from 
mine own blood. 

“Sound the horn,” he commanded. Ser Kennos of Kayce unslung the Horn of Herrock 
and let it wind. As he waited for a response from the castle, Jaime eyed the banner 
floating brown and crimson above his cousin’s barbican. Lancel had taken to quartering 
the lion of Lannister with the Darry plowman, it would seem. He saw his uncle’s hand in 
that, as in Lancel’s choice of bride. House Darry had ruled these lands since the Andals 
cast down the First Men. No doubt Ser Kevan realized that his son would have an easier 
time of it if the peasants saw him as a continuation of the old line, holding these lands by 
right of marriage rather than royal decree. Kevan should be Tommen’s Hand. Harys Swyft 
is a toad, and my sister is a fool if she thinks elsewise. 

The castle gates swung open slowly. “My coz will not have room to accommodate a 
thousand men,” Jaime told Strongboar. “We’ll make camp beneath the western wall. I 
want the perimeters ditched and staked. There are still bands of outlaws in these parts.” 

“They’d need to be mad to attack a force as strong as ours.” 

“Mad or starving.” Until he had a better notion of these outlaws and their strength, Jaime 
was not inclined to take any risks with his defenses. “Ditched and staked,” he said again, 
before spurring Honor toward the gate. Ser Dermot rode beside him with the royal stag 
and lion, and Ser Hugo Vance with the white standard of the Kingsguard. Jaime had 
charged Red Ronnet with the task of delivering Wylis Manderly to Maidenpool, so he 
would not need to look on him henceforth. 


Pia rode with Jaime’s squires, on the gelding Peck had found for her. “It’s like some toy 
castle,” Jaime heard her say. She’s known no home but Harrenhal, he reflected. Every 
castle in the realm will seem small to her, except the Rock. 

Josmyn Peckleton was saying the same thing. “You must not judge by Harrenhal. Black 
Harren built too big.” Pia listened as solemnly as a girl of five being lessoned by her 
septa. That’s all she is, a little girl in a woman’s body, scarred and scared. Peck was 
taken with her, though. Jaime suspected that the boy had never known a woman, and Pia 
was still pretty enough, so long as she kept her mouth closed. There’s no harm in him 
bedding her, I suppose, so long as she’s willing. 

One of the Mountain’s men had tried to rape the girl at Harrenhal, and had seemed 
honestly perplexed when Jaime commanded Ilyn Payne to take his head off. “I had her 
before, a hunnerd times,” he kept saying as they forced him to his knees. “A hunnerd 
times, m’lord. We all had her.” When Ser Ilyn presented Pia with his head, she had 
smiled through her ruined teeth. 

Darry had changed hands several times during the fighting, and its castle had been burned 
once and sacked at least twice, but Lancel had seemingly wasted little time setting things 
to rights. The castle gates were newly hung, raw oaken planks reinforced with iron studs. 
A new stable was going up where an older one had been put to the torch. The steps to the 
keep had been replaced, and the shutters on many of the windows. Blackened stones 
showed where the flames had licked, but time and rain would fade those. 

Within the walls, crossbowmen walked the ramparts, some in crimson cloaks and lion-
crested helms, others in the blue and grey of House Frey. As Jaime trotted across the 
yard, chickens ran out from under Honor’s hooves, sheep bleated, and peasants stared at 
him with sullen eyes. Armed peasants, he did not fail to note. Some had scythes, some 
staves, some hoes sharpened to cruel points. There were axes in evidence as well, and he 
spied several bearded men with red, seven-pointed stars sewn onto ragged, filthy tunics. 

More bloody sparrows. Where do they all come from? 

Of his uncle Kevan he saw no sign. Nor of Lancel. Only a maester emerged to greet him, 
with a grey robe flapping about his skinny legs. “Lord Commander, Darry is honored by 
this . . . unexpected visit. You must forgive our lack of preparations. We had been given 
to understand that you were bound for Riverrun.” 

“Darry was on my way,” lied Jaime. Riverrun will keep. And if perchance the siege had 
ended before he reached the castle, he would be spared the need to take up arms against 
House Tully. 

Dismounting, he handed Honor to a stableboy. “Will I find my uncle here?” He did not 
supply a name. Ser Kevan was the only uncle he had left, the last surviving son of Tytos 
Lannister. 


“No, my lord. Ser Kevan took his leave of us after the wedding.” The maester pulled at 
the chain collar, as if it had grown too tight for him. “I know Lord Lancel will be pleased 
to see you and . . . and all your gallant knights. Though it pains me to confess that Darry 
cannot feed so many.” 

“We have our own provisions. You are?” 

“Maester Ottomore, if it please my lord. Lady Amerei wished to welcome you herself, 
but she is seeing to the preparation of a feast in your honor. It is her hope that you and 
your chief knights and captains will join us at table this evening.” 

“A hot meal would be most welcome. The days have been cold and wet.” Jaime glanced 
about the yard, at the bearded faces of the sparrows. Too many. And too many Freys as 
well. “Where will I find Hardstone?” 

“We had a report of outlaws beyond the Trident. Ser Harwyn took five knights and 
twenty archers and went to deal with them.” 

“And Lord Lancel?” 

“He is at his prayers. His lordship has commanded us never to disturb him when he is 
praying.” 

He and Ser Bonifer should get on well. “Very well.” There would be time enough to talk 
with his cousin later. “Show me to my chambers and have a bath brought up.” 

“If it please my lord, we have put you in the Plowman’s Keep. I will show you there.” 

“I know the way.” Jaime was no stranger to this castle. He and Cersei had been guests 
here twice before, once on their way to Winterfell with Robert, and again on the way 
back to King’s Landing. Though small as castles went, it was larger than an inn, with 
good hunting along the river. Robert Baratheon had never been never loath to impose 
upon the hospitality of his subjects. 

The keep was much as he recalled it. “The walls are still bare,” Jaime observed as the 
maester led him down a gallery. 

“Lord Lancel hopes one day to cover them with hangings,” said Ottomore. “Scenes of 
piety and devotion.” 

Piety and devotion. It was all he could do not to laugh. The walls had been bare on his 
first visit too. Tyrion had pointed out the squares of darker stone where tapestries had 
once hung. Ser Raymun could remove the hangings, but not the marks they’d left. Later, 
the Imp had slipped a handful of stags to one of Darry’s serving men for the key to the 
cellar where the missing tapestries were hidden. He showed them to Jaime by the light of 
a candle, grinning; woven portraits of all the Targaryen kings, from the first Aegon to the 


second Aenys. “If I tell Robert, mayhaps he’ll make me Lord of Darry,” the dwarf said, 
chortling. 

Maester Ottomore led Jaime to the top of the keep. “I trust you will be comfortable here, 
my lord. There is a privy, when nature calls. Your window looks out upon the godswood. 
The bedchamber adjoins her ladyship’s, with a servant’s cell between.” 

“These were Lord Darry’s own apartments.” 

“Yes, my lord.” 

“My cousin is too kind. I did not intend to put Lancel out of his own bedchamber.” 

“Lord Lancel has been sleeping in the sept.” 

Sleeping with the Mother and the Maiden, when he has a warm wife just through that 
door? Jaime did not know whether to laugh or weep. Maybe he is praying for his cock to 
harden. In King’s Landing it had been rumored that Lancel’s wounds had left him 
incapable. Still, he ought to have sense enough to try. His cousin’s hold on his new lands 
would not be secure until he fathered a son on his half-Darry wife. Jaime had begun to 
rue the impulse that had brought him here. He gave thanks to Ottomore, reminded him 
about the bath, and had Peck see him out. 

The lord’s bedchamber had changed since his last visit, and not for the better. Old stale 
rushes covered the floor in place of the fine Myrish carpet that had been there previously, 
and all the furnishings were new and crudely made. Ser Raymun Darry’s bed had been 
large enough to sleep six, with brown velvet draperies and oakwood posts carved with 
vines and leaves; Lancel’s was a lumpy straw pallet, placed beneath the window where 
the first light of day would be sure to wake him. The other bed had no doubt been burned 
or smashed or stolen, but even so . . . 

When the tub arrived, Little Lew pulled off Jaime’s boots and helped remove his golden 
hand. Peck and Garrett hauled water, and Pia found him something clean to sup in. The 
girl glanced at him shyly as she shook his doublet out. Jaime was uncomfortably aware of 
the curve of hip and breast beneath her roughspun brown dress. He found himself 
remembering the things that Pia had whispered to him at Harrenhal, the night that Qyburn 
sent her to his bed. Sometimes when I’m with some man, she’d said, I close my eyes and 
pretend it’s you on top of me. 

He was grateful when the bath was deep enough to conceal his arousal. As he lowered 
himself into the steaming water, he recalled another bath, the one he’d shared with 
Brienne. He had been feverish and weak from loss of blood, and the heat had made him 
so dizzy he found himself saying things better left unsaid. This time he had no such 
excuse. Remember your vows. Pia is more fit for Tyrion’s bed than yours. “Fetch me soap 
and a stiff brush,” he told Peck. “Pia, you may leave us.” 


“Aye, m’lord. Thank you, m’lord.” She covered her mouth when she spoke, to hide her 
broken teeth. 

“Do you want her?” Jaime asked Peck, when she was gone. 

The squire turned beet red. 

“If she’ll have you, take her. She’ll teach you a few things you’ll find useful on your 
wedding night, I don’t doubt, and you’re not like to get a bastard by her.” Pia had spread 
her legs for half his father’s army and never quickened; most like the girl was barren. “If 
you bed her, though, be kind to her.” 

“Kind, my lord? How . . . how would I . . . ?” 

“Sweet words. Gentle touches. You don’t want to wed her, but so long as you’re abed 
treat her as you would your bride.” 

The lad nodded. “My lord, I . . . where should I take her? There’s never a place to . . . to . 
. .” 

“. . . to be alone?” Jaime grinned. “We’ll be at supper several hours. The straw looks 
lumpy, but it should serve.” 

Peck’s eyes grew wide. “His lordship’s bed?” 

“You’ll feel a lord yourself when you’re done, if Pia knows her business.” And someone 
ought to make some use of that miserable straw mattress. 

When he descended for the feast that night, Jaime Lannister wore a doublet of red velvet 
slashed with cloth-of-gold, and a golden chain studded with black diamonds. He had 
strapped on his golden hand as well, polished to a fine bright sheen. This was no fit place 
to wear his whites. His duty awaited him at Riverrun; a darker need had brought him 
here. 

Darry’s great hall was great only by courtesy. Trestle tables crowded it from wall to wall, 
and the ceiling rafters were black with smoke. Jaime had been seated on the dais, to the 
right of Lancel’s empty chair. “Will my cousin not be joining us for supper?” he asked as 
he sat down. 

“My lord prefers to fast,” said Lancel’s wife, the Lady Amerei. “He’s sick with grief for 
the poor High Septon.” She was a long-legged, full-breasted, strapping girl of some eight-
and-ten years; a healthy wench to look at her, though her pinched, chinless face reminded 
Jaime of his late and unlamented cousin Cleos, who had always looked somewhat like a 
weasel. 


Fasting? He is an even bigger fool than I suspected. His cousin should be busy fathering 
a little weasel-faced heir on his widow instead of starving himself to death. He wondered 
what Ser Kevan might have had to say about his son’s new fervor. Could that be the 
reason for his uncle’s abrupt departure? 

Over bowls of bean-and-bacon soup Lady Amerei told Jaime how her first husband had 
been slain by Ser Gregor Clegane when the Freys were still fighting for Robb Stark. “I 
begged him not to go, but my Pate was oh so very brave, and swore he was the man to 
slay that monster. He wanted to make a great name for himself.” 

We all do. “When I was a squire I told myself I’d be the man to slay the Smiling Knight.” 

“The Smiling Knight?” She sounded lost. “Who was that?” 

The Mountain of my boyhood. Half as big but twice as mad. 

“An outlaw, long dead. No one who need concern your ladyship.” 

Amerei’s lip trembled. Tears rolled from her brown eyes. 

“You must forgive my daughter,” said an older woman. Lady Amerei had brought a score 
of Freys to Darry with her; a sister, an uncle, a half uncle, various cousins . . . and her 
mother, who had been born a Darry. “She still grieves for her father.” 

“Outlaws killed him,” sobbed Lady Amerei. “Father had only gone out to ransom Petyr 
Pimple. He brought them the gold they asked for, but they hung him anyway.” 

“Hanged, Ami. Your father was not a tapestry.” Lady Mariya turned back to Jaime. “I 
believe you knew him, ser.” 

“We were squires together once, at Crakehall.” He would not go so far as to claim they 
had been friends. When Jaime had arrived, Merrett Frey had been the castle bully, lording 
it over all the younger boys. Then he tried to bully me. “He was . . . very strong.” It was 
the only praise that came to mind. Merrett had been slow and clumsy and stupid, but he 
was strong. 

“You fought against the Kingswood Brotherhood together,” sniffed Lady Amerei. 
“Father used to tell me stories.” 

Father used to boast and lie, you mean. “We did.” Frey’s chief contributions to the fight 
had consisted of contracting the pox from a camp follower and getting himself captured 
by the White Fawn. The outlaw queen burned her sigil into his arse before ransoming him 
back to Sumner Crakehall. Merrett had not been able to sit down for a fortnight, though 
Jaime doubted that the red-hot iron was half so nasty as the kettles of shit his fellow 
squires made him eat once he was returned. Boys are the cruelest creatures on the earth. 


He slipped his golden hand around his wine cup and raised it up. “To Merrett’s memory,” 
he said. It was easier to drink to the man than to talk of him. 

After the toast Lady Amerei stopped weeping and the table talk turned to wolves, of the 
four-footed kind. Ser Danwell Frey claimed there were more of them about than even his 
grandfather could remember. “They’ve lost all fear of men. Packs of them attacked our 
baggage train on our way down from the Twins. Our archers had to feather a dozen 
before the others fled.” Ser Addam Marbrand confessed that their own column had faced 
similar troubles on their way up from King’s Landing. 

Jaime concentrated on the fare before him, tearing off chunks of bread with his left hand 
and fumbling at his wine cup with his right. He watched Addam Marbrand charm the girl 
beside him, watched Steffon Swyft refight the battle for King’s Landing with bread and 
nuts and carrots. Ser Kennos pulled a serving girl into his lap, urging her to stroke his 
horn, whilst Ser Dermot regaled some squires with tales of knight errantry in the 
rainwood. Farther down the table Hugo Vance had closed his eyes. Brooding on the 
mysteries of life, thought Jaime. That, or napping between courses. He turned back to 
Lady Mariya. “The outlaws who killed your husband . . . was it Lord Beric’s band?” 

“So we thought, at first.” Though Lady Mariya’s hair was streaked with grey, she was 
still a handsome woman. “The killers scattered when they left Oldstones. Lord Vypren 
tracked one band to Fairmarket, but lost them there. Black Walder led hounds and hunters 
into Hag’s Mire after the others. The peasants denied seeing them, but when questioned 
sharply they sang a different song. They spoke of a one-eyed man and another who wore 
a yellow cloak . . . and a woman, cloaked and hooded.” 

“A woman?” He would have thought that the White Fawn would have taught Merrett to 
stay clear of outlaw wenches. “There was a woman in the Kingswood Brotherhood as 
well.” 

“I know of her.” How not, her tone suggested, when she left her mark upon my husband? 
“The White Fawn was young and fair, they say. This hooded woman is neither. The 
peasants would have us believe that her face was torn and scarred, and her eyes terrible to 
look upon. They claim she led the outlaws.” 

“Led them?” Jaime found that hard to believe. “Beric Dondarrion and the red priest . . .” 

“. . . were not seen.” Lady Mariya sounded certain. 

“Dondarrion’s dead,” said Strongboar. “The Mountain drove a knife through his eye, we 
have men with us who saw it.” 

“That’s one tale,” said Addam Marbrand. “Others will tell you that Lord Beric can’t be 
killed.” 


“Ser Harwyn says those tales are lies.” Lady Amerei wound a braid around her finger. 
“He has promised me Lord Beric’s head. He’s very gallant.” She was blushing beneath 
her tears. 

Jaime thought back on the head he’d given to Pia. He could almost hear his little brother 
chuckle. Whatever became of giving women flowers? Tyrion might have asked. He would 
have had a few choice words for Harwyn Plumm as well, though gallant would not have 
been one of them. Plumm’s brothers were big, fleshy fellows with thick necks and red 
faces; loud and lusty, quick to laugh, quick to anger, quick to forgive. Harwyn was a 
different sort of Plumm; hard-eyed and taciturn, unforgiving . . . and deadly, with his 
hammer in his hand. A good man to command a garrison, but not a man to love. Although 
. . . Jaime gazed at Lady Amerei. 

The serving men were bringing out the fish course, a river pike baked in a crust of herbs 
and crushed nuts. Lancel’s lady tasted it, approved, and commanded that the first portion 
be served to Jaime. As they set the fish before him, she leaned across her husband’s place 
to touch his golden hand. “You could kill Lord Beric, Ser Jaime. You slew the Smiley 
Knight. Please, my lord, I beg you, stay and help us with Lord Beric and the Hound.” Her 
pale fingers caressed his golden ones. 

Does she think that I can feel that? “The Sword of the Morning slew the Smiling Knight, 
my lady. Ser Arthur Dayne, a better knight than me.” Jaime pulled back his golden 
fingers and turned once more to Lady Mariya. “How far did Black Walder track this 
hooded woman and her men?” 

“His hounds picked up their scent again north of Hag’s Mire,” the older woman told him. 
“He swears that he was no more than half a day behind them when they vanished into the 
Neck.” 

“Let them rot there,” declared Ser Kennos cheerfully. “If the gods are good, they’ll be 
swallowed up in quicksand or gobbled down by lizard-lions.” 

“Or taken in by frogeaters,” said Ser Danwell Frey. “I would not put it past the 
crannogmen to shelter outlaws.” 

“Would that it were only them,” said Lady Mariya. “Some of the river lords are hand in 
glove with Lord Beric’s men as well.” 

“The smallfolk too,” sniffed her daughter. “Ser Harwyn says they hide them and feed 
them, and when he asks where they’ve gone, they lie. They lie to their own lords!” 

“Have their tongues out,” urged Strongboar. 

“Good luck getting answers then,” said Jaime. “If you want their help, you need to make 
them love you. That was how Arthur Dayne did it, when we rode against the Kingswood 
Brotherhood. He paid the smallfolk for the food we ate, brought their grievances to King 


Aerys, expanded the grazing lands around their villages, even won them the right to fell a 
certain number of trees each year and take a few of the king’s deer during the autumn. 
The forest folk had looked to Toyne to defend them, but Ser Arthur did more for them 
than the Brotherhood could ever hope to do, and won them to our side. After that, the rest 
was easy.” 

“The Lord Commander speaks wisely,” said Lady Mariya. “We shall never be rid of 
these outlaws until the smallfolk come to love Lancel as much as they once loved my 
father and grandfather.” 

Jaime glanced at his cousin’s empty place. Lancel will never win their love by praying, 
though. 

Lady Amerei put on a pout. “Ser Jaime, I pray you, do not abandon us. My lord has need 
of you, and so do I. These are such fearful times. Some nights I can hardly sleep, for 
fear.” 

“My place is with the king, my lady.” 

“I’ll come,” offered Strongboar. “Once we’re done at Riverrun, I’ll be itching for another 
fight. Not that Beric Dondarrion is like to give me one. I recall the man from tourneys 
past. A comely lad in a pretty cloak, he was. Slight and callow.” 

“That was before he died,” said young Ser Arwood Frey. “Death changed him, the 
smallfolk say. You can kill him, but he won’t stay dead. How do you fight a man like 
that? And there’s the Hound as well. He slew twenty men at Saltpans.” 

Strongboar guffawed. “Twenty fat innkeeps, maybe. Twenty serving men pissing in their 
breeches. Twenty begging brothers armed with bowls. Not twenty knights. Not me.” 

“There is a knight at Saltpans,” Ser Arwood insisted. “He hid behind his walls whilst 
Clegane and his mad dogs ravaged through his town. You have not seen the things he did, 
ser. I have. When the reports reached the Twins, I rode down with Harys Haigh and his 
brother Donnel and half a hundred men, archers and men-at-arms. We thought it was 
Lord Beric’s work, and hoped to find his trail. All that remains of Saltpans is the castle, 
and old Ser Quincy so frightened he would not open his gates, but shouted down at us 
from his battlements. The rest is bones and ashes. A whole town. The Hound put the 
buildings to the torch and the people to the sword and rode off laughing. The women . . . 
you would not believe what he did to some of the women. I will not speak of it at table. It 
made me sick to see.” 

“I cried when I heard,” said Lady Amerei. 

Jaime sipped his wine. “What makes you certain it was the Hound?” What they were 
describing sounded more like Gregor’s work than Sandor’s. Sandor had been hard and 
brutal, yes, but it was his big brother who was the real monster in House Clegane. 


“He was seen,” Ser Arwood said. “That helm of his is not easily mistaken, nor forgotten, 
and there were a few who survived to tell the tale. The girl he raped, some boys who hid, 
a woman we found trapped beneath a blackened beam, the fisherfolk who watched the 
butchery from their boats . . .” 

“Do not call it butchery,” Lady Mariya said softly. “That gives insult to honest butchers 
everywhere. Saltpans was the work of some fell beast in human skin.” 

This is a time for beasts, Jaime reflected, for lions and wolves and angry dogs, for ravens 
and carrion crows. 

“Evil work.” Strongboar filled his cup again. “Lady Mariya, Lady Amerei, your distress 
has moved me. You have my word, once Riverrun has fallen I shall return to hunt down 
the Hound and kill him for you. Dogs do not frighten me.” 

This one should. Both men were large and powerful, but Sandor Clegane was much 
quicker, and fought with a savagery that Lyle Crakehall could not hope to match. 

Lady Amerei was thrilled, however. “You are a true knight, Ser Lyle, to help a lady in 
distress.” 

At least she did not call herself “a maiden.” Jaime reached for his cup and knocked it 
over. The linen tablecloth drank the wine. As the red stain spread, his companions all 
pretended not to notice. High table courtesy, he told himself, but it tasted just like pity. 
He rose abruptly. “My lady. Pray excuse me.” 

Lady Amerei looked stricken. “Would you leave us? There’s venison to come, and 
capons stuffed with leeks and mushrooms.” 

“Very fine, no doubt, but I could not eat another bite. I need to see my cousin.” Bowing, 
Jaime left them to their food. 

Men were eating in the yard as well. The sparrows had gathered round a dozen cookfires 
to warm their hands against the chill of dusk and watch fat sausages spit and sizzle above 
the flames. There had to be a hundred of them. Useless mouths. Jaime wondered how 
many sausages his cousin had laid by and how he intended to feed the sparrows once they 
were gone. They will be eating rats by winter, unless they can get a harvest in. This late 
in autumn, the chances of another harvest were not good. 

He found the sept off the castle’s inner ward; a windowless, seven-sided, half-timbered 
building with carved wood doors and a tiled roof. Three sparrows sat upon its steps. 
When Jaime approached, they rose. “Where you going, m’lord?” asked one. He was the 
smallest of the three, but he had the biggest beard. 

“Inside.” 


“His lordship’s in there, praying.” 
“His lordship is my cousin.” 
“Well, then, m’lord,” said a different sparrow, a huge bald man with a seven-pointed star 


painted over one eye, “you won’t want to bother your cousin at his prayers.” 
“Lord Lancel is asking the Father Above for guidance,” said the third sparrow, the 
beardless one. A boy, Jaime had thought, but her voice marked her for a woman, dressed 

in shapeless rags and a shirt of rusted mail. “He is praying for the soul of the High Septon 
and all the others who have died.” 
“They’ll still be dead tomorrow,” Jaime told her. “The Father Above has more time than I 

do. Do you know who I am?” 
“Some lord,” said the big man with the starry eye. 
“Some cripple,” said the small one with the big beard. 
“The Kingslayer,” said the woman, “but we’re no kings, just Poor Fellows, and you can’t 


go in unless his lordship says you can.” She hefted a spiked club, and the small man 


raised an axe. 
The doors behind them opened. “Let my cousin pass in peace, friends,” Lancel said 
softly. “I have been expecting him.” 


The sparrows moved aside. 
Lancel looked even thinner than he had at King’s Landing. He was barefoot, and dressed 
in a plain, roughspun tunic of undyed wool that made him look more like a beggar than a 
lord. The crown of his head had been shaved smooth, but his beard had grown out a little. 


To call it peach fuzz would have given insult to the peach. It went queerly with the white 
hair around his ears. 
“Cousin,” said Jaime when they were alone within the sept, “have you lost your bloody 


wits?” 
“I prefer to say I’ve found my faith.” 
“Where is your father?” 
“Gone. We quarreled.” Lancel knelt before the altar of his other Father. “Will you pray 


with me, Jaime?” 
“If I pray nicely, will the Father give me a new hand?” 



“No. But the Warrior will give you courage, the Smith will lend you strength, and the 
Crone will give you wisdom.” 

“It’s a hand I need.” The seven gods loomed above carved altars, the dark wood gleaming 
in the candlelight. A faint smell of incense hung in the air. “You sleep down here?” 

“Each night I make my bed beneath a different altar, and the Seven send me visions.” 

Baelor the Blessed once had visions too. Especially when he was fasting. “How long has 
it been since you’ve eaten?” 

“My faith is all the nourishment I need.” 

“Faith is like porridge. Better with milk and honey.” 

“I dreamed that you would come. In the dream you knew what I had done. How I’d 
sinned. You killed me for it.” 

“You’re more like to kill yourself with all this fasting. Didn’t Baelor the Blessed fast 
himself onto a bier?” 

“Our lives are candle flames, says The Seven-Pointed Star. Any errant puff of wind can 
snuff us out. Death is never far in this world, and seven hells await sinners who do not 
repent their sins. Pray with me, Jaime.” 

“If I do, will you eat a bowl of porridge?” When his coz did not answer, Jaime sighed. 
“You should be sleeping with your wife, not with the Maid. You need a son with Darry 
blood if you want to keep this castle.” 

“A pile of cold stones. I never asked for it. I never wanted it. I only wanted . . .” Lancel 
shuddered. “Seven save me, but I wanted to be you.” 

Jaime had to laugh. “Better me than Blessed Baelor. Darry needs a lion, coz. So does 
your little Frey. She gets moist between the legs every time someone mentions 
Hardstone. If she hasn’t bedded him yet, she will soon.” 

“If she loves him, I wish them joy of one another.” 

“A lion shouldn’t have horns. You took the girl to wife.” 

“I said some words and gave her a red cloak, but only to please Father. Marriage requires 
consummation. King Baelor was made to wed his sister Daena, but they never lived as 
man and wife, and he put her aside as soon as he was crowned.” 


“The realm would have been better served if he had closed his eyes and fucked her. I 
know enough history to know that. In any case, you’re not like to be taken for Baelor the 
Blessed.” 

“No,” Lancel allowed. “He was a rare spirit, pure and brave and innocent, untouched by 
all the evils of the world. I am a sinner, with much and more to atone for.” 

Jaime put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “What do you know of sin, coz? I killed my 
king.” 

“The brave man slays with a sword, the craven with a wineskin. We are both kingslayers, 
ser.” 

“Robert was no true king. Some might even say that a stag is a lion’s natural prey.” Jaime 
could feel the bones beneath his cousin’s skin . . . and something else as well. Lancel was 
wearing a hair shirt underneath his tunic. “What else did you do, to require so much 
atonement? Tell me.” 

His cousin bowed his head, tears running down his cheeks. 

Those tears were all the answer Jaime needed. “You killed the king,” he said, “then you 
fucked the queen.” 

“I never . . .” 

“. . . lay with my sweet sister?” Say it. Say it! 

“Never spilled my seed in . . . in her . . .” 

“. . . cunt?” suggested Jaime. 

“. . . womb,” Lancel finished. “It is not treason unless you finish inside. I gave her 
comfort, after the king died. You were a captive, your father was in the field, and your 
brother . . . she was afraid of him, and with good reason. He made me betray her.” 

“Did he?” Lancel and Ser Osmund and how many more? Was the part about Moon Boy 
just a gibe? “Did you force her?” 

“No! I loved her. I wanted to protect her.” 

You wanted to be me. His phantom fingers itched. The day his sister had come to White 
Sword Tower to beg him to renounce his vows, she had laughed after he refused her and 
boasted of having lied to him a thousand times. Jaime had taken that for a clumsy attempt 
to hurt him as he’d hurt her. It may have been the only true thing that she ever said to me. 


“Do not think ill of the queen,” Lancel pleaded. “All flesh is weak, Jaime. No harm came 
of our sin. No . . . no bastard.” 

“No. Bastards are seldom made upon the belly.” He wondered what his cousin would say 
if he were to confess his own sins, the three treasons Cersei had named Joffrey, Tommen, 
and Myrcella. 

“I was angry with Her Grace after the battle, but the High Septon said I must forgive 
her.” 

“You confessed your sins to His High Holiness, did you?” 

“He prayed for me when I was wounded. He was a good man.” 

He’s a dead man. They rang the bells for him. He wondered if his cousin had any notion 
what fruit his words had borne. “Lancel, you’re a bloody fool.” 

“You are not wrong,” said Lancel, “but my folly is behind me, ser. I have asked the 
Father Above to show me the way, and he has. I am renouncing this lordship and this 
wife. Hardstone is welcome to the both of them, if he likes. On the morrow I will return 
to King’s Landing and swear my sword to the new High Septon and the Seven. I mean to 
take vows and join the Warrior’s Sons.” 

The boy was not making sense. “The Warrior’s Sons were proscribed three hundred years 
ago.” 

“The new High Septon has revived them. He’s sent out a call for worthy knights to 
pledge their lives and swords to the service of the Seven. The Poor Fellows are to be 
restored as well.” 

“Why would the Iron Throne allow that?” One of the early Targaryen kings had fought 
for years to suppress the two military orders, Jaime recalled, though he did not remember 
which. Maegor, perhaps, or the first Jaehaerys. Tyrion would have known. 

“His High Holiness writes that King Tommen has given his consent. I will show you the 
letter, if you like.” 

“Even if this is true . . . you are a lion of the Rock, a lord. You have a wife, a castle, lands 
to defend, people to protect. If the gods are good, you will have sons of your blood to 
follow you. Why would you throw all that away for . . . for some vow?” 

“Why did you?” asked Lancel softly. 

For honor, Jaime might have said. For glory. That would have been a lie, though. Honor 
and glory had played their parts, but most of it had been for Cersei. A laugh escaped his 


lips. “Is it the High Septon you’re running to, or my sweet sister? Pray on that one, coz. 
Pray hard.” 

“Will you pray with me, Jaime?” 

He glanced about the sept, at the gods. The Mother, full of mercy. The Father, stern in 
judgment. The Warrior, one hand upon his sword. The Stranger in the shadows, his half-
human face concealed beneath a hooded mantle. I thought that I was the Warrior and 
Cersei was the Maid, but all the time she was the Stranger, hiding her true face from my 
gaze. “Pray for me, if you like,” he told his cousin. “I’ve forgotten all the words.” 

The sparrows were still fluttering about the steps when Jaime stepped back out into the 
night. “Thank you,” he told them. “I feel ever so much holier now.” 

He went and found Ser Ilyn and a pair of swords. 

The castle yard was full of eyes and ears. To escape them, they sought out Darry’s 
godswood. There were no sparrows there, only trees bare and brooding, their black 
branches scratching at the sky. A mat of dead leaves crunched beneath their feet. 

“Do you see that window, ser?” Jaime used a sword to point. “That was Raymun Darry’s 
bedchamber. Where King Robert slept, on our return from Winterfell. Ned Stark’s 
daughter had run off after her wolf savaged Joff, you’ll recall. My sister wanted the girl 
to lose a hand. The old penalty, for striking one of the blood royal. Robert told her she 
was cruel and mad. They fought for half the night . . . well, Cersei fought, and Robert 
drank. Past midnight, the queen summoned me inside. The king was passed out snoring 
on the Myrish carpet. I asked my sister if she wanted me to carry him to bed. She told me 
I should carry her to bed, and shrugged out of her robe. I took her on Raymun Darry’s 
bed after stepping over Robert. If His Grace had woken I would have killed him there and 
then. He would not have been the first king to die upon my sword . . . but you know that 
story, don’t you?” He slashed at a tree branch, shearing it in half. “As I was fucking her, 
Cersei cried, ‘I want.’ I thought that she meant me, but it was the Stark girl that she 
wanted, maimed or dead.” The things I do for love. “It was only by chance that Stark’s 
own men found the girl before me. If I had come on her first . . .” 

The pockmarks on Ser Ilyn’s face were black holes in the torchlight, as dark as Jaime’s 
soul. He made that clacking sound. 

He is laughing at me, realized Jaime Lannister. “For all I know you fucked my sister too, 
you pock-faced bastard,” he spat out. “Well, shut your bloody mouth and kill me if you 
can.” 


BRIENNE 

The septry stood upon an upthrust island half a mile from the shore, where the wide 
mouth of the Trident widened further still to kiss the Bay of Crabs. Even from shore its 
prosperity was apparent. Its slope was covered with terraced fields, with fishponds down 
below and a windmill above, its wood-and-sailcloth blades turning slowly in the breeze 
off the bay. Brienne could see sheep grazing on the hillside and storks wading in the 
shallow waters around the ferry landing. 

“Saltpans is just across the water,” said Septon Meribald, pointing north across the bay. 
“The brothers will ferry us over on the morning tide, though I fear what we shall find 
there. Let us enjoy a good hot meal before we face that. The brothers always have a bone 
to spare for Dog.” Dog barked and wagged his tail. 

The tide was going out now, and swiftly. The water that separated the island from the 
shore was receding, leaving behind a broad expanse of glistening brown mudflats dotted 
by tidal pools that glittered like golden coins in the afternoon sun. Brienne scratched the 
back of her neck, where an insect had bitten her. She had pinned her hair up, and the sun 
had warmed her skin. 

“Why do they call it the Quiet Isle?” asked Podrick. 

“Those who dwell here are penitents, who seek to atone for their sins through 
contemplation, prayer, and silence. Only the Elder Brother and his proctors are permitted 
to speak, and the proctors only for one day of every seven.” 

“The silent sisters never speak,” said Podrick. “I heard they don’t have any tongues.” 

Septon Meribald smiled. “Mothers have been cowing their daughters with that tale since I 
was your age. There was no truth to it then and there is none now. A vow of silence is an 
act of contrition, a sacrifice by which we prove our devotion to the Seven Above. For a 
mute to take a vow of silence would be akin to a legless man giving up the dance.” He led 
his donkey down the slope, beckoning them to follow. “If you would sleep beneath a roof 
tonight, you must climb off your horses and cross the mud with me. The path of faith, we 
call it. Only the faithful may cross safely. The wicked are swallowed by the quicksands, 
or drowned when the tide comes rushing in. None of you are wicked, I hope? Even so, I 
would be careful where I set my feet. Walk only where I walk, and you shall reach the 
other side.” 


The path of faith was a crooked one, Brienne could not help but note. Though the island 
seemed to rise to the northeast of where they left the shore, Septon Meribald did not 
make directly for it. Instead, he started due east, toward the deeper waters of the bay, 
which shimmered blue and silver in the distance. The soft brown mud squished up 
between his toes. As he walked he paused from time to time, to probe ahead with his 
quarterstaff. Dog stayed near his heels, sniffing at every rock, shell, and clump of 
seaweed. For once he did not bound ahead or stray. 

Brienne followed, taking care to keep close to the line of prints left by the dog, the 
donkey, and the holy man. Then came Podrick, and last of all Ser Hyle. A hundred yards 
out, Meribald turned abruptly toward the south, so his back was almost to the septry. He 
proceeded in that direction for another hundred yards, leading them between two shallow 
tidal pools. Dog stuck his nose in one and yelped when a crab pinched it with his claw. A 
brief but furious struggle ensued before the dog came trotting back, wet and mud-
spattered, with the crab between his jaws. 

“Isn’t that where we want to go?” Ser Hyle called out from behind them, pointing at the 
septry. “We seem to be walking every way but toward it.” 

“Faith,” urged Septon Meribald. “Believe, persist, and follow, and we shall find the peace 
we seek.” 

The flats shimmered wetly all about them, mottled in half a hundred hues. The mud was 
such a dark brown it appeared almost black, but there were swathes of golden sand as 
well, upthrust rocks both grey and red, and tangles of black and green seaweed. Storks 
stalked through the tidal pools and left their footprints all around them, and crabs scuttled 
across the surface of shallow waters. The air smelled of brine and rot, and the ground 
sucked at their feet and let them go only reluctantly, with a pop and a squelchy sigh. 
Septon Meribald turned and turned again and yet again. His footprints filled up with 
water as soon as he moved on. By the time the ground grew firmer and began to rise 
beneath the feet, they had walked at least a mile and a half. 

Three men were waiting for them as they clambered up the broken stones that ringed the 
isle’s shoreline. They were clad in the brown-and-dun robes of brothers, with wide bell 
sleeves and pointed cowls. Two had wound lengths of wool about the lower halves of 
their faces as well, so all that could be seen of them were their eyes. The third brother 
was the one to speak. “Septon Meribald,” he called. “It has been nigh upon a year. You 
are welcome. Your companions as well.” 

Dog wagged his tail, and Meribald shook mud from his feet. “Might we beg your 
hospitality for a night?” 

“Yes, of course. There’s to be fish stew this evening. Will you require the ferry in the 
morning?” 


“If it is not too much to ask.” Meribald turned to his fellow travelers. “Brother Narbert is 
a proctor of the order, so he is allowed to speak one day of every seven. Brother, these 
good folk helped me on my way. Ser Hyle Hunt is a gallant from the Reach. The lad is 
Podrick Payne, late of the westerland. And this is Lady Brienne, known as the Maid of 
Tarth.” 

Brother Narbert drew up short. “A woman.” 

“Yes, brother.” Brienne unpinned her hair and shook it out. “Do you have no women 
here?” 

“Not at present,” said Narbert. “Those women who do visit come to us sick or hurt, or 
heavy with child. The Seven have blessed our Elder Brother with healing hands. He has 
restored many a man to health that even the maesters could not cure, and many a woman 
too.” 

“I am not sick or hurt or heavy with child.” 

“Lady Brienne is a warrior maid,” confided Septon Meribald, “hunting for the Hound.” 

“Aye?” Narbert seemed taken aback. “To what end?” 

Brienne touched Oathkeeper’s hilt. “His,” she said. 

The proctor studied her. “You are . . . brawny for a woman, it is true, but . . . mayhaps I 
should take you up to Elder Brother. He will have seen you crossing the mud. Come.” 

Narbert led them along a pebbled path and through a grove of apple trees to a 
whitewashed stable with a peaked thatch roof. “You may leave your animals here. 
Brother Gillam will see that they are fed and watered.” 

The stable was more than three-quarters empty. At one end were half a dozen mules, 
being tended by a bandy-legged little brother whom Brienne took for Gillam. Way down 
at the far end, well away from the other animals, a huge black stallion trumpeted at the 
sound of their voices and kicked at the door of his stall. 

Ser Hyle gave the big horse an admiring look as he was handing his reins to Brother 
Gillam. “A handsome beast.” 

Brother Narbert sighed. “The Seven send us blessings, and the Seven send us trials. 
Handsome he may be, but Driftwood was surely whelped in hell. When we sought to 
harness him to a plow he kicked Brother Rawney and broke his shinbone in two places. 
We had hoped gelding might improve the beast’s ill temper, but . . . Brother Gillam, will 
you show them?” 


Brother Gillam lowered his cowl. Underneath he had a mop of blond hair, a tonsured 
scalp, and a bloodstained bandage where he should have had an ear. 

Podrick gasped. “The horse bit off your ear?” 

Gillam nodded, and covered his head again. 

“Forgive me, brother,” said Ser Hyle, “but I might take the other ear, if you approached 
me with a pair of shears.” 

The jest did not sit well with Brother Narbert. “You are a knight, ser. Driftwood is a beast 
of burden. The Smith gave men horses to help them in their labors.” He turned away. “If 
you will. Elder Brother will no doubt be waiting.” 

The slope was steeper than it had looked from across the mudflats. To ease it, the 
brothers had erected a flight of wooden steps that wandered back and forth across the 
hillside and amongst the buildings. After a long day in the saddle Brienne was glad for a 
chance to stretch her legs. 

They passed a dozen brothers of the order on their way up; cowled men in dun-andbrown 
who gave them curious looks as they went by, but spoke no word of greeting. One 
was leading a pair of milk cows toward a low barn roofed in sod; another worked a butter 
churn. On the upper slopes they saw three boys driving sheep, and higher still they passed 
a lichyard where a brother bigger than Brienne was struggling to dig a grave. From the 
way he moved, it was plain to see that he was lame. As he flung a spadeful of the stony 
soil over one shoulder, some chanced to spatter against their feet. “Be more watchful 
there,” chided Brother Narbert. “Septon Meribald might have gotten a mouthful of dirt.” 
The gravedigger lowered his head. When Dog went to sniff him he dropped his spade and 
scratched his ear. 

“A novice,” explained Narbert. 

“Who is the grave for?” asked Ser Hyle, as they resumed their climb up the wooden 
steps. 

“Brother Clement, may the Father judge him justly.” 

“Was he old?” asked Podrick Payne. 

“If you consider eight-and-forty old, aye, but it was not the years that killed him. He died 
of wounds he got at Saltpans. He had taken some of our mead to the market there, on the 
day the outlaws descended on the town.” 

“The Hound?” said Brienne. 


“Another, just as brutal. He cut poor Clement’s tongue out when he would not speak. 
Since he had taken a vow of silence, the raider said he had no need of it. The Elder 
Brother will know more. He keeps the worst of the tidings from outside to himself, so as 
not to disturb the tranquillity of the septry. Many of our brothers came here to escape the 
horrors of the world, not to dwell upon them. Brother Clement was not the only wounded 
man amongst us. Some wounds do not show.” Brother Narbert gestured to their right. 
“There lies our summer arbor. The grapes are small and tart, but make a drinkable wine. 
We brew our own ale as well, and our mead and cider are far famed.” 

“The war has never come here?” Brienne said. 

“Not this war, praise the Seven. Our prayers protect us.” 

“And your tides,” suggested Meribald. Dog barked agreement. 

The brow of the hill was crowned by a low wall of unmortared stone, encircling a cluster 
of large buildings; the windmill, its sails creaking as they turned, the cloisters where the 
brothers slept and the common hall where they took their meals, a wooden sept for prayer 
and meditation. The sept had windows of leaded glass, wide doors carved with likenesses 
of the Mother and the Father, and a seven-sided steeple with a walk on top. Behind it was 
a vegetable garden where some older brothers were pulling weeds. Brother Narbert led 
the visitors around a chestnut tree to a wooden door set in the side of the hill. 

“A cave with a door?” Ser Hyle said, surprised. 

Septon Meribald smiled. “It is called the Hermit’s Hole. The first holy man to find his 
way here lived therein, and worked such wonders that others came to join him. That was 
two thousand years ago, they say. The door came somewhat later.” 

Perhaps two thousand years ago the Hermit’s Hole had been a damp, dark place, floored 
with dirt and echoing to the sounds of dripping water, but no longer. The cave that 
Brienne and her companions entered had been turned into a warm, snug sanctum. Woolen 
carpets covered the ground, tapestries the walls. Tall beeswax candles gave more than 
ample light. The furnishings were strange but simple; a long table, a settle, a chest, 
several tall cases full of books, and chairs. All were made from driftwood, oddly shaped 
pieces cunningly joined together and polished till they shone a deep gold in the 
candlelight. 

The Elder Brother was not what Brienne had expected. He could hardly be called elder, 
for a start; whereas the brothers weeding in the garden had had the stooped shoulders and 
bent backs of old men, he stood straight and tall, and moved with the vigor of a man in 
the prime of his years. Nor did he have the gentle, kindly face she expected of a healer. 
His head was large and square, his eyes shrewd, his nose veined and red. Though he wore 
a tonsure, his scalp was as stubbly as his heavy jaw. 


He looks more like a man made to break bones than to heal one, thought the Maid of 
Tarth, as the Elder Brother strode across the room to embrace Septon Meribald and pat 
Dog. “It is always a glad day when our friends Meribald and Dog honor us with another 
visit,” he announced, before turning to his other guests. “And new faces are always 
welcome. We see so few of them.” 

Meribald performed the customary courtesies before seating himself upon the settle. 
Unlike Septon Narbert, the Elder Brother did not seem dismayed by Brienne’s sex, but 
his smile did flicker and fade when the septon told him why she and Ser Hyle had come. 
“I see,” was all he said, before he turned away with, “You must be thirsty. Please, have 
some of our sweet cider to wash the dust of travel from your throats.” He poured for them 
himself. The cups were carved from driftwood too, no two the same. When Brienne 
complimented them, he said, “My lady is too kind. All we do is cut and polish the wood. 
We are blessed here. Where the river meets the bay, the currents and the tides wrestle one 
against the other, and many strange and wondrous things are pushed toward us, to wash 
up on our shores. Driftwood is the least of it. We have found silver cups and iron pots, 
sacks of wool and bolts of silk, rusted helms and shining swords . . . aye, and rubies.” 

That interested Ser Hyle. “Rhaegar’s rubies?” 

“It may be. Who can say? The battle was long leagues from here, but the river is tireless 
and patient. Six have been found. We are all waiting for the seventh.” 

“Better rubies than bones.” Septon Meribald was rubbing his foot, the mud flaking off 
beneath his finger. “Not all the river’s gifts are pleasant. The good brothers collect the 
dead as well. Drowned cows, drowned deer, dead pigs swollen up to half the size of 
horses. Aye, and corpses.” 

“Too many corpses, these days.” The Elder Brother sighed. “Our gravedigger knows no 
rest. Rivermen, westermen, northmen, all wash up here. Knights and knaves alike. We 
bury them side by side, Stark and Lannister, Blackwood and Bracken, Frey and Darry. 
That is the duty the river asks of us in return for all its gifts, and we do it as best we can. 
Sometimes we find a woman, though . . . or worse, a little child. Those are the cruelest 
gifts.” He turned to Septon Meribald. “I hope that you have time to absolve us of our sins. 
Since the raiders slew old Septon Bennet, we have had no one to hear confession.” 

“I shall make time,” said Meribald, “though I hope you have some better sins than the last 
time I came through.” Dog barked. “You see? Even Dog was bored.” 

Podrick Payne was puzzled. “I thought no one could talk. Well, not no one. The brothers. 
The other brothers, not you.” 

“We are allowed to break silence when confessing,” said the Elder Brother. “It is hard to 
speak of sin with signs and nods.” 

“Did they burn the sept at Saltpans?” asked Hyle Hunt. 


The smile vanished. “They burned everything at Saltpans, save the castle. Only that was 
made of stone . . . though it had as well been made of suet for all the good it did the town. 
It fell to me to treat some of the survivors. The fisherfolk brought them across the bay to 
me after the flames had gone out and they deemed it safe to land. One poor woman had 
been raped a dozen times, and her breasts . . . my lady, you wear man’s mail, so I shall 
not spare you these horrors . . . her breasts had been torn and chewed and eaten, as if by 
some . . . cruel beast. I did what I could for her, though that was little enough. As she lay 
dying, her worst curses were not for the men who had raped her, nor the monster who 
devoured her living flesh, but for Ser Quincy Cox, who barred his gates when the outlaws 
entered the town and sat safe behind stone walls as his people screamed and died.” 

“Ser Quincy is an old man,” said Septon Meribald gently. “His sons and good-sons are 
far away or dead, his grandsons are still boys, and he has two daughters. What could he 
have done, one man against so many?” 

He could have tried, Brienne thought. He could have died. Old or young, a true knight is 
sworn to protect those who are weaker than himself, or die in the attempt. 

“True words, and wise,” the Elder Brother said to Septon Meribald. “When you cross to 
Saltpans, no doubt Ser Quincy will ask you for forgiveness. I am glad that you are here to 
give it. I could not.” He put aside the driftwood cup, and stood. “The supper bell will 
sound soon. My friends, will you come with me to the sept, to pray for the souls of the 
good folk of Saltpans before we sit down to break bread and share some meat and 
mead?” 

“Gladly,” said Meribald. Dog barked. 

Their supper in the septry was as strange a meal as Brienne had ever eaten, though not at 
all unpleasant. The food was plain, but very good; there were loaves of crusty bread still 
warm from the ovens, crocks of fresh-churned butter, honey from the septry’s hives, and 
a thick stew of crabs, mussels, and at least three different kinds of fish. Septon Meribald 
and Ser Hyle drank the mead the brothers made, and pronounced it excellent, whilst she 
and Podrick contented themselves with more sweet cider. Nor was the meal a somber 
one. Meribald pronounced a prayer before the food was served, and whilst the brothers 
ate at four long trestle tables, one of their number played for them on the high harp, 
filling the hall with soft sweet sounds. When the Elder Brother excused the musician to 
take his own meal, Brother Narbert and another proctor took turns reading from The 
Seven-Pointed Star. 

By the time the readings were completed, the last of the food had been cleared away by 
the novices whose task it was to serve. Most were boys near Podrick’s age, or younger, 
but there were grown men as well, amongst them the big gravedigger they had 
encountered on the hill, who walked with the awkward lurching gait of one half-crippled. 
As the hall emptied, the Elder Brother asked Narbert to show Podrick and Ser Hyle to 
their pallets in the cloisters. “You will not mind sharing a cell, I hope? It is not large, but 
you will find it comfortable.” 


“I want to stay with ser,” said Podrick. “I mean, my lady.” 

“What you and Lady Brienne may do elsewhere is between you and the Seven,” said 
Brother Narbert, “but on the Quiet Isle, men and women do not sleep beneath the same 
roof unless they are wed.” 

“We have some modest cottages set aside for the women who visit us, be they noble 
ladies or common village girls,” said the Elder Brother. “They are not oft used, but we 
keep them clean and dry. Lady Brienne, would you allow me to show you the way?” 

“Yes, thank you. Podrick, go with Ser Hyle. We are guests of the holy brothers here. 
Beneath their roof, their rules.” 

The women’s cottages were on the east side of the isle, looking out over a broad expanse 
of mud and the distant waters of the Bay of Crabs. It was colder here than on the 
sheltered side, and wilder. The hill was steeper, and the path meandered back and forth 
through weeds and briars, wind-carved rocks, and twisted, thorny trees that clung 
tenaciously to the stony hillside. The Elder Brother brought a lantern to light their way 
down. At one turn he paused. “On a clear night you could see the fires of Saltpans from 
here. Across the bay, just there.” He pointed. 

“There’s nothing,” Brienne said. 

“Only the castle remains. Even the fisherfolk are gone, the fortunate few who were out on 
the water when the raiders came. They watched their houses burn and listened to screams 
and cries float across the harbor, too fearful to land their boats. When at last they came 
ashore, it was to bury friends and kin. What is there for them at Saltpans now but bones 
and bitter memories? They have moved to Maidenpool or other towns.” He gestured with 
the lantern, and they resumed their descent. “Saltpans was never an important port, but 
ships did call there from time to time. That was what the raiders wanted, a galley or a cog 
to carry them across the narrow sea. When none was at hand, they took their rage and 
desperation out upon the townsfolk. I wonder, my lady . . . what do you hope to find 
there?” 

“A girl,” she told him. “A highborn maid of three-and-ten, with a fair face and auburn 
hair.” 

“Sansa Stark.” The name was softly said. “You believe this poor child is with the 
Hound?” 

“The Dornishman said that she was on her way to Riverrun. Timeon. He was a sellsword, 
one of the Brave Companions, a killer and a raper and a liar, but I do not think he lied 
about this. He said that the Hound stole her and carried her away.” 

“I see.” The path turned, and there were the cottages ahead of them. The Elder Brother 
had called them modest. That they were. They looked like beehives made of stone, low 


and rounded, windowless. “This one,” he said, indicating the nearest cottage, the only one 
with smoke rising from the smokehole in the center of its roof. Brienne had to duck when 
entering to keep from banging her head against the lintel. Inside she found a dirt floor, a 
straw pallet, furs and blankets to keep her warm, a basin of water, a flagon of cider, some 
bread and cheese, a small fire, and two low chairs. The Elder Brother sat in one, and put 
the lantern down. “May I stay a while? I feel that we should talk.” 

“If you wish.” Brienne undid her swordbelt and hung it from the second chair, then sat 
cross-legged on the pallet. 

“Your Dornishman did not lie,” the Elder Brother began, “but I fear you did not 
understand him. You are chasing the wrong wolf, my lady. Eddard Stark had two 
daughters. It was the other one that Sandor Clegane made off with, the younger one.” 

“Arya Stark?” Brienne stared open-mouthed, astonished. “You know this? Lady Sansa’s 
sister is alive?” 

“Then,” said the Elder Brother. “Now . . . I do not know. She may have been amongst the 
children slain at Saltpans.” 

The words were a knife in her belly. No, Brienne thought. No, that would be too cruel. 
“May have been . . . meaning that you are not certain . . . ?” 

“I am certain that the child was with Sandor Clegane at the inn beside the crossroads, the 
one old Masha Heddle used to keep, before the lions hanged her. I am certain they were 
on their way to Saltpans. Beyond that . . . no. I do not know where she is, or even if she 
lives. There is one thing I do know, however. The man you hunt is dead.” 

That was another shock. “How did he die?” 

“By the sword, as he had lived.” 

“You know this for a certainty?” 

“I buried him myself. I can tell you where his grave lies, if you wish. I covered him with 
stones to keep the carrion eaters from digging up his flesh, and set his helm atop the cairn 
to mark his final resting place. That was a grievous error. Some other wayfarer found my 
marker and claimed it for himself. The man who raped and killed at Saltpans was not 
Sandor Clegane, though he may be as dangerous. The riverlands are full of such 
scavengers. I will not call them wolves. Wolves are nobler than that . . . and so are dogs, I 
think. 

“I know a little of this man, Sandor Clegane. He was Prince Joffrey’s sworn shield for 
many a year, and even here we would hear tell of his deeds, both good and ill. If even 
half of what we heard was true, this was a bitter, tormented soul, a sinner who mocked 
both gods and men. He served, but found no pride in service. He fought, but took no joy 


in victory. He drank, to drown his pain in a sea of wine. He did not love, nor was he 
loved himself. It was hate that drove him. Though he committed many sins, he never 
sought forgiveness. Where other men dream of love, or wealth, or glory, this man Sandor 
Clegane dreamed of slaying his own brother, a sin so terrible it makes me shudder just to 
speak of it. Yet that was the bread that nourished him, the fuel that kept his fires burning. 
Ignoble as it was, the hope of seeing his brother’s blood upon his blade was all this sad 
and angry creature lived for . . . and even that was taken from him, when Prince Oberyn 
of Dorne stabbed Ser Gregor with a poisoned spear.” 

“You sound as if you pity him,” said Brienne. 

“I did. You would have pitied him as well, if you had seen him at the end. I came upon 
him by the Trident, drawn by his cries of pain. He begged me for the gift of mercy, but I 
am sworn not to kill again. Instead, I bathed his fevered brow with river water, and gave 
him wine to drink and a poultice for his wound, but my efforts were too little and too late. 
The Hound died there, in my arms. You may have seen a big black stallion in our stables. 
That was his warhorse, Stranger. A blasphemous name. We prefer to call him Driftwood, 
as he was found beside the river. I fear he has his former master’s nature.” 

The horse. She had seen the stallion, had heard it kicking, but she had not understood. 
Destriers were trained to kick and bite. In war they were a weapon, like the men who 
rode them. Like the Hound. “It is true, then,” she said dully. “Sandor Clegane is dead.” 

“He is at rest.” The Elder Brother paused. “You are young, child. I have counted fourand-
forty name days . . . which makes me more than twice your age, I think. Would it 
surprise you to learn that I was once a knight?” 

“No. You look more like a knight than you do a holy man.” It was written in his chest 
and shoulders, and across that thick square jaw. “Why would you give up knighthood?” 

“I never chose it. My father was a knight, and his before him. So were my brothers, every 
one. I was trained for battle since the day they deemed me old enough to hold a wooden 
sword. I saw my share of them, and did not disgrace myself. I had women too, and there I 
did disgrace myself, for some I took by force. There was a girl I wished to marry, the 
younger daughter of a petty lord, but I was my father’s thirdborn son and had neither land 
nor wealth to offer her . . . only a sword, a horse, a shield. All in all, I was a sad man. 
When I was not fighting, I was drunk. My life was writ in red, in blood and wine.” 

“When did it change?” asked Brienne. 

“When I died in the Battle of the Trident. I fought for Prince Rhaegar, though he never 
knew my name. I could not tell you why, save that the lord I served served a lord who 
served a lord who had decided to support the dragon rather than the stag. Had he decided 
elsewise, I might have been on the other side of the river. The battle was a bloody thing. 
The singers would have us believe it was all Rhaegar and Robert struggling in the stream 
for a woman both of them claimed to love, but I assure you, other men were fighting too, 


and I was one. I took an arrow through the thigh and another through the foot, and my 
horse was killed from under me, yet I fought on. I can still remember how desperate I 
was to find another horse, for I had no coin to buy one, and without a horse I would no 
longer be a knight. That was all that I was thinking of, if truth be told. I never saw the 
blow that felled me. I heard hooves behind my back and thought, a horse! but before I 
could turn something slammed into my head and knocked me back into the river, where 
by rights I should have drowned. 

“Instead I woke here, upon the Quiet Isle. The Elder Brother told me I had washed up on 
the tide, naked as my name day. I can only think that someone found me in the shallows, 
stripped me of my armor, boots, and breeches, and pushed me back out into the deeper 
water. The river did the rest. We are all born naked, so I suppose it was only fitting that I 
come into my second life the same way. I spent the next ten years in silence.” 

“I see.” Brienne did not know why he was telling her all of this, or what else she ought to 
say. 

“Do you?” He leaned forward, his big hands on his knees. “If so, give up this quest of 
yours. The Hound is dead, and in any case he never had your Sansa Stark. As for this 
beast who wears his helm, he will be found and hanged. The wars are ending, and these 
outlaws cannot survive the peace. Randyll Tarly is hunting them from Maidenpool and 
Walder Frey from the Twins, and there is a new young lord in Darry, a pious man who 
will surely set his lands to rights. Go home, child. You have a home, which is more than 
many can say in these dark days. You have a noble father who must surely love you. 
Consider his grief if you should never return. Perhaps they will bring your sword and 
shield to him, after you have fallen. Perhaps he will even hang them in his hall and look 
on them with pride . . . but if you were to ask him, I know he would tell you that he 
would sooner have a living daughter than a shattered shield.” 

“A daughter.” Brienne’s eyes filled with tears. “He deserves that. A daughter who could 
sing to him and grace his hall and bear him grandsons. He deserves a son too, a strong 
and gallant son to bring honor to his name. Galladon drowned when I was four and he 
was eight, though, and Alysanne and Arianne died still in the cradle. I am the only child 
the gods let him keep. The freakish one, not fit to be a son or daughter.” All of it came 
pouring out of Brienne then, like black blood from a wound; the betrayals and betrothals, 
Red Ronnet and his rose, Lord Renly dancing with her, the wager for her maidenhead, the 
bitter tears she shed the night her king wed Margaery Tyrell, the mêlée at Bitterbridge, 
the rainbow cloak that she had been so proud of, the shadow in the king’s pavilion, Renly 
dying in her arms, Riverrun and Lady Catelyn, the voyage down the Trident, dueling 
Jaime in the woods, the Bloody Mummers, Jaime crying “Sapphires,” Jaime in the tub at 
Harrenhal with steam rising from his body, the taste of Vargo Hoat’s blood when she bit 
down on his ear, the bear pit, Jaime leaping down onto the sand, the long ride to King’s 
Landing, Sansa Stark, the vow she’d sworn to Jaime, the vow she’d sworn to Lady 
Catelyn, Oathkeeper, Duskendale, Maidenpool, Nimble Dick and Crackclaw and the 
Whispers, the men she’d killed . . . 


“I have to find her,” she finished. “There are others looking, all wanting to capture her 
and sell her to the queen. I have to find her first. I promised Jaime. Oathkeeper, he named 
the sword. I have to try to save her . . . or die in the attempt.” 


CERSEI 

A thousand ships!” The little queen’s brown hair was tousled and uncombed, and the 
torchlight made her cheeks look flushed, as if she had just come from some man’s 
embrace. “Your Grace, this must be answered fiercely!” Her last word rang off the rafters 
and echoed through the cavernous throne room. 

Seated on her gold-and-crimson high seat beneath the Iron Throne, Cersei could feel a 
growing tightness in her neck. Must, she thought. She dares say “must” to me. She itched 
to slap the Tyrell girl across the face. She should be on her knees, begging for my help. 
Instead, she presumes to tell her rightful queen what she must do. 

“A thousand ships?” Ser Harys Swyft was wheezing. “Surely not. No lord commands a 
thousand ships.” 

“Some frightened fool has counted double,” agreed Orton Merryweather. “That, or Lord 
Tyrell’s bannermen are lying to us, puffing up the numbers of the foe so we will not think 
them lax.” 

The torches on the back wall threw the long, barbed shadow of the Iron Throne halfway 
to the doors. The far end of the hall was lost in darkness, and Cersei could not but feel 
that the shadows were closing around her too. My enemies are everywhere, and my 
friends are useless. She had only to glance at her councillors to know that; only Lord 
Qyburn and Aurane Waters seemed awake. The others had been roused from bed by 
Margaery’s messengers pounding on their doors, and stood there rumpled and confused. 
Outside the night was black and still. The castle and the city slept. Boros Blount and 
Meryn Trant seemed to be sleeping too, albeit on their feet. Even Osmund Kettleblack 
was yawning. Not Loras, though. Not our Knight of Flowers. He stood behind his little 
sister, a pale shadow with a longsword on his hip. 

“Half as many ships would still be five hundred, my lord,” Waters pointed out to Orton 
Merryweather. “Only the Arbor has enough strength at sea to oppose a fleet that size.” 

“What of your new dromonds?” asked Ser Harys. “The longships of the ironmen cannot 
stand before our dromonds, surely? King Robert’s Hammer is the mightiest warship in all 
Westeros.” 


“She was,” said Waters. “Sweet Cersei will be her equal, once complete, and Lord Tywin 
will be twice the size of either. Only half are fitted out, however, and none is fully 
crewed. Even when they are, the numbers would be greatly against us. The common 
longship is small compared to our galleys, this is true, but the ironmen have larger ships 
as well. Lord Balon’s Great Kraken and the warships of the Iron Fleet were made for 
battle, not for raids. They are the equal of our lesser war galleys in speed and strength, 
and most are better crewed and captained. The ironmen live their whole lives at sea.” 

Robert should have scoured the isles after Balon Greyjoy rose against him, Cersei 
thought. He smashed their fleet, burned their towns, and broke their castles, but when he 
had them on their knees he let them up again. He should have made another island of 
their skulls. That was what her father would have done, but Robert never had the stomach 
that a king requires if he hopes to keep peace in the realm. “The ironmen have not dared 
raid the Reach since Dagon Greyjoy sat the Seastone Chair,” she said. “Why would they 
do so now? What has emboldened them?” 

“Their new king.” Qyburn stood with his hands hidden up his sleeves. “Lord Balon’s 
brother. The Crow’s Eye, he is called.” 

“Carrion crows make their feasts upon the carcasses of the dead and dying,” said Grand 
Maester Pycelle. “They do not descend upon hale and healthy animals. Lord Euron will 
gorge himself on gold and plunder, aye, but as soon as we move against him he will back 
to Pyke, as Lord Dagon was wont to do in his day.” 

“You are wrong,” said Margaery Tyrell. “Reavers do not come in such strength. A 
thousand ships! Lord Hewett and Lord Chester are slain, as well as Lord Serry’s son and 
heir. Serry has fled to Highgarden with what few ships remain him, and Lord Grimm is a 
prisoner in his own castle. Willas says that the iron king has raised up four lords of his 
own in their places.” 

Willas, Cersei thought, the cripple. He is to blame for this. That oaf Mace Tyrell left the 
defense of the Reach in the hands of a hapless weakling. “It is a long voyage from the 
Iron Isles to the Shields,” she pointed out. “How could a thousand ships come all that 
way without being seen?” 

“Willas believes that they did not follow the coast,” said Margaery. “They made the 
voyage out of sight of land, sailing far out into the Sunset Sea and swooping back in from 
the west.” 

More like the cripple did not have his watchtowers manned, and now he fears to have us 
know it. The little queen is making excuses for her brother. Cersei’s mouth was dry. I 
need a cup of Arbor gold. If the ironmen decided to take the Arbor next, the whole realm 
might soon be going thirsty. “Stannis may have had a hand in this. Balon Greyjoy offered 
my lord father an alliance. Perhaps his son has offered one to Stannis.” 

Pycelle frowned. “What would Lord Stannis gain by . . .” 


“He gains another foothold. And plunder, that as well. Stannis needs gold to pay his 
sellswords. By raiding in the west, he hopes he can distract us from Dragonstone and 
Storm’s End.” 

Lord Merryweather nodded. “A diversion. Stannis is more cunning than we knew. Your 
Grace is clever to have seen through his ploy.” 

“Lord Stannis is striving to win the northmen to his cause,” said Pycelle. “If he befriends 
the ironborn, he cannot hope . . .” 

“The northmen will not have him,” said Cersei, wondering how such a learned man could 
be so stupid. “Lord Manderly hacked the head and hands off the onion knight, we have 
that from the Freys, and half a dozen other northern lords have rallied to Lord Bolton. 
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Where else can Stannis turn, but to the ironmen and 
the wildlings, the enemies of the north? But if he thinks that I am going to walk into his 
trap, he is a bigger fool than you.” She turned back to the little queen. “The Shield Islands 
belong to the Reach. Grimm and Serry and the rest are sworn to Highgarden. It is for 
Highgarden to answer this.” 

“Highgarden shall answer,” said Margaery Tyrell. “Willas has sent word to Leyton 
Hightower in Oldtown, so he can see to his own defenses. Garlan is gathering men to 
retake the isles. The best part of our power remains with my lord father, though. We must 
send word to him at Storm’s End. At once.” 

“And lift the siege?” Cersei did not care for Margaery’s presumption. She says “at once” 
to me. Does she take me for her handmaid? “I have no doubt that Lord Stannis would be 
pleased by that. Have you been listening, my lady? If he can draw our eyes away from 
Dragonstone and Storm’s End to these rocks . . .” 

“Rocks?” gasped Margaery. “Did Your Grace say rocks?” 

The Knight of Flowers put a hand upon his sister’s shoulder. “If it please Your Grace, 
from those rocks the ironmen threaten Oldtown and the Arbor. From strongholds on the 
Shields, raiders can sail up the Mander into the very heart of the Reach, as they did of 
old. With enough men they might even threaten Highgarden.” 

“Truly?” said the queen, all innocence. “Why then, your brave brothers had best roust 
them off those rocks, and quickly.” 

“How would the queen suggest they accomplish that, without sufficient ships?” asked Ser 
Loras. “Willas and Garlan can raise ten thousand men within a fortnight and twice that in 
a moon’s turn, but they cannot walk on water, Your Grace.” 

“Highgarden sits above the Mander,” Cersei reminded him. “You and your vassals 
command a thousand leagues of coast. Are there no fisherfolk along your shores? Do you 
have no pleasure barges, no ferries, no river galleys, no skiffs?” 


“Many and more,” Ser Loras admitted. 

“Such should be more than sufficient to carry a host across a little stretch of water, I 
would think.” 

“And when the longships of the ironborn descend upon our ragtag fleet as it is making its 
way across this ‘little stretch of water,’ what would Your Grace have us do then?” 

Drown, thought Cersei. “Highgarden has gold as well. You have my leave to hire sellsails 
from beyond the narrow sea.” 

“Pirates out of Myr and Lys, you mean?” Loras said with contempt. “The scum of the 
Free Cities?” 

He is as insolent as his sister. “Sad to say, all of us must deal with scum from time to 
time,” she said with poisonous sweetness. “Perhaps you have a better notion?” 

“Only the Arbor has sufficient galleys to retake the mouth of the Mander from the 
ironmen and protect my brothers from their longships during their crossing. I beg Your 
Grace, send word to Dragonstone and command Lord Redwyne to raise his sails at once.” 

At least he has the sense to beg. Paxter Redwyne owned two hundred warships, and five 
times as many merchant carracks, wine cogs, trading galleys, and whalers. Redwyne was 
encamped beneath the walls of Dragonstone, however, and the greater part of his fleet 
was engaged in ferrying men across Blackwater Bay for the assault on that island 
stronghold. The remainder prowled Shipbreaker Bay to the south, where only their 
presence prevented Storm’s End from being resupplied by sea. 

Aurane Waters bristled at Ser Loras’s suggestion. “If Lord Redwyne sails his ships away, 
how are we to supply our men on Dragonstone? Without the Arbor’s galleys, how will 
we maintain the siege of Storm’s End?” 

“The siege can be resumed later, after—” 

Cersei cut him off. “Storm’s End is a hundred times more valuable than the Shields, and 
Dragonstone . . . so long as Dragonstone remains in the hands of Stannis Baratheon, it is 
a knife at my son’s throat. We will release Lord Redwyne and his fleet when the castle 
falls.” The queen pushed herself to her feet. “This audience is at an end. Grand Maester 
Pycelle, a word.” 

The old man started, as if her voice had woken him from some dream of youth, but 
before he could answer, Loras Tyrell strode forward, so swiftly that the queen drew back 
in alarm. She was about to shout for Ser Osmund to defend her when the Knight of 
Flowers sank to one knee. “Your Grace, let me take Dragonstone.” 

His sister’s hand went to her mouth. “Loras, no.” 


Ser Loras ignored her plea. “It will take half a year or more to starve Dragonstone into 
submission, as Lord Paxter means to do. Give me the command, Your Grace. The castle 
will be yours within a fortnight if I have to tear it down with my bare hands.” 

No one had given Cersei such a lovely gift since Sansa Stark had run to her to divulge 
Lord Eddard’s plans. She was pleased to see that Margaery had gone pale. “Your courage 
takes my breath away, Ser Loras,” Cersei said. “Lord Waters, are any of the new 
dromonds fit to put to sea?” 

“Sweet Cersei is, Your Grace. A swift ship, and as strong as the queen she’s named for.” 

“Splendid. Let Sweet Cersei carry our Knight of Flowers to Dragonstone at once. Ser 
Loras, the command is yours. Swear to me that you shall not return until Dragonstone is 
Tommen’s.” 

“I shall, Your Grace.” He rose. 

Cersei kissed him on both cheeks. She kissed his sister too, and whispered, “You have a 
gallant brother.” Either Margaery did not have the grace to answer or fear had stolen all 
her words. 

Dawn was still several hours away when Cersei slipped out the king’s door behind the 
Iron Throne. Ser Osmund went before her with a torch and Qyburn strolled along beside 
her. Pycelle had to struggle to keep up. “If it please Your Grace,” he puffed, “young men 
are overbold, and think only of the glory of battle and never of its dangers. Ser Loras . . . 
this plan of his is fraught with peril. To storm the very walls of Dragonstone . . .” 

“. . . is very brave.” 

“. . . brave, yes, but . . .” 

“I have no doubt that our Knight of Flowers will be the first man to gain the battlements.” 
And perhaps the first to fall. The pox-scarred bastard that Stannis had left to hold his 
castle was no callow tourney champion but a seasoned killer. If the gods were good, he 
would give Ser Loras the glorious end he seemed to want. Assuming the boy does not 
drown on the way. There had been another storm last night, a savage one. The rain had 
come down in black sheets for hours. And wouldn’t that be sad? the queen mused. 
Drowning is ordinary. Ser Loras lusts for glory as real men lust for women, the least the 
gods can do is grant him a death worthy of a song. 

No matter what befell the boy on Dragonstone, however, the queen would be the winner. 
If Loras took the castle, Stannis would suffer a grievous blow, and the Redwyne fleet 
could sail off to meet the ironmen. If he failed, she would see to it that he had the lion’s 
share of the blame. Nothing tarnishes a hero as much as failure. And if he should come 
home on his shield, covered in blood and glory, Ser Osney will be there to console his 
grieving sister. 


The laugh would not be contained any longer. It burst from Cersei’s lips, and echoed 
down the hall. 

“Your Grace?” Grand Maester Pycelle blinked, his mouth sagging open. “Why . . . why 
would you laugh?” 

“Why,” she had to say, “elsewise I might weep. My heart is bursting with love for our Ser 
Loras and his valor.” 

She left the Grand Maester on the serpentine steps. That one has outlived any usefulness 
he ever had, the queen decided. All Pycelle ever seemed to do of late was plague her with 
cautions and objections. He had even objected to the understanding she had reached with 
the High Septon, gaping at her with dim and rheumy eyes when she commanded him to 
prepare the necessary papers and babbling about old dead history until Cersei cut him off. 
“King Maegor’s day is done, and so are his decrees,” she said firmly. “This is King 
Tommen’s day, and mine.” I would have done better to let him perish in the black cells. 

“Should Ser Loras fall, Your Grace will need to find another worthy for the Kingsguard,” 
Lord Qyburn said as they crossed over the spiked moat that girded Maegor’s Holdfast. 

“Someone splendid,” she agreed. “Someone so young and swift and strong that Tommen 
will forget all about Ser Loras. A bit of gallantry would not be amiss, but his head should 
not be full of foolish notions. Do you know of such a man?” 

“Alas, no,” said Qyburn. “I had another sort of champion in mind. What he lacks in 
gallantry he will give you tenfold in devotion. He will protect your son, kill your 
enemies, and keep your secrets, and no living man will be able to withstand him.” 

“So you say. Words are wind. When the hour is ripe, you may produce this paragon of 
yours and we will see if he is all that you have promised.” 

“They will sing of him, I swear it.” Lord Qyburn’s eyes crinkled with amusement. 
“Might I ask about the armor?” 

“I have placed your order. The armorer thinks that I am mad. He assures me that no man 
is strong enough to move and fight in such a weight of plate.” Cersei gave the chainless 
maester a warning look. “Play me for a fool, and you’ll die screaming. You are aware of 
that, I trust?” 

“Always, Your Grace.” 

“Good. Say no more of this.” 

“The queen is wise. These walls have ears.” 


“So they do.” At night Cersei sometimes heard soft sounds, even in her own apartments. 
Mice in the walls, she would tell herself, no more than that. 

A candle was burning by her bedside, but the hearthfire had gone out and there was no 
other light. The room was cold as well. Cersei undressed and slipped beneath the 
blankets, leaving her gown to puddle on the floor. Across the bed, Taena stirred. “Your 
Grace,” she murmured softly. “What hour is it?” 

“The hour of the owl,” the queen replied. 

Though Cersei often slept alone, she had never liked it. Her oldest memories were of 
sharing a bed with Jaime, when they had still been so young that no one could tell the two 
of them apart. Later, after they were separated, she’d had a string of bedmaids and 
companions, most of them girls of an age with her, the daughters of her father’s 
household knights and bannermen. None had pleased her, and few lasted very long. Little 
sneaks, the lot of them. Vapid, weepy creatures, always telling tales and trying to worm 
their way between me and Jaime. Still, there had been nights deep within the black 
bowels of the Rock when she had welcomed their warmth beside her. An empty bed was 
a cold bed. 

Here most of all. There were chills in this room, and her wretched royal husband had died 
beneath this canopy. Robert Baratheon, the First of His Name, may there never be a 
second. A dim, drunken brute of a man. Let him weep in hell. Taena warmed the bed as 
well as Robert ever had, and never tried to force Cersei’s legs apart. Of late she had 
shared the queen’s bed more often than Lord Merryweather’s. Orton did not seem to 
mind . . . or if he did, he knew better than to say so. 

“I was concerned when I woke and found you gone,” murmured Lady Merryweather, 
sitting up against the pillows, the coverlets tangled about her waist. “Is aught amiss?” 

“No,” said Cersei, “all is well. On the morrow Ser Loras will sail for Dragonstone, to win 
the castle, loose the Redwyne fleet, and prove his manhood to us all.” She told the 
Myrish woman all that had occurred beneath the shifting shadow of the Iron Throne. 
“Without her valiant brother, our little queen is next to naked. She has her guards, to be 
sure, but I have their captain here and there about the castle. A garrulous old man with a 
squirrel on his surcoat. Squirrels run from lions. He does not have it in him to defy the 
Iron Throne.” 

“Margaery has other swords about her,” cautioned Lady Merryweather. “She has made 
many friends about the court, and she and her young cousins all have admirers.” 

“A few suitors do not concern me,” Cersei said. “The army at Storm’s End, however . . .” 

“What do you mean to do, Your Grace?” 


“Why do you ask?” The question was a little too pointed for Cersei’s taste. “I do hope 
you are not thinking of sharing my idle musings with our poor little queen?” 

“Never. I am not that girl Senelle.” 

Cersei did not care to think about Senelle. She repaid my kindness with betrayal. Sansa 
Stark had done the same. So had Melara Hetherspoon and fat Jeyne Farman when the 
three of them were girls. I would never have gone into that tent if not for them. I would 
never have allowed Maggy the Frog to taste my morrows in a drop of blood. “I would be 
very sad if you ever betrayed my trust, Taena. I would have no choice but to give you to 
Lord Qyburn, but I know that I should weep.” 

“I will never give you cause to weep, Your Grace. If I do, say the word, and I will give 
myself to Qyburn. I want only to be close to you. To serve you, however you require.” 

“And for this service, what reward will you expect?” 

“Nothing. It pleases me to please you.” Taena rolled onto her side, her olive skin shining 
in the candlelight. Her breasts were larger than the queen’s and tipped with huge nipples, 
black as horn. She is younger than I am. Her breasts have not begun to sag. Cersei 
wondered what it would feel like to kiss another woman. Not lightly on the cheek, as was 
common courtesy amongst ladies of high birth, but full upon the lips. Taena’s lips were 
very full. She wondered what it would feel like to suckle on those breasts, to lay the 
Myrish woman on her back and push her legs apart and use her as a man would use her, 
the way Robert would use her when the drink was in him, and she was unable to bring 
him off with hand or mouth. 

Those had been the worst nights, lying helpless underneath him as he took his pleasure, 
stinking of wine and grunting like a boar. Usually he rolled off and went to sleep as soon 
as it was done, and was snoring before his seed could dry upon her thighs. She was 
always sore afterward, raw between the legs, her breasts painful from the mauling he 
would give them. The only time he’d ever made her wet was on their wedding night. 

Robert had been handsome enough when they first married, tall and strong and powerful, 
but his hair was black and heavy, thick on his chest and coarse around his sex. The wrong 
man came back from the Trident, the queen would sometimes think as he was plowing 
her. In the first few years, when he mounted her more often, she would close her eyes and 
pretend that he was Rhaegar. She could not pretend that he was Jaime; he was too 
different, too unfamiliar. Even the smell of him was wrong. 

For Robert, those nights never happened. Come morning he remembered nothing, or so 
he would have had her believe. Once, during the first year of their marriage, Cersei had 
voiced her displeasure the next day. “You hurt me,” she complained. He had the grace to 
look ashamed. “It was not me, my lady,” he said in a sulky sullen tone, like a child caught 
stealing apple cakes from the kitchen. “It was the wine. I drink too much wine.” To wash 
down his admission, he reached for his horn of ale. As he raised it to his mouth, she 


smashed her own horn in his face, so hard she chipped a tooth. Years later at a feast, she 
heard him telling a serving wench how he’d cracked the tooth in a mêlée. Well, our 
marriage was a mêlée, she reflected, so he did not lie. 

The rest had all been lies, though. He did remember what he did to her at night, she was 
convinced of that. She could see it in his eyes. He only pretended to forget; it was easier 
to do that than to face his shame. Deep down Robert Baratheon was a coward. In time the 
assaults did grow less frequent. During the first year he took her at least once a fortnight; 
by the end it was not even once a year. He never stopped completely, though. Sooner or 
later there would always come a night when he would drink too much and want to claim 
his rights. What shamed him in the light of day gave him pleasure in the darkness. 

“My queen?” said Taena Merryweather. “You have a strange look in your eyes. Are you 
unwell?” 

“I was just . . . remembering.” Her throat was dry. “You are a good friend, Taena. I have 
not had a true friend in . . .” 

Someone hammered at the door. 

Again? The urgency of the sound made her shiver. Have another thousand ships 
descended on us? She slipped into a bedrobe and went to see who it was. “Beg pardon for 
disturbing you, Your Grace,” the guardsman said, “but Lady Stokeworth is below, 
begging audience.” 

“At this hour?” snapped Cersei. “Has Falyse lost her wits? Tell her I have retired. Tell her 
that smallfolk on the Shields are being slaughtered. Tell her that I have been awake for 
half the night. I will see her on the morrow.” 

The guard hesitated. “If it please Your Grace, she’s . . . she’s not in a good way, if you 
take my meaning.” 

Cersei frowned. She had assumed Falyse was here to tell her that Bronn was dead. “Very 
well. I shall need to dress. Take her to my solar and have her wait.” When Lady 
Merryweather made to rise and come with her, the queen demurred. “No, stay. One of us 
should get some rest, at least. I shan’t be long.” 

Lady Falyse’s face was bruised and swollen, her eyes red from her tears. Her lower lip 
was broken, her clothing soiled and torn. “Gods be good,” Cersei said as she ushered her 
into the solar and closed the door. “What has happened to your face?” 

Falyse did not seem to hear the question. “He killed him,” she said in a quavery voice. 
“Mother have mercy, he . . . he . . .” She broke down sobbing, her whole body trembling. 


Cersei poured a cup of wine and took it to the weeping woman. “Drink this. The wine 
will calm you. That’s it. A little more now. Stop that weeping and tell me why you’re 
here.” 

It took the rest of the flagon before the queen was finally able to coax the whole sad tale 
out of Lady Falyse. Once she had, she did not know whether to laugh or rage. “Single 
combat,” she repeated. Is there no one in the Seven Kingdoms that I can rely upon? Am I 
the only one in Westeros with a pinch of wits? “You are telling me Ser Balman 
challenged Bronn to single combat?” 

“He said it would be s-s-simple. The lance is a kn-knight’s weapon, he said, and B-Bronn 
was no true knight. Balman said he would unhorse him and finish him as he lay st-ststunned.” 


Bronn was no knight, that was true. Bronn was a battle-hardened killer. Your cretin of a 
husband wrote his own death warrant. “A splendid plan. Dare I ask how it went awry?” 

“B-Bronn drove his lance through the chest of Balman’s poor h-h-h-horse. Balman, he . . 
. his legs were crushed when the beast fell. He screamed so piteously . . .” 

Sellswords have no pity, Cersei might have said. “I asked you to arrange a hunting 
mishap. An arrow gone astray, a fall from a horse, an angry boar . . . there are so many 
ways a man can die in the woods. None of them involving lances.” 

Falyse did not seem to hear her. “When I tried to run to my Balman, he, he, he struck me 
in the face. He made my lord c-c-confess. Balman was crying out for Maester Frenken to 
attend him, but the sellsword, he, he, he . . .” 

“Confess?” Cersei did not like that word. “I trust our brave Ser Balman held his tongue.” 

“Bronn put a dagger in his eye, and told me I had best be gone from Stokeworth before 
the sun went down or I’d get the same. He said he’d pass me around to the g-g-garrison, 
if any of them would have me. When I ordered Bronn seized, one of his knights had the 
insolence to say that I should do as Lord Stokeworth said. He called him Lord 
Stokeworth!” Lady Falyse clutched at the queen’s hand. “Your Grace must give me 
knights. A hundred knights! And crossbowmen, to take my castle back. Stokeworth is 
mine! They would not even permit me to gather up my clothes! Bronn said they were his 
wife’s clothes now, all my s-silks and velvets.” 

Your rags are the least of your concern. The queen pulled her fingers free of the other 
woman’s clammy grasp. “I asked you to snuff out a candle to help protect the king. 
Instead you heaved a pot of wildfire at it. Did your witless Balman bring my name into 
this? Tell me he did not.” 

Falyse licked her lips. “He . . . he was in pain, his legs were broken. Bronn said he would 
show him mercy, but . . . What will happen to my poor m-m-mother?” 


I imagine she will die. “What do you think?” Lady Tanda might well be dead already. 
Bronn did not seem the sort of man who would expend much effort nursing an old 
woman with a broken hip. 

“You have to help me. Where am I to go? What will I do?” 

Perhaps you might wed Moon Boy, Cersei almost said. He is nigh as big a fool as your 
late husband. She could not risk a war on the very doorstep of King’s Landing, not now. 
“The silent sisters are always glad to welcome widows,” she said. “Theirs is a serene life, 
a life of prayer and contemplation and good works. They bring solace to the living and 
peace to the dead.” And they do not talk. She could not have the woman running about 
the Seven Kingdoms spreading dangerous tales. 

Falyse was deaf to good sense. “All we did, we did in service to Your Grace. Proud to Be 
Faithful. You said . . .” 

“I recall.” Cersei forced a smile. “You shall stay here with us, my lady, until such time as 
we find a way to win your castle back. Let me pour you another cup of wine. It will help 
you sleep. You are weary and sick of heart, that’s plain to see. My poor dear Falyse. 
That’s it, drink up.” 

As her guest was working on the flagon, Cersei went to the door and called her maids. 
She told Dorcas to find Lord Qyburn for her and bring him here at once. Jocelyn Swyft 
she dispatched to the kitchens. “Bring bread and cheese, a meat pie and some apples. And 
wine. We have a thirst.” 

Qyburn arrived before the food. Lady Falyse had put down three more cups by then, and 
was beginning to nod, though from time to time she would rouse and give another sob. 
The queen took Qyburn aside and told him of Ser Balman’s folly. “I cannot have Falyse 
spreading tales about the city. Her grief has made her witless. Do you still need women 
for your . . . work?” 

“I do, Your Grace. The puppeteers are quite used up.” 

“Take her and do with her as you will, then. But once she goes down into the black cells . 
. . need I say more?” 

“No, Your Grace. I understand.” 

“Good.” The queen donned her smile once again. “Sweet Falyse, Maester Qyburn’s here. 
He’ll help you rest.” 

“Oh,” said Falyse vaguely. “Oh, good.” 

When the door closed behind them Cersei poured herself another cup of wine. “I am 
surrounded by enemies and imbeciles,” she said. She could not even trust to her own 


blood and kin, nor Jaime, who had once been her other half. He was meant to be my 
sword and shield, my strong right arm. Why does he insist on vexing me? 

Bronn was no more than an annoyance, to be sure. She had never truly believed that he 
was harboring the Imp. Her twisted little brother was too clever to allow Lollys to name 
her wretched ill-begotten bastard after him, knowing it was sure to draw the queen’s 
wroth down upon her. Lady Merryweather had pointed that out, and she was right. The 
mockery was almost certainly the sellsword’s doing. She could picture him watching his 
wrinkled red stepson sucking on one of Lollys’s swollen dugs, a cup of wine in his hand 
and an insolent smile on his face. Grin all you wish, Ser Bronn, you’ll be screaming soon 
enough. Enjoy your lackwit lady and your stolen castle whilst you can. When the time 
comes, I shall swat you as if you were a fly. Perhaps she would send Loras Tyrell to do 
the swatting, if the Knight of Flowers should somehow return alive from Dragonstone. 

That would be delicious. If the gods were good, each of them would kill the other, like Ser 
Arryk and Ser Erryk. As for Stokeworth . . . no, she was sick of thinking about 
Stokeworth. 

Taena had drifted back to sleep by the time the queen returned to the bedchamber, her 
head spinning. Too much wine and too little sleep, she told herself. It was not every night 
that she was awakened twice with such desperate tidings. At least I could awaken. Robert 
would have been too drunk to rise, let alone rule. It would have fallen to Jon Arryn to 
deal with all of this. It pleased her to think that she made a better king than Robert. 

The sky outside the window was already beginning to lighten. Cersei sat on the bed 
beside Lady Merryweather, listening to her soft breathing, watching her breasts rise and 
fall. Does she dream of Myr? she wondered. Or is it her lover with the scar, the 
dangerous dark-haired man who would not be refused? She was quite certain Taena was 
not dreaming of Lord Orton. 

Cersei cupped the other woman’s breast. Softly at first, hardly touching, feeling the 
warmth of it beneath her palm, the skin as smooth as satin. She gave it a gentle squeeze, 
then ran her thumbnail lightly across the big dark nipple, back and forth and back and 
forth until she felt it stiffen. When she glanced up, Taena’s eyes were open. “Does that 
feel good?” she asked. 

“Yes,” said Lady Merryweather. 

“And this?” Cersei pinched the nipple now, pulling on it hard, twisting it between her 
fingers. 

The Myrish woman gave a gasp of pain. “You’re hurting me.” 

“It’s just the wine. I had a flagon with my supper, and another with the widow 
Stokeworth. I had to drink to keep her calm.” She twisted Taena’s other nipple too, 
pulling until the other woman gasped. “I am the queen. I mean to claim my rights.” 


“Do what you will.” Taena’s hair was as black as Robert’s, even down between her legs, 
and when Cersei touched her there she found her hair all sopping wet, where Robert’s 
had been coarse and dry. “Please,” the Myrish woman said, “go on, my queen. Do as you 
will with me. I’m yours.” 

But it was no good. She could not feel it, whatever Robert felt on the nights he took her. 
There was no pleasure in it, not for her. For Taena, yes. Her nipples were two black 
diamonds, her sex slick and steamy. Robert would have loved you, for an hour. The 
queen slid a finger into that Myrish swamp, then another, moving them in and out, but 
once he spent himself inside you, he would have been hard-pressed to recall your name. 

She wanted to see if it would be as easy with a woman as it had always been with Robert. 
Ten thousand of your children perished in my palm, Your Grace, she thought, slipping a 
third finger into Myr. Whilst you snored, I would lick your sons off my face and fingers 
one by one, all those pale sticky princes. You claimed your rights, my lord, but in the 
darkness I would eat your heirs. Taena gave a shudder. She gasped some words in a 
foreign tongue, then shuddered again and arched her back and screamed. She sounds as if 
she is being gored, the queen thought. For a moment she let herself imagine that her 
fingers were a bore’s tusks, ripping the Myrish woman apart from groin to throat. 

It was still no good. 

It had never been any good with anyone but Jaime. 

When she tried to take her hand away, Taena caught it and kissed her fingers. “Sweet 
queen, how shall I pleasure you?” She slid her hand down Cersei’s side and touched her 
sex. “Tell me what you would have of me, my love.” 

“Leave me.” Cersei rolled away and pulled up the bedclothes to cover herself, shivering. 
Dawn was breaking. It would be morning soon, and all of this would be forgotten. 

It had never happened. 


JAIME 

The trumpets made a brazen blare, and cut the still blue air of dusk. Josmyn Peckledon 
was on his feet at once, scrambling for his master’s swordbelt. 


The boy has good instincts. “Outlaws don’t blow trumpets to herald their arrival,” Jaime 
told him. “I shan’t need my sword. That will be my cousin, the Warden of the West.” 

The riders were dismounting when he emerged from his tent; half a dozen knights, and 
twoscore mounted archers and men-at-arms. “Jaime!” roared a shaggy man clad in 
gilded ringmail and a fox-fur cloak. “So gaunt, and all in white! And bearded too!” 

“This? Mere stubble, against that mane of yours, coz.” Ser Daven’s bristling beard and 
bushy mustache grew into sidewhiskers as thick as a hedgerow, and those into the tangled 
yellow thicket atop his head, matted down by the helm he was removing. Somewhere in 
the midst of all that hair lurked a pug nose and a pair of lively hazel eyes. “Did some 
outlaw steal your razor?” 

“I vowed I would not let my hair be cut until my father was avenged.” For a man who 
looked so leonine, Daven Lannister sounded oddly sheepish. “The Young Wolf got to 
Karstark first, though. Robbed me of my vengeance.” He handed his helm to a squire and 
pushed his fingers through his hair where the weight of the steel had crushed it down. “I 
like a bit of hair. The nights grow colder, and a little foliage helps to keep your face 
warm. Aye, and Aunt Genna always said I had a brick for a chin.” He clasped Jaime by 
the arms. “We feared for you after the Whispering Wood. Heard Stark’s direwolf tore out 
your throat.” 

“Did you weep bitter tears for me, coz?” 

“Half of Lannisport was mourning. The female half.” Ser Daven’s gaze went to Jaime’s 
stump. “So it’s true. The bastards took your sword hand.” 

“I have a new one, made of gold. There’s much to be said for being one-handed. I drink 
less wine for fear of spilling and am seldom inclined to scratch my arse at court.” 

“Aye, there’s that. Maybe I should have mine off as well.” His cousin laughed. “Was it 
Catelyn Stark who took it?” 

“Vargo Hoat.” Where do these tales come from? 

“The Qohorik?” Ser Daven spat. “That’s for him and all his Brave Companions. I told 
your father I would forage for him, but he refused me. Some tasks are fit for lions, he 
said, but foraging is best left for goats and dogs.” 

Lord Tywin’s very words, Jaime knew; he could almost hear his father’s voice. “Come 
inside, coz. We need to talk.” 

Garrett had lit the braziers, and their glowing coals filled Jaime’s tent with a ruddy heat. 
Ser Daven shrugged out of his cloak and tossed it at Little Lew. “You a Piper, boy?” he 
growled. “You have a runty look to you.” 


“I’m Lewys Piper, if it please my lord.” 

“I beat your brother bloody in a mêlée once. The runty little fool took offense when I 
asked him if that was his sister dancing naked on his shield.” 

“She’s the sigil of our House. We don’t have a sister.” 

“More’s the pity. Your sigil has nice teats. What sort of man hides behind a naked 
woman, though? Every time I thumped your brother’s shield, I felt unchivalrous.” 

“Enough,” said Jaime, laughing. “Leave him be.” Pia was mulling wine for them, stirring 
the kettle with a spoon. “I need to know what I can expect to find at Riverrun.” 

His cousin shrugged. “The siege drags on. The Blackfish sits inside the castle, we sit 
outside in our camps. Bloody boring, if you want the truth.” Ser Daven seated himself 
upon a camp stool. “Tully ought to make a sortie, to remind us all we’re still at war. Be 
nice if he culled some Freys too. Ryman, for a start. The man’s drunk more oft than not. 
Oh, and Edwyn. Not as thick as his father, but as full of hate as a boil’s full of pus. And 
our own Ser Emmon . . . no, Lord Emmon, Seven save us, must not forget his new title . . 
. our Lord of Riverrun does nought but try to tell me how to run the siege. He wants me 
to take the castle without damaging it, since it is now his lordly seat.” 

“Is that wine hot yet?” Jaime asked Pia. 

“Yes, m’lord.” The girl covered her mouth when she spoke. Peck served the wine on a 
golden platter. Ser Daven pulled off his gloves and took a cup. “Thank you, boy. Who 
might you be?” 

“Josmyn Peckledon, if it please my lord.” 

“Peck was a hero on the Blackwater,” Jaime said. “He slew two knights and captured two 
more.” 

“You must be more dangerous than you look, lad. Is that a beard, or did you forget to 
wash the dirt off your face? Stannis Baratheon’s wife has a thicker mustache. How old 
are you?” 

“Fifteen, ser.” 

Ser Daven snorted. “You know the best thing about heroes, Jaime? They all die young 
and leave more women for the rest of us.” He tossed the cup back to the squire. “Fill that 
full again, and I’ll call you hero too. I have a thirst.” 

Jaime lifted his own cup left-handed and took a swallow. The warmth spread through his 
chest. “You were speaking of the Freys you wanted dead. Ryman, Edwyn, Emmon . . .” 


“And Walder Rivers,” Daven said, “that whoreson. Hates that he’s a bastard, and hates 
everyone who’s not. Ser Perwyn seems a decent fellow, though, might as well spare him. 
The women too. I’m to marry one, I hear. Your father might have seen fit to consult with 
me about this marriage, by the bye. My own father was treating with Paxter Redwyne 
before Oxcross, did you know? Redwyne has a nicely dowered daughter . . .” 

“Desmera?” Jaime laughed. “How well do you like freckles?” 

“If my choice is Freys or freckles, well . . . half of Lord Walder’s brood look like stoats.” 

“Only half? Be thankful. I saw Lancel’s bride at Darry.” 

“Gatehouse Ami, gods be good. I couldn’t believe that Lancel picked that one. What’s 
wrong with that boy?” 

“He’s grown pious,” said Jaime, “but it wasn’t him who did the picking. Lady Amerei’s 
mother is a Darry. Our uncle thought she’d help Lancel win the Darry smallfolk.” 

“How, by fucking them? You know why they call her Gatehouse Ami? She raises her 
portcullis for every knight who happens by. Lancel had best find an armorer to make him 
a horned helm.” 

“That won’t be necessary. Our coz is off to King’s Landing to take vows as one of the 
High Septon’s swords.” 

Ser Daven could not have looked more astonished if Jaime had told him that Lancel had 
decided to become a mummer’s monkey. “Not truly? You are japing with me. Gatehouse 
Ami must be more stoatish than I’d heard if she could drive the boy to that.” 

When Jaime had taken his leave of Lady Amerei, she had been weeping softly at the 
dissolution of her marriage whilst letting Lyle Crakehall console her. Her tears had not 
troubled him half so much as the hard looks on the faces of her kin as they stood about 
the yard. “I hope you do not intend to take vows as well, coz,” he said to Daven. “The 
Freys are prickly where marriage contracts are concerned. I would hate to disappoint 
them again.” 

Ser Daven snorted. “I’ll wed and bed my stoat, never fear. I know what happened to 
Robb Stark. From what Edwyn tells me, though, I’d best pick one who hasn’t flowered 
yet, or I’m like to find that Black Walder has been there first. I’ll wager he’s had 
Gatehouse Ami, and more than thrice. Maybe that explains Lancel’s godliness, and his 
father’s mood.” 

“You have seen Ser Kevan?” 

“Aye. He passed here on his way west. I asked him to help us take the castle, but Kevan 
would have none of it. He brooded the whole time he was here. Courteous enough, but 


chilly. I swore to him that I never asked to be made Warden of the West, that the honor 
should have gone to him, and he declared that he held no grudge against me, but you 
would never have known it from his tone. He stayed three days and hardly said three 
words to me. Would that he’d remained, I could have used his counsel. Our friends of 
Frey would not have dared vex Ser Kevan the way that they’ve been vexing me.” 

“Tell me,” said Jaime. 

“I would, but where to begin? Whilst I’ve been building rams and siege towers, Ryman 
Frey has raised a gibbet. Every day at dawn he brings forth Edmure Tully, drapes a noose 
around his neck, and threatens to hang him unless the castle yields. The Blackfish pays 
his mummer’s show no mind, so come evenfall Lord Edmure is taken down again. His 
wife’s with child, did you know?” 

He hadn’t. “Edmure bedded her, after the Red Wedding?” 

“He was bedding her during the Red Wedding. Roslin’s a pretty little thing, hardly 
stoatish at all. And fond of Edmure, queerly. Perwyn tells me she’s praying for a girl.” 

Jaime considered that a moment. “Once Edmure’s son is born, Lord Walder will have no 
more need of Edmure.” 

“That’s how I see it too. Our good-uncle Emm . . . ah, Lord Emmon, that is . . . he wants 
Edmure hanged at once. The presence of a Tully Lord of Riverrun distresses him almost 
as much as the prospective birth of yet another. Daily he beseeches me to make Ser 
Ryman dangle Tully, never mind how. Meanwhile, I have Lord Gawen Westerling 
tugging at my other sleeve. The Blackfish has his lady wife inside the castle, along with 
three of his snot-nosed whelps. His lordship fears Tully will kill them if the Freys hang 
Edmure. One of them is the Young Wolf’s little queen.” 

Jaime had met Jeyne Westerling, he thought, though he could not recall what she looked 
like. She must be fair indeed, to have been worth a kingdom. “Ser Brynden won’t kill 
children,” he assured his cousin. “He’s not as black a fish as that.” He was beginning to 
grasp why Riverrun had not yet fallen. “Tell me of your dispositions, coz.” 

“We have the castle well encircled. Ser Ryman and the Freys are north of the 
Tumblestone. South of Red Fork sits Lord Emmon, with Ser Forley Prester and with what 
remains of your old host, plus the river lords who came over to us after the Red Wedding. 
A sullen lot, I don’t mind saying. Good for sulking in their tents, but not much more. 
Mine own camp is between the rivers, facing the moat and Riverrun’s main gates. We’ve 
thrown a boom across the Red Fork, downstream of the castle. Manfryd Yew and 
Raynard Ruttiger have charge of its defense, so no one can escape by boat. I gave them 
nets as well, to fish. It helps keep us fed.” 

“Can we starve the castle out?” 


Ser Daven shook his head. “The Blackfish expelled all the useless mouths from Riverrun 
and picked this country clean. He has enough stores to keep man and horse alive for two 
full years.” 

“And how well are we provisioned?” 

“So long as there are fish in the rivers, we won’t starve, though I don’t know how we’re 
going to feed the horses. The Freys are hauling food and fodder down from the Twins, 
but Ser Ryman claims he does not have enough to share, so we must forage for ourselves. 
Half the men I send off to look for food do not return. Some are deserting. Others we find 
ripening under trees, with ropes about their necks.” 

“We came on some, the day before last,” said Jaime. Addam Marbrand’s scouts had 
found them, hanging black-faced beneath a crabapple tree. The corpses had been stripped 
naked, and each man had a crabapple shoved between his teeth. None bore any wounds; 
plainly, they had yielded. Strongboar had grown furious at that, vowing bloody 
vengeance on the heads of any men who would truss up warriors to die like suckling pigs. 

“It might have been outlaws,” Ser Daven said, when Jaime told the tale, “or not. There 
are still bands of northmen about. And these Lords of the Trident may have bent their 
knees, but methinks their hearts are still . . . wolfish.” 

Jaime glanced at his two younger squires, who were hovering near the braziers 
pretending not to listen. Lewys Piper and Garrett Paege were both the sons of river lords. 
He had grown fond of both of them and would hate to have to give them to Ser Ilyn. “The 
ropes suggest Dondarrion to me.” 

“Your lightning lord’s not the only man who knows how to tie a noose. Don’t get me 
started on Lord Beric. He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere, but when you send men 
after him, he melts away like dew. The river lords are helping him, never doubt it. A 
bloody marcher lord, if you can believe it. One day you hear the man is dead, the next 
they’re saying how he can’t be killed.” Ser Daven put his wine cup down. “My scouts 
report fires in the high places at night. Signal fires, they think . . . as if there were a ring 
of watchers all around us. And there are fires in the villages as well. Some new god . . .” 

No, an old one. “Thoros is with Dondarrion, the fat Myrish priest who used to drink with 
Robert.” His golden hand was on the table. Jaime touched it and watched the gold 
glimmer in the sullen light of the braziers. “We’ll deal with Dondarrion if we have to, but 
the Blackfish must come first. He has to know his cause is hopeless. Have you tried to 
treat with him?” 

“Ser Ryman did. Rode up to the castle gates half-drunk and blustering, making threats. 
The Blackfish appeared on the ramparts long enough to say that he would not waste fair 
words on foul men. Then he put an arrow in the rump of Ryman’s palfrey. The horse 
reared, Frey fell into the mud, and I laughed so hard I almost pissed myself. If it had been 
me inside the castle, I would have put that arrow through Ryman’s lying throat.” 


“I’ll wear a gorget when I treat with them,” said Jaime, with a half smile. “I mean to offer 
him generous terms.” If he could end this siege without bloodshed, then it could not be 
said that he had taken up arms against House Tully. 

“You are welcome to try, my lord, but I doubt that words will win the day. We need to 
storm the castle.” 

There had been a time, not so long ago, when Jaime would doubtless have urged the same 
course. He knew he could not sit here for two years to starve the Blackfish out. 
“Whatever we do needs to be done quickly,” he told Ser Daven. “My place is back at 
King’s Landing, with the king.” 

“Aye,” his cousin said. “I don’t doubt your sister needs you. Why did she send off 
Kevan? I thought she’d make him Hand.” 

“He would not take it.” He was not as blind as I was. 

“Kevan should be the Warden of the West. Or you. It’s not that I’m not grateful for the 
honor, mind you, but our uncle’s twice my age and has more experience of command. I 
hope he knows I never asked for this.” 

“He knows.” 

“How is Cersei? As beautiful as ever?” 

“Radiant.” Fickle. “Golden.” False as fool’s gold. Last night he dreamed he’d found her 
fucking Moon Boy. He’d killed the fool and smashed his sister’s teeth to splinters with 
his golden hand, just as Gregor Clegane had done to poor Pia. In his dreams Jaime always 
had two hands; one was made of gold, but it worked just like the other. “The sooner we 
are done with Riverrun, the sooner I’ll be back at Cersei’s side.” What Jaime would do 
then he did not know. 

He talked with his cousin for another hour before the Warden of the West finally took his 
leave. When he was gone, Jaime donned his gold hand and brown cloak to walk amongst 
the tents. 

If truth be told, he liked this life. He felt more comfortable amongst soldiers in the field 
than he ever had at court. And his men seemed comfortable with him as well. At one 
cookfire three crossbowmen offered him a share of a hare they’d caught. At another a 
young knight asked his counsel on the best way to defend against a warhammer. Down 
beside the river, he watched two washerwomen jousting in the shallows, mounted on the 
shoulders of a pair of men-at-arms. The girls were half-drunk and half-naked, laughing 
and snapping rolled-up cloaks at one another as a dozen other men urged them on. Jaime 
bet a copper star on the blond girl riding Raff the Sweetling, and lost it when the two of 
them went down splashing amongst the reeds. 


Across the river wolves were howling, and the wind was gusting through a stand of 
willows, making their branches writhe and whisper. Jaime found Ser Ilyn Payne alone 
outside his tent, honing his greatsword with a whetstone. “Come,” he said, and the silent 
knight rose, smiling thinly. He enjoys this, he realized. It pleases him to humiliate me 
nightly. It might please him even more to kill me. He liked to believe that he was getting 
better, but the improvement was slow and not without cost. Underneath his steel and 
wool and boiled leather Jaime Lannister was a tapestry of cuts and scabs and bruises. 

A sentry challenged them as they led their horses from the camp. Jaime clapped the 
man’s shoulder with his golden hand. “Stay vigilant. There are wolves about.” They rode 
back along the Red Fork to the ruins of a burned village they had passed that afternoon. It 
was there they danced their midnight dance, amongst blackened stones and old cold 
cinders. For a little while Jaime had the better of it. Perhaps his old skill was coming 
back, he allowed himself to think. Perhaps tonight it would be Payne who went to sleep 
bruised and bloody. 

It was as if Ser Ilyn heard his thoughts. He parried Jaime’s last cut lazily and launched a 
counterattack that drove Jaime back into the river, where his boot slipped out from under 
him in the mud. He ended on his knees, with the silent knight’s sword at his throat and 
his own lost in the reeds. In the moonlight the pockmarks on Payne’s face were large as 
craters. He made that clacking sound that might have been a laugh and drew his sword up 
Jaime’s throat till the point came to rest between his lips. Only then did he step back and 
sheathe his steel. 

I would have done better to challenge Raff the Sweetling, with a whore upon my back, 

Jaime thought as he shook mud off his gilded hand. Part of him wanted to tear the thing 
off and fling it in the river. It was good for nothing, and the left was not much better. Ser 
Ilyn had gone back to the horses, leaving him to find his own feet. At least I still have two 
of those. 

The last day of their journey was cold and gusty. The wind rattled amongst the branches 
in the bare brown woods and made the river reeds bow low along the Red Fork. Even 
mantled in the winter wool of the Kingsguard, Jaime could feel the iron teeth of that wind 
as he rode beside his cousin Daven. It was late afternoon when they sighted Riverrun, 
rising from the narrow point where the Tumblestone joined the Red Fork. The Tully 
castle looked like a great stone ship with its prow pointed downriver. Its sandstone walls 
were drenched in red-gold light, and seemed higher and thicker than Jaime had 
remembered. This nut will not crack easily, he thought gloomily. If the Blackfish would 
not listen, he would have no choice but to break the vow he’d made to Catelyn Stark. The 
vow he’d sworn his king came first. 

The boom across the river and the three great camps of the besieging army were just as 
his cousin had described. Ser Ryman Frey’s encampment north of the Tumblestone was 
the largest, and the most disorderly. A great grey gallows loomed above the tents, as tall 
as any trebuchet. On it stood a solitary figure with a rope about his neck. Edmure Tully. 


Jaime felt a stab of pity. To keep him standing there day after day, with that noose 
around his neck . . . better to have his head off and be done with it. 

Behind the gallows, tents and cookfires spread out in ragged disarray. The Frey lordlings 
and their knights had raised their pavilions comfortably upstream of the latrine trenches; 
downstream were muddy hovels, wayns, and oxcarts. “Ser Ryman don’t want his boys 
getting bored, so he gives them whores and cockfights and boar baiting,” Ser Daven said. 
“He’s even got himself a bloody singer. Our aunt brought Whitesmile Wat from 
Lannisport, if you can believe it, so Ryman had to have a singer too. Couldn’t we just 
dam the river and drown the whole lot of them, coz?” 

Jaime could see archers moving behind the merlons on the castle ramparts. Above them 
streamed the banners of House Tully, the silver trout defiant on its striped field of red and 
blue. But the highest tower flew a different flag; a long white standard emblazoned with 
the direwolf of Stark. “The first time I saw Riverrun, I was a squire green as summer 
grass,” Jaime told his cousin. “Old Sumner Crakehall sent me to deliver a message, one 
he swore could not be entrusted to a raven. Lord Hoster kept me for a fortnight whilst 
mulling his reply, and sat me beside his daughter Lysa at every meal.” 

“Small wonder you took the white. I’d have done the same.” 

“Oh, Lysa was not so fearsome as all that.” She had been a pretty girl, in truth; dimpled 
and delicate, with long auburn hair. Timid, though. Prone to tongue-tied silences and fits 
of giggles, with none of Cersei’s fire. Her older sister had seemed more interesting, 
though Catelyn was promised to some northern boy, the heir of Winterfell . . . but at that 
age, no girl interested Jaime half so much as Hoster’s famous brother, who had won 
renown fighting the Ninepenny Kings upon the Stepstones. At table he had ignored poor 
Lysa, whilst pressing Brynden Tully for tales of Maelys the Monstrous and the Ebon 
Prince. Ser Brynden was younger then than I am now, Jaime reflected, and I was younger 
than Peck. 

The nearest ford across the Red Fork was upstream of the castle. To reach Ser Daven’s 
camp they had to ride through Emmon Frey’s, past the pavilions of the river lords who 
had bent their knees and been accepted back into the king’s peace. Jaime noted the 
banners of Lychester and Vance, of Roote and Goodbrook, the acorns of House 
Smallford and Lord Piper’s dancing maiden, but the banners he did not see gave him 
pause. The silver eagle of Mallister was nowhere in evidence; nor the red horse of 
Bracken, the willow of the Rygers, the twining snakes of Paege. Though all had renewed 
their fealty to the Iron Throne, none had come to join the siege. The Brackens were 
fighting the Blackwoods, Jaime knew, which accounted for their absence, but as for the 
rest . . . 

Our new friends are no friends at all. Their loyalty goes no deeper than their skins. 

Riverrun had to be taken, and soon. The longer the siege dragged on, the more it would 
hearten other recalcitrants, like Tytos Blackwood. 


At the ford, Ser Kennos of Kayce blew the Horn of Herrock. That should bring the 
Blackfish to the battlements. Ser Hugo and Ser Dermot led Jaime’s way across the river, 
splashing through the muddy red-brown waters with the white standard of the Kingsguard 
and Tommen’s stag and lion streaming in the wind. The rest of the column followed hard 
behind them. 

The Lannister camp rang to the sound of wooden hammers where a new siege tower was 
rising. Two other towers stood completed, half-covered with raw horsehide. Between 
them sat a rolling ram; a tree trunk with a fire-hardened point suspended on chains 
beneath a wooden roof. My coz has not been idle, it would seem. 

“My lord,” Peck asked, “where do you want your tent?” 

“There, upon that rise.” He pointed with his golden hand, though it was not well suited to 
that task. “Baggage there, horse lines there. We’ll use the latrines my cousin has so 
kindly dug for us. Ser Addam, inspect our perimeter with an eye for any weaknesses.” 
Jaime did not anticipate an attack, but he had not anticipated the Whispering Wood 
either. 

“Shall I summon the stoats for a war council?” Daven asked. 

“Not until I’ve spoken to the Blackfish.” Jaime beckoned to Beardless Jon Bettley. 
“Shake out a peace banner and bear a message to the castle. Inform Ser Brynden Tully 
that I would have words with him, at first light on the morrow. I will come to the edge of 
the moat and meet him on his drawbridge.” 

Peck looked alarmed. “My lord, the bowmen could . . .” 

“They won’t.” Jaime dismounted. “Raise my tent and plant my standards.” And we’ll see 
who comes running, and how quickly. 

It did not require long. Pia was fussing at a brazier, trying to light the coals. Peck went to 
help her. Of late, Jaime oft went to sleep to the sound of them fucking in a corner of the 
tent. As Garrett was undoing the clasps on Jaime’s greaves, the tent flapped open. “Here 
at last, are you?” boomed his aunt. She filled the door, with her Frey husband peering out 
from behind her. “Past time. Have you no hug for your old fat aunt?” She held out her 
arms and left him no choice but to embrace her. 

Genna Lannister had been a shapely woman in her youth, always threatening to overflow 
her bodice. Now the only shape she had was square. Her face was broad and smooth, her 
neck a thick pink pillar, her bosom enormous. She carried enough flesh to make two of 
her husband. Jaime hugged her dutifully and waited for her to pinch his ear. She had been 
pinching his ear for as long as he could remember, but today she forbore. Instead, she 
planted soft and sloppy kisses on his cheeks. “I am sorry for your loss.” 

“I had a new hand made, of gold.” He showed her. 


“Very nice. Will they make you a gold father too?” Lady Genna’s voice was sharp. 
“Tywin was the loss I meant.” 

“A man such as Tywin Lannister comes but once in a thousand years,” declared her 
husband. Emmon Frey was a fretful man with nervous hands. He might have weighed ten 
stone . . . but only wet, and clad in mail. He was a weed in wool, with no chin to speak of, 
a flaw that the prominence of the apple in his throat made even more absurd. Half his hair 
had been gone before he turned thirty. Now he was sixty and only a few white wisps 
remained. 

“Some queer tales have been reaching us of late,” Lady Genna said, after Jaime dismissed 
Pia and his squires. “A woman hardly knows what to believe. Can it be true that Tyrion 
slew Tywin? Or is that some calumny your sister put about?” 

“It’s true enough.” The weight of his golden hand had grown irksome. He fumbled at the 
straps that secured it to his wrist. 

“For a son to raise his hand against a father,” Ser Emmon said. “Monstrous. These are 
dark days in Westeros. I fear for us all with Lord Tywin gone.” 

“You feared for us all when he was here.” Genna settled her ample rump upon a camp 
stool, which creaked alarmingly beneath her weight. “Nephew, speak to us of our son 
Cleos and the manner of his death.” 

Jaime undid the last fastening and set his hand aside. “We were set upon by outlaws. Ser 
Cleos scattered them, but it cost his life.” The lie came easy; he could see that it pleased 
them. 

“The boy had courage, I always said so. It was in his blood.” A pinkish froth glistened on 
Ser Emmon’s lips when he spoke, courtesy of the sourleaf he liked to chew. 

“His bones should be interred beneath the Rock, in the Hall of Heroes,” Lady Genna 
declared. “Where was he laid to rest?” 

Nowhere. The Bloody Mummers stripped his corpse and left his flesh to feast the carrion 
crows. “Beside a stream,” he lied. “When this war is done, I will find the place and send 
him home.” Bones were bones; these days, nothing was easier to come by. 

“This war . . .” Lord Emmon cleared his throat, the apple in his throat moving up and 
down. “You will have seen the siege machines. Rams, treb-uchets, towers. It will not 
serve, Jaime. Daven means to break my walls, smash in my gates. He talks of burning 
pitch, of setting the castle afire. My castle.” He reached up one sleeve, brought out a 
parchment, and thrust it at Jaime’s face. “I have the decree. Signed by the king, by 
Tommen, see, the royal seal, the stag and lion. I am the lawful lord of Riverrun, and I will 
not have it reduced to a smoking ruin.” 


“Oh, put that fool thing away,” his wife snapped. “So long as the Blackfish sits inside 
Riverrun you can wipe your arse with that paper for all the good it does us.” Though she 
had been a Frey for fifty years, Lady Genna remained very much a Lannister. Quite a lot 
of Lannister. “Jaime will deliver you the castle.” 

“To be sure,” Lord Emmon said. “Ser Jaime, your lord father’s faith in me was well 
placed, you shall see. I mean to be firm but fair with my new vassals. Blackwood and 
Bracken, Jason Mallister, Vance and Piper, they shall learn that they have a just overlord 
in Emmon Frey. My father as well, yes. He is the Lord of the Crossing, but I am the Lord 
of Riverrun. A son has a duty to obey his father, true, but a bannerman must obey his 
overlord.” 

Oh, gods be good. “You are not his overlord, ser. Read your parchment. You were 
granted Riverrun with its lands and incomes, no more. Petyr Baelish is the Lord 
Paramount of the Trident. Riverrun will be subject to the rule of Harrenhal.” 

That did not please Lord Emmon. “Harrenhal is a ruin, haunted and accursed,” he 
objected, “and Baelish . . . the man is a coin counter, no proper lord, his birth . . .” 

“If you are unhappy with the arrangements, go to King’s Landing and take it up with my 
sweet sister.” Cersei would devour Emmon Frey and pick her teeth with his bones, he did 
not doubt. That is, if she’s not too busy fucking Osmund Kettleblack. 

Lady Genna gave a snort. “There is no need to trouble Her Grace with such nonsense. 
Emm, why don’t you step outside and have a breath of air?” 

“A breath of air?” 

“Or a good long piss, if you prefer. My nephew and I have family matters to discuss.” 

Lord Emmon flushed. “Yes, it is warm in here. I will wait outside, my lady. Ser.” His 
lordship rolled up his parchment, sketched a bow toward Jaime, and tottered from the 
tent. 

It was hard not to feel contemptuous of Emmon Frey. He had arrived at Casterly Rock in 
his fourteenth year to wed a lioness half his age. Tyrion used to say that Lord Tywin had 
given him a nervous belly for a wedding gift. Genna has played her part as well. Jaime 
remembered many a feast where Emmon sat poking at his food sullenly whilst his wife 
made ribald jests with whatever household knight had been seated to her left, their 
conversations punctuated by loud bursts of laughter. She gave Frey four sons, to be sure. 
At least she says they are his. No one in Casterly Rock had the courage to suggest 
otherwise, least of all Ser Emmon. 

No sooner was he gone than his lady wife rolled her eyes. “My lord and master. What 
was your father thinking, to name him Lord of Riverrun?” 


“I imagine he was thinking of your sons.” 

“I think of them as well. Emm will make a wretched lord. Ty may do better, if he has the 
sense to learn from me and not his father.” She looked about the tent. “Do you have 
wine?” 

Jaime found a flagon and poured for her, one-handed. “Why are you here, my lady? You 
should have remained at Casterly Rock until the fighting’s done.” 

“Once Emm heard he was a lord, he had to come at once to claim his seat.” Lady Genna 
took a drink and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Your father should have granted us 
Darry. Cleos married one of the plowman’s daughters, you will recall. His grieving 
widow is furious that her sons were not granted her lord father’s lands. Gatehouse Ami is 
Darry only on her mother’s side. My good-daughter Jeyne is her aunt, a full sister to Lady 
Mariya.” 

“A younger sister,” Jaime reminded her, “and Ty will have Riverrun, a greater prize than 
Darry.” 

“A poisoned prize. House Darry is extinguished in the male line, House Tully is not. That 
muttonhead Ser Ryman puts a noose round Edmure’s neck, but will not hang him. And 
Roslin Frey has a trout growing in her belly. My grandsons will never be secure in 
Riverrun so long as any Tully heir remains alive.” 

She was not wrong, Jaime knew. “If Roslin has a girl—” 

“—she can wed Ty, provided old Lord Walder will consent. Yes, I’ve thought of that. A 
boy is just as likely, though, and his little cock would cloud the issue. And if Ser Brynden 
should survive this siege, he might be inclined to claim Riverrun in his own name . . . or 
in the name of young Robert Arryn.” 

Jaime remembered little Robert from King’s Landing, still sucking on his mother’s teats 
at four. “Arryn won’t live long enough to breed. And why should the Lord of the Eyrie 
need Riverrun?” 

“Why does a man with one pot of gold need another? Men are greedy. Tywin should 
have granted Riverrun to Kevan and Darry to Emm. I would have told him so if he had 
troubled to ask me, but when did your father ever consult with anyone but Kevan?” She 
sighed deeply. “I do not blame Kevan for wanting the safer seat for his own boy, mind 
you. I know him too well.” 

“What Kevan wants and what Lancel wants appear to be two different things.” He told 
her of Lancel’s decision to renounce wife and lands and lordship to fight for the Holy 
Faith. “If you still want Darry, write to Cersei and make your case.” 


Lady Genna waved her cup in dismissal. “No, that horse has left the yard. Emm has it in 
his pointed head that he will rule the riverlands. And Lancel . . . I suppose we should 
have seen this coming from afar. A life protecting the High Septon is not so different 
from a life protecting the king, after all. Kevan will be wroth, I fear. As wroth as Tywin 
was when you got it in your head to take the white. At least Kevan still has Martyn for an 
heir. He can marry him to Gatehouse Ami in Lancel’s place. Seven save us all.” His aunt 
gave a sigh. “And speaking of the Seven, why would Cersei permit the Faith to arm 
again?” 

Jaime shrugged. “I am certain she had reasons.” 

“Reasons?” Lady Genna made a rude noise. “They had best be good reasons. The Swords 
and Stars troubled even the Targaryens. The Conqueror himself tread carefully with the 
Faith, so they would not oppose him. And when Aegon died and the lords rose up against 
his sons, both orders were in the thick of that rebellion. The more pious lords supported 
them, and many of the smallfolk. King Maegor finally had to put a bounty on them. He 
paid a dragon for the head of any unrepentant Warrior’s Son, and a silver stag for the 
scalp of a Poor Fellow, if I recall my history. Thousands were slain, but nigh as many still 
roamed the realm, defiant, until the Iron Throne slew Maegor and King Jaehaerys agreed 
to pardon all those who would set aside their swords.” 

“I’d forgotten most of that,” Jaime confessed. 

“You and your sister both.” She took another swallow of her wine. “Is it true that Tywin 
was smiling on his bier?” 

“He was rotting on his bier. It made his mouth twist.” 

“Was that all it was?” That seemed to sadden her. “Men say that Tywin never smiled, but 
he smiled when he wed your mother, and when Aerys made him Hand. When Tarbeck 
Hall came crashing down on Lady Ellyn, that scheming bitch, Tyg claimed he smiled 
then. And he smiled at your birth, Jaime, I saw that with mine own eyes. You and Cersei, 
pink and perfect, as alike as two peas in a pod . . . well, except between the legs. What 
lungs you had!” 

“Hear us roar.” Jaime grinned. “Next you’ll be telling me how much he liked to laugh.” 

“No. Tywin mistrusted laughter. He heard too many people laughing at your grandsire.” 
She frowned. “I promise you, this mummer’s farce of a siege would not have amused 
him. How do you mean to end it, now that you’re here?” 

“Treat with the Blackfish.” 

“That won’t work.” 

“I mean to offer him good terms.” 


“Terms require trust. The Freys murdered guests beneath their roof, and you, well . . . I 
mean no offense, my love, but you did kill a certain king you had sworn to protect.” 

“And I’ll kill the Blackfish if he does not yield.” His tone was harsher than he’d intended, 
but he was in no mood for having Aerys Targaryen thrown in his face. 

“How, with your tongue?” Her voice was scornful. “I may be an old fat woman, but I do 
not have cheese between my ears, Jaime. Neither does the Blackfish. Empty threats won’t 
daunt him.” 

“What would you counsel?” 

She gave a ponderous shrug. “Emm wants Edmure’s head off. For once, he may be right. 
Ser Ryman has made us a laughingstock with that gibbet of his. You need to show Ser 
Brynden that your threats have teeth.” 

“Killing Edmure might harden Ser Brynden’s resolve.” 

“Resolve is one thing Brynden Blackfish never lacked for. Hoster Tully could have told 
you that.” Lady Genna finished her wine. “Well, I would never presume to tell you how 
to fight a war. I know my place . . . unlike your sister. Is it true that Cersei burned the Red 
Keep?” 

“Only the Tower of the Hand.” 

His aunt rolled her eyes. “She would have done better to leave the tower and burn her 
Hand. Harys Swyft? If ever a man deserved his arms, it is Ser Harys. And Gyles Rosby, 
Seven save us, I thought he died years ago. Merryweather . . . your father used to call his 
grandsire ‘the Chuckler,’ I’ll have you know. Tywin claimed the only thing 
Merryweather was good for was chuckling at the king’s witticisms. His lordship chuckled 
himself right into exile, as I recall. Cersei has put some bastard on the council too, and a 
kettle in the Kingsguard. She has the Faith arming and the Braavosi calling in loans all 
over Westeros. None of which would be happening if she’d had the simple sense to make 
your uncle the King’s Hand.” 

“Ser Kevan refused the office.” 

“So he said. He did not say why. There was much he did not say. Would not say.” Lady 
Genna made a face. “Kevan always did what was asked of him. It is not like him to turn 
away from any duty. Something is awry here, I can smell it.” 

“He said that he was tired.” He knows, Cersei had said, as they stood above their father’s 
corpse. He knows about us. 

“Tired?” His aunt pursed her lips. “I suppose he has a right to be. It has been hard for 
Kevan, living all his life in Tywin’s shadow. It was hard for all my brothers. That shadow 


Tywin cast was long and black, and each of them had to struggle to find a little sun. 
Tygett tried to be his own man, but he could never match your father, and that just made 
him angrier as the years went by. Gerion made japes. Better to mock the game than to 
play and lose. But Kevan saw how things stood early on, so he made himself a place by 
your father’s side.” 

“And you?” Jaime asked her. 

“It was not a game for girls. I was my father’s precious princess . . . and Tywin’s too, 
until I disappointed him. My brother never learned to like the taste of disappointment.” 
She pushed herself to her feet. “I’ve said what I came to say, I shan’t take any more of 
your time. Do what Tywin would have done.” 

“Did you love him?” Jaime heard himself ask. 

His aunt looked at him strangely. “I was seven when Walder Frey persuaded my lord 
father to give my hand to Emm. His second son, not even his heir. Father was himself a 
thirdborn son, and younger children crave the approval of their elders. Frey sensed that 
weakness in him, and Father agreed for no better reason than to please him. My betrothal 
was announced at a feast with half the west in attendance. Ellyn Tarbeck laughed and the 
Red Lion went angry from the hall. The rest sat on their tongues. Only Tywin dared 
speak against the match. A boy of ten. Father turned as white as mare’s milk, and Walder 
Frey was quivering.” She smiled. “How could I not love him, after that? That is not to say 
that I approved of all he did, or much enjoyed the company of the man that he became . . . 
but every little girl needs a big brother to protect her. Tywin was big even when he was 
little.” She gave a sigh. “Who will protect us now?” 

Jaime kissed her cheek. “He left a son.” 

“Aye, he did. That is what I fear the most, in truth.” 

That was a queer remark. “Why should you fear?” 

“Jaime,” she said, tugging on his ear, “sweetling, I have known you since you were a 
babe at Joanna’s breast. You smile like Gerion and fight like Tyg, and there’s some of 
Kevan in you, else you would not wear that cloak . . . but Tyrion is Tywin’s son, not you. 
I said so once to your father’s face, and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are 
such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years.” 



CAT OF THE CANALS 

She woke before the sun came up, in the little room beneath the eaves that she shared 
with Brusco’s daughters. 

Cat was always the first to awaken. It was warm and snug under the blankets with Talea 
and Brea. She could hear the soft sounds of their breath. When she stirred, sitting up and 
fumbling for her slippers, Brea muttered a sleepy complaint and rolled over. The chill off 
the grey stone walls gave Cat gooseprickles. She dressed quickly in the darkness. As she 
was slipping her tunic over her head, Talea opened her eyes and called out, “Cat, be a 
sweet and bring my clothes for me.” She was a gawky girl, all skin and bones and 
elbows, always complaining she was cold. 

Cat fetched her clothes for her, and Talea squirmed into them underneath the blankets. 
Together they pulled her big sister from the bed, as Brea muttered sleepy threats. 

By the time the three of them climbed down the ladder from the room beneath the eaves, 
Brusco and his sons were out in the boat on the little canal behind the house. Brusco 
barked at the girls to hurry, as he did every morning. His sons helped Talea and Brea onto 
the boat. It was Cat’s task to untie them from the piling, toss the rope to Brea, and shove 
the boat away from the dock with a booted foot. Brusco’s sons leaned into their poles. 
Cat ran and leapt across the widening gap between dock and deck. 

After that, she had nothing to do but sit and yawn for a long while as Brusco and his sons 
pushed them through the predawn gloom, wending down a confusion of small canals. 
The day looked to be a rare one, crisp and clear and bright. Braavos only had three kinds 
of weather; fog was bad, rain was worse, and freezing rain was worst. But every so often 
would come a morning when the dawn broke pink and blue and the air was sharp and 
salty. Those were the days that Cat loved best. 

When they reached the broad straight waterway that was the Long Canal, they turned 
south for the fishmarket. Cat sat with her legs crossed, fighting a yawn and trying to 
recall the details of her dream. I dreamed I was a wolf again. She could remember the 
smells best of all: trees and earth, her pack brothers, the scents of horse and deer and 
man, each different from the others, and the sharp acrid tang of fear, always the same. 
Some nights the wolf dreams were so vivid that she could hear her brothers howling even 
as she woke, and once Brea had claimed that she was growling in her sleep as she 
thrashed beneath the covers. She thought that was some stupid lie till Talea said it too. 

I should not be dreaming wolf dreams, the girl told herself. I am a cat now, not a wolf. I 
am Cat of the Canals. The wolf dreams belonged to Arya of House Stark. Try as she 
might, though, she could not rid herself of Arya. It made no difference whether she slept 
beneath the temple or in the little room beneath the eaves with Brusco’s daughters, the 
wolf dreams still haunted her by night . . . and sometimes other dreams as well. 


The wolf dreams were the good ones. In the wolf dreams she was swift and strong, 
running down her prey with her pack at her heels. It was the other dream she hated, the 
one where she had two feet instead of four. In that one she was always looking for her 
mother, stumbling through a wasted land of mud and blood and fire. It was always 
raining in that dream, and she could hear her mother screaming, but a monster with a 
dog’s head would not let her go save her. In that dream she was always weeping, like a 
frightened little girl. Cats never weep, she told herself, no more than wolves do. It’s just a 
stupid dream. 

The Long Canal took Brusco’s boat beneath the green copper domes of the Palace of 
Truth and the tall square towers of the Prestayns and Antaryons before passing under the 
immense grey arches of the sweetwater river to the district known as Silty Town, where 
the buildings were smaller and less grand. Later in the day the canal would be choked 
with serpent boats and barges, but in the predawn darkness they had the waterway almost 
to themselves. Brusco liked to reach the fishmarket just as the Titan roared to herald the 
coming of the sun. The sound would boom across the lagoon, faint with distance but still 
loud enough to wake the sleeping city. 

By the time Brusco and his sons tied up by the fishmarket, it was swarming with herring 
sellers and cod wives, oystermen, clam diggers, stewards, cooks, smallwives, and sailors 
off the galleys, all haggling loudly with one another as they inspected the morning catch. 
Brusco would walk from boat to boat, having a look at all the shellfish, and from time to 
time tapping a cask or crate with his cane. “This one,” he would say. “Yes.” Tap tap. 
“This one.” Tap tap. “No, not that. Here.” Tap. He was not much one for talking. Talea 
said her father was as grudging with his words as with his coins. Oysters, clams, crabs, 
mussels, cockles, sometimes prawns . . . Brusco bought it all, depending on what looked 
best each day. It was for them to carry the crates and casks that he tapped back to the 
boat. Brusco had a bad back, and could not lift anything heavier than a tankard of brown 
ale. 

Cat always stank of brine and fish by the time they pushed off for home again. She had 
grown so used to it that she hardly even smelled it anymore. She did not mind the work. 
When her muscles ached from lifting, or her back got sore from the weight of a cask, she 
told herself that she was getting stronger. 

Once all the casks were loaded, Brusco shoved them off again, and his sons poled them 
back up the Long Canal. Brea and Talea sat at the front of the boat whispering to one 
another. Cat knew that they were talking about Brea’s boy, the one she climbed up on the 
roof to meet, after her father was asleep. 

“Learn three new things before you come back to us,” the kindly man had commanded 
Cat, when he sent her forth into the city. She always did. Sometimes it was no more than 
three new words of the Braavosi tongue. Sometimes she brought back sailor’s tales, of 
strange and wondrous happenings from the wide wet world beyond the isles of Braavos, 
wars and rains of toads and dragons hatching. Sometimes she learned three new japes or 


three new riddles, or tricks of this trade or the other. And every so often, she would learn 
some secret. 

Braavos was a city made for secrets, a city of fogs and masks and whispers. Its very 
existence had been a secret for a century, the girl had learned; its location had been 
hidden thrice that long. “The Nine Free Cities are the daughters of Valyria that was,” the 
kindly man taught her, “but Braavos is the bastard child who ran away from home. We 
are a mongrel folk, the sons of slaves and whores and thieves. Our forebears came from 
half a hundred lands to this place of refuge, to escape the dragonlords who had enslaved 
them. Half a hundred gods came with them, but there is one god all of them shared in 
common.” 

“Him of Many Faces.” 

“And many names,” the kindly man had said. “In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti 
the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no 
matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned 
God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him . . . else somewhere in the world 
would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?” 

“No,” she would answer. “All men must die.” 

Cat would always find the kindly man waiting for her when she went creeping back to the 
temple on the knoll on the night the moon went black. “What do you know that you did 
not know when you left us?” he would always ask her. 

“I know what Blind Beqqo puts in the hot sauce he uses on his oysters,” she would say. “I 
know the mummers at the Blue Lantern are going to do The Lord of the Woeful 
Countenance and the mummers at the Ship mean to answer with Seven Drunken 
Oarsmen. I know the bookseller Lotho Lornel sleeps in the house of Tradesman-Captain 
Moredo Prestayn whenever the honorable tradesman-captain is away on a voyage, and 
moves out whenever the Vixen comes home.” 

“It is good to know these things. And who are you?” 

“No one.” 

“You lie. You are Cat of the canals, I know you well. Go and sleep, child. On the morrow 
you must serve.” 

“All men must serve.” And so she did, three days of every thirty. When the moon was 
black she was no one, a servant of the Many-Faced God in a robe of black and white. She 
walked beside the kindly man through the fragrant darkness, carrying her iron lantern. 
She washed the dead, went through their clothes, and counted out their coins. Some days 
she still helped Umma cook, chopping big white mushrooms and boning fish. But only 
when the moon was black. The rest of the time she was an orphan girl in a pair of 


battered boots too big for her feet and a brown cloak with a ragged hem, crying “Mussels 
and cockles and clams” as she wheeled her barrow through the Ragman’s Harbor. 

The moon would be black tonight, she knew; last night it had been no more than a sliver. 
“What do you know that you did not know when you left us?” the kindly man would ask 
as soon as he saw her. I know that Brusco’s daughter Brea meets a boy on the roof when 
her father is asleep, she thought. Brea lets him touch her, Talea says, even though he’s 
just a roof rat and all the roof rats are supposed to be thieves. That was only one thing, 
though. Cat would need two more. She was not concerned. There were always new things 
to learn, down by the ships. 

When they returned to the house Cat helped Brusco’s sons unload the boat. Brusco and 
his daughters divided the shellfish amongst three barrows, arranging them on layered 
beds of seaweed. “Come back when all is sold,” Brusco told the girls, just as he did every 
morning, and they set forth to cry the catch. Brea would wheel her barrow to the Purple 
Harbor, to sell to the Braavosi sailors whose ships were anchored there. Talea would try 
the alleys round the Moon Pool, or sell amongst the temples on the Isle of the Gods. Cat 
headed for the Ragman’s Harbor, as she did nine days of every ten. 

Only Braavosi were permitted use of the Purple Harbor, from the Drowned Town and the 
Sealord’s Palace; ships from her sister cities and the rest of the wide world had to use the 
Ragman’s Harbor, a poorer, rougher, dirtier port than the Purple. It was noisier as well, as 
sailors and traders from half a hundred lands crowded its wharves and alleys, mingling 
with those who served and preyed on them. Cat liked it best of any place in Braavos. She 
liked the noise and the strange smells, and seeing what ships had come in on the evening 
tide and what ships had departed. She liked the sailors too; the boisterous Tyroshi with 
their booming voices and dyed whiskers; the fair-haired Lyseni, always trying to niggle 
down her prices; the squat, hairy sailors from the Port of Ibben, growling curses in low, 
raspy voices. Her favorites were the Summer Islanders, with their skins as smooth and 
dark as teak. They wore feathered cloaks of red and green and yellow, and the tall masts 
and white sails of their swan ships were magnificent. 

And sometimes there were Westerosi too, oarsmen and sailors off carracks out of 
Oldtown, trading galleys out of Duskendale, King’s Landing, and Gulltown, big-bellied 
wine cogs from the Arbor. Cat knew the Braavosi words for mussels and cockles and 
clams, but along the Ragman’s Harbor she cried her wares in the trade tongue, the 
language of the wharves and docks and sailor’s taverns, a coarse jumble of words and 
phrases from a dozen languages, accompanied by hand signs and gestures, most of them 
insulting. Those were the ones that Cat liked best. Any man who bothered her was apt to 
see the fig, or hear himself described as an ass’s pizzle or a camel’s cunt. “Maybe I never 
saw a camel,” she would tell them, “but I know a camel’s cunt when I smell one.” 

Once in a great while that would make somebody angry, but when it did she had her 
finger knife. She kept it very sharp, and knew how to use it too. Red Roggo showed her 
one afternoon at the Happy Port, while he was waiting for Lanna to come free. He taught 
her how to hide it up her sleeve and slip it out when she had need of it, and how to slice a 


purse so smooth and quick the coins would all be spent before their owner ever missed 
them. That was good to know, even the kindly man agreed; especially at night, when the 
bravos and roof rats were abroad. 

Cat had made friends along the wharves; porters and mummers, ropemakers and 
sailmenders, taverners, brewers and bakers and beggars and whores. They bought clams 
and cockles from her, told her true tales of Braavos and lies about their lives, and laughed 
at the way she talked when she tried to speak Braavosi. She never let that trouble her. 
Instead, she showed them all the fig, and told them they were camel cunts, which made 
them roar with laughter. Gyloro Dothare taught her filthy songs, and his brother Gyleno 
told her the best places to catch eels. The mummers off the Ship showed her how a hero 
stands, and taught her speeches from The Song of the Rhoyne, The Conqueror’s Two 
Wives, and The Merchant’s Lusty Lady. Quill, the sad-eyed little man who made up all 
the bawdy farces for the Ship, offered to teach her how a woman kisses, but Tagganaro 
smacked him with a codfish and put an end to that. Cossomo the Conjurer instructed her 
in sleight of hand. He could swallow mice and pull them from her ears. “It’s magic,” he’d 
say. “It’s not,” Cat said. “The mouse was up your sleeve the whole time. I could see it 
moving.” 

“Oysters, clams, and cockles” were Cat’s magic words, and like all good magic words 
they could take her almost anywhere. She had boarded ships from Lys and Oldtown and 
the Port of Ibben and sold her oysters right on deck. Some days she rolled her barrow past 
the towers of the mighty to offer baked clams to the guardsmen at their gates. Once she 
cried her catch on the steps of the Palace of Truth, and when another peddler tried to run 
her off she turned his cart over and sent his oysters skittering across the cobbles. Customs 
officers from the Chequy Port would buy from her, and paddlers from the Drowned 
Town, whose sunken domes and towers poked up from the green waters of the lagoon. 
One time, when Brea took to her bed with her moon blood, Cat had pushed her barrow to 
the Purple Harbor to sell crabs and prawns to oarsmen off the Sealord’s pleasure barge, 
covered stem to stern with laughing faces. Other days she followed the sweetwater river 
to the Moon Pool. She sold to swaggering bravos in striped satin, and to keyholders and 
justiciars in drab coats of brown and grey. But she always returned to the Ragman’s 
Harbor. 

“Oysters, clams, and cockles,” the girl shouted as she pushed her barrow along the 
wharves. “Mussels, prawns, and cockles.” A dirty orange cat came padding after her, 
drawn by the sound of her call. Farther on, a second cat appeared, a sad, bedraggled grey 
thing with a stub tail. Cats liked the smell of Cat. Some days she would have a dozen 
trailing after her before the sun went down. From time to time the girl would throw an 
oyster at them and watch to see who came away with it. The biggest toms would seldom 
win, she noticed; oft as not, the prize went to some smaller, quicker animal, thin and 
mean and hungry. Like me, she told herself. Her favorite was a scrawny old tom with a 
chewed ear who reminded her of a cat that she’d once chased all around the Red Keep. 

No, that was some other girl, not me. 


Two of the ships that had been here yesterday were gone, Cat saw, but five new ones had 
docked; a small carrack called the Brazen Monkey, a huge Ibbenese whaler that reeked of 
tar and blood and whale oil, two battered cogs from Pentos, and a lean green galley up 
from Old Volantis. Cat stopped at the foot of every gangplank to cry her clams and 
oysters, once in the trade talk and again in the Common Tongue of Westeros. A crewman 
on the whaler cursed at her so loudly that he scared away her cats and one of the Pentoshi 
oarsman asked how much she wanted for the clam between her legs, but she fared better 
at the other ships. A mate on the green galley wolfed half a dozen oysters and told her 
how his captain had been killed by the Lysene pirates who had tried to board them near 
the Stepstones. “That bastard Saan it was, with Old Mother’s Son and his big Valyrian. 
We got away, but just.” 

The little Brazen Monkey proved to be from Gulltown, with a Wes-terosi crew who were 
glad to talk to someone in the Common Tongue. One asked how a girl from King’s 
Landing came to be selling mussels on the docks of Braavos, so she had to tell her tale. 
“We’re here four days, and four long nights,” another told her. “Where’s a man to go to 
find a bit of sport?” 

“The mummers at the Ship are doing Seven Drunken Oarsmen,” Cat told them, “and 
there’s eel fights in the Spotted Cellar, down by the gates of Drowned Town. Or if you 
want you can go by the Moon Pool, where the bravos duel at night.” 

“Aye, that’s good,” another sailor said, “but what Wat was really wanting was a woman.” 

“The best whores are at the Happy Port, down by where the mummers’ Ship is moored.” 
She pointed. Some of the dockside whores were vicious, and sailors fresh from the sea 
never knew which ones. S’vrone was the worst. Everyone said she had robbed and killed 
a dozen men, rolling the bodies into the canals to feed the eels. The Drunken Daughter 
could be sweet when sober, but not with wine in her. And Canker Jeyne was really a man. 
“Ask for Merry. Meralyn is her true name, but everyone calls her Merry, and she is.” 
Merry bought a dozen oysters every time Cat came by the brothel and shared them with 
her girls. She had a good heart, everyone agreed. “That, and the biggest pair of teats in all 
of Braavos,” Merry herself was fond of boasting. 

Her girls were nice as well; Blushing Bethany and the Sailor’s Wife, one-eyed Yna who 
could tell your fortune from a drop of blood, pretty little Lanna, even Assadora, the 
Ibbenese woman with the mustache. They might not be beautiful, but they were kind to 
her. “The Happy Port is where all the porters go,” Cat assured the men of the Brazen 
Monkey. “‘The boys unload the ships,’ Merry says, ‘and my girls unload the lads who sail 
them.’” 

“What about them fancy whores the singers sing about?” asked the youngest monkey, a 
red-haired boy with freckles who could not have been much more than six-and-ten. “Are 
they as pretty as they say? Where would I get one o’ them?” 


His shipmates looked at him and laughed. “Seven hells, boy,” said one of them. “Might 
be the captain could get hisself a courty-san, but only if he sold the bloody ship. That sort 
o’ cunt’s for lords and such, not for the likes o’ us.” 

The courtesans of Braavos were famed across the world. Singers sang of them, 
goldsmiths and jewelers showered them with gifts, craftsmen begged for the honor of 
their custom, merchant princes paid royal ransoms to have them on their arms at balls and 
feasts and mummer shows, and bravos slew each other in their names. As she pushed her 
barrow along the canals, Cat would sometimes glimpse one of them floating by, on her 
way to an evening with some lover. Every courtesan had her own barge, and servants to 
pole her to her trysts. The Poetess always had a book to hand, the Moonshadow wore 
only white and silver, and the Merling Queen was never seen without her Mermaids, four 
young maidens in the blush of their first flowering who held her train and did her hair. 
Each courtesan was more beautiful than the last. Even the Veiled Lady was beautiful, 
though only those she took as lovers ever saw her face. 

“I sold three cockles to a courtesan,” Cat told the sailors. “She called to me as she was 
stepping off her barge.” Brusco had made it plain to her that she was never to speak to a 
courtesan unless she was spoken to first, but the woman had smiled at her and paid her in 
silver, ten times what the cockles had been worth. 

“Which one was this, now? The Queen o’ Cockles, was it?” 

“The Black Pearl,” she told them. Merry claimed the Black Pearl was the most famous 
courtesan of all. “She’s descended from the dragons, that one,” the woman had told Cat. 
“The first Black Pearl was a pirate queen. A Westerosi prince took her for a lover and got 
a daughter on her, who grew up to be a courtesan. Her own daughter followed her, and 
her daughter after her, until you get to this one. What did she say to you, Cat?” 

“She said ‘I’ll take three cockles,’ and ‘Do you have some hot sauce, little one?’” the girl 
had answered. 

“And what did you say?” 

“I said, ‘No, my lady,’ and, ‘Don’t call me little one. My name is Cat.’ I should have hot 
sauce. Beqqo does, and he sells three times as many oysters as Brusco.” 

Cat told the kindly man about the Black Pearl too. “Her true name is Bellegere Otherys,” 
she informed him. It was one of the three things that she had learned. 

“It is,” the priest said softly. “Her mother was Bellonara, but the first Black Pearl was a 
Bellegere as well.” 

Cat knew that the men off the Brazen Monkey would not care about the name of a 
courtesan’s mother, though. Instead, she asked them for tidings of the Seven Kingdoms, 
and the war. 


“War?” laughed one of them. “What war? There is no war.” 

“Not in Gulltown,” said another. “Not in the Vale. The little lord’s kept us out of it, same 
as his mother did.” 

Same as his mother did. The lady of the Vale was her own mother’s sister. “Lady Lysa,” 
she said, “is she . . . ?” 

“. . . dead?” finished the freckled boy whose head was full of courtesans. “Aye. Murdered 
by her own singer.” 

“Oh.” It’s nought to me. Cat of the Canals never had an aunt. She never did. Cat lifted 
her barrow and wheeled away from the Brazen Monkey, bumping over cobblestones. 
“Oysters, clams, and cockles,” she called. “Oysters, clams, and cockles.” She sold most 
of her clams to the porters off-loading the big wine cog from the Arbor, and the rest to 
the men repairing a Myrish trading galley that had been savaged by the storms. 

Farther down the docks she came on Tagganaro sitting with his back against a piling, 
next to Casso, King of Seals. He bought some mussels from her, and Casso barked and 
let her shake his flipper. “You come work with me, Cat,” urged Tagganaro as he was 
sucking mussels from their shells. He had been looking for a new partner ever since the 
Drunken Daughter put her knife through Little Narbo’s hand. “I give you more than 
Brusco, and you would not smell like fish.” 

“Casso likes the way I smell,” she said. The King of Seals barked, as if to agree. “Is 
Narbo’s hand no better?” 

“Three fingers do not bend,” complained Tagganaro, between mussels. “What good is a 
cutpurse who cannot use his fingers? Narbo was good at picking pockets, not so good at 
picking whores.” 

“Merry says the same.” Cat was sad. She liked Little Narbo, even if he was a thief. “What 
will he do?” 

“Pull an oar, he says. Two fingers are enough for that, he thinks, and the Sealord’s always 
looking for more oarsmen. I tell him, ‘Narbo, no. That sea is colder than a maiden and 
crueler than a whore. Better you should cut off the hand, and beg.’ Casso knows I am 
right. Don’t you, Casso?” 

The seal barked, and Cat had to smile. She tossed another cockle his way before she went 
off on her own. 

The day was nearly done by the time Cat reached the Happy Port, across the alley from 
where the Ship was anchored. Some of the mummers sat up atop the listing hulk, passing 
a skin of wine from hand to hand, but when they saw Cat’s barrow they came down for 
some oysters. She asked them how it went with Seven Drunken Oarsmen. Joss the Gloom 


shook his head. “Quence finally came on Allaquo abed with Sloey. They went at one 
another with mummer swords, and both of them have left us. We’ll only be five drunken 
oarsmen tonight, it would seem.” 

“We shall strive to make up in drunkenness what we lack in oarsmen,” declared 
Myrmello. “I for one am equal to the task.” 

“Little Narbo wants to be an oarsman,” Cat told them. “If you got him, you’d have six.” 

“You had best go see Merry,” Joss told her. “You know how sour she gets without her 
oysters.” 

When Cat slipped inside the brothel, though, she found Merry sitting in the common 
room with her eyes shut, listening to Dareon play his woodharp. Yna was there too, 
braiding Lanna’s fine long golden hair. Another stupid love song. Lanna was always 
begging the singer to play her stupid love songs. She was the youngest of the whores, 
only ten-and-four. Merry asked three times as much for her as for any of the other girls, 
Cat knew. 

It made her angry to see Dareon sitting there so brazen, making eyes at Lanna as his 
fingers danced across the harp strings. The whores called him the black singer, but there 
was hardly any black about him now. With the coin his singing brought him, the crow 
had transformed himself into a peacock. Today he wore a plush purple cloak lined with 
vair, a striped white-and-lilac tunic, and the parti-colored breeches of a bravo, but he 
owned a silken cloak as well, and one made of burgundy velvet that was lined with clothof-
gold. The only black about him was his boots. Cat had heard him tell Lanna that he’d 
thrown all the rest in a canal. “I am done with darkness,” he had announced. 

He is a man of the Night’s Watch, she thought, as he sang about some stupid lady 
throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady 
should go kill the ones who killed her prince. And the singer should be on the Wall. When 
Dareon had first appeared at the Happy Port, Arya had almost asked if he would take her 
with him back to Eastwatch, until she heard him telling Bethany that he was never going 
back. “Hard beds, salt cod, and endless watches, that’s the Wall,” he’d said. “Besides, 
there’s no one half as pretty as you at Eastwatch. How could I ever leave you?” He had 
said the same thing to Lanna, Cat had heard, and to one of the whores at the Cattery, and 
even to the Nightingale the night he played at the House of Seven Lamps. 

I wish I had been here the night the fat one hit him. Merry’s whores still laughed about 
that. Yna said the fat boy had gone red as a beet every time she touched him, but when he 
started trouble Merry had him dragged outside and thrown in the canal. 

Cat was thinking about the fat boy, remembering how she had saved him from Terro and 
Orbelo, when the Sailor’s Wife appeared beside her. “He sings a pretty song,” she 
murmured softly, in the Common Tongue of Westeros. “The gods must have loved him 
to give him such a voice, and that fair face as well.” 


He is fair of face and foul of heart, thought Arya, but she did not say it. Dareon had once 
wed the Sailor’s Wife, who would only bed with men who married her. The Happy Port 
sometimes had three or four weddings a night. Often the cheerful wine-soaked red priest 
Ezzelyno performed the rites. Elsewise it was Eustace, who had once been a septon at the 
Sept-Beyond-the-Sea. If neither priest nor septon was on hand, one of the whores would 
run to the Ship and fetch back a mummer. Merry always claimed the mummers made 
much better priests than priests, especially Myrmello. 

The weddings were loud and jolly, with a lot of drinking. Whenever Cat happened by 
with her barrow, the Sailor’s Wife would insist that her new husband buy some oysters, 
to stiffen him for the consummation. She was good that way, and quick to laugh as well, 
but Cat thought there was something sad about her too. 

The other whores said that the Sailor’s Wife visited the Isle of the Gods on the days when 
her flower was in bloom, and knew all the gods who lived there, even the ones that 
Braavos had forgotten. They said she went to pray for her first husband, her true husband, 
who had been lost at sea when she was a girl no older than Lanna. “She thinks that if she 
finds the right god, maybe he will send the winds and blow her old love back to her,” said 
one-eyed Yna, who had known her longest, “but I pray it never happens. Her love is 
dead, I could taste that in her blood. If he ever should come back to her, it will be a 
corpse.” 

Dareon’s song was finally ending. As the last notes faded in the air, Lanna gave a sigh 
and the singer put his harp aside and pulled her up into his lap. He had just started to 
tickle her when Cat said loudly, “There’s oysters, if anyone is wanting some,” and 
Merry’s eyes popped open. “Good,” the woman said. “Bring them in, child. Yna, fetch 
some bread and vinegar.” 

The swollen red sun hung in the sky behind the row of masts when Cat took her leave of 
the Happy Port, with a plump purse of coins and a barrow empty but for salt and 
seaweed. Dareon was leaving too. He had promised to sing at the Inn of the Green Eel 
this evening, he told her as they strolled along together. “Every time I play the Eel I come 
away with silver,” he boasted, “and some nights there are captains there, and owners.” 
They crossed a little bridge, and made their way down a crooked back street as the 
shadows of the day grew longer. “Soon I will be playing in the Purple, and after that the 
Sealord’s Palace,” Dareon went on. Cat’s empty barrow clattered over the cobblestones, 
making its own sort of rattling music. “Yesterday I ate herring with the whores, but 
within the year I’ll be having emperor crab with courtesans.” 

“What happened to your brother?” Cat asked. “The fat one. Did he ever find a ship to 
Oldtown? He said he was supposed to sail on the Lady Ushanora.” 

“We all were. Lord Snow’s command. I told Sam, leave the old man, but the fat fool 
would not listen.” The last light of the setting sun shone in his hair. “Well, it’s too late 
now.” 


“Just so,” said Cat as they stepped into the gloom of a twisty little alley. 

By the time Cat returned to Brusco’s house, an evening fog was gathering above the 
small canal. She put away her barrow, found Brusco in his counting room, and thumped 
her purse down on the table in front of him. She thumped the boots down too. 

Brusco gave the purse a pat. “Good. But what’s this?” 

“Boots.” 

“Good boots are hard to find,” said Brusco, “but these are too small for my feet.” He 
picked one up to squint at it. 

“The moon will be black tonight,” she reminded him. 

“Best you pray, then.” Brusco shoved the boots aside and poured out the coins to count 
them. “Valar dohaeris.” 

Valar morghulis, she thought. 

Fog rose all around as she walked through the streets of Braavos. She was shivering a 
little by the time she pushed through the weirwood door into the House of Black and 
White. Only a few candles burned this evening, flickering like fallen stars. In the 
darkness all the gods were strangers. 

Down in the vaults, she untied Cat’s threadbare cloak, pulled Cat’s fishy brown tunic 
over her head, kicked off Cat’s salt-stained boots, climbed out of Cat’s smallclothes, and 
bathed in lemonwater to wash away the very smell of Cat of the Canals. When she 
emerged, soaped and scrubbed pink with her brown hair plastered to her cheeks, Cat was 
gone. She donned clean robes and a pair of soft cloth slippers, and padded to the kitchens 
to beg some food of Umma. The priests and acolytes had already eaten, but the cook had 
saved a piece of nice fried cod for her, and some mashed yellow turnips. She wolfed it 
down, washed the dish, then went to help the waif prepare her potions. 

Her part was mostly fetching, scrambling up ladders to find the herbs and leaves the waif 
required. “Sweetsleep is the gentlest of poisons,” the waif told her, as she was grinding 
some with a mortar and pestle. “A few grains will slow a pounding heart and stop a hand 
from shaking, and make a man feel calm and strong. A pinch will grant a night of deep 
and dreamless sleep. Three pinches will produce that sleep that does not end. The taste is 
very sweet, so it is best used in cakes and pies and honeyed wines. Here, you can smell 
the sweetness.” She let her have a whiff, then sent her up the ladders to find a red glass 
bottle. “This is a crueler poison, but tasteless and odorless, hence easier to hide. The tears 
of Lys, men call it. Dissolved in wine or water, it eats at a man’s bowels and belly, and 
kills as a sickness of those parts. Smell.” Arya sniffed, and smelled nothing. The waif put 
the tears to one side and opened a fat stone jar. “This paste is spiced with basilisk blood. 


It will give cooked flesh a savory smell, but if eaten it produces violent madness, in 
beasts as well as men. A mouse will attack a lion after a taste of basilisk blood.” 

Arya chewed her lip. “Would it work on dogs?” 

“On any animal with warm blood.” The waif slapped her. 

She raised her hand to her cheek, more surprised than hurt. “Why did you do that?” 

“It is Arya of House Stark who chews on her lip whenever she is thinking. Are you Arya 
of House Stark?” 

“I am no one.” She was angry. “Who are you?” 

She did not expect the waif to answer, but she did. “I was born the only child of an 
ancient House, my noble father’s heir,” the waif replied. “My mother died when I was 
little, I have no memory of her. When I was six my father wed again. His new wife 
treated me kindly until she gave birth to a daughter of her own. Then it was her wish that 
I should die, so her own blood might inherit my father’s wealth. She should have sought 
the favor of the Many-Faced God, but she could not bear the sacrifice he would ask of 
her. Instead, she thought to poison me herself. It left me as you see me now, but I did not 
die. When the healers in the House of the Red Hands told my father what she had done, 
he came here and made sacrifice, offering up all his wealth and me. Him of Many Faces 
heard his prayer. I was brought to the temple to serve, and my father’s wife received the 
gift.” 

Arya considered her warily. “Is that true?” 

“There is truth in it.” 

“And lies as well?” 

“There is an untruth, and an exaggeration.” 

She had been watching the waif’s face the whole time she told her story, but the other girl 
had shown her no signs. “The Many-Faced God took two-thirds of your father’s wealth, 
not all.” 

“Just so. That was my exaggeration.” 

Arya grinned, realized she was grinning, and gave her cheek a pinch. Rule your face, she 
told herself. My smile is my servant, he should come at my command. “What part was the 
lie?” 

“No part. I lied about the lie.” 


“Did you? Or are you lying now?” 


But before the waif could answer, the kindly man stepped into the chamber, smiling. 
“You have returned to us.” 
“The moon is black.” 
“It is. What three new things do you know, that you did not know when last you left us?” 
I know thirty new things, she almost said. “Three of Little Narbo’s fingers will not bend. 


He means to be an oarsman.” 
“It is good to know this. And what else?” 
She thought back on her day. “Quence and Alaquo had a fight and left the Ship, but I 


think that they’ll come back.” 
“Do you only think, or do you know?” 
“I only think,” she had to confess, even though she was certain of it. Mummers had to eat 


the same as other men, and Quence and Alaquo were not good enough for the Blue 
Lantern. 


“Just so,” said the kindly man. “And the third thing?” 
This time she did not hesitate. “Dareon is dead. The black singer who was sleeping at the 
Happy Port. He was really a deserter from the Night’s Watch. Someone slit his throat and 
pushed him into a canal, but they kept his boots.” 


“Good boots are hard to find.” 
“Just so.” She tried to keep her face still. 
“Who could have done this thing, I wonder?” 
“Arya of House Stark.” She watched his eyes, his mouth, the muscles of his jaw. 
“That girl? I thought she had left Braavos. Who are you?” 
“No one.” 
“You lie.” He turned to the waif. “My throat is dry. Do me a kindness and bring a cup of 


wine for me and warm milk for our friend Arya, who has returned to us so unexpectedly.” 
On her way across the city Arya had wondered what the kindly man would say when she 
told him about Dareon. Maybe he would be angry with her, or maybe he would be 


pleased that she had given the singer the gift of the Many-Faced God. She had played this 
talk out in her head half a hundred times, like a mummer in a show. But she had never 
thought warm milk. 

When the milk came, Arya drank it down. It smelled a little burnt and had a bitter 
aftertaste. “Go to bed now, child,” the kindly man said. “On the morrow you must serve.” 

That night she dreamed she was a wolf again, but it was different from the other dreams. 
In this dream she had no pack. She prowled alone, bounding over rooftops and padding 
silently beside the banks of a canal, stalking shadows through the fog. 

When she woke the next morning, she was blind. 


SAMWELL 

The Cinnamon Wind was a swan ship out of Tall Trees Town on the Summer Isles, where 
men were black, women were wanton, and even the gods were strange. She had no septon 
aboard her to lead them in the prayers of passing, so the task fell to Samwell Tarly, 
somewhere off the sun-scorched southern coast of Dorne. 

Sam donned his blacks to say the words, though the afternoon was warm and muggy, 
with nary a breath of wind. “He was a good man,” he began . . . but as soon as he had 
said the words he knew that they were wrong. “No. He was a great man. A maester of the 
Citadel, chained and sworn, and Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch, ever faithful. When 
he was born they named him for a hero who had died too young, but though he lived a 
long long time, his own life was no less heroic. No man was wiser, or gentler, or kinder. 
At the Wall, a dozen lords commander came and went during his years of service, but he 
was always there to counsel them. He counseled kings as well. He could have been a king 
himself, but when they offered him the crown he told them they should give it to his 
younger brother. How many men would do that?” Sam felt the tears welling in his eyes, 
and knew he could not go on much longer. “He was the blood of the dragon, but now his 
fire has gone out. He was Aemon Targaryen. And now his watch is ended.” 

“And now his watch is ended,” Gilly murmured after him, rocking the babe in her arms. 
Kojja Mo echoed her in the Common Tongue of Westeros, then repeated the words in the 
Summer Tongue for Xhondo and her father and the rest of the assembled crew. Sam hung 
his head and began to weep, his sobs so loud and wrenching that they made his whole 
body shake. Gilly came and stood beside him and let him cry upon her shoulder. There 
were tears in her eyes as well. 


The air was moist and warm and dead calm, and the Cinnamon Wind was adrift upon a 
deep blue sea far beyond the sight of land. “Black Sam said good words,” Xhondo said. 
“Now we drink his life.” He shouted something in the Summer Tongue, and a cask of 
spiced rum was rolled up onto the afterdeck and breached, so those on watch might down 
a cup in the memory of the old blind dragon. The crew had known him only a short 
while, but Summer Islanders revered the elderly and celebrated their dead. 

Sam had never drunk rum before. The liquor was strange and heady; sweet at first, but 
with a fiery aftertaste that burned his tongue. He was tired, so tired. Every muscle he had 
was aching, and there were other aches in places where Sam hadn’t known he had 
muscles. His knees were stiff, his hands covered with fresh new blisters and raw, sticky 
patches of skin where the old blisters had burst. Yet between them, rum and sadness 
seemed to wash his hurts away. “If only we could have gotten him to Oldtown, the 
archmaesters might have saved him,” he told Gilly, as they sipped their rum on the 
Cinnamon Wind’s high forecastle. “The healers of the Citadel are the best in the Seven 
Kingdoms. For a while I thought . . . I hoped . . .” 

On Braavos, it had seemed possible that Aemon might recover. Xhondo’s talk of dragons 
had almost seemed to restore the old man to himself. That night he ate every bite Sam put 
before him. “No one ever looked for a girl,” he said. “It was a prince that was promised, 
not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured 
Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He 
shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own 
son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the 
night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. 
What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the 
translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one 
and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand 
years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.” Just 
talking of her seemed to make him stronger. “I must go to her. I must. Would that I was 
even ten years younger.” 

The old man had been so determined that he had even walked up the plank onto the 
Cinnamon Wind on his own two legs, after Sam made arrangements for their passage. He 
had already given his sword and scabbard to Xhondo, to repay the big mate for the 
feathered cloak he’d ruined saving Sam from drowning. The only things of value that still 
remained to them were the books they had brought from the vaults of Castle Black. Sam 
parted with them glumly. “They were meant for the Citadel,” he said, when Xhondo 
asked him what was wrong. When the mate translated those words, the captain laughed. 
“Quhuru Mo says the grey men will be having these books still,” Xhondo told him, “only 
they will be buying them from Quhuru Mo. The maesters give good silver for books they 
are not having, and sometimes red and yellow gold.” 

The captain wanted Aemon’s chain as well, but there Sam had refused. It was a great 
shame for any maester to surrender his chain, he had explained. Xhondo had to go over 
that part three times before Quhuru Mo accepted it. By the time the dealing was done, 


Sam was down to his boots and blacks and smallclothes, and the broken horn Jon Snow 
had found on the Fist of First Men. I had no choice, he told himself. We could not stay on 
Braavos, and short of theft or beggary, there was no other way to pay for passage. He 
would have counted it cheap at thrice the price if only they had gotten Maester Aemon 
safe to Oldtown. 

Their passage south had been a stormy one, however, and every gale took its toll on the 
old man’s strength and spirits. At Pentos he asked to be brought up onto deck so Sam 
might paint a picture of the city for him with words, but that was the last time he left the 
captain’s bed. Soon after that, his wits began to wander once again. By the time the 
Cinnamon Wind swept past the Bleeding Tower into Tyrosh harbor, Aemon no longer 
spoke of trying to find a ship to take him east. Instead his talk turned back to Oldtown, 
and the archmaesters of the Citadel. 

“You must tell them, Sam,” he said. “The archmaesters. You must make them 
understand. The men who were at the Citadel when I was have been dead for fifty years. 
These others never knew me. My letters . . . in Oldtown, they must have read like the 
ravings of an old man whose wits had fled. You must convince them, where I could not. 
Tell them, Sam . . . tell them how it is upon the Wall . . . the wights and the white 
walkers, the creeping cold . . .” 

“I will,” Sam promised. “I will add my voice to yours, maester. We will both tell them, 
the two of us together.” 

“No,” the old man said. “It must be you. Tell them. The prophecy . . . my brother’s dream 
. . . Lady Melisandre has misread the signs. Stannis . . . Stannis has some of the dragon 
blood in him, yes. His brothers did as well. Rhaelle, Egg’s little girl, she was how they 
came by it . . . their father’s mother . . . she used to call me Uncle Maester when she was 
a little girl. I remembered that, so I allowed myself to hope . . . perhaps I wanted to . . . 
we all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The 
sword is wrong, she has to know that . . . light without heat . . . an empty glamor . . . the 
sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam. Daenerys 
is our hope. Tell them that, at the Citadel. Make them listen. They must send her a 
maester. Daenerys must be counseled, taught, protected. For all these years I’ve lingered, 
waiting, watching, and now that the day has dawned I am too old. I am dying, Sam.” 
Tears ran from his blind white eyes at that admission. “Death should hold no fear for a 
man as old as me, but it does. Isn’t that silly? It is always dark where I am, so why should 
I fear the darkness? Yet I cannot help but wonder what will follow, when the last warmth 
leaves my body. Will I feast forever in the Father’s golden hall as the septons say? Will I 
talk with Egg again, find Dareon whole and happy, hear my sisters singing to their 
children? What if the horselords have the truth of it? Will I ride through the night sky 
forever on a stallion made of flame? Or must I return again to this vale of sorrow? Who 
can say, truly? Who has been beyond the wall of death to see? Only the wights, and we 
know what they are like. We know.” 


There was little and less that Sam could say to that, but he had given the old man what 
little comfort he could. And Gilly came in afterward and sang a song for him, a nonsense 
song thing that she learned from some of Craster’s other wives. It made the old man 
smile and helped him go to sleep. 

That had been one of his last good days. After that the old man spent more time sleeping 
than awake, curled up beneath a pile of furs in the captain’s cabin. Sometimes he would 
mutter in his sleep. When he woke he’d call for Sam, insisting that he had to tell him 
something, but oft as not he would have forgotten what he meant to say by the time that 
Sam arrived. Even when he did recall, his talk was all a jumble. He spoke of dreams and 
never named the dreamer, of a glass candle that could not be lit and eggs that would not 
hatch. He said the sphinx was the riddle, not the riddler, whatever that meant. He asked 
Sam to read for him from a book by Septon Barth, whose writings had been burned 
during the reign of Baelor the Blessed. Once he woke up weeping. “The dragon must 
have three heads,” he wailed, “but I am too old and frail to be one of them. I should be 
with her, showing her the way, but my body has betrayed me.” 

As the Cinnamon Wind made her way through the Stepstones, Maester Aemon forgot 
Sam’s name oft as not. Some days he took him for one of his dead brothers. “He was too 
frail for such a long voyage,” Sam told Gilly on the forecastle, after another sip of the 
rum. “Jon should have seen that. Aemon was a hundred and two years old, he should 
never have been sent to sea. If he had stayed at Castle Black, he might have lived another 
ten years.” 

“Or else she might have burned him. The red woman.” Even here, a thousand leagues 
from the Wall, Gilly was reluctant to say Lady Melisandre’s name aloud. “She wanted 
king’s blood for her fires. Val knew she did. Lord Snow too. That was why they made me 
take Dalla’s babe away and leave my own behind in his place. Maester Aemon went to 
sleep and didn’t wake up, but if he had stayed, she would have burned him.” 

He will still burn, Sam thought miserably, only now I have to do it. The Targaryens 
always gave their fallen to the flames. Quhuru Mo would not allow a funeral pyre aboard 
the Cinnamon Wind, so Aemon’s corpse had been stuffed inside a cask of blackbelly rum 
to preserve it until the ship reached Oldtown. 

“The night before he died, he asked if he might hold the babe,” Gilly went on. “I was 
afraid he might drop him, but he never did. He rocked him and hummed a song for him, 
and Dalla’s boy reached up and touched his face. The way he pulled his lip I thought he 
might be hurting him, but it only made the old man laugh.” She stroked Sam’s hand. “We 
could name the little one Maester, if you like. When he’s old enough, not now. We 
could.” 

“Maester is not a name. You could call him Aemon, though.” 

Gilly thought about that. “Dalla brought him forth during battle, as the swords sang all 
around her. That should be his name. Aemon Battleborn. Aemon Steelsong.” 


A name even my lord father might like. A warrior’s name. The boy was Mance Rayder’s 
son and Craster’s grandson, after all. He had none of Sam’s craven blood. “Yes. Call him 
that.” 

“When he is two,” she promised, “not before.” 

“Where is the boy?” Sam thought to ask. Between rum and sorrow, it had taken him that 
long to realize that Gilly did not have the babe with her. 

“Kojja has him. I asked her to take him for a while.” 

“Oh.” Kojja Mo was the captain’s daughter, taller than Sam and slender as a spear, with 
skin as black and smooth as polished jet. She captained the ship’s red archers too, and 
pulled a double-curved goldenheart bow that could send a shaft four hundred yards. 
When the pirates had attacked them in the Stepstones, Kojja’s arrows had slain a dozen of 
them whilst Sam’s own shafts were falling in the water. The only thing Kojja Mo loved 
better than her bow was bouncing Dalla’s boy upon her knee and singing to him in the 
Summer Tongue. The wildling prince had become the darling of all the women in the 
crew, and Gilly seemed to trust them with him as she had never trusted any man. 

“That was kind of Kojja,” Sam said. 

“I was afraid of her at first,” said Gilly. “She was so black, and her teeth were so big and 
white, I was afraid she was a beastling or a monster, but she’s not. She’s good. I like 
her.” 

“I know you do.” For most of her life the only man Gilly had known had been the 
terrifying Craster. The rest of her world had been female. Men frighten her, but women 
don’t, Sam realized. He could understand that. Back at Horn Hill he had preferred the 
company of girls as well. His sisters had been kind to him, and though the other girls 
would sometimes taunt him, cruel words were easier to shrug off than the blows and 
buffets he got from the other castle boys. Even now, on the Cinnamon Wind, Sam felt 
more comfortable with Kojja Mo than with her father, though that might be because she 
spoke the Common Tongue and he did not. 

“I like you too, Sam,” whispered Gilly. “And I like this drink. It tastes like fire.” 

Yes, Sam thought, a drink for dragons. Their cups were empty, so he went over to the 
cask and filled them once again. The sun was low in the west, he saw, swollen to thrice 
its proper size. Its ruddy light made Gilly’s face seem flushed and red. They drank a cup 
to Kojja Mo, and one to Dalla’s boy, and one to Gilly’s babe back on the Wall. And after 
that nothing would do but to drink two cups for Aemon of House Targaryen. “May the 
Father judge him justly,” Sam said, sniffing. The sun was almost gone by the time they 
were done with Maester Aemon. Only a long thin line of red still glowed upon the 
western horizon, like a slash across the sky. Gilly said that the drink was making the ship 


spin round, so Sam helped her down the ladder to the women’s quarters in the bow of the 
ship. 

There was a lantern hanging just inside the cabin, and he managed to bang his head on it 
going in. “Ow,” he said, and Gilly said, “Are you hurt? Let me see.” She leaned close . . . 

. . . and kissed his mouth. 

Sam found himself kissing her back. I said the words, he thought, but her hands were 
tugging at his blacks, pulling at the laces of his breeches. He broke off the kiss long 
enough to say, “We can’t,” but Gilly said, “We can,” and covered his mouth with her 
own again. The Cinnamon Wind was spinning all around them and he could taste the rum 
on Gilly’s tongue and the next thing her breasts were bare and he was touching them. I 
said the words, Sam thought again, but one of her nipples found its way between his lips. 
It was pink and hard and when he sucked on it her milk filled his mouth, mingling with 
the taste of rum, and he had never tasted anything so fine and sweet and good. If I do this 
I am no better than Dareon, Sam thought, but it felt too good to stop. And suddenly his 
cock was out, jutting upward from his breeches like a fat pink mast. It looked so silly 
standing there that he might have laughed, but Gilly pushed him back onto her pallet, 
hiked her skirts up around her thighs, and lowered herself onto him with a little whimpery 
sound. That was even better than her nipples. She’s so wet, he thought, gasping. I never 
knew a woman could get so wet down there. “I am your wife now,” she whispered, 
sliding up and down on him. And Sam groaned and thought, No, no, you can’t be, I said 
the words, I said the words, but the only word he said was, “Yes.” 

Afterward she went to sleep with her arms around him and her face across his chest. Sam 
needed sleep as well, but he was drunk on rum and mother’s milk and Gilly. He knew he 
ought to crawl back to his own hammock in the men’s cabin, but she felt so good curled 
up against him that somehow he could not move. 

Others came in, men and women both, and he listened to them kissing and laughing and 
mating with one another. Summer Islanders. That’s how they mourn. They answer death 
with life. Sam had read that somewhere, a long time ago. He wondered if Gilly knew, if 
Kojja Mo had told her what to do. 

He breathed the fragrance of her hair and stared at the lantern swinging overhead. Even 
the Crone herself could not lead me safely out of this. The best thing he could do would 
be to slip away and jump into the sea. If I’m drowned, no one need ever know that I 
shamed myself and broke my vows, and Gilly can find herself a better man, one who is 
not some big fat coward. 

He awoke the next morning in his own hammock in the men’s cabin, with Xhondo 
bellowing about the wind. “Wind is up,” the mate kept shouting. “Wake and work, Black 
Sam. Wind is up.” What Xhondo lacked in vocabulary he made up for in volume. Sam 
rolled from his hammock to his feet, and regretted it at once. His head was fit to split, one 


of the blisters on his palm had torn open in the night, and he felt as if he were about to 
retch. 

Xhondo had no mercy, though, so all that Sam could do was struggle back into his 
blacks. He found them on the deck beneath his hammock, all bundled up in one damp 
heap. He sniffed at them to see how foul they were, and inhaled the smell of salt and sea 
and tar, wet canvas and mildew, fruit and fish and blackbelly rum, strange spices and 
exotic woods, and a heady bouquet of his own dried sweat. But Gilly’s smell was on 
them too, the clean smell of her hair and the sweet smell of her milk, and that made him 
glad to wear them. He would have given much and more for warm dry socks, though. 
Some sort of fungus had begun to grow between his toes. 

The chest of books had not been near enough to buy passage for four from Braavos to 
Oldtown. The Cinnamon Wind was shorthanded, however, so Quhuru Mo had agreed that 
he would take them, provided that they worked their way. When Sam had protested that 
Maester Aemon was too weak, the boy a babe in arms, and Gilly terrified of the sea, 
Xhondo only laughed, “Black Sam is big fat man. Black Sam will work for four.” 

If truth be told, Sam was so fumble-fingered that he doubted he was even doing the work 
of one good man, but he did try. He scrubbed decks and rubbed them smooth with stones, 
he hauled on anchor chains, he coiled rope and hunted rats, he sewed up torn sails, 
patched leaks with bubbling hot tar, boned fish and chopped fruit for the cook. Gilly tried 
as well. She was better in the rigging than Sam was, though from time to time the sight of 
so much empty water still made her close her eyes. 

Gilly, Sam thought, what am I going to do with Gilly? 

It was a long hot sticky day, made longer by his pounding head. Sam busied himself with 
ropes and sails and the other tasks that Xhondo set him, and tried not to let his eyes 
wander to the cask of rum that held old Maester Aemon’s body . . . or to Gilly. He could 
not face the wildling girl right now, not after what they’d done last night. When she came 
up on deck he went below. When she went forward he went aft. When she smiled at him 
he turned away, feeling wretched. I should have jumped into the sea whilst she was still 
asleep, he thought. I have always been a craven, but I was never an oathbreaker till now. 

If Maester Aemon had not died, Sam could have asked him what to do. If Jon Snow had 
been aboard, or even Pyp and Grenn, he might have turned to them. Instead he had 
Xhondo. Xhondo would not understand what I was saying. Or if he did, he’d just tell me 
to fuck the girl again. “Fuck” had been the first word of the Common Tongue that 
Xhondo had learned, and he was very fond of it. 

He was fortunate that the Cinnamon Wind was so big. Aboard the Blackbird Gilly could 
have run him down in hardly any time at all. “Swan ships,” the great vessels from the 
Summer Isles were called in the Seven Kingdoms, for their billowing white sails and for 
their figureheads, most of which depicted birds. Large as they were, they rode the waves 
with a grace that was all their own. With a good brisk wind behind them, the Cinnamon 


Wind could outrun any galley, though she was helpless when becalmed. And she offered 
plenty of places for a craven to hide. 

Near the end of Sam’s watch, he was finally cornered. He was climbing down a ladder 
when Xhondo seized him by the collar. “Black Sam come with Xhondo,” he said, 
dragging him across the deck and dumping him at the feet of Kojja Mo. 

Far off to the north, a haze was visible low on the horizon. Kojja pointed at it. “There is 
the coast of Dorne. Sand and rocks and scorpions, and no good anchorage for hundreds of 
leagues. You can swim there if you like, and walk to Oldtown. You will need to cross the 
deep desert and climb some mountains and swim the Torentine. Or else you could go to 
Gilly.” 

“You do not understand. Last night we . . .” 

“. . . honored your dead, and the gods who made you both. Xhondo did the same. I had 
the child, else I would have been with him. All you Westerosi make a shame of loving. 
There is no shame in loving. If your septons say there is, your seven gods must be 
demons. In the isles we know better. Our gods gave us legs to run with, noses to smell 
with, hands to touch and feel. What mad cruel god would give a man eyes and tell him he 
must forever keep them shut, and never look at all the beauty in the world? Only a 
monster god, a demon of the darkness.” Kojja put her hand between Sam’s legs. “The 
gods gave you this for a reason too, for . . . what is your Westerosi word?” 

“Fucking,” Xhondo offered helpfully. 

“Yes, for fucking. For the giving of pleasure and the making of children. There is no 
shame in that.” 

Sam backed away from her. “I took a vow. I will take no wife, and father no children. I 
said the words.” 

“She knows the words you said. She is a child in some ways, but she is not blind. She 
knows why you wear the black, why you go to Oldtown. She knows she cannot keep you. 
She wants you for a little while, is all. She lost her father and her husband, her mother 
and her sisters, her home, her world. All she has is you, and the babe. So you go to her, or 
swim.” 

Sam looked despairingly at the haze that marked the distant shoreline. He could never 
swim so far, he knew. 

He went to Gilly. “What we did . . . if I could take a wife, I would sooner have you than 
any princess or highborn maiden, but I can’t. I am still a crow. I said the words, Gilly. I 
went with Jon into the woods and said the words before a heart tree.” 


“The trees watch over us,” Gilly whispered, brushing the tears from his cheeks. “In the 
forest, they see all . . . but there are no trees here. Only water, Sam. Only water.” 


CERSEI 

The day had been cold and grey and wet. It had poured all morning, and even when the 
rain stopped that afternoon the clouds refused to part. They never saw the sun. Such 
wretched weather was enough to discourage even the little queen. Instead of riding with 
her hens and their retinue of guardsmen and admirers, she spent all day in the 
Maidenvault with her hens, listening to the Blue Bard sing. 

Cersei’s own day was little better, till evenfall. As the grey sky began to fade to black, 
they told her that the Sweet Cersei had come in on the evening tide, and that Aurane 
Waters was without, begging audience. 

The queen sent for him at once. As soon as he strode into her solar, she knew his tidings 
were good. “Your Grace,” he said with a broad smile, “Dragonstone is yours.” 

“How splendid.” She took his hands and kissed him on the cheeks. “I know Tommen will 
be pleased as well. This will mean that we can release Lord Redwyne’s fleet, and drive 
the ironmen from the Shields.” The news from the Reach seemed to grow more dire with 
every raven. The ironmen had not been content with their new rocks, it seemed. They 
were raiding up the Mander in strength, and had gone so far as to attack the Arbor and the 
smaller islands that surrounded it. The Redwynes had kept no more than a dozen 
warships in their home waters, and all those had been overwhelmed, taken, or sunk. And 
now there were reports that this madman who called himself Euron Crow’s Eye was even 
sending longships up Whispering Sound toward Oldtown. 

“Lord Paxter was taking on provisions for the voyage home when Sweet Cersei raised 
sail,” Lord Waters reported. “I would imagine that by now his main fleet has put to sea.” 

“Let us hope they enjoy a swift voyage, and better weather than today.” The queen drew 
Waters down into the window seat beside her. “Do we have Ser Loras to thank for this 
triumph?” 

His smile vanished. “Some will say so, Your Grace.” 

“Some?” She gave him a quizzical look. “Not you?” 


“I never saw a braver knight,” Waters said, “but he turned what could have been a 
bloodless victory into a slaughter. A thousand men are dead, or near enough to make no 
matter. Most of them our own. And not just common men, Your Grace, but knights and 
young lords, the best and the bravest.” 

“And Ser Loras himself?” 

“He will make a thousand and one. They carried him inside the castle after the battle, but 
his wounds are grievous. He has lost so much blood that the maesters will not even leech 
him.” 

“Oh, how sad. Tommen will be heartbroken. He did so admire our gallant Knight of 
Flowers.” 

“The smallfolk too,” her admiral said. “We’ll have maidens weeping into their wine all 
across the realm when Loras dies.” 

He was not wrong, the queen knew. Three thousand smallfolk had crowded through the 
Mud Gate to see Ser Loras off the day he sailed, and three of every four were women. 
The sight had only served to fill her with contempt. She had wanted to scream at them 
that they were sheep, to tell them that all that they could ever hope to get from Loras 
Tyrell was a smile and a flower. Instead she had proclaimed him the boldest knight in the 
Seven Kingdoms, and smiled as Tommen presented him with a jeweled sword to carry 
into battle. The king had given him a hug as well, which had not been part of Cersei’s 
plans, but it made no matter now. She could afford to be generous. Loras Tyrell was 
dying. 

“Tell me,” Cersei commanded. “I want to know all of it, from the beginning to the end.” 

The room had grown dark by the time that he was done. The queen lit some candles and 
sent Dorcas to the kitchens to bring them up some bread and cheese and a bit of boiled 
beef with horseradish. As they supped, she bid Aurane to tell the tale again, so she would 
remember all the details correctly. “I do not want our precious Margaery to hear these 
tidings from a stranger, after all,” she said. “I will tell her myself.” 

“Your Grace is kind,” said Waters with a smile. A wicked smile, the queen thought. 
Aurane did not resemble Prince Rhaegar as much as she had thought. He has the hair, but 
so do half the whores in Lys, if the tales are true. Rhaegar was a man. This is a sly boy, 
no more. Useful in his way, though. 

Margaery was in the Maidenvault, sipping wine and trying to puzzle out some new game 
from Volantis with her three cousins. Though the hour was late, the guards admitted 
Cersei at once. “Your Grace,” she began, “it is best you hear the news from me. Aurane 
is back from Dragonstone. Your brother is a hero.” 


“I always knew he was.” Margaery did not seem surprised. Why should she? She 
expected this, from the moment Loras begged for the command. Yet by the time Cersei 
had finished with her tale, tears glistened on the cheeks of the younger queen. “Redwyne 
had miners working to drive a tunnel underneath the castle walls, but that was too slow 
for the Knight of Flowers. No doubt he was thinking of your lord father’s people 
suffering on the Shields. Lord Waters says he ordered the assault not half a day after 
taking command, after Lord Stannis’s castellan refused his offer to settle the siege 
between them in single combat. Loras was the first one through the breach when the ram 
broke the castle gates. He rode straight into the dragon’s mouth, they say, all in white and 
swinging his morningstar about his head, slaying left and right.” 

Megga Tyrell was sobbing openly by then. “How did he die?” she asked. “Who killed 
him?” 

“No one man has that honor,” said Cersei. “Ser Loras took a quarrel through the thigh 
and another through the shoulder, but he fought on gallantly, though the blood was 
streaming from him. Later he suffered a mace blow that broke some ribs. After that . . . 
but no, I would spare you the worst of it.” 

“Tell me,” said Margaery. “I command it.” 

Command it? Cersei paused a moment, then decided she would let that pass. “The 
defenders fell back to an inner keep once the curtain wall was taken. Loras led the attack 
there as well. He was doused with boiling oil.” 

Lady Alla turned white as chalk, and ran from the room. 

“The maesters are doing all they can, Lord Waters assures me, but I fear your brother is 
too badly burned.” Cersei took Margaery in her arms to comfort her. “He saved the 
realm.” When she kissed the little queen upon the cheek, she could taste the salt of her 
tears. “Jaime will enter all his deeds in the White Book, and the singers will sing of him 
for a thousand years.” 

Margaery wrenched free of her embrace, so violently that Cersei almost fell. “Dying is 
not dead,” she said. 

“No, but the maesters say—” 

“Dying is not dead!” 

“I only want to spare you—” 

“I know what you want. Get out.” 

Now you know how I felt, the night my Joffrey died. She bowed, her face a mask of cool 
courtesy. “Sweet daughter. I am so sad for you. I will leave you with your grief.” 


Lady Merryweather did not appear that night, and Cersei found herself too restless to 
sleep. If Lord Tywin could see me now, he would know he had his heir, an heir worthy of 
the Rock, she thought as she lay abed with Jocelyn Swyft snoring softly into the other 
pillow. Margaery would soon be weeping the bitter tears she should have wept for 
Joffrey. Mace Tyrell might weep as well, but she had given him no cause to break with 
her. What had she done, after all, but honor Loras with her trust? He had requested the 
command on bended knee whilst half her court looked on. 

When he dies I must raise a statue of him somewhere, and give him a funeral such as 
King’s Landing has never seen. The smallfolk would like that. So would Tommen. Mace 
may even thank me, poor man. As for his lady mother, if the gods are good this news will 
kill her. 

The sunrise was the prettiest that Cersei had seen in years. Taena appeared soon 
thereafter, and confessed to having spent the night consoling Margaery and her ladies, 
drinking wine and crying and telling tales of Loras. “Margaery is still convinced he will 
not die,” she reported, as the queen was dressed for court. “She plans to send her own 
maester to look after him. The cousins are praying for the Mother’s mercy.” 

“I shall pray as well. On the morrow, come with me to Baelor’s Sept, and we will light a 
hundred candles for our gallant Knight of Flowers.” She turned to her handmaid. 
“Dorcas, bring my crown. The new one, if you please.” It was lighter than the old, pale 
spun gold set with emeralds that sparkled when she turned her head. 

“There are four come about the Imp this morning,” Ser Osmund said, when Jocelyn 
admitted him. 

“Four?” The queen was pleasantly surprised. A steady stream of informers had been 
making their way to the Red Keep, claiming knowledge of Tyrion, but four in one day 
was unusual. 

“Aye,” said Osmund. “One brought a head for you.” 

“I will see him first. Bring him to my solar.” This time, let there be no mistakes. Let me 
be avenged at long last, so Joff can rest in peace. The septons said that the number seven 
was sacred to the gods. If so, perhaps this seventh head would bring her the balm her soul 
desired. 

The man proved to be Tyroshi; short and stout and sweaty, with an unctuous smile that 
reminded her of Varys and a forked beard dyed green and pink. Cersei misliked him on 
sight, but was willing to overlook his flaws if he actually had Tyrion’s head inside the 
chest he carried. It was cedar, inlaid with ivory in a pattern of vines and flowers, with 
hinges and clasps of white gold. A lovely thing, but the queen’s only interest lay in what 
might be within. It is big enough, at least. Tyrion had a grotesquely large head, for one 
so small and stunted. 


“Your Grace,” the Tyroshi murmured, bowing low, “I see you are as lovely as the tales. 
Even beyond the narrow sea we have heard of your great beauty, and the grief that tears 
your gentle heart. No man can restore your brave young son to you, but it is my hope I 
can at least offer you some balm for your pain.” He laid his hand upon his chest. “I bring 
you justice. I bring you the head of your valonqar.” 

The old Valyrian word sent a chill through her, though it also gave her a tingle of hope. 
“The Imp is no longer my brother, if he ever was,” she declared. “Nor will I say his 
name. It was a proud name once, before he dishonored it.” 

“In Tyrosh we name him Redhands, for the blood running from his fingers. A king’s 
blood, and a father’s. Some say he slew his mother too, ripping his way from her womb 
with savage claws.” 

What nonsense, Cersei thought. “’Tis true,” she said. “If the Imp’s head is in that chest, I 
shall raise you to lordship and grant you rich lands and keeps.” Titles were cheaper than 
dirt, and the riverlands were full of ruined castles, standing desolate amidst untended 
fields and burned villages. “My court awaits. Open the box and let us see.” 

The Tyroshi threw open the box with a flourish, and stepped back smiling. Within, the 
head of a dwarf reposed upon a bed of soft blue velvet, staring up at her. 

Cersei took a long look. “That is not my brother.” There was a sour taste in her mouth. I 
suppose it was too much to hope for, especially after Loras. The gods are never that 
good. “This man has brown eyes. Tyrion had one black eye and one green.” 

“The eyes, just so . . . Your Grace, your brother’s own eyes had . . . somewhat decayed. I 
took the liberty of replacing them with glass . . . but of the wrong color, as you say.” 

That only annoyed her further. “Your head may have glass eyes, but I do not. There are 
gargoyles on Dragonstone that look more like the Imp than this creature. He’s bald, and 
twice my brother’s age. What happened to his teeth?” 

The man shrank before the fury in her voice. “He had a fine set of gold teeth, Your 
Grace, but we . . . I regret . . .” 

“Oh, not yet. But you will.” I ought to have him strangled. Let him gasp for breath until 
his face turns black, the way my sweet son did. The words were on her lips. 

“An honest mistake. One dwarf looks so much like another, and . . . Your Grace will 
observe, he has no nose . . .” 

“He has no nose because you cut it off.” 

“No!” The sweat on his brow gave the lie to his denial. 


“Yes.” A poisonous sweetness crept into Cersei’s tone. “At least you had that much 
sense. The last fool tried to tell me that a hedge wizard had regrown it. Still, it seems to 
me that you owe this dwarf a nose. House Lannister pays its debts, and so shall you. Ser 
Meryn, take this fraud to Qyburn.” 

Ser Meryn Trant took the Tyroshi by the arm and hauled him off, still protesting. When 
they were gone, Cersei turned to Osmund Kettleblack. “Ser Osmund, get this thing out of 
my sight, and bring in the other three who claim knowledge of the Imp.” 

“Aye, Your Grace.” 

Sad to say, the three would-be informers proved no more useful than the Tyroshi. One 
said that the Imp was hiding in an Oldtown brothel, pleasuring men with his mouth. It 
made for a droll picture, but Cersei did not believe it for an instant. The second claimed 
to have seen the dwarf in a mummer’s show in Braavos. The third insisted Tyrion had 
become a hermit in the riverlands, living on some haunted hill. The queen made the same 
response to each. “If you will be so good as to lead some of my brave knights to this 
dwarf, you shall be richly rewarded,” she promised. “Provided that it is the Imp. If not . . 
. well, my knights have little patience for deception, nor fools who send them chasing 
after shadows. A man could lose his tongue.” And quick as that, all three informers 
suddenly lost faith, and allowed that perhaps it might have been some other dwarf they 
saw. 

Cersei had never realized there were so many dwarfs. “Is the whole world overrun with 
these twisted little monsters?” she complained, whilst the last of the informers was being 
ushered out. “How many of them can there be?” 

“Fewer than there were,” said Lady Merryweather. “May I have the honor of 
accompanying Your Grace to court?” 

“If you can bear the tedium,” said Cersei. “Robert was a fool about most things, but he 
was right in one regard. It is wearisome work to rule a kingdom.” 

“It saddens me to see Your Grace so careworn. I say, run off and play and leave the 
King’s Hand to hear these tiresome petitions. We could dress as serving girls and spend 
the day amongst the smallfolk, to hear what they are saying of the fall of Dragonstone. I 
know the inn where the Blue Bard plays when he is not singing attendance on the little 
queen, and a certain cellar where a conjurer turns lead into gold, water into wine, and 
girls into boys. Perhaps he would work his spells on the two of us. Would it amuse Your 
Grace to be a man one night?” 

If I were a man I would be Jaime, the queen thought. If I were a man I could rule this 
realm in my own name in place of Tommen’s. “Only if you remained a woman,” she said, 
knowing that was what Taena wanted to hear. “You are a wicked thing to tempt me so, 
but what sort of queen would I be if I put my realm in the trembling hands of Harys 
Swyft?” 


Taena pouted. “Your Grace is too diligent.” 

“I am,” Cersei allowed, “and by day’s end I shall rue it.” She slipped her arm through 
Lady Merryweather’s. “Come.” 

Jalabhar Xho was the first to petition her that day, as befit his rank as a prince in exile. 
Splendid as he looked in his bright feathered cloak, he had only come to beg. Cersei let 
him make his usual plea for men and arms to help him regain Red Flower Vale, then said, 
“His Grace is fighting his own war, Prince Jalabhar. He has no men to spare for yours 
just now. Next year, perhaps.” That was what Robert always told him. Next year she 
would tell him never, but not today. Dragonstone was hers. 

Lord Hallyne of the Guild of Alchemists presented himself, to ask that his pyromancers 
be allowed to hatch any dragon’s eggs that might turn up upon Dragonstone, now that the 
isle was safely back in royal hands. “If any such eggs remained, Stannis would have sold 
them to pay for his rebellion,” the queen told him. She refrained from saying that the plan 
was mad. Ever since the last Targaryen dragon had died, all such attempts had ended in 
death, disaster, or disgrace. 

A group of merchants appeared before her to beg the throne to intercede for them with 
the Iron Bank of Braavos. The Braavosi were demanding repayment of their outstanding 
debts, it seemed, and refusing all new loans. We need our own bank, Cersei decided, the 
Golden Bank of Lannisport. Perhaps when Tommen’s throne was secure, she could make 
that happen. For the nonce, all she could do was tell the merchants to pay the Braavosi 
usurers their due. 

The delegation from the Faith was headed by her old friend Septon Raynard. Six of the 
Warrior’s Sons escorted him across the city; together they were seven, a holy and 
propitious number. The new High Septon—or High Sparrow, as Moon Boy had dubbed 
him—did everything by sevens. The knights wore swordbelts striped in the seven colors 
of the Faith. Crystals adorned the pommels of their longswords and the crests of their 
greathelms. They carried kite shields of a style not common since the Conquest, 
displaying a device not seen in the Seven Kingdoms for centuries: a rainbow sword 
shining bright upon a field of darkness. Close to a hundred knights had already come 
forth to pledge their lives and swords to the Warrior’s Sons, Qyburn claimed, and more 
turned up every day. Drunk on the gods, the lot of them. Who would have thought the 
realm contained so many of them? 

Most had been household knights and hedge knights, but a handful were of high birth; 
younger sons, petty lords, old men wanting to atone for the old sins. And then there was 
Lancel. She had thought Qyburn must be japing when he had told her that her mooncalf 
cousin had forsaken castle, lands, and wife and wandered back to the city to join the 
Noble and Puissant Order of the Warrior’s Sons, yet there he stood with the other pious 
fools. 


Cersei liked that not at all. Nor was she pleased by the High Sparrow’s endless truculence 
and ingratitude. “Where is the High Septon?” she demanded of Raynard. “It was him I 
summoned.” 

Septon Raynard assumed a regretful tone. “His High Holiness sent me in his stead, and 
bade me tell Your Grace that the Seven have sent him forth to battle wickedness.” 

“How? By preaching chastity along the Street of Silk? Does he think praying over whores 
will turn them back to virgins?” 

“Our bodies were shaped by our Father and Mother so we might join male to female and 
beget trueborn children,” Raynard replied. “It is base and sinful for women to sell their 
holy parts for coin.” 

The pious sentiment would have been more convincing if the queen had not known that 
Septon Raynard had special friends in every brothel on the Street of Silk. No doubt he 
had decided that echoing the High Sparrow’s twitterings was preferable to scrubbing 
floors. “Do not presume to preach at me,” she told him. “The brothel keepers have been 
complaining, and rightly so.” 

“If sinners speak, why should the righteous listen?” 

“These sinners feed the royal coffers,” the queen said bluntly, “and their pennies help pay 
the wages of my gold cloaks and build galleys to defend our shores. There is trade to be 
considered as well. If King’s Landing had no brothels, the ships would go to Duskendale 
or Gulltown. His High Holiness promised me peace in my streets. Whoring helps to keep 
that peace. Common men deprived of whores are apt to turn to rape. Henceforth let His 
High Holiness do his praying in the sept where it belongs.” 

The queen had expected to hear from Lord Gyles as well, but instead Grand Maester 
Pycelle appeared, grey-faced and apologetic, to tell her that Rosby was too weak to leave 
his bed. “Sad to say, I fear Lord Gyles must join his noble forebears soon. May the Father 
judge him justly.” 

If Rosby dies, Mace Tyrell and the little queen will try and force Garth the Gross on me 
again. “Lord Gyles has had that cough for years, and it never killed him before,” she 
complained. “He coughed through half of Robert’s reign and all of Joffrey’s. If he is 
dying now, it can only be because someone wants him dead.” 

Grand Maester Pycelle blinked in disbelief. “Your Grace? Wh-who would want Lord 
Gyles dead?” 

“His heir, perhaps.” Or the little queen. “Some woman he once scorned.” Margaery and 
Mace and the Queen of Thorns, why not? Gyles is in their way. “An old enemy. A new 
one. You.” 


The old man blanched. “Y-your Grace japes. I . . . I have purged his lordship, bled him, 
treated him with poultices and infusions . . . the mists give him some relief and 
sweetsleep helps with the violence of his coughing, but he is bringing up bits of lung with 
the blood now, I fear.” 

“Be that as it may. You will return to Lord Gyles and inform him that he does not have 
my leave to die.” 

“If it please Your Grace.” Pycelle bowed stiffly. 

There was more, and more, and more, each petitioner more boring than the last. And that 
evening, when the last of them had finally gone and she was eating a simple supper with 
her son, she told him, “Tommen, when you say your prayers before bed, tell the Mother 
and the Father that you are thankful you are still a child. Being king is hard work. I 
promise you, you will not like it. They peck at you like a murder of crows. Every one 
wants a piece of your flesh.” 

“Yes, Mother,” said Tommen, in a sad tone. The little queen had told him of Ser Loras, 
she understood. Ser Osmund said the boy had wept. He is young. By the time he is Joff’s 
age he will not recall what Loras looked like. “I wouldn’t mind them pecking, though,” 
her son went on to say. “I should go to court with you every day, to listen. Margaery 
says—” 

“—a deal too much,” Cersei snapped. “For half a groat I’d gladly have her tongue torn 
out.” 

“Don’t you say that,” Tommen shouted suddenly, his round little face turning red. “You 
leave her tongue alone. Don’t you touch her. I’m the king, not you.” 

She stared at him, incredulous. “What did you say?” 

“I’m the king. I get to say who has their tongues torn out, not you. I won’t let you hurt 
Margaery. I won’t. I forbid it.” 

Cersei took him by the ear and dragged him squealing to the door, where she found Ser 
Boros Blount standing guard. “Ser Boros, His Grace has forgotten himself. Kindly escort 
him to his bedchamber and bring up Pate. This time I want Tommen to whip the boy 
himself. He is to continue until the boy is bleeding from both cheeks. If His Grace 
refuses, or says one word of protest, summon Qyburn and tell him to remove Pate’s 
tongue, so His Grace can learn the cost of insolence.” 

“As you command,” Ser Boros huffed, glancing at the king uneasily. “Your Grace, please 
come with me.” 

As night fell over the Red Keep, Jocelyn kindled a fire in the queen’s hearth whilst 
Dorcas lit the bedside candles. Cersei opened the window for a breath of air, and found 


that the clouds had rolled back in to hide the stars. “Such a dark night, Your Grace,” 
murmured Dorcas. 

Aye, she thought, but not so dark as in the Maidenvault, or on Dragonstone where Loras 
Tyrell lies burned and bleeding, or down in the black cells beneath the castle. The queen 
did not know why that occurred to her. She had resolved not to give Falyse another 
thought. Single combat. Falyse should have known better than to marry such a fool. The 
word from Stokeworth was that Lady Tanda had died of a chill in the chest, brought on 
by her broken hip. Lollys Lackwit had been proclaimed Lady Stokeworth, with Ser 
Bronn her lord. Tanda dead and Gyles dying. It is well that we have Moon Boy, or the 
court would be entirely bereft of fools. The queen smiled as she lay her head upon the 
pillow. When I kissed her cheek, I could taste the salt of her tears. 

She dreamt an old dream, of three girls in brown cloaks, a wattled crone, and a tent that 
smelled of death. 

The crone’s tent was dark, with a tall peaked roof. She did not want to go in, no more 
than she had wanted to at ten, but the other girls were watching her, so she could not turn 
away. They were three in the dream, as they had been in life. Fat Jeyne Farman hung 
back as she always did. It was a wonder she had come this far. Melara Hetherspoon was 
bolder, older, and prettier, in a freckly sort of way. Wrapped in roughspun cloaks with 
their hoods pulled up, the three of them had stolen from their beds and crossed the 
tourney grounds to seek the sorceress. Melara had heard the serving girls whispering how 
she could curse a man or make him fall in love, summon demons and foretell the future. 

In life the girls had been breathless and giddy, whispering to each other as they went, as 
excited as they were afraid. The dream was different. In the dream the pavilions were 
shadowed, and the knights and serving men they passed were made of mist. The girls 
wandered for a long while before they found the crone’s tent. By the time they did all the 
torches were guttering out. Cersei watched the girls huddling, whispering to one another. 
Go back, she tried to tell them. Turn away. There is nothing here for you. But though she 
moved her mouth, no words came out. 

Lord Tywin’s daughter was the first through the flap, with Melara close behind her. Jeyne 
Farman came last, and tried to hide behind the other two, the way she always did. 

The inside of the tent was full of smells. Cinnamon and nutmeg. Pepper, red and white 
and black. Almond milk and onions. Cloves and lemongrass and precious saffron, and 
stranger spices, rarer still. The only light came from an iron brazier shaped like a 
basilisk’s head, a dim green light that made the walls of the tent look cold and dead and 
rotten. Had it been that way in life as well? Cersei could not seem to remember. 

The sorceress was sleeping in the dream, as once she’d slept in life. Leave her be, the 
queen wanted to cry out. You little fools, never wake a sleeping sorceress. Without a 
tongue, she could only watch as the girl threw off her cloak, kicked the witch’s bed, and 
said, “Wake up, we want our futures told.” 


When Maggy the Frog opened her eyes, Jeyne Farman gave a frightened squeak and fled 
the tent, plunging headlong back into the night. Plump stupid timid little Jeyne, pasty-
faced and fat and scared of every shadow. She was the wise one, though. Jeyne lived on 
Fair Isle still. She had married one of her lord brother’s bannermen and whelped a dozen 
children. 

The old woman’s eyes were yellow, and crusted all about with something vile. In 
Lannisport it was said that she had been young and beautiful when her husband had 
brought her back from the east with a load of spices, but age and evil had left their marks 
on her. She was short, squat, and warty, with pebbly greenish jowls. Her teeth were gone 
and her dugs hung down to her knees. You could smell sickness on her if you stood too 
close, and when she spoke her breath was strange and strong and foul. “Begone,” she told 
the girls, in a croaking whisper. 

“We came for a foretelling,” young Cersei told her. 

“Begone,” croaked the old woman, a second time. 

“We heard that you can see into the morrow,” said Melara. “We just want to know what 
men we’re going to marry.” 

“Begone,” croaked Maggy, a third time. 

Listen to her, the queen would have cried if she had her tongue. You still have time to 
flee. Run, you little fools! 

The girl with the golden curls put her hands upon her hips. “Give us our foretelling, or 
I’ll go to my lord father and have you whipped for insolence.” 

“Please,” begged Melara. “Just tell us our futures, then we’ll go.” 

“Some are here who have no futures,” Maggy muttered in her terrible deep voice. She 
pulled her robe about her shoulders and beckoned the girls closer. “Come, if you will not 
go. Fools. Come, yes. I must taste your blood.” 

Melara paled, but not Cersei. A lioness does not fear a frog, no matter how old and ugly 
she might be. She should have gone, she should have listened, she should have run away. 
Instead she took the dagger Maggy offered her, and ran the twisted iron blade across the 
ball of her thumb. Then she did Melara too. 

In the dim green tent, the blood seemed more black than red. Maggy’s toothless mouth 
trembled at the sight of it. “Here,” she whispered, “give it here.” When Cersei offered her 
hand, she sucked away the blood with gums as soft as a newborn babe’s. The queen could 
still remember how queer and cold her mouth had been. 


“Three questions may you ask,” the crone said, once she’d had her drink. “You will not 
like my answers. Ask, or begone with you.” 

Go, the dreaming queen thought, hold your tongue, and flee. But the girl did not have 
sense enough to be afraid. 

“When will I wed the prince?” she asked. 

“Never. You will wed the king.” 

Beneath her golden curls, the girl’s face wrinkled up in puzzlement. For years after, she 
took those words to mean that she would not marry Rhaegar until after his father Aerys 
had died. “I will be queen, though?” asked the younger her. 

“Aye.” Malice gleamed in Maggy’s yellow eyes. “Queen you shall be . . . until there 
comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold 
dear.” 

Anger flashed across the child’s face. “If she tries I will have my brother kill her.” Even 
then she would not stop, willful child as she was. She still had one more question due her, 
one more glimpse into her life to come. “Will the king and I have children?” she asked. 

“Oh, aye. Six-and-ten for him, and three for you.” 

That made no sense to Cersei. Her thumb was throbbing where she’d cut it, and her blood 
was dripping on the carpet. How could that be? she wanted to ask, but she was done with 
her questions. 

The old woman was not done with her, however. “Gold shall be their crowns and gold 
their shrouds,” she said. “And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall 
wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.” 

“What is a valonqar? Some monster?” The golden girl did not like that foretelling. 
“You’re a liar and a warty frog and a smelly old savage, and I don’t believe a word of 
what you say. Come away, Melara. She is not worth hearing.” 

“I get three questions too,” her friend insisted. And when Cersei tugged upon her arm, 
she wriggled free and turned back to the crone. “Will I marry Jaime?” she blurted out. 

You stupid girl, the queen thought, angry even now. Jaime does not even know you are 
alive. Back then her brother lived only for swords and dogs and horses . . . and for her, 
his twin. 

“Not Jaime, nor any other man,” said Maggy. “Worms will have your maidenhead. Your 
death is here tonight, little one. Can you smell her breath? She is very close.” 


“The only breath we smell is yours,” said Cersei. There was a jar of some thick potion by 
her elbow, sitting on a table. She snatched it up and threw it into the old woman’s eyes. 
In life the crone had screamed at them in some queer foreign tongue, and cursed them as 
they fled her tent. But in the dream her face dissolved, melting away into ribbons of grey 
mist until all that remained were two squinting yellow eyes, the eyes of death. 

The valonqar shall wrap his hands about your throat, the queen heard, but the voice did 
not belong to the old woman. The hands emerged from the mists of her dream and coiled 
around her neck; thick hands, and strong. Above them floated his face, leering down at 
her with his mismatched eyes. No, the queen tried to cry out, but the dwarf’s fingers dug 
deep into her neck, choking off her protests. She kicked and screamed to no avail. Before 
long she was making the same sound her son had made, the terrible thin sucking sound 
that marked Joff’s last breath on earth. 

She woke gasping in the dark with her blanket wound about her neck. Cersei wrenched it 
off so violently that it tore, and sat up with her breasts heaving. A dream, she told herself, 
an old dream and a tangled coverlet, that’s all it was. 

Taena was spending the night with the little queen again, so it was Dorcas asleep beside 
her. The queen shook the girl roughly by the shoulder. “Wake up, and find Pycelle. He’ll 
be with Lord Gyles, I expect. Fetch him here at once.” Still half asleep, Dorcas stumbled 
from the bed and went scampering across the chamber for her clothing, her bare feet 
rustling on the rushes. 

Ages later, Grand Maester Pycelle entered shuffling, and stood before her with bowed 
head, blinking his heavy-lidded eyes and struggling not to yawn. He looked as if the 
weight of the huge maester’s chain about his wattled neck was dragging him down to the 
floor. Pycelle had been old as far back as Cersei could remember, but there was a time 
when he had also been magnificent: richly clad, dignified, exquisitely courteous. His 
immense white beard had given him an air of wisdom. Tyrion had shaved his beard off, 
though, and what had grown back was pitiful, a few patchy tufts of thin, brittle hair that 
did little to hide the loose pink flesh beneath his sagging chin. This is no man, she 
thought, only the ruins of one. The black cells robbed him of whatever strength he had. 
That, and the Imp’s razor. 

“How old are you?” Cersei asked, abruptly. 

“Four-and-eighty, if it please Your Grace.” 

“A younger man would please me more.” 

His tongue flicked across his lips. “I was but two-and-forty when the Conclave called me. 
Kaeth was eighty when they chose him, and Ellendor was nigh on ninety. The cares of 
office crushed them, and both were dead within a year of being raised. Merion came next, 
only six-and-sixty, but he died of a chill on his way to King’s Landing. Afterward King 
Aegon asked the Citadel to send a younger man. He was the first king I served.” 


And Tommen shall be the last. “I need a potion from you. Something to help me sleep.” 

“A cup of wine before bed will oft—” 

“I drink wine, you witless cretin. I require something stronger. Something that will not let 
me dream.” 

“You . . . Your Grace does not wish to dream?” 

“What did I just say? Have your ears grown as feeble as your cock? Can you make me 
such a potion, or must I command Lord Qyburn to rectify another of your failures?” 

“No. There is no need to involve that . . . to involve Qyburn. Dreamless sleep. You shall 
have your potion.” 

“Good. You may go.” As he turned toward the door, though, she called him back. “One 
more thing. What does the Citadel teach concerning prophecy? Can our morrows be 
foretold?” 

The old man hesitated. One wrinkled hand groped blindly at his chest, as if to stroke the 
beard that was not there. “Can our morrows be foretold?” he repeated slowly. “Mayhaps. 
There are certain spells in the old books . . . but Your Grace might ask instead, ‘Should 
our morrows be foretold?’ And to that I should answer, ‘No.’ Some doors are best left 
closed.” 

“See that you close mine as you leave.” She should have known that he would give her an 
answer as useless as he was. 

The next morning she broke her fast with Tommen. The boy seemed much subdued; 
ministering to Pate had served its purpose, it would seem. They ate fried eggs, fried 
bread, bacon, and some blood oranges newly come by ship from Dorne. Her son was 
attended by his kittens. As she watched the cats frolic about his feet, Cersei felt a little 
better. No harm will ever come to Tommen whilst I still live. She would kill half the lords 
in Westeros and all the common people, if that was what it took to keep him safe. “Go 
with Jocelyn,” she told the boy after they had eaten. 

Then she sent for Qyburn. “Is Lady Falyse still alive?” 

“Alive, yes. Perhaps not entirely . . . comfortable.” 

“I see.” Cersei considered a moment. “This man Bronn . . . I cannot say I like the notion 
of an enemy so close. His power all derives from Lollys. If we were to produce her elder 
sister . . .” 

“Alas,” said Qyburn. “I fear that Lady Falyse is no longer capable of ruling Stokeworth. 
Or, indeed, of feeding herself. I have learned a great deal from her, I am pleased to say, 


but the lessons have not been entirely without cost. I hope I have not exceeded Your 
Grace’s instructions.” 

“No.” Whatever she had intended, it was too late. There was no sense dwelling on such 
things. It is better if she dies, she told herself. She would not want to go on living without 
her husband. Oaf that he was, the fool seemed fond of him. “There is another matter. Last 
night I had a dreadful dream.” 

“All men are so afflicted, from time to time.” 

“This dream concerned a witch woman I visited as a child.” 

“A woods witch? Most are harmless creatures. They know a little herb-craft and some 
midwifery, but elsewise . . .” 

“She was more than that. Half of Lannisport used to go to her for charms and potions. 
She was mother to a petty lord, a wealthy merchant upjumped by my grandsire. This 
lord’s father had found her whilst trading in the east. Some say she cast a spell on him, 
though more like the only charm she needed was the one between her thighs. She was not 
always hideous, or so they said. I don’t recall the woman’s name. Something long and 
eastern and outlandish. The smallfolk used to call her Maggy.” 

“Maegi?” 

“Is that how you say it? The woman would suck a drop of blood from your finger, and 
tell you what your morrows held.” 

“Bloodmagic is the darkest kind of sorcery. Some say it is the most powerful as well.” 

Cersei did not want to hear that. “This maegi made certain prophecies. I laughed at them 
at first, but . . . she foretold the death of one of my bedmaids. At the time she made the 
prophecy, the girl was one-and-ten, healthy as a little horse and safe within the Rock. Yet 
she soon fell down a well and drowned.” Melara had begged her never to speak of the 
things they heard that night in the maegi’s tent. If we never talk about it we’ll soon forget, 
and then it will be just a bad dream we had, Melara had said. Bad dreams never come 
true. The both of them had been so young, that had sounded almost wise. 

“Do you still grieve for this friend of your childhood?” Qyburn asked. “Is that what 
troubles you, Your Grace?” 

“Melara? No. I can hardly recall what she looked like. It is just . . . the maegi knew how 
many children I would have, and she knew of Robert’s bastards. Years before he’d sired 
even the first of them, she knew. She promised me I should be queen, but said another 
queen would come . . .” Younger and more beautiful, she said. “. . . another queen, who 
would take from me all I loved.” 


“And you wish to forestall this prophecy?” 

More than anything, she thought. “Can it be forestalled?” 

“Oh, yes. Never doubt that.” 

“How?” 

“I think Your Grace knows how.” 

She did. I knew it all along, she thought. Even in the tent. “If she tries I will have my 
brother kill her.” 

Knowing what needed to be done was one thing, though; knowing how to do it was 
another. Jaime could no longer be relied on. A sudden sickness would be best, but the 
gods were seldom so obliging. How then? A knife, a pillow, a cup of heart’s bane? All of 
those posed problems. When an old man died in his sleep no one thought twice of it, but a 
girl of six-and-ten found dead in bed was certain to raise awkward questions. Besides, 
Margaery never slept alone. Even with Ser Loras dying, there were swords about her 
night and day. 

Swords have two edges, though. The very men who guard her could be used to bring her 
down. The evidence would need to be so overwhelming that even Margaery’s own lord 
father would have no choice but to consent to her execution. That would not be easy. Her 
lovers are not like to confess, knowing it would mean their heads as well as hers. Unless . 
. . 

The next day the queen came on Osmund Kettleblack in the yard, as he was sparring with 
one of the Redwyne twins. Which one she could not say; she had never been able to tell 
the two of them apart. She watched the swordplay for a while, then called Ser Osmund 
aside. “Walk with me a bit,” she said, “and tell me true. I want no empty boasting now, 
no talk of how a Kettleblack is thrice as good as any other knight. Much may ride upon 
your answer. Your brother Osney. How good a sword is he?” 

“Good. You’ve seen him. He’s not as strong as me nor Osfryd, but he’s quick to the kill.” 

“If it came to it, could he defeat Ser Boros Blount?” 

“Boros the Belly?” Ser Osmund chortled. “He’s what, forty? Fifty? Half-drunk half the 
time, fat even when he’s sober. If he ever had a taste for battle, he’s lost it. Aye, Your 
Grace, if Ser Boros wants for killing, Osney could do it easy enough. Why? Has Boros 
done some treason?” 

“No,” she said. But Osney has. 


BRIENNE 

They came upon the first corpse a mile from the crossroads. 

He swung beneath the limb of a dead tree whose blackened trunk still bore the scars of 
the lightning that had killed it. The carrion crows had been at work on his face, and 
wolves had feasted on his lower legs where they dangled near the ground. Only bones 
and rags remained below his knees . . . along with one well-chewed shoe, half-covered by 
mud and mold. 

“What does he have in his mouth?” asked Podrick. 

Brienne had to steel herself to look. His face was grey and green and ghastly, his mouth 
open and distended. Someone had shoved a jagged white rock between his teeth. A rock, 
or . . . 

“Salt,” said Septon Meribald. 

Fifty yards farther on they spied the second body. The scavengers had torn him down, so 
what remained of him was strewn on the ground beneath a frayed rope looped about the 
limb of an elm. Brienne might have ridden past him, unawares, if Dog had not sniffed 
him out and loped into the weeds for a closer smell. 

“What do you have there, Dog?” Ser Hyle dismounted, strode after the dog, and came up 
with a halfhelm. The dead man’s skull was still inside it, along with some worms and 
beetles. “Good steel,” he pronounced, “and not too badly dinted, though the lion’s lost his 
head. Pod, would you like a helm?” 

“Not that one. It’s got worms in it.” 

“Worms wash out, lad. You’re squeamish as a girl.” 

Brienne scowled at him. “It is too big for him.” 

“He’ll grow into it.” 

“I don’t want to,” said Podrick. Ser Hyle shrugged, and tossed the broken helm back into 
the weeds, lion crest and all. Dog barked and went to lift his leg against the tree. 


After that, hardly a hundred yards went by without a corpse. They dangled under ash and 
alder, beech and birch, larch and elm, hoary old willows and stately chestnut trees. Each 
man wore a noose around his neck, and swung from a length of hempen rope, and each 
man’s mouth was packed with salt. Some wore cloaks of grey or blue or crimson, though 
rain and sun had faded them so badly that it was hard to tell one color from another. 
Others had badges sewn on their breasts. Brienne spied axes, arrows, several salmon, a 
pine tree, an oak leaf, beetles, bantams, a boar’s head, half a dozen tridents. Broken men, 
she realized, dregs from a dozen armies, the leavings of the lords. 

Some of the dead men had been bald and some bearded, some young and some old, some 
short, some tall, some fat, some thin. Swollen in death, with faces gnawed and rotten, 
they all looked the same. On the gallows tree, all men are brothers. Brienne had read that 
in a book, though she could not recall which one. 

It was Hyle Hunt who finally put words to what all of them had realized. “These are the 
men who raided Saltpans.” 

“May the Father judge them harshly,” said Meribald, who had been a friend to the town’s 
aged septon. 

Who they were did not concern Brienne half so much as who had hanged them. The 
noose was the preferred method of execution for Beric Dondarrion and his band of 
outlaws, it was said. If so, the so-called lightning lord might well be near. 

Dog barked, and Septon Meribald glanced about and frowned. “Shall we keep a brisker 
pace? The sun will soon be setting, and corpses make poor company by night. These 
were dark and dangerous men, alive. I doubt that death will have improved them.” 

“There we disagree,” said Ser Hyle. “These are just the sort of fellows who are most 
improved by death.” All the same, he put his heels into his horse, and they moved a little 
faster. 

Farther on the trees began to thin, though not the corpses. The woods gave way to muddy 
fields, tree limbs to gibbets. Clouds of crows rose screeching from the bodies as the 
travelers came near, and settled again once they had passed. These were evil men, 
Brienne reminded herself, yet the sight still made her sad. She forced herself to look at 
every man in turn, searching for familiar faces. A few she thought she recognized from 
Harrenhal, but their condition made it hard to be certain. None had a hound’s head helm, 
but few had helms of any sort. Most had been stripped of arms, armor, and boots before 
they were strung up. 

When Podrick asked the name of the inn where they hoped to spend the night, Septon 
Meribald seized upon the question eagerly, perhaps to take their minds off the grisly 
sentinels along the roadside. “The Old Inn, some call it. There has been an inn there for 
many hundreds of years, though this inn was only raised during the reign of the first 
Jaehaerys, the king who built the kingsroad. Jaehaerys and his queen slept there during 


their journeys, it is said. For a time the inn was known as the Two Crowns in their honor, 
until one innkeep built a bell tower, and changed it to the Bellringer Inn. Later it passed 
to a crippled knight named Long Jon Heddle, who took up ironworking when he grew too 
old to fight. He forged a new sign for the yard, a three-headed dragon of black iron that 
he hung from a wooden post. The beast was so big it had to be made in a dozen pieces, 
joined with rope and wire. When the wind blew it would clank and clatter, so the inn 
became known far and wide as the Clanking Dragon.” 

“Is the dragon sign still there?” asked Podrick. 

“No,” said Septon Meribald. “When the smith’s son was an old man, a bastard son of the 
fourth Aegon rose up in rebellion against his trueborn brother and took for his sigil a 
black dragon. These lands belonged to Lord Darry then, and his lordship was fiercely 
loyal to the king. The sight of the black iron dragon made him wroth, so he cut down the 
post, hacked the sign into pieces, and cast them into the river. One of the dragon’s heads 
washed up on the Quiet Isle many years later, though by that time it was red with rust. 
The innkeep never hung another sign, so men forgot the dragon and took to calling the 
place the River Inn. In those days, the Trident flowed beneath its back door, and half its 
rooms were built out over the water. Guests could throw a line out their window and 
catch trout, it’s said. There was a ferry landing here as well, so travelers could cross to 
Lord Harroway’s Town and Whitewalls.” 

“We left the Trident south of here, and have been riding north and west . . . not toward 
the river but away from it.” 

“Aye, my lady,” the septon said. “The river moved. Seventy years ago, it was. Or was it 
eighty? It was when old Masha Heddle’s grandfather kept the place. It was her who told 
me all this history. A kindly woman, Masha, fond of sourleaf and honey cakes. When she 
did not have a room for me, she would let me sleep beside the hearth, and she never sent 
me on my way without some bread and cheese and a few stale cakes.” 

“Is she the innkeep now?” asked Podrick. 

“No. The lions hanged her. After they moved on, I heard that one of her nephews tried 
opening the inn again, but the wars had made the roads too dangerous for common folk to 
travel, so there was little custom. He brought in whores, but even that could not save him. 
Some lord killed him as well, I hear.” 

Ser Hyle made a wry face. “I never dreamed that keeping an inn could be so deadly 
dangerous.” 

“It is being common-born that is dangerous, when the great lords play their game of 
thrones,” said Septon Meribald. “Isn’t that so, Dog?” Dog barked agreement. 

“So,” said Podrick, “does the inn have a name now?” 


“The smallfolk call it the crossroads inn. Elder Brother told me that two of Masha 
Heddle’s nieces have opened it to trade once again.” He raised his staff. “If the gods are 
good, that smoke rising beyond the hanged men will be from its chimneys.” 

“They could call the place the Gallows Inn,” Ser Hyle said. 

By any name the inn was large, rising three stories above the muddy roads, its walls and 
turrets and chimneys made of fine white stone that glimmered pale and ghostly against 
the grey sky. Its south wing had been built upon heavy wooden pilings above a cracked 
and sunken expanse of weeds and dead brown grass. A thatch-roofed stable and a bell 
tower were attached to the north side. The whole sprawl was surrounded by a low wall of 
broken white stones overgrown by moss. 

At least no one has burned it down. At Saltpans, they had found only death and 
desolation. By the time Brienne and her companions were ferried over from the Quiet 
Isle, the survivors had fled and the dead had been given to the ground, but the corpse of 
the town itself remained, ashen and unburied. The air still smelled of smoke, and the cries 
of the seagulls floating overhead sounded almost human, like the lamentations of lost 
children. Even the castle had seemed forlorn and abandoned. Grey as the ashes of the 
town around it, the castle consisted of a square keep girded by a curtain wall, built so as 
to overlook the harbor. It was closed tight as Brienne and the others led their horses off 
the ferry, nothing moving on its battlements but banners. It took a quarter hour of Dog 
barking and Septon Meribald knocking on the front gate with his quarterstaff before a 
woman appeared above them to demand their business. 

By that time the ferry had departed and it had begun to rain. “I am a holy septon, good 
lady,” Meribald had shouted up, “and these are honest travelers. We seek shelter from the 
rain, and a place by your fire for the night.” The woman had been unmoved by his 
appeals. “The closest inn is at the crossroads, to the west,” she replied. “We want no 
strangers here. Begone.” Once she vanished, neither Meribald’s prayers, Dog’s barks, nor 
Ser Hyle’s curses could bring her back. In the end they had spent the night in the woods, 
beneath a shelter made of woven branches. 

There was life at the crossroads inn, though. Even before they reached the gate, Brienne 
heard the sound: a hammering, faint but steady. It had a steely ring. 

“A forge,” Ser Hyle said. “Either they have themselves a smith, or the old innkeep’s 
ghost is making another iron dragon.” He put his heels into his horse. “I hope they have a 
ghostly cook as well. A crisp roast chicken would set the world aright.” 

The inn’s yard was a sea of brown mud that sucked at the hooves of the horses. The clang 
of steel was louder here, and Brienne saw the red glow of the forge down past the far end 
of the stables, behind an oxcart with a broken wheel. She could see horses in the stables 
too, and a small boy was swinging from the rusted chains of the weathered gibbet that 
loomed above the yard. Four girls stood on the inn’s porch, watching him. The youngest 
was no more than two, and naked. The oldest, nine or ten, stood with her arms 


protectively about the little one. “Girls,” Ser Hyle called to them, “run and fetch your 

mother.” 
The boy dropped from the chain and dashed off toward the stables. The four girls stood 
fidgeting. After a moment one said, “We have no mothers,” and another added, “I had 
one but they killed her.” The oldest of the four stepped forward, pushing the little one 
behind her skirts. “Who are you?” she demanded. 

“Honest travelers seeking shelter. My name is Brienne, and this is Septon Meribald, who 
is well-known through the riverlands. The boy is my squire, Podrick Payne, the knight 
Ser Hyle Hunt.” 

The hammering stopped suddenly. The girl on the porch looked them over, wary as only 

a ten-year-old can be. “I’m Willow. Will you be wanting beds?” 
“Beds, and ale, and hot food to fill our bellies,” said Ser Hyle Hunt as he dismounted. 
“Are you the innkeep?” 


She shook her head. “That’s my sister Jeyne. She’s not here. All we have to eat is horse 
meat. If you come for whores, there are none. My sister run them off. We have beds, 
though. Some featherbeds, but more are straw.” 

“And all have fleas, I don’t doubt,” said Ser Hyle. 
“Do you have coin to pay? Silver?” 
Ser Hyle laughed. “Silver? For a night’s bed and a haunch of horse? Do you mean to rob 


us, child?” 
“We’ll have silver. Else you can sleep in the woods with the dead men.” Willow glanced 


toward the donkey, and the casks and bundles on his back. “Is that food? Where did you 
get it?” 
“Maidenpool,” said Meribald. Dog barked. 
“Do you question all your guests this way?” asked Ser Hyle. 
“We don’t have so many guests. Not like before the war. It’s mostly sparrows on the 


roads these days, or worse.” 
“Worse?” Brienne asked. 
“Thieves,” said a boy’s voice from the stables. “Robbers.” 
Brienne turned, and saw a ghost. 



Renly. No hammerblow to the heart could have felled her half so hard. “My lord?” she 
gasped. 

“Lord?” The boy pushed back a lock of black hair that had fallen across his eyes. “I’m 
just a smith.” 

He is not Renly, Brienne realized. Renly is dead. Renly died in my arms, a man of oneand-
twenty. This is a only a boy. A boy who looked as Renly had, the first time he came 
to Tarth. No, younger. His jaw is squarer, his brows bushier. Renly had been lean and 
lithe, whereas this boy had the heavy shoulders and muscular right arm so often seen on 
smiths. He wore a long leather apron, but under it his chest was bare. A dark stubble 
covered his cheeks and chin, and his hair was a thick black mop that grew down past his 
ears. King Renly’s hair had been that same coal black, but his had always been washed 
and brushed and combed. Sometimes he cut it short, and sometimes he let it fall loose to 
his shoulders, or tied it back behind his head with a golden ribbon, but it was never 
tangled or matted with sweat. And though his eyes had been that same deep blue, Lord 
Renly’s eyes had always been warm and welcoming, full of laughter, whereas this boy’s 
eyes brimmed with anger and suspicion. 

Septon Meribald saw it too. “We mean no harm, lad. When Masha Heddle owned this inn 
she always had a honey cake for me. Sometimes she even let me have a bed, if the inn 
was not full.” 

“She’s dead,” the boy said. “The lions hanged her.” 

“Hanging seems your favorite sport in these parts,” said Ser Hyle Hunt. “Would that I 
had some land hereabouts. I’d plant hemp, sell rope, and make my fortune.” 

“All these children,” Brienne said to the girl Willow. “Are they your . . . sisters? 
Brothers? Kin and cousins?” 

“No.” Willow was staring at her, in a way that she knew well. “They’re just . . . I don’t 
know . . . the sparrows bring them here, sometimes. Others find their own way. If you’re 
a woman, why are you dressed up like a man?” 

Septon Meribald answered. “Lady Brienne is a warrior maid upon a quest. Just now, 
though, she is in need of a dry bed and a warm fire. As are we all. My old bones say it’s 
going to rain again, and soon. Do you have rooms for us?” 

“No,” said the boy smith. “Yes,” said the girl Willow. 

They glared at one another. Then Willow stomped her foot. “They have food, Gendry. 
The little ones are hungry.” She whistled, and more children appeared as if by magic; 
ragged boys with unshorn locks crept from under the porch, and furtive girls appeared in 
the windows overlooking the yard. Some clutched crossbows, wound and loaded. 


“They could call it Crossbow Inn,” Ser Hyle suggested. 

Orphan Inn would be more apt, thought Brienne. 

“Wat, you help them with those horses,” said Willow. “Will, put down that rock, they’ve 
not come to hurt us. Tansy, Pate, run get some wood to feed the fire. Jon Penny, you help 
the septon with those bundles. I’ll show them to some rooms.” 

In the end they took three rooms adjoining one another, each boasting a featherbed, a 
chamber pot, and a window. Brienne’s room had a hearth as well. She paid a few pennies 
more for some wood. “Will I sleep in your room, or Ser Hyle’s?” Podrick asked as she 
was opening the shutters. “This is not the Quiet Isle,” she told him. “You can stay with 
me.” Come the morrow she meant for the two of them to strike out on their own. Septon 
Meribald was going on to Nutten, Riverbend, and Lord Harroway’s Town, but Brienne 
saw no sense in following him any farther. He had Dog to keep him company, and the 
Elder Brother had persuaded her that she would not find Sansa Stark along the Trident. “I 
mean to rise before the sun comes up, whilst Ser Hyle is still sleeping.” Brienne had not 
forgiven him for Highgarden . . . and as he himself had said, Hunt had sworn no vows 
concerning Sansa. 

“Where will we go, ser? I mean, my lady?” 

Brienne had no ready answer for him. They had come to the crossroads, quite literally; 
the place where the kingsroad, the river road, and the high road all came together. The 
high road would take them east through the mountains to the Vale of Arryn, where Lady 
Sansa’s aunt had ruled until her death. West ran the river road, which followed the course 
of the Red Fork to Riverrun and Sansa’s great-uncle, who was besieged but still alive. Or 
they could ride the kingsroad north, past the Twins and through the Neck with its bogs 
and marshes. If she could find a way past Moat Cailin and whoever held it now, the 
kingsroad would bring them all the way to Winterfell. 

Or I could take the kingsroad south, Brienne thought. I could slink back to King’s 
Landing, confess my failure to Ser Jaime, give him back his sword, and find a ship to 
carry me home to Tarth, as the Elder Brother urged. The thought was a bitter one, yet 
there was part of her that yearned for Evenfall and her father, and another part that 
wondered if Jaime would comfort her should she weep upon his shoulder. That was what 
men wanted, wasn’t it? Soft helpless women that they needed to protect? 

“Ser? My lady? I asked, where are we going?” 

“Down to the common room, to supper.” 

The common room was crawling with children. Brienne tried to count them, but they 
would not stand still even for an instant, so she counted some of them twice or thrice and 
others not at all, until she finally gave it up. They had pushed the tables together in three 
long rows, and the older boys were wrestling benches from the back. Older here meant 


ten or twelve. Gendry was the closest thing to a man grown, but it was Willow shouting 
all the orders, as if she were a queen in her castle and the other children were no more 
than servants. 

If she were highborn, command would come naturally to her, and deference to them. 

Brienne wondered whether Willow might be more than she appeared. The girl was too 
young and too plain to be Sansa Stark, but she was of the right age to be the younger 
sister, and even Lady Catelyn had said that Arya lacked her sister’s beauty. Brown hair, 
brown eyes, skinny . . . could it be? Arya Stark’s hair was brown, she recalled, but 
Brienne was not sure of the color of her eyes. Brown and brown, was that it? Could it be 
that she did not die at Saltpans after all? 

Outside, the last light of day was fading. Inside, Willow had four greasy tallow candles lit 
and told the girls to keep the hearthfire burning high and hot. The boys helped Podrick 
Payne unpack the donkey and carried in the salt cod, mutton, vegetables, nuts, and wheels 
of cheese, whilst Septon Meribald repaired to the kitchens to take charge of the porridge. 
“Alas, my oranges are gone, and I doubt that I shall see another till the spring,” he told 
one small boy. “Have you ever had an orange, lad? Squeezed one and sucked down that 
fine juice?” When the boy shook his head no, the septon mussed his hair. “Then I’ll bring 
you one, come spring, if you will be a good lad and help me stir the porridge.” 

Ser Hyle pulled off his boots to warm his feet by the fire. When Brienne sat down next to 
him, he nodded at the far end of the room. “There are bloodstains on the floor over there 
where Dog is sniffing. They’ve been scrubbed, but the blood soaked deep into the wood, 
and there’s no getting it out.” 

“This is the inn where Sandor Clegane killed three of his brother’s men,” she reminded 
him. 

“’Tis that,” Hunt agreed, “but who is to say that they were the first to die here . . . or that 
they’ll be the last.” 

“Are you afraid of a few children?” 

“Four would be a few. Ten would be a surfeit. This is a cacophony. Children should be 
wrapped in swaddling clothes and hung upon the wall until the girls grow breasts and the 
boys are old enough to shave.” 

“I feel sorry for them. All of them have lost their mothers and fathers. Some have seen 
them slain.” 

Hunt rolled his eyes. “I forgot that I was talking to a woman. Your heart is as mushy as 
our septon’s porridge. Can it be? Somewhere inside our swordswench is a mother just 
squirming to give birth. What you really want is a sweet pink babe to suckle at your teat.” 
Ser Hyle grinned. “You need a man for that, I hear. A husband, preferably. Why not 
me?” 


“If you still hope to win your wager—” 

“What I want to win is you, Lord Selwyn’s only living child. I’ve known men to wed 
lackwits and suckling babes for prizes a tenth the size of Tarth. I am not Renly 
Baratheon, I confess it, but I have the virtue of being still amongst the living. Some 
would say that is my only virtue. Marriage would serve the both of us. Lands for me, and 
a castle full of these for you.” He waved his hand at the children. “I am capable, I assure 
you. I’ve sired at least one bastard that I know of. Have no fear, I shan’t inflict her upon 
you. The last time I went to see her, her mother doused me with a kettle of soup.” 

A flush crept up her neck. “My father’s only four-and-fifty. Not too old to wed again and 
get a son by his new wife.” 

“That’s a risk . . . if your father weds again and if his bride proves fertile and if the babe’s 
a boy. I’ve made worse wagers.” 

“And lost them. Play your game with someone else, ser.” 

“So speaks a maid who has never played the game with anyone. Once you do you’ll take 
a different view. In the dark you’d be as beautiful as any other woman. Your lips were 
made for kissing.” 

“They are lips,” said Brienne. “All lips are the same.” 

“And all lips are made for kissing,” Hunt agreed pleasantly. “Leave your chamber door 
unbarred tonight, and I will steal into your bed and prove the truth of what I say.” 

“If you do, you’ll be a eunuch when you leave.” Brienne got up and walked away from 
him. 

Septon Meribald asked if he might lead the children in a grace, ignoring the small girl 
crawling naked across the table. “Aye,” said Willow, snatching up the crawler before she 
reached the porridge. So they bowed their heads together and thanked the Father and the 
Mother for their bounty . . . all but the black-haired boy from the forge, who crossed his 
arms against his chest and sat glowering as the others prayed. Brienne was not the only 
one to notice. When the prayer was done Septon Meribald looked across the table, and 
said, “Do you have no love for the gods, son?” 

“Not for your gods.” Gendry stood abruptly. “I have work to do.” He stalked out without 
a bite of food. 

“Is there some other god he loves?” asked Hyle Hunt. 

“The Lord of Light,” piped one scrawny boy, nigh to six. 


Willow hit him with her spoon. “Ben Big Mouth. There’s food. You should be eating it, 
not bothering m’lords with talk.” 

The children fell upon the supper like wolves upon a wounded deer, quarreling over 
codfish, tearing the barley bread to pieces, and getting porridge everywhere. Even the 
huge wheel of cheese did not long survive. Brienne contented herself with fish and bread 
and carrots, whilst Septon Meribald fed two morsels to Dog for every one he ate himself. 
Outside, a rain began to fall. Inside, the fire crackled, and the common room was filled by 
the sounds of chewing, and Willow smacking children with her spoon. “One day that 
little girl will make some man a frightful wife,” Ser Hyle observed. “That poor ’prentice 
boy, most like.” 

“Someone should take him some food before it’s all gone.” 

“You’re someone.” 

She wrapped a wedge of cheese, a heel of bread, a dried apple, and two chunks of flaky 
fried cod in a square of cloth. When Podrick got up to follow her outside, she told him to 
sit back down and eat. “I will not be long.” 

The rain was coming down heavy in the yard. Brienne covered the food with a fold of her 
cloak. Some of the horses whinnied at her as she made her way past the stables. They are 
hungry too. 

Gendry was at his forge, bare-chested beneath his leather apron. He was beating on a 
sword as if he wished it were a foe, his sweat-soaked hair falling across his brow. She 
watched him for a moment. He has Renly’s eyes and Renly’s hair, but not his build. Lord 
Renly was more lithe than brawny . . . not like his brother Robert, whose strength was 
fabled. 

It was not until he stopped to wipe his brow that Gendry saw her standing there. “What 
do you want?” 

“I brought supper.” She opened the cloth for him to see. 

“If I wanted food, I would have eaten some.” 

“A smith needs to eat to keep his strength up.” 

“Are you my mother?” 

“No.” She put down the food. “Who was your mother?” 

“What’s that to you?” 

“You were born in King’s Landing.” The way he spoke made her certain of it. 


“Me and many more.” He plunged the sword into a tub of rainwater to quench it. The hot 
steel hissed angrily. 

“How old are you?” Brienne asked. “Is your mother still alive? And your father, who was 
he?” 

“You ask too many questions.” He set down the sword. “My mother’s dead and I never 
knew my father.” 

“You’re a bastard.” 

He took it for an insult. “I’m a knight. That sword will be mine own, once it’s done.” 

What would a knight be doing working at a smithy? “You have black hair and blue eyes, 
and you were born in the shadow of the Red Keep. Has no one ever remarked upon your 
face?” 

“What’s wrong with my face? It’s not as ugly as yours.” 

“In King’s Landing you must have seen King Robert.” 

He shrugged. “Sometimes. At tourneys, from afar. Once at Baelor’s Sept. The gold 
cloaks shoved us aside so he could pass. Another time I was playing near the Mud Gate 
when he come back from a hunt. He was so drunk he almost rode me down. A big fat sot, 
he was, but a better king than these sons of his.” 

They are not his sons. Stannis told it true, that day he met with Renly. Joffrey and 
Tommen were never Robert’s sons. This boy, though . . . “Listen to me,” Brienne began. 
Then she heard Dog barking, loud and frantic. “Someone is coming.” 

“Friends,” said Gendry, unconcerned. 

“What sort of friends?” Brienne moved to the door of the smithy to peer out through the 
rain. 

He shrugged. “You’ll meet them soon enough.” 

I may not want to meet them, Brienne thought, as the first riders came splashing through 
the puddles into the yard. Beneath the patter of the rain and Dog’s barking, she could hear 
the faint clink of swords and mail from beneath their ragged cloaks. She counted them as 
they came. Two, four, six, seven. Some of them were wounded, judging from the way 
they rode. The last man was massive and hulking, as big as two of the others. His horse 
was blown and bloody, staggering beneath his weight. All the riders had their hoods up 
against the lashing rain, save him alone. His face was broad and hairless, maggot white, 
his round cheeks covered with weeping sores. 


Brienne sucked in her breath and drew Oathkeeper. Too many, she thought, with a start of 
fear, they are too many. “Gendry,” she said in a low voice, “you’ll want a sword, and 
armor. These are not your friends. They’re no one’s friends.” 

“What are you talking about?” The boy came and stood beside her, his hammer in his 
hand. 

Lightning cracked to the south as the riders swung down off their horses. For half a 
heartbeat darkness turned to day. An axe gleamed silvery blue, light shimmered off mail 
and plate, and beneath the dark hood of the lead rider Brienne glimpsed an iron snout and 
rows of steel teeth, snarling. 

Gendry saw it too. “Him.” 

“Not him. His helm.” Brienne tried to keep the fear from her voice, but her mouth was 
dry as dust. She had a pretty good notion who wore the Hound’s helm. The children, she 
thought. 

The door to the inn banged open. Willow stepped out into the rain, a crossbow in her 
hands. The girl was shouting at the riders, but a clap of thunder rolled across the yard, 
drowning out her words. As it faded, Brienne heard the man in the Hound’s helm say, 
“Loose a quarrel at me and I’ll shove that crossbow up your cunt and fuck you with it. 
Then I’ll pop your fucking eyes out and make you eat them.” The fury in the man’s voice 
drove Willow back a step, trembling. 

Seven, Brienne thought again, despairing. She had no chance against seven, she knew. No 
chance, and no choice. 

She stepped out into the rain, Oathkeeper in hand. “Leave her be. If you want to rape 
someone, try me.” 

The oulaws turned as one. One laughed, and another said something in a tongue Brienne 
did not know. The huge one with the broad white face gave a malevolent 
hissssssssssssssss. The man in the Hound’s helm began to laugh. “You’re even uglier 
than I remembered. I’d sooner rape your horse.” 

“Horses, that’s what we want,” one of the wounded men said. “Fresh horses, and some 
food. There are outlaws after us. Give us your horses and we’ll be gone. We won’t do 
you harm.” 

“Fuck that.” The outlaw in the Hound’s helm yanked a battle axe off his saddle. “I want 
to cut her bloody legs off. I’ll set her on her stumps so she can watch me fuck the 
crossbow girl.” 

“With what?” taunted Brienne. “Shagwell said they cut your manhood off when they took 
your nose.” 


She meant it to provoke him, and it did. Bellowing curses, he came at her, his feet 
sending up splashes of black water as he charged. The others stood back to watch the 
show, as she had prayed they might. Brienne stayed as still as stone, waiting. The yard 
was dark, the mud slippery underfoot. Better to let him come to me. If the gods are good, 
he’ll slip and fall. 

The gods were not that good, but her sword was. Five steps, four steps, now, Brienne 
counted, and Oathkeeper swept up to meet his rush. Steel crashed against steel as her 
blade bit through his rags and opened a gash in his chainmail, even as his axe came 
crashing down at her. She twisted aside, slashing at his chest again as she retreated. 

He followed, staggering and bleeding, roaring rage. “Whore!” he boomed. “Freak! 
Bitch! I’ll give you to my dog to fuck, you bloody bitch!” His axe whirled in murderous 
arcs, a brutal black shadow that turned silver every time the lightning flashed. Brienne 
had no shield to catch the blows. All she could do was slide back away from him, darting 
this way and that as the axehead flew at her. Once the mud gave way under her heel and 
she almost fell, but somehow she recovered herself, though the axe grazed her left 
shoulder that time and left a blaze of pain in its wake. “You got the bitch!” one of the 
others called, and another said, “Let’s see her dance away from that one.” 

Dance she did, relieved that they were watching. Better that than have them interfere. She 
could not fight seven, not alone, even if one or two were wounded. Old Ser Goodwin was 
long in his grave, yet she could hear him whispering in her ear. Men will always 
underestimate you, he said, and their pride will make them want to vanquish you quickly, 
lest it be said that a woman tried them sorely. Let them spend their strength in furious 
attacks, whilst you conserve your own. Wait and watch, girl, wait and watch. She waited, 
watching, moving sideways, then backwards, then sideways again, slashing now at his 
face, now at his legs, now at his arm. His blows came more slowly as his axe grew 
heavier. Brienne turned him so the rain was in his eyes, and stepped back two quick 
steps. He wrenched his axe up once more, cursing, and lurched after her, one foot sliding 
in the mud . . . 

. . . and she leapt to meet his rush, both hands on her sword hilt. His headlong charge 
brought him right onto her point, and Oathkeeper punched through cloth and mail and 
leather and more cloth, deep into his bowels and out his back, rasping as it scraped along 
his spine. His axe fell from limp fingers, and the two of them slammed together, 
Brienne’s face mashed up against the dog’s head helm. She felt the cold wet metal 
against her cheek. Rain ran down the steel in rivers, and when the lightning flashed again 
she saw pain and fear and rank disbelief through the eye slits. “Sapphires,” she 
whispered at him, as she gave her blade a hard twist that made him shudder. His weight 
sagged heavily against her, and all at once it was a corpse that she embraced, there in the 
black rain. She stepped back and let him fall . . . 

. . . and Biter crashed into her, shrieking. 


He fell on her like an avalanche of wet wool and milk-white flesh, lifting her off her feet 
and slamming her down into the ground. She landed in a puddle with a splash that sent 
water up her nose and into her eyes. All the air was driven out of her, and her head 
snapped down against some half-buried stone with a crack. “No,” was all that she had 
time to say before he fell on top of her, his weight driving her deeper into the mud. One 
of his hands was in her hair, pulling her head back. The other groped for her throat. 
Oathkeeper was gone, torn from her grasp. She had only her hands to fight him off, but 
when she slammed a fist into his face it was like punching a ball of wet white dough. He 
hissed at her. 

She hit him again, again, again, smashing the heel of her hand into his eye, but he did not 
seem to feel her blows. She clawed at his wrists, but his grip just grew tighter, though 
blood ran from the gouges where she scratched him. He was crushing her, smothering 
her. She pushed at his shoulders to get him off her, but he was heavy as a horse, 
impossible to move. When she tried to knee him in the groin, all she did was drive her 
knee into his belly. Grunting, Biter tore out a handful of her hair. 

My dagger. Brienne clutched at the thought, desperate. She worked her hand down 
between them, fingers squirming under his sour, suffocating flesh, searching until they 
finally found the hilt. Biter locked both his hands about her neck and began to slam her 
head against the ground. The lightning flashed again, this time inside her skull, yet 
somehow her fingers tightened, pulled the dagger from its sheath. With him on top of her, 
she could not raise the blade to stab, so she drew it hard across his belly. Something 
warm and wet gushed between her fingers. Biter hissed again, louder than before, and let 
go of her throat just long enough to smash her in the face. She heard bones crack, and the 
pain blinded her for an instant. When she tried to slash at him again, he wrenched the 
dagger from her fingers and slammed a knee down onto her forearm, breaking it. Then he 
seized her head again and resumed trying to tear it off her shoulders. 

Brienne could hear Dog barking, and men were shouting all about her, and between the 
claps of thunder she heard the clash of steel on steel. Ser Hyle, she thought, Ser Hyle has 
joined the fight, but all that seemed far away and unimportant. Her world was no larger 
than the hands at her throat and the face that loomed above her. The rain ran off his hood 
as he leaned closer. His breath stank like cheese gone rotten. 

Brienne’s chest was burning, and the storm was behind her eyes, blinding her. Bones 
ground against each other inside of her. Biter’s mouth gaped open, impossibly wide. She 
saw his teeth, yellow and crooked, filed into points. When they closed on the soft meat of 
her cheek, she hardly felt it. She could feel herself spiraling down into the dark. I cannot 
die yet, she told herself, there is something I still need to do. 

Biter’s mouth tore free, full of blood and flesh. He spat, grinned, and sank his pointed 
teeth into her flesh again. This time he chewed and swallowed. He is eating me, she 
realized, but she had no strength left to fight him any longer. She felt as if she were 
floating above herself, watching the horror as if it were happening to some other woman, 
to some stupid girl who thought she was a knight. It will be finished soon, she told 


herself. Then it will not matter if he eats me. Biter threw back his head and opened his 
mouth again, howling, and stuck his tongue out at her. It was sharply pointed, dripping 
blood, longer than any tongue should be. Sliding from his mouth, out and out and out, red 
and wet and glistening, it made a hideous sight, obscene. His tongue is a foot long, 
Brienne thought, just before the darkness took her. Why, it looks almost like a sword. 


JAIME 

The brooch that fastened Ser Brynden Tully’s cloak was a black fish, wrought in jet and 
gold. His ringmail was grim and grey. Over it he wore greaves, gorget, gauntlets, 
pauldron, and poleyns of blackened steel, none half so dark as the look upon his face as 
he waited for Jaime Lannister at the end of the drawbridge, alone atop a chestnut courser 
caparisoned in red and blue. 

He loves me not. Tully had a craggy face, deeply lined and windburnt beneath a shock of 
stiff grey hair, but Jaime could still see the great knight who had once enthralled a squire 
with tales of the Ninepenny Kings. Honor’s hooves clattered against the planks of the 
drawbridge. Jaime had thought long and hard about whether to wear his gold armor or his 
white to this meeting; in the end, he’d chosen a leather jack and a crimson cloak. 

He drew up a yard from Ser Brynden, and inclined his head to the older man. 
“Kingslayer,” said Tully. 

That he would make that name the first word from his mouth spoke volumes, but Jaime 
was resolved to keep his temper. “Blackfish,” he responded. “Thank you for coming.” 

“I assume you have returned to fulfill the oaths you swore my niece,” Ser Brynden said. 
“As I recall, you promised Catelyn her daughters in return for your freedom.” His mouth 
tightened. “Yet I do not see the girls. Where are they?” 

Must he make me say it? “I do not have them.” 

“Pity. Do you wish to resume your captivity? Your old cell is still available. We have put 
fresh rushes on the floor.” 

And a nice new pail for me to shit in, I don’t doubt. “That was thoughtful of you, ser, but 
I fear I must decline. I prefer the comforts of my pavilion.” 

“Whilst Catelyn enjoys the comforts of her grave.” 


I had no hand in Lady Catelyn’s death, he might have said, and her daughters were gone 
before I reached King’s Landing. It was on his tongue to speak of Brienne and the sword 
he’d given her, but the Blackfish was looking at him the way that Eddard Stark had 
looked at him when he’d found him on the Iron Throne with the Mad King’s blood upon 
his blade. “I came to speak of the living, not the dead. Of those who need not die, but 
shall . . .” 

“. . . unless I hand you Riverrun. Is this where you threaten to hang Edmure?” Beneath 
his bushy brows, Tully’s eyes were stone. “My nephew is marked for death no matter 
what I do. So hang him and be done with it. I expect that Edmure is as weary of standing 
on those gallows as I am of seeing him there.” 

Ryman Frey is a bloody fool. His mummer’s show with Edmure and the gallows had only 
made the Blackfish more obdurate, that was plain. “You hold Lady Sybelle Westerling 
and three of her children. I’ll return your nephew in exchange for them.” 

“As you returned Lady Catelyn’s daughters?” 

Jaime did not allow himself to be provoked. “An old woman and three children for your 
liege lord. That’s a better bargain than you could have hoped for.” 

Ser Brynden smiled a hard smile. “You do not lack for gall, Kingslayer. Bargaining with 
oathbreakers is like building on quicksand, though. Cat should have known better than to 
trust the likes of you.” 

It was Tyrion she trusted in, Jaime almost said. The Imp deceived her too. “The promises 
I made to Lady Catelyn were wrung from me at swordpoint.” 

“And the oath you swore to Aerys?” 

He felt his phantom fingers twitching. “Aerys is no part of this. Will you exchange the 
Westerlings for Edmure?” 

“No. My king entrusted his queen to my keeping, and I swore to keep her safe. I will not 
hand her over to a Frey noose.” 

“The girl has been pardoned. No harm will come to her. You have my word on that.” 

“Your word of honor?” Ser Brynden raised an eyebrow. “Do you even know what honor 
is?” 

A horse. “I will swear any oath that you require.” 

“Spare me, Kingslayer.” 


“I want to. Strike your banners and open your gates and I’ll grant your men their lives. 
Those who wish to remain at Riverrun in service to Lord Emmon may do so. The rest 
shall be free to go where they will, though I will require them to surrender their arms and 
armor.” 

“I wonder, how far will they get, unarmed, before ‘outlaws’ set upon them? You dare not 
allow them to join Lord Beric, we both know that. And what of me? Will I be paraded 
through King’s Landing to die like Eddard Stark?” 

“I will permit you to take the black. Ned Stark’s bastard is the Lord Commander on the 
Wall.” 

The Blackfish narrowed his eyes. “Did your father arrange for that as well? Catelyn never 
trusted the boy, as I recall, no more than she ever trusted Theon Greyjoy. It would seem 
she was right about them both. No, ser, I think not. I’ll die warm, if you please, with a 
sword in hand running red with lion blood.” 

“Tully blood runs just as red,” Jaime reminded him. “If you will not yield the castle, I 
must storm it. Hundreds will die.” 

“Hundreds of mine. Thousands of yours.” 

“Your garrison will perish to a man.” 

“I know that song. Do you sing it to the tune of ‘The Rains of Castamere’? My men 
would sooner die upon their feet fighting than on their knees beneath a headsman’s axe.” 

This is not going well. “This defiance serves no purpose, ser. The war is done, and your 
Young Wolf is dead.” 

“Murdered in breach of all the sacred laws of hospitality.” 

“Frey’s work, not mine.” 

“Call it what you will. It stinks of Tywin Lannister.” 

Jaime could not deny that. “My father is dead as well.” 

“May the Father judge him justly.” 

Now, there’s an awful prospect. “I would have slain Robb Stark in the Whispering Wood, 
if I could have reached him. Some fools got in my way. Does it matter how the boy 
perished? He’s no less dead, and his kingdom died when he did.” 

“You must be blind as well as maimed, ser. Lift your eyes, and you will see that the 
direwolf still flies above our walls.” 


“I’ve seen him. He looks lonely. Harrenhal has fallen. Seagard and Maidenpool. The 
Brackens have bent the knee, and they’ve got Tytos Blackwood penned up in Raventree. 
Piper, Vance, Mooton, all your bannermen have yielded. Only Riverrun remains. We 
have twenty times your numbers.” 

“Twenty times the men require twenty times the food. How well are you provisioned, my 
lord?” 

“Well enough to sit here till the end of days if need be, whilst you starve inside your 
walls.” He told the lie as boldly as he could and hoped his face did not betray him. 

The Blackfish was not deceived. “The end of your days, perhaps. Our own supplies are 
ample, though I fear we did not leave much in the fields for visitors.” 

“We can bring food down from the Twins,” said Jaime, “or over the hills from the west, 
if it comes to that.” 

“If you say so. Far be it from me to question the word of such an honorable knight.” 

The scorn in his voice made Jaime bristle. “There is a quicker way to decide the matter. 
A single combat. My champion against yours.” 

“I was wondering when you would get to that.” Ser Brynden laughed. “Who will it be? 
Strongboar? Addam Marbrand? Black Walder Frey?” He leaned forward. “Why not you 
and me, ser?” 

That would have been a sweet fight once, Jaime thought, fine fodder for the singers. 
“When Lady Catelyn freed me, she made me swear not to take arms again against the 
Starks or Tullys.” 

“A most convenient oath, ser.” 

His face darkened. “Are you calling me a coward?” 

“No. I am calling you a cripple.” The Blackfish nodded at Jaime’s golden hand. “We both 
know you cannot fight with that.” 

“I had two hands.” Would you throw your life away for pride? a voice inside him 
whispered. “Some might say a cripple and an old man are well matched. Free me from 
my vow to Lady Catelyn and I will meet you sword to sword. If I win, Riverrun is ours. If 
you slay me, we’ll lift the siege.” 

Ser Brynden laughed again. “Much as I would welcome the chance to take that golden 
sword away from you and cut out your black heart, your promises are worthless. I would 
gain nothing from your death but the pleasure of killing you, and I will not risk my own 
life for that . . . as small a risk as that may be.” 


It was a good thing that Jaime wore no sword; elsewise he would have ripped his blade 
out, and if Ser Brynden did not slay him, the archers on the walls most surely would. 
“Are there any terms you will accept?” he demanded of the Blackfish. 

“From you?” Ser Brynden shrugged. “No.” 

“Why did you even come to treat with me?” 

“A siege is deadly dull. I wanted to see this stump of yours and hear whatever excuses 
you cared to offer up for your latest enormities. They were feebler than I’d hoped. You 
always disappoint, Kingslayer.” The Blackfish wheeled his mare and trotted back toward 
Riverrun. The portcullis descended with a rush, its iron spikes biting deep into the muddy 
ground. 

Jaime turned Honor’s head about for the long ride back to the Lannister siege lines. He 
could feel the eyes on him; the Tully men upon their battlements, the Freys across the 
river. If they are not blind, they’ll all know he threw my offer in my teeth. He would need 
to storm the castle. Well, what’s one more broken vow to the Kingslayer? Just more shit 
in the bucket. Jaime resolved to be the first man on the battlements. And with this golden 
hand of mine, most like the first to fall. 

Back at camp, Little Lew held his bridle whilst Peck gave him a hand down from the 
saddle. Do they think I’m such a cripple that I cannot dismount by myself? “How did you 
fare, my lord?” asked his cousin Ser Daven. 

“No one put an arrow in my horse’s rump. Elsewise, there was little to distinguish me 
from Ser Ryman.” He grimaced. “So now he must needs turn the Red Fork redder.” 
Blame yourself for that, Blackfish. You left me little choice. “Assemble a war council. Ser 
Addam, Strongboar, Forley Prester, those river lords of ours . . . and our friends of Frey. 
Ser Ryman, Lord Emmon, whoever else they care to bring.” 

They gathered quickly. Lord Piper and both Lords Vance came to speak for the repentant 
lords of the Trident, whose loyalties would shortly be put to the test. The west was 
represented by Ser Daven, Strongboar, Addam Marbrand, and Forley Prester. Lord 
Emmon Frey joined them, with his wife. Lady Genna claimed her stool with a look that 
dared any man there to question her presence. None did. The Freys sent Ser Walder 
Rivers, called “Bastard Walder,” and Ser Ryman’s firstborn Edwyn, a pallid, slender man 
with a pinched nose and lank dark hair. Under a blue lambswool cloak, Edwyn wore a 
jerkin of finely tooled grey calfskin with ornate scrollwork worked into the leather. “I 
speak for House Frey,” he announced. “My father is indisposed this morning.” 

Ser Daven gave a snort. “Is he drunk, or just greensick from last night’s wine?” 

Edwyn had the hard mean mouth of a miser. “Lord Jaime,” he said, “must I suffer such 
discourtesy?” 


“Is it true?” Jaime asked him. “Is your father drunk?” 

Frey pressed his lips together and eyed Ser Ilyn Payne, who was standing beside by the 
tent flap in his rusted mail, his sword poking up above one bony shoulder. “He . . . my 
father has a bad belly, my lord. Red wine helps with his digestion.” 

“He must be digesting a bloody mammoth,” said Ser Daven. Strongboar laughed, and 
Lady Genna chuckled. 

“Enough,” said Jaime. “We have a castle to win.” When his father sat in council, he let 
his captains speak first. He was resolved to do the same. “How shall we proceed?” 

“Hang Edmure Tully, for a start,” urged Lord Emmon Frey. “That will teach Ser Brynden 
that we mean what we say. If we send Ser Edmure’s head to his uncle, it may move him 
to yield.” 

“Brynden Blackfish is not moved so easily.” Karyl Vance, the Lord of Wayfarer’s Rest, 
had a melancholy look. A winestain birthmark covered half his neck and one side of his 
face. “His own brother could not move him to a marriage bed.” 

Ser Daven shook his shaggy head. “We have to storm the walls, as I’ve been saying all 
along. Siege towers, scaling ladders, a ram to break the gate, that’s what’s needed here.” 

“I will lead the assault,” said Strongboar. “Give the fish a taste of steel and fire, that’s 
what I say.” 

“They are my walls,” protested Lord Emmon, “and that is my gate you would break.” He 
drew his parchment out of his sleeve again. “King Tommen himself has granted me—” 

“We’ve all seen your paper, nuncle,” snapped Edwyn Frey. “Why don’t you go wave it at 
the Blackfish for a change?” 

“Storming the walls will be a bloody business,” said Addam Marbrand. “I propose we 
wait for a moonless night and send a dozen picked men across the river in a boat with 
muffled oars. They can scale the walls with ropes and grapnels, and open the gates from 
the inside. I will lead them, if the council wishes.” 

“Folly,” declared the bastard, Walder Rivers. “Ser Brynden is no man to be cozened by 
such tricks.” 

“The Blackfish is the obstacle,” agreed Edwyn Frey. “His helm bears a black trout on its 
crest that makes him easy to pick out from afar. I propose that we move our siege towers 
close, fill them full of bowmen, and feign an attack upon the gates. That will bring Ser 
Brynden to the battlements, crest and all. Let every archer smear his shafts with night 
soil, and make that crest his mark. Once Ser Brynden dies, Riverrun is ours.” 


“Mine,” piped Lord Emmon. “Riverrun is mine.” 

Lord Karyl’s birthmark darkened. “Will the night soil be your own contribution, Edwyn? 
A mortal poison, I don’t doubt.” 

“The Blackfish deserves a nobler death, and I’m the man to give it to him.” Strongboar 
thumped his fist on the table. “I will challenge him to single combat. Mace or axe or 
longsword, makes no matter. The old man will be my meat.” 

“Why would he deign to accept your challenge, ser?” asked Ser Forley Prester. “What 
could he gain from such a duel? Will we lift the siege if he should win? I do not believe 
that. Nor will he. A single combat would accomplish nought.” 

“I have known Brynden Tully since we were squires together, in service to Lord Darry,” 
said Norbert Vance, the blind Lord of Atranta. “If it please my lords, let me go and speak 
with him and try to make him understand the hopelessness of his position.” 

“He understands that well enough,” said Lord Piper. He was a short, rotund, bowlegged 
man with a bush of wild red hair, the father of one of Jaime’s squires; the resemblance to 
the boy was unmistakeable. “The man’s not bloody stupid, Norbert. He has eyes . . . and 
too much sense to yield to such as these.” He made a rude gesture in the direction of 
Edwyn Frey and Walder Rivers. 

Edwyn bristled. “If my lord of Piper means to imply—” 

“I don’t imply, Frey. I say what I mean straight out, like an honest man. But what would 
you know of the ways of honest men? You’re a treacherous lying weasel, like all your 
kin. I’d sooner drink a pint of piss than take the word of any Frey.” He leaned across the 
table. “Where is Marq, answer me that? What have you done with my son? He was a 
guest at your bloody wedding.” 

“And our honored guest he shall remain,” said Edwyn, “until you prove your loyalty to 
His Grace, King Tommen.” 

“Five knights and twenty men-at-arms went with Marq to the Twins,” said Piper. “Are 
they your guests as well, Frey?” 

“Some of the knights, perhaps. The others were served no more than they deserved. 
You’d do well to guard your traitor’s tongue, Piper, unless you want your heir returned in 
pieces.” 

My father’s councils never went like this, Jaime thought, as Piper came lurching to his 
feet. “Say that with a sword in your hand, Frey,” the small man snarled. “Or do you only 
fight with smears of shit?” 


Frey’s pinched face went pale. Beside him Walder Rivers rose. “Edwyn is no man of the 
sword . . . but I am, Piper. If you have more remarks to make, come outside and make 
them.” 

“This is a war council, not a war,” Jaime reminded them. “Sit down, the both of you.” 
Neither man moved. “Now!” 

Walder Rivers seated himself. Lord Piper was not so easy to cow. He muttered a curse 
and strode from the tent. “Shall I send men after him to drag him back, my lord?” Ser 
Daven asked Jaime. 

“Send Ser Ilyn,” urged Edywn Frey. “We only need his head.” 

Karyl Vance turned to Jaime. “Lord Piper spoke from grief. Marq is his firstborn son. 
Those knights who accompanied him to the Twins were nephews and cousins all.” 

“Traitors and rebels all, you mean,” said Edwyn Frey. 

Jaime gave him a cold look. “The Twins took up the Young Wolf’s cause as well,” he 
reminded the Freys. “Then you betrayed him. That makes you twice as treacherous as 
Piper.” He enjoyed seeing Edwyn’s thin smile curdle up and die. I have endured 
sufficient counsel for one day, he decided. “We’re done. See to your preparations, my 
lords. We attack at first light.” 

The wind was blowing from the north as the lords filed from the tent. Jaime could smell 
the stink of the Frey encampments beyond the Tumblestone. Across the water Edmure 
Tully stood forlorn atop the tall grey gallows, with a rope around his neck. 

His aunt departed last, her husband at her heels. “Lord nephew,” Emmon protested, “this 
assault on my seat . . . you must not do this.” When he swallowed, the apple in his throat 
moved up and down. “You must not. I . . . I forbid it.” He had been chewing sourleaf 
again; pinkish froth glistened on his lips. “The castle is mine, I have the parchment. 
Signed by the king, by little Tommen. I am the lawful lord of Riverrun, and . . .” 

“Not so long as Edmure Tully lives,” said Lady Genna. “He is soft of heart and soft of 
head, I know, but alive, the man is still a danger. What do you mean to do about that, 
Jaime?” 

It’s the Blackfish who is the danger, not Edmure. “Leave Edmure to me. Ser Lyle, Ser 
Ilyn. Attend me, if you would. It’s time I paid a visit to those gallows.” 

The Tumblestone was deeper and swifter than the Red Fork, and the nearest ford was 
leagues upstream. The ferry had just started across with Walder Rivers and Edwyn Frey 
when Jaime and his men arrived at the river. As they awaited its return, Jaime told them 
what he wanted. Ser Ilyn spat into the river. 


When the three of them stepped off the ferry on the north bank, a drunken camp follower 
offered to pleasure Strongboar with her mouth. “Here, pleasure my friend,” Ser Lyle said, 
shoving her toward Ser Ilyn. Laughing, the woman moved to kiss Payne on the lips, then 
saw his eyes and shrank away. 

The paths between the cookfires were raw brown mud, mixed with horse dung and torn 
up by hooves and boots alike. Everywhere Jaime saw the twin towers of House Frey 
displayed on shield and banners, blue on grey, along with the arms of lesser Houses 
sworn to the Crossing: the heron of Erenford, the pitchfork of Haigh, Lord Charlton’s 
three sprigs of mistletoe. The arrival of the Kingslayer did not go unnoticed. An old 
woman selling piglets from a basket stopped to stare at him, a knight with a half-familiar 
face went to one knee, and two men-at-arms pissing in a ditch turned and sprayed each 
other. “Ser Jaime,” someone called after him, but he strode on without turning. Around 
him he glimpsed the faces of men he’d done his best to kill in the Whispering Wood, 
where the Freys had fought beneath the direwolf banners of Robb Stark. His golden hand 
hung heavy at his side. 

Ryman Frey’s great rectangular pavilion was the largest in the camp; its grey canvas 
walls were made of sewn squares to resemble stonework, and its two peaks evoked the 
Twins. Far from being indisposed, Ser Ryman was enjoying some entertainment. The 
sound of a woman’s drunken laughter drifted from within the tent, mingled with the 
strains of a woodharp and a singer’s voice. I will deal with you later, ser, Jaime thought. 
Walder Rivers stood before his own modest tent, talking with two men-at-arms. His 
shield bore the arms of House Frey with the colors reversed, and a red bend sinister 
across the towers. When the bastard saw Jaime, he frowned. There’s a cold suspicious 
look if ever I saw one. That one is more dangerous than any of his trueborn brothers. 

The gallows had been raised ten feet off the ground. Two spearmen were posted at the 
foot of the steps. “You can’t go up without Ser Ryman’s leave,” one told Jaime. 

“This says I can.” Jaime tapped his sword hilt with a finger. “The question is, will I need 
to step over your corpse?” 

The spearmen moved aside. 

Atop the gallows, the Lord of Riverrun stood staring at the trap beneath him. His feet 
were black and caked with mud, his legs bare. Edmure wore a soiled silken tunic striped 
in Tully red and blue, and a noose of hempen rope. At the sound of Jaime’s footsteps, he 
raised his head and licked his dry, cracked lips. “Kingslayer?” The sight of Ser Ilyn 
widened his eyes. “Better a sword than a rope. Do it, Payne.” 

“Ser Ilyn,” said Jaime. “You heard Lord Tully. Do it.” 

The silent knight gripped his greatsword with both hands. Long and heavy it was, sharp 
as common steel could be. Edmure’s cracked lips moved soundlessly. As Ser Ilyn drew 
the blade back, he closed his eyes. The stroke had all Payne’s weight behind it. 


“No! Stop. NO!” Edwyn Frey came panting into view. “My father comes. Fast as he can. 
Jaime, you must . . .” 

“My lord would suit me better, Frey,” said Jaime. “And you would do well to omit must 
from any speech directed at me.” 

Ser Ryman came stomping up the gallows steps in company with a straw-haired slattern 
as drunk as he was. Her gown laced up the front, but someone had undone the laces to the 
navel, so her breasts were spilling out. They were large and heavy, with big brown 
nipples. On her head a circlet of hammered bronze sat askew, graven with runes and 
ringed with small black swords. When she saw Jaime, she laughed. “Who in seven hells 
is this one?” 

“The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard,” Jaime returned with cold courtesy. “I might 
ask the same of you, my lady.” 

“Lady? I’m no lady. I’m the queen.” 

“My sister will be surprised to hear that.” 

“Lord Ryman crowned me his very self.” She gave a shake of her ample hips. “I’m the 
queen o’ whores.” 

No, Jaime thought, my sweet sister holds that title too. 

Ser Ryman found his tongue. “Shut your mouth, slut, Lord Jaime doesn’t want to hear 
some harlot’s nonsense.” This Frey was a thickset man with a broad face, small eyes, and 
a soft fleshy set of chins. His breath stank of wine and onions. 

“Making queens, Ser Ryman?” Jaime asked softly. “Stupid. As stupid as this business 
with Lord Edmure.” 

“I gave the Blackfish warning. I told him Edmure would die unless the castle yielded. I 
had this gallows built, to show them that Ser Ryman Frey does not make idle threats. At 
Seagard my son Walder did the same with Patrek Mallister and Lord Jason bent the knee, 
but . . . the Blackfish is a cold man. He refused us, so . . .” 

“. . . you hanged Lord Edmure?” 

The man reddened. “My lord grandfather . . . if we hang the man we have no hostage, ser. 
Have you considered that?” 

“Only a fool makes threats he’s not prepared to carry out. If I were to threaten to hit you 
unless you shut your mouth, and you presumed to speak, what do you think I’d do?” 

“Ser, you do not unders—” 


Jaime hit him. It was a backhand blow delivered with his golden hand, but the force of it 
sent Ser Ryman stumbling backward into the arms of his whore. “You have a fat head, 
Ser Ryman, and a thick neck as well. Ser Ilyn, how many strokes would it take you to cut 
through that neck?” 

Ser Ilyn laid a single finger against his nose. 
Jaime laughed. “An empty boast. I say three.” 
Ryman Frey went to his knees. “I have done nothing . . .” 
“. . . but drink and whore. I know.” 
“I am heir to the Crossing. You can’t . . .” 
“I warned you about talking.” Jaime watched the man turn white. A sot, a fool, and a 


craven. Lord Walder had best outlive this one, or the Freys are done. “You are 
dismissed, ser.” 
“Dismissed?” 
“You heard me. Go away.” 


“But . . . where should I go?” 
“To hell or home, as you prefer. See that you are not in camp when the sun comes up. 
You may take your queen of whores, but not that crown of hers.” Jaime turned from Ser 
Ryman to his son. “Edwyn, I am giving you your father’s command. Try not to be so 
stupid as your sire.” 


“That ought not pose much difficulty, my lord.” 


“Send word to Lord Walder. The crown requires all his prisoners.” Jaime waved his 
golden hand. “Ser Lyle, bring him.” 
Edmure Tully had collapsed facedown on the scaffold when Ser Ilyn’s blade sheared the 


rope in two. A foot of hemp still dangled from the noose about his neck. Strongboar 
grabbed the end of it and pulled him to his feet. “A fish on a leash,” he said, chortling. 
“There’s a sight I never saw before.” 


The Freys stepped aside to let them pass. A crowd had gathered below the scaffold, 
including a dozen camp followers in various states of disarray. Jaime noticed one man 
holding a woodharp. “You. Singer. Come with me.” 


The man doffed his hat. “As my lord commands.” 



No one said a word as they walked back to the ferry, with Ser Ryman’s singer trailing 
after them. But as they shoved off from the riverbank and made for the south side of the 
Tumblestone, Edmure Tully grabbed Jaime by the arm. “Why?” 

A Lannister pays his debts, he thought, and you’re the only coin that’s left to me. 
“Consider it a wedding gift.” 

Edmure stared at him with wary eyes. “A . . . wedding gift?” 

“I am told your wife is pretty. She’d have to be, for you to bed her while your sister and 
your king were being murdered.” 

“I never knew.” Edmure licked his cracked lips. “There were fiddlers outside the 
bedchamber . . .” 

“And Lady Roslin was distracting you.” 

“She . . . they made her do it, Lord Walder and the rest. Roslin never wanted . . . she 
wept, but I thought it was . . .” 

“The sight of your rampant manhood? Aye, that would make any woman weep, I’m 
sure.” 

“She is carrying my child.” 

No, Jaime thought, that’s your death she has growing in her belly. Back at his pavilion, 
he dismissed Strongboar and Ser Ilyn, but not the singer. “I may have need of a song 
shortly,” he told the man. “Lew, heat some bathwater for my guest. Pia, find him some 
clean clothing. Nothing with lions on it, if you please. Peck, wine for Lord Tully. Are you 
hungry, my lord?” 

Edmure nodded, but his eyes were still suspicious. 

Jaime settled on a stool while Tully had his bath. The filth came off in grey clouds. 
“Once you’ve eaten, my men will escort you to Riverrun. What happens after that is up to 
you.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Your uncle is an old man. Valiant, yes, but the best part of his life is done. He has no 
bride to grieve for him, no children to defend. A good death is all the Blackfish can hope 
for . . . but you have years remaining, Edmure. And you are the rightful lord of House 
Tully, not him. Your uncle serves at your pleasure. The fate of Riverrun is in your 
hands.” 

Edmure stared. “The fate of Riverrun . . .” 


“Yield the castle and no one dies. Your smallfolk may go in peace or stay to serve Lord 
Emmon. Ser Brynden will be allowed to take the black, along with as many of the 
garrison as choose to join him. You as well, if the Wall appeals to you. Or you may go to 
Casterly Rock as my captive and enjoy all the comforts and courtesy that befits a hostage 
of your rank. I’ll send your wife to join you, if you like. If her child is a boy, he will serve 
House Lannister as a page and a squire, and when he earns his knighthood we’ll bestow 
some lands upon him. Should Roslin give you a daughter, I’ll see her well dowered when 
she’s old enough to wed. You yourself may even be granted parole, once the war is done. 
All you need do is yield the castle.” 

Edmure raised his hands from the tub and watched the water run between his fingers. 
“And if I will not yield?” 

Must you make me say the words? Pia was standing by the flap of the tent with her arms 
full of clothes. His squires were listening as well, and the singer. Let them hear, Jaime 
thought. Let the world hear. It makes no matter. He forced himself to smile, “You’ve 
seen our numbers, Edmure. You’ve seen the ladders, the towers, the trebuchets, the rams. 
If I speak the command, my coz will bridge your moat and break your gate. Hundreds 
will die, most of them your own. Your former bannermen will make up the first wave of 
attackers, so you’ll start your day by killing the fathers and brothers of men who died for 
you at the Twins. The second wave will be Freys, I have no lack of those. My westermen 
will follow when your archers are short of arrows and your knights so weary they can 
hardly lift their blades. When the castle falls, all those inside will be put to the sword. 
Your herds will be butchered, your godswood will be felled, your keeps and towers will 
burn. I’ll pull your walls down, and divert the Tumblestone over the ruins. By the time 
I’m done no man will ever know that a castle once stood here.” Jaime got to his feet. 
“Your wife may whelp before that. You’ll want your child, I expect. I’ll send him to you 
when he’s born. With a trebuchet.” 

Silence followed his speech. Edmure sat in his bath. Pia clutched the clothing to her 
breasts. The singer tightened a string on his harp. Little Lew hollowed out a loaf of stale 
bread to make a trencher, pretending that he had not heard. With a trebuchet, Jaime 
thought. If his aunt had been there, would she still say Tyrion was Tywin’s son? 

Edmure Tully finally found his voice. “I could climb out of this tub and kill you where 
you stand, Kingslayer.” 

“You could try.” Jaime waited. When Edmure made no move to rise, he said, “I’ll leave 
you to enjoy your food. Singer, play for our guest whilst he eats. You know the song, I 
trust.” 

“The one about the rain? Aye, my lord. I know it.” 

Edmure seemed to see the man for the first time. “No. Not him. Get him away from me.” 

“Why, it’s just a song,” said Jaime. “He cannot have that bad a voice.” 


CERSEI 
Grand Maester Pycelle had been old for as long as she had known him, but he seemed to 
have aged another hundred years in the past three nights. It took him an eternity to bend 

his creaky knee before her, and once he had he could not rise again until Ser Osmund 
jerked him to his feet. 
Cersei studied him with displeasure. “Lord Qyburn informs me that Lord Gyles has 

coughed his last.” 
“Yes, Your Grace. I did my best to ease his passing.” 
“Did you?” The queen turned to Lady Merryweather. “I did say I wanted Rosby alive, did 


I not?” 
“You did, Your Grace.” 
“Ser Osmund, what is your recollection of the conversation?” 
“You commanded Grand Maester Pycelle to save the man, Your Grace. We all heard.” 
Pycelle’s mouth opened and closed. “Your Grace must know, I did all that could be done 


for the poor man.” 
“As you did for Joffrey? And his father, my own beloved husband? Robert was as strong 
as any man in the Seven Kingdoms, yet you lost him to a boar. Oh, and let us not forget 
Jon Arryn. No doubt you would have killed Ned Stark as well, if I had let you keep him 


longer. Tell me, maester, was it at the Citadel that you learned to wring your hands and 
make excuses?” 
Her voice made the old man flinch. “No man could have done more, Your Grace. I . . . I 


have always given leal service.” 


“When you counseled King Aerys to open his gates as my father’s host approached, was 
that your notion of leal service?” 
“That . . . I misjudged the . . .” 
“Was that good counsel?” 



“Your Grace must surely know . . .” 

“What I know is that when my son was poisoned you proved to be of less use than Moon 
Boy. What I know is that the crown has desperate need of gold, and our lord treasurer is 
dead.” 

The old fool seized upon that. “I . . . I shall draw up a list of men suitable to take Lord 
Gyles’s place upon the council.” 

“A list.” Cersei was amused by his presumption. “I can well imagine the sort of list you 
would provide me. Greybeards and grasping fools and Garth the Gross.” Her lips 
tightened. “You have been much in Lady Margaery’s company of late.” 

“Yes. Yes, I . . . Queen Margaery has been most distraught about Ser Loras. I provide 
Her Grace with sleeping draughts and . . . other sorts of potions.” 

“No doubt. Tell me, was it our little queen who commanded you to kill Lord Gyles?” 

“K-kill?” Grand Maester Pycelle’s eyes grew as big as boiled eggs. “Your Grace cannot 
believe . . . it was his cough, by all the gods, I . . . Her Grace would not . . . she bore Lord 
Gyles no ill will, why would Queen Margaery want him . . .” 

“. . . dead? Why, to plant another rose on Tommen’s council. Are you blind or bought? 
Rosby stood in her way, so she put him in his grave. With your connivance.” 

“Your Grace, I swear to you, Lord Gyles perished from his cough.” His mouth was 
quivering. “My loyalty has always been to the crown, to the realm . . . t-to House 
Lannister.” 

In that order? Pycelle’s fear was palpable. He is ripe enough. Time to squeeze the fruit 
and taste the juice. “If you are as leal as you claim, why are you lying to me? Do not 
trouble to deny it. You began to dance attendance on Maid Margaery before Ser Loras 
went to Dragonstone, so spare me further fables about how you want only to console our 
good-daughter in her grief. What brings you to the Maidenvault so often? Not Margaery’s 
vapid conversation, surely? Are you courting that pox-faced septa of hers? Diddling little 
Lady Bulwer? Do you play the spy for her, informing on me to serve her plots?” 

“I . . . I obey. A maester takes an oath of service . . .” 

“A grand maester swears to serve the realm.” 

“Your Grace, she . . . she is the queen . . .” 

“I am the queen.” 

“I meant . . . she is the king’s wife, and . . .” 


“I know who she is. What I want to know is why she has need of you. Is my good-
daughter unwell?” 

“Unwell?” The old man plucked at the thing he called a beard, that patched growth of 
thin white hair sprouting from the loose pink wattles under his chin. “N-not unwell, Your 
Grace, not as such. My oaths forbid me to divulge . . .” 

“Your oaths will be of small comfort in the black cells,” she warned him. “I’ll hear the 
truth, or you’ll wear chains.” 

Pycelle collapsed to his knees. “I beg you . . . I was your lord father’s man, and a friend 
to you in the matter of Lord Arryn. I could not survive the dungeons, not again . . .” 

“Why does Margaery send for you?” 

“She desires . . . she . . . she . . .” 

“Say it!” 

He cringed. “Moon tea,” he whispered. “Moon tea, for . . .” 

“I know what moon tea is for.” There it is. “Very well. Get off those saggy knees and try 
to remember what it was to be a man.” Pycelle struggled to rise, but took so long about it 
that she had to tell Osmund Kettleblack to give him another yank. “As to Lord Gyles, no 
doubt our Father Above will judge him justly. He left no children?” 

“No children of his body, but there is a ward . . .” 

“. . . not of his blood.” Cersei dismissed that annoyance with a flick of her hand. “Gyles 
knew of our dire need for gold. No doubt he told you of his wish to leave all his lands and 
wealth to Tommen.” Rosby’s gold would help refresh their coffers, and Rosby’s lands 
and castle could be bestowed upon one of her own as a reward for leal service. Lord 
Waters, perhaps. Aurane had been hinting at his need for a seat; his lordship was only an 
empty honor without one. He had his eye on Dragonstone, Cersei knew, but there he 
aimed too high. Rosby would be more suitable to his birth and station. 

“Lord Gyles loved His Grace with all his heart,” Pycelle was saying, “but . . . his ward . . 
.” 

“. . . will doubtless understand, once he hears you speak of Lord Gyles’s dying wish. Go, 
and see it done.” 

“If it please Your Grace.” Grand Maester Pycelle almost tripped over his own robes in his 
haste to leave. 


Lady Merryweather closed the door behind him. “Moon tea,” she said, as she turned back 
to the queen. “How foolish of her. Why would she do such a thing, take such a risk?” 

“The little queen has appetites that Tommen is as yet too young to satisfy.” That was 
always a danger, when a grown woman was married to a child. Even more so with a 
widow. She may claim that Renly never touched her, but I will not believe it. Women only 
drank moon tea for one reason; maidens had no need for it at all. “My son has been 
betrayed. Margaery has a lover. That is high treason, punishable by death.” She could 
only hope that Mace Tyrell’s prune-faced harridan of a mother lived long enough to see 
the trial. By insisting that Tommen and Margaery be wed at once, Lady Olenna had 
condemned her precious rose to a headsman’s sword. “Jaime made off with Ser Ilyn 
Payne. I suppose I shall need to find a new King’s Justice to snick her head off.” 

“I’ll do it,” offered Osmund Kettleblack, with an easy grin. “Margaery’s got a pretty little 
neck. A good sharp sword will go right through it.” 

“It would,” said Taena, “but there is a Tyrell army at Storm’s End and another at 
Maidenpool. They have sharp swords as well.” 

I am awash in roses. It was vexing. She still had need of Mace Tyrell, if not his daughter. 
At least until such time as Stannis is defeated. Then I shan’t need any of them. But how 
could she rid herself of the daughter without losing the father? “Treason is treason,” she 
said, “but we must have proof, something more substantial than moon tea. If she is 
proved to be untrue, even her own lord father must condemn her, or her shame becomes 
his own.” 

Kettleblack chewed on one end of his mustache. “We need to catch them during the 
deed.” 

“How? Qyburn has eyes on her day and night. Her serving men take my coin, but bring 
us only trifles. Yet no one has seen this lover. The ears outside her door hear singing, 
laughter, gossip, nothing of any use.” 

“Margaery is too shrewd to be caught so easily,” said Lady Merryweather. “Her women 
are her castle walls. They sleep with her, dress her, pray with her, read with her, sew with 
her. When she is not hawking or riding she is playing come-into-my-castle with little 
Alysanne Bulwer. Whenever men are about, her septa will be with her, or her cousins.” 

“She must rid herself of her hens sometime,” the queen insisted. A thought struck her. 
“Unless her ladies are part of it as well . . . not all of them, perhaps, but some.” 

“The cousins?” Even Taena sounded doubtful. “All three are younger than the little 
queen, and more innocent.” 

“Wantons clad in maiden’s white. That only makes their sins more shocking. Their 
names will live in shame.” Suddenly the queen could almost taste it. “Taena, your lord 


husband is my justiciar. The two of you must sup with me, this very night.” She wanted 
this done quickly, before Margaery took it in her little head to return to Highgarden, or 
sail to Dragonstone to be with her wounded brother at death’s door. “I shall command the 
cooks to roast a boar for us. And of course we must have some music, to help with our 
digestion.” 

Taena was very quick. “Music. Just so.” 

“Go and tell your lord husband and make arrangements for the singer,” Cersei urged. 
“Ser Osmund, you may remain. We have much and more to discuss. I shall have need of 
Qyburn too.” 

Sad to say, the kitchens proved to have no wild boar on hand, and there was not time 
enough to send out hunters. Instead, the cooks butchered one of the castle sows, and 
served them ham studded with cloves and basted with honey and dried cherries. It was 
not what Cersei wanted, but she made do. Afterward they had baked apples with a sharp 
white cheese. Lady Taena savored every bite. Not so Orton Merryweather, whose round 
face remained blotched and pale from broth to cheese. He drank heavily and kept stealing 
glances at the singer. 

“A great pity about Lord Gyles,” Cersei said at last. “I daresay none of us will miss his 
coughing, though.” 

“No. No, I’d think not.” 

“We shall have need of a new lord treasurer. If the Vale were not so unsettled, I would 
bring back Petyr Baelish, but . . . I am minded to try Ser Harys in the office. He can do no 
worse than Gyles, and at least he does not cough.” 

“Ser Harys is the King’s Hand,” said Taena. 

Ser Harys is a hostage, and feeble even at that. “It is time that Tommen had a more 
forceful Hand.” 

Lord Orton lifted his gaze from his wine cup. “Forceful. To be sure.” He hesitated. “Who 
. . . ?” 

“You, my lord. It is in your blood. Your grandsire took my own father’s place as Hand to 
Aerys.” Replacing Tywin Lannister with Owen Merryweather had proved to be akin to 
replacing a destrier with a donkey, to be sure, but Owen had been an old done man when 
Aerys raised him, amiable if ineffectual. His grandson was younger, and . . . Well, he has 
a strong wife. It was a pity Taena could not serve as Hand. She was thrice the man her 
husband was, and far more amusing. She was also Myrish-born and female, however, so 
Orton must needs suffice. “I have no doubt that you are more able than Ser Harys.” The 
contents of my chamber pot are more able than Ser Harys. “Will you consent to serve?” 


“I . . . yes, of course. Your Grace does me great honor.” 

A greater one than you deserve. “You have served me ably as justiciar, my lord. And will 
continue to do so through these . . . trying times ahead.” When she saw that 
Merryweather had grasped her meaning, the queen turned to smile at the singer. “And 
you must be rewarded as well, for all the sweet songs you have played for us whilst we 
ate. The gods have given you a gift.” 

The singer bowed. “Your Grace is kind to say so.” 

“Not kind,” said Cersei, “merely truthful. Taena tells me that you are called the Blue 
Bard.” 

“I am, Your Grace.” The singer’s boots were supple blue calfskin, his breeches fine blue 
wool. The tunic he wore was pale blue silk slashed with shiny blue satin. He had even 
gone so far as to dye his hair blue, in the Tyroshi fashion. Long and curly, it fell to his 
shoulders and smelled as if it had been washed in rosewater. From blue roses, no doubt. 
At least his teeth are white. They were good teeth, not the least bit crooked. 

“You have no other name?” 

A hint of pink suffused his cheeks. “As a boy, I was called Wat. A fine name for a 
plowboy, less fitting for a singer.” 

The Blue Bard’s eyes were the same color as Robert’s. For that alone, she hated him. “It 
is easy to see why you are Lady Margaery’s favorite.” 

“Her Grace is kind. She says I give her pleasure.” 

“Oh, I’m certain of it. Might I see your lute?” 

“If it please Your Grace.” Beneath the courtesy, there was a faint hint of unease, but he 
handed her the lute all the same. One does not refuse the queen’s request. 

Cersei plucked a string and smiled at the sound. “Sweet and sad as love. Tell me, Wat . . . 
the first time you took Margaery to bed, was that before she wed my son, or after?” 

For a moment he did not seem to understand. When he did, his eyes grew large. “Your 
Grace has been misinformed. I swear to you, I never—” 

“Liar!” Cersei smashed the lute across the singer’s face so hard the painted wood 
exploded into shards and splinters. “Lord Orton, summon my guards and take this 
creature to the dungeons.” 

Orton Merryweather’s face was damp with fear. “This . . . oh, infamy . . . he dared seduce 
the queen?” 


“I fear it was the other way around, but he is a traitor all the same. Let him sing for Lord 
Qyburn.” 

The Blue Bard went white. “No.” Blood dripped from his lip where the lute had torn it. “I 
never . . .” When Merryweather seized him by the arm, he screamed, “Mother have 
mercy, no.” 

“I am not your mother,” Cersei told him. 

Even in the black cells, all they got from him were denials, prayers, and pleas for mercy. 
Before long, blood was streaming down his chin from all his broken teeth, and he wet his 
dark blue breeches three times over, yet still the man persisted in his lies. “Is it possible 
we have the wrong singer?” Cersei asked. 

“All things are possible, Your Grace. Have no fear. The man will confess before the night 
is done.” Down here in the dungeons, Qyburn wore roughspun wool and a blacksmith’s 
leather apron. To the Blue Bard he said, “I am sorry if the guards were rough with you. 
Their courtesies are sadly lacking.” His voice was kind, solicitous. “All we want from 
you is the truth.” 

“I’ve told you the truth,” the singer sobbed. Iron shackles held him hard against the cold 
stone wall. 

“We know better.” Qyburn had a razor in his hand, its edge gleaming faintly in the 
torchlight. He cut away the Blue Bard’s clothing, until the man was naked but for his 
high blue boots. The hair between his legs was brown, Cersei was amused to see. “Tell us 
how you pleasured the little queen,” she commanded. 

“I never . . . I sang, was all, I sang and played. Her ladies will tell you. They were always 
with us. Her cousins.” 

“How many of them did you have carnal knowledge of?” 

“None of them. I’m just a singer. Please.” 

Qyburn said, “Your Grace, mayhaps this poor man only played for Margaery whilst she 
entertained other lovers.” 

“No. Please. She never . . . I sang, I only sang . . .” 

Lord Qyburn ran a hand up the Blue Bard’s chest. “Does she take your nipples in her 
mouth during your love play?” He took one between his thumb and forefinger, and 
twisted. “Some men enjoy that. Their nipples are as sensitive as a woman’s.” The razor 
flashed, the singer shrieked. On his chest a wet red eye wept blood. Cersei felt ill. Part of 
her wanted to close her eyes, to turn away, to make it stop. But she was the queen and 
this was treason. Lord Tywin would not have turned away. 


In the end the Blue Bard told them his whole life, back to his first name day. His father 
had been a chandler and Wat was raised to that trade, but as a boy he found he had more 
skill at making lutes than barrels. When he was twelve he ran off to join a troupe of 
musicians he had heard performing at a fair. He had wandered half the Reach before 
coming to King’s Landing in hopes of finding favor at court. 

“Favor?” Qyburn chuckled. “Is that what women call it now? I fear you found too much 
of it, my friend . . . and from the wrong queen. The true one stands before you.” 

Yes. Cersei blamed Margaery Tyrell for this. If not for her, Wat might have lived a long 
and fruitful life, singing his little songs and bedding pig girls and crofter’s daughters. Her 
scheming forced this on me. She has soiled me with her treachery. 

By dawn the singer’s high blue boots were full of blood, and he had told them how 
Margaery would fondle herself as she watched her cousins pleasuring him with their 
mouths. At other times he would sing for her whilst she sated her lusts with other lovers. 
“Who were they?” the queen demanded, and the wretched Wat named Ser Tallad the 
Tall, Lambert Turnberry, Jalabhar Xho, the Redwyne twins, Osney Kettleblack, Hugh 
Clifton, and the Knight of Flowers. 

That displeased her. She dare not besmirch the name of the hero of Dragonstone. Besides, 
no one who knew Ser Loras would ever believe it. The Redwynes could not be a part of it 
either. Without the Arbor and its fleet, the realm could never hope to rid itself of this 
Euron Crow’s Eye and his accursed ironmen. “All you are doing is spitting up the names 
of men you saw about her chambers. We want the truth!” 

“The truth.” Wat looked at her with the one blue eye that Qyburn had left him. Blood 
bubbled through the holes where his front teeth had been. “I might have . . . 
misremembered.” 

“Horas and Hobber had no part of this, did they?” 

“No,” he admitted. “Not them.” 

“As for Ser Loras, I am certain Margaery took pains to hide what she was doing from her 
brother.” 

“She did. I remember now. Once I had to hide under the bed when Ser Loras came to see 
her. He must never know, she said.” 

“I prefer this song to the other.” Leave the great lords out of it, that was for the best. The 
others, though . . . Ser Tallad had been a hedge knight, Jalabhar Xho was an exile and a 
beggar, Clifton was the only one of the little queen’s guardsman. And Osney is the plum 
that makes the pudding. “I know you feel better for having told the truth. You will want 
to remember that when Margaery comes to trial. If you were to start lying again . . .” 


“I won’t. I’ll tell it true. And after . . .” 

“. . . you will be allowed to take the black. You have my word on that.” Cersei turned to 
Qyburn. “See that his wounds are cleaned and dressed, and give him milk of the poppy 
for the pain.” 

“Your Grace is good.” Qyburn dropped the bloody razor into a pail of vinegar. 
“Margaery may wonder where her bard has gone.” 

“Singers come and go, they are infamous for it.” 

The climb up the dark stone steps from the black cells left Cersei feeling breathless. I 
must rest. Getting to the truth was wearisome work, and she dreaded what must follow. I 
must be strong. What I must do I do for Tommen and the realm. It was a pity that Maggy 
the Frog was dead. Piss on your prophecy, old woman. The little queen may be younger 
than I, but she has never been more beautiful, and soon she will be dead. 

Lady Merryweather was waiting in her bedchamber. It was the black of night, closer to 
dawn than to dusk. Jocelyn and Dorcas were both asleep, but not Taena. “Was it 
terrible?” she asked. 

“You cannot know. I need to sleep, but fear to dream.” 

Taena stroked her hair. “It was all for Tommen.” 

“It was. I know it was.” Cersei shuddered. “My throat is raw. Be a sweet and pour me 
some wine.” 

“If it please you. That is all that I desire.” 

Liar. She knew what Taena desired. So be it. If the woman was besotted with her, that 
would help ensure that she and her husband remained loyal. In a world so full of 
treachery, that was worth a few kisses. She is no worse than most men. At least there is 
no danger of her ever getting me with child. 

The wine helped, but not enough. “I feel soiled,” the queen complained as she stood 
beside her window, cup in hand. 

“A bath will set you right, my sweet.” Lady Merryweather woke Dorcas and Jocelyn and 
sent them for hot water. As the tub was filled, she helped the queen disrobe, undoing her 
laces with deft fingers and easing the gown off her shoulders. Then she slipped out of her 
own dress and let it puddle on the floor. 

The two of them shared the bath together, with Cersei lying back in Taena’s arms. 
“Tommen must be spared the worst of this,” she told the Myrish woman. “Margaery still 
takes him to the sept every day, so they can ask the gods to heal her brother.” Ser Loras 


still clung to life, annoyingly. “He is fond of her cousins as well. It will go hard on him, 
to lose them all.” 

“All three may not be guilty,” suggested Lady Merryweather. “Why, it might well be that 
one of them took no part. If she was shamed and sickened by the things she saw . . .” 

“. . . she might be persuaded to bear witness against the others. Yes, very good, but which 
one is the innocent?” 

“Alla.” 

“The shy one?” 

“So she seems, but there is more of sly than shy in her. Leave her to me, my sweet.” 

“Gladly.” Alone, the Blue Bard’s confession would never suffice. Singers lied for their 
living, after all. Alla Tyrell would be of great help, if Taena could deliver her. “Ser Osney 
shall confess as well. The others must be made to understand that only through 
confession can they earn the king’s forgiveness, and the Wall.” Jalabhar Xho would find 
the truth attractive. About the rest she was less certain, but Qyburn was persuasive . . . 

Dawn was breaking over King’s Landing when they climbed from the tub. The queen’s 
skin was white and wrinkled from her long immersion. “Stay with me,” she told Taena. “I 
do not want to sleep alone.” She even said a prayer before she crawled beneath her 
coverlet, beseeching the Mother for sweet dreams. 

It proved a waste of breath; as ever, the gods were deaf. Cersei dreamt that she was down 
in the black cells once again, only this time it was her chained to the wall in place of the 
singer. She was naked, and blood dripped from the tips of her breasts where the Imp had 
torn off her nipples with his teeth. “Please,” she begged, “please, not my children, do not 
harm my children.” Tyrion only leered at her. He was naked too, covered with coarse hair 
that made him look more like a monkey than a man. “You shall see them crowned,” he 
said, “and you shall see them die.” Then he took her bleeding breast into his mouth and 
began to suck, and pain sawed through her like a hot knife. 

She woke shuddering in Taena’s arms. “A bad dream,” she said weakly. “Did I scream? 
I’m sorry.” 

“Dreams turn to dust in light of day. Was it the dwarf again? Why does he frighten you 
so, this silly little man?” 

“He is going to kill me. It was foreseen when I was ten. I wanted to know who I would 
marry, but she said . . .” 

“She?” 


“The maegi.” The words came tumbling out of her. She could still hear Melara 
Hetherspoon insisting that if they never spoke about the prophecies, they would not come 
true. She was not so silent in the well, though. She screamed and shouted. “Tyrion is the 
valonqar,” she said. “Do you use that word in Myr? It’s High Valyrian, it means little 
brother.” She had asked Septa Saranella about the word, after Melara drowned. 

Taena took her hand and stroked it. “This was a hateful woman, old and sick and ugly. 
You were young and beautiful, full of life and pride. She lived in Lannisport, you said, so 
she would have known of the dwarf and how he killed your lady mother. This creature 
dared not strike you, because of who you were, so she sought to wound you with her 
viper’s tongue.” 

Could it be? Cersei wanted to believe it. “Melara died, though, just as she foretold. I 
never wed Prince Rhaegar. And Joffrey . . . the dwarf killed my son before my eyes.” 

“One son,” said Lady Merryweather, “but you have another, sweet and strong, and no 
harm will ever come to him.” 

“Never, whilst I live.” Saying it helped her believe that it was so. Dreams turn to dust in 
light of day, yes. Outside the morning sun was shining through a haze of cloud. Cersei 
slipped out from under the blankets. “I will break my fast with the king this morning. I 
want to see my son.” All I do, I do for him. 

Tommen helped restore her to herself. He had never been more precious to her than he 
was that morning, chattering about his kittens as he dribbled honey onto a chunk of hot 
black bread fresh from the ovens. “Ser Pounce caught a mouse,” he told her, “but Lady 
Whiskers stole it from him.” 

I was never so sweet and innocent, Cersei thought. How can he ever hope to rule in this 
cruel realm? The mother in her wanted only to protect him; the queen in her knew he 
must grow harder, or the Iron Throne was certain to devour him. “Ser Pounce must learn 
to defend his rights,” she told him. “In this world the weak are always the victims of the 
strong.” 

The king considered that, licking honey off his fingers. “When Ser Loras comes back I’m 
going to learn to fight with lance and sword and morningstar, the same way he does.” 

“You will learn to fight,” the queen promised, “but not from Ser Loras. He will not be 
coming back, Tommen.” 

“Margaery says he will. We pray for him. We ask for the Mother’s mercy, and for the 
Warrior to give him strength. Elinor says that this is Ser Loras’s hardest battle.” 

She smoothed his hair back, the soft golden curls that reminded her so much of Joff. 
“Will you be spending the afternoon with your wife and her cousins?” 


“Not today. She has to fast and purify herself, she said.” 

Fast and purify . . . oh, for Maiden’s Day. It had been years since Cersei had been 
required to observe that particular holy day. Thrice wed, yet she still would have us 
believe she is a maid. Demure in white, the little queen would lead her hens to Baelor’s 
Sept to light tall white candles at the Maiden’s feet and hang parchment garlands about 
her holy neck. A few of her hens, at least. On Maiden’s Day widows, mothers, and 
whores alike were barred from the septs, along with men, lest they profane the sacred 
songs of innocence. Only virgin maids could . . . 

“Mother? Did I say something wrong?” 

Cersei kissed her son’s brow. “You said something very wise, sweetling. Now run along 
and play with your kittens.” 

Afterward she summoned Ser Osney Kettleblack to her solar. He came in sweaty from 
the yard and swaggering, and as he took a knee he undressed her with his eyes, the way 
he always did. 

“Rise, ser, and sit here next to me. You did me a valiant service once, but now I have a 
harder task for you.” 

“Aye, and I have something hard for you.” 

“That must wait.” She traced his scars lightly with the tips of her fingers. “Do you recall 
the whore who gave these to you? I’ll give her to you when you come back from the 
Wall. Would you like that?” 

“It’s you I want.” 

That was the right answer. “First you must confess your treason. A man’s sins can poison 
his soul if left to fester. I know it must be hard for you to live with what you’ve done. It is 
past time that you rid yourself of your shame.” 

“Shame?” Osney sounded baffled. “I told Osmund, Margaery just teases. She never lets 
me do any more than . . .” 

“It is chivalrous of you to protect her,” Cersei broke in, “but you are too good a knight to 
go on living with your crime. No, you must take yourself to the Great Sept of Baelor this 
very night and speak with the High Septon. When a man’s sins are so black, only His 
High Holiness himself can save him from hell’s torments. Tell him how you bedded 
Margaery and her cousins.” 

Osney blinked. “What, the cousins too?” 


“Megga and Elinor,” she decided, “never Alla.” That little detail would make the whole 
story more plausible. “Alla would sit weeping, and plead with the others to stop their 
sinning.” 

“Just Megga and Elinor? Or Margaery too?” 

“Margaery, most certainly. She was the one behind it all.” 

She told him all she had in mind. As Osney listened, apprehension slowly spread across 
his face. When she finished he said, “After you cut her head off, I want to take that kiss 
she never gave me.” 

“You may take all the kisses you like.” 

“And then the Wall?” 

“For just a little while. Tommen is a forgiving king.” 

Osney scratched at his scarred cheek. “Usually if I lie about some woman, it’s me saying 
how I never fucked them and them saying how I did. This . . . I never lied to no High 
Septon before. I think you go to some hell for that. One o’ the bad ones.” 

The queen was taken aback. The last thing she expected was piety from a Kettleblack. 
“Are you refusing to obey me?” 

“No.” Osney touched her golden hair. “The thing is, the best lies have some truth in ’em . 
. . to give ’em flavor, as it were. And you want me to go tell how I fucked a queen . . .” 

She almost slapped his face. Almost. But she had gone too far, and too much was at 
stake. All I do, I do for Tommen. She turned her head and caught Ser Osney’s hand with 
her own, kissing his fingers. They were rough and hard, callused from the sword. Robert 
had hands like that, she thought. 

Cersei wrapped her arms about his neck. “I would not want it said I made a liar of you,” 
she whispered in a husky voice. “Give me an hour, and meet me in my bedchamber.” 

“We waited long enough.” He thrust his fingers inside the bodice of her gown and 
yanked, and the silk parted with a ripping sound so loud that Cersei was afraid that half of 
the Red Keep must have heard it. “Take off the rest before I tear that too,” he said. “You 
can keep the crown on. I like you in the crown.” 


THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER 

Hers was a gentle prison. 

Arianne took solace from that. Why would her father go to such great pains to provide for 
her comfort in captivity if he had marked her for a traitor’s death? He cannot mean to kill 
me, she told herself a hundred times. He does not have it in him to be so cruel. I am his 
blood and seed, his heir, his only daughter. If need be, she would throw herself beneath 
the wheels of his chair, admit her fault, and beg him for his pardon. And she would weep. 
When he saw tears rolling down her face, he would forgive her. 

She was less certain whether she would forgive herself. 

“Areo,” she had pleaded with her captor during the long dry ride from the Greenblood 
back to Sunspear, “I never wanted the girl to come to harm. You must believe me.” 

Hotah made no reply, except to grunt. Arianne could feel his anger. Darkstar had escaped 
him, the most dangerous of all her little group of plotters. He had outraced all his 
pursuers and vanished into the deep desert, with blood upon his blade. 

“You know me, captain,” Arianne had said, as the leagues rolled past. “You have known 
me since I was little. You always kept me safe, as you kept my lady mother safe when 
you came with her from Great Norvos to be her shield in a strange land. I need you now. 
I need your help. I never meant—” 

“What you meant does not matter, little princess,” Areo Hotah said. “Only what you did.” 
His countenance was stony. “I am sorry. It is for my prince to command, for Hotah to 
obey.” 

Arianne expected to be brought before her father’s high seat beneath the dome of leaded 
glass in the Tower of the Sun. Instead, Hotah delivered her to the Spear Tower, and the 
custody of her father’s seneschal Ricasso and Ser Manfrey Martell, the castellan. 
“Princess,” Ricasso said, “you will forgive an old blind man if he does not make the 
climb with you. These legs are not equal to so many steps. A chamber has been prepared 
for you. Ser Manfrey shall escort you there, to await the prince’s pleasure.” 

“The prince’s displeasure, you mean. Will my friends be confined here as well?” Arianne 
had been parted from Garin, Drey, and the others after capture, and Hotah had refused to 
say what would be done with them. “That is for the prince to decide,” was all the captain 


had to say upon the subject. Ser Manfrey proved a bit more forthcoming. “They were 
taken to the Planky Town and will be conveyed by ship to Ghaston Grey, until such time 
as Prince Doran decides their fate.” 

Ghaston Grey was a crumbling old castle perched on a rock in the Sea of Dorne, a drear 
and dreadful prison where the vilest of criminals were sent to rot and die. “Does my 
father mean to kill them?” Arianne could not believe it. “All they did they did for love for 
me. If my father must have blood, it should be mine.” 

“As you say, princess.” 

“I want to speak with him.” 

“He thought you might.” Ser Manfrey took her arm and marched her up the steps, up and 
up until her breath grew short. The Spear Tower stood a hundred and a half feet high, and 
her cell was nearly at the top. Arianne eyed every door they passed, wondering if one of 
the Sand Snakes might be locked within. 

When her own door had been closed and barred, Arianne explored her new home. Her 
cell was large and airy, and did not lack for comforts. There were Myrish carpets on the 
floor, red wine to drink, books to read. In one corner stood an ornate cyvasse table with 
pieces carved of ivory and onyx, though she had no one to play with even if she had been 
so inclined. She had a featherbed to sleep in, and a privy with a marble seat, sweetened 
by a basketful of herbs. This high up, the views were splendid. One window opened to 
the east, so she could watch the sun rise above the sea. The other allowed her to look 
down upon the Tower of the Sun, and the Winding Walls and Threefold Gate beyond. 

The exploration took less time than it would have taken her to lace a pair of sandals, but 
at least it served to keep the tears at bay for a time. Arianne found a basin and a flagon of 
cool water and washed her hands and face, but no amount of scrubbing could cleanse her 
of her grief. Arys, she thought, my white knight. Tears filled her eyes, and suddenly she 
was weeping, her whole body wracked by sobs. She remembered how Hotah’s heavy axe 
had cleaved through his flesh and bone, the way his head had gone spinning through the 
air. Why did you do it? Why throw your life away? I never told you to, I never wanted 
that, I only wanted . . . I wanted . . . I wanted . . . 

That night she cried herself to sleep . . . for the first time, if not the last. Even in her 
dreams she found no peace. She dreamt of Arys Oakheart caressing her, smiling at her, 
telling her that he loved her . . . but all the while the quarrels were in him and his wounds 
were weeping, turning his whites to red. Part of her knew it was a nightmare, even as she 
dreamt it. Come morning all of this will vanish, the princess told herself, but when 
morning came, she was still in her cell, Ser Arys was still dead, and Myrcella . . . I never 
wanted that, never. I meant the girl no harm. All I wanted was for her to be a queen. If we 
had not been betrayed . . . 


“Someone told,” Hotah had said. The memory still made her angry. Arianne clung to that, 
feeding the flame within her heart. Anger was better than tears, better than grief, better 
than guilt. Someone told, someone she had trusted. Arys Oakheart had died because of 
that, slain by the traitor’s whisper as much as by the captain’s axe. The blood that had 
streamed down Myrcella’s face, that was the betrayer’s work as well. Someone told, 
someone she had loved. That was the cruelest cut of all. 

She found a cedar chest full of her clothes at the foot of her bed, so she stripped out of the 
travel-stained garb she had slept in and donned the most revealing garments she could 
find, wisps of silk that covered everything and hid nothing. Prince Doran might treat her 
like a child, but she refused to dress like one. She knew such garb would discomfit her 
father when he came to chastise her for making off with Myrcella. She counted on it. If I 
must crawl and weep, let him be uncomfortable as well. 

She expected him that day, but when the door finally opened it proved to be only the 
servants with her midday meal. “When might I see my father?” she asked, but none of 
them would answer. The kid had been roasted with lemon and honey. With it were grape 
leaves stuffed with a mélange of raisins, onions, mushrooms, and fiery dragon peppers. “I 
am not hungry,” Arianne said. Her friends would be eating ship’s biscuits and salt beef 
on their way to Ghaston Grey. “Take this away and bring me Prince Doran.” But they left 
the food, and her father did not come. After a while, hunger weakened her resolve, so she 
sat and ate. 

Once the food was gone, there was nothing else for Arianne to do. She paced around her 
tower, twice and thrice and three times thrice. She sat beside the cyvasse table and idly 
moved an elephant. She curled up in the window seat and tried to read a book, until the 
words became a blur and she realized that she was crying again. Arys, my sweet, my white 
knight, why did you do it? You should have yielded. I tried to tell you, but the words 
caught in my mouth. You gallant fool, I never meant for you to die, or for Myrcella . . . 
oh, gods be good, that little girl . . . 

Finally, she crawled back onto the featherbed. The world had grown dark, and there was 
little she could do but sleep. Someone told, she thought. Someone told. Garin, Drey, and 
Spotted Sylva were friends of her girlhood, as dear to her as her cousin Tyene. She could 
not believe they would inform on her . . . but that left only Darkstar, and if he was the 
betrayer, why had he turned his sword on poor Myrcella? He wanted to kill her instead of 
crowning her, he said as much at Shandystone. He said that was how I’d get the war I 
wanted. But it made no sense for Dayne to be the traitor. If Ser Gerold had been the 
worm in the apple, why would he have turned his sword upon Myrcella? 

Someone told. Could it have been Ser Arys? Had the white knight’s guilt won out over 
his lust? Had he loved Myrcella more than her and betrayed his new princess to atone for 
his betrayal of the old? Was he so ashamed of what he’d done that he threw his life away 
at the Greenblood rather than live to face dishonor? 


Someone told. When her father came to see her, she would learn which one. Prince Doran 
did not come the next day, though. Nor the day after. The princess was left alone to pace, 
and weep, and nurse her wounds. During the daylight hours she would try to read, but the 
books that they had given her were deadly dull: ponderous old histories and geographies, 
annotated maps, a dry-as-dust study of the laws of Dorne, The Seven-Pointed Star and 
Lives of the High Septons, a huge tome about dragons that somehow made them about as 
interesting as newts. Arianne would have given much and more for a copy of Ten 
Thousand Ships or The Loves of Queen Nymeria, anything to occupy her thoughts and let 
her escape her tower for an hour or two, but such amusements were denied her. 

From her window seat, she had only to glance out to see the great dome of gold and 
colored glass below her, where her father sat in state. He will summon me soon, she told 
herself. 

No visitors were permitted her beyond the servants; Bors with his stubbly jaw, tall 
Timoth dripping dignity, the sisters Morra and Mellei, pretty little Cedra, old Belandra 
who had been her mother’s bedmaid. They brought her meals, changed her bed, and 
emptied the chamber pot beneath her privy, but none would speak with her. When she 
required more wine, Timoth would fetch it. If she desired some favorite food, figs or 
olives or peppers stuffed with cheese, she need only tell Belandra, and it would appear. 
Morra and Mellei took away her dirty clothes and returned them clean and fresh. Every 
second day a bath was brought for her, and shy little Cedra would soap her back and help 
her brush her hair. 

Yet none of them had a word for her, nor would they deign to tell her what was 
happening in the world outside her sandstone cage. “Has Darkstar been captured?” she 
asked Bors one day. “Are they still hunting for him?” The man only turned his back on 
her and walked away. “Have you gone deaf?” Arianne snapped at him. “Come back here 
and answer me. I command it.” Her only reply was the sound of a door closing. 

“Timoth,” she tried, another day, “what has become of Princess Myrcella? I never meant 
for harm to come to her.” The last she had seen of the other princess had been on their 
ride back to Sunspear. Too weak to sit a horse, Myrcella had traveled in a litter, her head 
bound up in silken bandages where Darkstar slashed at her, her green eyes bright with 
fever. “Tell me that she has not died, I beg you. What harm could come of my knowing 
that? Tell me how she fares.” Timoth would not. 

“Belandra,” Arianne said, a few days later, “if you ever loved my lady mother, take pity 
on her poor daughter and tell me when my father means to come and see me. Please. 
Please.” But Belandra had lost her tongue as well. 

Is this my father’s notion of torment? Not hot irons or the rack, but simple silence? That 
was so very like Doran Martell that Arianne had to laugh. He thinks he is being subtle 
when he is only being feeble. She resolved to enjoy the quiet, to use the time to heal and 
fortify herself for what must come. 


It was no good dwelling endlessly on Ser Arys, she knew. Instead, she made herself think 
about the Sand Snakes, Tyene especially. Arianne loved all her bastard cousins, from 
prickly, hot-tempered Obara to little Loreza, the youngest, only six years old. Tyene had 
always been the one she loved the most, though; the sweet sister that she never had. The 
princess had never been close to her brothers; Quentyn was off at Yronwood, and 
Trystane was too young. No, it had always been her and Tyene, with Garin and Drey and 
Spotted Sylva. Nym would sometimes join them in their sport, and Sarella was forever 
pushing in where she didn’t belong, but for the most part they had been a company of 
five. They splashed in the pools and fountains of the Water Gardens, and rode into battle 
perched on one another’s naked backs. She and Tyene had learned to read together, 
learned to ride together, learned to dance together. When they were ten Arianne had 
stolen a flagon of wine, and the two of them had gotten drunk together. They shared 
meals and beds and jewelry. They would have shared their first man as well, but Drey got 
too excited and spurted all over Tyene’s fingers the moment she drew him from his 
breeches. Her hands are dangerous. The memory made her smile. 

The more she thought about her cousins, the more the princess missed them. For all I 
know, they might be right below me. That night Arianne tried pounding on the floor with 
the heel of her sandal. When no one answered, she leaned out a window and peered 
down. She could see other windows below, smaller than her own, some no more than 
arrow loops. “Tyene!” she called. “Tyene, are you there? Obara, Nym? Can you hear 
me? Ellaria? Anyone? TYENE?” The princess spent half the night hanging out the 
window, calling till her throat was raw, but no answering shouts came back to her. That 
frightened her more than she could say. If the Sand Snakes were imprisoned in the Spear 
Tower, they surely would have heard her shouting. Why didn’t they answer? If Father 
has done them harm, I will never forgive him, never, she told herself. 

By the time a fortnight had passed, her patience had worn paper-thin. “I will speak with 
my father now,” she told Bors, in her most commanding voice. “You will take me to 
him.” He did not take her to him. “I am ready to see the prince,” she told Timoth, but he 
turned away as if he had not heard. The next morning, Arianne was waiting beside the 
door when it opened. She bolted past Belandra, sending a platter of spiced eggs to crash 
against the wall, but the guards caught her before she’d gone three yards. She knew them 
too, but they were deaf to her entreaties. They dragged her back to her cell, kicking and 
squirming. 

Arianne decided that she must needs be more subtle. Cedra was her best hope; the girl 
was young, naive, and gullible. Garin had boasted of bedding her once, the princess 
recalled. The next time she bathed, as Cedra soaped her shoulders, she began to talk of 
everything and nothing. “I know you have been commanded not to speak to me,” she 
said, “but no one told me not to speak to you.” She spoke about the heat of the day, and 
what she’d had last night for supper, and how slow and stiff poor Belandra was 
becoming. Prince Oberyn had armed each of his daughters so they need never be 
defenseless, but Arianne Martell had no weapon but her guile. And so she smiled and 
charmed, and asked nothing in return of Cedra, neither word nor nod. 


The next day at supper, she nattered at the girl again as she was serving. This time she 
contrived to mention Garin. Cedra glanced up shyly at his name and almost spilled the 
wine that she was pouring. So it is that way, is it? thought Arianne. 

During her next bath, she spoke of her imprisoned friends, especially Garin. “He’s the 
one I fear for most,” she confided to the serving girl. “The orphans are free spirits, they 
live to wander. Garin needs sunshine and fresh air. If they lock him away in some dank 
stone cell, how will he survive? He will not last a year at Ghaston Grey.” Cedra did not 
reply, but her face was pale when Arianne rose from the water, and she was squeezing the 
sponge so tightly that soap was dripping on the Myrish carpet. 

Even so, it was four more days and two more baths before the girl was hers. “Please,” 
Cedra finally whispered, after Arianne had painted a vivid picture of Garin throwing 
himself from the window of his cell, to taste freedom one last time before he died. “You 
have to help him. Please don’t let him die.” 

“I can do little and less so long as I am locked up here,” she whispered back. “My father 
will not see me. You are the only one who can save Garin. Do you love him?” 

“Yes,” Cedra whispered, blushing. “But how can I help?” 

“You can smuggle out a letter for me,” said the princess. “Will do you that? Will you 
take the risk . . . for Garin?” 

Cedra’s eyes got big. She nodded. 

I have a raven, Arianne thought, triumphantly, but who to send her to? The only one of 
her conspirators to escape her father’s net was Darkstar. By now Ser Gerold might well 
have been taken, however; if not, he would surely have fled Dorne. Her next thought was 
of Garin’s mother and the orphans of the Greenblood. No, not them. It must be someone 
with real power, someone who had no part of our plot yet might have reason to be 
sympathetic to us. She considered appealing to her own mother, but Lady Mellario was 
far away in Norvos. Besides, Prince Doran had not listened to his lady wife for many 
years. Not her either. I need a lord, one great enough to cow my father into releasing me. 

The most powerful of the Dornish lords was Anders Yronwood, the Bloodroyal, Lord of 
Yronwood and Warden of the Stone Way, but Arianne knew better than to look for help 
from the man who had fostered her brother Quentyn. No. Drey’s brother Ser Deziel Dalt 
had once aspired to marry her, but he was much too dutiful to go against his prince. 
Besides, whilst the Knight of Lemonwood might intimidate a petty lord, he did not have 
the strength to sway the Prince of Dorne. No. The same was true of Spotted Sylva’s 
father. No. Arianne finally decided that she had but two real hopes: Harmen Uller, Lord 
of Hellholt, and Franklyn Fowler, Lord of Skyreach and Warden of the Prince’s Pass. 

Half of the Ullers are half-mad, the saying went, and the other half are worse. Ellaria 
Sand was Lord Harmen’s natural daughter. She and her little ones had been locked away 


with the rest of the Sand Snakes. That would have made Lord Harmen wroth, and the 
Ullers were dangerous when wroth. Too dangerous, perhaps. The princess did not want 
to put any more lives in danger. 

Lord Fowler might be a safer choice. The Old Hawk, he was called. He had never gotten 
on with Anders Yronwood; there was bad blood between their Houses going back a 
thousand years, from when the Fowlers had chosen Martell over Yronwood during 
Nymeria’s War. The Fowler twins were famous friends of Lady Nym as well, but how 
much weight would that carry with the Old Hawk? 

For days Arianne wavered as she composed her secret letter. “Give the man who brings 
this to you a hundred silver stags,” she began. That should ensure that the message was 
delivered. She wrote where she was, and pleaded for rescue. “Whoever shall deliver me 
from this cell, he shall not be forgotten when I wed.” That should bring the heroes 
running. Unless Prince Doran had attainted her, she remained the lawful heir to Sunspear; 
the man who married her would one day rule Dorne by her side. Arianne could only pray 
that her rescuer would prove younger than the greybeards her father had offered her over 
the years. “I want a consort with teeth,” she had told him when she refused the last. 

She dare not ask for parchment for fear of rousing the suspicions of her captors, so she 
wrote the letter on the bottom of a page torn from The Seven-Pointed Star, and pressed it 
into Cedra’s hand on her next bath day. “There’s a place beside the Threefold Gate where 
the caravans take on supplies before crossing the deep sand,” Arianne told her. “Find 
some traveler headed for the Prince’s Pass, and promise him a hundred silver stags if he 
will put this in Lord Fowler’s hand.” 

“I will.” Cedra hid the message in her bodice. “I’ll find someone before the sun goes 
down, princess.” 

“Good,” she said. “Tell me how it went on the morrow.” 

The girl did not return upon the morrow, however. Nor on the day that followed. When it 
was time for Arianne to bathe, it was Morra and Mellei who filled her tub, and stayed to 
wash her back and brush her hair. “Has Cedra taken ill?” the princess asked them, but 
neither would reply. She has been caught was all that she could think. What else could it 
be? That night she hardly slept, for fear of what might come next. 

When Timoth brought her breakfast the next morning, Arianne asked to see Ricasso 
rather than her father. Plainly she could not compel Prince Doran to attend her, but surely 
a mere seneschal would not ignore a summons from the rightful heir to Sunspear. 

He did, though. “Did you tell Ricasso what I said?” she demanded the next time she saw 
Timoth. “Did you tell him I had need of him?” When the man refused to answer her, 
Arianne seized a flagon of red wine and upended it over his head. The serving man 
retreated dripping, his face a mask of wounded dignity. My father means to leave me here 


to rot, the princess decided. Or else he is making plans to marry me off to some 
disgusting old fool and intends to keep me locked away until the bedding. 

Arianne Martell had grown up expecting that one day she would wed some great lord of 
her father’s choosing. That was what princesses were for, she had been taught . . . though, 
admittedly, her uncle Oberyn had taken a different view of matters. “If you would wed, 
wed,” the Red Viper had told his own daughters. “If not, take your pleasure where you 
find it. There’s little enough of it in this world. Choose well, though. If you saddle 
yourself with a fool or a brute, don’t look to me to rid you of him. I gave you the tools to 
do that for yourself.” 

The freedom that Prince Oberyn allowed his bastard daughters had never been shared by 
Prince Doran’s lawful heir. Arianne must wed; she had accepted that. Drey had wanted 
her, she knew; so had his brother Deziel, the Knight of Lemonwood. Daemon Sand had 
gone so far as to ask for her hand. Daemon was bastard-born, however, and Prince Doran 
did not mean for her to wed a Dornishman. 

Arianne had accepted that as well. One year King Robert’s brother came to visit and she 
did her best to seduce him, but she was half a girl and Lord Renly seemed more bemused 
than inflamed by her overtures. Later, when Hoster Tully asked her to come to Riverrun 
and meet his heir, she lit candles to the Maid in thanks, but Prince Doran had declined the 
invitation. The princess might even have considered Willas Tyrell, crippled leg and all, 
but her father refused to send her to Highgarden to meet him. She tried to go despite him, 
with Tyene’s help . . . but Prince Oberyn caught them at Vaith and brought them back. 
That same year, Prince Doran tried to betroth her to Ben Beesbury, a minor lordling who 
was eighty if he was a day, and as blind as he was toothless. 

Beesbury died a few years later. That gave her some small comfort in her present pass; 
she could not be forced to marry him if he was dead. And the Lord of the Crossing had 
wed again, so she was safe from him as well. Elden Estermont is still alive and unwed, 
though. Lord Rosby and Lord Grandison as well. Grandison was called the Greybeard, 
but by the time she’d met him his beard had gone snow white. At the welcoming feast, he 
had gone to sleep between the fish course and the meat. Drey called that apt, since his 
sigil was a sleeping lion. Garin challenged her to see if she could tie a knot in his beard 
without waking him, but Arianne refrained. Grandison had seemed a pleasant fellow, less 
querulous than Estermont and more robust than Rosby. She would never marry him, 
however. Not even if Hotah stands behind me with his axe. 

No one came to marry her the next day, nor the day after. Nor did Cedra return. Arianne 
tried to win Morra and Mellei the same way, but it was no good. If she had been able to 
get either one alone she might have some hope, but together the sisters were a wall. By 
that time, the princess would have welcomed a touch of a hot iron, or an evening on the 
rack. The loneliness was like to drive her mad. I deserve a headsman’s axe for what I did, 
but he will not even give me that. He would sooner shut me away and forget I ever lived. 

She wondered if Maester Caleotte was drawing a proclamation to name her brother 
Quentyn heir to Dorne. 


Days came and went, one after the other, so many that Arianne lost count of how long 
she had been imprisoned. She found herself spending more and more time abed, until she 
reached the point where she did not rise at all except to use her privy. The meals the 
servants brought grew cold, untouched. Arianne slept and woke and slept again, and still 
felt too weary to rise. She prayed to the Mother for mercy and to the Warrior for courage, 
then slept some more. Fresh meals replaced the old ones, but she did not eat them either. 
Once, when she felt especially strong, she carried all the food to the window and flung it 
out into the yard, so it would not tempt her. The effort exhausted her, so afterward she 
crawled back into bed and slept for half a day. 

Then came a day when a rough hand woke her, shaking her by the shoulder. “Little 
princess,” said a voice she’d known from childhood. “Up and dress. The prince has called 
for you.” Areo Hotah stood over her, her old friend and protector. He was talking to her. 
Arianne smiled sleepily. It was good to see that seamed, scarred face, and hear his gruff, 
deep voice and thick Norvoshi accent. “What did you do with Cedra?” 

“The prince sent her to the Water Gardens,” Hotah said. “He will tell you. First you must 
wash, and eat.” 

She must look a wretched creature. Arianne crawled from the bed, weak as a kitten. 
“Have Morra and Mellei prepare a bath,” she told him, “and tell Timoth to bring me up 
some food. Nothing heavy. Some cold broth and a bit of bread and fruit.” 

“Aye,” said Hotah. Never had she heard a sweeter sound. 

The captain waited without whilst the princess bathed and brushed her hair and ate 
sparingly of the cheese and fruit they’d brought her. She drank a little wine to settle her 
stomach. I am frightened, she realized, for the first time in my life, I am frightened of my 
father. That made her laugh until the wine came out her nose. When it was time to dress, 
she chose a simple gown of ivory linen, with vines and purple grapes embroidered around 
the sleeves and bodice. She wore no jewels. I must be chaste and humble and contrite. I 
must throw myself at his feet and beg forgiveness, or I may never hear another human 
voice again. 

By the time she was ready, dusk had fallen. Arianne had thought that Hotah would escort 
her to the Tower of the Sun to hear her father’s judgment. Instead he delivered her to the 
prince’s solar, where they found Doran Martell seated behind a cyvasse table, his gouty 
legs supported by a cushioned footstool. He was toying with an onyx elephant, turning it 
in his reddened, swollen hands. The prince looked worse than she had ever seen him. His 
face was pale and puffy, his joints so inflamed that it hurt her just to look at them. Seeing 
him this way made Arianne’s heart go out to him . . . yet somehow she could not bring 
herself to kneel and beg, as she had planned. “Father,” she said instead. 

When he raised his head to look at her, his dark eyes were clouded with pain. Is that the 
gout? Arianne wondered. Or is it me? “A strange and subtle folk, the Volantenes,” he 
muttered, as he put the elephant aside. “I saw Volantis once, on my way to Norvos, where 


I first met Mellario. The bells were ringing, and the bears danced down the steps. Areo 
will recall the day.” 

“I remember,” echoed Areo Hotah in his deep voice. “The bears danced and the bells 
rang, and the prince wore red and gold and orange. My lady asked me who it was who 
shone so bright.” 

Prince Doran smiled wanly. “Leave us, captain.” 

Hotah stamped the butt of his longaxe on the floor, turned on his heel, and took his leave. 

“I told them to place a cyvasse table in your chambers,” her father said when the two of 
them were alone. 

“Who was I supposed to play with?” Why is he talking about a game? Has the gout 
robbed him of his wits? 

“Yourself. Sometimes it is best to study a game before you attempt to play it. How well 
do you know the game, Arianne?” 

“Well enough to play.” 

“But not to win. My brother loved the fight for its own sake, but I only play such games 
as I can win. Cyvasse is not for me.” He studied her face for a long moment before he 
said, “Why? Tell me that, Arianne. Tell me why.” 

“For the honor of our House.” Her father’s voice made her angry. He sounded so sad, so 
exhausted, so weak. You are a prince! she wanted to shout. You should be raging! “Your 
meekness shames all Dorne, Father. Your brother went to King’s Landing in your place, 
and they killed him!” 

“Do you think I do not know that? Oberyn is with me every time I close my eyes.” 

“Telling you to open them, no doubt.” She seated herself across the cyvasse table from 
her father. 

“I did not give you leave to sit.” 

“Then call Hotah back and whip me for my insolence. You are the Prince of Dorne. You 
can do that.” She touched one of the cyvasse pieces, the heavy horse. “Have you caught 
Ser Gerold?” 

He shook his head. “Would that we had. You were a fool to make him part of this. 
Darkstar is the most dangerous man in Dorne. You and he have done us all great harm.” 

Arianne was almost afraid to ask. “Myrcella. Is she . . . ?” 


“. . . dead? No, though Darkstar did his best. All eyes were on your white knight so no 
one seems quite certain just what happened, but it would appear that her horse shied away 
from his at the last instant, else he would have taken off the top of the girl’s skull. As it 
is, the slash opened her cheek down to the bone and sliced off her right ear. Maester 
Caleotte was able to save her life, but no poultice nor potion will ever restore her face. 
She was my ward, Arianne. Betrothed to your own brother and under my protection. You 
have dishonored all of us.” 

“I never meant her harm,” Arianne insisted. “If Hotah had not interfered . . .” 

“. . . you would have crowned Myrcella queen, to raise a rebellion against her brother. 
Instead of an ear, she would have lost her life.” 

“Only if we lost.” 

“If? The word is when. Dorne is the least populous of the Seven Kingdoms. It pleased the 
Young Dragon to make all our armies larger when he wrote that book of his, so as to 
make his conquest that much more glorious, and it has pleased us to water the seed he 
planted and let our foes think us more powerful than we are, but a princess ought to know 
the truth. Valor is a poor substitute for numbers. Dorne cannot hope to win a war against 
the Iron Throne, not alone. And yet that may well be what you have given us. Are you 
proud?” The prince did not allow her time to answer. “What am I to do with you, 
Arianne?” 

Forgive me, part of her wanted to say, but his words had cut her too deeply. “Why, do 
what you always do. Do nothing.” 

“You make it difficult for a man to swallow his anger.” 

“Best stop swallowing, you’re like to choke on it.” The prince did not answer. “Tell me 
how you knew my plans.” 

“I am the Prince of Dorne. Men seek my favor.” 

Someone told. “You knew, and yet you still allowed us to make off with Myrcella. 
Why?” 

“That was my mistake, and it has proved a grievous one. You are my daughter, Arianne. 
The little girl who used to run to me when she skinned her knee. I found it hard to believe 
that you would conspire against me. I had to learn the truth.” 

“Now you have. I want to know who informed on me.” 

“I would as well, in your place.” 

“Will you tell me?” 


“I can think of no reason why I should.” 

“You think I cannot discover the truth on my own?” 

“You are welcome to try. Until such time you must mistrust them all . . . and a little 
mistrust is a good thing in a princess.” Prince Doran sighed. “You disappoint me, 
Arianne.” 

“Said the crow to the raven. You have been disappointing me for years, Father.” She had 
not meant to be so blunt with him, but the words came spilling out. There, now I have 
said it. 

“I know. I am too meek and weak and cautious, too lenient to our enemies. Just now, 
though, you are in need of some of that leniency, it seems to me. You ought to be 
pleading for my forgiveness rather than seeking to provoke me further.” 

“I ask leniency only for my friends.” 

“How noble of you.” 

“What they did they did for love for me. They do not deserve to die on Ghaston Grey.” 

“As it happens, I agree. Aside from Darkstar, your fellow plotters were no more than 
foolish children. Still, this was no harmless game of cyvasse. You and your friends were 
playing at treason. I might have had their heads off.” 

“You might have, but you didn’t. Dayne, Dalt, Santagar . . . no, you would never dare 
make enemies of such Houses.” 

“I dare more than you dream . . . but leave that for the nonce. Ser Andrey has been sent to 
Norvos to serve your lady mother for three years. Garin will spend his next two years in 
Tyrosh. From his kin amongst the orphans, I took coin and hostages. Lady Sylva received 
no punishment from me, but she was of an age to marry. Her father has shipped her to 
Greenstone to wed Lord Estermont. As for Arys Oakheart, he chose his own fate and met 
it bravely. A knight of the Kingsguard . . . what did you do to him?” 

“I fucked him, Father. You did command me to entertain our noble visitors, as I recall.” 

His face grew flushed. “Was that all that was required?” 

“I told him that once Myrcella was the queen she would give us leave to marry. He 
wanted me for his wife.” 

“You did everything you could to stop him from dishonoring his vows, I am certain,” her 
father said. 


It was her turn to flush. Her seduction of Ser Arys had required half a year. Though he 
claimed to have known other women before taking the white, she would never have 
known that from the way he acted. His caresses had been clumsy, his kisses nervous, and 
the first time they were abed together he spent his seed on her thigh as she was guiding 
him inside her with her hand. Worse, he had been consumed by shame. If she only had a 
dragon for every time he had whispered, “We should not be doing this,” she would be 
richer than the Lannisters. Did he charge at Areo Hotah in hopes of saving me? Arianne 
wondered. Or did he do it to escape me, to wash out his dishonor with his life’s blood? 
“He did love me,” she heard herself say. “He died for me.” 

“If so, he may well be but the first of many. You and your cousins wanted war. You may 
get your wish. Another Kingsguard knight creeps toward Sunspear even as we speak. Ser 
Balon Swann is bringing me the Mountain’s head. My bannermen have been delaying 
him, to purchase me some time. The Wyls kept him hunting and hawking for eight days 
on the Boneway, and Lord Yronwood feasted him for a fortnight when he emerged from 
the mountains. At present he is at the Tor, where Lady Jordayne has arranged games in 
his honor. When he reaches Ghost Hill he will find Lady Toland intent on outdoing her. 
Soon or late, however, Ser Balon must arrive at Sunspear, and when he does he will 
expect to see Princess Myrcella . . . and Ser Arys, his Sworn Brother. What shall we tell 
him, Arianne? Shall I say that Oakheart perished in a hunting accident, or from a tumble 
down some slippery steps? Perhaps Arys went swimming at the Water Gardens, slipped 
upon the marble, hit his head, and drowned?” 

“No,” Arianne said. “Say that he died defending his little princess. Tell Ser Balon that 
Darkstar tried to kill her and Ser Arys stepped between them and saved her life.” That 
was how the white knights of the Kingsguard were supposed to die, giving up their own 
lives for those that they had sworn to protect. “Ser Balon may be suspicious, as you were 
when the Lannisters killed your sister and her children, but he will have no proof . . .” 

“. . . until he speaks with Myrcella. Or must that brave child suffer a tragic accident as 
well? If so, it will mean war. No lie will save Dorne from the queen’s wroth if her 
daughter should perish whilst in my care.” 

He needs me, Arianne realized. That’s why he sent for me. 

“I could tell Myrcella what to say, but why should I?” 

A spasm of anger rippled across her father’s face. “I warn you, Arianne, I am out of 
patience.” 

“With me?” That is so like him. “For Lord Tywin and the Lannisters you always had the 
forbearance of Baelor the Blessed, but for your own blood, none.” 

“You mistake patience for forbearance. I have worked at the downfall of Tywin Lannister 
since the day they told me of Elia and her children. It was my hope to strip him of all that 
he held most dear before I killed him, but it would seem his dwarf son has robbed me of 


that pleasure. I take some small solace in knowing that he died a cruel death at the hands 
of the monster that he himself begot. Be that as it may. Lord Tywin is howling down in 
hell . . . where thousands more will soon be joining him, if your folly turns to war.” Her 
father grimaced, as if the very word were painful to him. “Is that what you want?” 

The princess refused to be cowed. “I want my cousins freed. I want my uncle avenged. I 
want my rights.” 
“Your rights?” 
“Dorne.” 


“You will have Dorne after I am dead. Are you so anxious to be rid of me?” 
“I should turn that question back on you, Father. You have been trying to rid yourself of 
me for years.” 


“That is not true.” 
“No? Shall we ask my brother?” 
“Trystane?” 


“Quentyn.” 

“What of him?” 
“Where is he?” 
“He is with Lord Yronwood’s host in the Boneway.” 
“You do lie well, Father, I will grant you that. You did not so much as blink. Quentyn has 


gone to Lys.” 
“Where did you get that notion?” 
“A friend told me.” She could have secrets too. 
“Your friend lied. You have my word, your brother has not gone to Lys. I swear it by sun 


and spear and Seven.” 


Arianne could not be fooled so easily. “Is it Myr, then? Tyrosh? I know he is somewhere 
across the narrow sea, hiring sellswords to steal away my birthright.” 
Her father’s face darkened. “This mistrust does you no honor, Arianne. Quentyn should 

be the one conspiring against me. I sent him away when he was just a child, too young to 


understand the needs of Dorne. Anders Yronwood has been more a father to him than I 
have, yet your brother remains faithful and obedient.” 

“Why not? You favor him and always have. He looks like you, he thinks like you, and 
you mean to give him Dorne, don’t trouble to deny it. I read your letter.” The words still 
burned as bright as fire in her memory. “‘One day you will sit where I sit and rule all 
Dorne,’ you wrote him. Tell me, Father, when did you decide to disinherit me? Was it the 
day that Quentyn was born, or the day that I was born? What did I ever do to make you 
hate me so?” To her fury, there were tears in her eyes. 

“I never hated you.” Prince Doran’s voice was parchment-thin, and full of grief. 
“Arianne, you do not understand.” 

“Do you deny you wrote those words?” 

“No. That was when Quentyn first went to Yronwood. I did intend for him to follow me, 
yes. I had other plans for you.” 

“Oh, yes,” she said scornfully, “such plans. Gyles Rosby. Blind Ben Beesbury. 
Greybeard Grandison. They were your plans.” 

She gave him no chance to reply. “I know it is my duty to provide an heir for Dorne, I 
have never been forgetful of that. I would have wed, and gladly, but the matches that you 
brought to me were insults. With every one you spit on me. If you ever felt any love for 
me at all, why offer me to Walder Frey?” 

“Because I knew that you would spurn him. I had to be seen to try to find a consort for 
you once you’d reached a certain age, else it would have raised suspicions, but I dared 
not bring you any man you might accept. You were promised, Arianne.” 

Promised? Arianne stared at him incredulously. “What are you saying? Is this another 
lie? You never said . . .” 

“The pact was sealed in secret. I meant to tell you when you were old enough . . . when 
you came of age, I thought, but . . .” 

“I am three-and-twenty, for seven years a woman grown.” 

“I know. If I kept you ignorant too long, it was only to protect you. Arianne, your nature . 
. . to you, a secret was only a choice tale to whisper to Garin and Tyene in your bed of a 
night. Garin gossips as only the orphans can, and Tyene keeps nothing from Obara and 
the Lady Nym. And if they knew . . . Obara is too fond of wine, and Nym is too close to 
the Fowler twins. And who might the Fowler twins confide in? I could not take the risk.” 

She was lost, confounded. Promised. I was promised. “Who is it? Who have I been 
betrothed to, all these years?” 


“It makes no matter. He is dead.” 

That left her more baffled than ever. “The old ones are so frail. Was it a broken hip, a 
chill, the gout?” 

“It was a pot of molten gold. We princes make our careful plans and the gods smash them 
all awry.” Prince Doran made a weary gesture with a chafed red hand. “Dorne will be 
yours. You have my word on that, if my word still has any meaning for you. Your brother 
Quentyn has a harder road to walk.” 

“What road?” Arianne regarded him suspiciously. “What are you holding back? Seven 
save me, but I am sick of secrets. Tell me the rest, Father . . . or else name Quentyn your 
heir and send for Hotah and his axe, and let me die beside my cousins.” 

“Do you truly believe I would harm my brother’s children?” Her father grimaced. 
“Obara, Nym, and Tyene lack for nothing but their freedom, and Ellaria and her 
daughters are happily ensconced at the Water Gardens. Dorea stalks about knocking 
oranges off the trees with her morningstar, and Elia and Obella have become the terror of 
the pools.” He sighed. “It has not been so long since you were playing in those pools. 
You used to ride the shoulders of an older girl . . . a tall girl with wispy yellow hair . . .” 

“Jeyne Fowler, or her sister Jennelyn.” It had been years since Arianne had thought of 
that. “Oh, and Frynne, her father was a smith. Her hair was brown. Garin was my 
favorite, though. When I rode Garin no one could defeat us, not even Nym and that 
green-haired Tyroshi girl.” 

“That green-haired girl was the Archon’s daughter. I was to have sent you to Tyrosh in 
her place. You would have served the Archon as a cupbearer and met with your betrothed 
in secret, but your mother threatened to harm herself if I stole another of her children, and 

I . . . I could not do that to her.” 
His tale grows ever stranger. “Is that where Quentyn’s gone? To Tyrosh, to court the 
Archon’s green-haired daughter?” 

Her father plucked up a cyvasse piece. “I must know how you learned that Quentyn was 
abroad. Your brother went with Cletus Yronwood, Maester Kedry, and three of Lord 
Yronwood’s best young knights on a long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain 
welcome at its end. He has gone to bring us back our heart’s desire.” 

She narrowed her eyes. “What is our heart’s desire?” 

“Vengeance.” His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening. 
“Justice.” Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty 
fingers, and whispered, “Fire and blood.” 


ALAYNE 

She turned the iron ring and pushed the door open, just a crack. “Sweetrobin?” she called. 
“May I enter?” 

“Have a care, m’lady,” warned old Gretchel, wringing her hands. “His lordship threw his 
chamber pot at the maester.” 

“Then he has none to throw at me. Isn’t there some work you should be doing? And you, 
Maddy . . . are all the windows closed and shuttered? Have all the furnishings been 
covered?” 

“All of them, m’lady,” said Maddy. 

“Best make certain of it.” Alayne slipped into the darkened bedchamber. “It’s only me, 
Sweetrobin.” 

Someone sniffled in the darkness. “Are you alone?” 

“I am, my lord.” 

“Come close, then. Just you.” 

Alayne shut the door firmly behind her. It was solid oak, four inches thick; Maddy and 
Gretchel might listen all they wished, but they would hear nothing. That was just as well. 
Gretchel could hold her tongue, but Maddy gossiped shamelessly. 

“Did Maester Colemon send you?” the boy asked. 

“No,” she lied. “I heard my Sweetrobin was ailing.” After his encounter with the chamber 
pot the maester had come running to Ser Lothor, and Brune had come to her. “If m’lady 
can talk him out of bed nice,” the knight said, “I won’t have to drag him out.” 

We can’t have that, she told herself. When Robert was handled roughly he was apt to go 
into a shaking fit. “Are you hungry, my lord?” she asked the little lord. “Shall I send 
Maddy down for berries and cream, or some warm bread and butter?” Too late she 
remembered that there was no warm bread; the kitchens were closed, the ovens cold. If it 
gets Robert out of bed, it would be worth the bother of lighting a fire, she told herself. 


“I don’t want food,” the little lord said, in a reedy, petulant voice. “I’m going to stay in 
bed today. You could read to me if you want.” 

“It is too dark in here for reading.” The heavy curtains drawn across the windows made 
the bedchamber black as night. “Has my Sweetrobin forgotten what day this is?” 

“No,” he said, “but I’m not going. I want to stay in bed. You could read to me about the 
Winged Knight.” 

The Winged Knight was Ser Artys Arryn. Legend said that he had driven the First Men 
from the Vale and flown to the top of the Giant’s Lance on a huge falcon to slay the 
Griffin King. There were a hundred tales of his adventures. Little Robert knew them all 
so well he could have recited them from memory, but he liked to have them read to him 
all the same. “Sweetling, we have to go,” she told the boy, “but I promise, I’ll read you 
two tales of the Winged Knight when we reach the Gates of the Moon.” 

“Three,” he said at once. No matter what you offered him, Robert always wanted more. 

“Three,” she agreed. “Might I let some sun in?” 

“No. The light hurts my eyes. Come to bed, Alayne.” 

She went to the windows anyway, edging around the broken chamber pot. She could 
smell it better than she saw it. “I shan’t open them very wide. Only enough to see my 
Sweetrobin’s face.” 

He sniffled. “If you must.” 

The curtains were of plush blue velvet. She pulled one back a finger’s length and tied it 
off. Dust motes danced in a shaft of pale morning light. The small diamond-shaped panes 
of the window were obscured by frost. Alayne rubbed at one with the heel of her hand, 
enough to glimpse a brilliant blue sky and a blaze of white from the mountainside. The 
Eyrie was wrapped in an icy mantle, the Giant’s Lance above buried in waist-deep snows. 

When she turned back, Robert Arryn was propped up against the pillows looking at her. 
The Lord of the Eyrie and Defender of the Vale. A woolen blanket covered him below the 
waist. Above it he was naked, a pasty boy with hair as long as any girl’s. Robert had 
spindly arms and legs, a soft concave chest and little belly, and eyes that were always red 
and runny. He cannot help the way he is. He was born small and sickly. “You look very 
strong this morning, my lord.” He loved to be told how strong he was. “Shall I have 
Maddy and Gretchel fetch hot water for your bath? Maddy will scrub your back for you 
and wash your hair, to make you clean and lordly for your journey. Won’t that be nice?” 

“No. I hate Maddy. She has a wart on her eye, and she scrubs so hard it hurts. My 
mommy never hurt me scrubbing.” 


“I will tell Maddy not to scrub my Sweetrobin so hard. You’ll feel better when you’re 
fresh and clean.” 

“No bath, I told you, my head hurts most awfully.” 

“Shall I bring you a warm cloth for your brow? Or a cup of dreamwine? Only a little one, 
though. Mya Stone is waiting down at Sky, and she’ll be hurt if you go to sleep on her. 
You know how much she loves you.” 

“I don’t love her. She’s just the mule girl.” Robert sniffled. “Maester Colemon put 
something vile in my milk last night, I could taste it. I told him I wanted sweetmilk, but 
he wouldn’t bring me any. Not even when I commanded him. I am the lord, he should do 
what I say. No one does what I say.” 

“I’ll speak to him,” Alayne promised, “but only if you get up out of bed. It’s beautiful 
outside, Sweetrobin. The sun is shining bright, a perfect day for going down the 
mountain. The mules are waiting down at Sky with Mya . . .” 

His mouth quivered. “I hate those smelly mules. One tried to bite me once! You tell that 
Mya that I’m staying here.” He sounded as if he were about to cry. “No one can hurt me 
so long as I stay here. The Eyrie is impregnable.” 

“Who would want to hurt my Sweetrobin? Your lords and knights adore you, and the 
smallfolk cheer your name.” He is afraid, she thought, and with good reason. Since his 
lady mother had fallen, the boy would not even stand upon a balcony, and the way from 
the Eyrie to the Gates of the Moon was perilous enough to daunt anyone. Alayne’s heart 
had been in her throat when she made her own ascent with Lady Lysa and Lord Petyr, 
and everyone agreed that the descent was even more harrowing, since you were looking 
down the whole time. Mya could tell of great lords and bold knights who had gone pale 
and wet their smallclothes on the mountain. And none of them had the shaking sickness 
either. 

Still, it would not serve. On the valley floor autumn still lingered, warm and golden, but 
winter had closed around the mountain peaks. They had weathered three snowstorms, and 
an ice storm that transformed the castle into crystal for a fortnight. The Eyrie might be 
impregnable, but it would soon be inaccessible as well, and the way down grew more 
hazardous every day. Most of the castle’s servants and soldiers had already made the 
descent. Only a dozen still lingered up here, to attend Lord Robert. 

“Sweetrobin,” she said gently, “the descent will be ever so jolly, you’ll see. Ser Lothor 
will be with us, and Mya. Her mules have gone up and down this old mountain a 
thousand times.” 

“I hate mules,” he insisted. “Mules are nasty. I told you, one tried to bite me when I was 
little.” 


Robert had never learned to ride properly, she knew. Mules, horses, donkeys, it made no 
matter; to him they were all fearsome beasts, as terrifying as dragons or griffins. He had 
been brought to the Vale at six, riding with his head cradled between his mother’s milky 
breasts, and had never left the Eyrie since. 

Still, they had to go, before the ice closed about the castle for good. There was no telling 
how long the weather would hold. “Mya will keep the mules from biting,” Alayne said, 
“and I’ll be riding just behind you. I’m only a girl, not as brave or strong as you. If I can 
do it, I know you can, Sweetrobin.” 

“I could do it,” Lord Robert said, “but I don’t choose to.” He swiped at his runny nose 
with the back of his hand. “Tell Mya I am going to stay abed. Perhaps I will come down 
on the morrow, if I feel better. Today is too cold out, and my head hurts. You can have 
some sweetmilk too, and I’ll tell Gretchel to bring us some honeycombs to eat. We’ll 
sleep and kiss and play games, and you can read me about the Winged Knight.” 

“I will. Three tales, as I promised . . . when we reach the Gates of the Moon.” Alayne was 
running short of patience. We have to go, she reminded herself, or we’ll still be above the 
snow line when the sun goes down. “Lord Nestor has prepared a feast to welcome you, 
mushroom soup and venison and cakes. You don’t want to disappoint him, do you?” 

“Will they be lemon cakes?” Lord Robert loved lemon cakes, perhaps because Alayne 
did. 

“Lemony lemony lemon cakes,” she assured him, “and you can have as many as you 
like.” 

“A hundred?” he wanted to know. “Could I have a hundred?” 

“If it please you.” She sat on the bed and smoothed his long, fine hair. He does have 
pretty hair. Lady Lysa had brushed it herself every night, and cut it when it wanted 
cutting. After she had fallen Robert had suffered terrible shaking fits whenever anyone 
came near him with a blade, so Petyr had commanded that his hair be allowed to grow. 
Alayne wound a lock around her finger, and said, “Now, will you get out of bed and let 
us dress you?” 

“I want a hundred lemon cakes and five tales!” 

I’d like to give you a hundred spankings and five slaps. You would not dare behave like 
this if Petyr were here. The little lord had a good healthy fear of his stepfather. Alayne 
forced a smile. “As my lord desires. But nothing till you’re washed and dressed and on 
your way. Come, before the morning’s gone.” She took him firmly by the hand, and drew 
him out of bed. 

Before she could summon the servants, however, Sweetrobin threw his skinny arms 
around her and kissed her. It was a little boy’s kiss, and clumsy. Everything Robert Arryn 


did was clumsy. If I close my eyes I can pretend he is the Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras 
had given Sansa Stark a red rose once, but he had never kissed her . . . and no Tyrell 
would ever kiss Alayne Stone. Pretty as she was, she had been born on the wrong side of 
the blanket. 

As the boy’s lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could 
still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come 
to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky. He took a song and a kiss, and left me 
nothing but a bloody cloak. 

It made no matter. That day was done, and so was Sansa. 

Alayne pushed her little lord away. “That’s enough. You can kiss me again when we 
reach the Gates, if you keep your word.” 

Maddy and Gretchel were waiting outside with Maester Colemon. The maester had 
washed the night soil from his hair and changed his robe. Robert’s squires had turned up 
as well. Terrance and Gyles could always sniff out trouble. 

“Lord Robert is feeling stronger,” Alayne told the serving women. “Fetch hot water for 
his bath, but see you don’t scald him. And do not pull on his hair when you brush out the 
tangles, he hates that.” One of the squires sniggered, until she said, “Terrance, lay out his 
lordship’s riding clothes and his warmest cloak. Gyles, you may clean up that broken 
chamber pot.” 

Gyles Grafton made a face. “I’m no scrubwoman.” 

“Do as Lady Alayne commands, or Lothor Brune will hear of it,” said Maester Colemon. 
He followed her along the hallway and down the twisting stairs. “I am grateful for your 
intercession, my lady. You have a way with him.” He hesitated. “Did you observe any 
shaking while you were with him?” 

“His fingers trembled a little bit when I held his hand, that’s all. He says you put 
something vile in his milk.” 

“Vile?” Colemon blinked at her, and the apple in his throat moved up and down. “I 
merely . . . is he bleeding from the nose?” 

“No.” 

“Good. That is good.” His chain clinked softly as he bobbed his head, atop a ridiculously 
long and skinny neck. “This descent . . . my lady, it might be safest if I mixed his lordship 
some milk of the poppy. Mya Stone could lash him over the back of her most surefooted 
mule whilst he slumbered.” 


“The Lord of the Eyrie cannot descend from his mountain tied up like a sack of 
barleycorn.” Of that Alayne was certain. They dare not let the full extent of Robert’s 
frailty and cowardice become too widely known, her father had warned her. I wish he 
were here. He would know what to do. 

Petyr Baelish was clear across the Vale, though, attending Lord Lyonel Corbray at his 
wedding. A widower of forty-odd years, and childless, Lord Lyonel was to wed the 
strapping sixteen-year-old daughter of a rich Gulltown merchant. Petyr had brokered the 
match himself. The bride’s dower was said to be staggering; it had to be, since she was of 
common birth. Corbray’s vassals would be there, with the Lords Waxley, Grafton, 
Lynderly, some petty lords and landed knights . . . and Lord Belmore, who had lately 
reconciled with her father. The other Lords Declarant were expected to shun the nuptials, 
so Petyr’s presence was essential. 

Alayne understood all that well enough, but it meant that the burden of getting 
Sweetrobin safely down the mountain fell on her. “Give his lordship a cup of sweetmilk,” 
she told the maester. “That will stop him from shaking on the journey down.” 

“He had a cup not three days past,” Colemon objected. 

“And wanted another last night, which you refused him.” 

“It was too soon. My lady, you do not understand. As I’ve told the Lord Protector, a 
pinch of sweetsleep will prevent the shaking, but it does not leave the flesh, and in time . . 
.” 

“Time will not matter if his lordship has a shaking fit and falls off the mountain. If my 
father were here, I know he would tell you to keep Lord Robert calm at all costs.” 

“I try, my lady, yet his fits grow ever more violent, and his blood is so thin I dare not 
leech him any more. Sweetsleep . . . you are certain he was not bleeding from the nose?” 

“He was sniffling,” Alayne admitted, “but I saw no blood.” 

“I must speak to the Lord Protector. This feast . . . is that wise, I wonder, after the strain 
of the descent?” 

“It will not be a large feast,” she assured him. “No more than forty guests. Lord Nestor 
and his household, the Knight of the Gate, a few lesser lords and their retainers . . .” 

“Lord Robert mislikes strangers, you know that, and there will be drinking, noise . . . 
music. Music frightens him.” 

“Music soothes him,” she corrected, “the high harp especially. It’s singing he can’t abide, 
since Marillion killed his mother.” Alayne had told the lie so many times that she 
remembered it that way more oft than not; the other seemed no more than a bad dream 


that sometimes troubled her sleep. “Lord Nestor will have no singers at the feast, only 
flutes and fiddles for the dancing.” What would she do when the music began to play? It 
was a vexing question, to which her heart and head gave different answers. Sansa loved 
to dance, but Alayne . . . “Just give him a cup of the sweetmilk before we go, and another 
at the feast, and there should be no trouble.” 

“Very well.” They paused at the foot of the stairs. “But this must be the last. For half a 
year, or longer.” 

“You had best take that up with the Lord Protector.” She pushed through the door and 
crossed the yard. Colemon only wanted the best for his charge, Alayne knew, but what 
was best for Robert the boy and what was best for Lord Arryn were not always the same. 
Petyr had said as much, and it was true. Maester Colemon cares only for the boy, though. 
Father and I have larger concerns. 

Old snow cloaked the courtyard, and icicles hung down like crystal spears from the 
terraces and towers. The Eyrie was built of fine white stone, and winter’s mantle made it 
whiter still. So beautiful, Alayne thought, so impregnable. She could not love this place, 
no matter how she tried. Even before the guards and serving men had made their descent, 
the castle had seemed as empty as a tomb, and more so when Petyr Baelish was away. No 
one sang up there, not since Marillion. No one ever laughed too loud. Even the gods were 
silent. The Eyrie boasted a sept, but no septon; a godswood, but no heart tree. No prayers 
are answered here, she often thought, though some days she felt so lonely she had to try. 
Only the wind answered her, sighing endlessly around the seven slim white towers and 
rattling the Moon Door every time it gusted. It will be even worse in winter, she knew. In 
winter this will be a cold white prison. 

And yet the thought of leaving frightened her almost as much as it frightened Robert. She 
only hid it better. Her father said there was no shame in being afraid, only in showing 
your fear. “All men live with fear,” he said. Alayne was not certain she believed that. 
Nothing frightened Petyr Baelish. He only said that to make me brave. She would need to 
be brave down below, where the chance of being unmasked was so much greater. Petyr’s 
friends at court had sent him word that the queen had men out looking for the Imp and 
Sansa Stark. It will mean my head if I am found, she reminded herself as she descended a 
flight of icy stone steps. I must be Alayne all the time, inside and out. 

Lothor Brune was in the winch room, helping the gaoler Mord and two serving men 
wrestle chests of clothes and bales of cloth into six huge oaken buckets, each big enough 
around to hold three men. The great chain winches were the easiest way to reach the 
waycastle Sky, six hundred feet below them; elsewise you had to descend the natural 
stone chimney from the undercellar. Or go the way Marillion went, and Lady Lysa before 
him. 

“Boy out of bed?” Ser Lothor asked. 

“They’re bathing him. He will be ready within the hour.” 


“We best hope he is. Mya won’t wait past midday.” The winch room was unheated, so 
his breath misted with every word. 

“She’ll wait,” Alayne said. “She has to wait.” 

“Don’t be so certain, m’lady. She’s half mule herself, that one. I think she’d leave us all 
to starve before she’d put those animals at risk.” He smiled when he said it. He always 
smiles when he speaks of Mya Stone. Mya was much younger than Ser Lothor, but when 
her father had been brokering the marriage between Lord Corbray and his merchant’s 
daughter, he’d told her that young girls were always happiest with older men. “Innocence 
and experience make for a perfect marriage,” he had said. 

Alayne wondered what Mya made of Ser Lothor. With his squashed nose, square jaw, 
and nap of woolly grey hair, Brune could not be called comely, but he was not ugly 
either. It is a common face but an honest one. Though he had risen to knighthood, Ser 
Lothor’s birth had been very low. One night he had told her that he was kin to the Brunes 
of Brownhollow, an old knightly family from Crackclaw Point. “I went to them when my 
father died,” he confessed, “but they shat on me, and said I was no blood of theirs.” He 
would not speak of what happened after that, except to say that he had learned all he 
knew of arms the hard way. Sober, he was a quiet man, but a strong one. And Petyr says 
he’s loyal. He trusts him as much as he trusts anyone. Brune would be a good match for a 
bastard girl like Mya Stone, she thought. It might be different if her father had 
acknowledged her, but he never did. And Maddy says that she’s no maid either. 

Mord took up his whip and cracked it, and the first pair of oxen began to lumber in a 
circle, turning the winch. The chain uncoiled, rattling as it scraped across the stone, the 
oaken bucket swaying as it began its long descent to Sky. Poor oxen, thought Alayne. 
Mord would cut their throats and butcher them before he left, and leave them for the 
falcons. Whatever part remained when the Eyrie was reopened would be roasted up for 
the spring feast, if it had not spoiled. A good supply of hard frozen meat foretold a 
summer of plenty, old Gretchel claimed. 

“M’lady,” Ser Lothor said, “you’d best know. Mya didn’t come up alone. Lady 
Myranda’s with her.” 

“Oh.” Why would she ride all the way up the mountain, just to ride back down again? 
Myranda Royce was the Lord Nestor’s daughter. The one time that Sansa had visited the 
Gates of the Moon, on the way up to the Eyrie with her aunt Lysa and Lord Petyr, she 
had been away, but Alayne had heard much of her since from the Eyrie’s soldiers and 
serving girls. Her mother was long dead, so Lady Myranda kept her father’s castle for 
him; it was a much livelier court when she was home than when she was away, according 
to rumor. “Soon or late you must meet Myranda Royce,” Petyr had warned her. “When 
you do, be careful. She likes to play the merry fool, but underneath she’s shrewder than 
her father. Guard your tongue around her.” 


I will, she thought, but I did not know I’d need to start so soon. “Robert will be pleased.” 
He liked Myranda Royce. “You must excuse me, ser. I need to finish packing.” Alone, 
she climbed the steps back to her room for one last time. The windows had been sealed 
and shuttered, the furnishings covered. A few of her things had already been removed, 
the rest stored away. All of Lady Lysa’s silks and samites were to be left behind. Her 
sheerest linens and plushest velvets, the rich embroidery and fine Myrish lace; all would 
remain. Down below, Alayne must dress modestly, as befit a girl of modest birth. It 
makes no matter, she told herself. I dared not wear the best clothes even here. 

Gretchel had stripped the bed and laid out the rest of her clothing. Alayne was already 
wearing woolen hose beneath her skirts, over a double layer of smallclothes. Now she 
donned a lambswool overtunic and a hooded fur cloak, fastening it with an enameled 
mockingbird that had been a gift from Petyr. There was a scarf as well, and a pair of 
leather gloves lined with fur to match her riding boots. When she’d donned it all, she felt 
as fat and furry as a bear cub. I will be glad of it on the mountain, she had to remind 
herself. She took one last look at her room before she left. I was safe here, she thought, 
but down below . . . 

When Alayne returned to the winch room, she found Mya Stone waiting impatiently with 
Lothor Brune and Mord. She must have come up in the bucket to see what was taking us 
so long. Slim and sinewy, Mya looked as tough as the old riding leathers she wore 
beneath her silvery ringmail shirt. Her hair was black as a raven’s wing, so short and 
shaggy that Alayne suspected that she cut it with a dagger. Mya’s eyes were her best 
feature, big and blue. She could be pretty, if she would dress up like a girl. Alayne found 
herself wondering whether Ser Lothor liked her best in her iron and leather, or dreamed 
of her gowned in lace and silk. Mya liked to say that her father had been a goat and her 
mother an owl, but Alayne had gotten the true story from Maddy. Yes, she thought, 
looking at her now, those are his eyes, and she has his hair too, the thick black hair he 
shared with Renly. 

“Where is he?” the bastard girl demanded. 

“His lordship is being bathed and dressed.” 

“He needs to make some haste. It’s getting colder, can’t you feel it? We need to get 
below Snow before the sun goes down.” 

“How bad is the wind?” Alayne asked her. 

“It could be worse . . . and will be, after dark.” Mya pushed a lock of hair from her eyes. 
“If he bathes much longer, we’ll be trapped up here all winter with nothing to eat except 
each other.” 

Alayne did not know what to say to that. Thankfully, she was spared by the arrival of 
Robert Arryn. The little lord wore sky-blue velvet, a chain of gold and sapphires, and a 
white bearskin cloak. His squires each held an end, to keep the cloak from dragging on 


the floor. Maester Colemon accompanied them, in a threadbare grey cloak lined with 
squirrel fur. Gretchel and Maddy were not far behind. 

When he felt the cold wind on his face, Robert quailed, but Terrance and Gyles were 
behind him, so he could not flee. “My lord,” said Mya, “will you ride down with me?” 

Too brusque, Alayne thought. She should have greeted him with a smile, told him how 
strong and brave he looks. 

“I want Alayne,” Lord Robert said. “I’ll only go with her.” 

“The bucket can hold all three of us.” 

“I just want Alayne. You smell all stinky, like a mule.” 

“As you wish.” Mya’s face showed no emotion. 

Some of the winch chains were fixed to wicker baskets, others to stout oaken buckets. 
The largest of those was taller than Alayne, with iron bands girding its dark brown staves. 
Even so, her heart was in her throat as she took Robert’s hand and helped him in. Once 
the hatch was closed behind them, the wood surrounded them on all sides. Only the top 
was open. It is best that way, she told herself, we can’t look down. Below them was only 
Sky and sky. Six hundred feet of sky. For a moment she found herself wondering how 
long it had taken her aunt to fall that distance, and what her last thought had been as the 
mountain rushed up to meet her. No, I mustn’t think of that. I mustn’t! 

“AWAY!” came Ser Lothor’s shout. Someone shoved the bucket hard. It swayed and 
tipped, scraped against the floor, then swung free. She heard the crack of Mord’s whip 
and the rattle of the chain. They began to descend, by jerks and starts at first, then more 
smoothly. Robert’s face was pale and his eyes puffy, but his hands were still. The Eyrie 
shrank above them. The sky cells on the lower levels made the castle look something like 
a honeycomb from below. A honeycomb made of ice, Alayne thought, a castle made of 
snow. She could hear the wind whistling round the bucket. 

A hundred feet down, a sudden gust caught hold of them. The bucket swayed sideways, 
spinning in the air, then bumped hard against the rock face behind them. Shards of ice 
and snow rained down on them, and the oak creaked and strained. Robert gave a gasp and 
clung to her, burying his face between her breasts. 

“My lord is brave,” Alayne said, when she felt him shaking. “I’m so frightened I can 
hardly talk, but not you.” 

She felt him nod. “The Winged Knight was brave, and so am I,” he boasted to her bodice. 
“I’m an Arryn.” 


“Will my Sweetrobin hold me tight?” she asked, though he was already holding her so 
tightly that she could scarcely breathe. 

“If you like,” he whispered. And clinging hard to one another, they continued on straight 
down to Sky. 

Calling this a castle is like calling a puddle on a privy floor a lake, Alayne thought, when 
the bucket was opened so they might emerge within the waycastle. Sky was no more than 
a crescent-shaped wall of old unmortared stone, enclosing a stony ledge and the yawning 
mouth of a cavern. Inside were storehouses and stables, a long natural hall, and the 
chiseled handholds that led up to the Eyrie. Outside, the ground was strewn by broken 
stones and boulders. Earthen ramps gave access to the wall. Six hundred feet above, the 
Eyrie was so small she could hide it with her hand, but far below the Vale stretched green 
and golden. 

Twenty mules awaited them within the waycastle, along with two mule-walkers and the 
Lady Myranda Royce. Lord Nestor’s daughter proved to be a short, fleshy woman, of an 
age with Mya Stone, but where Mya was slim and sinewy, Myranda was soft-bodied and 
sweet-smelling, broad of hip, thick of waist, and extremely buxom. Her thick chestnut 
curls framed round red cheeks, a small mouth, and a pair of lively brown eyes. When 
Robert climbed gingerly from the bucket, she knelt in a patch of snow to kiss his hand 
and cheeks. “My lord,” she said, “you’ve grown so big!” 

“Have I?” said Robert, pleased. 

“You will be taller than me soon,” the lady lied. She got to her feet and brushed the snow 
from her skirts. “And you must be the Lord Protector’s daughter,” she added, as the 
bucket went rattling back up to the Eyrie. “I had heard that you were beautiful. I see that 
it is true.” 

Alayne curtsied. “My lady is kind to say so.” 

“Kind?” The older girl gave a laugh. “How boring that would be. I aspire to be wicked. 
You must tell me all your secrets on the ride down. May I call you Alayne?” 

“If you wish, my lady.” But you’ll get no secrets from me. 

“I am ‘my lady’ at the Gates, but up here on the mountain you may call me Randa. How 
many years have you, Alayne?” 

“Four-and-ten, my lady.” She had decided that Alayne Stone should be older than Sansa 
Stark. 

“Randa. It seems a hundred years since I was four-and-ten. How innocent I was. Are you 
still innocent, Alayne?” 


She blushed. “You should not . . . yes, of course.” 

“Saving yourself for Lord Robert?” Lady Myranda teased. “Or is there some ardent 
squire dreaming of your favors?” 

“No,” said Alayne, even as Robert said, “She’s my friend. Terrance and Gyles can’t have 
her.” 

A second bucket had arrived by then, thumping down softly on a mound of frozen snow. 
Maester Colemon emerged with the squires Terrance and Gyles. The next winch 
delivered Maddy and Gretchel, who rode with Mya Stone. The bastard girl wasted no 
time taking charge. “We don’t want to get bunched up on the mountain,” she told the 
other mule handlers. “I’ll take Lord Robert and his companions. Ossy, you’ll bring down 
Ser Lothor and the rest, but give me an hour’s lead. Carrot, you’ll have charge of their 
chests and boxes.” She turned to Robert Arryn, her black hair blowing. “Which mule will 
you ride today, my lord?” 

“They’re all stinky. I’ll have the grey one, with the ear chewed off. I want Alayne to ride 
with me. And Myranda too.” 

“Where the way is wide enough. Come, my lord, let’s get you on your mule. There’s a 
smell of snow in the air.” 

It was another half hour before they were ready to set out. When all of them were 
mounted up, Mya Stone gave a crisp command, and two of Sky’s men-at-arms swung the 
gates open. Mya led them out, with Lord Robert just behind her, swaddled in his bearskin 
cloak. Alayne and Myranda Royce followed, then Gretchel and Maddy, then Terrance 
Lynderly and Gyles Grafton. Maester Colemon brought up the rear, leading a second 
mule laden with his chests of herbs and potions. 

Beyond the walls, the wind picked up sharply. They were above the tree line here, 
exposed to the elements. Alayne was thankful that she’d dressed so warmly. Her cloak 
was flapping noisily behind her, and a sudden gust blew back her hood. She laughed, but 
a few yards ahead Lord Robert squirmed, and said, “It’s too cold. We should go back and 
wait until it’s warmer.” 

“It will be warmer on the valley floor, my lord,” said Mya. “You’ll see when we get 
down there.” 

“I don’t want to see,” said Robert, but Mya paid no mind. 

Their road was a crooked series of stone steps carved into the mountainside, but the 
mules knew every inch of it. Alayne was glad of that. Here and there the stone was 
shattered from the strain of countless seasons, with all their thaws and freezes. Patches of 
snow clung to the rock on either side of the path, blinding white. The sun was bright, the 
sky was blue, and there were falcons circling overhead, riding on the wind. 


Up here where the slope was steepest, the steps wound back and forth rather than 
plunging straight down. Sansa Stark went up the mountain, but Alayne Stone is coming 
down. It was a strange thought. Coming up, Mya had warned her to keep her eyes on the 
path ahead, she remembered. “Look up, not down,” she said . . . but that was not possible 
on the descent. I could close my eyes. The mule knows the way, he has no need of me. But 
that seemed more something Sansa would have done, that frightened girl. Alayne was an 
older woman, and bastard brave. 

At first they rode in single file, but farther down the path widened enough for two to ride 
abreast, and Myranda Royce came up beside her. “We have had a letter from your 
father,” she said, as casually as if they were sitting with their septa, doing needlework. 
“He is on his way home, he says, and hopes to see his darling daughter soon. He writes 
that Lyonel Corbray seems well pleased with his bride, and even more so with her dowry. 
I do hope Lord Lyonel remembers which one he needs to bed. Lady Waynwood turned 
up with the Knight of Ninestars for the wedding feast, Lord Petyr says, to everyone’s 
astonishment.” 

“Anya Waynwood? Truly?” The Lords Declarant were down from six to three, it would 
seem. The day he’d departed the mountain, Petyr Baelish had been confident of winning 
Symond Templeton to his side, but not so Lady Waynwood. “Was there more?” she 
asked. The Eyrie was such a lonely place that she was eager for any bit of news from the 
world beyond, however trivial or insignificant. 

“Not from your father, no, but we’ve had other birds. The war goes on, everywhere but 
here. Riverrun has yielded, but Dragonstone and Storm’s End still hold for Lord Stannis.” 

“Lady Lysa was so wise, to keep us out of it.” 

Myranda gave her a shrewd little smile. “Yes, she was the very soul of wisdom, that good 
lady.” She shifted her seat. “Why must mules be so bony and ill-tempered? Mya does not 
feed them enough. A nice fat mule would be more comfortable to ride. There’s a new 
High Septon, did you know? Oh, and the Night’s Watch has a boy commander, some 
bastard son of Eddard Stark’s.” 

“Jon Snow?” she blurted out, surprised. 

“Snow? Yes, it would be Snow, I suppose.” 

She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still . . . with Robb 
and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a 
bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of 
course that could never be. Alayne Stone had no brothers, baseborn or otherwise. 

“Our cousin Bronze Yohn had himself a mêlée at Runestone,” Myranda Royce went on, 
oblivious, “a small one, just for squires. It was meant for Harry the Heir to win the 
honors, and so he did.” 


“Harry the Heir?” 

“Lady Waynwood’s ward. Harrold Hardyng. I suppose we must call him Ser Harry now. 
Bronze Yohn knighted him.” 

“Oh.” Alayne was confused. Why should Lady Waynwood’s ward be her heir? She had 
sons of her own blood. One was the Knight of the Bloody Gate, Ser Donnel. She did not 
want to look stupid, though, so all she said was, “I pray he proves a worthy knight.” 

Lady Myranda snorted. “I pray he gets the pox. He has a bastard daughter by some 
common girl, you know. My lord father had hoped to marry me to Harry, but Lady 
Waynwood would not hear of it. I do not know whether it was me she found unsuitable, 
or just my dowry.” She gave a sigh. “I do need another husband. I had one once, but I 
killed him.” 

“You did?” Alayne said, shocked. 

“Oh, yes. He died on top of me. In me, if truth be told. You do know what goes on in a 
marriage bed, I hope?” 

She thought of Tyrion, and of the Hound and how he’d kissed her, and gave a nod. “That 
must have been dreadful, my lady. Him dying. There, I mean, whilst . . . whilst he was . . 
.” 

“. . . fucking me?” She shrugged. “It was disconcerting, certainly. Not to mention 
discourteous. He did not even have the common decency to plant a child in me. Old men 
have weak seed. So here I am, a widow, but scarce used. Harry could have done much 
worse. I daresay that he will. Lady Waynwood will most like marry him to one of her 
granddaughters, or one of Bronze Yohn’s.” 

“As you say, my lady.” Alayne remembered Petyr’s warning. 

“Randa. Come now, you can say it. Ran. Da.” 

“Randa.” 

“Much better. I fear I must apologize to you. You will think me a dreadful slut, I know, 
but I bedded that pretty boy Marillion. I did not know he was a monster. He sang 
beautifully, and could do the sweetest things with his fingers. I would never have taken 
him to bed if I had known he was going to push Lady Lysa through the Moon Door. I do 
not bed monsters, as a rule.” She studied Alayne’s face and chest. “You are prettier than 
me, but my breasts are larger. The maesters say large breasts produce no more milk than 
small ones, but I do not believe it. Have you ever known a wet nurse with small teats? 
Yours are ample for a girl your age, but as they are bastard breasts, I shan’t concern 
myself with them.” Myranda edged her mule closer. “You know our Mya’s not a maid, I 
trust?” 


She did. Fat Maddy had whispered it to her, one time when Mya brought up their 
supplies. “Maddy told me.” 

“Of course she did. She has a mouth as big as her thighs, and her thighs are enormous. 
Mychel Redfort was the one. He used to be Lyn Corbray’s squire. A real squire, not like 
that loutish lad Ser Lyn’s got squiring for him now. He only took that one on for coin, 
they say. Mychel was the best young swordsman in the Vale, and gallant . . . or so poor 
Mya thought, till he wed one of Bronze Yohn’s daughters. Lord Horton gave him no 
choice in the matter, I am sure, but it was still a cruel thing to do to Mya.” 

“Ser Lothor is fond of her.” Alayne glanced down at the mule girl, twenty steps below. 
“More than fond.” 

“Lothor Brune?” Myranda raised an eyebrow. “Does she know?” She did not wait for an 
answer. “He has no hope, poor man. My father’s tried to make a match for Mya, but 
she’ll have none of them. She is half mule, that one.” 

Despite herself, Alayne found herself warming to the older girl. She had not had a friend 
to gossip with since poor Jeyne Poole. “Do you think Ser Lothor likes her as she is, in 
mail and leather?” she asked the older girl, who seemed so worldly-wise. “Or does he 
dream of her draped in silks and velvets?” 

“He’s a man. He dreams of her naked.” 

She is trying to make me blush again. 

Lady Myranda must have heard her thoughts. “You do turn such a pretty shade of pink. 
When I blush I look quite like an apple. I have not blushed for years, though.” She leaned 
closer. “Does your father plan to wed again?” 

“My father?” Alayne had never considered that. Somehow the notion made her squirm. 
She found herself remembering the look on Lysa Arryn’s face as she’d tumbled through 
the Moon Door. 

“We all know how devoted he was to Lady Lysa,” said Myranda, “but he cannot mourn 
forever. He needs a pretty young wife to wash away his grief. I imagine he could have his 
pick of half the noble maidens in the Vale. Who could be a better husband than our own 
bold Lord Protector? Though I do wish he had a better name than Littlefinger. How little 
is it, do you know?” 

“His finger?” She blushed again. “I don’t . . . I never . . .” 

Lady Myranda laughed so loud that Mya Stone glanced back at them. “Never you mind, 
Alayne, I’m sure it’s large enough.” 


They passed beneath a wind-carved arch, where long icicles clung to the pale stone, 
dripping down on them. On the far side the path narrowed and plunged down sharply for 
a hundred feet or more. Myranda was forced to drop back. Alayne gave the mule his 
head. The steepness of this part of the descent made her cling tightly to her saddle. The 
steps here had been worn smooth by the iron-shod hooves of all the mules who’d passed 
this way, until they resembled a series of shallow stone bowls. Water filled the bottoms 
of the bowls, glimmering golden in the afternoon sun. It is water now, Alayne thought, 
but come dark, all of it will turn to ice. She realized that she was holding her breath, and 
let it out. Mya Stone and Lord Robert had almost reached the rock spire where the slope 
leveled off again. She tried to look at them, and only them. I will not fall, she told herself. 
Mya’s mule will see me through. The wind skirled around her, as she bumped and 
scraped her way down step by step. It seemed to take a lifetime. 

Then all at once she was at the bottom with Mya and her little lord, huddled beneath a 
twisted, rocky spire. Ahead stretched a high stone saddle, narrow and icy. Alayne could 
hear the wind shrieking, and feel it plucking at her cloak. She remembered this place 
from her ascent. It had frightened her then, and it frightened her now. “It is wider than it 
looks,” Mya was telling Lord Robert in a cheerful voice. “A yard across, and no more 
than eight yards long, that’s nothing.” 

“Nothing,” Robert said. His hand was shaking. 

Oh, no, Alayne thought. Please. Not here. Not now. 

“It’s best to lead the mules across,” Mya said. “If it please my lord, I’ll take mine over 
first, then come back for yours.” Lord Robert did not answer. He was staring at the 
narrow saddle with his reddened eyes. “I shan’t be long, my lord,” Mya promised, but 
Alayne doubted that the boy could even hear her. 

When the bastard girl led her mule out from beneath the shelter of the spire, the wind 
caught her in its teeth. Her cloak lifted, twisting and flapping in the air. Mya staggered, 
and for half a heartbeat it seemed as if she would be blown over the precipice, but 
somehow she regained her balance and went on. 

Alayne took Robert’s gloved hand in her own to stop his shaking. “Sweetrobin,” she said, 
“I’m scared. Hold my hand, and help me get across. I know you’re not afraid.” 

He looked at her, his pupils small dark pinpricks in eyes as big and white as eggs. “I’m 
not?” 

“Not you. You’re my winged knight, Ser Sweetrobin.” 

“The Winged Knight could fly,” Robert whispered. 

“Higher than the mountains.” She gave his hand a squeeze. 


Lady Myranda had joined them by the spire. “He could,” she echoed, when she saw what 
was happening. 

“Ser Sweetrobin,” Lord Robert said, and Alayne knew that she dare not wait for Mya to 
return. She helped the boy dismount, and hand in hand they walked out onto the bare 
stone saddle, their cloaks snapping and flapping behind them. All around was empty air 
and sky, the ground falling away sharply to either side. There was ice underfoot, and 
broken stones just waiting to turn an ankle, and the wind was howling fiercely. It sounds 
like a wolf, thought Sansa. A ghost wolf, big as mountains. 

And then they were on the other side, and Mya Stone was laughing and lifting Robert for 
a hug. “Be careful,” Alayne told her. “He can hurt you, flailing. You wouldn’t think so, 
but he can.” They found a place for him, a cleft in the rock to keep him out of the cold 
wind. Alayne tended him until the shaking passed, whilst Mya went back to help the 
others cross. 

Fresh mules awaited them at Snow, and a hot meal of stewed goat and onions. She ate 
with Mya and Myranda. “So you’re brave as well as beautiful,” Myranda said to her. 

“No.” The compliment made her blush. “I’m not. I was so scared. I don’t think I could 
have crossed without Lord Robert.” She turned to Mya Stone. “You almost fell.” 

“You’re mistaken. I never fall.” Mya’s hair had tumbled across her cheek, hiding one 
eye. 

“Almost, I said. I saw you. Weren’t you afraid?” 

Mya shook her head. “I remember a man throwing me in the air when I was very little. 
He stands as tall as the sky, and he throws me up so high it feels as though I’m flying. 
We’re both laughing, laughing so much that I can hardly catch a breath, and finally I 
laugh so hard I wet myself, but that only makes him laugh the louder. I was never afraid 
when he was throwing me. I knew that he would always be there to catch me.” She 
pushed her hair back. “Then one day he wasn’t. Men come and go. They lie, or die, or 
leave you. A mountain is not a man, though, and a stone is a mountain’s daughter. I trust 
my father, and I trust my mules. I won’t fall.” She put her hand on a jagged spur of rock, 
and got to her feet. “Best finish. We have a long way yet to go, and I can smell a storm.” 

The snow began to fall as they were leaving Stone, the largest and lowest of the three 
waycastles that defended the approaches to the Eyrie. Dusk was settling by then. Lady 
Myranda suggested that perhaps they might turn back, spend the night at Stone, and 
resume their descent when the sun came up, but Mya would not hear of it. “The snow 
might be five feet deep by then, and the steps treacherous even for my mules,” she said. 
“We will do better to press on. We’ll take it slow.” 

And so they did. Below Stone the steps were broader and less steep, winding in and out 
of the tall pines and grey-green sentinels that cloaked the lower slopes of the Giant’s 


Lance. Mya’s mules knew every root and rock on the way down, it seemed, and any they 
forgot the bastard girl remembered. Half the night was gone before they sighted the lights 
of the Gates of the Moon through the falling snow. The last part of their journey was the 
most peaceful. The snow fell steadily, cloaking all the world in white. Sweetrobin drifted 
to sleep in the saddle, swaying back and forth with the motion of his mule. Even Lady 
Myranda began to yawn and complain of being weary. “We have apartments prepared for 
all of you,” she told Alayne, “but if you like you may share my bed tonight. It’s large 
enough for four.” 

“I should be honored, my lady.” 

“Randa. Count yourself fortunate that I’m so tired. All I want to do is curl up and go to 
sleep. Usually when ladies share my bed they have to pay a pillow tax and tell me all 
about the wicked things they’ve done.” 

“What if they haven’t done any wicked things?” 

“Why, then they must confess all the wicked things they want to do. Not you, of course. I 
can see how virtuous you are just by looking at those rosy cheeks and big blue eyes of 
yours.” She yawned again. “I hope your feet are warm. I do hate bedmaids with cold 
feet.” 

By the time they finally reached her father’s castle, Lady Myranda was drowsing too, and 
Alayne was dreaming of her bed. It will be a featherbed, she told herself, soft and warm 
and deep, piled high with furs. I will dream a sweet dream, and when I wake there will be 
dogs barking, women gossiping beside the well, swords ringing in the yard. And later 
there will be a feast, with music and dancing. After the deathly silence of the Eyrie, she 
yearned for shouts and laughter. 

As the riders were climbing off their mules, however, one of Petyr’s guardsmen emerged 
from within the keep. “Lady Alayne,” he said, “the Lord Protector has been waiting for 
you.” 

“He’s back?” she said, startled. 

“At evenfall. You’ll find him in the west tower.” 

The hour was closer to dawn than to dusk, and most of the castle was asleep, but not 
Petyr Baelish. Alayne found him seated by a crackling fire, drinking hot mulled wine 
with three men she did not know. They all rose when she entered, and Petyr smiled 
warmly. “Alayne. Come, give your father a kiss.” 

She hugged him dutifully and kissed him on the cheek. “I am sorry to intrude, Father. No 
one told me you had company.” 


“You are never an intrusion, sweetling. I was just now telling these good knights what a 
dutiful daughter I had.” 

“Dutiful and beautiful,” said an elegant young knight whose thick blond mane cascaded 
down well past his shoulders. 

“Aye,” said the second knight, a burly fellow with a thick salt-and-pepper beard, a red 
nose bulbous with broken veins, and gnarled hands as large as hams. “You left out that 
part, m’lord.” 

“I would do the same if she were my daughter,” said the last knight, a short, wiry man 
with a wry smile, pointed nose, and bristly orange hair. “Particularly around louts like 
us.” 

Alayne laughed. “Are you louts?” she said, teasing. “Why, I took the three of you for 
gallant knights.” 

“Knights they are,” said Petyr. “Their gallantry has yet to be demonstrated, but we may 
hope. Allow me to present Ser Byron, Ser Morgarth, and Ser Shadrich. Sers, the Lady 
Alayne, my natural and very clever daughter . . . with whom I must needs confer, if you 
will be so good as to excuse us.” 

The three knights bowed and withdrew, though the tall one with the blond hair kissed her 
hand before taking his leave. 

“Hedge knights?” said Alayne, when the door had closed. 

“Hungry knights. I thought it best that we have a few more swords about us. The times 
grow ever more interesting, my sweet, and when the times are interesting you can never 
have too many swords. The Merling King’s returned to Gulltown, and old Oswell had 
some tales to tell.” 

She knew better than to ask what sort of tales. If Petyr had wanted her to know, he would 
have told her. “I did not expect you back so soon,” she said. “I am glad you’ve come.” 

“I would never have known it from the kiss you gave me.” He pulled her closer, caught 
her face between his hands, and kissed her on the lips for a long time. “Now that’s the 
sort of kiss that says welcome home. See that you do better next time.” 

“Yes, Father.” She could feel herself blushing. 

He did not hold her kiss against her. “You would not believe half of what is happening in 
King’s Landing, sweetling. Cersei stumbles from one idiocy to the next, helped along by 
her council of the deaf, the dim, and the blind. I always anticipated that she would beggar 
the realm and destroy herself, but I never expected she would do it quite so fast. It is quite 
vexing. I had hoped to have four or five quiet years to plant some seeds and allow some 


fruits to ripen, but now . . . it is a good thing that I thrive on chaos. What little peace and 
order the five kings left us will not long survive the three queens, I fear.” 

“Three queens?” She did not understand. 

Nor did Petyr choose to explain. Instead, he smiled and said, “I have brought my sweet 
girl back a gift.” 

Alayne was as pleased as she was surprised. “Is it a gown?” She had heard there were 
fine seamstresses in Gulltown, and she was so tired of dressing drably. 

“Something better. Guess again.” 

“Jewels?” 

“No jewels could hope to match my daughter’s eyes.” 

“Lemons? Did you find some lemons?” She had promised Sweetrobin lemon cake, and 
for lemon cake you needed lemons. 

Petyr Baelish took her by the hand and drew her down onto his lap. “I have made a 
marriage contract for you.” 

“A marriage . . .” Her throat tightened. She did not want to wed again, not now, perhaps 
not ever. “I do not . . . I cannot marry. Father, I . . .” Alayne looked to the door, to make 
certain it was closed. “I am married,” she whispered. “You know.” 

Petyr put a finger to her lips to silence her. “The dwarf wed Ned Stark’s daughter, not 
mine. Be that as it may. This is only a betrothal. The marriage must needs wait until 
Cersei is done and Sansa’s safely widowed. And you must meet the boy and win his 
approval. Lady Waynwood will not make him marry against his will, she was quite firm 
on that.” 

“Lady Waynwood?” Alayne could hardly believe it. “Why would she marry one of her 
sons to . . . to a . . .” 

“. . . bastard? For a start, you are the Lord Protector’s bastard, never forget. The 
Waynwoods are very old and very proud, but not as rich as one might think, as I 
discovered when I began buying up their debt. Not that Lady Anya would ever sell a son 
for gold. A ward, however . . . young Harry’s only a cousin, and the dower that I offered 
her ladyship was even larger than the one that Lyonel Corbray just collected. It had to be, 
for her to risk Bronze Yohn’s wroth. This will put all his plans awry. You are promised to 
Harrold Hardyng, sweetling, provided you can win his boyish heart . . . which should not 
be hard, for you.” 


“Harry the Heir?” Alayne tried to recall what Myranda had told her about him on the 
mountain. “He was just knighted. And he has a bastard daughter by some common girl.” 

“And another on the way by a different wench. Harry can be a beguiling one, no doubt. 
Soft sandy hair, deep blue eyes, and dimples when he smiles. And very gallant, I am 
told.” He teased her with a smile. “Bastard-born or no, sweetling, when this match is 
announced you will be the envy of every highborn maiden in the Vale, and a few from 
the riverlands and the Reach as well.” 

“Why?” Alayne was lost. “Is Ser Harrold . . . how could he be Lady Waynwood’s heir? 
Doesn’t she have sons of her own blood?” 

“Three,” Petyr allowed. She could smell the wine on his breath, the cloves and nutmeg. 
“Daughters too, and grandsons.” 

“Won’t they come before Harry? I don’t understand.” 

“You will. Listen.” Petyr took her hand in his own and brushed his finger lightly down 
the inside of her palm. “Lord Jasper Arryn, begin with him. Jon Arryn’s father. He begot 
three children, two sons and a daughter. Jon was the eldest, so the Eyrie and the lordship 
passed to him. His sister Alys wed Ser Elys Waynwood, uncle to the present Lady 
Waynwood.” He made a wry face. “Elys and Alys, isn’t that precious? Lord Jasper’s 
younger son, Ser Ronnel Arryn, wed a Belmore girl, but only rang her once or twice 
before dying of a bad belly. Their son Elbert was being born in one bed even as poor 
Ronnel was dying in another down the hall. Are you paying close attention, sweetling?” 

“Yes. There was Jon and Alys and Ronnel, but Ronnel died.” 

“Good. Now, Jon Arryn married thrice, but his first two wives gave him no children, so 
for long years his nephew Elbert was his heir. Meantime, Elys was plowing Alys quite 
dutifully, and she was whelping once a year. She gave him nine children, eight girls and 
one precious little boy, another Jasper, after which she died exhausted. Boy Jasper, 
inconsiderate of the heroic efforts that had gone into begetting him, got himself kicked in 
the head by a horse when he was three years old. A pox took two of his sisters soon after, 
leaving six. The eldest married Ser Denys Arryn, a distant cousin to the Lords of the 
Eyrie. There are several branches of House Arryn scattered across the Vale, all as proud 
as they are penurious, save for the Gulltown Arryns, who had the rare good sense to 
marry merchants. They’re rich, but less than couth, so no one talks about them. Ser 
Denys hailed from one of the poor, proud branches . . . but he was also a renowned 
jouster, handsome and gallant and brimming with courtesy. And he had that magic Arryn 
name, which made him ideal for the eldest Waynwood girl. Their children would be 
Arryns, and the next heirs to the Vale should any ill befall Elbert. Well, as it happened, 
Mad King Aerys befell Elbert. You know that story?” 

She did. “The Mad King murdered him.” 


“He did indeed. And soon after, Ser Denys left his pregnant Waynwood wife to ride to 
war. He died during the Battle of the Bells, of an excess of gallantry and an axe. When 
they told his lady of his death she perished of grief, and her newborn son soon followed. 
No matter. Jon Arryn had gotten himself a young wife during the war, one he had reason 
to believe fertile. He was very hopeful, I’m sure, but you and I know that all he ever got 
from Lysa were stillbirths, miscarriages, and poor Sweetrobin. 

“Which brings us back to the five remaining daughters of Elys and Alys. The eldest had 
been left terribly scarred by the same pox that killed her sisters, so she became a septa. 
Another was seduced by a sellsword. Ser Elys cast her out, and she joined the silent 
sisters after her bastard died in infancy. The third wed the Lord of the Paps, but proved 
barren. The fourth was on her way to the riverlands to marry some Bracken when Burned 
Men carried her off. That left the youngest, who wed a landed knight sworn to the 
Waynwoods, gave him a son that she named Harrold, and perished.” He turned her hand 
over and lightly kissed her wrist. “So tell me, sweetling—why is Harry the Heir?” 

Her eyes widened. “He is not Lady Waynwood’s heir. He’s Robert’s heir. If Robert were 
to die . . .” 

Petyr arched an eyebrow. “When Robert dies. Our poor brave Sweetrobin is such a sickly 
boy, it is only a matter of time. When Robert dies, Harry the Heir becomes Lord Harrold, 
Defender of the Vale and Lord of the Eyrie. Jon Arryn’s bannermen will never love me, 
nor our silly, shaking Robert, but they will love their Young Falcon . . . and when they 
come together for his wedding, and you come out with your long auburn hair, clad in a 
maiden’s cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back . . . why, every 
knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright. So those are 
your gifts from me, my sweet Sansa . . . Harry, the Eyrie, and Winterfell. That’s worth 
another kiss now, don’t you think?” 


BRIENNE 

T his is an evil dream, she thought. But if she were dreaming, why did it hurt so much? 

The rain had stopped falling, but all the world was wet. Her cloak felt as heavy as her 
mail. The ropes that bound her wrists were soaked through, but that only made them 
tighter. No matter how Brienne turned her hands, she could not slip free. She did not 
understand who had bound her, or why. She tried to ask the shadows, but they did not 
answer. Perhaps they did not hear her. Perhaps they were not real. Under her layers of 
wet wool and rusting mail, her skin was flushed and feverish. She wondered whether all 
of this was just a fever dream. 


She had a horse beneath her, though she could not remember mounting. She lay 
facedown across his hindquarters, like a sack of oats. Her wrists and ankles had been 
lashed together. The air was damp, the ground cloaked in mist. Her head pounded with 
every step. She could hear voices, but all she could see was the earth beneath the horse’s 
hooves. There were things broken inside of her. Her face felt swollen, her cheek was 
sticky with blood, and every jounce and bounce send a stab of agony through her arm. 
She could hear Podrick calling her, as if from far away. “Ser?” he kept saying. “Ser? My 
lady? Ser? My lady?” His voice was faint and hard to hear. Finally, there was only 
silence. 

She dreamt she was at Harrenhal, down in the bear pit once again. This time it was Biter 
facing her, huge and bald and maggot-white, with weeping sores upon his cheeks. Naked 
he came, fondling his member, gnashing his filed teeth together. Brienne fled from him. 
“My sword,” she called. “Oathkeeper. Please.” The watchers did not answer. Renly was 
there, with Nimble Dick and Catelyn Stark. Shagwell, Pyg, and Timeon had come, and 
the corpses from the trees with their sunken cheeks, swollen tongues, and empty eye 
sockets. Brienne wailed in horror at the sight of them, and Biter grabbed her arm and 
yanked her close and tore a chunk from her face. “Jaime,” she heard herself scream, 

“Jaime.” 

Even in the depths of dream the pain was there. Her face throbbed. Her shoulder bled. 
Breathing hurt. The pain crackled up her arm like lightning. She cried out for a maester. 

“We have no maester,” said a girl’s voice. “Only me.” 

I am looking for a girl, Brienne remembered. A highborn maid of three-and-ten, with 
blue eyes and auburn hair. “My lady?” she said. “Lady Sansa?” 

A man laughed. “She thinks you’re Sansa Stark.” 

“She can’t go much farther. She’ll die.” 

“One less lion. I won’t weep.” 

Brienne heard the sound of someone praying. She thought of Septon Meribald, but all the 
words were wrong. The night is dark and full of terrors, and so are dreams. 

They were riding through a gloomy wood, a dank, dark, silent place where the pines 
pressed close. The ground was soft beneath her horse’s hooves, and the tracks she left 
behind filled up with blood. Beside her rode Lord Renly, Dick Crabb, and Vargo Hoat. 
Blood ran from Renly’s throat. The Goat’s torn ear oozed pus. “Where are we going?” 
Brienne asked. “Where are you taking me?” None of them would answer. How can they 
answer? All of them are dead. Did that mean that she was dead as well? 

Lord Renly was ahead of her, her sweet smiling king. He was leading her horse through 
the trees. Brienne called out to tell him how much she loved him, but when he turned to 


scowl at her, she saw that he was not Renly after all. Renly never scowled. He always 
had a smile for me, she thought . . . except . . . 

“Cold,” her king said, puzzled, and a shadow moved without a man to cast it, and her 
sweet lord’s blood came washing through the green steel of his gorget to drench her 
hands. He had been a warm man, but his blood was cold as ice. This is not real, she told 
herself. This is another bad dream, and soon I’ll wake. 

Her mount came to a sudden halt. Rough hands seized hold of her. She saw shafts of red 
afternoon light slanting through the branches of a chestnut tree. A horse rooted amongst 
the dead leaves after chestnuts, and men moved nearby, talking in quiet voices. Ten, 
twelve, maybe more. Brienne did not recognize their faces. She was stretched out on the 
ground, her back against a tree trunk. “Drink this, m’lady,” said the girl’s voice. She 
lifted a cup to Brienne’s lips. The taste was strong and sour. Brienne spat it out. “Water,” 
she gasped. “Please. Water.” 

“Water won’t help the pain. This will. A little.” The girl put the cup to Brienne’s lips 
again. 

It even hurt to drink. Wine ran down her chin and dribbled on her chest. When the cup 
was empty the girl filled it from a skin. Brienne sucked it down until she sputtered. “No 
more.” 

“More. You have a broken arm, and some of your ribs is cracked. Two, maybe three.” 

“Biter,” Brienne said, remembering the weight of him, the way his knee had slammed 
into her chest. 

“Aye. A real monster, that one.” 

It all came back to her; lightning above and mud below, the rain pinging softly against 
the dark steel of the Hound’s helm, the terrible strength in Biter’s hands. Suddenly she 
could not stand being bound. She tried to wrench free of her ropes, but all that did was 
chafe her worse. Her wrists were tied too tightly. There was dried blood on the hemp. “Is 
he dead?” She trembled. “Biter. Is he dead?” She remembered his teeth tearing into the 
flesh of her face. The thought that he might still be out there somewhere, breathing, made 
Brienne want to scream. 

“He’s dead. Gendry shoved a spearpoint through the back of his neck. Drink, m’lady, or 
I’ll pour it down your throat.” 

She drank. “I am looking for a girl,” she whispered, between swallows. She almost said 
my sister. “A highborn maid of three-and-ten. She has blue eyes and auburn hair.” 

“I’m not her.” 


No. Brienne could see that. The girl was thin to the point of looking starved. She wore her 
brown hair in a braid, and her eyes were older than her years. Brown hair, brown eyes, 
plain. Willow, six years older. “You’re the sister. The innkeep.” 

“I might be.” The girl squinted. “What if I am?” 

“Do you have a name?” Brienne asked. Her stomach gurgled. She was afraid that she 
might retch. 

“Heddle. Same as Willow. Jeyne Heddle.” 

“Jeyne. Untie my hands. Please. Have pity. The ropes are chafing my wrists. I’m 
bleeding.” 

“It’s not allowed. You’re to stay bound, till . . .” 

“. . . till you stand before m’lady.” Renly stood behind the girl, pushing his black hair out 
of his eyes. Not Renly. Gendry. “M’lady means for you to answer for your crimes.” 

“M’lady.” The wine was making her head spin. It was hard to think. “Stoneheart. Is that 
who you mean?” Lord Randyll had spoken of her, back at Maidenpool. “Lady 
Stoneheart.” 

“Some call her that. Some call her other things. The Silent Sister. Mother Merciless. The 
Hangwoman.” 

The Hangwoman. When Brienne closed her eyes, she saw the corpses swaying 
underneath the bare brown limbs, their faces black and swollen. Suddenly she was 
desperately afraid. “Podrick. My squire. Where is Podrick? And the others . . . Ser Hyle, 
Septon Meribald. Dog. What did you do with Dog?” 

Gendry and the girl exchanged a look. Brienne fought to rise, and managed to get one 
knee under her before the world began to spin. “It was you killed the dog, m’lady,” she 
heard Gendry say, just before the darkness swallowed her again. 

Then she was back at the Whispers, standing amongst the ruins and facing Clarence 
Crabb. He was huge and fierce, mounted on an aurochs shaggier than he was. The beast 
pawed the ground in fury, tearing deep furrows in the earth. Crabb’s teeth had been filed 
into points. When Brienne went to draw her sword, she found her scabbard empty. “No,” 
she cried, as Ser Clarence charged. It wasn’t fair. She could not fight without her magic 
sword. Ser Jaime had given it to her. The thought of failing him as she had failed Lord 
Renly made her want to weep. “My sword. Please, I have to find my sword.” 

“The wench wants her sword back,” a voice declared. 

“And I want Cersei Lannister to suck my cock. So what?” 


“Jaime called it Oathkeeper. Please.” But the voices did not listen, and Clarence Crabb 
thundered down on her and swept off her head. Brienne spiraled down into a deeper 
darkness. 

She dreamed that she was lying in a boat, her head pillowed on someone’s lap. There 
were shadows all around them, hooded men in mail and leather, paddling them across a 
foggy river with muffled oars. She was drenched in sweat, burning, yet somehow 
shivering too. The fog was full of faces. “Beauty,” whispered the willows on the bank, 
but the reeds said, “freak, freak.” Brienne shuddered. “Stop,” she said. “Someone make 
them stop.” 

The next time she woke, Jeyne was holding a cup of hot soup to her lips. Onion broth, 
Brienne thought. She drank as much of it as she could, until a bit of carrot caught in her 
throat and made her choke. Coughing was agony. “Easy,” the girl said. 

“Gendry,” she wheezed. “I have to talk with Gendry.” 

“He turned back at the river, m’lady. He’s gone back to his forge, to Willow and the little 
ones, to keep them safe.” 

No one can keep them safe. She began to cough again. “Ah, let her choke. Save us a 
rope.” One of the shadow men shoved the girl aside. He was clad in rusted rings and a 
studded belt. At his hip hung longsword and dirk. A yellow greatcloak was plastered to 
his shoulders, sodden and filthy. From his shoulders rose a steel dog’s head, its teeth 
bared in a snarl. 

“No,” Brienne moaned. “No, you’re dead, I killed you.” 

The Hound laughed. “You got that backwards. It’ll be me killing you. I’d do it now, but 
m’lady wants to see you hanged.” 

Hanged. The word sent a jolt of fear through her. She looked at the girl, Jeyne. She is too 
young to be so hard. “Bread and salt,” Brienne gasped. “The inn . . . Septon Meribald fed 
the children . . . we broke bread with your sister . . .” 

“Guest right don’t mean so much as it used to,” said the girl. “Not since m’lady come 
back from the wedding. Some o’ them swinging down by the river figured they was 
guests too.” 

“We figured different,” said the Hound. “They wanted beds. We gave ’em trees.” 

“We got more trees, though,” put in another shadow, one-eyed beneath a rusty pothelm. 
“We always got more trees.” 

When it was time to mount again, they yanked a leather hood down over her face. There 
were no eyeholes. The leather muffled the sounds around her. The taste of onions 


lingered on her tongue, sharp as the knowledge of her failure. They mean to hang me. She 
thought of Jaime, of Sansa, of her father back on Tarth, and was glad for the hood. It 
helped hide the tears welling in her eyes. From time to time she heard the outlaws talking, 
but she could not make out their words. After a while she gave herself up to weariness 
and the slow, steady motion of her horse. 

This time she dreamed that she was home again, at Evenfall. Through the tall arched 
windows of her lord father’s hall she could see the sun just going down. I was safe here. I 
was safe. 

She was dressed in silk brocade, a quartered gown of blue and red decorated with golden 
suns and silver crescent moons. On another girl it might have been a pretty gown, but not 
on her. She was twelve, ungainly and uncomfortable, waiting to meet the young knight 
her father had arranged for her to marry, a boy six years her senior, sure to be a famous 
champion one day. She dreaded his arrival. Her bosom was too small, her hands and feet 
too big. Her hair kept sticking up, and there was a pimple nestled in the fold beside her 
nose. “He will bring a rose for you,” her father promised her, but a rose was no good, a 
rose could not keep her safe. It was a sword she wanted. Oathkeeper. I have to find the 
girl. I have to find his honor. 

Finally the doors opened, and her betrothed strode into her father’s hall. She tried to greet 
him as she had been instructed, only to have blood come pouring from her mouth. She 
had bitten her tongue off as she waited. She spat it at the young knight’s feet, and saw the 
disgust on his face. “Brienne the Beauty,” he said in a mocking tone. “I have seen sows 
more beautiful than you.” He tossed the rose in her face. As he walked away, the griffins 
on his cloak rippled and blurred and changed to lions. Jaime! she wanted to cry. Jaime, 
come back for me! But her tongue lay on the floor by the rose, drowned in blood. 

Brienne woke suddenly, gasping. 

She did not know where she was. The air was cold and heavy, and smelled of earth and 
worms and mold. She was lying on a pallet beneath a mound of sheepskins, with rock 
above her head and roots poking through the walls. The only light came from a tallow 
candle, smoking in a pool of melted wax. 

She pushed aside the sheepskins. Someone had stripped her of her clothes and armor, she 
saw. She was clad in a brown woolen shift, thin but freshly washed. Her forearm had 
been splinted and bound up with linen, though. One side of her face felt wet and stiff. 
When she touched herself, she found some sort of damp poultice covering her cheek and 
jaw and ear. Biter . . . 

Brienne got to her feet. Her legs felt weak as water, her head as light as air. “Is anyone 
there?” 


Something moved in one of the shadowed alcoves behind the candle; an old grey man 
clad in rags. The blankets that had covered him slipped to the floor. He sat up and rubbed 
his eyes. “Lady Brienne? You gave me a fright. I was dreaming.” 

No, she thought, that was me. “What place is this? Is this a dungeon?” 

“A cave. Like rats, we must run back to our holes when the dogs come sniffing after us, 
and there are more dogs every day.” He was clad in the ragged remains of an old robe, 
pink and white. His hair was long and grey and tangled, the loose skin of his cheeks and 
chin was covered with coarse stubble. “Are you hungry? Could you keep down a cup of 
milk? Perhaps some bread and honey?” 

“I want my clothes. My sword.” She felt naked without her mail, and she wanted 
Oathkeeper at her side. “The way out. Show me the way out.” The floor of the cave was 
dirt and stone, rough beneath the soles of her feet. Even now she felt light-headed, as if 
she were floating. The flickering light cast queer shadows. Spirits of the slain, she 
thought, dancing all about me, hiding when I turn to look at them. Everywhere she saw 
holes and cracks and crevices, but there was no way to know which passages led out, 
which would take her deeper into the cave, and which went nowhere. All were black as 
pitch. 

“Might I feel your brow, my lady?” Her gaoler’s hand was scarred and hard with callus, 
yet strangely gentle. “Your fever has broken,” he announced, in a voice flavored with the 
accents of the Free Cities. “Well and good. Just yesterday your flesh felt as if it were on 
fire. Jeyne feared that we might lose you.” 

“Jeyne. The tall girl?” 

“The very one. Though she is not so tall as you, my lady. Long Jeyne, the men call her. It 
was she who set your arm and splinted it, as well as any maester. She did what she could 
for your face as well, washing out the wounds with boiled ale to stop the mortification. 
Even so . . . a human bite is a filthy thing. That is where the fever came from, I am 
certain.” The grey man touched her bandaged face. “We had to cut away some of the 
flesh. Your face will not be pretty, I fear.” 

It has never been pretty. “Scars, you mean?” 

“My lady, that creature chewed off half your cheek.” 

Brienne could not help but flinch. Every knight has battle scars, Ser Goodwin had 
warned her, when she asked him to teach her the sword. Is that what you want, child? Her 
old master-at-arms had been talking about sword cuts, though; he could never have 
anticipated Biter’s pointed teeth. “Why set my bones and wash my wounds if you only 
mean to hang me?” 


“Why indeed?” He glanced at the candle, as if he could no longer bear to look at her. 
“You fought bravely at the inn, they tell me. Lem should not have left the crossroads. He 
was told to stay close, hidden, to come at once if he saw smoke rising from the chimney . 
. . but when word reached him that the Mad Dog of Saltpans had been seen making his 
way north along the Green Fork, he took the bait. We have been hunting that lot for so 
long . . . still, he ought to have known better. As it was, it was half a day before he 
realized that the mummers had used a stream to hide their tracks and doubled back 
behind him, and then he lost more time circling around a column of Frey knights. If not 
for you, only corpses might have remained at the inn by the time that Lem and his men 
got back. That was why Jeyne dressed your wounds, mayhaps. Whatever else you may 
have done, you won those wounds honorably, in the best of causes.” 

Whatever else you may have done. “What is it that you think I’ve done?” she said. “Who 
are you?” 

“We were king’s men when we began,” the man told her, “but king’s men must have a 
king, and we have none. We were brothers too, but now our brotherhood is broken. I do 
not know who we are, if truth be told, nor where we might be going. I only know the road 
is dark. The fires have not shown me what lies at its end.” 

I know where it ends. I have seen the corpses in the trees. “Fires,” Brienne repeated. All 
at once she understood. “You are the Myrish priest. The red wizard.” 

He looked down at his ragged robes, and smiled ruefully. “The pink pretender, rather. I 
am Thoros, late of Myr, aye . . . a bad priest and a worse wizard.” 

“You ride with the Dondarrion. The lightning lord.” 

“Lightning comes and goes and then is seen no more. So too with men. Lord Beric’s fire 
has gone out of this world, I fear. A grimmer shadow leads us in his place.” 

“The Hound?” 

The priest pursed his lips. “The Hound is dead and buried.” 

“I saw him. In the woods.” 

“A fever dream, my lady.” 

“He said that he would hang me.” 

“Even dreams can lie. My lady, how long has it been since you have eaten? Surely you 
are famished?” 

She was, she realized. Her belly felt hollow. “Food . . . food would be welcome, thank 
you.” 


“A meal, then. Sit. We will talk more, but first a meal. Wait here.” Thoros lit a taper from 
the sagging candle, and vanished into a black hole beneath a ledge of rock. Brienne found 
herself alone in the small cave. For how long, though? 

She prowled the chamber, looking for a weapon. Any sort of weapon would have served; 
a staff, a club, a dagger. She found only rocks. One fit her fist nicely . . . but she 
remembered the Whispers, and what happened when Shagwell tried to pit a stone against 
a knife. When she heard the priest’s returning footsteps, she let the rock fall to the cavern 
floor and resumed her seat. 

Thoros had bread and cheese and a bowl of stew. “I am sorry,” he said. “The last of the 
milk had soured, and the honey is all gone. Food grows scant. Still, this will fill you.” 

The stew was cold and greasy, the bread hard, the cheese harder. Brienne had never eaten 
anything half so good. “Are my companions here?” she asked the priest, as she was 
spooning up the last of the stew. 

“The septon was set free to go upon his way. There was no harm in him. The others are 
here, awaiting judgment.” 

“Judgment?” She frowned. “Podrick Payne is just a boy.” 

“He says he is a squire.” 

“You know how boys will boast.” 

“The Imp’s squire. He has fought in battles, by his own admission. He has even killed, to 
hear him tell it.” 

“A boy,” she said again. “Have pity.” 

“My lady,” Thoros said, “I do not doubt that kindness and mercy and forgiveness can still 
be found somewhere in these Seven Kingdoms, but do not look for them here. This is a 
cave, not a temple. When men must live like rats in the dark beneath the earth, they soon 
run out of pity, as they do of milk and honey.” 

“And justice? Can that be found in caves?” 

“Justice.” Thoros smiled wanly. “I remember justice. It had a pleasant taste. Justice was 
what we were about when Beric led us, or so we told ourselves. We were king’s men, 
knights, and heroes . . . but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes 
monsters of us all.” 

“Are you saying you are monsters?” 


“I am saying we are human. You are not the only one with wounds, Lady Brienne. Some 
of my brothers were good men when this began. Some were . . . less good, shall we say? 
Though there are those who say it does not matter how a man begins, but only how he 
ends. I suppose it is the same for women.” The priest got to his feet. “Our time together is 
at an end, I fear. I hear my brothers coming. Our lady sends for you.” 

Brienne heard their footsteps and saw torchlight flickering in the passage. “You told me 
she had gone to Fairmarket.” 

“And so she had. She returned whilst we were sleeping. She never sleeps herself.” 

I will not be afraid, she told herself, but it was too late for that. I will not let them see my 
fear, she promised herself instead. There were four of them, hard men with haggard 
faces, clad in mail and scale and leather. She recognized one of them; the man with one 
eye, from her dreams. 

The biggest of the four wore a stained and tattered yellow cloak. “Enjoy the food?” he 
asked. “I hope so. It’s the last food you’re ever like to eat.” He was brown-haired, 
bearded, brawny, with a broken nose that had healed badly. I know this man, Brienne 
thought. “You are the Hound.” 

He grinned. His teeth were awful; crooked, and streaked brown with rot. “I suppose I am. 
Seeing as how m’lady went and killed the last one.” He turned his head and spat. 

She remembered lightning flashing, the mud beneath her feet. “It was Rorge I killed. He 
took the helm from Clegane’s grave, and you stole it off his corpse.” 

“I didn’t hear him objecting.” 

Thoros sucked in his breath in dismay. “Is this true? A dead man’s helm? Have we fallen 
that low?” 

The big man scowled at him. “It’s good steel.” 

“There is nothing good about that helm, nor the men who wore it,” said the red priest. 
“Sandor Clegane was a man in torment, and Rorge a beast in human skin.” 

“I’m not them.” 

“Then why show the world their face? Savage, snarling, twisted . . . is that who you 
would be, Lem?” 

“The sight of it will make my foes afraid.” 

“The sight of it makes me afraid.” 


“Close your eyes, then.” The man in the yellow cloak made a sharp gesture. “Bring the 
whore.” 

Brienne did not resist. There were four of them, and she was weak and wounded, naked 
beneath the woolen shift. She had to bend her neck to keep from hitting her head as they 
marched her through the twisting passage. The way ahead rose sharply, turning twice 
before emerging in a much larger cavern full of outlaws. 

A fire pit had been dug into the center of the floor, and the air was blue with smoke. Men 
clustered near the flames, warming themselves against the chill of the cave. Others stood 
along the walls or sat cross-legged on straw pallets. There were women too, and even a 
few children peering out from behind their mothers’ skirts. The one face Brienne knew 
belonged to Long Jeyne Heddle. 

A trestle table had been set up across the cave, in a cleft in the rock. Behind it sat a 
woman all in grey, cloaked and hooded. In her hands was a crown, a bronze circlet ringed 
by iron swords. She was studying it, her fingers stroking the blades as if to test their 
sharpness. Her eyes glimmered under her hood. 

Grey was the color of the silent sisters, the handmaidens of the Stranger. Brienne felt a 
shiver climb her spine. Stoneheart. 

“M’lady,” said the big man. “Here she is.” 

“Aye,” added the one-eyed man. “The Kingslayer’s whore.” 

She flinched. “Why would you call me that?” 

“If I had a silver stag for every time you said his name, I’d be as rich as your friends the 
Lannisters.” 

“That was only . . . you do not understand . . .” 

“Don’t we, though?” The big man laughed. “I think we might. There’s a stink of lion 
about you, lady.” 

“That’s not so.” 

Another of the outlaws stepped forward, a younger man in a greasy sheepskin jerkin. In 
his hand was Oathkeeper. “This says it is.” His voice was frosted with the accents of the 
north. He slid the sword from its scabbard and placed it in front of Lady Stoneheart. In 
the light from the firepit the red and black ripples in the blade almost seem to move, but 
the woman in grey had eyes only for the pommel: a golden lion’s head, with ruby eyes 
that shone like two red stars. 


“There is this as well.” Thoros of Myr drew a parchment from his sleeve, and put it down 
next to the sword. “It bears the boy king’s seal and says the bearer is about his business.” 

Lady Stoneheart set the sword aside to read the letter. 

“The sword was given me for a good purpose,” said Brienne. “Ser Jaime swore an oath to 
Catelyn Stark . . .” 

“. . . before his friends cut her throat for her, that must have been,” said the big man in the 
yellow cloak. “We all know about the Kingslayer and his oaths.” 

It is no good, Brienne realized. No words of mine will sway them. She plunged ahead 
despite that. “He promised Lady Catelyn her daughters, but by the time we reached 
King’s Landing they were gone. Jaime sent me out to seek the Lady Sansa . . .” 

“. . . and if you had found the girl,” asked the young northman, “what were you to do 
with her?” 

“Protect her. Take her somewhere safe.” 

The big man laughed. “Where’s that? Cersei’s dungeon?” 

“No.” 

“Deny it all you want. That sword says you’re a liar. Are we supposed to believe the 
Lannisters are handing out gold and ruby swords to foes? That the Kingslayer meant for 
you to hide the girl from his own twin? I suppose the paper with the boy king’s seal was 
just in case you needed to wipe your arse? And then there’s the company you keep . . .” 
The big man turned and beckoned, the ranks of outlaws parted, and two more captives 
were brought forth. “The boy was the Imp’s own squire, m’lady,” he said to Lady 
Stoneheart. “T’other is one of Randyll Bloody Tarly’s bloody household knights.” 

Hyle Hunt had been beaten so badly that his face was swollen almost beyond recognition. 
He stumbled as they shoved him, and almost fell. Podrick caught him by the arm. “Ser,” 
the boy said miserably, when he saw Brienne. “My lady, I mean. Sorry.” 

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Brienne turned to Lady Stoneheart. “Whatever 
treachery you think I may have done, my lady, Podrick and Ser Hyle were no part of it.” 

“They’re lions,” said the one-eyed man. “That’s enough. I say they hang. Tarly’s hanged 
a score o’ ours, past time we strung up some o’ his.” 

Ser Hyle gave Brienne a faint smile. “My lady,” he said, “you should have wed me when 
I made my offer. Now I fear you’re doomed to die a maid, and me a poor man.” 

“Let them go,” Brienne pleaded. 


The woman in grey gave no answer. She studied the sword, the parchment, the bronzeand-
iron crown. Finally she reached up under her jaw and grasped her neck, as if she 
meant to throttle herself. Instead she spoke . . . Her voice was halting, broken, tortured. 
The sound seemed to come from her throat, part croak, part wheeze, part death rattle. The 
language of the damned, thought Brienne. “I don’t understand. What did she say?” 

“She asked the name of this blade of yours,” said the young northman in the sheepskin 
jerkin. 

“Oathkeeper,” Brienne answered. 

The woman in grey hissed through her fingers. Her eyes were two red pits burning in the 
shadows. She spoke again. 

“No, she says. Call it Oathbreaker, she says. It was made for treachery and murder. She 
names it False Friend. Like you.” 

“To whom have I been false?” 

“To her,” the northman said. “Can it be that my lady has forgotten that you once swore 
her your service?” 

There was only one woman that the Maid of Tarth had ever sworn to serve. “That cannot 
be,” she said. “She’s dead.” 

“Death and guest right,” muttered Long Jeyne Heddle. “They don’t mean so much as they 
used to, neither one.” 

Lady Stoneheart lowered her hood and unwound the grey wool scarf from her face. Her 
hair was dry and brittle, white as bone. Her brow was mottled green and grey, spotted 
with the brown blooms of decay. The flesh of her face clung in ragged strips from her 
eyes down to her jaw. Some of the rips were crusted with dried blood, but others gaped 
open to reveal the skull beneath. 

Her face, Brienne thought. Her face was so strong and handsome, her skin so smooth and 
soft. “Lady Catelyn?” Tears filled her eyes. “They said . . . they said that you were dead.” 

“She is,” said Thoros of Myr. “The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we 
found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of 
life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, 
and the flame of life passed from him to her. And . . . she rose. May the Lord of Light 
protect us. She rose.” 

Am I dreaming still? Brienne wondered. Is this another nightmare born from Biter’s 
teeth? “I never betrayed her. Tell her that. I swear it by the Seven. I swear it by my 
sword.” 


The thing that had been Catelyn Stark took hold of her throat again, fingers pinching at 
the ghastly long slash in her neck, and choked out more sounds. “Words are wind, she 
says,” the northman told Brienne. “She says that you must prove your faith.” 

“How?” asked Brienne. 

“With your sword. Oathkeeper, you call it? Then keep your oath to her, milady says.” 

“What does she want of me?” 

“She wants her son alive, or the men who killed him dead,” said the big man. “She wants 
to feed the crows, like they did at the Red Wedding. Freys and Boltons, aye. We’ll give 
her those, as many as she likes. All she asks from you is Jaime Lannister.” 

Jaime. The name was a knife, twisting in her belly. “Lady Catelyn, I . . . you do not 
understand, Jaime . . . he saved me from being raped when the Bloody Mummers took us, 
and later he came back for me, he leapt into the bear pit empty-handed . . . I swear to you, 
he is not the man he was. He sent me after Sansa to keep her safe, he could not have had 
a part in the Red Wedding.” 

Lady Catelyn’s fingers dug deep into her throat, and the words came rattling out, choked 
and broken, a stream as cold as ice. The northman said, “She says that you must choose. 
Take the sword and slay the Kingslayer, or be hanged for a betrayer. The sword or the 
noose, she says. Choose, she says. Choose.” 

Brienne remembered her dream, waiting in her father’s hall for the boy she was to marry. 
In the dream she had bitten off her tongue. My mouth was full of blood. She took a ragged 
breath and said, “I will not make that choice.” 

There was a long silence. Then Lady Stoneheart spoke again. This time Brienne 
understood her words. There were only two. “Hang them,” she croaked. 

“As you command, m’lady,” said the big man. 

They bound Brienne’s wrists with rope again and led her from the cavern, up a twisting 
stony path to the surface. It was morning outside, she was surprised to see. Shafts of pale 
dawn light were slanting through the trees. So many trees to choose from, she thought. 
They will not need to take us far. 

Nor did they. Beneath a crooked willow, the outlaws slipped a noose about her neck, 
jerked it tight, and tossed the other end of the rope over a limb. Hyle Hunt and Podrick 
Payne were given elms. Ser Hyle was shouting that he would kill Jaime Lannister, but the 
Hound cuffed him across the face and shut him up. He had donned the helm again. “If 
you got crimes to confess to your gods, this would be the time to say them.” 


“Podrick has never harmed you. My father will ransom him. Tarth is called the sapphire 
isle. Send Podrick with my bones to Evenfall, and you’ll have sapphires, silver, whatever 
you want.” 

“I want my wife and daughter back,” said the Hound. “Can your father give me that? If 
not, he can get buggered. The boy will rot beside you. Wolves will gnaw your bones.” 

“Do you mean to hang her, Lem?” asked the one-eyed man. “Or do you figure to talk the 
bitch to death?” 

The Hound snatched the end of the rope from the man holding it. “Let’s see if she can 
dance,” he said, and gave a yank. 

Brienne felt the hemp constricting, digging into her skin, jerking her chin upward. Ser 
Hyle was cursing them eloquently, but not the boy. Podrick never lifted his eyes, not even 
when his feet were jerked up off the ground. If this is another dream, it is time for me to 
awaken. If this is real, it is time for me to die. All she could see was Podrick, the noose 
around his thin neck, his legs twitching. Her mouth opened. Pod was kicking, choking, 
dying. Brienne sucked the air in desperately, even as the rope was strangling her. Nothing 
had ever hurt so much. 

She screamed a word. 


CERSEI 

Septa Moelle was a white-haired harridan with a face as sharp as an axe and lips pursed 
in perpetual disapproval. This one still has her maidenhead, I’ll wager, Cersei thought, 
though by now it’s hard and stiff as boiled leather. Six of the High Sparrow’s knights 
escorted her, with the rainbow sword of their reborn order emblazoned on their kite 
shields. 

“Septa.” Cersei sat beneath the Iron Throne, clad in green silk and golden lace. “Tell his 
High Holiness that we are vexed with him. He presumes too much.” Emeralds glimmered 
on her fingers and in her golden hair. The eyes of court and city were upon her, and she 
meant for them to see Lord Tywin’s daughter. By the time this mummer’s farce was done 
they would know they had but one true queen. But first we must dance the dance and 
never miss a step. “Lady Margaery is my son’s true and gentle wife, his helpmate and 
consort. His High Holiness had no cause to lay his hands upon her person, or to confine 
her and her young cousins, who are so dear to all of us. I demand that he release them.” 


Septa Moelle’s stern expression did not flicker. “I shall convey Your Grace’s words to 
His High Holiness, but it grieves me to say that the young queen and her ladies cannot be 
released until and unless their innocence has been proved.” 

“Innocence? Why, you need only look upon their sweet young faces to see how innocent 
they are.” 

“A sweet face oft hides a sinner’s heart.” 

Lord Merryweather spoke up from the council table. “What offense have these young 
maids been accused of, and by whom?” 

The septa said, “Megga Tyrell and Elinor Tyrell stand accused of lewdness, fornication, 
and conspiracy to commit high treason. Alla Tyrell has been charged with witnessing 
their shame and helping them conceal it. All this Queen Margaery has also been accused 
of, as well as adultery and high treason.” 

Cersei put a hand to her breast. “Tell me who is spreading such calumnies about my 
good-daughter! I do not believe a word of this. My sweet son loves Lady Margaery with 
all his heart, she could never have been so cruel as to play him false.” 

“The accuser is a knight of your own household. Ser Osney Kettleblack has confessed his 
carnal knowledge of the queen to the High Septon himself, before the altar of the Father.” 

At the council table Harys Swyft gasped, and Grand Maester Pycelle turned away. A 
buzz filled the air, as if a thousand wasps were loose in the throne room. Some of the 
ladies in the galleries began to slip away, followed by a stream of petty lords and knights 
from the back of the hall. The gold cloaks let them go, but the queen had instructed Ser 
Osfryd to make note of all who fled. Suddenly the Tyrell rose does not smell so sweet. 

“Ser Osney is young and lusty, I will grant you,” the queen said, “but a faithful knight for 
all that. If he says that he was part of this . . . no, it cannot be. Margaery is a maiden!” 

“She is not. I examined her myself, at the behest of His High Holiness. Her maidenhead 
is not intact. Septa Aglantine and Septa Melicent will say the same, as will Queen 
Margaery’s own septa, Nysterica, who has been confined to a penitent’s cell for her part 
in the queen’s shame. Lady Megga and Lady Elinor were examined as well. Both were 
found to have been broken.” 

The wasps were growing so loud that the queen could hardly hear herself think. I do hope 
the little queen and her cousins enjoyed those rides of theirs. 

Lord Merryweather thumped his fist on the table. “Lady Margaery had sworn solemn 
oaths attesting to her maidenhood, to Her Grace the queen and her late father. Many here 
bore witness. Lord Tyrell has also testified to her innocence, as has the Lady Olenna, 


whom we all know to be above reproach. Would you have us believe that all of these 
noble people lied to us?” 

“Perhaps they were deceived as well, my lord,” said Septa Moelle. “I cannot speak to 
this. I can only swear to the truth of what I discovered for myself when I examined the 
queen.” 

The picture of this sour old crone poking her wrinkled fingers up Margaery’s little pink 
cunt was so droll that Cersei almost laughed. “We insist that His High Holiness allow our 
own maesters to examine my good-daughter, to determine if there is any shred of truth to 
these slanders. Grand Maester Pycelle, you shall accompany Septa Moelle back to 
Beloved Baelor’s Sept, and return to us with the truth about our Margaery’s 
maidenhead.” 

Pycelle had gone the color of curdled white. At council meetings the wretched old fool 
cannot say enough, but now that I need a few words from him he has lost the power of 
speech, the queen thought, before the old man finally came out with, “There is no need 
for me to examine her . . . her privy parts.” His voice was a quaver. “I grieve to say . . . 
Queen Margaery is no maiden. She has required me to make her moon tea, not once, but 
many times.” 

The uproar that followed that was all that Cersei Lannister could ever have hoped for. 

Even the royal herald beating on the floor with his staff did little to quell the noise. The 
queen let it wash over her for a few heartbeats, savoring the sounds of the little queen’s 
disgrace. When it had gone on long enough, she rose stone-faced and commanded that 
the gold cloaks clear the hall. Margaery Tyrell is done, she thought, exulting. Her white 
knights fell in around her as she made her exit through the king’s door behind the Iron 
Throne; Boros Blount, Meryn Trant, and Osmund Kettleblack, the last of the Kingsguard 
still remaining in the city. 

Moon Boy was standing beside the door, holding his rattle in his hand and gaping at the 
confusion with his big round eyes. A fool he may be, but he wears his folly honestly. 
Maggy the Frog should have been in motley too, for all she knew about the morrow. 

Cersei prayed the old fraud was screaming down in hell. The younger queen whose 
coming she’d foretold was finished, and if that prophecy could fail, so could the rest. No 
golden shrouds, no valonqar, I am free of your croaking malice at last. 

The remnants of her small council followed her out. Harys Swyft appeared dazed. He 
stumbled at the door and might have fallen if Aurane Waters had not caught him by the 
arm. Even Orton Merryweather seemed anxious. “The smallfolk are fond of the little 
queen,” he said. “They will not take well to this. I fear what might happen next, Your 
Grace.” 

“Lord Merryweather is right,” said Lord Waters. “If it please Your Grace, I will launch 
the rest of our new dromonds. The sight of them upon the Blackwater with King 


Tommen’s banner flying from their masts will remind the city who rules here, and keep 
them safe should the mobs decide to run riot again.” 

He left the rest unspoken; once on the Blackwater, his dromonds could stop Mace Tyrell 
from bringing his army back across the river, just as Tyrion had once stopped Stannis. 
Highgarden had no sea power of its own this side of Westeros. They relied upon the 
Redwyne fleet, presently on its way back to the Arbor. 

“A prudent measure,” the queen announced. “Until this storm has passed, I want your 
ships crewed and on the water.” 

Ser Harys Swyft was so pale and damp he looked about to faint. “When word of this 
reaches Lord Tyrell, his fury will know no bounds. There will be blood in the streets . . .” 

The knight of the yellow chicken, Cersei mused. You ought to take a worm for your sigil, 
ser. A chicken is too bold for you. If Mace Tyrell will not even assault Storm’s End, how 
do you imagine that he would ever dare attack the gods? When he was done blathering 
she said, “It must not come to blood, and I mean to see that it does not. I will go to 
Baelor’s Sept myself to speak to Queen Margaery and the High Septon. Tommen loves 
them both, I know, and would want me to make peace between them.” 

“Peace?” Ser Harys dabbed at his brow with a velvet sleeve. “If peace is possible . . . that 
is very brave of you.” 

“Some sort of trial may be necessary,” said the queen, “to disprove these base calumnies 
and lies and show the world that our sweet Margaery is the innocent we all know her to 
be.” 

“Aye,” said Merryweather, “but this High Septon may want to try the queen himself, as 
the Faith once tried men of old.” 

I hope so, Cersei thought. Such a court was not like to look with favor on treasonous 
queens who spread their legs for singers and profaned the Maiden’s holy rites to hide 
their shame. “The important thing is to find the truth, I am sure we all agree,” she said. 
“And now, my lords, you must excuse me. I must go see the king. He should not be alone 
at such a time.” 

Tommen was fishing for cats when his mother returned to him. Dorcas had made him a 
mouse with scraps of fur and tied it on a long string at the end of an old fishing pole. The 
kittens loved to chase it, and the boy liked nothing better than jerking it about the floor as 
they pounced after it. He seemed surprised when Cersei gathered him up in her arms and 
kissed him on his brow. “What’s that for, Mother? Why are you crying?” 

Because you’re safe, she wanted to tell him. Because no harm will ever come to you. 
“You are mistaken. A lion never cries.” There would be time later to tell him about 
Margaery and her cousins. “There are some warrants that I need you to sign.” 


For the king’s sake, the queen had left the names off the arrest warrants. Tommen signed 
them blank, and pressed his seal into the warm wax happily, as he always did. Afterward 
she sent him off with Jocelyn Swyft. 

Ser Osfryd Kettleblack arrived as the ink was drying. Cersei had written in the names 
herself: Ser Tallad the Tall, Jalabhar Xho, Hamish the Harper, Hugh Clifton, Mark 
Mullendore, Bayard Norcross, Lambert Turnberry, Horas Redwyne, Hobber Redwyne, 
and a certain churl named Wat, who called himself the Blue Bard. 

“So many.” Ser Osfryd shuffled through the warrants, as wary of the words as if they had 
been roaches crawling across the parchment. None of the Kettleblacks could read. 

“Ten. You have six thousand gold cloaks. Sufficient for ten, I would think. Some of the 
clever ones may have fled, if the rumors reached their ears in time. If so, it makes no 
matter, their absence only makes them look that much more guilty. Ser Tallad is a bit of 
an oaf and may try to resist you. See that he does not die before confessing, and do no 
harm to any of the others. A few may well be innocent.” It was important that the 
Redwyne twins be found to have been falsely accused. That would demonstrate the 
fairness of the judgments against the others. 

“We’ll have them all before the sun comes up, Your Grace.” Ser Osfryd hesitated. 
“There’s a crowd gathering outside the door of Baelor’s Sept.” 

“What sort of crowd?” Anything unexpected made her wary. She remembered what Lord 
Waters had said about the riots. I had not considered how the smallfolk might react to 
this. Margaery has been their little pet. “How many?” 

“A hundred or so. They’re shouting for the High Septon to release the little queen. We 
can send them running, if you like.” 

“No. Let them shout until they’re hoarse, it will not sway the Sparrow. He only listens to 
the gods.” There was a certain irony in His High Holiness having an angry mob 
encamped upon his doorstep, since just such a mob had raised him to the crystal crown. 
Which he promptly sold. “The Faith has its own knights now. Let them defend the sept. 
Oh, and close the city gates as well. No one is to enter or leave King’s Landing without 
my leave, until all this is done and settled.” 

“As you command, Your Grace.” Ser Osfryd bowed and went off to find someone to read 
the warrants to him. 

By the time the sun went down that day, all of the accused traitors were in custody. 
Hamish the Harper had collapsed when they came for him, and Ser Tallad the Tall had 
wounded three gold cloaks before the others overwhelmed him. Cersei ordered that the 
Redwyne twins be given comfortable chambers in a tower. The rest went down to the 
dungeons. 


“Hamish is having difficulty breathing,” Qyburn informed her when he came to call that 
night. “He is calling for a maester.” 

“Tell him he can have one as soon as he confesses.” She thought a moment. “He is too 
old to have been amongst the lovers, but no doubt he was made to play and sing for 
Margaery whilst she was entertaining other men. We will need details.” 

“I shall help him to remember them, Your Grace.” 

The next day, Lady Merryweather helped Cersei dress for their visit to the little queen. 
“Nothing too rich or colorful,” she said. “Something suitably devout and drab for the 
High Septon. He’s like to make me pray with him.” 

In the end, she chose a soft woolen dress that covered her from throat to ankle, with only 
a few small vines embroidered on the bodice and the sleeves in golden thread to soften 
the severity of its lines. Even better, brown would help conceal the dirt if she was made 
to kneel. “Whilst I am comforting my good-daughter you shall speak with the three 
cousins,” she told Taena. “Win Alla if you can, but be careful what you say. The gods 
may not be the only ones listening.” 

Jaime always said that the hardest part of any battle is just before, waiting for the carnage 
to begin. When she stepped outside, Cersei saw that the sky was grey and bleak. She 
could not take the risk of being caught in a downpour and arriving at Baelor’s Sept 
soaked and bedraggled. That meant the litter. For her escort, she took ten Lannister house 
guards and Boros Blount. “Margaery’s mob may not have the wit to tell one Kettleblack 
from another,” she told Ser Osmund, “and I cannot have you cutting through the 
commons. Best we keep you out of sight for a time.” 

As they made their way across King’s Landing, Taena had a sudden doubt. “This trial,” 
she said, in a quiet voice, “what if Margaery demands that her guilt or innocence be 
determined by wager of battle?” 

A smile brushed Cersei’s lips. “As queen, her honor must be defended by a knight of the 
Kingsguard. Why, every child in Westeros knows how Prince Aemon the Dragonknight 
championed his sister Queen Naerys against Ser Morghil’s accusations. With Ser Loras 
so gravely wounded, though, I fear Prince Aemon’s part must fall to one of his Sworn 
Brothers.” She shrugged. “Who, though? Ser Arys and Ser Balon are far away in Dorne, 
Jaime is off at Riverrun, and Ser Osmund is the brother of the man accusing her, which 
leaves only . . . oh, dear . . .” 

“Boros Blount and Meryn Trant.” Lady Taena laughed. 

“Yes, and Ser Meryn has been feeling ill of late. Remind me to tell him that when we 
return to the castle.” 


“I shall, my sweet.” Taena took her hand and kissed it. “I pray that I never offend you. 
You are terrible when roused.” 

“Any mother would do the same to protect her children,” said Cersei. “When do you 
mean to bring that boy of yours to court? Russell, was that his name? He could train with 
Tommen.” 

“That would thrill the boy, I know . . . but things are so uncertain just now, I thought it 
best to wait until the danger passed.” 

“Soon enough,” promised Cersei. “Send word to Longtable and have Russell pack his 
best doublet and his wooden sword. A new young friend will be just the thing to help 
Tommen forget his loss, after Margaery’s little head has rolled.” 

They descended from the litter under Blessed Baelor’s statue. The queen was pleased to 
see that the bones and filth had been cleaned away. Ser Osfryd had told it true; the crowd 
was neither as numerous nor as unruly as the sparrows had been. They stood about in 
small clumps, gazing sullenly at the doors of the Great Sept, where a line of novice 
septons had been drawn up with quarterstaffs in their hands. No steel, Cersei noted. That 
was either very wise or very stupid, she was not sure which. 

No one made any attempt to hinder her. Smallfolk and novices alike parted as they 
passed. Once inside the doors, they were met by three knights in the Hall of Lamps, each 
clad in the rainbow-striped robes of the Warrior’s Sons. “I am here to see my good-
daughter,” Cersei told them. 

“His High Holiness has been expecting you. I am Ser Theodan the True, formerly Ser 
Theodan Wells. If Your Grace will come with me.” 

The High Sparrow was on his knees, as ever. This time he was praying before the 
Father’s altar. Nor did he break off his prayer when the queen approached, but made her 
wait impatiently until he had finished. Only then did he rise and bow to her. “Your Grace. 
This is a sad day.” 

“Very sad. Do we have your leave to speak with Margaery and her cousins?” She chose a 
meek and humble manner; with this man, that was like to work the best. 

“If that is your wish. Come to me afterward, my child. We must pray together, you and 
I.” 

The little queen had been confined atop one of the Great Sept’s slender towers. Her cell 
was eight feet long and six feet wide, with no furnishings but a straw-stuffed pallet and a 
bench for prayer, a ewer of water, a copy of The Seven-Pointed Star, and a candle to read 
it by. The only window was hardly wider than an arrow slit. 


Cersei found Margaery barefoot and shivering, clad in the roughspun shift of a novice 
sister. Her locks were all a tangle, and her feet were filthy. “They took my clothes from 
me,” the little queen told her once they were alone. “I wore a gown of ivory lace, with 
freshwater pearls on the bodice, but the septas laid their hands on me and stripped me to 
the skin. My cousins too. Megga sent one septa crashing into the candles and set her robe 
afire. I fear for Alla, though. She went as white as milk, too frightened even to cry.” 

“Poor child.” There were no chairs, so Cersei sat beside the little queen on her pallet. 
“Lady Taena has gone to speak with her, to let her know that she is not forgotten.” 

“He will not even let me see them,” fumed Margaery. “He keeps each of us apart from 
the others. Until you came, I was allowed no visitors but septas. One comes every hour to 
ask if I wish to confess my fornications. They will not even let me sleep. They wake me 
to demand confessions. Last night I confessed to Septa Unella that I wished to scratch her 
eyes out.” 

A shame you did not do it, Cersei thought. Blinding some poor old septa would certainly 
persuade the High Sparrow of your guilt. “They are questioning your cousins the same 
way.” 

“Damn them, then,” said Margaery. “Damn them all to seven hells. Alla is gentle and 
shy, how can they do this to her? And Megga . . . she laughs as loud as a dockside whore, 
I know, but inside she’s still just a little girl. I love them all, and they love me. If this 
sparrow thinks to make them lie about me . . .” 

“They stand accused as well, I fear. All three.” 

“My cousins?” Margaery paled. “Alla and Megga are hardly more than children. Your 
Grace, this . . . this is obscene. Will you take us out of here?” 

“Would that I could.” Her voice was full of sorrow. “His High Holiness has his new 
knights guarding you. To free you I would need to send the gold cloaks and profane this 
holy place with killing.” Cersei took Margaery’s hand in hers. “I have not been idle, 
though. I have gathered up all those that Ser Osney named as your lovers. They will tell 
His High Holiness of your innocence, I am certain, and swear to it at your trial.” 

“Trial?” There was real fear in the girl’s voice now. “Must there be a trial?” 

“How else will you prove your innocence?” Cersei gave Margaery’s hand a reassuring 
squeeze. “It is your right to decide the manner of the trial, to be sure. You are the queen. 
The knights of the Kingsguard are sworn to defend you.” 

Margaery understood at once. “A trial by battle? Loras is hurt, though, elsewise he . . .” 

“He has six brothers.” 


Margaery stared at her, then pulled her hand away. “Is that a jape? Boros is a craven, 
Meryn is old and slow, your brother is maimed, the other two are off in Dorne, and 
Osmund is a bloody Kettleblack. Loras has two brothers, not six. If there’s to be a trial by 
battle, I want Garlan as my champion.” 

“Ser Garlan is not a member of the Kingsguard,” the queen said. “When the queen’s 
honor is at issue, law and custom require that her champion be one of the king’s sworn 
seven. The High Septon will insist, I fear.” I will make certain of it. 

Margaery did not answer at once, but her brown eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Blount or 
Trant,” she said at last. “It would have to be one of them. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? 
Osney Kettleblack would cut either one to pieces.” 

Seven hells. Cersei donned a look of hurt. “You wrong me, daughter. All I want—” 

“—is your son, all for yourself. He will never have a wife that you don’t hate. And I am 
not your daughter, thank the gods. Leave me.” 

“You are being foolish. I am only here to help you.” 

“To help me to my grave. I asked for you to leave. Will you make me call my gaolers and 
have you dragged away, you vile, scheming, evil bitch?” 

Cersei gathered up her skirts and dignity. “This must be very frightening for you. I shall 
forgive those words.” Here, as at court, one never knew who might be listening. “I would 
be afraid as well, in your place. Grand Maester Pycelle has admitted providing you with 
moon tea, and your Blue Bard . . . if I were you, my lady, I would pray to the Crone for 
wisdom and to the Mother for her mercy. I fear you may soon be in dire need of both.” 

Four shriveled septas escorted the queen down the tower steps. Each of the crones 
seemed more feeble than the last. When they reached the ground they continued down, 
into the heart of Visenya’s Hill. The steps ended well below the earth, where a line of 
flickering torches lit a long hallway. 

She found the High Septon waiting for her in a small seven-sided audience chamber. The 
room was sparse and plain, with bare stone walls, a rough-hewn table, three chairs, and a 
prayer bench. The faces of the Seven had been carved into the walls. Cersei thought the 
carvings crude and ugly, but there was a certain power to them, especially about the eyes, 
orbs of onyx, malachite, and yellow moonstone that somehow made the faces come alive. 

“You spoke with the queen,” the High Septon said. 

She resisted the urge to say, I am the queen. “I did.” 

“All men sin, even kings and queens. I have sinned myself, and been forgiven. Without 
confession, though, there can be no forgiveness. The queen will not confess.” 


“Perhaps she is innocent.” 

“She is not. Holy septas have examined her, and testify that her maidenhead is broken. 
She has drunk of moon tea, to murder the fruit of her fornications in her womb. An 
anointed knight has sworn upon his sword to having carnal knowledge of her and two of 
her three cousins. Others have lain with her as well, he says, and names many names of 
men both great and humble.” 

“My gold cloaks have taken all of them to the dungeons,” Cersei assured him. “Only one 
has yet been questioned, a singer called the Blue Bard. What he had to say was 
disturbing. Even so, I pray that when my good-daughter is brought to trial, her innocence 
may yet be proved.” She hesitated. “Tommen loves his little queen so much, Your 
Holiness, I fear it might be hard for him or his lords to judge her justly. Perhaps the Faith 
should conduct the trial?” 

The High Sparrow steepled his thin hands. “I have had the selfsame thought, Your Grace. 
Just as Maegor the Cruel once took the swords from the Faith, so Jaehaerys the 
Conciliator deprived us of the scales of judgment. Yet who is truly fit to judge a queen, 
save the Seven Above and the godsworn below? A sacred court of seven judges shall sit 
upon this case. Three shall be of your female sex. A maiden, a mother, and a crone. Who 
could be more suited to judge the wickedness of women?” 

“That would be for the best. To be sure, Margaery does have the right to demand that her 
guilt or innocence be proven by wager of battle. If so, her champion must be one of 
Tommen’s Seven.” 

“The knights of the Kingsguard have served as the rightful champions of king and queen 
since the days of Aegon the Conqueror. Crown and Faith speak as one on this.” 

Cersei covered her face with her hands, as if in grief. When she raised her head again, a 
tear glistened in one eye. “These are sad days indeed,” she said, “but I am pleased to find 
us so much in agreement. If Tommen were here I know he would thank you. Together 
you and I must find the truth.” 

“We shall.” 

“I must return to the castle. With your leave, I will take Ser Osney Kettleblack back with 
me. The small council will want to question him, and hear his accusations for 
themselves.” 

“No,” said the High Septon. 

It was only a word, one little word, but to Cersei it felt like a splash of icy water in the 
face. She blinked, and her certainty flickered, just a little. “Ser Osney will be held 
securely, I promise you.” 


“He is held securely here. Come. I will show you.” 

Cersei could feel the eyes of the Seven staring at her, eyes of jade and malachite and 
onyx, and a sudden shiver of fear went through her, cold as ice. I am the queen, she told 
herself. Lord Tywin’s daughter. Reluctantly, she followed. 

Ser Osney was not far. The chamber was dark, and closed by a heavy iron door. The High 
Septon produced the key to open it, and took a torch down from the wall to light the room 
within. “After you, Your Grace.” 

Within, Osney Kettleblack hung naked from the ceiling, swinging from a pair of heavy 
iron chains. He had been whipped. His back and shoulders been laid almost bare, and cuts 
and welts crisscrossed his legs and arse as well. 

The queen could hardly stand to look at him. She turned back to the High Septon. “What 
have you done?” 

“We have sought after the truth, most earnestly.” 

“He told you the truth. He came to you of his own free will and confessed his sins.” 

“Aye. He did that. I have heard many men confess, Your Grace, but seldom have I heard 
a man so pleased to be so guilty.” 

“You whipped him!” 

“There can be no penance without pain. No man should spare himself the scourge, as I 
told Ser Osney. I seldom feel so close to god as when I am being whipped for mine own 
wickedness, though my darkest sins are no wise near as black as his.” 

“B-but,” she sputtered, “you preach the Mother’s mercy . . .” 

“Ser Osney shall taste of that sweet milk in the afterlife. In The Seven-Pointed Star it is 
written that all sins may be forgiven, but crimes must still be punished. Osney 
Kettleblack is guilty of treason and murder, and the wages of treason are death.” 

He is just a priest, he cannot do this. “It is not for the Faith to condemn a man to death, 
whatever his offense.” 

“Whatever his offense.” The High Septon repeated the words slowly, weighing them. 
“Strange to say, Your Grace, the more diligently we applied the scourge, the more Ser 
Osney’s offenses seemed to change. He would now have us believe that he never touched 
Margaery Tyrell. Is that not so, Ser Osney?” 

Osney Kettleblack opened his eyes. When he saw the queen standing there before him he 
ran his tongue across his swollen lips, and said, “The Wall. You promised me the Wall.” 


“He is mad,” said Cersei. “You have driven him mad.” 

“Ser Osney,” said the High Septon, in a firm, clear voice, “did you have carnal 
knowledge of the queen?” 

“Aye.” The chains rattled softly as Osney twisted in his shackles. “That one there. She’s 
the queen I fucked, the one sent me to kill the old High Septon. He never had no guards. I 
just come in when he was sleeping and pushed a pillow down across his face.” 

Cersei whirled, and ran. 

The High Septon tried to seize her, but he was some old sparrow and she was a lioness of 
the Rock. She pushed him aside and burst through the door, slamming it behind her with 
a clang. The Kettleblacks, I need the Kettleblacks, I will send in Osfryd with the gold 
cloaks and Osmund with the Kingsguard, Osney will deny it all once they cut him free, 
and I’ll rid myself of this High Septon just as I did the other. The four old septas blocked 
her way and clutched at her with wrinkled hands. She knocked one to the floor and 
clawed another across the face, and gained the steps. Halfway up, she remembered Taena 
Merryweather. It made her stumble, panting. Seven save me, she prayed. Taena knows it 
all. If they take her too, and whip her . . . 

She ran as far as the sept, but no farther. There were women waiting for her there, more 
septas and silent sisters too, younger than the four old crones below. “I am the queen,” 
she shouted, backing away from them. “I will have your heads for this, I will have all 
your heads. Let me pass.” Instead, they laid hands upon her. Cersei ran to the altar of the 
Mother, but they caught her there, a score of them, and dragged her kicking up the tower 
steps. Inside the cell three silent sisters held her down as a septa named Scolera stripped 
her bare. She even took her smallclothes. Another septa tossed a roughspun shift at her. 
“You cannot do this,” the queen kept screaming at them. “I am a Lannister, unhand me, 
my brother will kill you, Jaime will slice you open from throat to cunt, unhand me! I am 
the queen!” 

“The queen should pray,” said Septa Scolera, before they left her naked in the cold bleak 
cell. 

She was not meek Margaery Tyrell, to don her little shift and submit to such captivity. I 
will teach them what it means to put a lion in a cage, Cersei thought. She tore the shift 
into a hundred pieces, found a ewer of water and smashed it against the wall, then did the 
same with the chamber pot. When no one came, she began to pound on the door with her 
fists. Her escort was below, on the plaza: ten Lannister guardsmen and Ser Boros Blount. 

Once they hear they’ll come free me, and we’ll drag the bloody High Sparrow back to the 
Red Keep in chains. 

She screamed and kicked and howled until her throat was raw, at the door and at the 
window. No one shouted back, nor came to rescue her. The cell began to darken. It was 
growing cold as well. Cersei began to shiver. How can they leave me like this, without so 


much as a fire? I am their queen. She began to regret tearing apart the shift they’d given 
her. There was a blanket on the pallet in the corner, a threadbare thing of thin brown 
wool. It was rough and scratchy, but it was all she had. Cersei huddled underneath to 
keep from shivering, and before long she had fallen into an exhausted sleep. 

The next she knew, a heavy hand was shaking her awake. It was black as pitch inside the 
cell, and a huge ugly woman was kneeling over her, a candle in her hand. “Who are 
you?” the queen demanded. “Are you come to set me free?” 

“I am Septa Unella. I am come to hear you tell of all your murders and fornications.” 

Cersei knocked her hand aside. “I will have your head. Do not presume to touch me. Get 
away.” 

The woman rose. “Your Grace. I will be back in an hour. Mayhaps by then you will be 
ready to confess.” 

An hour and an hour and an hour. So passed the longest night that Cersei Lannister had 
ever known, save for the night of Joffrey’s wedding. Her throat was so raw from shouting 
that she could hardly swallow. The cell turned freezing cold. She had smashed the 
chamber pot, so she had to squat in a corner to make her water and watch it trickle across 
the floor. Every time she closed her eyes, Unella was looming over her again, shaking her 
and asking her if she wanted to confess her sins. 

Day brought no relief. Septa Moelle brought her a bowl of some waterly grey gruel as the 
sun was coming up. Cersei flung it at her head. When they brought a fresh ewer of water, 
though, she was so thirsty that she had no choice but to drink. When they brought another 
shift, grey and thin and smelling of mildew, she put it on over her nakedness. And that 
evening when Moelle appeared again she ate the bread and fish and demanded wine to 
wash it down. No wine appeared, only Septa Unella, making her hourly visit to ask if the 
queen was ready to confess. 

What can be happening? Cersei wondered, as the thin slice of sky outside her window 
began to darken once again. Why has no one come to pry me out of here? She could not 
believe that the Kettleblacks would abandon their brother. What was her council doing? 

Cravens and traitors. When I get out of here I will have the lot of them beheaded and find 
better men to take their place. 

Thrice that day she heard the sound of distant shouting drifting up from the plaza, but it 
was Margaery’s name that the mob was calling, not hers. 

It was near dawn on the second day and Cersei was licking the last of the porridge from 
the bottom of the bowl when her cell door swung open unexpectedly to admit Lord 
Qyburn. It was all she could do not to throw herself at him. “Qyburn,” she whispered, 
“oh, gods, I am so glad to see your face. Take me home.” 


“That will not be allowed. You are to be tried before a holy court of seven, for murder, 
treason, and fornication.” 

Cersei was so exhausted that the words seemed nonsensical to her at first. “Tommen. Tell 
me of my son. Is he still king?” 

“He is, Your Grace. He is safe and well, secure within the walls of Maegor’s Holdfast, 
protected by the Kingsguard. He is lonely, though. Fretful. He asks for you, and for his 
little queen. As yet, no one has told him of your . . . your . . .” 

“. . . difficulties?” she suggested. “What of Margaery?” 

“She is to be tried as well, by the same court that conducts your trial. I had the Blue Bard 
delivered to the High Septon, as Your Grace commanded. He is here now, somewhere 
down below us. My whisperers tell me that they are whipping him, but so far he is still 
singing the same sweet song we taught him.” 

The same sweet song. Her wits were dull for want of sleep. Wat, his real name is Wat. If 
the gods were good, Wat might die beneath the lash, leaving Margaery with no way to 
disprove his testimony. “Where are my knights? Ser Osfryd . . . the High Septon means to 
kill his brother Osney, his gold cloaks must . . .” 

“Osfryd Kettleblack no longer commands the City Watch. The king has removed him 
from office and raised the captain of the Dragon Gate in his place, a certain Humfrey 
Waters.” 

Cersei was so tired, none of this made any sense. “Why would Tommen do that?” 

“The boy is not to blame. When his council puts a decree in front of him, he signs his 
name and stamps it with his seal.” 

“My council . . . who? Who would do that? Not you?” 

“Alas, I have been dismissed from the council, although for the nonce they allow me to 
continue my work with the eunuch’s whisperers. The realm is being ruled by Ser Harys 
Swyft and Grand Maester Pycelle. They have dispatched a raven to Casterly Rock, 
inviting your uncle to return to court and assume the regency. If he means to accept, he 
had best make haste. Mace Tyrell has abandoned his siege of Storm’s End and is 
marching back to the city with his army, and Randyll Tarly is reported on his way down 
from Maidenpool as well.” 

“Has Lord Merryweather agreed to this?” 

“Merryweather has resigned his seat on the council and fled back to Longtable with his 
wife, who was the first to bring us news of the . . . accusations . . . against Your Grace.” 


“They let Taena go.” That was the best thing she had heard since the High Sparrow had 
said no. Taena could have doomed her. “What of Lord Waters? His ships . . . if he brings 
his crews ashore, he should have enough men to . . .” 

“As soon as word of Your Grace’s present troubles reached the river, Lord Waters raised 
sail, unshipped his oars, and took his fleet to sea. Ser Harys fears he means to join Lord 
Stannis. Pycelle believes that he is sailing to the Stepstones, to set himself up as a pirate.” 

“All my lovely dromonds.” Cersei almost laughed. “My lord father used to say that 
bastards are treacherous by nature. Would that I had listened.” She shivered. “I am lost, 
Qyburn.” 

“No.” He took her hand. “Hope remains. Your Grace has the right to prove your 
innocence by battle. My queen, your champion stands ready. There is no man in all the 
Seven Kingdoms who can hope to stand against him. If you will only give the command . 
. .” 

This time she did laugh. It was funny, terribly funny, hideously funny. “The gods make 
japes of all our hopes and plans. I have a champion no man can defeat, but I am forbidden 
to make use of him. I am the queen, Qyburn. My honor can only be defended by a Sworn 
Brother of the Kingsguard.” 

“I see.” The smile died on Qyburn’s face. “Your Grace, I am at a loss. I do not know how 
to counsel you . . .” 

Even in her exhausted, frightened state, the queen knew she dare not trust her fate to a 
court of sparrows. Nor could she count on Ser Kevan to intervene, after the words that 
had passed between them at their last meeting. It will have to be a trial by battle. There is 
no other way. “Qyburn, for the love you bear me, I beg you, send a message for me. A 
raven if you can. A rider, if not. You must send to Riverrun, to my brother. Tell him what 
has happened, and write . . . write . . .” 

“Yes, Your Grace?” 

She licked her lips, shivering. “Come at once. Help me. Save me. I need you now as I 
have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once.” 

“As you command. ‘I love you’ thrice?” 

“Thrice.” She had to reach him. “He will come. I know he will. He must. Jaime is my 
only hope.” 

“My queen,” said Qyburn, “have you . . . forgotten? Ser Jaime has no sword hand. If he 
should champion you and lose . . .” 


We will leave this world together, as we once came into it. “He will not lose. Not Jaime. 
Not with my life at stake.” 


JAIME 

The new Lord of Riverrun was so angry that he was shaking. “We have been deceived,” 
he said. “This man had played us false!” Pink spittle flew from his lips as he jabbed a 
finger at Edmure Tully. “I will have his head off! I rule in Riverrun, by the king’s own 
decree, I—” 

“Emmon,” said his wife, “the Lord Commander knows about the king’s decree. Ser 
Edmure knows about the king’s decree. The stableboys know about the king’s decree.” 

“I am the lord, and I will have his head!” 

“For what crime?” Thin as he was, Edmure still looked more lordly than Emmon Frey. 
He wore a quilted doublet of red wool with a leaping trout embroidered on its chest. His 
boots were black, his breeches blue. His auburn hair had been washed and barbered, his 
red beard neatly trimmed. “I did all that was asked of me.” 

“Oh?” Jaime Lannister had not slept since Riverrun had opened its gates, and his head 
was pounding. “I do not recall asking you to let Ser Brynden escape.” 

“You required me to surrender my castle, not my uncle. Am I to blame if your men let 
him slip through their siege lines?” 

Jaime was not amused. “Where is he?” he said, letting his irritation show. His men had 
searched Riverrun thrice over, and Brynden Tully was nowhere to be found. 

“He never told me where he meant to go.” 

“And you never asked. How did he get out?” 

“Fish swim. Even black ones.” Edmure smiled. 

Jaime was sorely tempted to crack him across the mouth with his golden hand. A few 
missing teeth would put an end to his smiles. For a man who was going to spend the rest 
of his life a prisoner, Edmure was entirely too pleased with himself. “We have oubliettes 
beneath the Casterly Rock that fit a man as tight as a suit of armor. You can’t turn in 


them, or sit, or reach down to your feet when the rats start gnawing at your toes. Would 
you care to reconsider that answer?” 

Lord Edmure’s smile went away. “You gave me your word that I would be treated 
honorably, as befits my rank.” 

“So you shall,” said Jaime. “Nobler knights than you have died whimpering in those 
oubliettes, and many a high lord too. Even a king or two, if I recall my history. Your wife 
can have the one beside you, if you like. I would not want to part you.” 

“He did swim,” said Edmure, sullenly. He had the same blue eyes as his sister Catelyn, 
and Jaime saw the same loathing there that he’d once seen in hers. “We raised the 
portcullis on the Water Gate. Not all the way, just three feet or so. Enough to leave a gap 
under the water, though the gate still appeared to be closed. My uncle is a strong 
swimmer. After dark, he pulled himself beneath the spikes.” 

And he slipped under our boom the same way, no doubt. A moonless night, bored guards, 
a black fish in a black river floating quietly downstream. If Ruttiger or Yew or any of 
their men heard a splash, they would put it down to a turtle or a trout. Edmure had waited 
most of the day before hauling down the direwolf of Stark in token of surrender. In the 
confusion of the castle changing hands, it had been the next morning before Jaime had 
been informed that the Blackfish was not amongst the prisoners. 

He went to the window and gazed out over the river. It was a bright autumn day, and the 
sun was shining on the waters. By now the Blackfish could be ten leagues downstream. 

“You have to find him,” insisted Emmon Frey. 

“He’ll be found.” Jaime spoke with a certainty he did not feel. “I have hounds and 
hunters sniffing after him even now.” Ser Addam Marbrand was leading the search on the 
south side of the river, Ser Dermot of the Rainwood on the north. He had considered 
enlisting the riverlords as well, but Vance and Piper and their ilk were more like to help 
the Blackfish escape than clap him into fetters. All in all, he was not hopeful. “He may 
elude us for a time,” he said, “but eventually he must surface.” 

“What if he should try and take my castle back?” 

“You have a garrison of two hundred.” Too large a garrison, in truth, but Lord Emmon 
had an anxious disposition. At least he would have no trouble feeding them; the Blackfish 
had left Riverrun amply provisioned, just as he had claimed. “After the trouble Ser 
Brynden took to leave us, I doubt that he’ll come skulking back.” Unless it is at the head 
of a band of outlaws. He did not doubt that the Blackfish meant to continue the fight. 

“This is your seat,” Lady Genna told her husband. “It is for you to hold it. If you cannot 
do that, put it to the torch and run back to the Rock.” 


Lord Emmon rubbed his mouth. His hand came away red and slimy from the sourleaf. 
“To be sure. Riverrun is mine, and no man shall ever take it from me.” He gave Edmure 
Tully one last suspicious look, as Lady Genna drew him from the solar. 

“Is there any more that you would care to tell me?” Jaime asked Edmure when the two of 
them were alone. 

“This was my father’s solar,” said Tully. “He ruled the riverlands from here, wisely and 
well. He liked to sit beside that window. The light was good there, and whenever he 
looked up from his work he could see the river. When his eyes were tired he would have 
Cat read to him. Littlefinger and I built a castle out of wooden blocks once, there beside 
the door. You will never know how sick it makes me to see you in this room, Kingslayer. 
You will never know how much I despise you.” 

He was wrong about that. “I have been despised by better men than you, Edmure.” Jaime 
called for a guard. “Take his lordship back to his tower and see that he’s fed.” 

The Lord of Riverrun went silently. On the morrow, he would start west. Ser Forley 
Prester would command his escort; a hundred men, including twenty knights. Best double 
that. Lord Beric may try to free Edmure before they reach the Golden Tooth. Jaime did 
not want to have to capture Tully for a third time. 

He returned to Hoster Tully’s chair, pulled over the map of the Trident, and flattened it 
beneath his golden hand. Where would I go, if I were the Blackfish? 

“Lord Commander?” A guardsman stood in the open door. “Lady Westerling and her 
daughter are without, as you commanded.” 

Jaime shoved the map aside. “Show them in.” At least the girl did not vanish too. Jeyne 
Westerling had been Robb Stark’s queen, the girl who cost him everything. With a wolf 
in her belly, she could have proved more dangerous than the Blackfish. 

She did not look dangerous. Jeyne was a willowy girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen, 
more awkward than graceful. She had narrow hips, breasts the size of apples, a mop of 
chestnut curls, and the soft brown eyes of a doe. Pretty enough for a child, Jaime decided, 
but not a girl to lose a kingdom for. Her face was puffy, and there was a scab on her 
forehead, half-hidden by a lock of brown hair. “What happened there?” he asked her. 

The girl turned her head away. “It is nothing,” insisted her mother, a stern-faced woman 
in a gown of green velvet. A necklace of golden seashells looped about her long, thin 
neck. “She would not give up the little crown the rebel gave her, and when I tried to take 
it from her head the willful child fought me.” 

“It was mine.” Jeyne sobbed. “You had no right. Robb had it made for me. I loved him.” 


Her mother made to slap her, but Jaime stepped between them. “None of that,” he warned 
Lady Sybell. “Sit down, both of you.” The girl curled up in her chair like a frightened 
animal, but her mother sat stiffly, her head high. “Will you have wine?” he asked them. 
The girl did not answer. “No, thank you,” said her mother. 

“As you will.” Jaime turned to the daughter. “I am sorry for your loss. The boy had 
courage, I’ll give him that. There is a question I must ask you. Are you carrying his child, 
my lady?” 

Jeyne burst from her chair and would have fled the room if the guard at the door had not 
seized her by the arm. “She is not,” said Lady Sybell, as her daughter struggled to escape. 
“I made certain of that, as your lord father bid me.” 

Jaime nodded. Tywin Lannister was not a man to overlook such details. “Unhand the 
girl,” he said, “I’m done with her for now.” As Jeyne fled sobbing down the stairs, he 
considered her mother. “House Westerling has its pardon, and your brother Rolph has 
been made Lord of Castamere. What else would you have of us?” 

“Your lord father promised me worthy marriages for Jeyne and her younger sister. Lords 
or heirs, he swore to me, not younger sons nor household knights.” 

Lords or heirs. To be sure. The Westerlings were an old House, and proud, but Lady 
Sybell herself had been born a Spicer, from a line of upjumped merchants. Her 
grandmother had been some sort of half-mad witch woman from the east, he seemed to 
recall. And the Westerlings were impoverished. Younger sons would have been the best 
that Sybell Spicer’s daughters could have hoped for in the ordinary course of events, but 
a nice fat pot of Lannister gold would make even a dead rebel’s widow look attractive to 
some lord. “You’ll have your marriages,” said Jaime, “but Jeyne must wait two full years 
before she weds again.” If the girl took another husband too soon and had a child by him, 
inevitably there would come whispers that the Young Wolf was the father. 

“I have two sons as well,” Lady Westerling reminded him. “Rollam is with me, but 
Raynald was a knight and went with the rebels to the Twins. If I had known what was to 
happen there, I would never have allowed that.” There was a hint of reproach in her 
voice. “Raynald knew nought of any . . . of the understanding with your lord father. He 
may be a captive at the Twins.” 

Or he may be dead. Walder Frey would not have known of the understanding either. “I 
will make inquiries. If Ser Raynald is still a captive, we’ll pay his ransom for you.” 

“Mention was made of a match for him as well. A bride from Casterly Rock. Your lord 
father said that Raynald should have joy of him, if all went as we hoped.” 

Even from the grave, Lord Tywin’s dead hand moves us all. “Joy is my late uncle 
Gerion’s natural daughter. A betrothal can be arranged, if that is your wish, but any 
marriage will need to wait. Joy was nine or ten when last I saw her.” 


“His natural daughter?” Lady Sybell looked as if she had swallowed a lemon. “You want 
a Westerling to wed a bastard?” 

“No more than I want Joy to marry the son of some scheming turncloak bitch. She 
deserves better.” Jaime would happily have strangled the woman with her seashell 
necklace. Joy was a sweet child, albeit a lonely one; her father had been Jaime’s favorite 
uncle. “Your daughter is worth ten of you, my lady. You’ll leave with Edmure and Ser 
Forley on the morrow. Until then, you would do well to stay out of my sight.” He shouted 
for a guardsman, and Lady Sybell went off with her lips pressed primly together. Jaime 
had to wonder how much Lord Gawen knew about his wife’s scheming. How much do we 
men ever know? 

When Edmure and the Westerlings departed, four hundred men rode with them; Jaime 
had doubled the escort again at the last moment. He rode with them a few miles, to talk 
with Ser Forley Prester. Though he bore a bull’s head upon his surcoat and horns upon 
his helm, Ser Forley could not have been less bovine. He was a short, spare, hard-bitten 
man. With his pinched nose, bald pate, and grizzled brown beard, he looked more like an 
innkeep than a knight. “We don’t know where the Blackfish is,” Jaime reminded him, 
“but if he can cut Edmure free, he will.” 

“That will not happen, my lord.” Like most innkeeps, Ser Forley was no man’s fool. 
“Scouts and outriders will screen our march, and we’ll fortify our camps by night. I have 
picked ten men to stay with Tully day and night, my best longbowmen. If he should ride 
so much as a foot off the road, they will loose so many shafts at him that his own mother 
would take him for a goose.” 

“Good.” Jaime would as lief have Tully reach Casterly Rock safely, but better dead than 
fled. “Best keep some archers near Lord Westerling’s daughter as well.” 

Ser Forley seemed taken aback. “Gawen’s girl? She’s—” 

“—the Young Wolf’s widow,” Jaime finished, “and twice as dangerous as Edmure if she 
were ever to escape us.” 

“As you say, my lord. She will be watched.” 

Jaime had to canter past the Westerlings as he rode down the column on his way back to 
Riverrun. Lord Gawen nodded gravely as he passed, but Lady Sybell looked through him 
with eyes like chips of ice. Jeyne never saw him at all. The widow rode with downcast 
eyes, huddled beneath a hooded cloak. Underneath its heavy folds, her clothes were 
finely made, but torn. She ripped them herself, as a mark of mourning, Jaime realized. 
That could not have pleased her mother. He found himself wondering if Cersei would 
tear her gown if she should ever hear that he was dead. 

He did not go straight back to the castle but crossed the Tumblestone once more to call 
on Edwyn Frey and discuss the transfer of his great-grandfather’s prisoners. The Frey 


host had begun to break up within hours of Riverrun’s surrender, as Lord Walder’s 
bannermen and freeriders pulled up stakes to make for home. The Freys who still 
remained were striking camp, but he found Edwyn with his bastard uncle in the latter’s 
pavilion. 

The two of them were huddled over a map, arguing heatedly, but they broke off when 
Jaime entered. “Lord Commander,” Rivers said with cold courtesy, but Edwyn blurted 
out, “My father’s blood is on your hands, ser.” 

That took Jaime a bit aback. “How so?” 

“You were the one who sent him home, were you not?” 

Someone had to. “Has some ill befallen Ser Ryman?” 

“Hanged with all his party,” said Walder Rivers. “The outlaws caught them two leagues 
south of Fairmarket.” 

“Dondarrion?” 

“Him, or Thoros, or this woman Stoneheart.” 

Jaime frowned. Ryman Frey had been a fool, a craven, and a sot, and no one was like to 
miss him much, least of all his fellow Freys. If Edwyn’s dry eyes were any clue, even his 
own sons would not mourn him long. Still . . . these outlaws are growing bold, if they 
dare hang Lord Walder’s heir not a day’s ride from the Twins. “How many men did Ser 
Ryman have with him?” he asked. 

“Three knights and a dozen men-at-arms,” said Rivers. “It is almost as if they knew that 
he would be returning to the Twins, and with a small escort.” 

Edwyn’s mouth twisted. “My brother had a hand in this, I’ll wager. He allowed the 
outlaws to escape after they murdered Merrett and Petyr, and this is why. With our father 
dead, there’s only me left between Black Walder and the Twins.” 

“You have no proof of this,” said Walder Rivers. 

“I do not need proof. I know my brother.” 

“Your brother is at Seagard,” Rivers insisted. “How could he have known that Ser Ryman 
was returning to the Twins?” 

“Someone told him,” said Edwyn in a bitter tone. “He has his spies in our camp, you can 
be sure.” 


And you have yours at Seagard. Jaime knew that the enmity between Edwyn and Black 
Walder ran deep, but cared not a fig which of them succeeded their great-grandfather as 
Lord of the Crossing. 

“If you will pardon me for intruding on your grief,” he said, in a dry tone, “we have other 
matters to consider. When you return to the Twins, please inform Lord Walder that King 
Tommen requires all the captives you took at the Red Wedding.” 

Ser Walder frowned. “These prisoners are valuable, ser.” 

“His Grace would not ask for them if they were worthless.” 

Frey and Rivers exchanged a look. Edwyn said, “My lord grandfather will expect 
recompense for these prisoners.” 

And he’ll have it, as soon as I grow a new hand, thought Jaime. “We all have 
expectations,” he said mildly. “Tell me, is Ser Raynald Westerling amongst these 
captives?” 

“The knight of seashells?” Edwyn sneered. “You’ll find that one feeding the fish at the 
bottom of the Green Fork.” 

“He was in the yard when our men came to put the direwolf down,” said Walder Rivers. 
“Whalen demanded his sword and he gave it over meek enough, but when the 
crossbowmen began feathering the wolf he seized Whalen’s axe and cut the monster 
loose of the net they’d thrown over him. Whalen says he took a quarrel in his shoulder 
and another in the gut, but still managed to reach the wallwalk and throw himself into the 
river.” 

“He left a trail of blood on the steps,” said Edwyn. 

“Did you find his corpse afterward?” asked Jaime. 

“We found a thousand corpses afterward. Once they’ve spent a few days in the river they 
all look much the same.” 

“I’ve heard the same is true of hanged men,” said Jaime, before he took his leave. 

By the next morning little remained of the Frey encampment but flies, horse dung, and 
Ser Ryman’s gallows, standing forlorn beside the Tumblestone. His coz wanted to know 
what should be done with it, and with the siege equipment he had built, his rams and 
sows and towers and treb-uchets. Daven proposed that they drag it all to Raventree and 
use it there. Jaime told him to put everything to the torch, starting with the gallows. “I 
mean to deal with Lord Tytos myself. It won’t require a siege tower.” 


Daven grinned through his bushy beard. “Single combat, coz? Scarce seems fair. Tytos is 
an old grey man.” 

An old grey man with two hands. 

That night he and Ser Ilyn fought for three hours. It was one of his better nights. If they 
had been in earnest, Payne only would have killed him twice. Half a dozen deaths were 
more the rule, and some nights were worse than that. “If I keep at this for another year, I 
may be as good as Peck,” Jaime declared, and Ser Ilyn made that clacking sound that 
meant he was amused. “Come, let’s drink some more of Hoster Tully’s good red wine.” 

Wine had become a part of their nightly ritual. Ser Ilyn made the perfect drinking 
companion. He never interrupted, never disagreed, never complained or asked for favors 
or told long pointless stories. All he did was drink and listen. 

“I should have the tongues removed from all my friends,” said Jaime as he filled their 
cups, “and from my kin as well. A silent Cersei would be sweet. Though I’d miss her 
tongue when we kissed.” He drank. The wine was a deep red, sweet and heavy. It 
warmed him going down. “I can’t remember when we first began to kiss. It was innocent 
at first. Until it wasn’t.” He finished the wine and set his cup aside. “Tyrion once told me 
that most whores will not kiss you. They’ll fuck you blind, he said, but you’ll never feel 
their lips on yours. Do you think my sister kisses Kettleblack?” 

Ser Ilyn did not answer. 

“I don’t think it would be proper for me to slay mine own Sworn Brother. What I need to 
do is geld him and send him to the Wall. That’s what they did with Lucamore the Lusty. 
Ser Osmund may not take kindly to the gelding, to be sure. And there are his brothers to 
consider. Brothers can be dangerous. After Aegon the Unworthy put Ser Terrence Toyne 
to death for sleeping with his mistress, Toyne’s brothers did their best to kill him. Their 
best was not quite good enough, thanks to the Dragonknight, but it was not for want of 
trying. It’s written down in the White Book. All of it, save what to do with Cersei.” 

Ser Ilyn drew a finger across his throat. 

“No,” said Jaime. “Tommen has lost a brother, and the man he thought of as his father. If 
I were to kill his mother, he would hate me for it . . . and that sweet little wife of his 
would find a way to turn that hatred to the benefit of Highgarden.” 

Ser Ilyn smiled in a way Jaime did not like. An ugly smile. An ugly soul. “You talk too 
much,” he told the man. 

The next day Ser Dermot of the Rainwood returned to the castle, empty-handed. When 
asked what he’d found, he answered, “Wolves. Hundreds of the bloody beggars.” He’d 
lost two sentries to them. The wolves had come out of the dark to savage them. “Armed 
men in mail and boiled leather, and yet the beasts had no fear of them. Before he died, 


Jate said the pack was led by a she-wolf of monstrous size. A direwolf, to hear him tell it. 
The wolves got in amongst our horse lines too. The bloody bastards killed my favorite 
bay.” 

“A ring of fires round your camp might keep them off,” said Jaime, though he wondered. 
Could Ser Dermot’s direwolf be the same beast that had mauled Joffrey near the 
crossroads? 

Wolves or no, Ser Dermot took fresh horses and more men and went out again the next 
morning, to resume the search for Brynden Tully. That same afternoon, the lords of the 
Trident came to Jaime asking his leave to return to their own lands. He granted it. Lord 
Piper also wanted to know about his son Marq. “All the captives will be ransomed,” 
Jaime promised. As the riverlords took their leave, Lord Karyl Vance lingered to say, 
“Lord Jaime, you must go to Raventree. So long as it is Jonos at his gates Tytos will 
never yield, but I know he will bend his knee for you.” Jaime thanked him for his 
counsel. 

Strongboar was the next to depart. He wanted to return to Darry as he’d promised and 
fight the outlaws. “We rode across half the bloody realm and for what? So you could 
make Edmure Tully piss his breeches? There’s no song in that. I need a fight. I want the 
Hound, Jaime. Him, or the marcher lord.” 

“The Hound’s head is yours if you can take it,” Jaime said, “but Beric Dondarrion is to be 
captured alive, so he can be brought back to King’s Landing. A thousand people need to 
see him die, or else he won’t stay dead.” Strongboar grumbled at that, but finally agreed. 
The next day he departed with his squire and men-at-arms, plus Beardless Jon Bettley, 
who had decided that hunting outlaws was preferable to returning to his famously homely 
wife. Supposedly she had the beard that Bettley lacked. 

Jaime still had the garrison to deal with. To a man, they swore that they knew nothing of 
Ser Brynden’s plans or where he might have gone. “They are lying,” Emmon Frey 
insisted, but Jaime thought not. “If you share your plans with no one, no one can betray 
you,” he pointed out. Lady Genna suggested that a few of the men might be put to the 
question. He refused. “I gave Edmure my word that if he yielded, the garrison could leave 
unharmed.” 

“That was chivalrous of you,” his aunt said, “but it’s strength that’s needed here, not 
chivalry.” 

Ask Edmure how chivalrous I am, thought Jaime. Ask him about the trebuchet. Somehow 
he did not think the maesters were like to confuse him with Prince Aemon the 
Dragonknight when they wrote their histories. Still, he felt curiously content. The war 
was all but won. Dragonstone had fallen and Storm’s End would soon enough, he could 
not doubt, and Stannis was welcome to the Wall. The northmen would love him no more 
than the storm lords had. If Roose Bolton did not destroy him, winter would. 


And he had done his own part here at Riverrun without actually ever taking up arms 
against the Starks or Tullys. Once he found the Blackfish, he would be free to return to 
King’s Landing, where he belonged. My place is with my king. With my son. Would 
Tommen want to know that? The truth could cost the boy his throne. Would you sooner 
have a father or a chair, lad? Jaime wished he knew the answer. He does like stamping 
papers with his seal. The boy might not even believe him, to be sure. Cersei would say it 
was a lie. My sweet sister, the deceiver. He would need to find some way to winkle 
Tommen from her clutches before the boy became another Joffrey. And whilst at that, he 
should find the lad a new small council too. If Cersei can be put aside, Ser Kevan may 
agree to serve as Tommen’s Hand. And if not, well, the Seven Kingdoms did not lack for 
able men. Forley Prester would make a good choice, or Roland Crakehall. If someone 
other than a westerman was needed to appease the Tyrells, there was always Mathis 
Rowan . . . or even Petyr Baelish. Littlefinger was as amiable as he was clever, but too 
lowborn to threaten any of the great lords, with no swords of his own. The perfect Hand. 

The Tully garrison departed the next morning, stripped of all their arms and armor. Each 
man was allowed three days’ food and the clothing on his back, after he swore a solemn 
oath never to take up arms against Lord Emmon or House Lannister. “If you’re fortunate, 
one man in ten may keep that vow,” Lady Genna said. 

“Good. I’d sooner face nine men than ten. The tenth might have been the one who would 
have killed me.” 

“The other nine will kill you just as quick.” 

“Better that than die in bed.” Or on the privy. 

Two men did not choose to depart with the others. Ser Desmond Grell, Lord Hoster’s old 
master-at-arms, preferred to take the black. So did Ser Robin Ryger, Riverrun’s captain 
of guards. “This castle’s been my home for forty years,” said Grell. “You say I’m free to 
go, but where? I’m too old and too stout to make a hedge knight. But men are always 
welcome at the Wall.” 

“As you wish,” said Jaime, though it was a bloody nuisance. He allowed them to keep 
their arms and armor, and assigned a dozen of Gregor Clegane’s men to escort the two of 
them to Maidenpool. The command he gave to Rafford, the one they called the 
Sweetling. “See to it that the prisoners reach Maidenpool unspoiled,” he told the man, “or 
what Ser Gregor did to the Goat will seem a jolly lark compared to what I’ll do to you.” 

More days passed. Lord Emmon assembled all of Riverrun in the yard, Lord Edmure’s 
people and his own, and spoke to them for close on three hours about what would be 
expected of them now that he was their lord and master. From time to time he waved his 
parchment, as stableboys and serving girls and smiths listened in a sullen silence and a 
light rain fell down upon them all. 


The singer was listening too, the one that Jaime had taken from Ser Ryman Frey. Jaime 
came upon him standing inside an open door, where it was dry. “His lordship should have 
been a singer,” the man said. “This speech is longer than a marcher ballad, and I don’t 
think he’s stopped for breath.” 

Jaime had to laugh. “Lord Emmon does not need to breathe, so long as he can chew. Are 
you going to make a song of it?” 

“A funny one. I’ll call it ‘Talking to the Fish.’” 

“Just don’t play it where my aunt can hear.” Jaime had never paid the man much mind 
before. He was a small fellow, garbed in ragged green breeches and a frayed tunic of a 
lighter shade of green, with brown leather patches covering the holes. His nose was long 
and sharp, his smile big and loose. Thin brown hair fell to his collar, snaggled and 
unwashed. Fifty if he’s a day, thought Jaime, a hedge harp, and hard used by life. 
“Weren’t you Ser Ryman’s man when I found you?” he asked. 

“Only for a fortnight.” 

“I would have expected you to depart with the Freys.” 

“That one up there’s a Frey,” the singer said, nodding at Lord Emmon, “and this castle 
seems a nice snug place to pass the winter. Whitesmile Wat went home with Ser Forley, 
so I thought I’d see if I could win his place. Wat’s got that high sweet voice that the likes 
o’ me can’t hope to match. But I know twice as many bawdy songs as he does. Begging 
my lord’s pardon.” 

“You should get on famously with my aunt,” said Jaime. “If you hope to winter here, see 
that your playing pleases Lady Genna. She’s the one that matters.” 

“Not you?” 

“My place is with the king. I shall not stay here long.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that, my lord. I know better songs than ‘The Rains of Castamere.’ I 
could have played you . . . oh, all sorts o’ things.” 

“Some other time,” said Jaime. “Do you have a name?” 

“Tom of Sevenstreams, if it please my lord.” The singer doffed his hat. “Most call me 
Tom o’ Sevens, though.” 

“Sing sweetly, Tom o’ Sevens.” 


That night he dreamt that he was back in the Great Sept of Baelor, still standing vigil over 
his father’s corpse. The sept was still and dark, until a woman emerged from the shadows 
and walked slowly to the bier. “Sister?” he said. 

But it was not Cersei. She was all in grey, a silent sister. A hood and veil concealed her 
features, but he could see the candles burning in the green pools of her eyes. “Sister,” he 
said, “what would you have of me?” His last word echoed up and down the sept, 

mememememememememememe. 

“I am not your sister, Jaime.” She raised a pale soft hand and pushed her hood back. 
“Have you forgotten me?” 

Can I forget someone I never knew? The words caught in his throat. He did know her, but 
it had been so long . . . 

“Will you forget your own lord father too? I wonder if you ever knew him, truly.” Her 
eyes were green, her hair spun gold. He could not tell how old she was. Fifteen, he 
thought, or fifty. She climbed the steps to stand above the bier. “He could never abide 
being laughed at. That was the thing he hated most.” 

“Who are you?” He had to hear her say it. 

“The question is, who are you?” 

“This is a dream.” 

“Is it?” She smiled sadly. “Count your hands, child.” 

One. One hand, clasped tight around the sword hilt. Only one. “In my dreams I always 
have two hands.” He raised his right arm and stared uncomprehending at the ugliness of 
his stump. 

“We all dream of things we cannot have. Tywin dreamed that his son would be a great 
knight, that his daughter would be a queen. He dreamed they would be so strong and 
brave and beautiful that no one would ever laugh at them.” 

“I am a knight,” he told her, “and Cersei is a queen.” 

A tear rolled down her cheek. The woman raised her hood again and turned her back on 
him. Jaime called after her, but already she was moving away, her skirt whispering 
lullabies as it brushed across the floor. Don’t leave me, he wanted to call, but of course 
she’d left them long ago. 

He woke in darkness, shivering. The room had grown cold as ice. Jaime flung aside the 
covers with the stump of his sword hand. The fire in the hearth had died, he saw, and the 
window had blown open. He crossed the pitch-dark chamber to fumble with the shutters, 


but when he reached the window his bare foot came down in something wet. Jaime 
recoiled, startled for a moment. His first thought was of blood, but blood would not have 
been so cold. 

It was snow, drifting through the window. 

Instead of closing the shutters he threw them wide. The yard below was covered by a thin 
white blanket, growing thicker even as he watched. The merlons on the battlements wore 
white cowls. The flakes fell silently, a few drifting in the window to melt upon his face. 
Jaime could see his own breath. 

Snow in the riverlands. If it was snowing here, it could well be snowing on Lannisport as 
well, and on King’s Landing. Winter is marching south, and half our granaries are 
empty. Any crops still in the fields were doomed. There would be no more plantings, no 
more hopes of one last harvest. He found himself wondering what his father would do to 
feed the realm, before he remembered that Tywin Lannister was dead. 

When morning broke the snow was ankle deep, and deeper in the godswood, where drifts 
had piled up under the trees. Squires, stableboys, and highborn pages turned to children 
again under its cold white spell, and fought a snowball war up and down the wards and 
all along the battlements. Jaime heard them laughing. There was a time, not long ago, 
when he might have been out making snowballs with the best of them, to fling at Tyrion 
when he waddled by, or slip down the back of Cersei’s gown. You need two hands to 
make a decent snowball, though. 

There was a rap upon his door. “See who that is, Peck.” 

It was Riverrun’s old maester, with a message clutched in his lined and wrinkled hand. 
Vyman’s face was as pale as the new-fallen snow. “I know,” Jaime said, “there has been 
a white raven from the Citadel. Winter has come.” 

“No, my lord. The bird was from King’s Landing. I took the liberty . . . I did not know . . 
.” He held the letter out. 

Jaime read it in the window seat, bathed in the light of that cold white morning. Qyburn’s 
words were terse and to the point, Cersei’s fevered and fervent. Come at once, she said. 
Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love 
you. I love you. Come at once. 

Vyman was hovering by the door, waiting, and Jaime sensed that Peck was watching too. 
“Does my lord wish to answer?” the maester asked, after a long silence. 

A snowflake landed on the letter. As it melted, the ink began to blur. Jaime rolled the 
parchment up again, as tight as one hand would allow, and handed it to Peck. “No,” he 
said. “Put this in the fire.” 


SAMWELL 

The most perilous part of the voyage was the last. The Redwyne Straits were swarming 
with longships, as they had been warned in Tyrosh. With the main strength of the Arbor’s 
fleet on the far side of Westeros, the ironmen had sacked Ryamsport and taken Vinetown 
and Starfish Harbor for their own, using them as bases to prey on shipping bound for 
Oldtown. 

Thrice longships were sighted by the crow’s nest. Two were well astern, however, and 
the Cinnamon Wind soon outdistanced them. The third appeared near sunset, to cut them 
off from Whispering Sound. When they saw her oars rising and falling, lashing the 
copper waters white, Kojja Mo sent her archers to the castles with their great bows of 
goldenheart that could send a shaft farther and truer than even Dornish yew. She waited 
till the longship came within two hundred yards before she gave the command to loose. 
Sam loosed with them, and this time he thought his arrow reached the ship. One volley 
was all it took. The longship veered south in search of tamer prey. 

A deep blue dusk was falling as they entered Whispering Sound. Gilly stood beside the 
prow with the babe, gazing up at a castle on the cliffs. “Three Towers,” Sam told her, 
“the seat of House Costayne.” Etched against the evening stars with torchlight flickering 
from its windows, the castle made a splendid sight, but he was sad to see it. Their voyage 
was almost at its end. 

“It’s very tall,” said Gilly. 

“Wait until you see the Hightower.” 

Dalla’s babe began to cry. Gilly pulled open her tunic and gave the boy her breast. She 
smiled as he nursed, and stroked his soft brown hair. She has come to love this one as 
much as the one she left behind, Sam realized. He hoped that the gods would be kind to 
both of the children. 

The ironmen had penetrated even to the sheltered waters of Whispering Sound. Come 
morning, as the Cinnamon Wind continued on toward Oldtown, she began to bump up 
against corpses drifting down to the sea. Some of the bodies carried complements of 
crows, who rose into the air complaining noisily when the swan ship disturbed their 
grotesquely swollen rafts. Scorched fields and burned villages appeared on the banks, and 
the shallows and sandbars were strewn with shattered ships. Merchanters and fishing 
boats were the most common, but they saw abandoned longships too, and the wreckage 


of two big dromonds. One had been burned down to the waterline, whilst the other had a 
gaping splintered hole in her side where her hull had been rammed. 

“Battle here,” said Xhondo. “Not so long.” 

“Who would be so mad as to raid this close to Oldtown?” 

Xhondo pointed at a half-sunken longship in the shallows. The remnants of a banner 
drooped from her stern, smoke-stained and ragged. The charge was one Sam had never 
seen before: a red eye with a black pupil, beneath a black iron crown supported by two 
crows. “Whose banner is that?” Sam asked. Xhondo only shrugged. 

The next day was cold and misty. As the Cinnamon Wind was creeping past another 
plundered fishing village, a war galley came sliding from the fog, stroking slowly toward 
them. Huntress was the name she bore, behind a figurehead of a slender maiden clad in 
leaves and brandishing a spear. A heartbeat later, two smaller galleys appeared on either 
side of her, like a pair of matched greyhounds stalking at their master’s heels. To Sam’s 
relief, they flew King Tommen’s stag-and-lion banner above the stepped white tower of 
Oldtown, with its crown of flame. 

The captain of the Huntress was a tall man in a smoke-grey cloak with a border of red 
satin flames. He brought his galley in alongside the Cinnamon Wind, raised his oars, and 
shouted that he was coming aboard. As his crossbowmen and Kojja Mo’s archers eyed 
each other across the narrow span of water, he crossed over with half a dozen knights, 
gave Quhuru Mo a nod, and asked to see his holds. Father and daughter conferred briefly, 
then agreed. 

“My apologies,” the captain said when his inspection was complete. “It grieves me that 
honest men must suffer such discourtesy, but sooner that than ironmen in Oldtown. Only 
a fortnight ago some of those bloody bastards captured a Tyroshi merchantman in the 
straits. They killed her crew, donned their clothes, and used the dyes they found to color 
their whiskers half a hundred colors. Once inside the walls they meant to set the port 
ablaze and open a gate from within whilst we fought the fire. Might have worked, but 
they ran afoul of the Lady of the Tower, and her oarsmaster has a Tyroshi wife. When he 
saw all the green and purple beards he hailed them in the tongue of Tyrosh, and not one 
of them had the words to hail him back.” 

Sam was aghast. “They cannot mean to raid Oldtown.” 

The captain of the Huntress gave him a curious look. “These are no mere reavers. The 
ironmen have always raided where they could. They would strike sudden from the sea, 
carry off some gold and girls, and sail away, but there were seldom more than one or two 
longships, and never more than half a dozen. Hundreds of their ships afflict us now, 
sailing out of the Shield Islands and some of the rocks around the Arbor. They have taken 
Stonecrab Cay, the Isle of Pigs, and the Mermaid’s Palace, and there are other nests on 


Horseshoe Rock and Bastard’s Cradle. Without Lord Redwyne’s fleet, we lack the ships 
to come to grips with them.” 

“What is Lord Hightower doing?” Sam blurted. “My father always said he was as 
wealthy as the Lannisters, and could command thrice as many swords as any of 
Highgarden’s other bannermen.” 

“More, if he sweeps the cobblestones,” the captain said, “but swords are no good against 
the ironmen, unless the men who wield them know how to walk on water.” 

“The Hightower must be doing something.” 

“To be sure. Lord Leyton’s locked atop his tower with the Mad Maid, consulting books 
of spells. Might be he’ll raise an army from the deeps. Or not. Baelor’s building galleys, 
Gunthor has charge of the harbor, Garth is training new recruits, and Humfrey’s gone to 
Lys to hire sellsails. If he can winkle a proper fleet out of his whore of a sister, we can 
start paying back the ironmen with some of their own coin. Till then, the best we can do 
is guard the sound and wait for the bitch queen in King’s Landing to let Lord Paxter off 
his leash.” 

The bitterness of the captain’s final words shocked Sam as much as the things he said. If 
King’s Landing loses Oldtown and the Arbor, the whole realm will fall to pieces, he 
thought as he watched the Huntress and her sisters moving off. 

It made him wonder if even Horn Hill was truly safe. The Tarly lands lay inland amidst 
thickly wooded foothills, a hundred leagues northeast of Oldtown and a long way from 
any coast. They should be well beyond the reach of ironmen and longships, even with his 
lord father off fighting in the riverlands and the castle lightly held. The Young Wolf had 
no doubt thought the same was true of Winterfell until the night that Theon Turncloak 
scaled his walls. Sam could not bear the thought that he might have brought Gilly and her 
babe all this long way to keep them out of harm, only to abandon them in the midst of 
war. 

He wrestled with his doubts through the rest of the voyage, wondering what to do. He 
could keep Gilly with him in Oldtown, he supposed. The city’s walls were much more 
formidable than those of his father’s castle, and had thousands of men to defend them, as 
opposed to the handful Lord Randyll would have left at Horn Hill when he marched to 
Highgarden to answer his liege lord’s summons. If he did, though, he would need to hide 
her somehow; the Citadel did not permit its novices to keep wives or paramours, at least 
not openly. Besides, if I stay with Gilly very much longer, how will I ever find the 
strength to leave her? He had to leave her, or desert. I said the words, Sam reminded 
himself. If I desert, it will mean my head, and how will that help Gilly? 

He considered begging Kojja Mo and her father to take the wildling girl with them to the 
Summer Isles. That path had its perils too, however. When the Cinnamon Wind left 
Oldtown, she would need to cross the Redwyne Straits again, and this time she might not 


be so fortunate. What if the wind died, and the Summer Islanders found themselves 
becalmed? If the tales he’d heard were true, Gilly would be carried off for a thrall or salt 
wife, and the babe was like to be chucked into the sea as a nuisance. 

It has to be Horn Hill, Sam finally decided. Once we reach Oldtown I’ll hire a wagon 
and some horses and take her there myself. That way he could make certain of the castle 
and its garrison, and if any part of what he saw or heard gave him pause, he could just 
turn around and bring Gilly back to Oldtown. 

They reached Oldtown on a cold damp morning, when the fog was so thick that the 
beacon of the Hightower was the only part of the city to be seen. A boom stretched across 
the harbor, linking two dozen rotted hulks. Just behind it stood a line of warships, 
anchored by three big dromonds and Lord Hightower’s towering four-decked banner 
ship, the Honor of Oldtown. Once again the Cinnamon Wind had to submit to inspection. 
This time it was Lord Leyton’s son Gunthor who came aboard, in a cloth-of-silver cloak 
and a suit of grey enameled scales. Ser Gunthor had studied at the Citadel for several 
years and spoke the Summer Tongue, so he and Qurulu Mo adjourned to the captain’s 
cabin for a privy conference. 

Sam used the time to explain his plans to Gilly. “First the Citadel, to present Jon’s letters 
and tell them of Maester Aemon’s death. I expect the archmaesters will send a cart for his 
body. Then I will arrange for horses and a wagon to take you to my mother at Horn Hill. I 
will be back as soon as I can, but it may not be until the morrow.” 

“The morrow,” she repeated, and gave him a kiss for luck. 

At length Ser Gunthor reemerged and gave the signal for the chain to be opened so the 
Cinnamon Wind could slip through the boom to dock. Sam joined Kojja Mo and three of 
her archers near the gangplank as the swan ship was tying up, the Summer Islanders 
resplendent in the feathered cloaks they only wore ashore. He felt a shabby thing beside 
them in his baggy blacks, faded cloak, and salt-stained boots. “How long will you remain 
in port?” 

“Two days, ten days, who can say? However long it takes to empty our holds and fill 
them again.” Kojja grinned. “My father must visit the grey maesters as well. He has 
books to sell.” 

“Can Gilly stay aboard till I return?” 

“Gilly can stay as long as she likes.” She poked Sam in the belly with a finger. “She does 
not eat so much as some.” 

“I’m not so fat as I was before,” Sam said defensively. The passage south had seen to 
that. All those watches, and nothing to eat but fruit and fish. Summer Islanders loved fruit 
and fish. 


Sam followed the archers across the plank, but once ashore they parted company and 
went their separate ways. He hoped he still remembered the way to the Citadel. Oldtown 
was a maze, and he had no time for getting lost. 

The day was damp, so the cobblestones were wet and slippery underfoot, the alleys 
shrouded in mist and mystery. Sam avoided them as best he could and stayed on the river 
road that wound along beside the Honeywine through the heart of the old city. It felt good 
to have solid ground beneath his feet again instead of a rolling deck, but the walk made 
him feel uncomfortable all the same. He could feel eyes on him, peering down from 
balconies and windows, watching him from the darkened doorways. On the Cinnamon 
Wind he had known every face. Here, everywhere he turned he saw another stranger. 
Even worse was the thought of being seen by someone who knew him. Lord Randyll 
Tarly was known in Oldtown, but little loved. Sam did not know which would be worse: 
to be recognized by one of his lord father’s enemies or by one of his friends. He pulled 
his cloak up and quickened his pace. 

The gates of the Citadel were flanked by a pair of towering green sphinxes with the 
bodies of lions, the wings of eagles, and the tails of serpents. One had a man’s face, one a 
woman’s. Just beyond stood Scribe’s Hearth, where Oldtowners came in search of 
acolytes to write their wills and read their letters. Half a dozen bored scribes sat in open 
stalls, waiting for some custom. At other stalls books were being bought and sold. Sam 
stopped at one that offered maps, and looked over a hand-drawn map of Citadel to 
ascertain the shortest way to the Seneschal’s Court. 

The path divided where the statue of King Daeron the First sat astride his tall stone horse, 
his sword lifted toward Dorne. A seagull was perched on the Young Dragon’s head, and 
two more on the blade. Sam took the left fork, which ran beside the river. At the Weeping 
Dock, he watched two acolytes help an old man into a boat for the short voyage to the 
Bloody Isle. A young mother climbed in after him, a babe not much older than Gilly’s 
squalling in her arms. Beneath the dock, some cook’s boys waded in the shallows, 
gathering frogs. A stream of pink-cheeked novices hurried by him toward the septry. I 
should have come here when I was their age, Sam thought. If I had run off and taken a 
false name, I could have disappeared amongst the other novices. Father could have 
pretended that Dickon was his only son. I doubt he would even have troubled to search 
for me, unless I took a mule to ride. Then he would have hunted me down, but only for the 
mule. 

Outside the Seneschal’s Court, the rectors were locking an older novice into the stocks. 
“Stealing food from the kitchens,” one explained to the acolytes who were waiting to pelt 
the captive with rotting vegetables. They all gave Sam curious looks as he strode past, his 
black cloak billowing behind him like a sail. 

Beyond the doors he found a hall with a stone floor and high, arched windows. At the far 
end a man with a pinched face sat upon a raised dais, scratching in a ledger with a quill. 
Though the man was clad in a maester’s robe, there was no chain about his neck. Sam 
cleared his throat. “Good morrow.” 


The man glanced up and did not appear to approve of what he saw. “You smell of 
novice.” 

“I hope to be one soon.” Sam drew out the letters Jon Snow had given him. “I came from 
the Wall with Maester Aemon, but he died during the voyage. If I could speak with the 
Seneschal . . .” 

“Your name?” 

“Samwell. Samwell Tarly.” 

The man wrote the name in his ledger and waved his quill at a bench along the wall. “Sit. 
You’ll be called when wanted.” 

Sam took a seat on the bench. 

Others came and went. Some delivered messages and took their leave. Some spoke to the 
man on the dais and were sent through the door behind him and up a turnpike stair. Some 
joined Sam on the benches, waiting for their names to be called. A few of those who were 
summoned had come in after him, he was almost certain. After the fourth or fifth time 
that happened, he rose and crossed the room again. “How much longer will it be?” 

“The Seneschal is an important man.” 

“I came all the way from the Wall.” 

“Then you will have no trouble going a bit farther.” He waved his quill. “To that bench 
just there, beneath the window.” 

Sam returned to the bench. Another hour passed. Others entered, spoke to the man on the 
dais, waited a few moments, and were ushered onward. The gatekeeper did not so much 
as glance at Sam in all that time. The fog outside grew thinner as the day wore on, and 
pale sunlight slanted down through the windows. He found himself watching dust motes 
dance in the light. A yawn escaped him, then another. He picked at a broken blister on his 
palm, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes. 

He must have drowsed. The next he knew, the man behind the dais was calling out a 
name. Sam came lurching to his feet, then sat back down again when he realized it was 
not his name. 

“You need to slip Lorcas a penny, or you’ll be waiting here three days,” a voice beside 
him said. “What brings the Night’s Watch to the Citadel?” 

The speaker was a slim, slight, comely youth, clad in doeskin breeches and a snug green 
brigandine with iron studs. He had skin the color of a light brown ale and a cap of tight 
black curls that came to a widow’s peak above his big black eyes. “The Lord Commander 


is restoring the abandoned castles,” Sam explained. “We need more maesters, for the 


ravens . . . did you say, a penny?” 
“A penny will serve. For a silver stag Lorcas will carry you up to the Seneschal on his 
back. He has been fifty years an acolyte. He hates novices, particularly novices of noble 
birth.” 


“How could you tell I was of noble birth?” 


“The same way you can tell that I’m half Dornish.” The statement was delivered with a 
smile, in a soft Dornish drawl. 
Sam fumbled for a penny. “Are you a novice?” 
“An acolyte. Alleras, by some called Sphinx.” 
The name gave Sam a jolt. “The sphinx is the riddle, not the riddler,” he blurted. “Do you 


know what that means?” 
“No. Is it a riddle?” 
“I wish I knew. I’m Samwell Tarly. Sam.” 
“Well met. And what business does Samwell Tarly have with Archmaester Theobald?” 
“Is he the Seneschal?” said Sam, confused. “Maester Aemon said his name was Norren.” 
“Not for the past two turns. There is a new one every year. They fill the office by lot from 


amongst the archmaesters, most of whom regard it as a thankless task that takes them 
away from their true work. This year the black stone was drawn by Archmaester 
Walgrave, but Walgrave’s wits are prone to wander, so Theobald stepped up and said 
he’d serve his term. He’s a gruff man, but a good one. Did you say Maester Aemon?” 

“Aye.” 
“Aemon Targaryen?” 
“Once. Most just called him Maester Aemon. He died during our voyage south. How is it 


that you know of him?” 
“How not? He was more than just the oldest living maester. He was the oldest man in 
Westeros, and lived through more history than Archmaester Perestan has ever learned. He 


could have told us much and more about his father’s reign, and his uncle’s. How old was 
he, do you know?” 
“One hundred and two.” 



“What was he doing at sea, at his age?” 

Sam chewed on the question for a moment, wondering how much he ought to say. The 
sphinx is the riddle, not the riddler. Could Maester Aemon have meant this Sphinx? It 
seemed unlikely. “Lord Commander Snow sent him away to save his life,” he began, 
hesitantly. He spoke awkwardly of King Stannis and Melisandre of Asshai, intending to 
stop at that, but one thing led to another and he found himself speaking of Mance Rayder 
and his wildlings, king’s blood and dragons, and before he knew what was happening, all 
the rest came spilling out; the wights at the Fist of First Men, the Other on his dead horse, 
the murder of the Old Bear at Craster’s Keep, Gilly and their flight, Whitetree and Small 
Paul, Coldhands and the ravens, Jon’s becoming lord commander, the Blackbird, Dareon, 
Braavos, the dragons Xhondo saw in Qarth, the Cinnamon Wind and all that Maester 
Aemon whispered toward the end. He held back only the secrets that he was sworn to 
keep, about Bran Stark and his companions and the babes Jon Snow had swapped. 
“Daenerys is the only hope,” he concluded. “Aemon said the Citadel must send her a 
maester at once, to bring her home to Westeros before it is too late.” 

Alleras listened intently. He blinked from time to time, but he never laughed and never 
interrupted. When Sam was done he touched him lightly on the forearm with a slim 
brown hand and said, “Save your penny, Sam. Theobald will not believe half of that, but 
there are those who might. Will you come with me?” 

“Where?” 

“To speak with an archmaester.” 

You must tell them, Sam, Maester Aemon had said. You must tell the archmaesters. “Very 
well.” He could always return to the Seneschal on the morrow, with a penny in his hand. 
“How far do we have to go?” 

“Not far. The Isle of Ravens.” 

They did not need a boat to reach the Isle of Ravens; a weathered wooden drawbridge 
linked it to the eastern bank. “The Ravenry is the oldest building at the Citadel,” Alleras 
told him, as they crossed over the slow-flowing waters of the Honeywine. “In the Age of 
Heroes it was supposedly the stronghold of a pirate lord who sat here robbing ships as 
they came down the river.” 

Moss and creeping vines covered the walls, Sam saw, and ravens walked its battlements 
in place of archers. The drawbridge had not been raised in living memory. 

It was cool and dim inside the castle walls. An ancient weirwood filled the yard, as it had 
since these stones had first been raised. The carved face on its trunk was grown over by 
the same purple moss that hung heavy from the tree’s pale limbs. Half of the branches 
seemed dead, but elsewhere a few red leaves still rustled, and it was there the ravens liked 
to perch. The tree was full of them, and there were more in the arched windows overhead, 


all around the yard. The ground was speckled by their droppings. As they crossed the 
yard, one flapped overhead and he heard the others quorking to each other. “Archmaester 
Walgrave has his chambers in the west tower, below the white rookery,” Alleras told 
him. “The white ravens and the black ones quarrel like Dornishmen and Marchers, so 
they keep them apart.” 

“Will Archmaester Walgrave understand what I am telling him?” wondered Sam. “You 
said his wits were prone to wander.” 

“He has good days and bad ones,” said Alleras, “but it is not Walgrave you’re going to 
see.” He opened the door to the north tower and began to climb. Sam clambered up the 
steps behind him. There were flutterings and mutterings from above, and here and there 
an angry scream, as the ravens complained of being woken. 

At the top of the steps, a pale blond youth about Sam’s age sat outside a door of oak and 
iron, staring intently into a candle flame with his right eye. His left was hidden beneath a 
fall of ash blond hair. “What are you looking for?” Alleras asked him. “Your destiny? 
Your death?” 

The blond youth turned from the candle, blinking. “Naked women,” he said. “Who’s this 
now?” 

“Samwell. A new novice, come to see the Mage.” 

“The Citadel is not what it was,” complained the blond. “They will take anything these 
days. Dusky dogs and Dornishmen, pig boys, cripples, cretins, and now a black-clad 
whale. And here I thought leviathans were grey.” A half cape striped in green and gold 
draped one shoulder. He was very handsome, though his eyes were sly and his mouth 
cruel. 

Sam knew him. “Leo Tyrell.” Saying the name made him feel as if he were still a boy of 
seven, about to wet his smallclothes. “I am Sam, from Horn Hill. Lord Randyll Tarly’s 
son.” 

“Truly?” Leo gave him another look. “I suppose you are. Your father told us all that you 
were dead. Or was it only that he wished you were?” He grinned. “Are you still a 
craven?” 

“No,” lied Sam. Jon had made it a command. “I went beyond the Wall and fought in 
battles. They call me Sam the Slayer.” He did not know why he said it. The words just 
tumbled out. 

Leo laughed, but before he could reply the door behind him opened. “Get in here, 
Slayer,” growled the man in the doorway. “And you, Sphinx. Now.” 

“Sam,” said Alleras, “this is Archmaester Marwyn.” 


Marwyn wore a chain of many metals around his bull’s neck. Save for that, he looked 
more like a dockside thug than a maester. His head was too big for his body, and the way 
it thrust forward from his shoulders, together with that slab of jaw, made him look as if 
he were about to tear off someone’s head. Though short and squat, he was heavy in the 
chest and shoulders, with a round, rock-hard ale belly straining at the laces of the leather 
jerkin he wore in place of robes. Bristly white hair sprouted from his ears and nostrils. 
His brow beetled, his nose had been broken more than once, and sourleaf had stained his 
teeth a mottled red. He had the biggest hands that Sam had ever seen. 

When Sam hesitated, one of those hands grabbed him by the arm and yanked him through 
the door. The room beyond was large and round. Books and scrolls were everywhere, 
strewn across the tables and stacked up on the floor in piles four feet high. Faded 
tapestries and ragged maps covered the stone walls. A fire was burning in the hearth, 
beneath a copper kettle. Whatever was inside of it smelled burned. Aside from that, the 
only light came from a tall black candle in the center of the room. 

The candle was unpleasantly bright. There was something queer about it. The flame did 
not flicker, even when Archmaester Marwyn closed the door so hard that papers blew off 
a nearby table. The light did something strange to colors too. Whites were bright as fresh-
fallen snow, yellow shone like gold, reds turned to flame, but the shadows were so black 
they looked like holes in the world. Sam found himself staring. The candle itself was 
three feet tall and slender as a sword, ridged and twisted, glittering black. “Is that . . . ?” 

“. . . obsidian,” said the other man in the room, a pale, fleshy, pasty-faced young fellow 
with round shoulders, soft hands, close-set eyes, and food stains on his robes. 

“Call it dragonglass.” Archmaester Marwyn glanced at the candle for a moment. “It burns 
but is not consumed.” 

“What feeds the flame?” asked Sam. 

“What feeds a dragon’s fire?” Marwyn seated himself upon a stool. “All Valyrian sorcery 
was rooted in blood or fire. The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, 
seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man’s dreams and 
give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles. 
Do you think that might be useful, Slayer?” 

“We would have no more need of ravens.” 

“Only after battles.” The archmaester peeled a sourleaf off a bale, shoved it in his mouth, 
and began to chew it. “Tell me all you told our Dornish sphinx. I know much of it and 
more, but some small parts may have escaped my notice.” 

He was not a man to be refused. Sam hesitated a moment, then told his tale again as 
Marywn, Alleras, and the other novice listened. “Maester Aemon believed that Daenerys 


Targaryen was the fulfillment of a prophecy . . . her, not Stannis, nor Prince Rhaegar, nor 
the princeling whose head was dashed against the wall.” 

“Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star. I know the prophecy.” Marwyn 
turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor. “Not that I would trust it. 
Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes 
your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, 
how fine, how good this is . . . and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to 
screams. That is the nature of prophecy, said Gorghan. Prophecy will bite your prick off 
every time.” He chewed a bit. “Still . . .” 

Alleras stepped up next to Sam. “Aemon would have gone to her if he had the strength. 
He wanted us to send a maester to her, to counsel her and protect her and fetch her safely 
home.” 

“Did he?” Archmaester Marwyn shrugged. “Perhaps it’s good that he died before he got 
to Oldtown. Elsewise the grey sheep might have had to kill him, and that would have 
made the poor old dears wring their wrinkled hands.” 

“Kill him?” Sam said, shocked. “Why?” 

“If I tell you, they may need to kill you too.” Marywn smiled a ghastly smile, the juice of 
the sourleaf running red between his teeth. “Who do you think killed all the dragons the 
last time around? Gallant dragonslayers armed with swords?” He spat. “The world the 
Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less 
for dragons. Ask yourself why Aemon Targaryen was allowed to waste his life upon the 
Wall, when by rights he should have been raised to archmaester. His blood was why. He 
could not be trusted. No more than I can.” 

“What will you do?” asked Alleras, the Sphinx. 

“Get myself to Slaver’s Bay, in Aemon’s place. The swan ship that delivered Slayer 
should serve my needs well enough. The grey sheep will send their man on a galley, I 
don’t doubt. With fair winds I should reach her first.” Marwyn glanced at Sam again, and 
frowned. “You . . . you should stay and forge your chain. If I were you, I would do it 
quickly. A time will come when you’ll be needed on the Wall.” He turned to the pasty-
faced novice. “Find Slayer a dry cell. He’ll sleep here, and help you tend the ravens.” 

“B-b-but,” Sam sputtered, “the other archmaesters . . . the Seneschal . . . what should I 
tell them?” 

“Tell them how wise and good they are. Tell them that Aemon commanded you to put 
yourself into their hands. Tell them that you have always dreamed that one day you might 
be allowed to wear the chain and serve the greater good, that service is the highest honor, 
and obedience the highest virtue. But say nothing of prophecies or dragons, unless you 


fancy poison in your porridge.” Marwyn snatched a stained leather cloak off a peg near 


the door and tied it tight. “Sphinx, look after this one.” 
“I will,” Alleras answered, but the archmaester was already gone. They heard his boots 
stomping down the steps. 


“Where has he gone?” asked Sam, bewildered. 
“To the docks. The Mage is not a man who believes in wasting time.” Alleras smiled. “I 


have a confession. Ours was no chance encounter, Sam. The Mage sent me to snatch you 
up before you spoke to Theobald. He knew that you were coming.” 
“How?” 
Alleras nodded at the glass candle. 
Sam stared at the strange pale flame for a moment, then blinked and looked away. 


Outside the window it was growing dark. 
“There’s an empty sleeping cell under mine in the west tower, with steps that lead right 


up to Walgrave’s chambers,” said the pasty-faced youth. “If you don’t mind the ravens 
quorking, there’s a good view of the Honeywine. Will that serve?” 
“I suppose.” He had to sleep somewhere. 
“I will bring you some woolen coverlets. Stone walls turn cold at night, even here.” 
“My thanks.” There was something about the pale, soft youth that he misliked, but he did 


not want to seem discourteous, so he added, “My name’s not Slayer, truly. I’m Sam. 
Samwell Tarly.” 
“I’m Pate,” the other said, “like the pig boy.” 



MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE WALL . . . 

Hey, wait a minute!” some of you may be saying about now. “Wait a minute, wait a 
minute! Where’s Dany and the dragons? Where’s Tyrion? We hardly saw Jon Snow. That 
can’t be all of it. . . .” 


Well, no. There’s more to come. Another book as big as this one. 

I did not forget to write about the other characters. Far from it. I wrote lots about them. 
Pages and pages and pages. Chapters and more chapters. I was still writing when it 
dawned on me that the book had become too big to publish in a single volume . . . and I 
wasn’t close to finished yet. To tell all of the story that I wanted to tell, I was going to 
have to cut the book in two. 

The simplest way to do that would have been to take what I had, chop it in half around 
the middle, and end with “To Be Continued.” The more I thought about that, however, 
the more I felt that the readers would be better served by a book that told all the story for 
half the characters, rather than half the story for all the characters. So that’s the route I 
chose to take. 

Tyrion, Jon, Dany, Stannis and Melisandre, Davos Seaworth, and all the rest of the 
characters you love or love to hate will be along next year (I devoutly hope) in A Dance 
with Dragons, which will focus on events along the Wall and across the sea, just as the 
present book focused on King’s Landing. 

—George R. R. Martin 
June 2005 

APPENDIX 
THE KINGS AND THEIR COURTS 


THE QUEEN REGENT 

CERSEI LANNISTER, the First of Her Name, widow of {King Robert I Baratheon}, 
Queen Dowager, Protector of the Realm, Lady of Casterly Rock, and Queen Regent, 

—Queen Cersei’s children: 
—{KING JOFFREY I BARATHEON}, poisoned at his wedding feast, a boy of twelve, 



—PRINCESS MYRCELLA BARATHEON, a girl of nine, a ward of Prince Doran 
Martell at Sunspear, 
—KING TOMMEN I BARATHEON, a boy king of eight years, 
—his kittens, SER POUNCE, LADY WHISKERS, BOOTS, 


—Queen Cersei’s brothers: 
—SER JAIME LANNISTER, her twin, called THE KINGSLAYER, Lord Commander 
of the Kingsguard, 


—TYRION LANNISTER, called THE IMP, a dwarf, accused and condemned for 
regicide and kinslaying, 
—PODRICK PAYNE, Tyrion’s squire, a boy of ten, 
—Queen Cersei’s uncles, aunt, and cousins: 


—SER KEVAN LANNISTER, her uncle, 
—SER LANCEL, Ser Kevan’s son, her cousin, formerly King Robert’s squire and 
Cersei’s lover, newly raised to Lord of Darry, 


—{WILLEM}, Ser Kevan’s son, murdered at Riverrun, 


—MARTYN, twin to Willem, a squire, 


—JANEI, Ser Kevan’s daughter, a girl of three, 


—LADY GENNA LANNISTER, Cersei’s aunt, m. Ser Emmon Frey, 


—{SER CLEOS FREY}, Genna’s son, killed by outlaws, 


—SER TYWIN FREY, called TY, Cleos’s son, 


—WILLEM FREY, Cleos’s son, a squire, 


—SER LYONEL FREY, Lady Genna’s second son, 


—{TION FREY}, Genna’s son, murdered at Riverrun, 


—WALDER FREY, called RED WALDER, Lady Genna’s youngest son, a page at 


Casterly Rock, 
—TYREK LANNISTER, Cersei’s cousin, son of her father’s late brother Tygett, 



—LADY ERMESANDE HAYFORD, Tyrek’s child wife, 
—JOY HILL, bastard daughter of Queen Cersei’s lost uncle Gerion, a girl of eleven, 
—CERENNA LANNISTER, Cersei’s cousin, daughter of her late uncle Stafford, her 


mother’s brother, 


—MYRIELLE LANNISTER, Cersei’s cousin and Cerenna’s sister, daughter of her uncle 


Stafford, 


—SER DAVEN LANNISTER, her cousin, Stafford’s son, 


—SER DAMION LANNISTER, a more distant cousin, m. Shiera Crakehall, 


—SER LUCION LANNISTER, their son, 


—LANNA, their daughter, m. Lord Antario Jast, 


—LADY MARGOT, a cousin still more distant, m. Lord Titus Peake, 


—King Tommen’s small council: 
—{LORD TYWIN LANNISTER}, Hand of the King, 
—SER JAIME LANNISTER, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, 
—SER KEVAN LANNISTER, master of laws, 
—VARYS, a eunuch, master of whisperers, 
—GRAND MAESTER PYCELLE, counselor and healer, 
—LORD MACE TYRELL, LORD MATHIS ROWAN, LORD PAXTER REDWYNE, 


counselors, 


—Tommen’s Kingsguard: 
—SER JAIME LANNISTER, Lord Commander, 
—SER MERYN TRANT, 
—SER BOROS BLOUNT, removed and thence restored, 



—SER BALON SWANN, 
—SER OSMUND KETTLEBLACK, 
—SER LORAS TYRELL, the Knight of Flowers, 
—SER ARYS OAKHEART, with Princess Myrcella in Dorne, 


—Cersei’s household at King’s Landing: 
—LADY JOCELYN SWYFT, her companion, 
—SENELLE and DORCAS, her bedmaids and servingwomen, 
—LUM, RED LESTER, HOKE, called HORSELEG, SHORT-EAR, and PUCKENS, 


guardsmen, 


—QUEEN MARGAERY of House Tyrell, a maid of sixteen, widowed bride of King 
Joffrey I Baratheon and of Lord Renly Baratheon before him, 
—Margaery’s court at King’s Landing: 
—MACE TYRELL, Lord of Highgarden, her father 


—LADY ALERIE of House Hightower, her mother, 
—LADY OLENNA TYRELL, her grandmother, an aged widow called THE QUEEN OF 
THORNS, 


—ARRYK and ERRYK, Lady Olenna’s guards, twins seven feet tall called LEFT and 
RIGHT, 
—SER GARLAN TYRELL, Margaery’s brother, THE GALLANT, 


—his wife, LADY LEONETTE of House Fossoway, 
—SER LORAS TYRELL, her youngest brother, the Knight of Flowers, a Sworn Brother 
of the Kingsguard, 


—Margaery’s lady companions: 
—her cousins, MEGGA, ALLA, and ELINOR TYRELL, 



—Elinor’s betrothed, ALYN AMBROSE, squire, 
—LADY ALYSANNE BULWER, a girl of eight, 
—MEREDYTH CRANE, called MERRY, 
—LADY TAENA MERRYWEATHER, 
—LADY ALYCE GRACEFORD, 
—SEPTA NYSTERICA, a sister of the Faith, 
—PAXTER REDWYNE, Lord of the Arbor, 
—his twin sons, SER HORAS and SER HOBBER, 
—MAESTER BALLABAR, his healer and counselor, 
—MATHIS ROWAN, Lord of Goldengrove, 
—SER WILLAM WYTHERS, Margaery’s captain of guards, 
—HUGH CLIFTON, a handsome young guardsman, 
—SER PORTIFER WOODWRIGHT and his brother, SER LUCANTINE, 


—Cersei’s court at King’s Landing: 


—SER OSFRYD KETTLEBLACK and SER OSNEY KETTLEBLACK, younger 
brothers to Ser Osmund Kettleblack, 
—SER GREGOR CLEGANE, called THE MOUNTAIN THAT RIDES, dying painfully 

of a poisoned wound, 

—SER ADDAM MARBRAND, Commander of the City Watch of King’s Landing (the 

“gold cloaks”), 

—JALABHAR XHO, Prince of the Red Flower Vale, an exile from the Summer Isles, 

—GYLES ROSBY, Lord of Rosby, troubled by a cough, 

—ORTON MERRYWEATHER, Lord of Longtable, 

—TAENA, his wife, a woman of Myr, 


—LADY TANDA STOKEWORTH, 
—LADY FALYSE, her elder daughter and heir, 
—SER BALMAN BYRCH, Lady Falyse’s husband, 
—LADY LOLLYS, her younger daughter, great with child but weak of wit, 
—SER BRONN OF THE BLACKWATER, Lady Lollys’s husband, a former sellsword, 
—{SHAE}, a camp follower serving as Lollys’s bedmaid, strangled in Lord Tywin’s bed, 
—MAESTER FRENKEN, in Lady Tanda’s service, 
—SER ILYN PAYNE, the King’s Justice, a headsman, 
—RENNIFER LONGWATERS, chief undergaoler of the Red Keep’s dungeons, 
—RUGEN, undergaoler for the black cells, 
—LORD HALLYNE THE PYROMANCER, a Wisdom of the Guild of Alchemists, 
—NOHO DIMITTIS, envoy from the Iron Bank of Braavos, 
—QYBURN, a necromancer, once a maester of the Citadel, more recently of the Brave 


Companions, 
—MOON BOY, the royal jester and fool, 
—PATE, a lad of eight, King Tommen’s whipping boy, 
—ORMOND OF OLDTOWN, the royal harper and bard, 
—SER MARK MULLENDORE, who lost a monkey and half an arm in the Battle of the 


Blackwater, 
—AURANE WATERS, the Bastard of Driftmark, 
—LORD ALESANDER STAEDMON, called PENNYLOVER, 
—SER RONNET CONNINGTON, called RED RONNET, the Knight of Griffin’s Roost, 
—SER LAMBERT TURNBERRY, SER DERMOT OF THE RAINWOOD, SER 


TALLAD called THE TALL, SER BAYARD NORCROSS, SER BONIFER HASTY 
called BONIFER THE GOOD, SER HUGO VANCE, knights sworn to the Iron Throne, 


—SER LYLE CRAKEHALL called STRONGBOAR, SER ALYN STACKSPEAR, SER 
JON BETTLEY called BEARDLESS JON, SER STEFFON SWYFT, SER HUMFREY 
SWYFT, knights sworn to Casterly Rock, 

—JOSMYN PECKLEDON, a squire and hero of the Blackwater, 

—GARRETT PAEGE and LEW PIPER, squires and hostages, 

—the people of King’s Landing: 

—THE HIGH SEPTON, Father of the Faithful, Voice of the Seven on Earth, an old man 
and frail, 
—SEPTON TORBERT, SEPTON RAYNARD, SEPTON LUCEON, SEPTON 


OLLIDOR, of the Most Devout, serving the Seven at the Great Sept of Baelor, 


—SEPTA MOELLE, SEPTA AGLANTINE, SEPTA HELICENT, SEPTA UNELLA, of 
the Most Devout, serving the Seven at the Great Sept of Baelor, 
—the “sparrows,” the humblest of men, fierce in their piety, 
—CHATAYA, proprietor of an expensive brothel, 
—ALAYAYA, her daughter, 
—DANCY, MAREI, two of Chataya’s girls, 
—BRELLA, a servingwoman, lately in the service of Lady Sansa Stark, 
—TOBHO MOTT, a master armorer, 
—HAMISH THE HARPER, an aged singer, 
—ALARIC OF EYSEN, a singer, far-traveled, 
—WAT, a singer, styling himself THE BLUE BARD, 
—SER THEODAN WELLS, a pious knight, later called SER THEODAN THE TRUE. 


King Tommen’s banner shows the crowned stag of Baratheon, black on gold, and the lion 
of Lannister, gold on crimson, combatant. 


THE KING AT THE WALL 

STANNIS BARATHEON, the First of His Name, second son of Lord Steffon Baratheon 
and Lady Cassana of House Estermont, Lord of Dragonstone, styling himself King of 
Westeros, 

—QUEEN SELYSE of House Florent, his wife, presently at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, 
—PRINCESS SHIREEN, their daughter, a girl of eleven, 
—PATCHFACE, Shireen’s lackwit fool, 
—EDRIC STORM, his bastard nephew, King Robert’s son by Lady Delena Florent, a 


boy of twelve, sailing the narrow sea on the Mad Prendos, 


—SER ANDREW ESTERMONT, King Stannis’s cousin, a king’s man, commanding 
Edric’s escort, 
—SER GERALD GOWER, LEWYS called THE FISHWIFE, SER TRISTON OF 


TALLY HILL, OMER BLACKBERRY, king’s men, Edric’s guards and protectors, 


—Stannis’s court at Castle Black: 


—LADY MELISANDRE OF ASSHAI, called THE RED WOMAN, a priestess of 
R’hllor, the Lord of Light, 
—MANCE RAYDER, King-Beyond-the-Wall, a captive condemned to death, 
—Rayder’s son by his wife {DALLA}, a newborn as yet unnamed, “the wildling prince,” 
—GILLY, the babe’s wet nurse, a wildling girl, 
—her son, another newborn as yet unnamed, fathered by her father {CRASTER}, 



—SER RICHARD HORPE, SER JUSTIN MASSEY, SER CLAYTON SUGGS, SER 
GODRY FARRING, called GIANTSLAYER, LORD HARWOOD FELL, SER 
CORLISS PENNY, queen’s men and knights, 

—DEVAN SEAWORTH and BRYEN FARRING, royal squires, 

—Stannis’s court at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea: 

—SER DAVOS SEAWORTH, called THE ONION KNIGHT, Lord of the Rainwood, 
Admiral of the Narrow Sea, and Hand of the King, 
—SER AXELL FLORENT, Queen Selyse’s uncle, foremost of the queen’s men, 
—SALLADHAR SAAN of Lys, a pirate and sellsail, master of the Valyrian and a fleet 


of galleys, 


—Stannis’s garrison at Dragonstone: 


—SER ROLLAND STORM, called THE BASTARD OF NIGHTSONG, a king’s man, 
castellan of Dragonstone, 
—MAESTER PYLOS, healer, tutor, counselor, 
—“PORRIDGE” and “LAMPREY,” two gaolers, 


—lords sworn to Dragonstone: 
—MONTERYS VELARYON, Lord of the Tides and Master of Driftmark, a boy of six, 
—DURAM BAR EMMON, Lord of Sharp Point, a boy of fifteen years, 


—Stannis’s garrison at Storm’s End: 
—SER GILBERT FARRING, castellan of Storm’s End, 
—LORD ELWOOD MEADOWS, Ser Gilbert’s second, 
—MAESTER JURNE, Ser Gilbert’s counselor and healer, 



—lords sworn to Storm’s End: 


—ELDON ESTERMONT, Lord of Greenstone, uncle to King Stannis, great uncle to 
King Tommen, a cautious friend to both, 
—SER AEMON, Lord Eldon’s son and heir, with King Tommen in King’s Landing, 
—SER ALYN, Ser Aemon’s son, likewise with King Tommen in King’s Landing, 
—SER LOMAS, brother of Lord Eldon, uncle and supporter of King Stannis, at Storm’s 


End, 
—SER ANDREW, Ser Lomas’s son, protecting Edric Storm upon the narrow sea, 
—LESTER MORRIGEN, Lord of Crows Nest, 
—LORD LUCOS CHYTTERING, called LITTLE LUCOS, a youth of sixteen, 
—Davos Seaworth, Lord of the Rainwood, 
—MARYA, his wife, a carpenter’s daughter, 
—{DALE, ALLARD, MATTHOS, MARIC}, their four eldest sons, lost in the Battle of 


the Blackwater, 
—DEVAN, a squire with King Stannis at Castle Black, 
—STANNIS, a boy of ten years, with Lady Marya on Cape Wrath, 
—STEFFON, a boy of six years, with Lady Marya on Cape Wrath. 


Stannis has taken for his banner the fiery heart of the Lord of Light; a red heart 
surrounded by orange flames upon a yellow field. Within the heart is the crowned stag of 
House Baratheon, in black. 



KING OF THE ISLES AND THE NORTH 

The Greyjoys of Pyke claim descent from the Grey King of the Age of Heroes. Legend 
says the Grey King ruled the sea itself and took a mermaid to wife. Aegon the Dragon 
ended the line of the last King of the Iron Islands, but allowed the ironborn to revive their 
ancient custom and choose who should have the primacy among them. They chose Lord 
Vickon Greyjoy of Pyke. The Greyjoy sigil is a golden kraken upon a black field. Their 
words are We Do Not Sow. 

Balon Greyjoy’s first rebellion against the Iron Throne was put down by King Robert I 
Baratheon and Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, but in the chaos following Robert’s death 
Lord Balon named himself king once more, and sent his ships to attack the north. 

{BALON GREYJOY}, the Ninth of His Name Since the Grey King, King of the Iron 
Islands and the North, King of Salt and Rock, Son of the Sea Wind, and Lord Reaper of 
Pyke, killed in a fall, 

—King Balon’s widow, QUEEN ALANNYS, of House Harlaw, 
—their children: 
—{RODRIK}, slain during Balon’s first rebellion, 
—{MARON}, slain during Balon’s first rebellion, 
—ASHA, their daughter, captain of the Black Wind and conquerer of Deepwood Motte, 
—THEON, styling himself the Prince of Winterfell, called by northmen THEON 


TURNCLOAK, 


—King Balon’s brothers and half brothers: 
—{HARLON}, died of greyscale in his youth, 
—{QUENTON}, died in infancy, 
—{DONEL}, died in infancy, 
—EURON, called Crow’s Eye, captain of the Silence, 
—VICTARION, Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet, master of the Iron Victory, 



—{URRIGON}, died of a wound gone bad, 
—AERON, called DAMPHAIR, a priest of the Drowned God, 
—RUS and NORJEN, two of his acolytes, the “drowned men,” 
—{ROBIN}, died in infancy, 


—King Balon’s household on Pyke: 
—MAESTER WENDAMYR, healer and counselor, 
—HELYA, keeper of the castle, 


—King Balon’s warriors and sworn swords: 


—DAGMER called CLEFTJAW, captain of Foamdrinker, commanding the ironborn at 
Torrhen’s Square, 
—BLUETOOTH, a longship captain, 
—ULLER, SKYTE, oarsmen and warriors, 


—CLAIMANTS TO THE SEASTONE CHAIR AT THE KINGSMOOT ON OLD WYK 
GYLBERT FARWYND, Lord of the Lonely Light, 
—Gylbert’s champions: his sons GYLES, YGON, YOHN, 


ERIK IRONMAKER, called ERIK ANVIL-BREAKER and ERIK THE JUST, an old 
man, once a famed captain and raider, 

—Erik’s champions: his grandsons UREK, THORMOR, DAGON, 

DUNSTAN DRUMM, The Drumm, the Bone Hand, Lord of Old Wyk, 


—Dunstan’s champions: his sons DENYS and DONNEL, and ANDRIK THE 
UNSMILING, a giant of a man, 

ASHA GREYJOY, only daughter of Balon Greyjoy, captain of the Black Wind, 

—Asha’s champions: QARL THE MAID, TRISTIFER BOTLEY, and SER HARRAS 
HARLAW 

—Asha’s captains and supporters: LORD RODRIK HARLAW, LORD BAELOR 
BLACKTYDE, LORD MELDRED MERLYN, HARMUND SHARP 

VICTARION GREYJOY, brother to Balon Greyjoy, master of the Iron Victory and Lord 
Captain of the Iron Fleet, 

—Victarion’s champions: RED RALF STONEHOUSE, RALF THE LIMPER, and 
NUTE THE BARBER, 

—Victarion’s captains and supporters: HOTHO HARLAW, ALVYN SHARP, 
FRALEGG THE STRONG, ROMNY WEAVER, WILL HUMBLE, LITTLE 
LENWOOD TAWNEY, RALF KENNING, MARON VOLMARK, GOROLD 
GOODBROTHER, 

—Victarion’s crewmen: WULF ONE-EAR, RAGNOR PYKE 

—Victarion’s bedmate, a certain dusky woman, mute and tongueless, a gift from his 
brother Euron, 

EURON GREYJOY, called THE CROW’S EYE, brother to Balon Greyjoy and captain 
of the Silence, 

—Euron’s champions: GERMUND BOTLEY, LORD ORKWOOD OF ORKMONT, 
DONNOR SALTCLIFFE 

—Euron’s captains and supporters: TORWOLD BROWNTOOTH, PINCHFACE JON 
MYRE, RODRIK FREEBORN, THE RED OARSMAN, LEFT-HAND LUCAS CODD, 
QUELLON HUMBLE, HARREN HALF-HOARE, KEMMETT PYKE THE 
BASTARD, QARL THE THRALL, STONEHAND, RALF THE SHEPHERD, RALF 
OF LORDSPORT 

—Euron’s crewmen: CRAGORN 


—Balon’s bannermen, the Lords of the Iron Islands: 


ON PYKE 
—{SAWANE BOTLEY}, Lord of Lordsport, drowned by Euron Crow’s Eye, 
—{HARREN}, his eldest son, killed at Moat Cailin, 
—TRISTIFER, his second son and rightful heir, dispossessed by his uncle, 
—SYMOND, HARLON, VICKON, and BENNARION, his younger sons, likewise 


dispossessed, 
—GERMUND, his brother, made Lord of Lordsport 
—Germund’s sons, BALON and QUELLON, 
—SARGON and LUCIMORE, Sawane’s half brothers, 
—WEX, a mute boy of twelve years, bastard son of Sargon, squire to Theon Greyjoy, 
—WALDON WYNCH, Lord of Iron Holt, 


ON HARLAW 


—RODRIK HARLAW, called THE READER, Lord of Harlaw, Lord of Ten Towers, 
Harlaw of Harlaw, 
—LADY GWYNESSE, his elder sister, 
—LADY ALANNYS, his younger sister, widow of King Balon Greyjoy 
—SIGFRYD HARLAW, called SIGFRYD SILVERHAIR, his great uncle, master of 


Harlaw Hall, 


—HOTHO HARLAW, called HOTHO HUMPBACK, of the Tower of Glimmering, a 
cousin, 
—SER HARRAS HARLAW, called THE KNIGHT, the Knight of Grey Garden, a 

cousin, 


—BOREMUND HARLAW, called BOREMUND THE BLUE, master of Harridan Hill, 
a cousin, 
—Lord Rodrik’s bannermen and sworn swords: 
—MARON VOLMARK, Lord of Volmark, 
—MYRE, STONETREE, and KENNING, 
—Lord Rodrik’s household: 
—THREE-TOOTH, his steward, a crone, 


ON BLACKTYDE 
—BAELOR BLACKTYDE, Lord of Blacktyde, captain of the Nightflyer, 
—BLIND BEN BLACKTYDE, a priest of the Drowned God, 


ON OLD WYK 
—DUNSTAN DRUMM, The Drumm, captain of Thunderer, 
—NORNE GOODBROTHER, of Shatterstone, 
—THE STONEHOUSE, 
—TARLE, called TARLE THE THRICE-DROWNED, a priest of the Drowned God, 


ON GREAT WYK 
—GOROLD GOODBROTHER, Lord of the Hammerhorn, 
—his sons, GREYDON, GRAN, and GORMOND, triplets, 
—his daughters, GYSELLA and GWIN, 
—MAESTER MURENMURE, tutor, healer, and counselor, 
—TRISTON FARWYND, Lord of Sealskin Point, 



—THE SPARR, 
—his son and heir, STEFFARION, 
—MELDRED MERLYN, Lord of Pebbleton, 


ON ORKMONT 
—ORKWOOD OF ORKMONT, 
—LORD TAWNEY, 


ON SALTCLIFFE 
—LORD DONNOR SALTCLIFFE, 
—LORD SUNDERLY 


ON THE LESSER ISLANDS AND ROCKS 
—GYLBERT FARWYND, Lord of the Lonely Light, 
—THE OLD GREY GULL, a priest of the Drowned God. 
OTHER HOUSES GREAT AND SMALL 



HOUSE ARRYN 

The Arryns are descended from the Kings of Mountain and Vale. Their sigil is a white 
moon-and-falcon upon a sky-blue field. House Arryn has taken no part in the War of the 
Five Kings. Their Arryn words are As High as Honor. 


ROBERT ARRYN, Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale, styled by his mother True 
Warden of the East, a sickly boy of eight years, sometimes called SWEETROBIN, 

—his mother, {LADY LYSA of House Tully}, widow of Lord Jon Arryn, pushed from 
the Moon Door to her death, 

—his stepfather, PETYR BAELISH, called LITTLEFINGER, Lord of Harrenhal, Lord 
Paramount of the Trident, and Lord Protector of the Vale, 

—ALAYNE STONE, Lord Petyr’s natural daughter, a maid of three-and-ten, actually 
Sansa Stark, 

—SER LOTHOR BRUNE, a sellsword in Lord Petyr’s service, the Eyrie’s captain of 
guards, 

—OSWELL, a grizzled man-at-arms in Lord Petyr’s service, sometimes called 
KETTLEBLACK, 

—Lord Robert’s household at the Eyrie: 

—MARILLION, a handsome young singer much favored by Lady Lysa and accused of 
her murder, 
—MAESTER COLEMON, counselor, healer, and tutor, 
—MORD, a brutal gaoler with teeth of gold, 
—GRETCHEL, MADDY, and MELA, servingwomen, 
—Lord Robert’s bannermen, the Lords of the Vale: 
—LORD NESTOR ROYCE, High Steward of the Vale and castellan of the Gates of the 


Moon, 
—SER ALBAR, Lord Nestor’s son and heir, 
—MYRANDA, called RANDA, Lord Nestor’s daughter, a widow, but scarce used, 
—Lord Nestor’s household: 
—SER MARWYN BELMORE, captain of guards, 



—MYA STONE, a mule tender and guide, bastard daughter of King Robert I Baratheon, 
—OSSY and CARROT, mule tenders, 
—LYONEL CORBRAY, Lord of Heart’s Home, 
—SER LYN CORBRAY, his brother and heir, who wields the famed blade Lady 


Forlorn, 
—SER LUCAS CORBRAY, his younger brother, 
—JON LYNDERLY, Lord of the Snakewood, 
—TERRANCE, his son and heir, a young squire, 
—EDMUND WAXLEY, the Knight of Wickenden, 
—GEROLD GRAFTON, the Lord of Gulltown, 
—GYLES, his youngest son, a squire, 
—TRISTON SUNDERLAND, Lord of the Three Sisters, 
—GODRIC BORRELL, Lord of Sweetsister, 
—ROLLAND LONGTHORPE, Lord of Longsister, 
—ALESANDOR TORRENT, Lord of Littlesister, 


—the Lords Declarant, bannermen of House Arryn joined together in defense of young 


Lord Robert: 
—YOHN ROYCE, called BRONZE YOHN, Lord of Runestone, of the senior branch of 
House Royce, 


—SER ANDAR, Bronze Yohn’s sole surviving son, and heir to Runestone, 
—Bronze Yohn’s household: 
—MAESTER HELLIWEG, tutor, healer, counselor, 
—SEPTON LUCOS, 
—SER SAMWELL STONE, called STRONG SAM STONE, master-at-arms, 



—Bronze Yohn’s bannermen and sworn swords: 
—ROYCE COLDWATER, Lord of Coldwater Burn, 
—SER DAMON SHETT, Knight of Gull Tower, 
—UTHOR TOLLETT, Lord of the Grey Glen 
—ANYA WAYNWOOD, Lady of Ironoaks Castle, 
—SER MORTON, her eldest son and heir, 
—SER DONNEL, her second son, the Knight of the Gate, 
—WALLACE, her youngest son, 
—HARROLD HARDYNG, her ward, a squire oft called HARRY THE HEIR, 
—BENEDAR BELMORE, Lord of Strongsong, 
—SER SYMOND TEMPLETON, the Knight of Ninestars, 
—{EON HUNTER}, Lord of Longbow Hall, recently deceased, 
—SER GILWOOD, Lord Eon’s eldest son and heir, now called YOUNG LORD 


HUNTER, 
—SER EUSTACE, Lord Eon’s second son, 
—SER HARLAN, Lord Eon’s youngest son, 
—Young Lord Hunter’s household: 
—MAESTER WILLAMEN, counselor, healer, tutor, 
—HORTON REDFORT, Lord of Redfort, thrice wed, 
—SER JASPER, SER CREIGHTON, SER JON, his sons, 
—SER MYCHEL, his youngest son, a new-made knight, m. Ysilla Royce of Runestone, 


—clan chiefs from the Mountains of the Moon, 



—SHAGGA SON OF DOLF, OF THE STONE CROWS, presently leading a band in the 
kingswood, 
—TIMETT SON OF TIMETT, OF THE BURNED MEN, 
—CHELLA DAUGHTER OF CHEYK, OF THE BLACK EARS, 
—CRAWN SON OF CALOR, OF THE MOON BROTHERS. 



HOUSE FLORENT 

The Florents of Brightwater Keep are bannermen of Highgarden. At the outset of the War 
of the Five Kings, Lord Alester Florent followed his liege lord in declaring for King 
Renly while his brother Ser Axell chose Stannis, husband to his niece Selyse. After 
Renly’s death, Lord Alester went over to Stannis as well, with all the strength of 
Brightwater. Stannis made Lord Alester his Hand, and gave command of his fleet to Ser 
Imry Florent, his wife’s brother. The fleet and Ser Imry both were lost in the Battle of 
Blackwater, and Lord Alester’s efforts to negotiate a peace after the defeat were regarded 
by King Stannis as treason. He was given to the red priestess Melisandre, who burned 
him as a sacrifice to R’hllor. 

The Iron Throne has also named the Florents traitors for their support of Stannis and his 
rebellion. They were attainted, and Brightwater Keep and its lands were awarded to Ser 
Garlan Tyrell. 

The sigil of House Florent shows a fox head in a circle of flowers. 

{ALESTER FLORENT}, Lord of Brightwater, burned as a traitor, 

—his wife, LADY MELARA, of House Crane, 

—their children: 

—ALEKYNE, attainted Lord of Brightwater, fled to Oldtown to seek refuge at the 
Hightower, 

—LADY MELESSA, wed to Lord Randyll Tarly, 


—LADY RHEA, wed to Lord Leyton Hightower, 
—his siblings: 
—SER AXELL, a queen’s man, in service to his niece Queen Selyse at Eastwatch-by-


the-Sea, 
—{SER RYAM}, died in a fall from a horse, 
—SELYSE, his daughter, wife and queen to King Stannis I Baratheon, 
—SHIREEN BARATHEON, her only child, 
—{SER IMRY}, his eldest son, killed in the Battle of the Blackwater, 
—SER ERREN, his second son, a captive at Highgarden, 
—SER COLIN, castellan at Brightwater Keep, 
—DELENA, his daughter, m. SER HOSMAN NORCROSS, 
—her natural son, EDRIC STORM, fathered by King Robert I Baratheon, 
—ALESTER NORCROSS, her eldest trueborn son, a boy of nine, 
—RENLY NORCROSS, her second trueborn son, a boy of three, 
—MAESTER OMER, Ser Colin’s eldest son, in service at Old Oak, 
—MERRELL, Ser Colin’s youngest son, a squire on the Arbor, 
—RYLENE, Lord Alester’s sister, m. Ser Rycherd Crane. 



HOUSE FREY 

The Freys are bannermen to House Tully, but have not always been diligent in their duty. 
At the onset of the War of the Five Kings, Robb Stark won Lord Walder’s allegiance by 
pledging to marry one of his daughters or granddaughters. When he wed Lady Jeyne 


Westerling instead, the Freys conspired with Roose Bolton and murdered the Young 
Wolf and his followers at what became known as the Red Wedding. 

WALDER FREY, Lord of the Crossing, 
—by his first wife, {LADY PERRA, of House Royce}: 
—{SER STEVRON}, died after the Battle of Oxcross, 
—m. {Corenna Swann}, died of a wasting illness, 
—Stevron’s eldest son, SER RYMAN, heir to the Twins, 
—Ryman’s son, EDWYN, wed to Janyce Hunter, 
—Edwyn’s daughter, WALDA, a girl of nine, 
—Ryman’s son, WALDER, called BLACK WALDER, 
—Ryman’s son, {PETYR}, called PETYR PIMPLE, hanged at Oldstones, m. Mylenda 


Caron, 
—Petyr’s daughter, PERRA, a girl of five, 
—m. {Jeyne Lydden}, died in a fall from a horse, 
—Stevron’s son, {AEGON}, called JINGLEBELL, killed at the Red Wedding by 


Catelyn Stark, 
—Stevron’s daughter, {MAEGELLE}, died in childbed, m. Ser Dafyn Vance, 
—Maegelle’s daughter, MARIANNE VANCE, a maiden, 
—Maegelle’s son, WALDER VANCE, a squire, 
—Maegelle’s son, PATREK VANCE, 
—m. {Marsella Waynwood}, died in childbed, 
—Stevron’s son, WALTON, m. Deana Hardyng, 
—Walton’s son, STEFFON, called THE SWEET, 
—Walton’s daughter, WALDA, called FAIR WALDA, 



—Walton’s son, BRYAN, a squire, 


—SER EMMON, Lord Walder’s second son, m. Genna Lannister, 
—Emmon’s son, {SER CLEOS}, killed by outlaws near Maidenpool, m. Jeyne Darry, 
—Cleos’s son, TYWIN, a squire of twelve, 
—Cleos’s son, WILLEM, a page at Ashemark, ten, 
—Emmon’s son, SER LYONEL, m. Melesa Crakehall, 
—Emmon’s son, {TION}, a squire, murdered by Rickard Karstark while a captive at 


Riverrun, 
—Emmon’s son, WALDER, called RED WALDER, fourteen, a page at Casterly Rock, 


—SER AENYS, Lord Walder’s third son, m. {Tyana Wylde}, died in childbed, 
—Aenys’s son, AEGON BLOODBORN, an outlaw, 
—Aenys’s son, RHAEGAR, m. {Jeyne Beesbury}, died of a wasting illness, 
—Rhaegar’s son, ROBERT, a boy of thirteen, 
—Rhaegar’s daughter, WALDA, a girl of eleven, called WHITE WALDA, 
—Rhaegar’s son, JONOS, a boy of eight, 


—PERRIANE, Lord Walder’s daughter, m. Ser Leslyn Haigh, 
—Perriane’s son, SER HARYS HAIGH, 
—Harys’s son, WALDER HAIGH, a boy of five, 
—Perriane’s son, SER DONNEL HAIGH, 
—Perriane’s son, ALYN HAIGH, a squire, 



—by his second wife, {LADY CYRENNA, of House Swann}: 
—SER JARED, Lord Walder’s fourth son, m. {Alys Frey}, 
—Jared’s son, {SER TYTOS}, slain by Sandor Clegane during the Red Wedding, m. 


Zhoe Blanetree, 
—Tytos’s daughter, ZIA, a maid of fourteen, 
—Tytos’s son, ZACHERY, a boy of twelve sworn to the Faith, training at the Sept of 


Oldtown, 
—Jared’s daughter, KYRA, m. {Ser Garse Goodbrook}, slain during the Red Wedding, 
—Kyra’s son, WALDER GOODBROOK, a boy of nine, 
—Kyra’s daughter, JEYNE GOODBROOK, six, 
—SEPTON LUCEON, in service at the Great Sept of Baelor, 


—by his third wife, {LADY AMAREI of House Crakehall}: 
—SER HOSTEEN, m. Bellena Hawick, 
—Hosteen’s son, SER ARWOOD, m. Ryella Royce, 
—Arwood’s daughter, RYELLA, a girl of five, 
—Arwood’s twin sons, ANDROW and ALYN, four, 
—Arwood’s daughter, HOSTELLA, a newborn babe, 
—LYENTHE, Lord Walder’s daughter, m. Lord Lucias Vypren, 
—Lythene’s daughter, ELYANA, m. Ser Jon Wylde, 
—Elyana’s son, RICKARD WYLDE, four, 
—Lythene’s son, SER DAMON VYPREN, 
—SYMOND, m. Betharios of Braavos, 
—Symond’s son, ALESANDER, a singer, 



—Symond’s daughter, ALYX, a maid of seventeen, 

—Symond’s son, BRADAMAR, a boy of ten, a ward of Oro Tendyris, a merchant of 

Braavos, 

—SER DANWELL, Lord Walder’s eighth son, m. Wynafrei Whent, 

—{many stillbirths and miscarriages}, 

—{MERRETT}, hanged at Oldstones, m. Mariya Darry, 

—Merrett’s daughter, AMEREI, called AMI, m. {Ser Pate of the Blue Fork, slain by Ser 


Gregor Clegane}, 


—Merrett’s daughter, WALDA, called FAT WALDA, m. Roose Bolton, Lord of the 
Dreadfort, 
—Merrett’s daughter, MARISSA, a maid of thirteen, 
—Merrett’s son, WALDER, called LITTLE WALDER, eight, a squire in service to 


Ramsay Bolton, 
—{SER GEREMY}, drowned, m. Carolei Waynwood, 
—Geremy’s son, SANDOR, a boy of twelve, a squire, 
—Geremy’s daughter, CYNTHEA, a girl of nine, a ward of Lady Anya Waynwood, 
—SER RAYMUND, m. Beony Beesbury, 
—Raymund’s son, ROBERT, an acolyte at the Citadel, 
—Raymund’s son, MALWYN, serving with alchemist in Lys, 
—Raymund’s twin daughters, SERRA and SARRA, 
—Raymund’s daughter, CERSEI, called LITTLE BEE, 
—Raymund’s twin sons, JAIME and TYWIN, newborn, 


—by his fourth wife, {LADY ALYSSA, of House Blackwood}: 
—LOTHAR, Lord Walder’s twelfth son, called LAME LOTHAR, m. Leonella Lefford, 



—Lothar’s daughter, TYSANE, a girl of seven, 
—Lothar’s daughter, WALDA, a girl of five, 
—Lothar’s daughter, EMBERLEI, a girl of three, 
—Lothar’s daughter, LEANA, a newborn babe, 
—SER JAMMOS, Lord Walder’s thirteenth son, m. Sallei Paege, 
—Jammos’s son, WALDER, called BIG WALDER, eight, a squire in service to Ramsey 


Bolton, 
—Jammos’s twin sons, DICKON and MATHIS, five, 
—SER WHALEN, Lord Walder’s fourteenth son, m. Sylwa Paege, 
—Whalen’s son, HOSTER, a squire of twelve, in service to Ser Damon Paege, 
—Whalen’s daughter, MERIANNE, called MERRY, eleven, 
—MORYA, Lord Walder’s daughter, m. Ser Flement Brax, 
—Morya’s son, ROBERT BRAX, nine, a page at Casterly Rock, 
—Morya’s son, WALDER BRAX, a boy of six, 
—Morya’s son, JON BRAX, a babe of three, 
—TYTA, Lord Walder’s daughter, called TYTA THE MAID, 


—by his fifth wife, {LADY SARYA of House Whent}: 
—no progeny, 


—by his sixth wife, {LADY BETHANY of House Rosby}: 
—SER PERWYN, Lord Walder’s fifteenth son, 
—{SER BENFREY}, Lord Walder’s sixteenth son, died of a wound received at the Red 


Wedding, m. Jyanna Frey, a cousin, 



—Benfrey’s daughter, DELLA, called DEAF DELLA, a girl of three, 
—Benfrey’s son, OSMUND, a boy of two, 
—MAESTER WILLAMEN, Lord Walder’s seventeenth son, in service at Longbow Hall, 
—OLYVAR, Lord Walder’s eighteenth son, formerly a squire to Robb Stark, 
—ROSLIN, sixteen, m. Lord Edmure Tully at the Red Wedding, 


—by his seventh wife, {LADY ANNARA of House Farring}: 
—ARWYN, Lord Walder’s daughter, a maid of fourteen, 
—WENDEL, Lord Walder’s nineteenth son, thirteen, a page at Seagard, 
—COLMAR, Lord Walder’s twentieth son, eleven and promised to the Faith, 
—WALTYR, called TYR, Lord Walder’s twenty-first son, ten, 
—ELMAR, Lord Walder’s lastborn son, a boy of nine briefly betrothed to Arya Stark, 
—SHIREI, Lord Walder’s youngest child, a girl of seven, 


—his eighth wife, LADY JOYEUSE of House Erenford, 
—presently with child, 


—Lord Walder’s natural children, by sundry mothers, 
—WALDER RIVERS, called BASTARD WALDER, 
—Bastard Walder’s son, SER AEMON RIVERS, 
—Bastard Walder’s daughter, WALDA RIVERS, 
—MAESTER MELWYS, in service at Rosby, 
—JEYNE RIVERS, MARTYN RIVERS, RYGER RIVERS, RONEL RIVERS, 


MELLARA RIVERS, others 



HOUSE HIGHTOWER 

The Hightowers of Oldtown are among the oldest and proudest of the Great Houses of 
Westeros, tracing their descent back to the First Men. Once kings, they have ruled 
Oldtown and its environs since the Dawn of Days, welcoming the Andals rather than 
resisting them, and later bending the knee to the Kings of the Reach and giving up their 
crowns whilst retaining all their ancient privileges. Though powerful and immensely 
wealthy, the Lords of the High Tower have traditionally preferred trade to battle, and 
have seldom played a large part in the wars of Westeros. The Hightowers were 
instrumental in the founding of the Citadel and continue to protect it to this day. Subtle 
and sophisticated, they have always been great patrons of learning and the Faith, and it is 
said that certain of them have also dabbled in alchemy, necromancy, and other sorcerous 
arts. 

The arms of House Hightower show a stepped white tower crowned with fire on a 
smoke-grey field. The House words are We Light the Way. 

LEYTON HIGHTOWER, Voice of Oldtown, Lord of the Port, Lord of the High Tower, 
Defender of the Citadel, Beacon of the South, called THE OLD MAN OF OLDTOWN, 

—LADY RHEA of House Hightower, his fourth wife, 

—Lord Leyton’s eldest son and heir, SER BAELOR, called BAELOR BRIGHTSMILE, 

m. Rhonda Rowan, 
—Lord Leyton’s daughter, MALORA, called THE MAD MAID, 

—Lord Leyton’s daughter, ALERIE, m. Lord Mace Tyrell, 

—Lord Leyton’s son SER GARTH, called GREYSTEEL, 

—Lord Leyton’s daughter, DENYSE, m. Ser Desmond Redwyne, 

—her son, DENYS, a squire, 

—Lord Leyton’s daughter, LEYLA, m. Ser Jon Cupps, 


—Lord Leyton’s daughter, ALYSANNE, m. Lord Arthur Ambrose, 

—Lord Leyton’s daughter, LYNESSE, m. Lord Jorah Mormont, presently chief 
concubine to Tregar Ormollen of Lys, 
—Lord Leyton’s son, SER GUNTHOR, m. Jeyne Fossoway, of the green apple 

Fossoways, 
—Lord Leyton’s youngest son, SER HUMFREY, 


—Lord Leyton’s bannermen: 
—TOMMEN COSTAYNE, Lord of the Three Towers, 
—ALYSANNE BULWER, Lady of Blackcrown, a girl of eight, 
—MARTYN MULLENDORE, Lord of Uplands, 
—WARRYN BEESBURY, Lord of Honeyholt, 
—BRANSTON CUY, Lord of Sunflower Hall, 


—the people of Oldtown: 


—EMMA, a serving wench at the Quill and Tankard, where the women are willing and 
the cider is fearsomely strong, 

—ROSEY, her daughter, a girl of five-and-ten whose maidenhead will cost a golden 
dragon, 

—the Archmaesters of the Citadel: 

—ARCHMAESTER NORREN, Seneschal for the waning year, whose ring and rod and 
mask are electrum, 
—ARCHMAESTER THEOBALD, Seneschal for the coming year, whose ring and rod 

and mask are lead, 
—ARCHMAESTER EBROSE, the healer, whose ring and rod and mask are silver, 



—ARCHMAESTER MARWYN, called MARWYN THE MAGE, whose ring and rod 
and mask are Valyrian steel, 

—ARCHMAESTER PERESTAN, the historian, whose ring and rod and mask are 
copper, 

—ARCHMAESTER VAELLYN, called VINEGAR VAELLYN, the stargazer, whose 
ring and rod and mask are bronze, 

—ARCHMAESTER RYAM, whose ring and rod and mask are yellow gold, 

—ARCHMAESTER WALGRAVE, an old man of uncertain wit, whose ring and rod and 
mask are black iron, 

—GALLARD, CASTOS, ZARABELO, BENEDICT, GARIZON, NYMOS, 
CETHERES, WILLIFER, MOLLOS, HARODON, GUYNE, AGRIVANE, OCLEY, 
archmaesters all, 

—maesters, acolytes, and novices of the Citadel: 
—MAESTER GORMON, who oft serves in Walgrave’s stead, 
—ARMEN, an acolyte of four links, called THE ACOLYTE, 
—ALLERAS, called THE SPHINX, an acolyte of three links, a devoted archer, 
—ROBERT FREY, sixteen, an acolyte of two links, 
—LORCAS, an acolyte of nine links, in service to the Seneschal, 
—LEO TYRELL, called LAZY LEO, a highborn novice, 
—MOLLANDER, a novice, born with a club foot, 
—PATE, who tends Archmaester Walgrave’s ravens, a novice of little promise, 
—ROONE, a young novice. 




HOUSE LANNISTER 

The Lannisters of Casterly Rock remain the principal support of King Tommen’s claim to 
the Iron Throne. They boast of descent from Lann the Clever, the legendary trickster of 
the Age of Heroes. The gold of Casterly Rock and the Golden Tooth has made them the 
wealthiest of the Great Houses. The Lannister sigil is a golden lion upon a crimson field. 
Their words are Hear Me Roar! 

{TYWIN LANNISTER}, Lord of Casterly Rock, Shield of Lannisport, Warden of the 
West, and Hand of the King, murdered by his dwarf son in his privy, 
—Lord Tywin’s children: 
—CERSEI, twin to Jaime, now Lady of Casterly Rock, 
—SER JAIME, twin to Cersei, called THE KINGSLAYER, 
—TYRION, called THE IMP, dwarf and kinslayer, 


—Lord Tywin’s siblings and their offspring: 
—SER KEVAN LANNISTER, m. Dorna of House Swyft, 
—LADY GENNA, m. Ser Emmon Frey, now Lord of Riverrun, 
—Genna’s eldest son, {SER CLEOS FREY}, m. Jeyne of House Darry, killed by 


outlaws, 
—Cleos’s eldest son, SER TYWIN FREY, called TY, now heir to Riverrun, 
—Cleos’s second son, WILLEM FREY, a squire, 
—Genna’s second son, SER LYONEL FREY, 
—Genna’s third son, {TION FREY}, a squire, murdered while a captive at Riverrun, 
—Genna’s youngest son, WALDER FREY, called RED WALDER, a page at Casterly 


Rock, 
—WHITESMILE WAT, a singer in service to Lady Genna, 
—{SER TYGETT LANNISTER}, died of a pox, 



—TYREK, Tygett’s son, missing and feared dead, 
—LADY ERMESANDE HAYFORD, Tyrek’s child wife, 
—{GERION LANNISTER}, lost at sea, 
—JOY HILL, Gerion’s bastard daughter, eleven, 


—Lord Tywin’s other close kin: 


—{SER STAFFORD LANNISTER}, a cousin and brother to Lord Tywin’s wife, slain in 
battle at Oxcross, 
—CERENNA and MYRIELLE, Stafford’s daughters, 
—SER DAVEN LANNISTER, Stafford’s son, 
—SER DAMION LANNISTER, a cousin, m. Lady Shiera Crakehall, 
—their son, SER LUCION, 
—their daughter, LANNA, m. Lord Antario Jast, 
—LADY MARGOT, a cousin, m. Lord Titus Peake, 


—the household at Casterly Rock: 
—MAESTER CREYLEN, healer, tutor, and counselor, 
—VYLARR, captain of guards, 
—SER BENEDICT BROOM, master-at-arms, 
—WHITESMILE WAT, a singer, 


—bannermen and sworn swords, Lords of the West: 
—DAMON MARBRAND, Lord of Ashemark, 



—SER ADDAM MARBRAND, his son and heir, Commander of the City Watch of 
King’s Landing, 
—ROLAND CRAKEHALL, Lord of Crakehall, 
—Roland’s brother, {SER BURTON}, slain by outlaws, 
—Roland’s son and heir, SER TYBOLT, 
—Roland’s son, SER LYLE, called STRONGBOAR, 
—Roland’s youngest son, SER MERLON, 
—SEBASTON FARMAN, Lord of Fair Isle, 
—JEYNE, his sister, m. SER GARETH CLIFTON, 
—TYTOS BRAX, Lord of Hornvale, 
—SER FLEMENT BRAX, his brother and heir, 
—QUENTEN BANEFORT, Lord of Banefort, 
—SER HARYS SWYFT, good-father to Ser Kevan Lannister, 
—Ser Harys’s son, SER STEFFON SWYFT, 
—Ser Steffon’s daughter, JOANNA, 
—Ser Harys’s daughter, SHIERLE, m. Ser Melwyn Sarsfield, 
—REGENARD ESTREN, Lord of Wyndhall, 
—GAWEN WESTERLING, Lord of the Crag, 
—his wife, LADY SYBELL, of House Spicer, 
—her brother, SER ROLPH SPICER, newly raised to Lord of Castamere, 
—her cousin, SER SAMWELL SPICER, 
—their children: 
—SER RAYNALD WESTERLING, 
—JEYNE, widowed wife of Robb Stark, 



—ELEYNA, a girl of twelve, 
—ROLLAM, a boy of nine, 
—LORD SELMOND STACKSPEAR, 
—his son, SER STEFFON STACKSPEAR, 
—his younger son, SER ALYN STACKSPEAR, 
—TERRENCE KENNING, Lord of Kayce, 
—SER KENNOS OF KAYCE, a knight in his service, 
—LORD ANTARIO JAST, 
—LORD ROBIN MORELAND, 
—LADY ALYSANNE LEFFORD, 
—LEWYS LYDDEN, Lord of the Deep Den, 
—LORD PHILIP PLUMM, 
—his sons, SER DENNIS PLUMM, SER PETER PLUMM, and SER HARWYN 


PLUMM, called HARDSTONE, 
—LORD GARRISON PRESTER, 
—SER FORLEY PRESTER, his cousin, 
—SER GREGOR CLEGANE, called THE MOUNTAIN THAT RIDES, 
—SANDOR CLEGANE, his brother, 
—SER LORENT LORCH, a landed knight, 
—SER GARTH GREENFIELD, a landed knight, 
—SER LYMOND VIKARY, a landed knight, 
—SER RAYNARD RUTTIGER, a landed knight 
—SER MANFRYD YEW, a landed knight, 
—SER TYBOLT HETHERSPOON, a landed knight, 



—{MELARA HETHERSPOON}, his daughter, drowned in a well while a ward at 
Casterly Rock 


HOUSE MARTELL 

Dorne was the last of the Seven Kingdoms to swear fealty to the Iron Throne. Blood, 
custom, geography, and history all helped to set the Dornishmen apart from the other 
kingdoms. At the outbreak of the War of the Five Kings Dorne took no part, but when 
Myrcella Baratheon was betrothed to Prince Trystane, Sunspear declared its support for 
King Joffrey. The Martell banner is a red sun pierced by a golden spear. Their words are 

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. 

DORAN NYMEROS MARTELL, Lord of Sunspear, Prince of Dorne, 
—his wife, MELLARIO, of the Free City of Norvos, 
—their children: 
—PRINCESS ARIANNE, heir to Sunspear, 
—GARIN, Arianne’s milk brother and companion, of the orphans of the Greenblood, 
—PRINCE QUENTYN, a new-made knight, long fostered by Lord Yronwood of 


Yronwood, 
—PRINCE TRYSTANE, betrothed to Myrcella Baratheon, 
—Prince Doran’s siblings: 
—{PRINCESS ELIA, raped and murdered during the Sack of King’s Landing}, 
—{RHAENYS TARGARYEN}, her young daughter, murdered during the Sack of 


King’s Landing, 
—{AEGON TARGARYEN}, a babe at the breast, murdered during the Sack of King’s 
Landing, 



—{PRINCE OBERYN}, called THE RED VIPER, slain by Ser Gregor Clegane during a 
trial by combat, 
—ELLARIA SAND, Prince Oberyn’s paramour, natural daughter of Lord Harmen Uller, 
—THE SAND SNAKES, Oberyn’s bastard daughters: 


—OBARA, eight-and-twenty, Oberyn’s daughter by an Oldtown whore, 
—NYMERIA, called LADY NYM, five-and-twenty, his daughter by a noblewoman of 
Volantis, 


—TYENE, three-and-twenty, Oberyn’s daughter by a septa, 
—SARELLA, nineteen, his daughter by a trader, captain of the Feathered Kiss, 
—ELIA, fourteen, his daughter by Ellaria Sand, 
—OBELLA, twelve, his daughter by Ellaria Sand, 
—DOREA, eight, his daughter by Ellaria Sand, 
—LOREZA, six, his daughter by Ellaria Sand, 


—Prince Doran’s court, at the Water Gardens: 
—AREO HOTAH, of Norvos, captain of the guards, 
—MAESTER CALEOTTE, counselor, healer, and tutor, 
—threescore children of both high and common birth, sons and daughters of lords, 


knights, orphans, merchants, craftsmen, and peasants, his wards, 


—Prince Doran’s court, at Sunspear: 
—PRINCESS MYRCELLA BARATHEON, his ward, betrothed to Prince Trystane, 
—SER ARYS OAKHEART, Myrcella’s sworn shield, 
—ROSAMUND LANNISTER, Myrcella’s bedmaid and companion, a distant cousin, 
—SEPTA EGLANTINE, Myrcella’s confessor, 



—MAESTER MYLES, counselor, healer, and tutor, 
—RICASSO, Seneschal at Sunspear, old and blind, 
—SER MANFREY MARTELL, castellan at Sunspear 
—LADY ALYSE LADYBRIGHT, lord treasurer, 
—SER GASCOYNE of the Greenblood, Prince Trystane’s sworn shield, 
—BORS and TIMOTH, serving men at Sunspear, 
—BELANDRA, CEDRA, the sisters MORRA and MELLEI, servingwomen at Sunspear, 


—Prince Doran’s bannermen, the Lords of Dorne: 


—ANDERS YRONWOOD, Lord of Yronwood, Warden of the Stone Way, the 


Bloodroyal, 


—SER CLETUS, his son, known for a lazy eye, 


—MAESTER KEDRY, healer, tutor, and counselor, 


—HARMEN ULLER, Lord of Hellholt, 


—ELLARIA SAND, his natural daughter, 


—SER ULWYCK ULLER, his brother, 


—DELONNE ALLYRION, Lady of Godsgrace, 


—SER RYON, her son and heir, 


—SER DAEMON SAND, Ryon’s natural son, the Bastard of Godsgrace, 


—DAGOS MANWOODY, Lord of Kingsgrave, 


—MORS and DICKON, his sons, 


—SER MYLES, his brother, 


—LARRA BLACKMONT, Lady of Blackmont, 


—JYNESSA, her daughter and heir, 



—PERROS, her son, a squire, 
—NYMELLA TOLAND, Lady of Ghost Hill, 
—QUENTYN QORGYLE, Lord of Sandstone, 
—SER GULIAN, his eldest son and heir 
—SER ARRON, his second son, 
—SER DEZIEL DALT, the Knight of Lemonwood, 
—SER ANDREY, his brother and heir, called DREY, 
—FRANKLYN FOWLER, Lord of Skyreach, called THE OLD HAWK, the Warden of 


the Prince’s Pass, 
—JEYNE and JENNELYN, his twin daughters, 
—SER SYMON SANTAGAR, the Knight of Spottswood, 
—SYLVA, his daughter and heir, called SPOTTED SYLVA for her freckles, 
—EDRIC DAYNE, Lord of Starfall, a squire, 
—SER GEROLD DAYNE, called DARKSTAR, the Knight of High Hermitage, his 


cousin and bannerman, 
—TREBOR JORDAYNE, Lord of the Tor, 
—MYRIA, his daughter and heir, 
—TREMOND GARGALEN, Lord of Salt Shore, 
—DAERON VAITH, Lord of the Red Dunes. 



HOUSE STARK 



The Starks trace their descent from Brandon the Builder and the Kings of Winter. For 
thousands of years, they ruled from Winterfell as Kings in the North, until Torrhen Stark, 
the King Who Knelt, chose to swear fealty to Aegon the Dragon rather than give battle. 
When Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell was executed by King Joffrey, the northmen 
foreswore their loyalty to the Iron Throne and proclaimed Lord Eddard’s son Robb as 
King in the North. During the War of the Five Kings, he won every battle, but was 
betrayed and murdered by the Freys and Boltons at the Twins during his uncle’s 
wedding. 

{ROBB STARK}, King in the North, King of the Trident, Lord of Winterfell, eldest son 
of Lord Eddard Stark and Lady Catelyn of House Tully, a youth of sixteen called THE 
YOUNG WOLF, murdered at the Red Wedding, 

—{GREY WIND}, his direwolf, killed at the Red Wedding, 
—his trueborn siblings: 
—SANSA, his sister, m. Tyrion of House Lannister, 
—{LADY}, her direwolf, killed at Castle Darry, 
—ARYA, a girl of eleven, missing and thought dead, 
—NYMERIA, her direwolf, prowling the riverlands, 
—BRANDON, called BRAN, a crippled boy of nine, heir to Winterfell, believed dead, 
—SUMMER, his direwolf, 
—Bran’s companions and protectors: 
—MEERA REED, a maid of sixteen, daughter of Lord Howland Reed of Greywater 


Watch, 
—JOJEN REED, her brother, thirteen, 
—HODOR, a simple boy, seven feet tall, 
—RICKON, a boy of four, believed dead, 
—SHAGGYDOG, his direwolf, black and savage, 
—Rickon’s companion, OSHA, a wildling once captive at Winterfell, 



—his bastard half brother, JON SNOW, of the Night’s Watch, 
—GHOST, Jon’s direwolf, white and silent, 
—Robb’s sworn swords: 
—{DONNEL LOCKE, OWEN NORREY, DACEY MORMONT, SER WENDEL 


MANDERLY, ROBIN FLINT}, slain at the Red Wedding, 


—HALLIS MOLLEN, captain of the guards, escorting Eddard Stark’s bones back to 
Winterfell, 
—JACKS, QUENT, SHADD, guardsmen, 
—Robb’s uncles and cousins: 
—BENJEN STARK, his father’s younger brother, lost ranging beyond the Wall, 


presumed dead, 


—{LYSA ARRYN}, his mother’s sister, Lady of the Eyrie, m. Lord Jon Arryn, slain 
with a shove, 
—their son, ROBERT ARRYN, Lord of the Eyrie and Defender of the Vale, a sickly 


boy, 


—EDMURE TULLY, Lord of Riverrun, his mother’s brother, taken captive at the Red 
Wedding, 
—LADY ROSLIN, of House Frey, Edmure’s bride, 
—SER BRYNDEN TULLY, called THE BLACKFISH, his mother’s uncle, castellan of 


Riverrun, 


—the Young Wolf’s bannermen, the Lords of the North: 


—ROOSE BOLTON, Lord of the Dreadfort, the turncloak, 
—{DOMERIC}, his trueborn son and heir, died of a bad belly, 
—RAMSAY BOLTON (formerly RAMSAY SNOW), Roose’s natural son, called THE 


BASTARD OF BOLTON, castellan of the Dreadfort, 



—WALDER FREY and WALDER FREY, called BIG WALDER and LITTLE 
WALDER, Ramsay’s squires, 
—{REEK}, a man-at-arms infamous for his stench, slain while posing as Ramsay, 
—“ARYA STARK,” Lord Roose’s captive, a feigned girl betrothed to Ramsay, 


—WALTON called STEELSHANKS, Roose’s captain, 
—BETH CASSELL, KYRA, TURNIP, PALLA, BANDY, SHYRA, PALLA, and OLD 
NAN, women of Winterfell held captive at the Dreadfort, 


—JON UMBER, called THE GREATJON, Lord of the Last Hearth, a captive at the 
Twins, 

—{JON}, called THE SMALLJON, the Greatjon’s eldest son and heir, slain at the Red 
Wedding, 

—MORS called CROWFOOD, uncle to the Greatjon, castellan at the Last Hearth, 

—HOTHER called WHORESBANE, uncle to the Greatjon, likewise castellan at the Last 
Hearth, 

—{RICKARD KARSTARK}, Lord of Karhold, beheaded for treason and murder of 
prisoner, 
—{EDDARD}, his son, slain in the Whispering Wood, 
—{TORRHEN} his son, slain in the Whispering Wood, 
—HARRION, his son, a captive at Maidenpool, 
—ALYS, Lord Rickard’s daughter, a maid of fifteen, 
—Rickard’s uncle, ARNOLF, castellan of Karhold, 


—GALBART GLOVER, Master of Deepwood Motte, unwed, 
—ROBETT GLOVER, his brother and heir, 



—Robett’s wife, SYBELLE of House Locke, 
—their children: 
—GAWEN, a boy of three, 
—ERENA, a babe at the breast, 
—Galbart’s ward, LARENCE SNOW, natural son of {Lord Halys Hornwood}, a boy of 


thirteen, 


—HOWLAND REED, Lord of Greywater Watch, a crannogman, 
—his wife, JYANA, of the crannogmen, 
—their children: 
—MEERA, a young huntress, 
—JONJEN, a boy blessed with green sight, 
—WYMAN MANDERLY, Lord of White Harbor, vastly fat, 
—SER WYLIS MANDERLY, his eldest son and heir, very fat, a captive at Harrenhal, 
—Wylis’s wife, LEONA of House Woolfield, 
—WYNAFRYD, their daughter, a maid of nineteen years, 
—WYLLA, their daughter, a maid of fifteen, 
—{SER WENDEL MANDERLY}, his second son, slain at the Red Wedding, 
—SER MARLON MANDERLY, his cousin, commander of the garrison at White 


Harbor, 
—MAESTER THEOMORE, counselor, tutor, healer, 


—MAEGE MORMONT, Lady of Bear Island, 
—{DACEY}, her eldest daughter and heir, slain at the Red Wedding, 



—ALYSANE, LYRA, JORELLE, LYANNA, her daughters, 

—{JEOR MORMONT}, her brother, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, slain by 
own men, 

—SER JORAH MORMONT, Lord Jeor’s son, once Lord of Bear Island in his own right, 
a knight condemned and exiled, 

—{SER HELMAN TALLHART}, Master of Torrhen’s Square, slain at Duskendale, 
—{BENFRED}, his son and heir, slain by ironmen on the Stony Shore, 
—EDDARA, his daughter, captive at Torrhen’s Square, 
—{LEOBALD}, his brother, killed at Winterfell, 
—Leobald’s wife, BERENA of House Hornwood, captive at Torrhen’s Square, 
—their sons, BRANDON and BEREN, likewise captives at Torrhen’s Square, 


—RODRIK RYSWELL, Lord of the Rills, 


—BARBREY DUSTIN, his daughter, Lady of Barrowton, widow of {Lord Willam 
Dustin}, 
—HARWOOD STOUT, her liege man, a petty lord at Barrowton, 
—{BETHANY BOLTON}, his daughter, second wife of Lord Roose Bolton, died of a 


fever, 
—ROGER RYSWELL, RICKARD RYSWELL, ROOSE RYSWELL, his quarrelsome 
cousins and bannermen, 


—{CLEY CERWYN}, Lord of Cerwyn, killed at Winterfell, 
—JONELLE, his sister, a maid of two-and-thirty, 
—LYESSA FLINT, Lady of Widow’s Watch, 
—ONDREW LOCKE, Lord of Oldcastle, an old man, 



—HUGO WULL, called BIG BUCKET, chief of his clan, 
—BRANDON NORREY, called THE NORREY, chief of his clan, 
—TORREN LIDDLE, called THE LIDDLE, chief of his clan. 

The Stark arms show a grey direwolf racing across an ice-white field. The Stark words 
are Winter Is Coming. 


HOUSE TULLY 

Lord Edmyn Tully of Riverrun was one of the first of the river lords to swear fealty to 
Aegon the Conquerer. King Aegon rewarded him by raising House Tully to dominion 
over all the lands of the Trident. The Tully sigil is a leaping trout, silver, on a field of 
rippling blue and red. The Tully words are Family, Duty, Honor. 

EDMURE TULLY, Lord of Riverrun, taken captive at his wedding and held prisoner by 
the Freys, 

—LADY ROSLIN of House Frey, Edmure’s young bride, 
—{LADY CATELYN STARK}, his sister, widow of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, 
slain at the Red Wedding, 


—{LADY LYSA ARRYN}, his sister, widow of Lord Jon Arryn of the Vale, pushed to 


her death from the Eyrie, 
—SER BRYNDEN TULLY, called THE BLACKFISH, Edmure’s uncle, castellan of 
Riverrun, 


—Lord Edmure’s household at Riverrun: 
—MAESTER VYMAN, counselor, healer, and tutor, 
—SER DESMOND GRELL, master-at-arms, 


—SER ROBIN RYGER, captain of the guard, 
—LONG LEW, ELWOOD, DELP, guardsmen, 
—UTHERYDES WAYN, steward of Riverrun, 


—Edmure’s bannermen, the Lords of the Trident: 
—TYTOS BLACKWOOD, Lord of Raventree Hall, 
—{LUCAS}, his son, slain at the Red Wedding, 
—JONOS BRACKEN, Lord of the Stone Hedge, 
—JASON MALLISTER, Lord of Seagard, a prisoner in his own castle, 
—PATREK, his son, imprisoned with his father, 
—SER DENYS MALLISTER, Lord Jason’s uncle, a man of the Night’s Watch, 
—CLEMENT PIPER, Lord of Pinkmaiden Castle, 
—his son and heir, SER MARQ PIPER, taken captive at the Red Wedding, 
—KARYL VANCE, Lord of Wayfarer’s Rest, 
—his elder daughter and heir, LIANE, 
—his younger daughters, RHIALTA and EMPHYRIA, 
—NORBERT VANCE, the blind Lord of Atranta, 
—his eldest son and heir, SER RONALD VANCE, called THE BAD, 
—his younger sons, SER HUGO, SER ELLERY, SER KIRTH, and MAESTER JON, 
—THEOMAR SMALLWOOD, Lord of Acorn Hall, 
—his wife, LADY RAVELLA, of House Swann, 
—their daughter, CARELLEN, 
—WILLIAM MOOTON, Lord of Maidenpool, 



—SHELLA WHENT, dispossessed Lady of Harrenhal, 
—SER WILLIS WODE, a knight in her service, 
—SER HALMON PAEGE, 
—LORD LYMOND GOODBROOK. 



HOUSE TYRELL 

The Tyrells rose to power as stewards to the Kings of the Reach, though they claim 
descent from Garth Greenhand, gardener king of the First Men. When the last king of 
House Gardener was slain on the Field of Fire, his steward Harlen Tyrell surrendered 
Highgarden to Aegon the Conquerer. Aegon granted him the castle and dominion over 
the Reach. Mace Tyrell declared his support for Renly Baratheon at the onset of the War 
of the Five Kings, and gave him the hand of his daughter Margaery. Upon Renly’s death, 
Highgarden made alliance with House Lannister, and Margaery was betrothed to King 
Joffrey. 

MACE TYRELL, Lord of Highgarden, Warden of the South, Defender of the Marches, 
and High Marshal of the Reach, 

—his wife, LADY ALERIE, of House Hightower of Oldtown, 

—their children: 

—WILLAS, their eldest son, heir to Highgarden, 

—SER GARLAN, called THE GALLANT, their second son, newly raised to Lord of 
Brightwater, 

—Garlan’s wife, LADY LEONETTE of House Fossoway, 

—SER LORAS, the Knight of Flowers, their youngest son, a Sworn Brother of the 
Kingsguard, 


—MARGAERY, their daughter, twice wed and twice widowed, 
—Margaery’s companions and ladies-in-waiting: 
—her cousins, MEGGA, ALLA, and ELINOR TYRELL, 
—Elinor’s betrothed, ALYN AMBROSE, squire, 
—LADY ALYSANNE BULWER, LADY ALYCE GRACEFORD, LADY TAENA 


MERRYWEATHER, MEREDYTH CRANE called MERRY, SEPTA NYSTERICA, her 


companions, 
—Mace’s widowed mother, LADY OLENNA of House Redwyne, called THE QUEEN 
OF THORNS, 


—ARRYK and ERRYK, her guardsmen, twins seven feet tall called LEFT and RIGHT, 


—Mace’s sisters: 


—LADY MINA, wed to Paxter Redwyne, Lord of the Arbor, 


—their children: 


—SER HORAS REDWYNE, twin to Hobber, called HORROR, 


—SER HOBBER REDWYNE, twin to Horas, called SLOBBER, 


—DESMERA REDWYNE, a maid of sixteen, 


—LADY JANNA, wed to Ser Jon Fossoway, 


—Mace’s uncles and cousins: 


—Mace’s uncle, GARTH, called THE GROSS, Lord Seneschal of Highgarden, 


—Garth’s bastard sons, GARSE and GARRETT FLOWERS, 


—Mace’s uncle, SER MORYN, Lord Commander of the City Watch of Oldtown, 


—Moryn’s son, {SER LUTHOR}, m. Lady Elyn Norridge, 


—Luthor’s son, SER THEODORE, m. Lady Lia Serry, 


—Theodore’s daughter, ELINOR, 


—Theodore’s son, LUTHOR, a squire, 


—Luthor’s son, MAESTER MEDWICK, 
—Luthor’s daughter, OLENE, m. Ser Leo Blackbar, 
—Moryn’s son, LEO, called LEO THE LAZY, a novice at the Citadel of Oldtown, 
—Mace’s uncle, MAESTER GORMON, serving at the Citadel, 
—Mace’s cousin, {SER QUENTIN}, died at Ashford, 
—Quentin’s son, SER OLYMER, m. Lady Lysa Meadows, 
—Olymer’s sons, RAYMUND and RICKARD, 
—Olymer’s daughter, MEGGA, 
—Mace’s cousin, MAESTER NORMUND, in service at Blackcrown, 
—Mace’s cousin, {SER VICTOR}, slain by the Smiling Knight of the Kingswood 


Brotherhood, 
—Victor’s daughter, VICTARIA, m. {Lord Jon Bulwer}, died of a summer fever, 
—their daughter, LADY ALYSANNE BULWER, eight, 
—Victor’s son, SER LEO, m. Lady Alys Beesbury, 
—Leo’s daughters, ALLA and LEONA, 
—Leo’s sons, LYONEL, LUCAS, and LORENT, 


—Mace’s household at Highgarden: 
—MAESTER LOMYS, counselor, healer, and tutor, 
—IGON VYRWEL, captain of the guard, 
—SER VORTIMER CRANE, master-at-arms, 
—BUTTERBUMPS, fool and jester, hugely fat, 


—his bannermen, the Lords of the Reach: 



—RANDYLL TARLY, Lord of Horn Hill, 
—PAXTER REDWYNE, Lord of the Arbor, 
—SER HORAS and SER HOBBER, his twin sons, 
—Lord Paxter’s healer, MAESTER BALLABAR, 
—ARWYN OAKHEART, Lady of Old Oak, 
—Lady Arwyn’s youngest son, SER ARYS, a Sworn Brother of the Kingsguard, 
—MATHIS ROWAN, Lord of Goldengrove, m. Bethany of House Redwyne, 
—LEYTON HIGHTOWER, Voice of Oldtown, Lord of the Port, 
—HUMFREY HEWETT, Lord of Oakenshield, 
—FALIA FLOWERS, his bastard daughter, 
—OSBERT SERRY, Lord of Southshield, 
—SER TALBERT, his son and heir, 
—GUTHOR GRIMM, Lord of Greyshield, 
—MORIBALD CHESTER, Lord of Greenshield, 
—ORTON MERRYWEATHER, Lord of Longtable, 
—LADY TAENA, his wife, a woman of Myr, 
—RUSSELL, her son, a boy of eight, 
—LORD ARTHUR AMBROSE, m. Lady Alysanne Hightower, 


—his knights and sworn swords: 
—SER JON FOSSOWAY, of the green-apple Fossoways, 
—SER TANTON FOSSOWAY, of the red-apple Fossoways. 



The Tyrell sigil is a golden rose on a grass-green field. Their words are Growing Strong. 


REBELS AND ROGUES 
SMALLFOLK AND SWORN BROTHERS 
LORDLINGS, WANDERERS, AND COMMON MEN 
—SER CREIGHTON LONGBOUGH and SER ILLIFER THE PENNILESS, hedge 


knights and companions, 
—HIBALD, a merchant fearful and niggardly, 
—SER SHADRICK OF THE SHADY GLEN, called THE MAD MOUSE, a hedge 


knight in Hibald’s service, 


—BRIENNE, THE MAID OF TARTH, also called BRIENNE THE BEAUTY, a maiden 
on a quest, 
—LORD SELWYN THE EVENSTAR, Lord of Tarth, her father, 
—{BIG BEN BUSHY}, SER HYLE HUNT, SER MARK MULLENDORE, SER 


EDMUND AMBROSE, {SER RICHARD FARROW}, {WILL THE STORK}, SER 
HUGH BEESBURY, SER RAYMOND NAYLAND, HARRY SAWYER, SER OWEN 
INCHFIELD, ROBIN POTTER, her onetime suitors, 

—RENFRED RYKKER, Lord of Duskendale, 

—SER RUFUS LEEK, a one-legged knight in his service, castellan of the Dun Fort at 
Duskendale, 
—WILLIAM MOOTON, Lord of Maidenpool, 
—ELEANOR, his eldest daughter and heir, thirteen, 
—RANDYLL TARLY, Lord of Horn Hill, commanding King Tommen’s forces along 


the Trident, 
—DICKON, his son and heir, a young squire, 
—SER HYLE HUNT, sworn to the service of House Tarly, 
—SER ALYN HUNT, Ser Hyle’s cousin, likewise in Lord Randyll’s service, 
—DICK CRABB, called NIMBLE DICK, a Crabb of Crackclaw Point, 
—EUSTACE BRUNE, Lord of the Dyre Den, 



—BENNARD BRUNE, the Knight of Brownhollow, his cousin, 
—SER ROGER HOGG, the Knight of Sow’s Horn, 
—SEPTON MERIBALD, a barefoot septon, 
—his dog, DOG, 
—THE ELDER BROTHER, of the Quiet Isle, 
—BROTHER NARBERT, BROTHER GILLAM, BROTHER RAWNEY, pentitent 


brothers of the Quiet Isle, 
—SER QUINCY COX, the Knight of Saltpans, an old man in his dotage, 


—at the old crossroads inn: 


—JEYNE HEDDLE, called LONG JEYNE, innkeep, a tall young wench of eighteen 
years, 
—WILLOW, her sister, stern with a spoon, 
—TANSY, PATE, JON PENNY, BEN, orphans at the inn, 
—GENDRY, an apprentice smith and bastard son of King Robert I Baratheon, ignorant 


of his birth, 


—at Harrenhal, 


—RAFFORD called RAFF THE SWEETLING, SHITMOUTH, DUNSEN, men of the 
garrison, 
—BEN BLACKTHUMB, a smith and armorer, 
—PIA, a serving wench, once pretty, 
—MAESTER GULIAN, healer, tutor, and counselor, 


—at Darry, 



—LADY AMEREI FREY, called GATEHOUSE AMI, an amorous young widow 


betrothed to Lord Lancel Lannister, 
—Lady Amerei’s mother, LADY MARIYA of House Darry, widowed wife of Merrett 
Frey, 


—Lady Amerei’s sister, MARISSA, a maid of thirteen, 


—SER HARWYN PLUMM, called HARDSTONE, commander of the garrison, 


—MAESTER OTTOMORE, healer, tutor, and advisor, 


—at the Inn of the Kneeling Man: 
—SHARNA, the innkeep, a cook and midwife, 
—her husband, called HUSBAND, 
—BOY, an orphan of the war, 
—HOT PIE, a baker’s boy, now orphaned. 
OUTLAWS AND BROKEN MEN 
{BERIC DONDARRION}, once Lord of Blackhaven, six times slain, 
—EDRIC DAYNE, Lord of Starfall, a boy of twelve, Lord Beric’s squire, 
—THE MAD HUNTSMAN of Stoney Sept, his sometime ally, 
—GREENBEARD, a Tyroshi sellsword, his uncertain friend, 
—ANGUY THE ARCHER, a bowman from the Dornish Marches, 
—MERRIT O’ MOONTOWN, WATTY THE MILLER, SWAMPY MEG, JON O’ 


NUTTEN, outlaws in his band, 


LADY STONEHEART, a hooded woman, sometimes called MOTHER MERCY, THE 
SILENT SISTER, and THE HANGWOMAN, 

—LEM, called LEM LEMONCLOAK, a onetime soldier, 


—THOROS OF MYR, a red priest, 


—HARWIN, son of Hullen, a northman once in service to Lord Eddard Stark of 
Winterfell, 
—JACK-BE-LUCKY, a wanted man, short an eye, 
—TOM OF SEVENSTREAMS, a singer of dubious report, called TOM 


SEVENSTRINGS and TOM O’ SEVENS, 
—LIKELY LUKE, NOTCH, MUDGE, BEARDLESS DICK, outlaws, 


SANDOR CLEGANE, called THE HOUND, once King Joffrey’s sworn shield, later a 
Sworn Brother of the Kingsguard, last seen feverish and dying beside the Trident, 
{VARGO HOAT} of the Free City of Qohor, called THE GOAT, 
a sellsword captain of slobbery speech, slain at 
Harrenhal by Ser Gregor Clegane, 
—his Brave Companions, also called the Bloody Mummers: 
—URSWYCK called FAITHFUL, his lieutenant, 


—{SEPTON UTT}, hanged by Lord Beric Dondarrion, 
—TIMEON OF DORNE, FAT ZOLLO, RORGE, BITER, PYG, SHAGWELL THE 
FOOL, TOGG JOTH of Ibben, THREE TOES, scattered and running, 


—at the Peach, a brothel in Stoney Sept: 
—TANSY, the red-haired proprietor, 
—ALYCE, CASS, LANNA, JYZENE, HELLY, BELLA, some of her peaches, 
—at Acorn Hall, the seat of House Smallwood: 
—LADY RAVELLA, formerly of House Swann, wife to Lord Theomar Smallwood, 
—here and there and elsewhere: 



—LORD LYMOND LYCHESTER, an old man of wandering wit, who once held Ser 
Maynard at the bridge, 
—his young caretaker, MAESTER ROONE, 
—the ghost of High Heart, 
—the Lady of the Leaves, 
—the septon at Sallydance. 


THE SWORN BROTHERS OF THE NIGHT’S WATCH 
JON SNOW, the Bastard of Winterfell, nine-hundred-and-ninety- eighth Lord 
Commander of the Night’s Watch, 


—GHOST, his white direwolf, 
—his steward, EDDISON TOLLETT, called DOLOROUS EDD, 


THE MEN OF CASTLE BLACK 
—BENJEN STARK, First Ranger, long missing, presumed dead, 
—SER WYNTON STOUT, an aged ranger, feeble of wit, 
—KEDGE WHITEYE, BEDWYCK called GIANT, MATTHAR, DYWEN, GARTH 


GREYFEATHER, ULMER OF THE KINGSWOOD, ELRON, PYPAR called PYP, 
GRENN called AUROCHS, BERNARR called BLACK BERNARR, GOADY, TIM 
STONE, BLACK JACK BULWER, GEOFF called THE SQUIRREL, BEARDED BEN, 
rangers, 

—BOWEN MARSH, Lord Steward, 
—THREE-FINGER HOBB, steward and chief cook, 
—{DONAL NOYE}, one-armed armorer and smith, slain at the gate by Mag the Mighty 
—OWEN called THE OAF, TIM TANGLETONGUE, MULLY, CUGEN, DONNEL 


HILL called SWEET DONNEL, LEFT HAND LEW, JEREN, WICK WHITTLESTICK, 
stewards, 
—OTHELL YARWYCK, First Builder, 



—SPARE BOOT, HALDER, ALBETT, KEGS, builders, 
—CONWY, GUEREN, wandering recruiters, 
—SEPTON CELLADOR, a drunken devout, 
—SER ALLISER THORNE, former master-at-arms, 
—LORD JANOS SLYNT, former commander of the City Watch of King’s Landing, 


briefly Lord of Harrenhal, 


—MAESTER AEMON (TARGARYEN), healer and counselor, a blind man, one 
hundred and two years old, 
—Aemon’s steward, CLYDAS, 
—Aemon’s steward, SAMWELL TARLY, fat and bookish, 
—IRON EMMETT, formerly of Eastwatch, master-at-arms, 
—HARETH called HORSE, the twins ARRON and EMRICK, SATIN, HOP-ROBIN, 


recruits in training, 


THE MEN OF THE SHADOW TOWER 
SER DENYS MALLISTER, Commander, Shadow Tower, 
—his steward and squire, WALLACE MASSEY, 
—MAESTER MULLIN, healer and counselor, 
—{QHORIN HALFHAND}, chief ranger, slain by Jon Snow beyond the Wall, 
—brothers of the Shadow Tower: 
—{SQUIRE DALBRIDGE, EGGEN}, rangers, slain in the Skirling Pass, 
—STONESNAKE, a ranger, lost afoot in Skirling Pass, 


THE MEN OF EASTWATCH-BY-THE-SEA 
COTTER PYKE, Commander, 



—MAESTER HARMUNE, healer and counselor, 
—OLD TATTERSALT, captain of the Blackbird, 
—SER GLENDON HEWETT, master-at-arms, 
—brothers of Eastwatch: 
—DAREON, steward and singer, 


AT CRASTER’S KEEP (THE BETRAYERS) 
—DIRK, who murdered Craster, his host, 
—OLLO LOPHAND, who slew his lord commander, Jeor Mormont, 
—GARTH OF GREENAWAY, MAWNEY, GRUBBS, ALAN OF ROSBY, former 


rangers 
—CLUBFOOT KARL, ORPHAN OSS, MUTTERING BILL, former stewards. 
the WILDLINGS, or THE FREE FOLK 
MANCE RAYDER, King-beyond-the-Wall, a captive at Castle Black, 
—his wife, {DALLA}, died in childbirth, 
—their newborn son, born in battle, not yet named, 
—VAL, Dalla’s younger sister, “the wildling princess,” a captive at Castle Black, 


—wildling chiefs and captains: 
—{HARMA}, called DOGSHEAD, slain beneath the Wall, 
—HALLECK, her brother, 
—THE LORD OF BONES, mocked as RATTLESHIRT, a raider and leader of a war 


band, captive at Castle Black, 
—{YGRITTE}, a young spearwife, Jon Snow’s lover, killed during the attack on Castle 
Black, 



—RYK, called LONGSPEAR, a member of his band, 
—RAGWYLE, LENYL, members of his band, 
—{STYR}, Magnar of Thenn, slain attacking Castle Black, 
—SIGORN, Styr’s son, the new Magnar of Thenn, 
—TORMUND, Mead-King of Ruddy Hall, called GIANTSBANE, TALL-TALKER, 


HORN-BLOWER, and BREAKER OF ICE, also THUNDERFIST, HUSBAND TO 


BEARS, SPEAKER TO GODS, and FATHER OF HOSTS, 
—Tormund’s sons, TOREGG THE TALL, TORWYRD THE TAME, DORMUND, and 
DRYN, his daughter MUNDA, 


—THE WEEPER, a raider and leader of a war band, 


—{ALFYN CROWKILLER}, a raider, slain by Qhorin Halfhand of the Night’s Watch, 


—{ORELL}, called ORELL THE EAGLE, a skinchanger slain by Jon Snow in the 

Skirling Pass, 

—{MAG MAR TUN DOH WEG}, called MAG THE MIGHTY, a giant, slain by Donal 
Noye at the gate of Castle Black, 
—VARAMYR called SIXSKINS, a skinchanger, master of three wolves, a shadowcat, 


and snow bear, 
—{JARL}, a young raider, Val’s lover, killed in a fall from the Wall, 
—GRIGG THE GOAT, ERROK, BODGER, DEL, BIG BOIL, HEMPEN DAN, HENK 


THE HELM, LENN, TOEFINGER, wildlings and raiders, 


{CRASTER}, master of Craster’s Keep, slain by Dirk of the Night’s Watch, a guest 
beneath his roof, 
—GILLY, his daughter and wife, 
—Gilly’s newborn son, not yet named, 
—DYAH, FERNY, NELLA, three of Craster’s nineteen wives. 
BEYOND THE NARROW SEA 



THE QUEEN ACROSS THE WATER 
DAENERYS TARGARYEN, the First of Her Name, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the 
Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the 


Realm, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, called DAENERYS STORMBORN, the 
UNBURNT, MOTHER OF DRAGONS, 
—her dragons, DROGON, VISERION, RHAEGAL, 
—her brother, {RHAEGAR}, Prince of Dragonstone, slain by Robert Baratheon on the 


Trident, 
—Rhaegar’s daughter, {RHAENYS}, murdered during the Sack of King’s Landing, 
—Rhaegar’s son, {AEGON, a babe in arms, murdered during the Sack of King’s 


Landing, 


—her brother {VISERYS}, the Third of His Name, called THE BEGGAR KING, 
crowned with molten gold, 
—her lord husband, {DROGO}, a khal of the Dothraki, died of a wound gone bad, 
—her stillborn son by Drogo, {RHAEGO}, slain in the womb by the maegi Mirri Maz 


Duur, 


—her Queensguard: 


—SER BARRISTAN SELMY, called BARRISTAN THE BOLD, once Lord 
Commander of King Robert’s Kingsguard, 
—JHOGO, ko and bloodrider, the whip, 
—AGGO, ko and bloodrider, the bow, 
—RAKHARO, ko and bloodrider, the arakh, 



—STRONG BELWAS, eunuch and former fighting slave, 

—her captains and commanders: 

—DAARIO NAHARIS, a flamboyant Tyroshi sellsword, commanding the company of 
Stormcrows, 
—BEN PLUMM, called BROWN BEN, a mongrel sellsword, commanding the company 

of Second Sons, 
—GREY WORM, a eunuch, commanding the Unsullied, a company of eunuch infantry, 
—GROLEO of Pentos, formerly captain of the great cog Saduleon, now an admiral 


without a fleet, 


—her handmaids: 
—IRRI and JHIQUI, two Dothraki girls, sixteen, 
—MISSANDEI, a Naathi scribe and translator, 


—her known and suspected enemies: 
—GRAZDAN MO ERAZ, a nobleman of Yunkai, 
—KHAL PONO, once ko to Khal Drogo, 
—KHAL JHAQO, once ko to Khal Drogo, 
—MAGGO, his bloodrider, 
—THE UNDYING OF QARTH, a band of warlocks, 
—PYAT PREE, a Qartheen warlock, 
—THE SORROWFUL MEN, a guild of Qartheen assassins, 
—SER JORAH MORMONT, formerly Lord of Bear Island, 



—{MIRRI MAZ DUUR}, godswife and maegi, a servant of the Great Shepherd of 
Lhazar, 

—her uncertain allies, past and present: 
—XARO XHOAN DAXOS, a merchant prince of Qarth, 
—QUAITHE, a masked shadowbinder from Asshai, 
—ILLYRIO MOPATIS, a magister of the Free City of Pentos, who brokered her 


marriage to Khal Drogo, 
—CLEON THE GREAT, butcher king of Astapor, 
—KHAL MORO, sometime ally of Khal Drogo, 
—RHOGORO, his son and khalakka, 
—KHAL JOMMO, sometime ally of Khal Drogo. 


The Targaryens are the blood of the dragon, descended from the high lords of the ancient 
Freehold of Valyria, their heritage marked by lilac, indigo, and violet eyes and hair of 
silver-gold. To preserve their blood and keep it pure, House Targaryen has oft wed 
brother to sister, cousin to cousin, uncle to niece. The founder of the dynasty, Aegon the 
Conquerer, took both his sisters to wife and fathered sons on each. The Targaryen banner 
is a three-headed dragon, red on black, the three heads representing Aegon and his sisters. 
The Targaryen words are Fire and Blood. 

IN BRAAVOS 

FERREGO ANTARYON, Sealord of Braavos, 

—QARRO VOLENTIN, First Sword of Braavos, his protector, 

—BELLEGERE OTHERYS called THE BLACK PEARL, a courtesan descended from 
the pirate queen of the same name, 

—THE VEILED LADY, THE MERLING QUEEN, THE MOONSHADOW, THE 
DAUGHTER OF THE DUSK, THE NIGHTINGALE, THE POETESS, famous 
courtesans, 

—TERNESIO TERYS, Merchant-Captain of the Titan’s Daughter, 


—YORKO and DENYO, two of his sons, 
—MOREDO PRESTAYN, Merchant-Captain of the Vixen, 
—LOTHO LORNEL, a dealer in old books and scrolls, 
—EZZELYNO, a red priest, oft drunk, 
—SEPTON EUSTACE, disgraced and defrocked, 
—TERRO and ORBELO, a pair of bravos, 
—BLIND BEQQO, a fishmonger, 
—BRUSCO, a fishmonger, 
—his daughters, TALEA and BREA, 
—MERALYN, called MERRY, proprietor of the Happy Port, a brothel near the 


Ragman’s Harbor, 
—THE SAILOR’S WIFE, a whore at the Happy Port, 
—LANNA, her daughter, a young whore, 
—BLUSHING BETHANY, YNA ONE-EYE, ASSADORA OF IBBEN, the whores of 


the Happy Port, 


—RED ROGGO, GYLORO DOTHARE, GYLENO DOTHARE, a scribbler called 


QUILL, COSSOMO THE CONJURER, patrons of the Happy Port, 


—TAGGANARO, a dockside cutpurse and thief, 


—CASSO, KING OF THE SEALS, his trained seal, 


—LITTLE NARBO, his sometime partner, 


—MYRMELLO, JOSS THE GLOOM, QUENCE, ALLAQUO, SLOEY, mummers 


performing nightly on the Ship, 
—S’VRONE, a dockside whore of a murderous bent, 
—THE DRUNKEN DAUGHTER, a whore of uncertain temper, 
—CANKER JEYNE, a whore of uncertain sex, 



—THE KINDLY MAN and THE WAIF, servants of the Many-Faced God at the House 
of Black and White, 


—UMMA, the temple cook, 
—THE HANDSOME MAN, THE FAT FELLOW, THE LORDLING, THE STERN 
FACE, THE SQUINTER, and THE STARVED MAN, secret servants of Him of Many 
Faces, 


—ARYA of House Stark, a girl with an iron coin, also known as ARRY, NAN, 


WEASEL, SQUAB, SALTY, and CAT 
—QUHURU MO, of Tall Trees Town in the Summer Isles, master of the merchantman 
Cinnamon Wind, 


—KOJJA MO, his daughter, the red archer, 
—XHONDO DHORU, mate on the Cinnamon Wind. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

This one was a bitch. 

My thanks and appreciation go out once again to those stalwart souls, my editors: Nita 
Taublib, Joy Chamberlain, Jane Johnson, and especially Anne Lesley Groell, for her 
counsel, her good humor, and her vast forbearance. 

Thanks also to my readers, for all their kind and supportive e-mails, and for their 
patience. A special tip of the helm to Lodey of the Three Fists, Pod the Devil Bunny, 
Trebla and Daj the Trivial Kings, sweet Caress of the Wall, Lannister the Squirrel Slayer, 
and the rest of the Brotherhood Without Banners, that half-mad drunken fellowship of 
brave knights and lovely ladies who throw the best parties at worldcon, year after year 
after year. And let me sound a fanfare too for Elio and Linda, who seem to know the 
Seven Kingdoms better than I do, and help me keep my continuity straight. Their 
Westeros website and concordance is a joy and a wonder. 

And thanks to Walter Jon Williams for guiding me across more salty seas, to Sage 
Walker for leeches and fevers and broken bones, to Pati Nagle for HTML and spinning 
shields and getting all my news up quickly, and to Melinda Snodgrass and Daniel 


Abraham for service that was truly above and beyond the call of duty. I get by with a 
little help from my friends. 

No words could suffice for Parris, who has been there on the good days and the bad ones 
for every bloody page. All that needs be said is that I could not sing this Song without 
her. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN sold his first story in 1971 and has been writing professionally 
since then. He spent ten years in Hollywood as a writer-producer, working on The 
Twilight Zone, Beauty and the Beast, and various feature films and television pilots that 
were never made. In the mid ’90s he returned to prose, his first love, and began work on 
his epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. He has been in the Seven Kingdoms ever 
since. Whenever he’s allowed to leave, he returns to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he 
lives with the lovely Parris, a big white dog called Mischa, and two cats named Augustus 
and Caligula, who think they run the place. 

ALSO BY GEORGE R. R. MARTIN 

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE 

Book One: A Game of Thrones 

Book Two: A Clash of Kings 

Book Three: A Storm of Swords 

Dying of the Light 
Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle) 
Fevre Dream 
The Armageddon Rag 
Dead Man’s Hand (with John J. Miller) 
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS 

A Song of Lya and Others 
Songs of Stars and Shadows 


Sandkings 
Songs the Dead Men Sing 
Nightflyers 
Tuf Voyaging 
Portraits of His Children 

EDITED BY GEORGE R. R. MARTIN 

New Voices in Science Fiction, Volumes 1–4 

The Science Fiction Weight-Loss Book (with Isaac Asimov 
and Martin Harry Greenberg) 

The John W. Campbell Awards, Volume 5 
Night Visions 3 
Wild Card I–XV 
And coming soon 

A DANCE 
WITH 
DRAGONS 

BY 
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN 

The epic continuation of his landmark series 

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE 

Here’s a special preview: 

DAENERYS 

She could hear the dead man coming up the steps. The slow, measured sound of footsteps 
went before him, echoing amongst the purple pillars of her hall. Daenerys Targaryen 
awaited him upon the ebon bench that she had made her throne. Her eyes were soft with 
sleep, her silver-gold hair all tousled. 


“Your Grace,” said Ser Barristan Selmy, the Lord Commander of her Queensguard, 
“there is no need for you to see this.” 

“He died for me.” Dany clutched her lion pelt to her chest. Underneath, a sheer white 
linen tunic covered her to mid-thigh. She had been dreaming of a house with a red door 
when Missandei woke her. There had been no time to dress. 

“Khaleesi,” whispered Irri, “you must not touch the dead man. It is bad luck to touch the 
dead.” 

“Unless you killed them yourself.” Jhiqui was bigger-boned than Irri, with wide hips and 
heavy breasts. “That is known.” 

“It is known,” Irri agreed. 

Dany paid no heed. Dothraki were wise where horses were concerned, but could be utter 
fools about much else. They are only girls, besides. Her handmaids were of an age with 
her; women grown to look at them, with their black hair, copper skin, and almond-shaped 
eyes, but children all the same. Khal Drogo had given them to her, who was her sun-andstars. 
Drogo had given her the pelt too, the head and hide of a hrakkar, the white lion of 
the Dothraki sea. It was too big for her and had a musty smell, but it made her feel as if 
Drogo were still near her. 

Grey Worm appeared atop the steps first, a torch in hand. His bronze cap was crested 
with three spikes. Behind him followed four of his Unsullied, bearing the dead man on 
their shoulders. Their caps had only one spike, and their faces showed so little they might 
have been cast of bronze as well. They laid the corpse down at her feet. Ser Barristan 
pulled back the blood-stained shroud. Grey Worm lowered the torch, so she might see. 

The dead man’s face was smooth and hairless, though his cheeks had been slashed open 
almost ear to ear. He had been a tall man, blue-eyed and fair of face. Some child of Lys or 
old Volantis, snatched off a ship by corsairs and sold into bondage in red Astapor. 

Though his eyes were open, it was his wounds that wept. There were more wounds than 
she could count. 

“Your Grace,” Ser Barristan said, “there was a harpy drawn on the bricks in the alley 
where he was found . . .” 

“. . . drawn in his own blood.” Daenerys knew the way of it by now. The Sons of the 
Harpy did their butchery by night, and over each kill they left their mark. “Grey Worm, 
why was this man alone? Had he no partner?” When the Unsullied walked the streets of 
Meereen by night, they always walked in pairs. 

“My queen,” replied the captain, “your servant Stalwart Shield had no duty last night. He 
had gone to a . . . a certain place . . . to drink, and have companionship.” 


“A certain place? What do you mean?” 

“A house of pleasure, Your Grace.” Beneath the spiked bronze cap, Grey Worm’s face 
might have been made of stone. 

A brothel. Half of her freedmen were from Yunkai, where the Wise Masters had been 
famed for training bed slaves. The way of the seven sighs. Brothels had sprouted up like 
mushrooms all over Meereen. It is all they know. They need to survive. Food grew more 
costly every day, whilst the pleasures of the flesh got cheaper. In the poorer districts 
between the stepped pyramids of Meereen’s slaver nobility, there were brothels catering 
to every conceivable erotic taste, she knew. Even so . . . 

“What could a eunuch hope to find in a brothel?” she asked. 

“Even those who lack a man’s parts may still have a man’s heart, Your Grace,” said Grey 
Worm. “This one has been told that your servant Stalwart Shield sometimes gave coin to 
the women of the brothels, to lay with him and hold him.” 

The blood of the dragon does not weep. “Stalwart Shield,” she said, dry-eyed. “That was 
his name?” 

“If it please Your Grace.” 

“It is a fine name.” The Good Masters of Astapor had not allowed their slave soldiers 
even names. Some of her Unsullied reclaimed their birth names after she had freed them; 
others chose new names for themselves. “Is it known how many attackers fell upon 
Stalwart Shield?” 

“This one does not know. Many.” 

“Six or more,” said Ser Barristan. “From the look of his wounds, they swarmed him from 
all sides. He was found with an empty scabbard. It may be that he wounded some of his 
attackers.” 

Dany said a silent prayer that somewhere one of them was dying even now, clutching at 
his belly and writhing in pain. “Why did they cut open his cheeks like that?” 

“Gracious queen,” said Grey Worm, “his killers had forced the genitals of a goat down 
the throat of your servant Stalwart Shield. This one removed them before bringing him 
here.” 

They could not feed him his own genitals. The Astapori left him neither root nor stem. 

“The Sons grow bolder,” Dany observed. Until now, they had limited their attacks to 
unarmed freedmen, cutting them down in the streets or breaking into their homes under 
the cover of darkness to murder them in their beds. “This is the first of my soldiers they 
have slain.” 


“The first,” Ser Barristan warned, “but not the last.” 

I am still at war, Dany realized, only now I am fighting shadows. She had hoped to have a 
respite from the killing, some time to build and heal. Shrugging off the lion pelt, she knelt 
beside the corpse and closed the dead man’s eyes, ignoring Jhiqui’s gasp. “Stalwart 
Shield shall not be forgotten. Have him washed and dressed for battle, and bury him with 
cap and shield and spears.” 

“It shall be as Your Grace commands,” said Grey Worm. 

She stood. “Send a dozen men to the Temple of the Graces, and ask the Blue Graces if 
any man has come to them seeking treatment for a sword wound. And spread the word 
that we will pay good gold for the short sword of Stalwart Shield. Inquire of the butchers 
and the herdsmen too, and learn who has been gelding goats of late.” Perhaps they would 
be fortunate, and some frightened goatherd would confess. “Henceforth, see that no man 
of mine walks alone after dark, whether he has the duty or no.” 

“These ones shall obey.” 

Daenerys pushed her hair back. “Find these cowards for me,” she said fiercely. “Find 
them, so that I might teach the Harpy’s Sons what it means to wake the dragon.” 

Grey Worm saluted her. His Unsullied closed the shroud once more, lifted the dead man 
onto their shoulders, and bore him from the hall. Ser Barristan Selmy remained behind. 
His hair was white, and there were crow’s feet at the corners of his pale blue eyes. Yet his 
back was still unbent, and the years had not yet robbed him of his skill at arms. “Your 
Grace,” he said, “I fear your eunuchs are ill-suited for the tasks you set them.” 

Dany settled on her bench and wrapped her pelt about her shoulders once again. “The 
Unsullied are my finest warriors.” 

“Soldiers, not warriors, if it please Your Grace. They were made for the battlefield, to 
stand shoulder to shoulder behind their shields, with their spears thrust out before them. 
Their training teaches them to obey, fearlessly, perfectly, without thought or hesitation . . 
. not to unravel secrets or ask questions.” 

“Would knights serve me any better?” Selmy was training knights for her, teaching the 
sons of slaves to fight with lance and longsword in the Westerosi fashion . . . but what 
good would lances do, against cowards who killed from the shadows? 

“Not in this,” the old man admitted. “And Your Grace has no knights, save me. It will be 
years before the boys are ready.” 

“Then who, if not Unsullied? Dothraki would be even worse.” Her khalasar was tiny, and 
largely of green boys and old men. And Dothraki fought from horseback. Mounted men 
were of more use in open fields and hills than in the narrow streets and alleys of the city. 


Beyond Meereen’s walls of many-colored brick her rule was tenuous at best. Thousands 
of slaves still toiled on vast estates in the hills, growing wheat and olives, herding sheep 
and goats, and mining salt and copper. Meereen’s storehouses still held ample supplies of 
grain, oil, olives, dried fruit, and salted meat, but the stores were dwindling. So Dany had 
dispatched her khalasar to subdue the hinterlands, under the command of her three 
bloodriders, whilst Brown Ben Plumm took his Second Sons south to guard against 
Yunkish incursions. 

The most crucial task of all she had entrusted to Daario Naharis, glib-tongued Daario 
with his gold tooth and trident beard, smiling his wicked smile through purple whiskers. 
Beyond the eastern hills was a range of rounded sandstone mountains, the Khyzai Pass, 
and Lhazar. If Daario could convince the Lhazarene to reopen the overland trade routes, 
grains could be brought down the river or over the hills at need . . . but the Lamb Men 
had no reason to love Meereen. “When the Stormcrows return from Lhazar, perhaps I can 
use them in the streets,” she told Ser Barristan, “but until then I have only the Unsullied.” 

Dany wondered if Daario had reached Lhazar. Daario will not fail me . . . but if he does, I 
will find another way. That is what queens do. They find a way, a way that does not 
involve taking plows across the river. Even famine might be preferable to sending plows 
across the Skahazadhan. It was known. “You must excuse me, ser,” she said. “The 
petitioners will soon be at my gates. I must don my floppy ears and become their queen 
again. Summon Reznak and the Shavepate; I’ll see them when I’m dressed.” 

“As Your Grace commands.” Selmy bowed. 

The Great Pyramid shouldered eight hundred feet into the sky, from its huge square base 
to the lofty apex where the queen kept her private chambers, surrounded by greenery and 
fragrant pools. As a cool blue dawn broke over the city, Dany walked out onto the 
terrace. To the west sunlight blazed off the golden domes of the Temple of the Graces, 
and etched deep shadows behind the stepped pyramids of the mighty. In some of those 
pyramids, the Sons of the Harpy are plotting new murders even now, she thought, and I 
am powerless to stop them. Viserion sensed her disquiet. The white dragon lay coiled 
around a pear tree, his head resting on his tail. When Dany passed his eyes came open, 
two pools of molten gold. His horns were gold as well, and the scales that ran down his 
back from head to tail. “You’re lazy,” she told him, scratching under his jaw. His scales 
were hot to the touch, like armor left cooking too long in the sun. Dragons are fire made 
flesh. She had read that in one of the books Ser Jorah had given her as a wedding gift. 
“You should be hunting with your brothers. Have you been fighting Drogon again?” Her 
dragons had grown wilder of late. Rhaegal had snapped at Irri, and Viserion had set 
Reznak’s tokar ablaze the last time the Seneschal had called. I have left them too much to 
themselves, but where am I to find the time for them? 

Viserion’s tail lashed sideways, thumping the trunk of the tree so hard that a pear came 
tumbling down to land at Dany’s feet. His wings unfolded, and he half-flew, half-hopped 
onto the parapet. He is growing, she thought, as the dragon launched himself into the sky. 
They are all three growing. Soon they will be large enough to bear my weight. Then she 


would fly as Aegon the Conquerer had flown, up and up, until Meereen was so small that 
she could blot it out with her thumb. 

She watched Viserion climb in widening circles, until he was lost to sight beyond muddy 
waters of the Skahazadhan. Only then did Dany go back inside the pyramid, where Irri 
and Jhiqui were waiting to brush the tangles from her hair and garb her as befit the Queen 
of Meereen, in a Ghiscari tokar. 

The garment was clumsy thing, a long loose shapeless sheet that had to be wound around 
her hips and under an arm and over a shoulder, its dangling fringes carefully layered and 
displayed. Wound too loose, it was like to fall off; wound too tight, it would tangle, trip, 
and bind. Even wound properly, the tokar required its wearer to hold it in place with the 
left hand. Walking in a tokar demanded small, mincing steps and exquisite balance, lest 
one tread upon those heavy trailing fringes. It was not a garment meant for any man who 
had to work. The tokar was a master’s garment, a sign of wealth and power. 

Dany had wanted to ban the tokar when she took Meereen, but her council had convinced 
her otherwise. “The Mother of Dragons must don the tokar or be forever hated,” warned 
the Green Grace, Galazza Galare. “In the wools of Westeros or a gown of Myrish lace, 
Your Radiance shall forever remain a stranger amongst us, a grotesque outlander, a 
barbarian conquerer. Meereen’s queen must be a lady of Old Ghis.” Brown Ben Plumm, 
the captain of the Second Sons, had put it more succinctly. “Man wants to be the king o’ 
the rabbits, he best wear a pair o’ floppy ears.” 

The floppy ears she chose today were made of sheer white linen, with a fringe of golden 
tassels. With Jhiqui’s help, she wound the tokar about herself correctly on her third 
attempt. Irri fetched her crown, wrought in the shape of the three-headed dragon of her 
House. Its coils were gold, its wings silver, its three heads ivory, onyx, and jade. Dany’s 
neck and shoulders would be stiff and sore from the weight of it before the day was done. 
A crown should not sit easy on the head. One of her royal forebears had said that, once. 
An Aegon, but which one? 

Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, and there might have been a 
sixth if the Usurper’s dogs had not murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at 
the breast. If he had lived I might have married him. Aegon would have been closer to my 
age than Viserys. Dany had scarcely been conceived when Aegon and his sister were 
murdered. Their father had perished even earlier, slain by the Usurper on the Trident. Her 
other brother, Viserys, had died screaming in Vaes Dothrak with a crown of molten gold 
upon his head. They will kill me too, if I allow it. The knives that slew my Stalwart Shield 
were meant for me. 

She had not forgotten the slave children the Great Masters had nailed up along the road 
from Yunkai. They had numbered one hundred sixty-three, a child every mile, nailed to 
mileposts with one arm outstetched to point her way. After Meereen had fallen, Dany 
nailed up a like number of Great Masters. Swarms of flies had attended their slow dying, 
and the stench had lingered long in the plaza. Yet some days she feared that she had not 


gone nearly far enough. These Meereenese were a sly and stubborn people who resisted 
her at every turn. They had freed their slaves, yes . . . only to hire them back as servants 
at wages so meager that most could scarce afford to eat. Freedmen too old or young to be 
of use had been cast into the streets, along with the infirm and the crippled. And still the 
Great Masters gathered atop their lofty pyramids to complain of how the dragon queen 
had filled their noble city with hordes of unwashed beggars, thieves, and whores. 

To rule Meereen I must win the Meereenese, however much I may despise them. “I am 
ready,” she told Irri. 

Reznak and Skahaz waited atop the marble steps. “Great queen,” declared Reznak mo 
Reznak, “you are so radiant today I fear to look on you.” The Seneschal wore a tokar of 
maroon silk with a golden fringe. A small, damp man, he smelled as if he had bathed in 
perfume and spoke a bastard form of High Valyrian, much corrupted and flavored with a 
thick Ghiscari growl. 

“You are kind to say so,” Dany answered, in a purer form of the same tongue. 

“My queen,” growled Skahaz mo Kandaq, of the shaven head. Ghiscari hair was dense 
and wiry; it had long been the fashion for the men of the Slaver Cities to tease it into 
horns and spikes and wings. By shaving, Skahaz had put old Meereen behind him to 
accept the new. His Kandaq kin had done the same after his example. Others followed, 
though whether from fear, fashion, or ambition, Dany could not say; shavepates, they 
were called. Skahaz was the Shavepate . . . and the vilest of traitors to the Sons of the 
Harpy and their ilk. “We were told about the eunuch.” 

“His name was Stalwart Shield.” 

“More will die, unless the murderers are punished.” Even with his shaven scalp, Skahaz 
had an odious face; a beetled brow, small eyes with heavy bags beneath them, a big nose 
dark with blackheads, oily skin that looked more yellow than the usual amber of Ghiscari. 
It was a blunt, brutal, angry face. She could only pray it was an honest one as well. 

“How can I punish them when I do not know who they are?” Dany demanded of him. 
“Tell me that, bold Skahaz.” 

“You have no lack of enemies, Your Grace. You can see their pyramids from your 
terrace. Zhak, Hazkar, Ghazeen, Merreq, Loraq, all the old slaving families. Pahl. Pahl, 
most of all. A house of women now. Bitter old women with a taste for blood. Women do 
not forget. Women do not forgive.” 

No, Dany thought, and the Usurper’s dogs will learn that, when I return to Westeros. It 
was true that there was blood between her and the house of Pahl. Oznak zo Pahl had been 
Meereen’s hero until Strong Belwas slew him. His father, commander of the city watch, 
had died defending the gates when Joso’s Cock smashed them into splinters. His uncle 
had been one of the hundred sixty-three on the plaza. 


“How much gold have we offered for information concerning the Sons of the Harpy?” 
Dany asked of Reznak. 

“One hundred honors, if it please Your Radiance.” 

“One thousand honors would please us more. Make it so.” 

“Your Grace has not asked for my counsel,” said Skahaz Shavepate, “but I say that blood 
must pay for blood. Take one man from each of the families I have named and kill him. 
The next time one of yours is slain, take two from each great house and kill them both. 
There will not be a third murder.” 

Reznak squealed in distress. “Noooo . . . gentle queen, such savagery would bring down 
the ire of the gods. We will find the murderers, I promise you, and when we do they will 
prove to be baseborn filth, you shall see.” 

The Seneschal was as bald as Skahaz, though in his case the gods were responsible. 
“Should any hair be so insolent as to appear, my barber stands with razor ready,” he had 
said when she raised him up. There were times when Dany wondered if that razor might 
not be better used on Reznak’s throat. He was a useful man, but she liked him little and 
trusted him less. She had not forgotten the maegi Mirri Maz Duur, who had repaid her 
kindness by murdering her sun-and-stars and unborn child. 

The Undying had told her she would be thrice betrayed. The maegi had been the first, Ser 
Jorah the second. Will Reznak be the third, or the Shavepate, or Daario? Or will it be 
someone I would never suspect, Ser Barristan or Grey Worm or Missandei? 

“Skahaz,” she told the Shavepate, “I thank you for your counsel. Reznak, see what one 
thousand honors may accomplish.” Clutching her tokar, Daenerys swept past them down 
the broad marble stair. She took one step at a time, lest she trip over her fringe and go 
tumbling headfirst into court. 

Missandei announced her. The little scribe had a sweet, strong voice. “All kneel for 
Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the 
Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles and 
Mother of Dragons,” she cried as Dany made her slow descent. 

The hall had filled. Unsullied stood with their backs to the pillars, holding their shields 
and spears, the spikes on their caps jutting upward like a row of knives. The Meereenese 
had gathered beneath the eastern windows, in a throng of shaven pates and hairy horns 
and hands and spirals. Her freedmen stood well apart from their former masters. Until 
they stand together, Meereen will know no peace. “Arise.” Dany settled onto her bench. 
The hall rose. That at least they do as one. 


Reznak mo Reznak had a list. Custom demanded that the queen begin with the Astapori 
envoy, a former slave who called himself Lord Ghael, though no one seemed to know 
what he was lord of. 

Lord Ghael had a mouth of brown and rotten teeth and the pointed yellow face of a 
weasel. He also had a gift. “Cleon the Great sends these slippers as a token of his love for 
Daenerys Stormborn, the Mother of Dragons,” he announced. 

Irri fetched the slippers for her and put them on Dany’s feet. They were gilded leather, 
decorated with green freshwater pearls. Does the butcher king believe a pair of pretty 
slippers will win my hand? “King Cleon is most generous,” she said. “You may thank 
him for his lovely gift.” Lovely, but made for a child. Dany had small feet, yet the 
slippers mashed her toes together. 

“Great Cleon will be pleased to know they pleased you,” said Lord Ghael. “His 
Magnificence bids me say that he stands ready to defend the Mother of Dragons from all 
her foes.” 

If he proposes that I marry Cleon again, I’ll throw a slipper at his head, Dany thought, 
but for once the Astapori envoy made no mention of a marriage. 

Instead he said, “The time has come for Astapor and Meereen to end the savage reign of 
the Wise Masters of Yunkai, sworn foes to all those who live in freedom. Great Cleon 
bids me tell you that he and his new Unsullied will soon march.” 

His new Unsullied are an obscene jape. “King Cleon would be wise to tend his own 
gardens and let the Yunkai’i tend theirs.” It was not that she harbored any love for 
Yunkai. More and more she was coming to regret leaving the Yellow City untaken after 
defeating its army in the field. The Wise Masters had returned to slaving as soon as she’d 
moved on, and were busy raising levies, hiring sellswords, and making alliances against 
her. Cleon the self-styled Great was little better, however. The Butcher King had restored 
slavery to Astapor, the only change being that the former slaves were now the masters 
and the former masters were now the slaves. He is still a butcher, and his hands are 
bloody. “I am only a young girl and know little of the ways of war,” she went on, “but it 
is said that Astapor is starving. Let King Cleon feed his people before he leads them out 
to battle.” She made a gesture of dismissal, and Ghael withdrew. 

“Magnificence,” prompted Reznak mo Reznak, “will you hear the noble Hizdahr zo 
Loraq?” 

Again? Dany nodded, and Hizdahr strode forth; a tall man, very slender, with flawless 
amber skin. He bowed on the same spot where Stalwart Shield had lain in death not long 
before. I need this man, Dany reminded herself. Hizdahr was a weathly merchant with 
many friends in Meereen, and more across the seas. He had visited Volantis, Lys, and 
Qarth, had kin in Tolos and Elyria, and was even said to wield some influence in New 
Ghis, where the Yunkai’i were trying to stir up enmity against Dany and her rule. 


And he was rich. Famously and fabulously rich . . . 

And like to grow richer, if I grant his petition. When Dany had closed the city’s fighting 
pits, the value of pit shares had plummeted. Hizdahr zo Loraq had grabbed them up with 
both hands, and now owned most of the pits in Meereen. 

The nobleman had wings of hair sprouting from his temples as if his head were about to 
take flight. His long face was made even longer by a beard of wiry red-black hair bound 
with rings of gold. His purple tokar was fringed with amethysts and pearls. “Your 
Radiance will know the reason I am here.” 

“Why,” she said, “it must be because you have no other purpose but to plague me. How 
many times have I refused you?” 

“Five times, Your Magnificence.” 

“Six, now. I will not have the fighting pits reopened.” 

“If Your Majesty will hear my arguments . . .” 

“I have. Five times. Have you brought new arguments?” 

“Old arguments,” Hizdahr admitted, “new words. Lovely words, and courteous, more apt 
to move a queen.” 

“It is your cause I find wanting, not your courtesies. I have heard your arguments so often 
I could plead your case myself. Shall I?” She leaned forward. “The fighting pits have 
been a part of Meereen since the city was founded. The combats are profoundly religious 
in nature, a blood sacrifice to the gods of Ghis. The mortal art of Ghis is not mere 
butchery, but a display of courage, skill, and strength most pleasing to the gods. 
Victorious fighters are well fed, pampered, and acclaimed, and the heroic slain are 
honored and remembered. By reopening the pits I would show the people of Meereen that 
I respect their ways and customs. The pits are far-famed across the world. They draw 
trade to Meereen, and fill the city’s coffers with coin from the far ends of the earth. All 
men share a taste for blood, a taste the pits help slake. In that way they make Meereen 
more tranquil. For criminals condemned to die upon the sands, the pits represent a 
judgment by battle, a last chance for a man to prove his innocence.” Dany tossed her hair. 
“There. How have I done?” 

“Your Radiance has stated the case much better than I could have hoped to do myself. I 
see that you are eloquent as well as beautiful. I am quite persuaded.” 

She had to laugh. “Very good . . . but I am not.” 


“Your Magnificence,” whispered Reznak mo Reznak in her ear, “if I might remind you, it 
is customary for the city to claim one-tenth of all the profits from the fighting pits, after 
expenses, as a tax. That coin might be put to many noble uses.” 

“It might,” she agreed, “though if we were to reopen the pits, we should take our tenth 
before expenses. I am only a young girl and know little of trade, but I dwelled with Illyrio 
Mopatis and Xaro Xhoan Daxos long enough to know that much. It makes no matter. 
Hizdahr, if you could marshal armies as you marshal arguments, you could conquer the 
world . . . but my answer is still no. For the sixth time.” 

He bowed again, as deeply as before. His pearls and amethysts clattered softly against the 
marble floor. A very limber man was Hizdahr zo Loraq. “The queen has spoken.” 

He might be handsome, but for that silly hair. Reznak and the Green Grace had been 
urging Dany to take a Meereenese noble for her husband, to reconcile the city to her rule. 
If it came to that, Hizdahr zo Loraq might be worth a careful look. Sooner him than 
Skahaz. The Shavepate had offered to set aside his wife for her, but the notion made her 
shudder. Hizdahr at least knew how to smile, though when Dany tried to imagine what it 
would be like to share a bed with him, she almost laughed aloud. 

“Magnificence,” said Reznak, consulting his list, “the noble Grazdan zo Galare would 
address you. Will you hear him?” 

“It would be my pleasure,” said Dany, admiring the glimmer of the gold and the sheen of 
the green pearls on Cleon’s slippers while doing her best to ignore the pinching in her 
toes. Grazdan, she had been forewarned, was a cousin of the Green Grace, whose support 
she had found invaluable. The priestess was a voice for peace, acceptance, and obedience 
to lawful authority. I can give her cousin a respectful hearing, whatever he desires. 

What he desired turned out to be gold. Dany had refused to compensate any of the Great 
Masters for the value of the slaves that she had freed, but the Meereenese kept devising 
other ways to try to squeeze coin from her. The noble Grazdan was one such. He had 
once owned a slave woman who was a very fine weaver, he told her; the fruits of her 
loom were greatly valued, not only in Meereen, but in New Ghis and Astapor and Qarth. 
When this woman had grown old, Grazdan had purchased half a dozen young girls and 
commanded the crone to instruct them in the secrets of her craft. The old woman was 
dead now. The young ones, freed, had opened a shop by the harbor wall to sell their 
weavings. Grazdan zo Galare asked that he be granted a portion of their earnings. “They 
owe their skill to me,” he insisted. “I plucked them from the auction bloc and gave them 
to the loom.” 

Dany listened quietly, her face still. When he was done, she said, “What was the name of 
the old weaver?” 

“The slave?” Grazdan shifted his weight, frowning. “She was . . . Elza, it might have 
been. Or Ella. It was six years ago she died. I have owned so many slaves, Your Grace.” 


“Let us say Elza.” Dany raised a hand. “Here is our ruling. From the girls, you shall have 
nothing. It was Elza who taught them weaving, not you. From you, the girls shall have a 
new loom, the finest coin can buy. That is for forgetting the name of the old woman. You 
may go.” 

Reznak would have summoned another tokar next, but Dany insisted that he call upon 
one of the freedmen instead. From that point on she alternated between the former 
masters and the former slaves. Many and more of the matters brought before her involved 
redress. Meereen had been sacked savagely after its fall. The stepped pyramids of the 
mighty had been spared the worst of the ravages, but the humbler parts of the city had 
been given over to an orgy of looting and killing as the city’s slaves rose up and the 
starving hordes who had followed her from Yunkai and Astapor came pouring through 
the broken gates. Her Unsullied had finally restored order, but the sack had left a plague 
of problems in its wake, and no one was quite certain which laws still held true. And so 
they came to see the queen. 

A rich woman came, whose husband and sons had died defending the city walls. During 
the sack she had fled to her brother in fear. When she returned, she found her house had 
been turned into a brothel. The whores had bedecked themselves in her jewels and 
clothes. She wanted her house back, and her jewels. “They can keep the clothes,” she 
allowed. Dany granted her the jewels, but ruled the house was lost when she abandoned 
it. 

A former slave came, to accuse a certain noble of the Zhak. The man had recently taken 
to wife a freedwoman who had been the noble’s bedwarmer before the city fell. The 
noble had taken her maidenhood, used her for his pleasure, and gotten her with child. Her 
new husband wanted the noble gelded for the crime of rape, and he wanted a purse of 
gold as well, to pay him for raising the noble’s bastard as his own. Dany granted him the 
gold, but not the gelding. “When he lay with her, your wife was his property, to do with 
as he would. By law, there was no rape.” Her decision did not please him, she could see, 
but if she gelded every man who ever forced a bedslave, she would soon rule a city of 
eunuchs. 

A boy came, younger than Dany, slight and scarred, dressed up in a frayed grey tokar 
trailing silver fringe. His voice broke when he told of how two of his father’s household 
slaves had risen up the night the gate broke. One had slain his father, the other his elder 
brother. Both had raped his mother before killing her as well. The boy had escaped with 
no more than the scar upon his face, but one of the murderers was still living in his 
father’s house, and the other had joined the queen’s soldiers as one of the Mother’s Men. 
He wanted them both hanged. 

I am queen over a city built on dust and death. Dany had no choice but to deny him. She 
had declared a blanket pardon for all crimes committed during the sack. Nor would she 
punish slaves for rising up against their masters. 


When she told him, the boy rushed at her, but his feet tangled in his tokar and he went 
sprawling headlong on the purple marble. Strong Belwas was on him at once. The huge 
brown eunuch yanked him up one-handed and shook him like a mastiff with a rat. 
“Enough, Belwas,” Dany called. “Release him.” To the boy she said, “Treasure that 
tokar, for it saved your life. Had you laid a hand on us in anger, you would have lost that 
hand. You are only a boy, so we will forget what happened here. You should do the 
same.” But as he left, the boy looked back over his shoulder, and when she saw his eyes 
Dany thought, The harpy has another son. 

And so her day crept by, tedious and terrifying by turns. By midday Daenerys was feeling 
the weight of the crown upon her head, and the hardness of the bench beneath her. With 
so many still waiting on her pleasure, she did not stop to eat. Instead she dispatched 
Jhiqui to the kitchens for a platter of flatbread, olives, figs, and cheese. She nibbled 
whilst she listened, and sipped from a cup of watered wine. The figs were fine, the olives 
even finer, but the wine left a tart metallic aftertaste in her mouth. The small, pale yellow 
grapes native to these regions produced a notably inferior vintage. We shall have no trade 
in wine, Dany realized as she sipped. Besides, the Great Masters had burned the best 
arbors along with the olive trees. 

In the afternoon a sculptor came, proposing to replace the head of the great bronze harpy 
in the Plaza of Purification with one cast in Dany’s image. She denied him with as much 
courtesy as she could muster, struggling not to shudder. A pike of unprecedented size had 
been caught in the Skahazadhan, and the fisherman wished to give it to the queen. She 
admired the fish extravagantly, rewarded the fisherman with a plump purse of silver, and 
sent the pike down to her kitchens. A coppersmith had fashioned her a suit of burnished 
rings to wear to war. She accepted it with fulsome thanks; it was lovely to behold, and all 
that burnished copper would flash prettily in the sun, though if actual battle threatened 
she would sooner be clad in steel. Even a young girl who knew nothing of the ways of 
war knew that. 

The slippers the Butcher King had sent her had grown too uncomfortable. Dany kicked 
them off, and sat with one foot tucked beneath her and the other swinging back and forth. 
It was not a very regal pose, but she was tired of being regal. The crown had given her a 
headache, and her buttocks had gone to sleep. “Ser Barristan,” she called, “I know what 
quality a king needs most.” 

“Courage, Your Grace?” 

“No,” she teased, “cheeks like iron. All I do is sit.” 

“Your Grace takes too much on herself. You should allow your councillors to shoulder 
more of your burdens.” 

“I have too many councillors. What I need is cushions.” Dany turned to Reznak. “How 
many more?” 


“Three and twenty, if it please Your Magnificence. With as many claims.” The seneschal 
consulted some papers. “One calf and three goats. The rest will be sheep or lambs, no 
doubt.” 

“Three and twenty.” Dany sighed. “My dragons have developed a prodigious taste for 
mutton since we began to pay the shepherds for their kills. Have these claims been 
proven?” 

“Some men have brought burnt bones.” 

“Men make fires. Men cook mutton. Burnt bones prove nothing. Brown Ben says there 
are red wolves in the hills outside the city, and jackals and wild dogs. Must we pay good 
silver for every lamb that goes astray between Yunkai and the Skahazadhan?” 

“No, Magnificence.” Reznak bowed. “Shall I send these rascals away, or will you want 
them scourged?” 

Daenerys shifted on the bench. The ebony felt hard beneath her. “No man should ever 
fear to come to me. Pay them.” Some claims were false, she did not doubt, but more were 
genuine. Her dragons had grown too large to be content with rats and cats and dogs, as 
before. The more they eat the larger they will grow, Ser Barristan had warned her, and 
the larger they grow, the more they’ll eat. Drogon especially ranged far afield and could 
easily devour a sheep a day. “Pay them for the value of their animals,” she told Reznak, 
“but henceforth claimants must present themselves at the Temple of the Graces, and 
swear a holy oath before the gods of Ghis.” 

“It shall be done.” Reznak turned to the petitioners. “Her Magnificence the Queen has 
consented to compensate each of you for the animals you have lost,” he told them in the 
Ghiscari tongue. “Present yourselves to my factors on the morrow, and you shall be paid 
in coin or kind, as you prefer.” 

The pronouncement was received in sullen silence. You would think they might be 
happier, Dany thought, annoyed. They have what they came for. Is there no way to please 
these people? 

One man lingered behind as the rest were filing out; a squat man with a windburnt face, 
shabbily dressed. His hair was a cap of coarse red-black wire cropped about his ears, and 
in one hand he held a sad cloth sack. He stood with his head down, gazing at the marble 
floor as if he had quite forgotten where he was. And what does this one want? Dany 
wondered, frowning. 

“All kneel for Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals 
and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles 
and Mother of Dragons,” cried Missandei in her high, sweet voice. 


As Dany stood, her tokar began to slip. She caught it and tugged it back into place. “You 


with the sack,” she called, “did you wish to speak with us? You may approach.” 
When he raised his head, his eyes were red and raw as open sores. Dany glimpsed Ser 
Barristan sliding closer, a white shadow at her side. The man approached in a stumbling 
shuffle, one step and then another, clutching his sack. Is he drunk, or ill? she wondered. 
There was dirt beneath his cracked yellow fingernails. 


“What is it?” she demanded. “Do you have some grievance to lay before us, some 
petition? What would you have of us?” 
His tongue flicked nervously over chapped, cracked lips. “I . . . I brought . . .” 
“Bones?” she said, impatiently. “Burnt bones?” 


He lifted the sack, and spilled its contents on the marble. 
Bones they were, broken bones and blackened. The longer ones had been cracked open 
for their marrow. 


“It were the black one,” the man said, in a Ghiscari growl, “the winged shadow. He come 
down from the sky and . . . and . . .” 

No. Dany shivered. No, no, oh no. 
“Are you deaf, fool?” Reznak mo Reznak demanded of the man. “Did you not hear my 
pronouncement? See my factors on the morrow, and you shall be paid for your sheep.” 


“Reznak,” Ser Barristan said quietly, “hold your tongue and open your eyes. Those are no 
sheep bones.” 
No, Dany thought, those are the bones of a child.