A Dance With Dragons

Nineteen more days of snow have passed, and Stannis is still stuck. His men lose faith in him as more time passes without them moving. Stannis doesn’t circulate among them. He stays in his tent. His troops are starving. When several are caught eating their dead companions, he has the men burned to the god R’hllor. Asha is sure she will be the next to burn, and one of Stannis’s men nearly rapes her. They are all shocked when an envoy from the Iron Bank of Braavos arrives. He has Reek and Jeyne Poole with him. Theon is barely recognizable, but he greets Asha when she calls his name, saying, “My name is Theon. You have to know your name” (961).

Victarion makes his way toward Meereen, capturing ships as he goes. Moqorro’s accurate prophecies sway Victarion to honor both the sea god and the fire god with human sacrifices to the sea, although his inclusion of R’hllor angers the crew. Victarion wants glory. Euron entrusted him with a horn called “Dragonbinder.” Victarion thinks the horn will bind Daenerys’s dragon to him, giving him leverage over her. Moqorro reads the Valyrian script on the horn, and when he learns that the last man who blew it burned from the inside out, he warns Victarion that blowing the horn himself will kill him. Victarion isn’t surprised to hear this. Euron’s gifts are always calculated to damage the recipient or remove them as a threat to Euron’s power. Moqorro offers that Victarion need not blow the horn himself. Making a blood sacrifice to the horn will make Victarion the horn’s master, allowing him to get some other unsuspecting person to blow the horn for him. Victarion is thriving on his ship. Moqorro heals Victarion’s arm, which he has been hiding because he doesn’t want his crew to know he is injured.

The kindly man uses the magic of the Faceless Men to give Arya a disguise, the face of a girl brutally beaten about the head by her father. Using cunning, her senses, and observation of human nature, Arya completes her first assassination, earning her the role of acolyte so that she can begin her apprenticeship in the House of Black and White, the seat of the Faceless Men. This achievement comes only because she has to all appearances given up on killing for vengeance. To the priest and others, it looks as if she now sees killing as an impersonal act. In her heart, Arya still recites the names of those who have wronged her and her family. She intends to kill them if she gets the chance.

The day of Cersei’s walk of penance arrives. The septas shave her entire body to make sure every part of her body, which bears the marks of having given birth to several children, is visible. As required, Cersei makes the walk from the Starry Sept (the central temple) to the Red Keep, the family’s castle, naked. At first, she carries herself with pride, but the misogynistic insults and objects the townspeople hurl at her make her feel vulnerable and human. As she walks, she realizes that her physical beauty was a cloak that covered over her weakness and flaws as a woman. Exposed to the taunts and sight of the commoners, she is a diminished woman, less than a queen.

When she arrives at the Red Keep, disgraced former maester and spymaster Qyburn is there to welcome and comfort her. He has made her a champion, an enormous man who is clad in armor and who neither eats nor sleeps. He is Ser Robert Strong and is likely to kill anyone who faces him during the trial by combat. His height makes it likely that Qyburn used his unethical experiments to revive Gregor Clegane, whose skull isn’t in Dorne after all. Cersei is gleeful. Strong will do anything she commands, and she intends to use him to avenge herself on the people who humiliated her.

Tyrion signs promissory notes to the Second Sons to secure places for himself, Penny, and Jorah. He signs the notes, which are for outrageous sums, using his true name, relying on the Lannisters’ reputation for wealth as surety. He strikes Penny to give her a reality check when she complains about their situation. She thinks staying a pampered but enslaved person is preferable to the precarious life they lead now. Tyrion tells her in brusque terms that they can accept less comfort and more freedom or return to being enslaved people who will die in the coming fighting. The only challenge is that the Second Sons are fighting for Yunkai, which is likely to lose, he believes. He feels confident that he can get them to go over to Daenerys’s side and that she isn’t dead.

Shavepate confirms that Selmy will support the plan to overthrow Hizdahr. Selmy abides by the code of the Kingsguard and has his entire life. He was a fine warrior and knight in his day. He remembers the tourney at Harrenhal where he jousted against Prince Rhaegar. People began to call him “Barristan the Bold.” He had intended to name beautiful Ashara Dayne the queen of the tourney if he won, but Rhaegar won and named Lyanna Stark the queen of the tourney instead. Rhaegar later abducted Lyanna, a decision that set off a series of betrayals and violent acts that culminated in Robert’s Rebellion and the overthrow of the Targaryen dynasty. Selmy captures Hizdahr with few difficulties and carefully questions him to determine his guilt. Hizdahr denies everything and claims Daenerys is dead in any case. Their encounter ends when someone frees the dragons, who are now loose in the city of Meereen.

Prior to the events of the previous chapter, Quentyn Martell and his companions attempt to free the remaining dragons. They believe Daenerys is still alive. Before this attempt, Quentyn rues this plan, wishing he were living a normal life in Dorne rather than the adventures of the heroes he read about as a boy. He is heartened as he remembers that heroes sometimes live to be the subjects of those inspiring stories. He realizes he has made a mistake when the password the Tattered Prince gave him to bypass the dragons’ guards turns out to be wrong. Still, Quentyn persists. He has dragon’s blood in him and believes that showing confidence and hiding his fear will help him gain mastery over the dragons. His calculation is flawed as his companions feared. One of the dragons burns him with its fire.

Jon decides to use the Night’s Watch to save the wildlings at Hardhome, but he meets resistance from his captains and Queen Selyse. Melisandre warns him that she has premonitions of grave danger for him and that he should keep his direwolf by him. Ramsay Bolton sends word that he and Roose have defeated and killed Stannis. Ramsay writes that he has Mance Rayder, whose reappearance makes a liar out of Jon and a sham of the Night’s Watch’s neutrality. Everyone now knows that Jon has conspired with Stannis. Ramsay demands that Jon come to Winterfell with Princess Shireen (Stannis’s heir), Queen Selyse, Melisandre, Val, and Mance’s son. Ramsay furthermore claims that he has Arya. Jon shares the letter with the entire Watch. He orders the Watch to Hardhome to help the wildlings caught there. He intends to break his vows by going to the castle at Winterfell to save his sister, but he assures them that no one else need come with him and break their vows. Tormund Giantsbane is all for going to fight, but Jon’s rivals and many others are disturbed by his actions and reject his commands.

Ghost is locked away to prevent him from fighting one of the animals of the wildlings currently at Castle Black, so Jon is alone later that night when his enemies and many brothers stab him repeatedly. Bowen Marsh, a stalwart who supported Jon when he was first elected, “stood there before him, tears running down his cheeks” and says “[f]or the Watch” as he stabs Jon (1064). The many stab wounds Jon suffers appear to be mortal.

Quentyn Martell dies of his burns. When Selmy approaches Quentyn’s companions with a plan to gain back the Windblown, they initially reject him because they believed Daenerys treated their prince poorly. Selmy tells them the mistake was Dorne’s. Daenerys “needed swords, not hearts” (923), and Dorne sent Quentyn to Meereen for “dragons, not Daenerys” (923). Quentyn’s companions share that the price of the Tattered Prince’s support was Pentos. Selmy sets up a ruling council of rivals and allies in Meereen and begins to operate like the shrewd, underhanded nobles and kings he served his entire life. He suggests the council send a negotiator to get back the Meereenese hostages and to burn the Yunkai if they refuse to negotiate. He puts large flocks of livestock in the fighting pits, hoping to lure Drogon (and Daenerys) back to the city. He assures the members of the council that if they form a fighting coalition, they will have the two dragons backing them. Selmy doesn’t tell them that the dragons will come because the blood and sound of battle will attract them. The negotiator the council sent to the Yunkai returns with the news that the Yunkai will not declare a truce. The Sons of the Harpy are killing again. The two dragons are roosting on pyramids in the city, terrifying all. Then the Yunkai begin launching corpses of victims of the bloody flux into the city. Most people are certain that Daenerys is dead at this point.

Daenerys is alive and has been living in Drogon’s lair in the grasslands. She is starving. When she eats mounds of bitter berries, she is sick and has severe diarrhea. The berries cause her to hallucinate conversations with all the important people in her life, many of whom accuse her of being a traitor to them and her identity as a queen on both sides of the Narrow Sea. She tries to match up her life and decisions with the prophecy she received in the House of the Undying. Maybe the riddling words were pointing her to Westeros all along. Instead, she stayed in Meereen because she “was weary of war” and just wanted to be the girl she was (941). Her hallucination of Jorah Mormont chides her. She is a Targaryen, a dragon, and “[d]ragons plant no trees” because they are “Fire and Blood”(941). When her body has purged all the poison from the berries, Daenerys gets the first menstrual period she has had since the events that led to the hatching of her dragons and the death of her Dothraki lord and baby. She takes the resumption of her period as a sign that the prophecy is true since it promised she would get Khal Drogo back only after she had a living child.

As she walks, she encounters a scout for a khalasar (band) of Dothraki, but he runs away when Drogon nears. Had she been alone, the rider might well have raped her, killed her, or made her return to live among the cloistered women of the Dothraki. Instead, Drogon attacks the scout’s khalasar and brings horse meat for Daenerys to eat. That is how Khal Jhaqo, her old enemy, finds her.

Kevan Lannister deals with rivalry from the Tyrells and thinks he has cowed Cersei, whom he intends to send back to Casterly Rock once he has settled matters. With Cersei gone and the Faith appeased with her loss of power, Kevan believes he can finally bring stability to King’s Landing. He is mistaken. Rumors of Daenerys and her three dragons have reached the court, and everyone knows Jon Connington is supporting a boy who claims to be Aegon Targaryen, son of the Targaryen Robert Baratheon overthrew. The boy might be Aegon after all. When Tywin brought the children’s bodies to court, the baby boy’s face had been smashed beyond recognition. Kevan feels guilt at the role he played in Cersei’s humiliation, but he consoles himself by thinking that what happened to her was for the good of the Lannisters. Cersei had grown to be a “vain, foolish, greedy woman. Left to rule, she would have ruined Tommen as she had Joffrey” (953). Varys, the old king’s spymaster, kills Grandmaester Pycelle, who supplanted him. When Kevan goes to meet with Pycelle, Varys is there. He tells Kevan that he is supporting Aegon to take the Iron Chair, and he expects Aegon will make a success of his rulership. He reasons that “Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them” (1120). Varys then has his child spies kill Kevan.