A Dance with Dragons: Chapters 36–47

Viserys had oft claimed that Targaryens were untroubled by the pestilences that afflicted common men, and so far as she could tell, it was true.

The bloody flux has been the bane of every army since the Dawn Age.

Yunkai and her allies will require an indemnity of us, to be paid in gold and gemstones.

As Daario Naharis took a knee before her, Dany’s heart gave a lurch.

If he was seen to accept Bolton’s feigned girl as Arya, the northern lords who had gathered to bear witness to the match would have no grounds to question her legitimacy.

“In her children our two ancient houses will become as one,” he said, “and the long enmity between Stark and Bolton will be ended.”

Any insolence would cost him skin.

Her plot to crown Myrcella had been betrayed and smashed, her white knight had perished bloodily at Hotah’s hand, and she herself had been confined to the Spear Tower, condemned to solitude and silence.

Our enemies are in disarray. The time is ripe.

Procrastinate, obscure, prevaricate, dissemble, and delay all you like, Uncle, Ser Balon must still come face-to-face with Myrcella at the Water Gardens, and when he does he’s like to see she’s short an ear.

It was a feeble sort of evasion, a sad rag wrapped around his wounded word.

Fire is a fickle thing. No one knows which way a flame will go.

Wun Wun was very little like the giants in Old Nan’s tales, those huge savage creatures who mixed blood into their morning porridge and devoured whole bulls, hair and hide and horns.

He was no champion, just a dwarf on a pig clutching a stick, capering for the amusement of some restless rum-soaked sailors in hopes of sweetening their mood.

My perfect woman, Tyrion thought bitterly. One still young enough to believe such blatant lies.

By the time the storm abated and the surviving passengers and crew came crawling back on deck, like pale pink worms wriggling to the surface after a rain, the Selaesori Qhoran was a broken thing, floating low in the water and listing ten degrees to port, her hull sprung in half a hundred places, her hold awash in seawater, her mast a splintered ruin no taller than a dwarf.

Lord Ramsay commanded Abel to give them a marching song in honor of Stannis trudging through the snows, so the bard took up his lute again, whilst one of his washerwomen coaxed a sword from Sour Alyn and mimed Stannis slashing at the snowflakes.

Huddled in their hooded cloaks, the guards outside were almost indistinguishable from the snowmen.

Lady Dustin was silent during their ascent, but when they stood beneath the ruins of the First Keep again she shivered and said, “You would do well not to repeat anything I might have said down there. Is that understood?”

Asha Greyjoy rode in the baggage train, in a covered wayn with two huge iron-rimmed wheels, fettered at wrist and ankle and watched over day and night by a She-Bear who snored worse than any man.

She was only his hostage, a prize to show the north that he could vanquish the ironborn.

Men from the green lands liked their women soft and sweet in silk, she knew, not clad in mail and leather with a throwing axe in each hand.

On the day that he returned from his latest sortie, he had tossed the head of a Yunkish lord at her feet and kissed her in the hall for all the world to see, until Barristan Selmy pulled the two of them apart.

Frog, the squire, was the youngest of the three, and the least impressive, a solemn, stocky lad, brown of hair and eye.

She relied so much on the little scribe that she oft forgot that Missandei had only turned eleven.

Jon had enough to contend with just now without adding a drunken giant to the mix.

Since young King Tommen and his counsellors have become so obdurate, we mean to broach the subject with King Stannis.

You haggle like a crone with a codfish, Lord Snow.

Once she almost fell headlong down the steps, but Syrio Forel had taught her balance in another lifetime, when she was the girl called Arya, and somehow she recovered and caught herself in time.

Under the temple was a maze of vaults and tunnels where even men with two good eyes were often lost, but the blind girl had learned every inch of it, and she had her stick to help her find her way should her memory falter.

Every word she said persuaded Theon that this was all some ploy.

Lady Dustin parted her lips in a thin, feral smile. “The north remembers, Frey.”

I bid ten thousand silvers for myself! I’m good for it, I am, I am. My father told me I must always pay my debts.

When the slavers had swarmed aboard the Selaesori Qhoran, Ser Jorah had met them with longsword in hand, slaying three before they overwhelmed him.

Jorah Mormont accepted his collar in a sullen silence, but Penny began to cry as the armorer was fastening her own into place.