A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3)

by George R.R. Martin

What say we make a truce?”

“The Kingslayer, yes. The oathbreaker who murdered poor sad Aerys Targaryen.” Jaime snorted. “It’s not Aerys I rue, it’s Robert. ‘I hear they’ve named you Kingslayer,’ he said to me at his coronation feast. ‘Just don’t think to make it a habit.’ And he laughed. Why is it that no one names Robert oathbreaker? He tore the realm apart, yet I am the one with shit for honor.”

He saw traitors everywhere, and Varys was always there to point out any he might have missed. So His Grace commanded his alchemists to place caches of wildfire all over King’s Landing. Beneath Baelor’s Sept and the hovels of Flea Bottom, under stables and storehouses, at all seven gates, even in the cellars of the Red Keep itself.

“Everything was done in the utmost secrecy by a handful of master pyromancers. They did not even trust their own acolytes to help. The queen’s eyes had been closed for years, and Rhaegar was busy marshaling an army. But Aerys’s new mace-and-dagger Hand was not utterly stupid, and with Rossart, Belis, and Garigus coming and going night and day, he became suspicious.

The man who had cooked Lord Rickard Stark in his own armor.

And all the time, I stood by the foot of the Iron Throne in my white plate, still as a corpse, guarding my liege and all his sweet secrets.

“My Sworn Brothers were all away, you see, but Aerys liked to keep me close. I was my father’s son, so he did not trust me. He wanted me where Varys could w...

I’ll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him … that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash.

“It fell to me to hold the Red Keep, but I knew we were lost. I sent to Aerys asking his leave to make terms. My man came back with a royal command. ‘Bring me your father’s head, if you are no traitor.’ Aerys would have no yielding.

“Has my tale turned you speechless? Come, curse me or kiss me or call me a liar. Something.”

“The knights of the Kingsguard are sworn to keep the king’s secrets. Would you have me break my oath?” Jaime laughed. “Do you think the noble Lord of Winterfell wanted to hear my feeble explanations? Such an honorable man.

He only had to look at me to judge me guilty.”

Gentler than Cersei,

Jaime, he thought, my name is Jaime.

he was no match for her one-handed.

Jaime felt almost sorry for Robb Stark. He won the war on the battlefield and lost it in a bedchamber, poor fool.

Lord Vargo doubtless hoped that Lord Stannis would triumph at King’s Landing, and thence confirm him in his possession of this castle in gratitude for his small part in the downfall of House Lannister.” He gave a dry chuckle.

“Won every battle, while losing the Freys, the Karstarks, Winterfell, and the north. A pity the wolf is so young. Boys of sixteen always believe they are immortal and invincible. An older man would bend the knee, I’d think.

there are pardons … for the Robb Starks, at least. Not for the likes of Vargo Hoat.”

Of late the king had been repeating little jests about the Dornish that he’d picked up from Mace Tyrell’s men-at-arms. How many Dornishmen does it take to shoe a horse? Nine. One to do the shoeing, and eight to lift the horse up.

When the Dornishmen saw them coming, they spurred their own mounts, banners rippling as they rode. From their ornate saddles were slung the round metal shields they favored, and many carried bundles of short throwing spears, or the double-curved Dornish bows they used so well from horseback.

There were the salty Dornishmen who lived along the coasts, the sandy Dornishmen of the deserts and long river valleys, and the stony Dornishmen who made their fastnesses in the passes and heights of the Red Mountains.

The fabled sand steeds of Dorne were smaller than proper warhorses and could not bear such weight of armor, but it was said that they could run for a day and night and another day, and never tire.

Type of arabian horse?

A Martell sun, but ten years too young, Tyrion thought as he reined up, too fit as well, and far too fierce. He knew what he must deal with by then. How many Dornishmen does it take to start a war? he asked himself. Only one. Yet he had no choice but to smile.

“His Grace will be most honored to have the counsel of a warrior as renowned as Prince Oberyn of Dorne,”

“And this is Ellaria Sand, mine own paramour.”

His paramour, and bastard-born, Cersei will pitch a holy fit if he wants her at the wedding. If she consigned the woman to some dark corner below the salt, his sister would risk the Red Viper’s wrath. Seat her beside him at the high table, and every other lady on the dais was like to take offense. Did Prince Doran mean to provoke a quarrel?

Oberyn Nymeros Martell, Tyrion muttered under his breath as he fell in beside the man. The Red Viper of Dorne. And what in the seven hells am I supposed to do with him?

When he was no more than sixteen, Prince Oberyn had been found abed with the paramour of old Lord Yronwood, a huge man of fierce repute and short temper. A duel ensued, though in view of the prince’s youth and high birth, it was only to first blood. Both men took cuts, and honor was satisfied. Yet Prince Oberyn soon recovered, while Lord Yronwood’s wounds festered and killed him. Afterward men whispered that Oberyn had fought with a poisoned sword, and ever thereafter friends and foes alike called him the Red Viper.

He had traveled in the Free Cities, learning the poisoner’s trade and perhaps arts darker still, if rumors could be believed.

going so far as to forge six links of a maester’s chain before he grew bored.

riding with the Se...

it was said that he bedded men and women both, and had begotten bastard girls all over Dorne. The sand snakes, men called his daughters. So far as Tyrion had heard, Prince Oberyn had never fathered a son.

There is no man in the Seven Kingdoms who will be less welcome at a Tyrell wedding, thought Tyrion.

A wrong word, an ill-timed jest, a look, that’s all it will take, and our noble allies will be at one another’s throats.

A queer time to come visiting. His mother had died giving him birth, so the Martells would have found the Rock deep in mourning.

Tyrion had heard his uncles talk of the love between them. In those days, his father had been Aerys’s Hand, and many people said that Lord Tywin Lannister ruled the Seven Kingdoms, but Lady Joanna ruled Lord Tywin.

“I have hungered for a long time. Though not for food. Pray tell me, when will the justice be served?”

Tyrion could see the sun shining on the Blackwater Rush half a mile ahead, and on the walls and towers and hills of King’s Landing beyond.

The knee was far past mending. If any were to blame, it was his fool of a father. Willas Tyrell was green as his surcoat and had no business riding in such company.

Father should have sent Joffrey after all. He could have asked Prince Oberyn if he knew how a Dornishman differed from a cowflop.

A mummer tree, Arya thought as she watched them dangle, their pale skins painted a sullen red by the flames of the burning septry.

Lord Beric himself did not eat. Arya had never seen him eat, though from time to time he took a cup of wine. He did not seem to sleep, either. His good eye would often close, as if from weariness, but when you spoke to him it would flick open again at once.

“Even brave men blind themselves sometimes, when they are afraid to see,” Lord Beric said when Lem was gone.

It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?”

“What if my brother doesn’t want to ransom me?” “Why would you think that?” asked Lord Beric. “Well,” Arya said, “my hair’s messy and my nails are dirty and my feet are all hard.” Robb wouldn’t care about that, probably, but her mother would. Lady Catelyn always wanted her to be like Sansa, to sing and dance and sew and mind her courtesies. Just thinking of it made Arya try to comb her hair with her fingers, but it was all tangles and mats, and all she did was tear some out.

“The crows await us all.

“Arise Ser Gendry, knight of the hollow hill, and be welcome to our brotherhood.”

You could have made swords at Riverrun for my brother, she thought, but what she said was, “If you want to be some stupid outlaw knight and get hanged, why should I care? I’ll be at Riverrun, ransomed, with my brother.”

Good Queen Alysanne visited the Wall on her dragon Silverwing, and she thought the Night’s Watch was so brave that she had the Old King double the size of their lands, to fifty leagues. So that was the New Gift.” He waved a hand. “Here. All this.”