A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)

by George R.R. Martin

Bran thought about it. “Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?” “That is the only time a man can be brave,”

If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.”

She had been born a Tully, at Riverrun far to the south, on the Red Fork of the Trident. The godswood there was a garden, bright and airy, where tall redwoods spread dappled shadows across tinkling streams, birds sang from hidden nests, and the air was spicy with the scent of flowers.

Ned had built a small sept where she might sing to the seven faces of god,

Valyria, before the Doom had come to the old Freehold, when the ironsmiths had worked their metal with spells as well as hammers.

a direwolf dead in the snow, a broken antler in its throat.

Casterly Rock and the Eyrie, Highgarden and the Vale of Arryn, Dorne and the Isle of Faces,

Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar’s heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes.

the big house with the red door.

All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

“Ours is the house of the dragon,” he would say. “The fire is in our blood.”

theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. Yet now Viserys schemed to sell her to a stranger, a barbarian.

The Dornishmen burn to avenge Elia and her children. And the smallfolk will be with us.

Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone. His honorable host, Illyrio Mopatis, Magister of the Free City of Pentos.”

Ser Jorah Mormont.”

Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

“I swear to you, sitting a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one. Laws are a tedious business and counting coppers is worse. And the people … there is no end of them. I sit on that damnable iron chair and listen to them complain until my mind is numb and my ass is raw. They all want something, money or land or justice. The lies they tell … and my lords and ladies are no better. I am surrounded by flatterers and fools. It can drive a man to madness, Ned. Half of them don’t dare tell me the truth, and the other half can’t find it. There are nights I wish we had lost at the Trident.

“Lord Eddard Stark, I would name you the Hand of the King.”

The Hand of the King was the second-most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms. He spoke with the king’s voice, commanded the king’s armies, drafted the king’s laws. At times he even sat upon the Iron Throne to dispense king’s justice, when the king was absent, or sick, or otherwise indisposed.

winter was coming.

the peerless Robert Baratheon, demon of the Trident, the fiercest warrior of the realm, a giant among princes.

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”

the seeming.” Under the heavy weight of her furs, Catelyn shivered. “A

Aemon the Dragonknight. The twins Ser Erryk and Ser Arryk, who had died on one another’s swords hundreds of years ago, when brother fought sister in the war the singers called

Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”

but never raised his own voice in reply. There was something very

mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

Have Ser Ilyn see to it.” “Robert, you cannot mean this,” Ned protested. The

Visenya’s hill was crowned by the Great Sept of Baelor with its seven crystal towers. Across the city on the hill of Rhaenys stood the blackened walls of the Dragonpit, its huge dome collapsing into ruin, its bronze doors closed now for a century.

Aegon’s high hill, was the Red Keep; seven huge drum-towers crowned with iron ramparts, an immense grim barbican, vaulted halls and covered bridges, barracks and dungeons and granaries, massive curtain walls studded with archers’ nests, all fashioned of pale red stone. Aegon the Conqueror had commanded it built. His son Maegor the Cruel had seen it completed. Afterward he had taken the heads of every stonemason, woodworker, and builder who had labored on it. Only the blood of the dragon would ever know the secrets of the fortress the Dragonlords had built, he vowed.

Valyrian of the Free Cities.

Let them see that their words can cut you, and you’ll never be free of the mockery. If they want to give you a name, take it, make it your own. Then they can’t hurt you with it anymore.”

“I am desperately sentimental, sweet lady. Best not tell anyone. I have spent years convincing the court that I am wicked and cruel, and I should hate to see all that hard work go for naught.”

And pray that he is the man I think he is,

and not the man I fear he has become.

“Why, I have steel in my hand, Ser Alliser, although it appears to be a crab fork. Shall we duel?” He hopped up on his chair and began poking at Thorne’s chest with the tiny fork.

And a face as noble as yours, well, no doubt he saw you decorating the city wall above the King’s Gate. I think you would have looked very striking up there.” “Thank you,” Ser Jaremy replied with a sardonic smile.

of warmth when the winch men opened the door and went back inside. And then he was alone. It was bitingly cold up here, and the wind pulled at his clothes like an insistent lover. The top of the Wall was wider than the kingsroad often was, so Tyrion

his legs complained more loudly with every step, but Tyrion ignored them. The wind swirled around him, gravel crunched beneath his boots, while ahead the white ribbon followed the lines of the hills, rising higher and higher, until it was lost beyond the western horizon. He passed a massive catapult, as tall as a city wall, its base sunk deep into the Wall. The throwing arm had been taken off for repairs and then forgotten; it lay there like a broken toy, half-embedded in the ice. On the far side of the catapult, a muffled voice called out a challenge. “Who goes there? Halt!” Tyrion

the white wolf behind the

missed nothing, not here, in this land, the place where they had come from. These plains were a part of them … and of her, now. “I hit him,” she said, wonder in her voice. Now that it was

“The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends,” Ser Jorah told her. “It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace.” He gave a shrug. “They never are.”

after that. He never spoke again.” Ned took another swallow of milk, trying not to gag on the sweetness of it. “Did it seem to you that there was anything unnatural about Lord Arryn’s death?” “Unnatural?”

hedge maester knows the common poisons,

of the signs. And the Hand was loved

a proverb Old Nan had taught him as a boy. “So the fishwives say,” Grand Maester Pycelle agreed, “but we know it is not always so. When Maester Luwin’s bird brought the word about your Bran,

the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother’s Faith and become the High Septon.” But he will never run beside his wolf again, he thought with a sadness too deep for words, or lie with a woman, or hold his own son in his arms. Arya cocked her head to one side. “Can