A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Eddard II
On the kingsroad south, Robert shows Ned a report of Daenerys' wedding and wants her dead; they argue about old wars and older ghosts.
The chapter retold
On the kingsroad heading south, Robert shows Ned a raven's report: Daenerys Targaryen is married and pregnant, and the king wants her killed before that Targaryen line can produce an heir to threaten his throne. Ned is appalled ÔÇö murdering a girl for the crime of her birth is exactly the kind of act the old Mad King's regime specialized in, and Ned fought a rebellion to end that kind of thinking ÔÇö and the two old friends, closer than brothers once, find themselves arguing across a gap neither of them expected the crown to open between them.
The scene reintroduces the ghosts that hang over the whole book: the war that made Robert king and orphaned the Targaryen children, and the uneasy peace built on the assumption that the losing side would simply vanish. Ned's horror at the assassination order is the first real crack in his working relationship with the king he's agreed to serve, and it establishes, well before either of them meets her, that Daenerys's survival is already a matter debated in rooms she'll never enter.
This movement: The Road South
- A catspaw with a Valyrian dagger comes for the sleeping Bran; Catelyn's hands and Summer's teeth stop him.
- On the kingsroad, Joffrey's cruelty costs Mycah his life, Sansa her wolf, and Arya her innocence.
- Jon takes the black and finds the Watch is boys and broken men; Tyrion goes along to piss off the edge of the world.
- Catelyn rides south in secret with the dagger ÔÇö and in a crossroads inn, arrests Tyrion Lannister.