A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Jon IV

Samwell Tarly arrives at the Wall, fat, craven and kind; Jon shames the bullies into sparing him and makes an unlikely friend.

The chapter retold

A new recruit arrives at Castle Black: Samwell Tarly, fat, self-confessed a coward, and about as far from the Watch's fighting ideal as a body can be, sent north by a father who'd rather disown him than watch him inherit Horn Hill. When the yard bullies start in on him ÔÇö Ser Alliser's training sessions have always doubled as an excuse for the cruel to have their fun ÔÇö Jon steps between them, threatening to fight all three at once rather than let Sam be humiliated further, and the bullies back down. It's the beginning of an unlikely, deeply loyal friendship.

Sam's arrival gives Jon something the Wall hasn't offered him yet: someone he can protect rather than merely endure alongside, and someone whose gentleness and learning complement Jon's own instincts in ways none of the rougher recruits could. The friendship also quietly reframes what courage means in this book ÔÇö Sam will spend the rest of the story being told he's a coward by people who've never had to face what frightens him, and Jon is the first person at the Wall willing to measure Sam by something other than muscle.

This movement: The Hand Investigates

• Ned retraces Jon Arryn's last weeks: a book of lineages, an armorer's shop, a black-haired bastard.
• The Hand's tourney: Ser Hugh of the Vale dies on the Mountain's lance; the Hound saves Loras and wins the crowd.
• Bran wakes, broken; the wolf dreams begin.
• Word of Tyrion's arrest reaches the capital, and lions begin to gather in the west.