A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Eddard VII

The tourney ends; by night Varys comes to the Hand's chambers with soft words about poison, the king's wine, and men who serve the realm.

The chapter retold

As the tourney winds down, Varys pays Ned a late-night visit in the Tower of the Hand, arriving unannounced the way the spymaster always seems to. Under the cover of soft, almost apologetic courtesy, Varys speaks of poisons, of the king's wine, and of the many men in this city who serve the realm in ways that never show up on any official ledger ÔÇö a conversation that is at once a warning, a confession of sorts, and an offer of alliance Ned isn't quite sure how to read.

It's the book's clearest early demonstration of how Varys operates: never quite lying, never quite telling the whole truth, always leaving his listener to do the dangerous work of interpretation. Ned, a man who has spent his life dealing with people who say what they mean, is plainly out of his depth in a conversation built entirely from insinuation ÔÇö and the scene plants, gently, the idea that whatever comes for Ned in this city might arrive by cup rather than by blade, an anxiety that will hang over every meal he shares at court from here on.

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.