A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Eddard IX

Ned traces Robert's bastards through the city; outside a brothel Jaime Lannister's spears close in ÔÇö Jory dies, and Ned's leg is shattered.

The chapter retold

Ned's investigation into Robert's scattered bastard children takes him into the city's back alleys, and outside a brothel his search draws the attention it was bound to eventually draw: Jaime Lannister arrives with armed men and, in the confrontation that follows, Ned's own household guard is cut down. Jory Cassel, captain of Winterfell's guard and a man who has served the Starks his whole adult life, dies with a spear through the eye; two more Stark guardsmen fall beside him. Ned himself takes a wound to the leg that shatters the bone, leaving him crippled and bedridden at the worst possible moment for a man who needs to be moving quickly.

It's the first open violence between the two great houses at the center of the book's central conflict, and it happens not over grand strategy but over Ned simply doing his job too well ÔÇö Jaime's intervention reads less like a calculated political move than a brother's furious response to seeing his family's secrets get closer to daylight. Jory's death costs Ned one of his last truly loyal men in a hostile city, and the broken leg costs him his mobility right as the investigation is finally closing in on an answer, leaving him to finish the most dangerous work of his life from a sickbed.

This movement: The Eyrie and the Heart

• In the Eyrie's sky cells Tyrion confesses to everything but the crime ÔÇö and buys a trial by combat. Bronn fights; Ser Vardis falls.
• Robert orders Daenerys killed; Ned throws down the Hand's badge; Jaime's men kill Jory in the street.
• In Vaes Dothrak, Dany eats the stallion's heart; Viserys draws steel in the sacred city and is crowned in gold.
• Robert, dying breaths away from a boar, restores the badge and rides to hunt.

The fallen ÔÇö spoilers

• Jory Cassel ÔÇö Captain of Winterfell's guard, a spear through the eye in the street.
• Heward & Wyl of Winterfell ÔÇö Stark guardsmen cut down beside their captain.