A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Catelyn IX

At the Twins Catelyn crosses Walder Frey's bridge with a bargain: the crossing for marriage promises ÔÇö one of them Robb's.

The chapter retold

Marching south with Robb's host, Catelyn detours to the Twins to secure the one crossing that stands between the northern army and the war it needs to reach ÔÇö and Walder Frey, notoriously prickly about being taken for granted by greater houses, makes her work for it. The price of safe passage turns out to be marriage: promises binding Stark and Frey children together, Robb's own hand among them, sealing an alliance that reads, on the page, like routine wartime diplomacy.

It's a chapter that moves fast and reads almost as a formality ÔÇö a bridge crossed, a bargain struck, an army kept moving ÔÇö and that speed is exactly what makes it dangerous in retrospect. Walder Frey's reputation for taking offense easily and remembering every slight is treated here as local color rather than warning, and the marriage promise extracted almost as an afterthought is the kind of debt this book never actually lets go unpaid.

This movement: The Wolf Calls the Banners

• The Stark household is slaughtered; Arya escapes through the Red Keep's cellars with Needle; Sansa pleads for her father's life.
• Robb calls the banners; the Greatjon learns about direwolves and fingers; the host marches for the Neck.
• Catelyn wins the Twins' bridge from Walder Frey at the price of marriage promises.
• Beyond the Wall, dead men rise in Castle Black itself; Jon's torch and Ghost save the Old Bear.