A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Catelyn II
Lysa's secret letter arrives accusing the Lannisters of murdering Jon Arryn; Ned resolves to go south, and Jon will go to the Wall.
The chapter retold
A secret letter arrives from Catelyn's sister Lysa Arryn, smuggled north by a trusted rider, accusing the Lannisters of murdering Jon Arryn to silence something he'd learned. Catelyn brings it straight to Ned rather than to anyone else in the castle, and between them they settle the shape of what comes next: Ned will go south as Hand, taking the King's summons seriously now that it carries the smell of murder; Jon will go to the Wall, since Catelyn's cold civility toward her husband's bastard has never quite thawed enough to let him stay under the same roof as her trueborn children once Ned is away.
The letter itself is a masterclass in how this book weaponizes information ÔÇö a single unverified accusation, believed because it confirms what Ned already fears about the Lannisters, sets a Hand of the King on a fatal road before a single fact has been checked. And the decision to split Jon off to the Wall, made almost as an aside amid bigger news, quietly launches an entire separate story that will run the length of the book on its own clock, far from the intrigue simmering south.
This movement: A Hand's Summons
- A prologue in the haunted forest: Ser Waymar Royce meets the Others, and only a deserter escapes to die at Ned Stark's block.
- Direwolf pups in the summer snows ÔÇö one for each Stark child, and an albino for the bastard.
- Robert comes north with the court to make Ned his Hand; Lysa's letter blames the Lannisters for Jon Arryn.
- Bran climbs, sees the queen and the Kingslayer entwined, and flies. Across the sea, Daenerys is sold to Khal Drogo.