A Clash of Kings — Arya VI

A drudge in Harrenhal, Arya whispers her list of names; Jaqen H'ghar owes the Red God three lives, and Chiswyck falls from a wall to pay the first.

The chapter retold

Put to work as a drudge in Harrenhal’s kitchens, Arya keeps a private ritual alive — a whispered recitation of names, the people she means to see dead, said each night like a prayer with teeth. It is here that Jaqen H’ghar, the strange prisoner she freed from the burning barn, reveals the debt he believes he owes her: three lives, taken on her word, because she saved three that were owed to a nameless god.

Arya tests the promise almost idly, naming Chiswyck, one of Ser Gregor’s men who has been entertaining the garrison with a boastful story about torturing a woman. Chiswyck falls from a wall three days later. A man keeps his word — and Arya has just discovered, with a child’s mix of horror and fascination, that she is holding something considerably more dangerous than Needle. The list stops being a private comfort and starts being a weapon with a body count.

This movement: Kings in Every Corner

• Stannis besieges Storm's End; the brothers parley with a peach between them and part as dead men.
• Catelyn watches a shadow with Stannis's face open Renly's throat inside his own pavilion.
• Tyrion trades princess Myrcella's hand to Dorne and ships Cersei's spies to the black cells.
• At Winterfell, Bran dreams with wolf's teeth; the Reeds of Greywater come to teach him what it means.

The fallen — spoilers

• Chiswyck — Told the tale of the Tickler's work laughing; fell from a wall three days later. A man keeps his word.