A Clash of Kings — Tyrion VIII

Stannis has sailed: Tyrion works the city's defenses — a chain for the river, wildfire for the fleet, and a nephew-king who is worse than useless.

The chapter retold

Word arrives that Stannis has sailed at last, and Tyrion spends the chapter turning King’s Landing into something capable of surviving him — a great chain to seal the river mouth, wildfire caches readied along the shore, every defense he can improvise with a treasury that Cersei has already half-emptied. His nephew-king, meanwhile, proves worse than useless in every council he attends, more interested in performing bravado than in understanding what’s coming.

The chapter is Tyrion at his most competent and least thanked — building, alone in all but Bronn’s and a handful of others’ estimation, the defense that will actually save the city, while the people nominally in charge either dismiss him or actively undermine him. It’s the clearest statement yet of the book’s central irony: the man doing the indispensable work is also the one everyone in the room is most eager to belittle.

This movement: The Kraken in the Godswood

• Theon takes Winterfell with thirty men while its strength bleeds south; Ser Rodrik's rescue is betrayed by Reek.
• Bran and Rickon vanish; two miller's boys hang tarred above the gate in their place.
• A bread riot nearly eats the court; the High Septon is torn apart in the streets.
• In Qarth, the warlocks invite Dany to the House of the Undying; she walks out through fire with Drogon screaming.