A Clash of Kings — Tyrion X
The chain is finished and the city starves in sight of it; Tyrion visits Chataya's by tunnel and finds even his comforts have become hostages.
The chapter retold
With the great chain finally strung across the river mouth, King’s Landing sits fully prepared and fully starving in the same breath — Tyrion’s defenses are as ready as they’ll ever be, and the city under them has nothing left to eat. He slips away by tunnel to visit Chataya’s brothel, one of the few comforts left to him, and finds even that has become compromised — his sister’s reach extends into every corner of his life he thought private.
The chapter catches Tyrion in the strange lull before the storm actually breaks: everything that can be built has been built, every alliance that can be bought has been bought, and all that’s left is waiting for Stannis’s fleet to arrive and test it. The discovery that even his hidden pleasures are hostage to Cersei’s surveillance sharpens the dread — there is no part of his life in this city that is truly safe from his own family.
This movement: The March on the City
- Stannis's fleet and host converge on King's Landing; Tyrion counts chain links and wildfire pots.
- Robb wins the Crag in the west while his cause rots behind him; Catelyn frees the Kingslayer for two girls' lives.
- Arya spends her third death to buy Harrenhal's gate — the man offers more, and Jaqen gives her a coin and a phrase.
- Jon, taken in the Frostfangs, kills the Halfhand at his order and kneels to Mance Rayder with clean hands and a black heart.