A Clash of Kings — Tyrion XII

A last supper of threats with Cersei, a last night with Shae; at dawn Tyrion will hold a city that hates him against a king it might prefer.

The chapter retold

Tyrion’s last supper of threats with Cersei plays out over wine that neither sibling drinks with any real pleasure — accusations, warnings, and the particular venom two people can only produce for family. It’s followed by a quieter, sadder scene: a last night with Shae before the battle, tender in a way neither of them names directly, both aware that dawn brings a fight Tyrion might not survive.

By morning he will hold a city that hates him against a king Stannis’s men might actually prefer to Joffrey, an irony the chapter doesn’t need to underline because Tyrion is already keenly aware of it. The chapter is the calm immediately before the Blackwater ignites — the last private moments before Tyrion becomes, for one violent day, the only thing standing between King’s Landing and Stannis’s fleet.

This movement: The Battle of the Blackwater

• The bay goes up in green fire; Stannis's fleet burns between a chain and a trap.
• Tyrion leads the sortie when Joffrey is pulled from the walls — and a Kingsguard's sword opens his face to the bone.
• Sansa keeps the highborn women singing while Cersei drinks and plans their deaths.
• Tywin and the knights of Highgarden take Stannis in the flank; ghost-Renly's shadow rides in the vanguard of gossip.