A Clash of Kings — Catelyn VII

Alone with the Kingslayer and a flagon of wine, Catelyn takes Jaime's confessions one by one — then calls for Brienne's sword.

The chapter retold

Alone with the Kingslayer and a flagon of wine at Riverrun, Catelyn does something her son’s war council would never sanction — she draws Jaime Lannister’s confessions out of him one careful admission at a time, testing whether the man who pushed Bran from a tower has anything like honesty left in him.

What she does with what she learns is the chapter’s real weight: she calls for Brienne’s sword and frees Jaime, trading her family’s most valuable prisoner for the promise of her daughters’ safe return. It’s a decision made entirely outside her son’s authority, driven by a mother’s calculation rather than a general’s, and it will cost Catelyn dearly in trust and standing even as it’s the only bargain she believes might actually bring Sansa and Arya home.

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.