A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Jaime II
Past ruined fords and floating corpses, Brienne and Jaime measure each other; his itemized oaths amuse him less the longer the river runs.
The chapter retold
The river keeps unspooling ruin past Jaime and Brienne's skiff ÔÇö burned mills, floating dead, fords choked with wreckage from a war that has visited every mile of the Trident without ever quite finishing there. Jaime narrates his own captivity the way he narrates everything, with jokes that dare Brienne to react, itemizing her broken vows and her homeliness with the practiced cruelty of a man who has never had to apologize for his mouth. What changes, mile by mile, is how much less it amuses him ÔÇö the insults start landing like habits rather than weapons, and the woman on the oars keeps answering them with an honesty so plain it embarrasses his wit.
This is the slow work of the odd-couple pairing the book is building toward its most famous scene: two people trapped together long enough that contempt curdles first into curiosity, then into something neither will name yet. Brienne's oath to Catelyn ÔÇö deliver Jaime whole, trade him for the Stark girls ÔÇö remains her whole stated purpose, but the chapter quietly starts making Jaime's survival matter to her for its own sake too.
This movement: Dracarys
- In Astapor Dany trades Drogon for the Unsullied ÔÇö then speaks Valyrian, and the whip changes hands: Dracarys.
- Jaime loses his sword hand to Vargo Hoat's Brave Companions and learns what he is without it.
- Arya falls in with the Brotherhood Without Banners and watches a dead man rise from his seventh death.
- Tywin re-arranges the realm at his table: Tyrion to Sansa, Cersei to Willas ÔÇö the children object; the Hand doesn't care.