A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Sansa II
Whispers of the Willas plan reach the wrong ears; Dontos presses on Sansa the hairnet of black amethysts ÔÇö for home, he swears, for the Mother's mercy.
The chapter retold
Word of the Highgarden marriage plan leaks to ears it was never meant to reach, and Sansa Stark's fragile hope starts closing before she even fully understands it is threatened. Into that anxious quiet steps Ser Dontos Hollard, the disgraced knight-turned-fool Sansa once saved from execution, pressing into her hands a hairnet strung with black amethysts and swearing, in the overwrought language of the Florian-and-Jonquil romance he has convinced himself they are living, that it will carry her home ÔÇö a gift for the Mother's mercy, he calls it, more devotion than explanation.
Sansa accepts it as sentiment from a grateful, slightly pathetic old man, which is exactly the reading Dontos and the man actually pulling his strings are counting on. The hairnet's real purpose will not surface for many chapters yet, but the chapter plants it in plain sight ÔÇö the book's oldest trick, a gift wrapped in gratitude that is actually a weapon nobody in the room is watching for.
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.