A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Catelyn IV
Robb plans his way back north through the Twins: a pardon for the Freys, Edmure for a bride, and a wedding to mend what a wedding broke.
The chapter retold
With his war seemingly won in the field but his alliances in ruins after his own marriage, Robb Stark turns to diplomacy to repair what victory could not fix: a march north back through the Twins, with Roose Bolton sent ahead to negotiate a pardon from Walder Frey for the broken betrothal, and Edmure Tully ÔÇö Catelyn's brother, Riverrun's heir ÔÇö offered up as a substitute bridegroom to satisfy the insult with a different Stark-adjacent match.
It is a plan built on the assumption that Walder Frey's pride can be bought off with a lesser prize than the one he was originally promised, and the chapter's quiet dramatic irony is that everyone involved treats this as a solvable logistics problem rather than a mortal insult that a man like Frey does not simply let go. Catelyn's unease is present but muted; the reader, by this point in the book, has more reason than she does to distrust the plan's premise entirely.
This movement: The Bear, the Wall, the Bath
- In Harrenhal's bathhouse Jaime tells Brienne the truth of the Mad King and faints in her arms; later he turns back for her and jumps into a bear pit.
- Jon climbs the Wall with the free folk and breaks from them at Queenscrown, arrows in his leg.
- Dany takes Yunkai by night; the Second Sons change sides for a captain named Daario.
- Sam kills his second impossible thing rumor-wise; the Watch's remnants choose a fat man's courage at Craster's.