A Feast for Crows ÔÇö Brienne II
At Rosby and beyond, Brienne collects a companion she doesn't want ÔÇö Podrick Payne ÔÇö and a lead she doesn't trust, toward Crackclaw Point with Nimble Dick.
The chapter retold
Brienne's search widens: at Rosby and along the roads beyond it, she picks up an unwanted traveling companion in Podrick Payne, the loyal, tongue-tied squire who attached himself to Tyrion during the Blackwater and has nowhere else to go. She distrusts him, feeds him anyway, and finds herself reluctantly responsible for a second person's survival on top of her own quest. A lead surfaces pointing her toward Crackclaw Point, a wild, lawless stretch of coast, guided by a local hunter called Nimble Dick Crabb who promises knowledge of the region's hidden corners in exchange for coin and company.
The chapter deepens Brienne's arc from lone knight-errant into reluctant leader of a small, mismatched party, and it is the first hint that this quest will not stay simple ÔÇö Crackclaw Point has a reputation, and Nimble Dick's confidence reads, even here, like the kind that gets people killed. Podrick's attachment to her is played for quiet comedy and quiet pathos at once: a boy who has already lost one protector clinging to whichever knight will have him, and Brienne slowly, unwillingly, becoming someone worth clinging to.
This movement: The Kingsmoot
- On Old Wyk the drowned god's captains vote: Asha offers peace, Victarion strength ÔÇö and Euron Crow's Eye offers dragons.
- The Crow's Eye takes the driftwood crown with a horn said to bind dragons, and sends Victarion to court Daenerys.
- Cersei's small war on Margaery begins: spies, whores, and a walking corpse under Qyburn's care.
- The Sand Snakes are locked away as Dorne seethes over Oberyn; Arianne plots a queen of her own.