A Feast for Crows ÔÇö Alayne I
The Lords Declarant come to the Gates of the Moon to strip Littlefinger of the Vale; he buys Lyn Corbray with one planted treason and scatters the rest with courtesy.
The chapter retold
Under her Alayne Stone identity, Sansa watches the Lords Declarant arrive at the Gates of the Moon to formally challenge Petyr Baelish's guardianship of Robert Arryn and, implicitly, his account of how Lysa Arryn died. Littlefinger meets the threat with characteristic guile rather than force: he buys off Lyn Corbray, one of the more dangerous and mercenary lords among the Declarants, with the promise of a single, carefully planted treason charge against a rival, and the coalition against him scatters under a mixture of bribery, courtesy and misdirection before it can ever consolidate into real danger.
The chapter is a showcase for Littlefinger's specific genius ÔÇö not brute force, which he has none of, but the ability to read exactly which lever moves which man, and to buy loyalty at a price cheaper than its apparent value. Sansa, watching this unfold from close quarters as Alayne, is getting a graduate education in precisely this kind of statecraft, absorbing lessons she will put to very different use once she is done being anyone's pawn ÔÇö the chapter functions as much as her tutorial as it does Littlefinger's victory lap.
This movement: The Quill and the Quiet Isle
- Brienne's hunt crosses the Quiet Isle, where a limping gravedigger is taller than any brother has a right to be.
- Sam sails for Oldtown via Braavos, where a girl called Cat learns his name ÔÇö and Maester Aemon hears of dragons and weeps.
- Jaime brings the king's peace to the riverlands with words where his sword hand used to be; Riverrun yields without blood.
- Arya's nightly wolf dreams betray her to the kindly man; a girl must give up Arya Stark ÔÇö she hides Needle instead.