A Feast for Crows ÔÇö Cersei V
To be rid of the crown's debts to the Faith, Cersei restores the Faith Militant: swords for the Seven, and a barefoot High Sparrow enthroned by the mob.
The chapter retold
Facing a crown deep in debt to the Faith of the Seven ÔÇö loans Aerys and Robert both took out and never repaid ÔÇö Cersei strikes what she believes is a masterstroke: she restores the Faith Militant, the religious knightly orders long banned by royal decree, in exchange for forgiveness of the crown's debts. In the same stroke, she allows a barefoot, unassuming cleric known only as the High Sparrow to be raised to High Septon by acclamation of the poor and devout, believing a humble zealot will be easier to manage than the corrupt, worldly septons who held the position before him.
This is one of the book's most consequential decisions and one of its clearest examples of Cersei solving an immediate problem by creating a much larger one down the line: she has just re-armed a militant religious order that answered to no crown for over a century before its ban, and handed enormous moral authority to a man whose humility, the chapter makes clear even in its own moment, is not the same thing as harmlessness. Every disaster that befalls Cersei in the book's back half traces its root to this single trade.
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.