A Feast for Crows ÔÇö Alayne II
The Eyrie empties down the mountain for winter; Littlefinger unveils the next move ÔÇö Harry the Heir for Alayne, and with him, one day, the Vale's knights for Sansa Stark.
The chapter retold
As winter approaches, the Eyrie empties down the mountain, its household relocating for the season, and amid the logistics Littlefinger reveals his next long-range maneuver to Sansa: he intends to marry Alayne Stone to Harrold Hardyng ÔÇö Harry the Heir, next in line to the Vale should young Robert Arryn die ÔÇö binding her, under her false identity, into the Vale's own succession. And beneath that plan sits another, unspoken one: that one day, once the pieces are in place, the Vale's knights might be turned toward restoring not Alayne Stone but Sansa Stark to power in the North.
The chapter is Littlefinger laying out, for the first time explicitly, just how far ahead he is thinking ÔÇö using Sansa's disguise not merely as protective cover but as the raw material for an entirely new political marriage and a long-term bid to put actual military force (the Vale's knights) behind a Stark restoration he intends to personally broker and control. It's the clearest statement yet of Littlefinger's ultimate design: not simply protecting Sansa, but building her, piece by piece, into the instrument of his own ambitions.
This movement: The Walk of the Lion
- The Faith turns on Cersei: her own scheme's whore-witness recites her sins, and the High Sparrow's cells gain a queen.
- Cersei's letter begs Jaime to be her champion; he reads it in the rain at Riverrun and burns it.
- Sam reaches Oldtown to find Pate at the Citadel's door ÔÇö a Pate who died in the prologue, wearing a smile.
- Brienne meets the Brotherhood's new lady: hooded, hanged-throated, unforgiving. Her choice: the noose, or Jaime.