A Dance with Dragons ÔÇö Tyrion V

In Selhorys Tyrion buys an hour with a sad-eyed whore and walks out into Ser Jorah Mormont's fist: ÔÇ£I'm taking you to the queen.ÔÇØ

The chapter retold

Tyrion, cut loose from GriffÔÇÖs company at Selhorys under circumstances the chapter lets slip past almost accidentally, spends an unhappy hour with a sad-eyed whore and walks straight out of the brothel into the fist of Ser Jorah Mormont ÔÇö exiled knight, disgraced spy, and, as it turns out, a man with his own desperate plan to buy his way back into DaenerysÔÇÖs good graces by delivering Tywin LannisterÔÇÖs murderer to her in chains.

The reunion is the bookÔÇÖs darkest joke: two men running from ruined lives collide by accident in a river town, and the one with slightly more leverage claims the other as cargo. For Tyrion itÔÇÖs a demotion from guest to captive again, this time explicitly, and for Jorah itÔÇÖs the first real hope heÔÇÖs had since Daenerys exiled him ÔÇö a hope built entirely on treating a person as a gift rather than a man, which the book has already spent several chapters demonstrating rarely ends the way the gift-giver expects.

This movement: Kings at the Wall

• Stannis takes the mountain clans and Deepwood Motte, gathering the North that hates the Boltons.
• Davos is sent to White Harbor to win fat Lord Manderly ÔÇö and is reported executed, head and hands tarred.
• In the crypts of Winterfell, the Boltons stage a wedding: 'Arya Stark' ÔÇö Jeyne Poole in a stolen name ÔÇö given to Ramsay.
• Melisandre reads her fires at the Wall: snow, a wooden face, a girl on a dying horse. Jon listens with half an ear.