A Dance with Dragons ÔÇö Tyrion I
A kinslayer crosses the narrow sea in a wine cask: Tyrion drinks his way through Illyrio's manse asking one question of every silence ÔÇö where do whores go?
The chapter retold
Tyrion Lannister crosses the narrow sea the way a piece of luggage would, folded into a wine cask by a smuggler in Illyrio MopatisÔÇÖs pay, and arrives in Pentos drunk, filthy and still furious enough to insult everyone who tries to help him. IllyrioÔÇÖs manse is all silk cushions and honeyed peaches, a magisterÔÇÖs idea of comfort draped over a dwarf who killed his father on a privy seat and still canÔÇÖt decide if he regrets it. Illyrio talks of queens and destiny; Tyrion mostly wants wine and an answer to the one question that has followed him out of Westeros ÔÇö where do whores go? ÔÇö his fatherÔÇÖs last words to him, worn smooth from repetition like a stone in a pocket.
It is a chapter about a man trying to drink himself back into not caring, and failing, because IllyrioÔÇÖs hospitality is never free ÔÇö the fat magister is laying out a Targaryen restoration in installments, and Tyrion, whether he admits it yet or not, is being fitted for a role in it. The riddle about whores matters more than it sounds: it is Tyrion turning his fatherÔÇÖs cruelty into the only philosophy he has left, that everyone ends up sold somewhere, and that the trick is figuring out to whom. Nothing is settled here except the shape of the road ahead ÔÇö east, toward a queen he has not yet decided whether to serve or to hate on CerseiÔÇÖs behalf.
This movement: The Lost Lords
- Tyrion drinks his way across the narrow sea in a wine cask, bound for a queen with dragons ÔÇö 'wherever whores go' ringing in his ears.
- Jon Snow rules the Wall: he sends Mance's son away in secret, gives Slynt one last order, and takes his head personally.
- Dany rules Meereen in a tokar while the Sons of the Harpy paint the bricks red by night.
- Bran travels north beyond the Wall with cold hands guiding ÔÇö toward a cave, a weirwood throne, and a thousand eyes.