A Dance with Dragons — Jon II

Janos Slynt refuses a lawful command three times before breakfast; Jon Snow does not send him to the ice cells. “Edd, fetch me a block.”

The chapter retold

Janos Slynt, former commander of the City Watch and no one’s idea of a soldier, has spent his brief tenure at the Wall loudly refusing Jon Snow’s authority, certain his old friend Cersei’s patronage still means something a thousand leagues from King’s Landing. Jon gives him a lawful order — go to Greyguard, an assignment, not a punishment — and Slynt refuses it, three times, in front of witnesses, banking on the new Lord Commander’s youth and inexperience to let it slide the way Mormont might have. It doesn’t slide. Jon calls for a block.

The scene is Jon’s coronation as a leader in the only currency the Watch actually respects: not popularity, not birth, but the willingness to do the ugly, final thing himself rather than delegate it. Killing Slynt costs Jon nothing sentimental — the man was Ned Stark’s murderer’s instrument in another life — but it costs him politically, hardening the resentment of officers who already distrust a bastard commander friendly with wildlings. Janos Slynt dies exactly as gracelessly as he lived, and the Watch’s factions take note of what kind of Lord Commander they’ve been given.

This movement: The Lost Lords

• Tyrion drinks his way across the narrow sea in a wine cask, bound for a queen with dragons — '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 — toward a cave, a weirwood throne, and a thousand eyes.

The fallen — spoilers

• Janos Slynt — Refused an order once too often; the new Lord Commander swung the sword himself, and Stannis nodded.