S2┬ÀE4 ÔÇö Garden of Bones

The hour retold

The garden of bones is Harrenhal, where the MountainÔÇÖs men pick a prisoner each evening and the questions asked are beside the point; Arya files it all away and starts whispering names into the dark like a prayer. The episode is a study of power at its ugliest octave. Joffrey has Sansa stripped and beaten before the throne because her brother keeps winning battles ÔÇö Robb takes Oxcross this same hour, falling on the Lannister west like weather ÔÇö and it is Tyrion who stops it, with the observation that the Mad King also did as he liked. The lesson Sansa is learning, one bruise at a time, is that courtesy is armor and armor is all she has.

The war of the five kings meets its first impossibility on a beach at the StormlandsÔÇÖ edge, where Renly and Stannis parley in the language of brothers who never liked each other. Renly has the numbers, the charm and the fruit; Stannis has the bloodline, the grievance and one nightÔÇÖs grace on offer. Neither blinks, so the red woman settles it: Davos rows Melisandre into a cave beneath StormÔÇÖs End and watches her birth a thing of shadow with a face he knows. It is the moment the war stops being a contest of armies. Away east, Daenerys reaches the gates of Qarth with her starving column and bluffs the Thirteen into opening the greatest city that ever was ÔÇö a phrase, she will learn, that the Qartheen apply themselves.

What happens

• Robb wins at Oxcross; the West bleeds and Tywin falls back to Harrenhal.
• Joffrey has Sansa beaten before the court until Tyrion stops it.
• Renly and Stannis parley and part as enemies; Davos rows Melisandre into a cave beneath Storm's End.
• The shadow she births there has a face Davos knows.
• Daenerys reaches the gates of Qarth and bluffs her way past the Thirteen.

The people of the episode

The fallen ÔÇö spoilers

• The Tickler ÔÇö Harrenhal's questioner ÔÇö a nameless death from a boy's hands, mourned by no one.