Bitterbridge

Where the roseroad crosses the Mander over an ancient stone bridge.

The fuller tale

Bitterbridge is where the roseroad crosses the Mander on an old stone span, which makes the Caswells' modest castle one of the most strategically placed small seats in the realm: every army moving between Highgarden and King's Landing funnels over their bridge, and the tolls of peace become the headaches of war. The name is said to remember an ancient slaughter on the crossing, and the place has a habit of living up to it ÔÇö great hosts camp well; great hosts leaving in a hurry do not.

Its hour in the tale comes with Renly's war. The self-crowned king dawdles here with the greatest army Westeros has seen in a generation, holding a melee among the tents to pass the time ÔÇö and it is at Bitterbridge, in the books, that a broad-shouldered woman from Tarth unhorses the finest knights of the Reach and claims as her boon a place in the king's rainbow-cloaked guard. When the shadow does its work at Storm's End, the vast Tyrell foot is still camped here, suddenly a masterless weapon that every remaining player needs and none can reach first; the scramble for Bitterbridge's leaderless host is the hinge on which the Blackwater ÔÇö and therefore the war ÔÇö quietly turns.

The chronicle here

• At Bitterbridge Renly plays at war amid tourneys and peaches; a woman in blue armor wins the melee and asks only to guard her king ÔÇö Brienne of Tarth. (ACOK 23)

Souls the story brings here

The fallen of this place ÔÇö if any, they are named here. Spoilers.

No death the chronicle records has come to this ground ÔÇö or none the maesters have set down.