The Sworn Sword ÔÇö Dunk IV

Rather than watch smallfolk die for a stream, Dunk rides for Coldmoat to treat with the widow ÔÇö past the parched ruin of Wat's Wood, past the dam and its diggers, to a moated castle flying the spotted spider.

The chapter retold

Rather than watch field hands die for a dammed stream, Dunk does the un-knightly, sensible thing and rides for Coldmoat to talk. The road takes him past the parched ruin of Wat's Wood and the dam with its diggers to a proper moated castle flying the spotted spider of House Webber. The chapter is the hinge between the two houses' versions of the story ÔÇö Dunk carrying Standfast's grievance into the widow's hall, and about to discover that almost nothing his lord told him about her is true.

This movement: The Red Widow

• Dunk rides to Coldmoat to talk instead of bleed, and finds the Red Widow smaller, sharper, and more dangerous than her legend.
• Septon Sefton's table-talk maps the age: the Spring Sickness's toll, Dagon Greyjoy loose in the west, Bittersteel biding in Tyrosh, and Bloodraven's whisperers everywhere.
• Ser Eustace confesses Redgrass Field: the chequy lion flew with the black dragon, and his sons died for it. Dunk's sworn service turns to stone in his chest.
• Wat's Wood burns in the night ÔÇö the drought's tinder gone at a stroke ÔÇö and the old knight names Lady Rohanne the arsonist and calls his five-man army to war.