The Sworn Sword — Dunk IV

Rather than watch smallfolk die for a stream, Dunk rides for Coldmoat to treat with the widow — 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 — 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 — the drought's tinder gone at a stroke — and the old knight names Lady Rohanne the arsonist and calls his five-man army to war.