The Sworn Sword — Dunk V

Coldmoat: Lady Rohanne is small, freckled, red-braided, and nothing like the ogress of the tales; her castellan Ser Lucas Inchfield — the Longinch — is exactly like his. The fat Septon Sefton pours wine and news: the Great Spring Sickness's scars, Dagon Greyjoy reaving the west, Bittersteel across the sea, and Bloodraven's thousand eyes and one.

The chapter retold

Coldmoat undoes the legend room by room. Lady Rohanne is small, freckled and red-braided, sharp-witted and nothing like the ogress of Ser Eustace's fireside tales; her castellan Ser Lucas Inchfield, the Longinch, is exactly the cold and haughty thing his name promises. Over the fat Septon Sefton's wine the chapter opens the whole world for a page — the scars of the Great Spring Sickness, Dagon Greyjoy reaving the west, Bittersteel biding across the sea in Tyrosh, and Bloodraven's thousand eyes and one — reminding us that this small quarrel over a stream sits inside a realm that has never quite stopped fearing the black dragon.

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.