Affc

 

Contents

Title Page
Dedication
Map

PROLOGUE
THE PROPHET
THE CAPTAIN OF GUARDS
CERSEI
BRIENNE
SAMWELL
ARYA
CERSEI
JAIME
BRIENNE
SANSA
THE KRAKEN’S DAUGHTER
CERSEI
THE SOILED KNIGHT

BRIENNE
SAMWELL
JAIME
CERSEI
THE IRON CAPTAIN
THE DROWNED MAN
BRIENNE
THE QUEENMAKER
ARYA
ALAYNE
CERSEI
BRIENNE
SAMWELL
JAIME
CERSEI
THE REAVER
JAIME
BRIENNE

CERSEIJAIME
CAT OF THE CANALS
SAMWELL
CERSEI
BRIENNE
JAIME
CERSEI
THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
ALAYNE
BRIENNE
CERSEI
JAIME
SAMWELL
MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE WALL . . .

APPENDIX
THE KINGS AND THEIR COURTS

THE QUEEN REGENT

THE KING AT THE WALL
KING OF THE ISLES AND THE NORTH
OTHER HOUSES GREAT AND SMALL

HOUSE ARRYN
HOUSE FLORENT
HOUSE FREY
HOUSE HIGHTOWER
HOUSE LANNISTER
HOUSEMARTELL
HOUSE STARK
HOUSE TULLY
HOUSE TYRELL
REBELS AND ROGUES
SMALLFOLK AND SWORN BROTHERS

LORDLINGS, WANDERERS, AND COMMON MEN
OUTLAWS AND BROKEN MEN
THE SWORN BROTHERS OF THE NIGHT’S WATCH
the WILDLINGS, or THE FREE FOLK

BEYOND THE NARROW SEA

THE QUEEN ACROSS THE WATER
IN BRAAVOS

Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by George R. R. Martin
Preview of A Dance withDragons
Copyright Page

for Stephen Boucher
wizard of Windows, dragon of DOS
without whom this book would have
been written in crayon

PROLOGUE

Dragons,” said Mollander. He snatched a withered apple off the ground and tossed it
hand to hand.
“Throw the apple,” urged Alleras the Sphinx. He slipped an arrow from his quiver and
nocked it to his bowstring.
“I should like to see a dragon.”Roone was the youngest of them, a chunky boy still
two years shy of manhood. “I should like that very much.”
And I should like to sleep with Rosey’s arms around me, Pate thought. He shifted
restlessly on the bench. By the morrow the girl could well be his. I will take her far
from Oldtown, across the narrow sea to one of the Free Cities. There were no maesters
there, no one to accuse him.
Hecould hear Emma’s laughter coming through a shuttered window overhead,
mingled with the deeper voice of the man she was entertaining. She was the oldest of
the serving wenches at the Quill and Tankard, forty if she was a day, but still pretty in
a fleshy sort of way. Rosey was her daughter, fifteen and freshly flowered. Emma had
decreed that Rosey’s maidenhead would cost a golden dragon. Patehad saved nine
silver stags and a pot of copper stars and pennies, for all the good that would do him.
He would have stood a better chance of hatching a real dragon than saving up enough
coin to make a golden one.
“You were born too late for dragons, lad,” Armen the Acolyte told Roone. Armen
wore a leather thong about his neck, strung with links of pewter, tin, lead, and copper,
and likemost acolytes he seemed to believe that novices had turnips growing from
their shoulders in place of heads. “The last one perished during the reign of King
Aegon the Third.”
“The last dragon in Westeros,” insisted Mollander.

“Throw the apple,” Alleras urged again. He was a comely youth, their Sphinx. All the
serving wenches doted on him. Even Rosey would sometimes touch him on the arm
whenshe brought him wine, and Pate had to gnash his teeth and pretend not to see.
“The last dragon in Westeros was the last dragon,” said Armen doggedly. “That is well
known.”
“The apple,” Alleras said. “Unless you mean to eat it.”
“Here.” Dragging his clubfoot, Mollander took a short hop, whirled, and whipped the
apple sidearm into the mists that hung above the Honeywine. If not for his foot, hewould have been a knight like his father. He had the strength for it in those thick arms
and broad shoulders. Far and fast the apple flew . . .
. . . but not as fast as the arrow that whistled after it, a yard-long shaft of golden wood
fletched with scarlet feathers. Pate did not see the arrow catch the apple, but he heard
it. A soft chunk echoed back across the river, followed by a splash....