This chapter opens up with Catelyn and Ser Rodrik approaching King’s Landing upon the boat the Storm Dancer. Ser Rodrik has been sea sick for good part of the voyage. Ser Rodrik has recently shaved off his beard as it was unclean from all the times he was sick.
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| The Red Keep of Kings Landing with the Sept of Baylor in the background |
Inspite of the winds being against them they were able to make it to the capital in good time thanks to the oars men who work the ship and it’s Tyroshi Captain Moreo Tumitis. Catelyn feeling thankful and generous decides to reward the effort by giving each crew member a silver stag.
They believe that they can find out who owned the dagger the assassin that attempted to kill Bran was given while he was in a coma by bringing it to Ser Aron Santagar the king’s Master at Arms. However Catelyn and Ser Rodrik will face a new set of problems upon arrival and begin to discuss how to handle the situation.
First they realize that Catelyn could be recognized the moment she sets foot on land. One of the members of the King’s Small Council, Petyr Baelish and more commonly known as Littlefinger was raised as a ward at her father's house in Riverrun as a boy. We also learn that Littlefinger had a crush on Catelyn back then and even challenged Ned's older brother Brandon to a duel for her. He lost and thanks to Cat had his life spared and walked away with only a scar.
To resolve the problem it is agreed that Ser Rodrik will go to the keep, find Ser Santagar and bring him to a place where Catelyn can show him the dagger in private. Rodrik thinks this will work as it’s been over 40 years since he has had a clean shave.
They get the name of an inn on Eel Alley that Moreo says would suit their needs. Catelyn then pays Moro the second half owed for the trip and additionally otps to pay each of the oarsmen herself. They check in and Ser Rodrik is quickly off to the keep to fetch Ser Aron. He suggests that Catelyn avoid the common room and get some rest which she does.
She is awoken by the city guards knocking on her door. She is informed that they are there to escort her and they present her a ribbon with a seal of a mockingbird upon it. The sigil of Littlefinger.
At first she’s a bit confused as how Littlefinger could have known she was in King's Landing but ends up assuming the Moreo sold her out. She is brought to the Red Keep and taken to a tower where Littlefinger is waiting. He is happy to see her and shows some concern about her hand.
Catelyn is somewhat curt and gets right to the point wanting to know how Littlefinger knew she had arrived. Petyr tells her that Lord Varys the master of secrets informed him. He explains that the Spider has a lot of informants in the city he refers to as his “little birds” and that he was undoubtedly informed by one of them. Littlefinger says Varys knows things that happen, he even knows about things before they happen.
“Lord Varys knows everything… except why you are here.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Why are you here?”
Catelyn tries to BS Littlefinger saying she missed her husband and daughters but Petyr easily sees through her little deception. He quickly figures that something had happened that forced her to leave Winterfell. He offers to help her, but before he can get any further Varys arrives.
Lord Varys offers some pleasantries as well as offers her some help not only with her hand that was cut but also in getting a healer from across the sea to take a look at Bran. Catelyn assures the Spider that both situations are well in hand.
Varys asks to see the dagger she brought with her, but Catelyn asks about Ser Rodrik. Varys assures her that nothing has been done to Ser Rodrik and that he and Ser Aron are at the inn they checked into drinking and awaiting her return.
Littlefinger claims to be at a loss not knowing what dagger they are talking about nor whom Ser Rodrik Cassel is. Varys quickly explains and finally Catelyn produces the weapon.
Varys looks at the dagger and cuts himself. Littlefinger then warns him about Valyrian steel blades and then tosses the weapon in the air and across the room to leave it sticking in a door. He then tells them that the dagger belonged to him, until he lost in in a wager.
He explained that when Jaime Lannister and Loras Tyrell rode against one another on Joffrey’s name day tournament he lost it to Tyrion Lannister when Loras unhorsed him. This is the end of the chapter.
Now while some of the chapter was Catelyn arriving and we did get a bit of back history on King’s Landing. But more importantly we see that she was pretty stupid about the whole situation. In addition this may also reflect Catelyn being a poor judge of character and quite possibly really out of her element.
Lets take a look at her mistakes..
Her first mistake is that she is traveling and using her own name. From her departure of Winterfell she intended to not alert the Lannisters to her arrival in King's Landing. Her hope was to catch a boat and make it before the royals arrived via the King’s Road. This part of her plan actually worked. She did make it before the King and her husband Ned arrived. But she didn’t think to use an assumed name.
The Tyroshi Captain of the Storm Dancer even refers to her by name.
Moreo: “You are far too generous lady Stark, the honor of carrying a great lady like yourself is all the reward they need.”
So when she booked passage she made it known who she was. Considering the other two lady Starks are already traveling with the king and queen, when they show up in King’s Landing and are told the Lady Stark is awaiting them it’s not a logic test they should fail.
So it begs the question of why didn’t she just give another name to travel under? She easily could have lied and said she was from another minor house, or a wealthy merchant or any other number of plausible lies.
So it’s essentially common knowledge on the Storm Dancer who the passengers are. Further she suspects Moreo and other Tyroshi are all greedy opportunists. When the guards knock on her door she eventually guesses the Moreo sold her out. This brings me to her next mistake.
She made sure to pay each and every crewman of the boat a silver stag herself. Catelyn more than likely misjudged Moreo who she asked for advice on a local inn to check into. Moreo did recommend a place that didn’t even ask for her name upon her renting the room. So it seems unlikely that he sold her out. After all he has been sailing for over thirty years and most likely he knows the value of keeping the confidentiality of his clients. He even suggests to Catelyn that he hold on to the bonus money she intends to pay out to his crew until after they depart.
Moreo: “Though perhaps I should hold it for them until we return to Tyrosh. For the sake of their wives and children. If you give them the silver here, my lady, they will dice it away or spend it all for a night’s pleasure.”
So basically Moreo tells Catelyn that his crew is gonna go out drinking, gambling and whoring in the city. Like any good Captain Moreo knows his crew and if she pays them then when they hit the pubs and brothels more than likely they will be laughing and someone will say something along the line of “Drinks are on the Lady Stark tonight!”.
As we learn later in the chapter, Varys has spies throughout the city so more than likely his network picked up on this and Moreo may not have sold out Catelyn as she suspected.
Last but not least she didn’t pick up on Littlefinger lying to her and trying to pry information from her.
Littlefinger: “Lord Varys knows everything… except why you are here.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Why are you here?”
Yet when Varys shows up he not only knows why she is in King’s Landing, he knows about the injuries to her and her son Bran, and that she has the dagger she came to get answers about on her person.
This is all made the worse by the fact that she knows Littlefinger to be a very clever man. So she should have been able to pick up on his deception, but she completely misses this…
Lastly there is also the sigil of Littlefinger, the Mockingbird. A male Mockingbird mimics the songs of other birds in order to woo a mate. And who was the woman Littlefinger tried to win as a boy? Catelyn Tully. As we read in this chapter that didn’t work out so well for him, but as we shall see in regards to Petyr Baelish, a short term setback is a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.
They can learn dozens of different songs and that Varys often refers to his network of spies as his “little birds” makes a nice jape on the part of Littlefinger.
These are two of the big background players in the Game of Thrones and each is working to their own ends. Introducing them together in this chapter makes a nice juxtapose of styles. First you have Varys whom everyone knows is in the business of secrets and then you have Littlefinger who is often making his business a secret. Often I have heard people refer to them as two opponents in a game of chess. While a nice analogy I think a better comparison would be players in the game of Risk. Both are keeping an eye on the others moves but not necessarily taking direct action against or in support of the other.
In many ways Littlefinger is somewhat making a mockery of Varys by keeping his motives secret. Like the mockingbird he may be providing false information to Varys's birds and thus disguising his true motives. It's almost as if Littlefinger is laughing in the face of Varys secretly showing that even though the King's Master of Secrets has a network of spies and informants he can't puzzle out Littlefinger's true motives. Perhaps if he could Varys would have Littlefinger killed off.
One final note about Littlefinger and his sigil is that it’s vastly clever of him to have picked the mockingbird. As we learned from his failed attempt to win Catelyn in a duel, Littlefinger at some point had to come to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to be able to compete against not only the Starks but all other nobles by playing by their rules.
In a world where social mobility is limited not only by prowess with arms but also by virtue of one's birth, people who are quite capable are limited by this system. Going back to the board game analogy, while Littlefinger is a player, the game is rigged against him due to his status at the beginning. The only way for him to move upward is to remove some pieces and players from the game. Thus creating opportunity for otherwise impossible social mobility.
I’ll get more into both Varys and Littlefinger in a future post when I do a recap of the major players in the game.
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