Inside Game Of Thrones - Season 1 - Episode 23

Episode 4 years ago

Inside Game Of Thrones - Season 1 - Episode 23

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The dwarf just walks in bold as you please, and orders a room for himself and his men and hot supper as well. Much as Catelyn wants to murder the little man, she wants to remain anonymous even more, so she just looks on at the rich lordling like every other person in the common room. Tyrion was already following Masha into the kitchen to see about his supper when the blasted singer, a young man named Marillion who had been boasting to them of his friendship with Lord Hoster Tully’s son, decided to speak.
“Do you care for a song, my lord of Lannister?” he said.
The dwarf looked over at the singer and gave a dry refusal, but then his eyes chanced to see who sat opposite Marillion, and right away he recognized Catelyn Stark, Lady of Winterfell and wife of Lord Eddard.

As you can expect, everyone is shocked that the blood of the lord of the whole district has been right there in their midst all along, and Catelyn stands up, cursing the singer in her mind. But then she looks about the room and for the first time sees the knights of House Frey, of the Lady of Harrenhal, and the men of one or two other Houses who are bannermen to House Tully.

That is when she realizes just how the scales have tipped in her favor.

First of all, she appeals to them and asks them whether their loyalties to her father’s House still ring true, and she recieves positive responses from them all. Then she reveals to everyone how she had recieved this man into her home, treated him as befit a guest, and how the only repayment she and her husband got in return was the assasin sent to kill her seven-year-old son on his sickbed.

Then she orders them to sieze the dwarf at once. Before the words are even fully out of her mouth, a dozen swords are pointing at him, blocking his escape.

Catelyn would have had him killed right there and then, if not for the innkeep who screamed for blood not to be spilled under her roof.
Remember I said that one way at the crossroads leads to Riverrun? Well, the other one leads to the Vale and to the Eyrie beyond, where the Lady of the Eyrie, Lady Lysa Arryn, Catelyn’s sister and widow of Lord Jon Arryn, has her seat. Catelyn knows that Lysa will want justice for her husband’s death at the hands of Tyrion and his family, and so that is where she takes her captive instead.
Tyrion had come with two men of his own along with Yoren, a man of the Night’s Watch, pledged to take no part in the wars between the Houses, and so he steps aside when Catelyn’s men restrain Tyrion and his men. Along with the knights who come to Catelyn’s aid are two sellswords and Marillion the singer with his woodharp, who insists that there is a song that must be made of the whole matter, and that he is the one to make it.

And so they begin their journey to the Vale, tying Tyrion’s hands behind his back and covering his face with a hood. Catelyn rides with Ser Rodrik at her side, and the other men guarding her and her prisoner.

Their journey to her sister takes them through the Mountains of the Moon, a high, unfriendly mountain pass that winds upward and upward. The Mountains of the Moon are a very dangerous place, made so by the dangerous mountain clans who live there, robbing and sometimes killing anyone who dares to pass through. The only reason that way to the Vale is accessible at all is only because the mountain clans would think twice about attacking a column of armed, armored and mounted knights, such as the Vale has in thousands.

But their little column of not more than fifteen is in danger, so Catelyn always sends out a scout ahead of them, to warn them of any danger that lies ahead.

On one of the breaks they have to rest and water their horses, Catelyn has Tyrion brought to her and asks him why he would send a someone to try to kill her son. The dwarf feigns surprise at that, and Catelyn tells him bluntly that the assasin he sent was armed with his dagger. Tyrion seems surprised at that as well, and also seems a good actor, asking her how she knew it was his.


Catelyn now describes the dagger, ornate with a dragonbone hilt and Valyrian steel blade, and goes on to relate Petyr Baelish’s account of how the dagger came to be in Tyrion’s possession. But even as she says it, the whole story sounds wrong to her somehow. Tyrion seems amused that Littlefinger told her such a story as that, and insists that her story is wrong on one account: Petyr said he bet on the Knight of Flowers to win Joffery’s name day tourney, but Tyrion assures her that he never, ever bets against his family.
They are still talking when Catelyn’s scout rides back in a great haste, shouting that armed men are coming, men of the mountain clans, about twenty, and that all of them are mounted.
All of her men immediately begin to form up, mounting their horses and preparing for the onslaught, and she assigns two men to make sure Tyrion doesn’t escape. But Tyrion begs her desperately to loose his bonds and put a sword in his hands, but Catelyn isn’t that stupid, and she tells him as much. But Tyrion insists, appealing to her sense of reason and reminding her that he and the two men she assigned to guard him are three wasted men, and that they will need every available man they have if they want to deal with foes that are even more than they are.