Recaps

Titus demanded 100,000 gold dragons from Tywin Lannister to free Jaime, using Pycelle as a messenger. Tywin paid, but Jaime chose to remain in the Kingsguard, leaving Tywin without his son or an heir and Titus pleased with his political advantage.

• Titus asked Pycelle to tell Tywin that Jaime's freedom would cost 100,000 gold dragons, and Pycelle eagerly agreed to carry the message.
• Tywin accepted the ransom despite Kevan's anger and ordered him to deliver the gold to Titus.
• Kevan brought the chests of gold to Titus, who confirmed the payment and ordered Jaime brought to him.
• Titus freed Jaime, but Jaime refused to return to the Westerlands and went to swear allegiance to Robert as a Kingsguard.
• Robert and Jon welcomed Jaime back into the Kingsguard, while Tywin realized he had paid the ransom without regaining his son or securing an heir.

Tywin Lannister sent Kevan to secretly approach the Targaryens on Dragonstone, hoping to secure House Lannister an alternative to Robert I’s rule. Meanwhile, Titus Peake prepared the Stormlands forces for a march south against the Reach, entrusting the army’s right wing to Gulian Swann.

• Tywin decided House Lannister needed a way out and proposed quietly contacting Rhaella and Viserys on Dragonstone.
• Tywin gave Kevan a sealed letter and ordered him to send a trusted messenger to learn Dragonstone’s strength and willingness to exchange information.
• Kevan agreed to carry out Tywin’s plan, despite fearing that he would become the scapegoat if it was exposed.
• Titus prepared to march south and met with Gulian Swann to coordinate the Stormlands forces.
• Titus assigned the forces of Stonehelm, Blackhaven, Harvest Hall, and Nightsong to the army’s right wing and ordered them to scout for Reach forces near Goldengrove or Tumbleton.

Titus met with Roose Bolton and Symond Templeton to coordinate the southern army, then led the expedition out of King's Landing to cheers from the people. As Robert I envied his chance to fight, Titus joked that he would trade places and let Robert take the field against the Reach.

• Titus assigned Roose Bolton and Rickard Karstark to guard the northern army's left flank, and Roose requested extra medicinal supplies for the southern climate.
• Titus met Symond Templeton, whose praise and cooperative attitude confirmed the Vale Knights would serve as the southern army's vanguard.
• Titus noticed that Varys had not appeared at the Red Keep and wondered whether he would wait until the army marched south.
• Two days later, Titus rode at the head of the assembled army as crowds in King's Landing cheered him for bringing Gregor Clegane to justice.
• Robert I told Titus he wished he could lead the army himself, and Titus joked that Robert could take the Iron Throne while he fought the Reach.

Titus joked with Robert about taking a queen while leading the army south from King’s Landing, beginning the southern campaign of 283 Conquest. At the mouth of the Mander River, King Quellon and a hundred Ironborn longships slipped past the Shield Islands to raid the Reach.

• Titus asked Robert whether he wanted a queen, then rode to the front and ordered the army to move south.
• Robert said Lyanna alone was enough for him, while Titus privately hoped Jon would resolve the situation with Lyanna.
• The army marched south along the Kingsroad as the people of King’s Landing watched it depart.
• King Quellon led a fleet of a hundred longships through the mist, skirting the Shield Islands toward the Mander River.
• Quellon brought his three eldest sons along to show them the world as the Ironborn prepared to plunder the Reach.

The Ironborn fleet led by King Quellon sailed into a trap set by the Shield Islands, whose ships attacked from both ends of the fog-shrouded Mander. After the Shield Islands sank the decoy King Quellon and celebrated his death, Quellon emerged aboard the hidden Iron Victory and ordered a counterattack.

• The chapter described the Iron Islands, the Drowned God, and the Ironborn tradition of reaving before Aegon's Conquest and its later prohibition.
• King Quellon's fleet sailed through fog toward the Mander River to raid the Reach.
• The Shield Islands lit beacon fires and launched a surprise attack from the river and from behind the Ironborn fleet.
• Earl Mavard Chester ordered the Shield Islands fleet to concentrate on the King Quellon, which eventually broke apart and sank.
• The Shield Islands celebrated Quellon's supposed death, but Quellon appeared aboard the hidden Iron Victory and ordered his fleet to charge.

Quellon Greyjoy led the Ironborn fleet through a feigned retreat and counterattack that shattered the Shield Islands’ defenses at the Mander River. With the river open and Highgarden exposed, the Ironborn sailed north into the Reach.

• Quellon led the Iron Victory and the Ironborn vanguard in a fierce counterattack that scattered the Shield Islands fleet inside the river.
• Quellon ordered his fleet to press up the Mander while a concealed Ironborn reserve moved to encircle the Shield Islands ships pursuing outside the river mouth.
• The Ironborn reserve struck the pursuing fleet from behind as Quellon’s vanguard turned back, trapping the Shield Islanders between the two forces.
• The Ironborn destroyed and plundered the scattered Shield Islands ships, then joined forces and continued north toward Highgarden.
• Quellon watched his sons lead the clearing of the battlefield as Balon hauled survivors from the water and displayed captured Shield Islands banners aboard the King Vickon.

Quellon Greyjoy’s fleet defeated the Shield Islands after he followed Titus Peake’s warning and avoided their ambush. He chose to raid Highgarden’s harbor and surrounding settlements rather than storm its walls, while planning to use firebombs to provoke the Tyrells into fighting; the Iron Fleet then advanced toward its target as another army entered the Kingswood.

• Balon reported that the Ironborn had captured twenty-eight enemy ships, while Euron and Victarion joined him aboard the Iron Victory.
• Quellon explained that Titus Peake’s letter had warned him of the Shield Islands’ ambush, and Euron and Balon questioned why the Black Earl had helped them.
• Quellon recalled Titus’s advice and map of Highgarden, then decided the Ironborn should avoid storming its three walls and plunder the harbor district and nearby settlements instead.
• Quellon ordered Balon to keep the fleet’s incendiaries safe and planned to burn Highgarden’s gardens to provoke House Tyrell into opening its gates.
• After resting, the Iron Fleet pursued the fleeing Shield Islanders past Dunstonbury toward Highgarden, while an army advancing from the east entered the Kingswood.

Titus led the Southern Expeditionary Army through the Kingswood and into the Stormlands, where local forces swelled it to more than thirty thousand men. As Mace Tyrell remained trapped outside Storm’s End, Olenna learned that the Shield Islands’ defenses had fallen and an ironborn fleet was sailing up the Mander toward Highgarden.

• Titus and Wenda rode with the twenty-five-thousand-strong army through the Kingswood as Eddard Stark prepared to leave with a light escort.
• After entering the Stormlands, Titus welcomed Hugh Grandison and other northern Stormlands lords, bringing the army’s strength close to thirty thousand.
• Titus placed the newly arrived Stormlands forces under Hugh Grandison, and Fellwood’s soldiers joined under Silveraxe Fell as the army passed north of Storm’s End.
• Mace Tyrell remained unable to advance against Titus’s growing army or surrender without feeling he would lose face.
• Garth Tyrell told Olenna that the Shield Islands’ armed fleet had been destroyed and that the Iron Fleet led by Qhored Greyjoy was sailing up the Mander toward Highgarden.

Olenna organized Highgarden’s defenses against Quellon’s Iron Fleet after learning that the Redwyne Fleet could not return in time. Meanwhile, Paxter Redwyne prayed aboard the Queen of the Arbor near Storm’s End and urged Mace to surrender.

• Olenna rejected abandoning Highgarden’s harbor district and ordered merchant ships, stones, and Tyrell pleasure boats assembled into a barrier, with smiths making fire-oil bombs.
• Olenna sent Right Hand to deploy archers behind the ship wall and evacuate settlement residents into Highgarden, then ordered the knights to strengthen the walls, towers, and gates.
• Olenna learned that the Redwyne Fleet was away supporting Mace’s siege of Storm’s End and ordered Ser Fo Timo Crane to bring his ten thousand men back from east of Goldengrove.
• Davos and Oswin’s fleet reached Shipbreaker Bay, where their contacts among pirates and Ironborn were expected to help lift the siege of Storm’s End.
• Paxter Redwyne prayed aboard the Queen of the Arbor and sighed that Mace should surrender.

Paxter Redwyne worried that the yearlong siege of Storm’s End was damaging House Redwyne’s wine trade, while Salladhor Saan sailed toward the Redwyne blockade on a mission from Davos Seaworth. Salladhor’s family history led into the story of the Band of Nine and the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

• Paxter Redwyne prayed for Mace Tyrell to surrender Storm’s End and lamented the business lost by keeping the Redwyne Fleet at the siege.
• Salladhor Saan led the Valyrian and the Peacock toward the Redwyne blockade, reassuring his nervous first mate that they were there to put on a show, not attack head-on.
• Salladhor recalled that Davos Seaworth had assigned him a task and hoped their Ironborn allies would prove useful.
• Salladhor’s account traced the Band of Nine’s rise through Essos and its invasion preparations, which prompted Jaehaerys II to send an army to the Stepstones.
• Maelys Blackfyre killed Mund Baratheon, but Barristan Selmy slew Maelys in battle, ending the final male Blackfyre threat.
• The surviving members of the Band of Nine gradually lost their territories, while Acoqua Adrys held Tyrosh for six years before his queen poisoned him.

Salladhor Saan and Donno Suckliff led a feint that drew the Redwyne Fleet away from its blockade of Shipbreaker Bay. Under cover of darkness and a raging storm, Davos Seaworth began carrying supplies toward Storm's End.

• Salladhor Saan ordered the Thousand-Colored Bird and his ships to threaten the Redwyne Fleet while coordinating with Donno Suckliff's Ironborn.
• Donno Suckliff led the Nine Serpents and his fleet toward the Redwyne Fleet, hoping to lure its warships toward reefs and possibly capture one.
• The Redwyne Fleet sent warships after Salladhor's pirates and Donno's Ironborn, disrupting its formation and opening a gap in the blockade.
• Davos Seaworth sailed a black-sailed cargo ship through Shipbreaker Bay under cover of darkness to bring food to Storm's End.

Davos and his men slipped past the Redwyne blockade and used a hidden sea passage to bring food into Storm's End, where Stannis Baratheon and the defenders were starving under siege. The chapter left them carrying crates toward the castle, with the starving garrison about to receive a feast.

• Davos guided his cargo ship through Shipbreaker Bay's reefs and along the cliffs beneath Storm's End.
• Davos and his men found a concealed iron gate and widened it enough to pass through with a boat.
• Davos led the sailors and their crates through a secret waterway and up the steps toward the Main Keep.
• The chapter described how Mace Tyrell's army and Paxter Redwyne's fleet had isolated Storm's End while Stannis Baratheon refused to surrender.
• The besieged defenders, reduced to eating animals and rats, were about to receive ham and smoked meat brought by Davos.

Davos Seaworth brought desperately needed food through the blockade to Storm's End, where Stannis Baratheon distributed it and asked about the Southern Expeditionary Army. Meanwhile, Titus Peake took command of the campaign and assigned a task to the cooperative Symond Templeton, whose Vale family embodied the region's traditions of knighthood and faith.

• Davos Seaworth met Stannis Baratheon at Storm's End after the guards apprehended him, and Stannis questioned him about his identity.
• Stannis accepted Davos's supplies and distributed food to everyone in the castle before taking his own portion.
• Stannis thanked Davos and asked about the Southern Expeditionary Army as he considered Storm's End's next defenses and cooperation with Titus.
• Titus Peake assumed command of the army after Eddard left with light cavalry to search for Lyanna, and Titus assigned a task to Symond Templeton.
• Titus reflected on House Templeton's strength, its devotion to the Faith of the Seven, and the Vale Knights' reputation for chivalry.

Titus Peake met the Reach leaders on a hill between the armies, intending to use the confrontation to prepare for battle rather than pursue a peaceful settlement. Mace Tyrell accused Titus of betraying Highgarden and causing Randyll Tarly’s death, while Titus remained unconcerned.

• Titus brought Captain White Eagle, Gino, his deputies, and a small guard squad to meet the Reach delegation between the two armies.
• Mace Tyrell, Baelor Hightower, Alester Florent, and Mathis Rowan rode to the hill, where Titus and the other leaders gathered with few guards.
• Mace accused Titus of betraying Highgarden and asked why he had harmed Randyll Tarly.
• Titus silently dismissed Mace’s accusations, while the Reach leaders noticed that his calm manner suggested he was ready to fight.
• Mace continued speaking as the meeting grew tense.

Titus Peake confronted Mace Tyrell and the Reach lords during surrender negotiations, using the Ironborn threat and the strength of his allies to pressure them. After Mace resisted, Titus asserted his authority as commander-in-chief, and the Reach representatives reconsidered their view of him.

• Mathis Rowan tried to calm Mace Tyrell, while Titus Peake judged the Reach lords’ willingness to submit and recognized Mace’s reluctance to kneel before a former vassal.
• Titus defended his support for Robert Baratheon I and threatened to resume the fighting if Mace continued to call it betrayal.
• Titus warned that the Iron Islands’ fleet was approaching the middle reaches of the Mander River, heightening the Reach lords’ fears for their lands and weakening their position.
• Titus demanded that Mace dismount and kneel or face a march south, but Mace refused and protested that Storm’s End and Starpike were under siege.
• Titus declared that Mace would address him as Lord Commander-in-Chief, and Gino proclaimed Titus’s titles and holdings to the Reach representatives.
• Mathis Rowan, Baelor Hightower, Alester Florent, and Mace reassessed Titus’s standing after hearing the extent of his titles and power.

Titus Peake gave the Southern Lands Army an ultimatum demanding five hundred thousand gold dragons and Mace Tyrell’s public, kneeling surrender, while Mace rejected the terms and returned to rally the Reach lords against Titus. Titus left the talks warning that refusal could bring an attack, and his deputies praised his hard line as the armies prepared for what came next.

• Mathis Rowan tried to smooth over Mace Tyrell’s angry remarks, and Alester Florent persuaded Titus to overlook Mace’s supposed slip of the tongue.
• Titus ended the negotiations and demanded five hundred thousand gold dragons in reparations and Mace’s public surrender on his knees.
• Mace rejected the terms, while Mathis asked for time to discuss them; Titus allowed the delay but warned the Reach representatives to send a prompt answer or face consequences.
• After Titus departed, Mace blamed the failed talks on Titus’s arrogance and focused the assembled Reach nobles on the demand for gold.
• In the Southern Expeditionary Army’s command tent, Gulian Swann praised Titus’s conduct and said the Stormlands troops were ready to fight.

Titus persuaded the allied commanders to abandon hopes of a peaceful surrender and prepare to fight the southern army, arguing that the Reach was wealthy but divided and that victory would bring rich spoils. The council ended with Roose and Symond supporting his plan, while Titus hinted at arrangements he had not revealed.

• Roose Bolton warned that harsh surrender terms could unite the Reach and lead to needless losses, while Gawen favored battle and Symon acknowledged both the Reach's wealth and the risks.
• Titus declared that taking the southern army was his true aim and argued that Mace Tyrell could not unite the Reach's powerful houses into a determined force.
• Titus promised the allies a share of the southern army's wealth and suggested that some enemy commanders supported the Iron Throne and justice.
• Roose agreed to persuade the northern lords, and Symond said the Vale vanguard stood ready to move.
• The council ended with the Stormlands, northern, and Vale contingents prepared to fight under Titus's command.

The Reach lords argued over Titus Peake’s harsh surrender terms and Mace Tyrell’s outrage, while Earl Mathis Rowan warned that Titus was a ruthless opponent. Alester Florent urged the divided army to prepare for war, leaving the Reach lords poised to fortify their camp and face the Black Earl.

• The Reach lords argued over whether to surrender and how to pay Titus Peake’s demand for five hundred thousand gold dragons.
• Mace Tyrell condemned Titus for humiliating him and insisted that the Reach could not accept the insult.
• Baelor of Oldtown argued that Titus was only threatening them, but Mathis Rowan cited Titus’s past killings and urged the lords to surrender or prepare for war.
• Alester Florent called for the Reach army to fortify its camp and ready its troops while the lords remained unable to agree on surrender.

Mace Tyrell ordered the Southern Lands army to prepare for battle rather than surrender, while Alester Florent worried about his daughter Melissa and sought a way to draw closer to House Baratheon. Back in his tent, Alester discovered a mysterious letter sealed with the Peake sigil and began to read it.

• Mace Tyrell accepted Matus and Alester Florent's proposal to reinforce the camp and put Titus Peake under pressure, and the lords left to prepare.
• Alester Florent reflected on Queen Alysanne Targaryen's Widow's Law and the right of the first night, and recognized that neither could protect Melissa Florent's claim to Horn Hill.
• Alester considered how House Florent might gain the new dynasty's patronage and draw closer to House Baratheon.
• Alester returned to his tent and found a miniature letter tube beside his pillow, though his guards insisted no one had entered.
• Alester opened the tube, recognized its three castles seal as Peake's, and read a letter addressed to him as an old friend and distant kinsman.

Alester Florent accepted Titus Peake’s offer to betray Mace Tyrell in exchange for a chance to lead the Reach’s surrender and rise above House Tyrell. The next morning, the Southern Lands Army repositioned for battle, while Wenda Storm confirmed that its formations matched Alester’s report.

• Alester read Titus Peake’s secret letter and agreed to help undermine Mace Tyrell in exchange for House Florent’s privileged role in surrendering to the Iron Throne.
• Alester hid the letter, then planned to recruit the Earls of Honeyholt and Halfmoon Hall and write a reply proving his loyalty.
• At dawn, the Southern Lands Army withdrew its siege lines around Storm’s End and formed battle lines facing the Southern Expeditionary Army.
• Alester took command of the army’s rear, while Baelor Hightower guarded its right flank and Matus commanded its left.
• Titus sent Wenda Storm’s gyrfalcon, Griffith, to inspect the opposing army, and Wenda reported that its formations matched Alester’s letter.

Titus launched a sunset assault on the Southern Lands Army, and the Vale Knights, Northmen, and Stormlanders routed the Reach forces across the battlefield. The Reach coalition fractured as allied houses withdrew, leaving Highgarden and its close allies to face the attack largely alone.

• Titus ordered the Southern Expeditionary Army to attack at sunset, targeting Highgarden and Mace Tyrell while keeping his central army in reserve.
• The Vale Knights smashed through the camp defenses and routed the forces of Highgarden, Cider Hall, and New Barrel before troops from Old Oak and Greenvale slowed their advance.
• Roose Bolton and Rickard Karstark led the Northmen against House Hightower, whose soldiers broke under the assault as Ser Baelor retreated.
• Gulian Swann's Stormlanders and Mathis Rowan's forces fought on the opposite flank, while Rowan's Reach allies largely withdrew from the battle.
• The Southern Expeditionary Army repeatedly called the campaign a march against Highgarden rebels as the Tyrell forces and their closest allies were left fighting alone.

Titus Peake’s Southern Expeditionary Army encircled and shattered Mace Tyrell’s vanguard, capturing Baelor Hightower while the Reach rear refused to help. Titus ordered his troops to slow their attack and accept surrenders, leaving Mace trapped and facing capture.

• Matus Rowan withdrew his troops, and the other houses behind him retreated rather than aid the Hightower forces.
• Stannis Baratheon sent Storm’s End’s defenders out through the gates to attack Baelor Hightower’s retreating troops, and Roose Bolton’s spearmen captured Baelor.
• Alester Florent’s rear formation held back, while the Southern Expeditionary Army’s wings closed around Mace Tyrell’s vanguard and completed the encirclement.
• Mace Tyrell tried to break out, but his soldiers surrendered, and he realized that his allies had abandoned him.
• Wenda reported the battlefield’s progress to Titus Peake, who ordered his troops to slow their attacks and accept the Reachmen’s surrender.

After crushing the Reachmen vanguard, Titus Peake forced Mace Tyrell to kneel, then declared that Mace had surrendered to him personally rather than to the Iron Throne; Mace fainted from humiliation. Titus revealed that Alester Florent would surrender the remaining Southern Lands Army, and the chapter ended with Alester and Mathis Rowan meeting the victors on the hill.

• Titus Peake had Mace Tyrell brought before the armies after the Southern Expeditionary Army defeated the Highgarden-led vanguard and captured its commanders.
• Mace knelt and swore allegiance to Robert I, but Titus told him he was surrendering only to the man who had defeated and captured him.
• Mace tried to rise, collapsed, and fainted; Titus ordered his guards to keep him under strict guard and treat him well.
• Titus told Roose Bolton that Alester Florent would formally surrender the remaining Southern Lands Army, and praised Stannis Baratheon for helping capture Baelor Hightower.
• Alester Florent and Mathis Rowan met Titus on the hill, where Alester happily surrendered the remaining army while standing.

After the Southern Lands Army surrendered, Titus’s forces seized its supplies and held a victory feast with the surviving Reach nobles. Titus announced double ransoms for captured lords and knights, but offered leniency to those willing to become his allies, leaving Alester to negotiate.

• The Southern Lands Army surrendered, and Titus’s forces took its intact camp, discovering abundant provisions, weapons, armor, siege equipment, crossbows, and chests of coins.
• Titus’s army held a lavish victory feast in the Lord of Highgarden’s pavilion, where Alester said he had sent a ship to summon Paxter Redwyne to submit.
• Titus praised Alester for providing intelligence that helped the Southern Expeditionary Army defeat Mace Tyrell’s forces.
• Mathis asked Titus what he would do with the captured Reach nobles, including Baelor Hightower and the Fossoways.
• Titus declared that captured lords and knights would face double ransoms, but those who became his friends could receive leniency; he asked Alester to persuade them.

Titus demanded one million gold dragons from Mace Tyrell for his ransom and Highgarden’s war reparations, and intimidated him until he agreed to pay. Titus left Mace broken and crying, with one month to deliver the money.

• Titus announced that Highgarden must pay one million gold dragons, with the sum divided among the Iron Throne, Storm’s End, his forces, and allied houses.
• Mace woke in captivity, distressed over having surrendered publicly, and learned that Titus had set his ransom and reparations at one million gold dragons.
• Titus confronted Mace with an itemized bill and threatened to march on Highgarden and destroy House Tyrell if he refused to pay.
• Alester led the frightened Earl Meadows out of the tent while Titus continued pressuring Mace to accept the terms.
• Mace abandoned his attempts to bargain and agreed that House Tyrell would pay one million gold dragons within a month.
• Titus warned Mace not to use Golden Hand coins, then left as Mace sat trembling and crying.