AFfC 8: Jaime 130

Jaime is standing vigil over his ever-smellier father's corpse. Presumably this is some sort of unfathomable Westerosi tradition. He's wracked with guilt that he caused all this by freeing Tyrion. Actually he caused all this by picking the absolute worst time to tell Tyrion the truth about his first wife. He's also consumed with jealousy at the idea that Cersei would sleep with Lancel and a Kettleblack, as Tyrion told him.

Varys has done a runner. He didn't want to free Tyrion in the first place but Jaime would have killed him otherwise.

Cersei comes to beg him to be hand but goes off in a huff when he says no. But later he helps her out a bit by explaining how to deal with Mace Tyrell, by sending him off to capture Storm's End. It seems like Jaime could just help Cersei out like this from time to time without having any official capacity. She still needs to choose a hand, though.

AFfC 7: Cersei 111

Cersei goes to her dad's funeral. We learn that the reward for killing Tyrion is a lordship. And that Tywin had no sense of humour. Cersei prays that he be judged fairly: she should be careful what she wishes for.

The corpse smells bad and has a funny smile. Cersei is very paranoid now (though they are out to get her), and thinks the septon hired by Tyrion must be behind it.

She has to talk to tedious people. Mace Tyrell wants to be King's hand and has some relative he wants to be master of coin, but Cersei is (quite rightly) suspicious of Tyrells. She asks Gyles Rosby to be master of coin. He doesn't want the job but he takes it.

The not-quite maester Qyburn wants to know more about the poison that is very slowly and painfully killing GREGOR. He should ask the Martells, one of whom was talking previously about it being deliberately slow and painful poison. Anyway I'm a bit suspicious of Qyburn, mostly since Cersei seems incapable of hiring anyone trustworthy (see also the Kettleblacks). And I fully expect GREGOR to make a full recovery and be a bit miffed with the Dornish.

Cersei asks her uncle, Kevan Lannister, to be hand. Up until now I'd always thought of him as a harmless background character, but it turns out he has enormous balls! He tells Cersei he'll take the job only if she buggers off to Casterly Rock to get away from Tommen, since she is, if Joffrey is anything to go by, a terrible mother. And if she doesn't like that, well he's got a quite a lot of soldiers who will back him up. And by the way he knows who Tommen's father is. Awesome stuff, he is my new favourite Lannister.

Interestingly he recommends Sam's dad Randyll Tarly as king's hand as an alternative.

AFfC 6: Arya 98

We last saw Arya getting onto a ship, trying to get to the Wall. Instead she's ended up bound for Braavos, which is a kind of Venice-like city of islands and about as un-Westeros-like as possible, in case Arya wasn't homesick enough. She's going to end up seriously tough at the end of all these adventures.

The weird coin that Jaqen H'ghar gave her leads her to a weird temple. Inside she meets an even weirder old man who seems to be able to read her mind and change his face. The face-changing, if I remember rightly, is a trick Jaqen himself pulled last time Arya saw him. This seems like pretty overtly magical magic, unless it turns out to be some trick along the lines of Stannis' suspiciously not-hot fire-y sword.

AFfC 5: Samwell 80

Jon is now the Lord Commander and doesn't hang out with his friends much any more. Dolorous Edd is his steward. Sam is reading books in the library to learn more about the Others. Stannis is still hanging around. Jon's dilemma is how to get help from Tywin in King's Landing without pissing off Stannis, and keeping Stannis around without pissing of Tywin. It seems pretty moot to me: no-one else is likely to help the Watch.

It seems to be common knowledge that Stannis wants to sacrifice someone with king's blood to resurrect a dragon. Jon is worried about Maester Aemon (Targaryen). So he sends Sam and Aemon off to Oldtown to keep Aemon safe (assuming the journey doesn't kill him) and for Sam to become a Maester. This re-awakens Sam's nightmares about his dad strangling him with a chain last time he said he wanted to be a Maester. There really are some pretty crappy fathers among the Westeros noblemen.

Anyway I'm pretty sure some other big stuff is going to be happening in Oldtown and Sam will likely get there in time to have a ringside seat.

AFfC 4: Brienne 63

Brienne is looking for Sansa. She is heading from King's Landing to Duskendale and makes it as far as Rosby in this chapter. Consulting my iPad map app, its not totally the wrong direction but it's not that right either. And she still thinks Dontos is with Sansa (he's at the bottom of Blackwater Bay somewhere). So unless she gets some better intelligence on Sansa's location it's going to be a long quest.

She goes around asking locals if they've seen people meeting Sansa's and Dontos' descriptions. Basically she's behaving like a player in a fantasy RPG computer game. If she can just talk to the right NPC she can progress the story. Instead she meets Ser Creighton the boastful and Ser Illifer the penniless. This seems like it is going to be a minor side-quest, though. She does learn that plenty of other people are also looking for Sansa, since Cersei is also trying to find her.

By the way what is a hedge knight? Some sort of lesser-knight, it would seem.

Edit: I found out. Hedge knight is a derogatory term for knight errant, which is a knight with no master who must seek work.

Interesting that the word on the street is that Tyrion is the cruelest Lannister. That's pretty far from the truth.

There is a group belonging to a strange religious sect heading for King's Landing. I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to have more significance than appears here.

Brienne and the hedge knights ride to an Inn and Brienne pays for rooms for them all, but after going to bed and not sleeping she leaves them and gets back on the road.

AFfC 3: Cersei 51

So now get to see inside Cersei's head. This should be interesting!

She is awakened from a rather horrible dream into the rather horrible reality of a bunch of blokes in her room telling her to get up because her father has been murdered. They're not massively big on privacy in Westeros, are they?

She is lead to Tywin's chambers and he is indeed dead. She's a bit surprised to find Shae there, also dead. She is conflicted: feeling unsafe because if Tywin can be killed then any Lannister can be; feeling relieved because he can no longer force her to marry someone. She learns of Tyrion's escape and wonders if Varys has anything to do with that. But she does not yet suspect Jaime. Boy is he in for a world of trouble when she finds out!

Cersei also knows she is currently weak and has few friends she can trust. She needs some men to help protect her and Tommen. It is not looking good for her!

Also in this chapter we learn that Cersei wanted to "deal with" Stannis and Renly before killing Robert. And that an old woman in a tent once told her that Tyrion would kill her (in addition to her mother, father and, she thinks, son).

AFfC 2: The Captain of the Guards 33

The captain is Hotah, and he's looking after Prince Doran Martell, the man in charge of Dorne who couldn't go to visit Tywin himself because he is full of gout. But at least he's staying a nice seaside resort.

The prince's brother Oberyn was killed fighting GREGOR, and his three daughters visit Doran with various plans. One daughter wants to declare war on Tywin and destroy, for some reason I don't understand, Oldtown. Another daughter would be content with a few assassinations. Jaime, Cersei, Tywin and Joffrey. Well, half her work is already done. The third daughter wants to declare Myrcella the Queen of Westeros and then just slaughter Tywin's armies when they attack in retaliation to that, Dorne being one of those really very defensible places that no-one has ever conquered.

So Doran travels to the city of Sunspear, where it seems the people are baying for Lannister blood because Oberyn was popular. It seems like he has to choose which daughter's plan is the best, but instead he orders Hotah to lock all three of them (and their families) up, and stay loyal to Tywin. Boy, is he in for a surprise.