Robert receives word that Daenerys Targaryen is pregnant with a Dothraki warlord's child and orders her assassination. Ned argues fiercely against murdering a young woman and her unborn child, insisting it is dishonorable. Robert refuses to relent, and Ned resigns as Hand of the King in protest, announcing he will return to Winterfell. Varys quietly warns Ned that his investigation has made him a target and that Jon Arryn was poisoned. On the high road to the Eyrie, Catelyn's party is ambushed by the hill tribes of the Vale. Tyrion fights alongside his captors to survive, proving his pragmatic courage. They reach the Eyrie, where Catelyn's sister Lysa Arryn, paranoid and unstable, imprisons Tyrion in the sky cells — doorless chambers that open onto a sheer cliff. Tyrion discovers that Lysa has already convicted him in her mind. At Castle Black, Jon Snow and his fellow recruits, including his friend Samwell Tarly, a frightened but intelligent highborn boy, prepare to take their vows. Jon is assigned to the stewards rather than the rangers, which he considers an insult. Sam points out that the Lord Commander's personal steward is being groomed for command, not punished. Arya continues her sword training in King's Landing with Syrio Forel, a Braavosi water dancer hired by Ned. She practices the fluid, precise style that contrasts with Westerosi brute-force swordplay. Ned watches the lesson and his expression darkens as he hears the clash of wooden swords, reminded that war is coming for his family. In King's Landing, Littlefinger takes Ned to a brothel where another of Robert's bastard children lives, deepening Ned's understanding of the pattern Jon Arryn followed. Ned connects the evidence: every Baratheon-born child in the genealogy book has black hair, yet all three of Cersei's children are golden-haired. He realizes that Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen are not Robert's children — they are the product of Cersei and Jaime's incest. Jaime Lannister, learning of Tyrion's arrest, confronts Ned in the streets of King's Landing with armed men. Jaime's soldiers kill Ned's guards, and Jaime personally wounds Ned in the fighting before riding away, demanding his brother's release.