Darry

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Darry
Castle
JB Casacop Castle Darry.jpg
Darry by JB Casacop © Fantasy Flight Games
Location Riverlands
Government House Darry of Darry (former; now extinct)
House Lannister of Darry (former; renounced seat)
Ruler Lord Raymun Darry (AGoT)
Lady Amerei Frey (ADwD)
Notable places Plowman's Keep
Great Hall
The riverlands and a possible location of Darry
The riverlands and a possible location of Darry
Darry
The riverlands and a possible location of Darry[1]

Darry[2] or Castle Darry[3] is the seat of House Darry in the riverlands.

Location

The location of Darry has not been published in A Song of Ice and Fire, but it is near the ruby ford.[4] There is good hunting along a nearby river,[2] possibly the Darry or the Trident.

Darry is mentioned as half a day's ride south of the Trident in A Game of Thrones,[5] and A Feast for Crows also mentions it as south of the Trident.[6] The semi-canon A World of Ice and Fire places it in the vicinity of Lord Harroway's Town and the ruby ford, near the kingsroad.[1]

Layout

Darry is a small castle[5][2] which includes a gatehouse, ramparts, stables, and a yard.[2]

The Plowman's Keep, the tower in which the Darrys have their apartments, overlooks the castle's godswood.[2] There are vaults beneath the keep.[7]

Darry's great hall, located across the yard from the castle's tower,[5] is not particularly large. The trestle tables are packed between the walls, and its rafters have been blacked by smoke.[2] Raymun's audience chamber contains the high seat at its end.[5]

Darry's sept is just off the castle's inner ward. It is a half-timbered, seven-sided building with no windows. The sept has carved wood doors and a tiled roof. Images of the Seven loom over carved atlars.[2]

History

House Darry traces their rule to the days when the Andals cast down the First Men.[2] The Darrys fought Vorian Vypren at the Widow's Ford during the coming of the Andals.[8]

The Darrys supported the blacks during the Dance of the Dragons. Castle Darry and its fields were burned by Prince Aemond Targaryen and his dragon, Vhagar. Lord Darry, his heir, and several bannermen were killed by the dragonflame, but Lady Darry and her younger children took shelter in vaults.[7]

Ser Regis Groves and Ser Damon Darry departed from Darry with a hundred men to deal with the rabble of Alys Rivers at Harrenhal. Regis and most of the men were killed in the ensuing conflict, however, and Damon fled back to Castle Darry. Alys sent another survivor back to Darry as a messenger, but that man allegedly died of sorcery when a Darry man laughed at Alys's message.[9]

The lands ruled from Castle Darry once extended as far as the inn at the crossroads,[10] but the Darrys lost much of their power after Robert's Rebellion for having been House Targaryen loyalists.[11]

Recent Events

A Game of Thrones

Robert I Baratheon holding court at Darry, with art by Mike S. Miller for A Game of Thrones comic adaptation

When King Robert I Baratheon's entourage travels north to offer the Hand of the King to Lord Eddard Stark, they stay at Darry both en route and returning. On the outbound stop, Tyrion Lannister finds that tapestries depicting the Targaryen kings had been taken down from the walls of the Plowman's Keep and hidden in the cellar.[2]

On the return journey, the company uses Darry as a base from which to search for Eddard's daughter Arya, who went missing following an altercation with Prince Joffrey Baratheon and her direwolf, Nymeria, near the ruby ford.[12] After four days of searching, Arya is brought before Robert in Ser Raymun Darry's audience chamber. Arya and Joffrey give conflicting stories, and Arya's sister Sansa says she cannot remember what happened. When Queen Cersei Lannister insists that a direwolf be executed, Eddard kills Sansa's pet, Lady, by Darry's gatehouse instead of having the wolf be butchered by Ser Ilyn Payne, the King's Justice. Sandor Clegane returns to the castle with the corpse of Mycah, Arya's friend.[5]

Ser Raymun, the castle's lord,[5] is killed by Ser Gregor Clegane during the battle at the Mummer's Ford.[13][14]

A Clash of Kings

Castle Darry is captured by House Lannister at the opening of the War of the Five Kings. It is recaptured by forces of House Darry, but this lasts only a fortnight before Ser Gregor Clegane descends upon them and puts the castle to the sword. The last of the male line of House Darry, Raymun's son Lyman, is killed there.[15]

Northmen led by Ser Helman Tallhart retake the castle after a short siege. They are ordered by Lord Roose Bolton to put all captives to the sword and the castle to the torch in the name of Robb Stark, King in the North, and Roose then has Helman join Robett Glover for an attack on Duskendale.[16]

King Joffrey I Baratheon grants Darry to Ser Lancel Lannister following the Battle of the Blackwater.[17]

A Feast for Crows

Because Castle Darry is occupied by broken men after the northmen's departure, Ser Kevan Lannister sends Ser Harwyn Plumm, called Hardstone, to expel them.[18] After Lancel Lannister is installed as the Lord of House Lannister of Darry through marriage to Amerei Frey, daughter of Merrett Frey and Mariya Darry, the lands around the castle are inhabited and worked once again. Lancel's banner hanging from the barbican quarters the lion of House Lannister with the plowman of House Darry.[2] Kevan departs for Casterly Rock after his son's wedding.[2] A persistent outlaw presence continues to plague the region, so Hardstone leads a search beyond the Trident.[2]

Ser Jaime Lannister, Lancel's cousin, visits Darry during his campaign to restore order to the riverlands, and Jaime, Pia and Josmyn Peckledon all consider it to be a small castle. Jaime sees it crowded with soldiers from Houses Frey and Lannister, as well as armed "sparrows". While Jaime's host camps outside the western wall, Maester Ottomore has Jaime stay in the Plowman's Keep, as Lancel has been sleeping instead in the castle's sept. Jaime and his chief knights have supper with Amerei and Mariya in the great hall. Later in the sept, Lancel tells Jaime he is renouncing his lordship. While sparring in the godswood that night, Jaime recounts to Ser Ilyn Payne that he had slept with his twin, Queen Cersei Lannister, in Raymun Darry's bed when Robert's retinue returned south from Winterfell.[2]

At Riverrun, Genna Lannister tells Jaime that Mariya's sister, Jeyne Darry, is furious that Castle Darry was granted to Lancel instead of Jeyne's sons, Tywin and Willem Frey.[19] After the siege of Riverrun is resolved, Ser Lyle Crakehall and Ser Jon Bettley depart for Darry to help hunt outlaws like the Hound and Lord Beric Dondarrion.[20]

A Dance with Dragons

Having renounced Darry, Lancel joins the Warrior's Sons.[21]

Quotes

With king's men, Darry men, Lannister men, and Stark men all crammed into a castle far too small for them, tensions burned hot and heavy.[5]

—thoughts of Eddard Stark

Arya was glad to hear that the castle of the Darrys would be burned. That was where they'd brought her when she'd been caught after her fight with Joffrey, and where the queen had made her father kill Sansa's wolf. It deserves to burn.[16]

—thoughts of Arya Stark

Darry had changed hands several times during the fighting, and its castle had been burned once and sacked at least twice, but Lancel had seemingly wasted little time setting things to rights. The castle gates were newly hung, raw oaken planks reinforced with iron studs. A new stable was going up where an older one had been put to the torch. The steps to the keep had been replaced, and the shutters on many of the windows. Blackened stones showed where the flames had licked, but time and rain would fade those.[2]

—thoughts of Jaime Lannister

Darry's great hall was great only by courtesy.[2]

—thoughts of Jaime Lannister

Jaime: You should be sleeping with your wife, not with the Maid. You need a son with Darry blood if you want to keep this castle.
Lancel: A pile of cold stones. I never asked for it. I never wanted it.[2]

Chapters that take place at Darry

References