Inn at the Crossroads

The building standing today is not the first to occupy this crossroads: the inn has been there for centuries, though it was rebuilt during the reign of Jaehaerys I Targaryen, the king who laid the Kingsroad. It is said that Jaehaerys and his wife, Queen Alysanne, would stop to sleep there, and for a time the place was called Two Crowns, until an innkeeper raised a bell tower and it became the Ringing Inn.

Years later, a retired knight, Long Jon Heddle, took over the business and forged a three-headed dragon of black iron for the yard, so large it had to be assembled from a dozen pieces that clattered together in the wind — which is why it came to be called the Rattling Dragon Inn. The sign did not survive Daemon Blackfyre's rebellion: the lord of the nearby lands, an outspoken Targaryen loyalist, tore the dragon down and threw the pieces in the river. One of the heads, rusted through, washed up on Quiet Isle many years later.

With no sign to name it, the inn simply became known as the Inn by the River, a name it kept while the Trident ran beneath its back rooms and a ferry crossed to Lord Harroway's Town and Whitewalls. The river shifted course several decades before the War of the Five Kings, and that last name went with it.

On the road to King's Landing, Arya Stark spent a night at the inn with her sister Sansa and Septa Mordane. Soon after, Catelyn Tully and Ser Rodrik Cassel arrived and recognised Tyrion Lannister among the guests, taking him prisoner on the spot before the lords Catelyn had gathered to back the arrest.

Masha Heddle, the innkeeper, begged the lords to settle their quarrels somewhere else, but no one listened. Not long after, Lord Tywin Lannister occupied the inn with his army, turned it into a headquarters, and had her hanged.

After the Lannister defeat at the Battle of the Green Fork, Lord Roose Bolton advanced on the crossroads and retook the inn for Robb Stark's cause.

With Arya Stark in his custody, Sandor Clegane ran into three of his brother Gregor's men at the inn: Polliver, the Tickler and his squire. There was little room for talk — Sandor and Arya killed all three, though he came out of the fight badly wounded.

With Masha Heddle dead, the inn first passed to a nephew of hers, who reopened it as a brothel; it brought him no more luck, and he too was murdered. Two nieces, Jeyne and Willow, took it over afterward and gave it a very different purpose: they turned it into a refuge for children the war had left with no one.

Brienne of Tarth, Podrick Payne, Septon Meribald and Ser Hyle Hunt arrived at that refuge and found a boy named Gendry working there as a smith. Soon after, Rorge, Biter and the rest of their gang showed up as well; the fight that followed left the outlaws dead and Brienne wounded.