He wouldn’t send Ser Loras,” Sansa
told Jeyne Poole that night as they shared a cold supper by
lamplight. “I think it was because of his leg.”
Lord Eddard had taken his supper in his bedchamber with Alyn,
Harwin, and Vayon Poole, the better to rest his broken leg, and
Septa Mordane had complained of sore feet after standing in the
gallery all day. Arya was supposed to join them, but she was late
coming back from her dancing lesson.
“His leg?” Jeyne said uncertainly. She was a pretty,
dark-haired girl of Sansa’s own age. “Did Ser Loras
hurt his leg?”
“Not his leg,” Sansa said, nibbling delicately at a
chicken leg. “Father’s leg, silly. It hurts him ever so
much, it makes him cross. Otherwise I’m certain he would have
sent Ser Loras.”
Her father’s decision still bewildered her. When the
Knight of Flowers had spoken up, she’d been sure she was
about to see one of Old Nan’s stories come to life. Ser
Gregor was the monster and Ser Loras the true hero who would slay
him. He even looked a true hero, so slim and beautiful, with golden
roses around his slender waist and his rich brown hair tumbling
down into his eyes. And then Father had refused him! It had upset
her more than she could tell. She had said as much to Septa Mordane
as they descended the stairs from the gallery, but the septa had
only told her it was not her place to question her lord
father’s decisions.
That was when Lord Baelish had said, “Oh, I don’t
know, Septa. Some of her lord father’s decisions could do
with a bit of questioning. The young lady is as wise as she is
lovely.” He made a sweeping bow to Sansa, so deep she was not
quite sure if she was being complimented or mocked.
Septa Mordane had been very upset to realize that Lord Baelish
had overheard them. “The girl was just talking, my
lord,” she’d said. “Foolish chatter. She meant
nothing by the comment.”
Lord Baelish stroked his little pointed beard and said,
“Nothing? Tell me, child, why would you have sent Ser
Loras?”
Sansa had no choice but to explain about heroes and monsters.
The king’s councillor smiled. “Well, those are not the
reasons I’d have given, but . . . ” He had touched her
cheek, his thumb lightly tracing the line of a cheekbone.
“Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to
your sorrow.”
Sansa did not feel like telling all that to Jeyne, however; it
made her uneasy just to think back on it.
“Ser Ilyn’s the King’s Justice, not Ser
Loras,” Jcyne said. “Lord Eddard should have sent
him.”
Sansa shuddered. Every time she looked at Ser Ilyn Payne, she
shivered. He made her feel as though something dead were slithering
over her naked skin. “Ser Ilyn’s almost like a second
monster. I’m glad Father didn’t pick him.”
“Lord Beric is as much a hero as Ser Loras. He’s
ever so brave and gallant.”
“I suppose,” Sansa said doubtfully. Beric Dondarrion
was handsome enough, but he was awfully old, almost twenty-two; the
Knight of Flowers would have been much better. Of course, Jeyne had
been in love with Lord Beric ever since she had first glimpsed him
in the lists. Sansa thought she was being silly; Jeyne was only a
steward’s daughter, after all, and no matter how much she
mooned after him, Lord Beric would never look at someone so far
beneath him, even if she hadn’t been half his age.
It would have been unkind to say so, however, so Sansa took a
sip of milk and changed the subject. “I had a dream that
Joffrey would be the one to take the white hart,” she said.
It had been more of a wish, actually, but it sounded better to call
it a dream. Everyone knew that dreams were prophetic. White harts
were supposed to be very rare and magical, and in her heart she
knew her gallant prince was worthier than his drunken father.
“A dream? Truly? Did Prince Joffrey just go up to it and
touch it with his bare hand and do it no harm?”
“No,” Sansa said. “He shot it with a golden
arrow and brought it back for me.” In the songs, the knights
never killed magical beasts, they just went up to them and touched
them and did them no harm, but she knew Joffrey liked hunting,
especially the killing part. Only animals, though. Sansa was
certain her prince had no part in murdering Jory and those other
poor men; that had been his wicked uncle, the Kingslayer. She knew
her father was still angry about that, but it wasn’t fair to
blame Joff. That would be like blaming her for something that Arya
had done.
“I saw your sister this afternoon,” Jeyne blurted
out, as if she’d been reading Sansa’s thoughts.
“She was walking through the stables on her hands. Why would
she do a thing like that?”
“I’m sure I don’t know why Arya does
anything.” Sansa hated stables, smelly places full of manure
and flies. Even when she went riding, she liked the boy to saddle
the horse and bring it to her in the yard. “Do you want to
hear about the court or not?”
“I do,” Jeyne said.
“There was a black brother,” Sansa said,
“begging men for the Wall, only he was kind of old and
smelly.” She hadn’t liked that at all. She had always
imagined the Night’s Watch to be men like Uncle Benjen. In
the songs, they were called the black knights of the Wall. But this
man had been crookbacked and hideous, and he looked as though he
might have lice. If this was what the Night’s Watch was truly
like, she felt sorry for her bastard half brother, Jon.
“Father asked if there were any knights in the hall who would
do honor to their houses by taking the black, but no one came
forward, so he gave this Yoren his pick of the king’s
dungeons and sent him on his way. And later these two brothers came
before him, freeriders from the Dornish Marches, and pledged their
swords to the service of the king. Father accepted their oaths . . . ”
Jeyne yawned. “Are there any lemon cakes?”
Sansa did not like being interrupted, but she had to admit,
lemon cakes sounded more interesting than most of what had gone on
in the throne room. “Let’s see,” she said.
The kitchen yielded no lemon cakes, but they did find half of a
cold strawberry pie, and that was almost as good. They ate it on
the tower steps, giggling and gossiping and sharing secrets, and
Sansa went to bed that night feeling almost as wicked as Arya.
The next morning she woke before first light and crept sleepily
to her window to watch Lord Beric form up his men. They rode out as
dawn was breaking over the city, with three banners going before
them; the crowned stag of the king flew from the high staff, the
direwolf of Stark and Lord Beric’s own forked lightning
standard from shorter poles. It was all so exciting, a song come to
life; the clatter of swords, the flicker of torchlight, banners
dancing in the wind, horses snorting and whinnying, the golden glow
of sunrise slanting through the bars of the portcullis as it jerked
upward. The Winterfell men looked especially fine in their silvery
mail and long grey cloaks.
Alyn carried the Stark banner. When she saw him rein in beside
Lord Beric to exchange words, it made Sansa feel ever so proud.
Alyn was handsomer than Jory had been; he was going to be a knight
one day.
The Tower of the Hand seemed so empty after they left that Sansa
was even pleased to see Arya when she went down to break her fast.
“Where is everyone?” her sister wanted to know as she
ripped the skin from a blood orange. “Did Father send them to
hunt down Jaime Lannister?”
Sansa sighed. “They rode with Lord Beric, to behead Ser
Gregor Clegane.” She turned to Septa Mordane, who was eating
porridge with a wooden spoon. “Septa, will Lord Beric spike
Ser Gregor’s head on his own gate or bring it back here for
the king?” She and Jeyne Poole had been arguing over that
last night.
The septa was horror-struck. “A lady does not discuss such
things over her porridge. Where are your courtesies, Sansa? I
swear, of late you’ve been near as bad as your
sister.”
“What did Gregor do?” Arya asked.
“He burned down a holdfast and murdered a lot of people,
women and children too.”
Arya screwed up her face in a scowl. “Jaime Lannister
murdered Jory and Heward and Wyl, and the Hound murdered Mycah.
Somebody should have beheaded them.”
“It’s not the same,” Sansa said. “The
Hound is Joffrey’s sworn shield. Your butcher’s boy
attacked the prince.”
“Liar,” Arya said. Her hand clenched the blood
orange so hard that red juice oozed between her fingers.
“Go ahead, call me all the names you want,” Sansa
said airily. “You won’t dare when I’m married to
Joffrey. You’ll have to bow to me and call me Your
Grace.” She shrieked as Arya flung the orange across the
table. It caught her in the middle of the forehead with a wet
squish and plopped down into her lap.
“You have juice on your face, Your Grace,” Arya
said.
It was running down her nose and stinging her eyes. Sansa wiped
it away with a napkin. When she saw what the fruit in her lap had
done to her beautiful ivory silk dress, she shrieked again.
“You’re horrible,” she screamed at her sister.
“They should have killed you instead of Lady!”
Septa Mordane came lurching to her feet. “Your lord father
will hear of this! Go to your chambers, at once. At
once!”
“Me too?” Tears welled in Sansa’s eyes.
“That’s not fair.”
“The matter is not subject to discussion. Go!”
Sansa stalked away with her head up. She was to be a queen, and
queens did not cry. At least not where people could see. When she
reached her bedchamber, she barred the door and took off her dress.
The blood orange had left a blotchy red stain on the silk. “I
hate her!” she screamed. She balled up the dress and flung it
into the cold hearth, on top of the ashes of last night’s
fire. When she saw that the stain had bled through onto her
underskirt, she began to sob despite herself. She ripped off the
rest of her clothes wildly, threw herself into bed, and cried
herself back to sleep.
It was midday when Septa Mordane knocked upon her door.
“Sansa. Your lord father will see you now.”
Sansa sat up. “Lady,” she whispered. For a moment it
was as if the direwolf was there in the room, looking at her with
those golden eyes, sad and knowing. She had been dreaming, she
realized. Lady was with her, and they were running together, and . . . and . . . trying to remember was like trying to catch the rain
with her fingers. The dream faded, and Lady was dead again.
“Sansa.” The rap came again, sharply. “Do you
hear me?”
“Yes, Septa,” she called out. “Might I have a
moment to dress, please?” Her eyes were red from crying, but
she did her best to make herself beautiful.
Lord Eddard was bent over a huge leather-bound book when Septa
Mordane marched her into the solar, his plaster-wrapped leg stiff
beneath the table. “Come here, Sansa,” he said, not
unkindly, when the septa had gone for her sister. “Sit beside
me.” He closed the book.
Septa Mordane returned with Arya squirming in her grasp. Sansa
had put on a lovely pale green damask gown and a look of remorse,
but her sister was still wearing the ratty leathers and roughspun
she’d worn at breakfast. “Here is the other one,”
the septa announced.
“My thanks, Septa Mordane. I would talk to my daughters
alone, if you would be so kind.” The septa bowed and
left.
“Arya started it,” Sansa said quickly, anxious to
have the first word. “She called me a liar and threw an
orange at me and spoiled my dress, the ivory silk, the one Queen
Cersei gave me when I was betrothed to Prince Joffrey. She hates that I’m going to marry the
prince. She tries to spoil everything, Father, she can’t
stand for anything to be beautiful or nice or splendid.”
“Enough, Sansa.” Lord Eddard’s voice was sharp
with impatience.
Arya raised her eyes. “I’m sorry, Father. I was
wrong and I beg my sweet sister’s forgiveness.”
Sansa was so startled that for a moment she was speechless.
Finally she found her voice. “What about my dress?”
“Maybe . . . I could wash it,” Arya said
doubtfully.
“Washing won’t do any good,” Sansa said.
“Not if you scrubbed all day and all night. The silk is
ruined.”
“Then I’ll . . . make you a new one,” Arya
said.
Sansa threw back her head in disdain. “You? You
couldn’t sew a dress fit to clean the pigsties.”
Their father sighed. “I did not call you here to talk of
dresses. I’m sending you both back to Winterfell.”
For the second time Sansa found herself too stunned for words.
She felt her eyes grow moist again.
“You can’t,” Arya said.
“Please, Father,” Sansa managed at last.
“Please don’t.”
Eddard Stark favored his daughters with a tired smile. “At
last we’ve found something you agree on.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Sansa pleaded
with him. “I don’t want to go back.” She loved
Mng’s Landing; the pagaentry of the court, the high lords and
ladies in their velvets and silks and gemstones, the great city
with all its people. The tournament had been the most magical time
of her whole life, and there was so much she had not seen yet,
harvest feasts and masked balls and mummer shows. She could not
bear the thought of losing it all. “Send Arya away, she
started it, Father, I swear it. I’ll be good, you’ll
see, just let me stay and I promise to be as fine and noble and
courteous as the queen.”
Father’s mouth twitched strangely. “Sansa, I’m
not sending you away for fighting, though the gods know I’m
sick of you two squabbling. I want you back in Winterfell for your
own safety. Three of my men were cut down like dogs not a league
from where we sit, and what does Robert do? He goes
hunting.”
Arya was chewing at her lip in that disgusting way she had.
“Can we take Syrio back with us?”
“Who cares about your stupid dancing master?” Sansa
flared. “Father, I only just now remembered, I can’t go
away, I’m to marry Prince Joffrey.” She tried to smile
bravely for him. “I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I
love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian. I want to be
his queen and have his babies.”
“Sweet one,” her father said gently, “listen
to me. When you’re old enough, I will make you a match with a
high lord who’s worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and
strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. That boy is
no Prince Aemon, you must believe me.”
“He is!” Sansa insisted. “I don’t want
someone brave and gentle, I want him. We’ll be ever so happy,
just like in the songs, you’ll see. I’ll give him a son
with golden hair, and one day he’ll be the king of all the
realm, the greatest king that ever was, as brave as the wolf and as
proud as the lion.”
Arya made a face. “Not if Joffrey’s his
father,” she said. “He’s a liar and a craven and
anyhow he’s a stag, not a lion.”
Sansa felt tears in her eyes. “He is not! He’s not
the least bit like that old drunken king,” she screamed at
her sister, forgetting herself in her grief.
Father looked at her strangely. “Gods,” he swore
softly, “out of the mouth of babes . . . ” He shouted
for Septa Mordane. To the girls he said, “I am looking for a
fast trading galley to take you home. These days, the sea is safer
than the kingsroad. You will sail as soon as I can find a proper
ship, with Septa Mordane and a complement of guards . . . and yes,
with Syrio Forel, if he agrees to enter my service. But say nothing
of this. It’s better if no one knows of our plans.
We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
Sansa cried as Septa Mordane marched them down the steps. They
were going to take it all away; the tournaments and the court and
her prince, everything, they were going to send her back to the
bleak grey walls of Winterfell and lock her up forever. Her life
was over before it had begun.
“Stop that weeping, child,” Septa Mordane said
sternly. “I am certain your lord father knows what is best
for you.”
“It won’t be so bad, Sansa,” Arya said.
“We’re going to sail on a galley. It will be an
adventure, and then we’ll be with Bran and Robb again, and
Old Nan and Hodor and the rest.” She touched her on the
arm.
“Hodor!” Sansa yelled. “You ought to marry
Hodor, you’re just like him, stupid and hairy and
ugly!” She wrenched away from her sister’s hand,
stormed into her bedchamber, and barred the door behind her.
He wouldn’t send Ser Loras,” Sansa
told Jeyne Poole that night as they shared a cold supper by
lamplight. “I think it was because of his leg.”
Lord Eddard had taken his supper in his bedchamber with Alyn,
Harwin, and Vayon Poole, the better to rest his broken leg, and
Septa Mordane had complained of sore feet after standing in the
gallery all day. Arya was supposed to join them, but she was late
coming back from her dancing lesson.
“His leg?” Jeyne said uncertainly. She was a pretty,
dark-haired girl of Sansa’s own age. “Did Ser Loras
hurt his leg?”
“Not his leg,” Sansa said, nibbling delicately at a
chicken leg. “Father’s leg, silly. It hurts him ever so
much, it makes him cross. Otherwise I’m certain he would have
sent Ser Loras.”
Her father’s decision still bewildered her. When the
Knight of Flowers had spoken up, she’d been sure she was
about to see one of Old Nan’s stories come to life. Ser
Gregor was the monster and Ser Loras the true hero who would slay
him. He even looked a true hero, so slim and beautiful, with golden
roses around his slender waist and his rich brown hair tumbling
down into his eyes. And then Father had refused him! It had upset
her more than she could tell. She had said as much to Septa Mordane
as they descended the stairs from the gallery, but the septa had
only told her it was not her place to question her lord
father’s decisions.
That was when Lord Baelish had said, “Oh, I don’t
know, Septa. Some of her lord father’s decisions could do
with a bit of questioning. The young lady is as wise as she is
lovely.” He made a sweeping bow to Sansa, so deep she was not
quite sure if she was being complimented or mocked.
Septa Mordane had been very upset to realize that Lord Baelish
had overheard them. “The girl was just talking, my
lord,” she’d said. “Foolish chatter. She meant
nothing by the comment.”
Lord Baelish stroked his little pointed beard and said,
“Nothing? Tell me, child, why would you have sent Ser
Loras?”
Sansa had no choice but to explain about heroes and monsters.
The king’s councillor smiled. “Well, those are not the
reasons I’d have given, but . . . ” He had touched her
cheek, his thumb lightly tracing the line of a cheekbone.
“Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to
your sorrow.”
Sansa did not feel like telling all that to Jeyne, however; it
made her uneasy just to think back on it.
“Ser Ilyn’s the King’s Justice, not Ser
Loras,” Jcyne said. “Lord Eddard should have sent
him.”
Sansa shuddered. Every time she looked at Ser Ilyn Payne, she
shivered. He made her feel as though something dead were slithering
over her naked skin. “Ser Ilyn’s almost like a second
monster. I’m glad Father didn’t pick him.”
“Lord Beric is as much a hero as Ser Loras. He’s
ever so brave and gallant.”
“I suppose,” Sansa said doubtfully. Beric Dondarrion
was handsome enough, but he was awfully old, almost twenty-two; the
Knight of Flowers would have been much better. Of course, Jeyne had
been in love with Lord Beric ever since she had first glimpsed him
in the lists. Sansa thought she was being silly; Jeyne was only a
steward’s daughter, after all, and no matter how much she
mooned after him, Lord Beric would never look at someone so far
beneath him, even if she hadn’t been half his age.
It would have been unkind to say so, however, so Sansa took a
sip of milk and changed the subject. “I had a dream that
Joffrey would be the one to take the white hart,” she said.
It had been more of a wish, actually, but it sounded better to call
it a dream. Everyone knew that dreams were prophetic. White harts
were supposed to be very rare and magical, and in her heart she
knew her gallant prince was worthier than his drunken father.
“A dream? Truly? Did Prince Joffrey just go up to it and
touch it with his bare hand and do it no harm?”
“No,” Sansa said. “He shot it with a golden
arrow and brought it back for me.” In the songs, the knights
never killed magical beasts, they just went up to them and touched
them and did them no harm, but she knew Joffrey liked hunting,
especially the killing part. Only animals, though. Sansa was
certain her prince had no part in murdering Jory and those other
poor men; that had been his wicked uncle, the Kingslayer. She knew
her father was still angry about that, but it wasn’t fair to
blame Joff. That would be like blaming her for something that Arya
had done.
“I saw your sister this afternoon,” Jeyne blurted
out, as if she’d been reading Sansa’s thoughts.
“She was walking through the stables on her hands. Why would
she do a thing like that?”
“I’m sure I don’t know why Arya does
anything.” Sansa hated stables, smelly places full of manure
and flies. Even when she went riding, she liked the boy to saddle
the horse and bring it to her in the yard. “Do you want to
hear about the court or not?”
“I do,” Jeyne said.
“There was a black brother,” Sansa said,
“begging men for the Wall, only he was kind of old and
smelly.” She hadn’t liked that at all. She had always
imagined the Night’s Watch to be men like Uncle Benjen. In
the songs, they were called the black knights of the Wall. But this
man had been crookbacked and hideous, and he looked as though he
might have lice. If this was what the Night’s Watch was truly
like, she felt sorry for her bastard half brother, Jon.
“Father asked if there were any knights in the hall who would
do honor to their houses by taking the black, but no one came
forward, so he gave this Yoren his pick of the king’s
dungeons and sent him on his way. And later these two brothers came
before him, freeriders from the Dornish Marches, and pledged their
swords to the service of the king. Father accepted their oaths . . . ”
Jeyne yawned. “Are there any lemon cakes?”
Sansa did not like being interrupted, but she had to admit,
lemon cakes sounded more interesting than most of what had gone on
in the throne room. “Let’s see,” she said.
The kitchen yielded no lemon cakes, but they did find half of a
cold strawberry pie, and that was almost as good. They ate it on
the tower steps, giggling and gossiping and sharing secrets, and
Sansa went to bed that night feeling almost as wicked as Arya.
The next morning she woke before first light and crept sleepily
to her window to watch Lord Beric form up his men. They rode out as
dawn was breaking over the city, with three banners going before
them; the crowned stag of the king flew from the high staff, the
direwolf of Stark and Lord Beric’s own forked lightning
standard from shorter poles. It was all so exciting, a song come to
life; the clatter of swords, the flicker of torchlight, banners
dancing in the wind, horses snorting and whinnying, the golden glow
of sunrise slanting through the bars of the portcullis as it jerked
upward. The Winterfell men looked especially fine in their silvery
mail and long grey cloaks.
Alyn carried the Stark banner. When she saw him rein in beside
Lord Beric to exchange words, it made Sansa feel ever so proud.
Alyn was handsomer than Jory had been; he was going to be a knight
one day.
The Tower of the Hand seemed so empty after they left that Sansa
was even pleased to see Arya when she went down to break her fast.
“Where is everyone?” her sister wanted to know as she
ripped the skin from a blood orange. “Did Father send them to
hunt down Jaime Lannister?”
Sansa sighed. “They rode with Lord Beric, to behead Ser
Gregor Clegane.” She turned to Septa Mordane, who was eating
porridge with a wooden spoon. “Septa, will Lord Beric spike
Ser Gregor’s head on his own gate or bring it back here for
the king?” She and Jeyne Poole had been arguing over that
last night.
The septa was horror-struck. “A lady does not discuss such
things over her porridge. Where are your courtesies, Sansa? I
swear, of late you’ve been near as bad as your
sister.”
“What did Gregor do?” Arya asked.
“He burned down a holdfast and murdered a lot of people,
women and children too.”
Arya screwed up her face in a scowl. “Jaime Lannister
murdered Jory and Heward and Wyl, and the Hound murdered Mycah.
Somebody should have beheaded them.”
“It’s not the same,” Sansa said. “The
Hound is Joffrey’s sworn shield. Your butcher’s boy
attacked the prince.”
“Liar,” Arya said. Her hand clenched the blood
orange so hard that red juice oozed between her fingers.
“Go ahead, call me all the names you want,” Sansa
said airily. “You won’t dare when I’m married to
Joffrey. You’ll have to bow to me and call me Your
Grace.” She shrieked as Arya flung the orange across the
table. It caught her in the middle of the forehead with a wet
squish and plopped down into her lap.
“You have juice on your face, Your Grace,” Arya
said.
It was running down her nose and stinging her eyes. Sansa wiped
it away with a napkin. When she saw what the fruit in her lap had
done to her beautiful ivory silk dress, she shrieked again.
“You’re horrible,” she screamed at her sister.
“They should have killed you instead of Lady!”
Septa Mordane came lurching to her feet. “Your lord father
will hear of this! Go to your chambers, at once. At
once!”
“Me too?” Tears welled in Sansa’s eyes.
“That’s not fair.”
“The matter is not subject to discussion. Go!”
Sansa stalked away with her head up. She was to be a queen, and
queens did not cry. At least not where people could see. When she
reached her bedchamber, she barred the door and took off her dress.
The blood orange had left a blotchy red stain on the silk. “I
hate her!” she screamed. She balled up the dress and flung it
into the cold hearth, on top of the ashes of last night’s
fire. When she saw that the stain had bled through onto her
underskirt, she began to sob despite herself. She ripped off the
rest of her clothes wildly, threw herself into bed, and cried
herself back to sleep.
It was midday when Septa Mordane knocked upon her door.
“Sansa. Your lord father will see you now.”
Sansa sat up. “Lady,” she whispered. For a moment it
was as if the direwolf was there in the room, looking at her with
those golden eyes, sad and knowing. She had been dreaming, she
realized. Lady was with her, and they were running together, and . . . and . . . trying to remember was like trying to catch the rain
with her fingers. The dream faded, and Lady was dead again.
“Sansa.” The rap came again, sharply. “Do you
hear me?”
“Yes, Septa,” she called out. “Might I have a
moment to dress, please?” Her eyes were red from crying, but
she did her best to make herself beautiful.
Lord Eddard was bent over a huge leather-bound book when Septa
Mordane marched her into the solar, his plaster-wrapped leg stiff
beneath the table. “Come here, Sansa,” he said, not
unkindly, when the septa had gone for her sister. “Sit beside
me.” He closed the book.
Septa Mordane returned with Arya squirming in her grasp. Sansa
had put on a lovely pale green damask gown and a look of remorse,
but her sister was still wearing the ratty leathers and roughspun
she’d worn at breakfast. “Here is the other one,”
the septa announced.
“My thanks, Septa Mordane. I would talk to my daughters
alone, if you would be so kind.” The septa bowed and
left.
“Arya started it,” Sansa said quickly, anxious to
have the first word. “She called me a liar and threw an
orange at me and spoiled my dress, the ivory silk, the one Queen
Cersei gave me when I was betrothed to Prince Joffrey. She hates that I’m going to marry the
prince. She tries to spoil everything, Father, she can’t
stand for anything to be beautiful or nice or splendid.”
“Enough, Sansa.” Lord Eddard’s voice was sharp
with impatience.
Arya raised her eyes. “I’m sorry, Father. I was
wrong and I beg my sweet sister’s forgiveness.”
Sansa was so startled that for a moment she was speechless.
Finally she found her voice. “What about my dress?”
“Maybe . . . I could wash it,” Arya said
doubtfully.
“Washing won’t do any good,” Sansa said.
“Not if you scrubbed all day and all night. The silk is
ruined.”
“Then I’ll . . . make you a new one,” Arya
said.
Sansa threw back her head in disdain. “You? You
couldn’t sew a dress fit to clean the pigsties.”
Their father sighed. “I did not call you here to talk of
dresses. I’m sending you both back to Winterfell.”
For the second time Sansa found herself too stunned for words.
She felt her eyes grow moist again.
“You can’t,” Arya said.
“Please, Father,” Sansa managed at last.
“Please don’t.”
Eddard Stark favored his daughters with a tired smile. “At
last we’ve found something you agree on.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Sansa pleaded
with him. “I don’t want to go back.” She loved
Mng’s Landing; the pagaentry of the court, the high lords and
ladies in their velvets and silks and gemstones, the great city
with all its people. The tournament had been the most magical time
of her whole life, and there was so much she had not seen yet,
harvest feasts and masked balls and mummer shows. She could not
bear the thought of losing it all. “Send Arya away, she
started it, Father, I swear it. I’ll be good, you’ll
see, just let me stay and I promise to be as fine and noble and
courteous as the queen.”
Father’s mouth twitched strangely. “Sansa, I’m
not sending you away for fighting, though the gods know I’m
sick of you two squabbling. I want you back in Winterfell for your
own safety. Three of my men were cut down like dogs not a league
from where we sit, and what does Robert do? He goes
hunting.”
Arya was chewing at her lip in that disgusting way she had.
“Can we take Syrio back with us?”
“Who cares about your stupid dancing master?” Sansa
flared. “Father, I only just now remembered, I can’t go
away, I’m to marry Prince Joffrey.” She tried to smile
bravely for him. “I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I
love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian. I want to be
his queen and have his babies.”
“Sweet one,” her father said gently, “listen
to me. When you’re old enough, I will make you a match with a
high lord who’s worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and
strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. That boy is
no Prince Aemon, you must believe me.”
“He is!” Sansa insisted. “I don’t want
someone brave and gentle, I want him. We’ll be ever so happy,
just like in the songs, you’ll see. I’ll give him a son
with golden hair, and one day he’ll be the king of all the
realm, the greatest king that ever was, as brave as the wolf and as
proud as the lion.”
Arya made a face. “Not if Joffrey’s his
father,” she said. “He’s a liar and a craven and
anyhow he’s a stag, not a lion.”
Sansa felt tears in her eyes. “He is not! He’s not
the least bit like that old drunken king,” she screamed at
her sister, forgetting herself in her grief.
Father looked at her strangely. “Gods,” he swore
softly, “out of the mouth of babes . . . ” He shouted
for Septa Mordane. To the girls he said, “I am looking for a
fast trading galley to take you home. These days, the sea is safer
than the kingsroad. You will sail as soon as I can find a proper
ship, with Septa Mordane and a complement of guards . . . and yes,
with Syrio Forel, if he agrees to enter my service. But say nothing
of this. It’s better if no one knows of our plans.
We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
Sansa cried as Septa Mordane marched them down the steps. They
were going to take it all away; the tournaments and the court and
her prince, everything, they were going to send her back to the
bleak grey walls of Winterfell and lock her up forever. Her life
was over before it had begun.
“Stop that weeping, child,” Septa Mordane said
sternly. “I am certain your lord father knows what is best
for you.”
“It won’t be so bad, Sansa,” Arya said.
“We’re going to sail on a galley. It will be an
adventure, and then we’ll be with Bran and Robb again, and
Old Nan and Hodor and the rest.” She touched her on the
arm.
“Hodor!” Sansa yelled. “You ought to marry
Hodor, you’re just like him, stupid and hairy and
ugly!” She wrenched away from her sister’s hand,
stormed into her bedchamber, and barred the door behind her.