The southern sky was black with smoke. It rose swirling off a
hundred distant fires, its sooty fingers smudging out the stars.
Across the Blackwater Rush, a line of flame burned nightly from
horizon to horizon, while on this side the Imp had fired the whole
riverfront: docks and warehouses, homes and brothels, everything
outside the city walls.
Even in the Red Keep, the air tasted of ashes. When Sansa found
Ser Dontos in the quiet of the godswood, he asked if she’d
been crying. “It’s only from the smoke,” she
lied. “It looks as though half the kingswood is
burning.”
“Lord Stannis wants to smoke out the Imp’s
savages.” Dontos swayed as he spoke, one hand on the trunk of
a chestnut tree. A wine stain discolored the red-and-yellow motley
of his tunic. “They kill his scouts and raid his baggage
train. And the wildlings have been lighting fires too. The Imp told
the queen that Stannis had better train his horses to eat ash,
since he would find no blade of grass. I heard him say so. I hear
all sorts of things as a fool that I never heard when I was a
knight. They talk as though I am not there, and”—he leaned
close, breathing his winey breath right in her
face—“the Spider pays in gold for any little trifle. I
think Moon Boy has been his for years.” He is drunk again. My poor Florian he names himself, and so he
is. But he is all I have. “Is it true Lord Stannis burned the
godswood at Storm’s End?”
Dontos nodded. “He made a great pyre of the trees as an
offering to his new god. The red priestess made him do it. They say
she rules him now, body and soul. He’s vowed to burn the
Great Sept of Baelor too, if he takes the city.”
“Let him.” When Sansa had first beheld the Great
Sept with its marble walls and seven crystal towers, she’d
thought it was the most beautiful building in the world, but that
had been before Joffrey beheaded her father on its steps. “I
want it burned.”
“Hush, child, the gods will hear you.”
“Why should they? They never hear my prayers.”
“Yes they do. They sent me to you, didn’t
they?”
Sansa picked at the bark of a tree. She felt light-headed,
almost feverish. “They sent you, but what good have you done?
You promised you would take me home, but I’m still
here.”
Dontos patted her arm. “I’ve spoken to a certain man
I know, a good friend to me . . . and you, my
lady. He will hire a swift ship to take us to safety, when the time
is right.”
“The time is right now,” Sansa insisted,
“before the fighting starts. They’ve forgotten about
me. I know we could slip away if we tried.”
“Child, child.” Dontos shook his head. “Out of
the castle, yes, we could do that, but the city gates are more
heavily guarded than ever, and the Imp has even closed off the
river.”
It was true. The Blackwater Rush was as empty as Sansa had ever
seen it. All the ferries had been withdrawn to the north bank, and
the trading galleys had fled or been seized by the Imp to be made
over for battle. The only ships to be seen were the king’s
war galleys. They rowed endlessly up and down, staying to the deep
water in the middle of the river and exchanging flights of arrows
with Stannis’s archers on the south shore.
Lord Stannis himself was still on the march, but his vanguard
had appeared two nights ago during the black of the moon.
King’s Landing had woken to the sight of their tents and
banners. They were five thousand, Sansa had heard, near as many as
all the gold cloaks in the city. They flew the red or green apples
of House Fossoway, the turtle of Estermont, and the fox-and-flowers
of Florent, and their commander was Ser Guyard Morrigen, a famous
southron knight who men now called Guyard the Green. His standard
showed a crow in flight, its black wings spread wide against a
storm-green sky. But it was the pale yellow banners that worried
the city. Long ragged tails streamed behind them like flickering
flames, and in place of a lord’s sigil they bore the device
of a god: the burning heart of the Lord of Light.
“When Stannis comes, he’ll have ten times as many
men as Joffrey does, everyone says so.”
Dontos squeezed her shoulder. “The size of his host does
not matter, sweetling, so long as they are on the wrong side of the
river. Stannis cannot cross without ships.”
“He has ships. More than Joffrey.”
“It’s a long sail from Storm’s End, the fleet
will need to come up Massey’s Hook and through the Gullet and
across Blackwater Bay. Perhaps the good gods will send a storm to
sweep them from the seas.” Dontos gave a hopeful smile.
“It is not easy for you, I know. You must be patient, child.
When my friend returns to the city, we shall have our ship. Have
faith in your Florian, and try not to be afraid.”
Sansa dug her nails into her hand. She could feel the fear in
her tummy, twisting and pinching, worse every day. Nightmares of
the day Princess Myrcella had sailed still troubled her sleep; dark
suffocating dreams that woke her in the black of night, struggling
for breath. She could hear the people screaming at her, screaming
without words, like animals. They had hemmed her in and thrown
filth at her and tried to pull her off her horse, and would have
done worse if the Hound had not cut his way to her side. They had
torn the High Septon to pieces and smashed in Ser Aron’s head
with a rock. Try not to be afraid! he said.
The whole city was afraid. Sansa could see it from the castle
walls. The smallfolk were hiding themselves behind closed shutters
and barred doors as if that would keep them safe. The last time
King’s Landing had fallen, the Lannisters looted and raped as
they pleased and put hundreds to the sword, even though the city
had opened its gates. This time the Imp meant to fight, and a city
that fought could expect no mercy at all.
Dontos was prattling on. “If I were still a knight, I
should have to put on armor and man the walls with the rest. I
ought to kiss King Joffrey’s feet and thank him
sweetly.”
“If you thanked him for making you a fool, he’d make
you a knight again,” Sansa said sharply.
Dontos chuckled. “My Jonquil’s a clever girl,
isn’t she?”
“Joffrey and his mother say I’m stupid.”
“Let them. You’re safer that way, sweetling. Queen
Cersei and the Imp and Lord Varys and their like, they all watch
each other keen as hawks, and pay this one and that one to spy out
what the others are doing, but no one ever troubles themselves
about Lady Tanda’s daughter, do they?” Dontos covered
his mouth to stifle a burp. “Gods preserve you, my little
Jonquil.” He was growing weepy. The wine did that to him.
“Give your Florian a little kiss now. A kiss for luck.”
He swayed toward her.
Sansa dodged the wet groping lips, kissed him lightly on an
unshaven cheek, and bid him good night. It took all her strength
not to weep. She had been weeping too much of late. It was
unseemly, she knew, but she could not seem to help herself; the
tears would come, sometimes over a trifle, and nothing she did
could hold them back.
The drawbridge to Maegor’s Holdfast was unguarded. The Imp
had moved most of the gold cloaks to the city walls, and the white
knights of the Kingsguard had duties more important than dogging
her heels. Sansa could go where she would so long as she did not
try to leave the castle, but there was nowhere she wanted to
go.
She crossed over the dry moat with its cruel iron spikes and
made her way up the narrow turnpike stair, but when she reached the
door of her bedchamber she could not bear to enter. The very walls
of the room made her feel trapped; even with the window opened wide
it felt as though there were no air to breathe.
Turning back to the stair, Sansa climbed. The smoke blotted out
the stars and the thin crescent of moon, so the roof was dark and
thick with shadows. Yet from here she could see everything: the Red
Keep’s tall towers and great cornerforts, the maze of city
streets beyond, to south and west the river running black, the bay
to the east, the columns of smoke and cinders, and fires, fires
everywhere. Soldiers crawled over the city walls like ants with
torches, and crowded the hoardings that had sprouted from the
ramparts. Down by the Mud Gate, outlined against the drifting
smoke, she could make out the vague shape of the three huge
catapults, the biggest anyone had ever seen, overtopping the walls
by a good twenty feet. Yet none of it made her feel less fearful. A
stab went through her, so sharp that Sansa sobbed and clutched at
her belly. She might have fallen, but a shadow moved suddenly, and
strong fingers grabbed her arm and steadied her.
She grabbed a merlon for support, her fingers scrabbling at the
rough stone. “Let go of me,” she cried. “Let
go.”
“The little bird thinks she has wings, does she? Or do you
mean to end up crippled like that brother of yours?”
Sansa twisted in his grasp. “I wasn’t going to fall.
It was only . . . you startled me, that’s
all.”
“You mean I scared you. And still do.”
She took a deep breath to calm herself. “I thought I was
alone, I . . . ” She glanced away.
“The little bird still can’t bear to look at me, can
she?” The Hound released her. “You were glad enough to
see my face when the mob had you, though. Remember?”
Sansa remembered all too well. She remembered the way they had
howled, the feel of the blood running down her cheek from where the
stone had struck her, and the garlic stink on the breath of the man
who had tried to pull her from her horse. She could still feel the
cruel pinch of fingers on her wrist as she lost her balance and
began to fall.
She’d thought she was going to die then, but the fingers
had twitched, all five at once, and the man had shrieked loud as a
horse. When his hand fell away, another hand, stronger, shoved her
back into her saddle. The man with the garlicky breath was on the
ground, blood pumping out the stump of his arm, but there were
others all around, some with clubs in hand. The Hound leapt at
them, his sword a blur of steel that trailed a red mist as it
swung. When they broke and ran before him he had laughed, his
terrible burned face for a moment transformed.
She made herself look at that face now, really look. It was only
courteous, and a lady must never forget her courtesies. The scars
are not the worst part, nor even the way his mouth twitches.
It’s his eyes. She had never seen eyes so full of anger.
“I . . . I should have come to you
after,” she said haltingly. “To thank you,
for . . . for saving
me . . . you were so brave.”
“Brave?” His laugh was half a snarl. “A dog
doesn’t need courage to chase off rats. They had me thirty to
one, and not a man of them dared face me.”
She hated the way he talked, always so harsh and angry.
“Does it give you joy to scare people?”
“No, it gives me joy to kill people.” His mouth
twitched. “Wrinkle up your face all you like, but spare me
this false piety. You were a high lord’s get. Don’t
tell me Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell never killed a
man.”
“That was his duty. He never liked it.”
“Is that what he told you?” Clegane laughed again.
“Your father lied. Killing is the sweetest thing there
is.” He drew his longsword. “Here’s your truth.
Your precious father found that out on Baelor’s steps. Lord
of Winterfell, Hand of the King, Warden of the North, the mighty
Eddard Stark, of a line eight thousand years
old . . . but Ilyn Payne’s blade went
through his neck all the same, didn’t it? Do you remember the
dance he did when his head came off his shoulders?”
Sansa hugged herself, suddenly cold. “Why are you always
so hateful? I was thanking
you . . . ”
“Just as if I was one of those true knights you love so
well, yes. What do you think a knight is for, girl? You think
it’s all taking favors from ladies and looking fine in gold
plate? Knights are for killing.” He laid the edge of his
longsword against her neck, just under her ear. Sansa could feel
the sharpness of the steel. “I killed my first man at twelve.
I’ve lost count of how many I’ve killed since then.
High lords with old names, fat rich men dressed in velvet, knights
puffed up like bladders with their honors, yes, and women and
children too—they’re all meat, and I’m the butcher. Let
them have their lands and their gods and their gold. Let them have
their sers.” Sandor Clegane spat at her feet to show what he
thought of that. “So long as I have this,” he said,
lifting the sword from her throat, “there’s no man on
earth I need fear.” Except your brother, Sansa thought, but she had better sense
than to say it aloud. He is a dog, just as he says. A half-wild,
mean-tempered dog that bites any hand that tries to pet him, and
yet will savage any man who tries to hurt his masters. “Not
even the men across the river?”
Clegane’s eyes turned toward the distant fires. “All
this burning.” He sheathed his sword. “Only cowards
fight with fire.”
“Lord Stannis is no coward.”
“He’s not the man his brother was either. Robert
never let a little thing like a river stop him.”
“What will you do when he crosses?”
“Fight. Kill. Die, maybe.”
“Aren’t you afraid? The gods might send you down to
some terrible hell for all the evil you’ve done.”
“What evil?” He laughed. “What
gods?”
“The gods who made us all.”
“All?” he mocked. “Tell me, little bird, what
kind of god makes a monster like the Imp, or a halfwit like Lady
Tanda’s daughter? If there are gods, they made sheep so
wolves could eat mutton, and they made the weak for the strong to
play with.”
“True knights protect the weak.”
He snorted. “There are no true knights, no more than there
are gods. If you can’t protect yourself, die and get out of
the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this
world, don’t ever believe any different.”
Sansa backed away from him. “You’re
awful.”
“I’m honest. It’s the world that’s
awful. Now fly away, little bird, I’m sick of you peeping at
me.”
Wordless, she fled. She was afraid of Sandor
Clegane . . . and yet, some part of her wished
that Ser Dontos had a little of the Hound’s ferocity. There
are gods, she told herself, and there are true knights too. All the
stories can’t be lies.
That night Sansa dreamed of the riot again. The mob surged
around her, shrieking, a maddened beast with a thousand faces.
Everywhere she turned she saw faces twisted into monstrous inhuman
masks. She wept and told them she had never done them hurt, yet
they dragged her from her horse all the same. “No,” she
cried, “no, please, don’t, don’t,” but no
one paid her any heed. She shouted for Ser Dontos, for her
brothers, for her dead father and her dead wolf, for gallant Ser
Loras who had given her a red rose once, but none of them came. She
called for the heroes from the songs, for Florian and Ser Ryam
Redwyne and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, but no one heard. Women
swarmed over her like weasels, pinching her legs and kicking her in
the belly, and someone hit her in the face and she felt her teeth
shatter. Then she saw the bright glimmer of steel. The knife
plunged into her belly and tore and tore and tore, until there was
nothing left of her down there but shiny wet ribbons.
When she woke, the pale light of morning was slanting through
her window, yet she felt as sick and achy as if she had not slept
at all. There was something sticky on her thighs. When she threw
back the blanket and saw the blood, all she could think was that
her dream had somehow come true. She remembered the knives inside
her, twisting and ripping. She squirmed away in horror, kicking at
the sheets and falling to the floor, breathing raggedly, naked,
bloodied, and afraid.
But as she crouched there, on her hands and knees, understanding
came. “No, please,” Sansa whimpered, “please,
no.” She didn’t want this happening to her, not now,
not here, not now, not now, not now, not now.
Madness took hold of her. Pulling herself up by the bedpost, she
went to the basin and washed between her legs, scrubbing away all
the stickiness. By the time she was done, the water was pink with
blood. When her maidservants saw it they would know. Then she
remembered the bedclothes. She rushed back to the bed and stared in
horror at the dark red stain and the tale it told. All she could
think was that she had to get rid of it, or else they’d see.
She couldn’t let them see, or they’d marry her to
Joffrey and make her lay with him.
Snatching up her knife, Sana hacked at the sheet, cutting out
the stain. If they ask me about the hole, what will I say? Tears
ran down her face. She pulled the torn sheet from the bed, and the
stained blanket as well. I’ll have to burn them. She balled
up the evidence, stuffed it in the fireplace, drenched it in oil
from her bedside lamp, and lit it afire. Then she realized that the
blood had soaked through the sheet into the featherbed, so she
bundled that up as well, but it was big and cumbersome, hard to
move. Sansa could get only half of it into the fire. She was on her
knees, struggling to shove the mattress into the flames as thick
grey smoke eddied around her and filled the room, when the door
burst open and she heard her maid gasp.
In the end it took three of them to pull her away. And it was
all for nothing. The bedclothes were burnt, but by the time they
carried her off her thighs were bloody again. It was as if her own
body had betrayed her to Joffrey, unfurling a banner of Lannister
crimson for all the world to see.
When the fire was out, they carried off the singed featherbed,
fanned away the worst of the smoke, and brought up a tub. Women
came and went, muttering and looking at her strangely. They filled
the tub with scalding hot water, bathed her and washed her hair and
gave her a cloth to wear between her legs. By then Sansa was calm
again, and ashamed for her folly. The smoke had ruined most of her
clothing. One of the women went away and came back with a green
wool shift that was almost her size. “It’s not as
pretty as your own things, but it will serve,” she announced
when she’d pulled it down over Sansa’s head.
“Your shoes weren’t burned, so at least you won’t
need to go barefoot to the queen.”
Cersei Lannister was breaking her fast when Sansa was ushered
into her solar. “You may sit,” the queen said
graciously. “Are you hungry?” She gestured at the
table. There was porridge, honey, milk, boiled eggs, and crisp
fried fish.
The sight of the food made Sansa feel ill. Her tummy was tied in
a knot. “No, thank you, Your Grace.”
“I don’t blame you. Between Tyrion and Lord Stannis,
everything I eat tastes of ash. And now you’re setting fires
as well. What did you hope to accomplish?”
Sansa lowered her head. “The blood frightened
me.”
“The blood is the seal of your womanhood. Lady Catelyn
might have prepared you. You’ve had your first flowering, no
more.”
Sansa had never felt less flowery. “My lady mother told
me, but I . . . I thought it would be
different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. Less . . . less
messy, and more magical.”
Queen Cersei laughed. “Wait until you birth a child,
Sansa. A woman’s life is nine parts mess to one part magic,
you’ll learn that soon enough . . . and
the parts that look like magic often turn out to be messiest of
all.” She took a sip of milk. “So now you are a woman.
Do you have the least idea of what that means?”
“It means that I am now fit to be wedded and
bedded,” said Sansa, “and to bear children for the
king.”
The queen gave a wry smile. “A prospect that no longer
entices you as it once did, I can see. I will not fault you for
that. Joffrey has always been difficult. Even his
birth . . . I labored a day and a half to bring
him forth. You cannot imagine the pain, Sansa. I screamed so loudly
that I fancied Robert might hear me in the kingswood.”
“His Grace was not with you?”
“Robert? Robert was hunting. That was his custom. Whenever
my time was near, my royal husband would flee to the trees with his
huntsmen and hounds. When he returned he would present me with some
pelts or a stag’s head, and I would present him with a
baby.
“Not that I wanted him to stay, mind you. I had Grand
Maester Pycelle and an army of midwives, and I had my brother. When
they told Jaime he was not allowed in the birthing room, he smiled
and asked which of them proposed to keep him out.
“Joffrey will show you no such devotion, I fear. You could
thank your sister for that, if she weren’t dead. He’s
never been able to forget that day on the Trident when you saw her
shame him, so he shames you in turn. You’re stronger than you
seem, though. I expect you’ll survive a bit of humiliation. I
did. You may never love the king, but you’ll love his
children.”
“I love His Grace with all my heart,” Sansa
said.
The queen sighed. “You had best learn some new lies, and
quickly. Lord Stannis will not like that one, I promise
you.”
“The new High Septon said that the gods will never permit
Lord Stannis to win, since Joffrey is the rightful king.”
A half smile flickered across the queen’s face.
“Robert’s trueborn son and heir. Though Joff would cry
whenever Robert picked him up. His Grace did not like that. His
bastards had always gurgled at him happily, and sucked his finger
when he put it in their little baseborn mouths. Robert wanted
smiles and cheers, always, so he went where he found them, to his
friends and his whores. Robert wanted to be loved. My brother
Tyrion has the same disease. Do you want to be loved,
Sansa?”
“Everyone wants to be loved.”
“I see flowering hasn’t made you any
brighter,” said Cersei. “Sansa, permit me to share a
bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is
poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the
same.”
The southern sky was black with smoke. It rose swirling off a
hundred distant fires, its sooty fingers smudging out the stars.
Across the Blackwater Rush, a line of flame burned nightly from
horizon to horizon, while on this side the Imp had fired the whole
riverfront: docks and warehouses, homes and brothels, everything
outside the city walls.
Even in the Red Keep, the air tasted of ashes. When Sansa found
Ser Dontos in the quiet of the godswood, he asked if she’d
been crying. “It’s only from the smoke,” she
lied. “It looks as though half the kingswood is
burning.”
“Lord Stannis wants to smoke out the Imp’s
savages.” Dontos swayed as he spoke, one hand on the trunk of
a chestnut tree. A wine stain discolored the red-and-yellow motley
of his tunic. “They kill his scouts and raid his baggage
train. And the wildlings have been lighting fires too. The Imp told
the queen that Stannis had better train his horses to eat ash,
since he would find no blade of grass. I heard him say so. I hear
all sorts of things as a fool that I never heard when I was a
knight. They talk as though I am not there, and”—he leaned
close, breathing his winey breath right in her
face—“the Spider pays in gold for any little trifle. I
think Moon Boy has been his for years.” He is drunk again. My poor Florian he names himself, and so he
is. But he is all I have. “Is it true Lord Stannis burned the
godswood at Storm’s End?”
Dontos nodded. “He made a great pyre of the trees as an
offering to his new god. The red priestess made him do it. They say
she rules him now, body and soul. He’s vowed to burn the
Great Sept of Baelor too, if he takes the city.”
“Let him.” When Sansa had first beheld the Great
Sept with its marble walls and seven crystal towers, she’d
thought it was the most beautiful building in the world, but that
had been before Joffrey beheaded her father on its steps. “I
want it burned.”
“Hush, child, the gods will hear you.”
“Why should they? They never hear my prayers.”
“Yes they do. They sent me to you, didn’t
they?”
Sansa picked at the bark of a tree. She felt light-headed,
almost feverish. “They sent you, but what good have you done?
You promised you would take me home, but I’m still
here.”
Dontos patted her arm. “I’ve spoken to a certain man
I know, a good friend to me . . . and you, my
lady. He will hire a swift ship to take us to safety, when the time
is right.”
“The time is right now,” Sansa insisted,
“before the fighting starts. They’ve forgotten about
me. I know we could slip away if we tried.”
“Child, child.” Dontos shook his head. “Out of
the castle, yes, we could do that, but the city gates are more
heavily guarded than ever, and the Imp has even closed off the
river.”
It was true. The Blackwater Rush was as empty as Sansa had ever
seen it. All the ferries had been withdrawn to the north bank, and
the trading galleys had fled or been seized by the Imp to be made
over for battle. The only ships to be seen were the king’s
war galleys. They rowed endlessly up and down, staying to the deep
water in the middle of the river and exchanging flights of arrows
with Stannis’s archers on the south shore.
Lord Stannis himself was still on the march, but his vanguard
had appeared two nights ago during the black of the moon.
King’s Landing had woken to the sight of their tents and
banners. They were five thousand, Sansa had heard, near as many as
all the gold cloaks in the city. They flew the red or green apples
of House Fossoway, the turtle of Estermont, and the fox-and-flowers
of Florent, and their commander was Ser Guyard Morrigen, a famous
southron knight who men now called Guyard the Green. His standard
showed a crow in flight, its black wings spread wide against a
storm-green sky. But it was the pale yellow banners that worried
the city. Long ragged tails streamed behind them like flickering
flames, and in place of a lord’s sigil they bore the device
of a god: the burning heart of the Lord of Light.
“When Stannis comes, he’ll have ten times as many
men as Joffrey does, everyone says so.”
Dontos squeezed her shoulder. “The size of his host does
not matter, sweetling, so long as they are on the wrong side of the
river. Stannis cannot cross without ships.”
“He has ships. More than Joffrey.”
“It’s a long sail from Storm’s End, the fleet
will need to come up Massey’s Hook and through the Gullet and
across Blackwater Bay. Perhaps the good gods will send a storm to
sweep them from the seas.” Dontos gave a hopeful smile.
“It is not easy for you, I know. You must be patient, child.
When my friend returns to the city, we shall have our ship. Have
faith in your Florian, and try not to be afraid.”
Sansa dug her nails into her hand. She could feel the fear in
her tummy, twisting and pinching, worse every day. Nightmares of
the day Princess Myrcella had sailed still troubled her sleep; dark
suffocating dreams that woke her in the black of night, struggling
for breath. She could hear the people screaming at her, screaming
without words, like animals. They had hemmed her in and thrown
filth at her and tried to pull her off her horse, and would have
done worse if the Hound had not cut his way to her side. They had
torn the High Septon to pieces and smashed in Ser Aron’s head
with a rock. Try not to be afraid! he said.
The whole city was afraid. Sansa could see it from the castle
walls. The smallfolk were hiding themselves behind closed shutters
and barred doors as if that would keep them safe. The last time
King’s Landing had fallen, the Lannisters looted and raped as
they pleased and put hundreds to the sword, even though the city
had opened its gates. This time the Imp meant to fight, and a city
that fought could expect no mercy at all.
Dontos was prattling on. “If I were still a knight, I
should have to put on armor and man the walls with the rest. I
ought to kiss King Joffrey’s feet and thank him
sweetly.”
“If you thanked him for making you a fool, he’d make
you a knight again,” Sansa said sharply.
Dontos chuckled. “My Jonquil’s a clever girl,
isn’t she?”
“Joffrey and his mother say I’m stupid.”
“Let them. You’re safer that way, sweetling. Queen
Cersei and the Imp and Lord Varys and their like, they all watch
each other keen as hawks, and pay this one and that one to spy out
what the others are doing, but no one ever troubles themselves
about Lady Tanda’s daughter, do they?” Dontos covered
his mouth to stifle a burp. “Gods preserve you, my little
Jonquil.” He was growing weepy. The wine did that to him.
“Give your Florian a little kiss now. A kiss for luck.”
He swayed toward her.
Sansa dodged the wet groping lips, kissed him lightly on an
unshaven cheek, and bid him good night. It took all her strength
not to weep. She had been weeping too much of late. It was
unseemly, she knew, but she could not seem to help herself; the
tears would come, sometimes over a trifle, and nothing she did
could hold them back.
The drawbridge to Maegor’s Holdfast was unguarded. The Imp
had moved most of the gold cloaks to the city walls, and the white
knights of the Kingsguard had duties more important than dogging
her heels. Sansa could go where she would so long as she did not
try to leave the castle, but there was nowhere she wanted to
go.
She crossed over the dry moat with its cruel iron spikes and
made her way up the narrow turnpike stair, but when she reached the
door of her bedchamber she could not bear to enter. The very walls
of the room made her feel trapped; even with the window opened wide
it felt as though there were no air to breathe.
Turning back to the stair, Sansa climbed. The smoke blotted out
the stars and the thin crescent of moon, so the roof was dark and
thick with shadows. Yet from here she could see everything: the Red
Keep’s tall towers and great cornerforts, the maze of city
streets beyond, to south and west the river running black, the bay
to the east, the columns of smoke and cinders, and fires, fires
everywhere. Soldiers crawled over the city walls like ants with
torches, and crowded the hoardings that had sprouted from the
ramparts. Down by the Mud Gate, outlined against the drifting
smoke, she could make out the vague shape of the three huge
catapults, the biggest anyone had ever seen, overtopping the walls
by a good twenty feet. Yet none of it made her feel less fearful. A
stab went through her, so sharp that Sansa sobbed and clutched at
her belly. She might have fallen, but a shadow moved suddenly, and
strong fingers grabbed her arm and steadied her.
She grabbed a merlon for support, her fingers scrabbling at the
rough stone. “Let go of me,” she cried. “Let
go.”
“The little bird thinks she has wings, does she? Or do you
mean to end up crippled like that brother of yours?”
Sansa twisted in his grasp. “I wasn’t going to fall.
It was only . . . you startled me, that’s
all.”
“You mean I scared you. And still do.”
She took a deep breath to calm herself. “I thought I was
alone, I . . . ” She glanced away.
“The little bird still can’t bear to look at me, can
she?” The Hound released her. “You were glad enough to
see my face when the mob had you, though. Remember?”
Sansa remembered all too well. She remembered the way they had
howled, the feel of the blood running down her cheek from where the
stone had struck her, and the garlic stink on the breath of the man
who had tried to pull her from her horse. She could still feel the
cruel pinch of fingers on her wrist as she lost her balance and
began to fall.
She’d thought she was going to die then, but the fingers
had twitched, all five at once, and the man had shrieked loud as a
horse. When his hand fell away, another hand, stronger, shoved her
back into her saddle. The man with the garlicky breath was on the
ground, blood pumping out the stump of his arm, but there were
others all around, some with clubs in hand. The Hound leapt at
them, his sword a blur of steel that trailed a red mist as it
swung. When they broke and ran before him he had laughed, his
terrible burned face for a moment transformed.
She made herself look at that face now, really look. It was only
courteous, and a lady must never forget her courtesies. The scars
are not the worst part, nor even the way his mouth twitches.
It’s his eyes. She had never seen eyes so full of anger.
“I . . . I should have come to you
after,” she said haltingly. “To thank you,
for . . . for saving
me . . . you were so brave.”
“Brave?” His laugh was half a snarl. “A dog
doesn’t need courage to chase off rats. They had me thirty to
one, and not a man of them dared face me.”
She hated the way he talked, always so harsh and angry.
“Does it give you joy to scare people?”
“No, it gives me joy to kill people.” His mouth
twitched. “Wrinkle up your face all you like, but spare me
this false piety. You were a high lord’s get. Don’t
tell me Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell never killed a
man.”
“That was his duty. He never liked it.”
“Is that what he told you?” Clegane laughed again.
“Your father lied. Killing is the sweetest thing there
is.” He drew his longsword. “Here’s your truth.
Your precious father found that out on Baelor’s steps. Lord
of Winterfell, Hand of the King, Warden of the North, the mighty
Eddard Stark, of a line eight thousand years
old . . . but Ilyn Payne’s blade went
through his neck all the same, didn’t it? Do you remember the
dance he did when his head came off his shoulders?”
Sansa hugged herself, suddenly cold. “Why are you always
so hateful? I was thanking
you . . . ”
“Just as if I was one of those true knights you love so
well, yes. What do you think a knight is for, girl? You think
it’s all taking favors from ladies and looking fine in gold
plate? Knights are for killing.” He laid the edge of his
longsword against her neck, just under her ear. Sansa could feel
the sharpness of the steel. “I killed my first man at twelve.
I’ve lost count of how many I’ve killed since then.
High lords with old names, fat rich men dressed in velvet, knights
puffed up like bladders with their honors, yes, and women and
children too—they’re all meat, and I’m the butcher. Let
them have their lands and their gods and their gold. Let them have
their sers.” Sandor Clegane spat at her feet to show what he
thought of that. “So long as I have this,” he said,
lifting the sword from her throat, “there’s no man on
earth I need fear.” Except your brother, Sansa thought, but she had better sense
than to say it aloud. He is a dog, just as he says. A half-wild,
mean-tempered dog that bites any hand that tries to pet him, and
yet will savage any man who tries to hurt his masters. “Not
even the men across the river?”
Clegane’s eyes turned toward the distant fires. “All
this burning.” He sheathed his sword. “Only cowards
fight with fire.”
“Lord Stannis is no coward.”
“He’s not the man his brother was either. Robert
never let a little thing like a river stop him.”
“What will you do when he crosses?”
“Fight. Kill. Die, maybe.”
“Aren’t you afraid? The gods might send you down to
some terrible hell for all the evil you’ve done.”
“What evil?” He laughed. “What
gods?”
“The gods who made us all.”
“All?” he mocked. “Tell me, little bird, what
kind of god makes a monster like the Imp, or a halfwit like Lady
Tanda’s daughter? If there are gods, they made sheep so
wolves could eat mutton, and they made the weak for the strong to
play with.”
“True knights protect the weak.”
He snorted. “There are no true knights, no more than there
are gods. If you can’t protect yourself, die and get out of
the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this
world, don’t ever believe any different.”
Sansa backed away from him. “You’re
awful.”
“I’m honest. It’s the world that’s
awful. Now fly away, little bird, I’m sick of you peeping at
me.”
Wordless, she fled. She was afraid of Sandor
Clegane . . . and yet, some part of her wished
that Ser Dontos had a little of the Hound’s ferocity. There
are gods, she told herself, and there are true knights too. All the
stories can’t be lies.
That night Sansa dreamed of the riot again. The mob surged
around her, shrieking, a maddened beast with a thousand faces.
Everywhere she turned she saw faces twisted into monstrous inhuman
masks. She wept and told them she had never done them hurt, yet
they dragged her from her horse all the same. “No,” she
cried, “no, please, don’t, don’t,” but no
one paid her any heed. She shouted for Ser Dontos, for her
brothers, for her dead father and her dead wolf, for gallant Ser
Loras who had given her a red rose once, but none of them came. She
called for the heroes from the songs, for Florian and Ser Ryam
Redwyne and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, but no one heard. Women
swarmed over her like weasels, pinching her legs and kicking her in
the belly, and someone hit her in the face and she felt her teeth
shatter. Then she saw the bright glimmer of steel. The knife
plunged into her belly and tore and tore and tore, until there was
nothing left of her down there but shiny wet ribbons.
When she woke, the pale light of morning was slanting through
her window, yet she felt as sick and achy as if she had not slept
at all. There was something sticky on her thighs. When she threw
back the blanket and saw the blood, all she could think was that
her dream had somehow come true. She remembered the knives inside
her, twisting and ripping. She squirmed away in horror, kicking at
the sheets and falling to the floor, breathing raggedly, naked,
bloodied, and afraid.
But as she crouched there, on her hands and knees, understanding
came. “No, please,” Sansa whimpered, “please,
no.” She didn’t want this happening to her, not now,
not here, not now, not now, not now, not now.
Madness took hold of her. Pulling herself up by the bedpost, she
went to the basin and washed between her legs, scrubbing away all
the stickiness. By the time she was done, the water was pink with
blood. When her maidservants saw it they would know. Then she
remembered the bedclothes. She rushed back to the bed and stared in
horror at the dark red stain and the tale it told. All she could
think was that she had to get rid of it, or else they’d see.
She couldn’t let them see, or they’d marry her to
Joffrey and make her lay with him.
Snatching up her knife, Sana hacked at the sheet, cutting out
the stain. If they ask me about the hole, what will I say? Tears
ran down her face. She pulled the torn sheet from the bed, and the
stained blanket as well. I’ll have to burn them. She balled
up the evidence, stuffed it in the fireplace, drenched it in oil
from her bedside lamp, and lit it afire. Then she realized that the
blood had soaked through the sheet into the featherbed, so she
bundled that up as well, but it was big and cumbersome, hard to
move. Sansa could get only half of it into the fire. She was on her
knees, struggling to shove the mattress into the flames as thick
grey smoke eddied around her and filled the room, when the door
burst open and she heard her maid gasp.
In the end it took three of them to pull her away. And it was
all for nothing. The bedclothes were burnt, but by the time they
carried her off her thighs were bloody again. It was as if her own
body had betrayed her to Joffrey, unfurling a banner of Lannister
crimson for all the world to see.
When the fire was out, they carried off the singed featherbed,
fanned away the worst of the smoke, and brought up a tub. Women
came and went, muttering and looking at her strangely. They filled
the tub with scalding hot water, bathed her and washed her hair and
gave her a cloth to wear between her legs. By then Sansa was calm
again, and ashamed for her folly. The smoke had ruined most of her
clothing. One of the women went away and came back with a green
wool shift that was almost her size. “It’s not as
pretty as your own things, but it will serve,” she announced
when she’d pulled it down over Sansa’s head.
“Your shoes weren’t burned, so at least you won’t
need to go barefoot to the queen.”
Cersei Lannister was breaking her fast when Sansa was ushered
into her solar. “You may sit,” the queen said
graciously. “Are you hungry?” She gestured at the
table. There was porridge, honey, milk, boiled eggs, and crisp
fried fish.
The sight of the food made Sansa feel ill. Her tummy was tied in
a knot. “No, thank you, Your Grace.”
“I don’t blame you. Between Tyrion and Lord Stannis,
everything I eat tastes of ash. And now you’re setting fires
as well. What did you hope to accomplish?”
Sansa lowered her head. “The blood frightened
me.”
“The blood is the seal of your womanhood. Lady Catelyn
might have prepared you. You’ve had your first flowering, no
more.”
Sansa had never felt less flowery. “My lady mother told
me, but I . . . I thought it would be
different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. Less . . . less
messy, and more magical.”
Queen Cersei laughed. “Wait until you birth a child,
Sansa. A woman’s life is nine parts mess to one part magic,
you’ll learn that soon enough . . . and
the parts that look like magic often turn out to be messiest of
all.” She took a sip of milk. “So now you are a woman.
Do you have the least idea of what that means?”
“It means that I am now fit to be wedded and
bedded,” said Sansa, “and to bear children for the
king.”
The queen gave a wry smile. “A prospect that no longer
entices you as it once did, I can see. I will not fault you for
that. Joffrey has always been difficult. Even his
birth . . . I labored a day and a half to bring
him forth. You cannot imagine the pain, Sansa. I screamed so loudly
that I fancied Robert might hear me in the kingswood.”
“His Grace was not with you?”
“Robert? Robert was hunting. That was his custom. Whenever
my time was near, my royal husband would flee to the trees with his
huntsmen and hounds. When he returned he would present me with some
pelts or a stag’s head, and I would present him with a
baby.
“Not that I wanted him to stay, mind you. I had Grand
Maester Pycelle and an army of midwives, and I had my brother. When
they told Jaime he was not allowed in the birthing room, he smiled
and asked which of them proposed to keep him out.
“Joffrey will show you no such devotion, I fear. You could
thank your sister for that, if she weren’t dead. He’s
never been able to forget that day on the Trident when you saw her
shame him, so he shames you in turn. You’re stronger than you
seem, though. I expect you’ll survive a bit of humiliation. I
did. You may never love the king, but you’ll love his
children.”
“I love His Grace with all my heart,” Sansa
said.
The queen sighed. “You had best learn some new lies, and
quickly. Lord Stannis will not like that one, I promise
you.”
“The new High Septon said that the gods will never permit
Lord Stannis to win, since Joffrey is the rightful king.”
A half smile flickered across the queen’s face.
“Robert’s trueborn son and heir. Though Joff would cry
whenever Robert picked him up. His Grace did not like that. His
bastards had always gurgled at him happily, and sucked his finger
when he put it in their little baseborn mouths. Robert wanted
smiles and cheers, always, so he went where he found them, to his
friends and his whores. Robert wanted to be loved. My brother
Tyrion has the same disease. Do you want to be loved,
Sansa?”
“Everyone wants to be loved.”
“I see flowering hasn’t made you any
brighter,” said Cersei. “Sansa, permit me to share a
bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is
poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the
same.”