Sansa rode to the Hand’s tourney with
Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, in a litter with curtains of yellow
silk so fine she could see right through them. They turned the
whole world gold. Beyond the city walls, a hundred pavilions had
been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in the
thousands to watch the games. The splendor of it all took
Sansa’s breath away; the shining armor, the great chargers
caparisoned in silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd, the
banners snapping in the wind . . . and the knights themselves, the
knights most of all.
“It is better than the songs,” she whispered when
they found the places that her father had promised her, among the
high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a
green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew
they were looking at her and smiling.
They watched the heroes of a hundred songs ride forth, each more
fabulous than the last. The seven knights of the Kingsguard took
the field, all but Jaime Lannister in scaled armor the color of
milk, their cloaks as white as freshfallen snow. Ser Jaime wore the
white cloak as well, but beneath it he was shining gold from head
to foot, with a lion’s-head helm and a golden sword. Ser
Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides, thundered past them like
an avalanche. Sansa remembered Lord Yohn Royce, who had guested at
Winterfell two years before. “His armor is bronze,
thousands and thousands of years old, engraved with magic runes
that ward him against harm,” she whispered to Jeyne. Septa
Mordane pointed out Lord Jason Mallister, in indigo chased with
silver, the wings of an eagle on his helm. He had cut down three of
Rhaegar’s bannermen on the Trident. The girls giggled over
the warrior priest Thoros of Myr, with his flapping red robes and
shaven head, until the septa told them that he had once scaled the
walls of Pyke with a flaming sword in hand.
Other riders Sansa did not know; hedge knights from the Fingers
and Highgarden and the mountains of Dorne, unsung freeriders and
new-made squires, the younger sons of high lords and the heirs of
lesser houses. Younger men, most had done no great deeds as yet,
but Sansa and Jeyne agreed that one day the Seven Kingdoms would
resound to the sound of their names. Ser Balon Swann. Lord Bryce
Caron of the Marches. Bronze Yohn’s heir, Ser Andar Royce,
and his younger brother Ser Robar, their silvered steel plate
filigreed in bronze with the same ancient runes that warded their
father. The twins Ser Horas and Ser Hobber, whose shields displayed
the grape cluster sigil of the Redwynes, burgundy on blue. Patrek
Mallister, Lord Jason’s son. Six Freys of the Crossing: Ser
Jared, Ser Hosteen, Ser Danwell, Ser Emmon, Ser Theo, Ser Perwyn,
sons and grandsons of old Lord Walder Frey, and his bastard son
Martyn Rivers as well.
Jeyne Poole confessed herself frightened by the look of Jalabhar
Xho, an exile prince from the Summer Isles who wore a cape of green
and scarlet feathers over skin as dark as night, but when she saw
young Lord Beric Dondarrion, with his hair like red gold and his
black shield slashed by lightning, she pronounced herself willing
to marry him on the instant.
The Hound entered the lists as well, and so too the king’s
brother, handsome Lord Renly of Storm’s End. Jory, Alyn, and
Harwin rode for Winterfell and the north. “Jory looks a
beggar among these others,” Septa Mordane sniffed when he
appeared. Sansa could only agree. Jory’s armor was blue-grey
plate without device or ornament, and a thin grey cloak hung from
his shoulders like a soiled rag. Yet he acquitted himself well,
unhorsing Horas Redwyne in his first joust and one of the Freys in
his second. In his third match, he rode three passes at a freerider
named Lothor Brune whose armor was as drab as his own. Neither man
lost his seat, but Brune’s lance was steadier and his blows
better placed, and the king gave him the victory. Alyn and Harwin
fared less well; Harwin was unhorsed in his first tilt by Ser Meryn
of the Kingsguard, while Alyn fell to Ser Balon Swann.
The jousting went all day and into the dusk, the hooves of the
great warhorses pounding down the lists until the field was a
ragged wasteland of torn earth. A dozen times Jeyne and Sansa cried
out in unison as riders crashed together, lances exploding into
splinters while the commons screamed for their favorites. Jeyne
covered her eyes whenever a man fell, like a frightened little
girl, but Sansa was made of sterner stuff. A great lady knew how to
behave at tournaments. Even Septa Mordane noted her composure and
nodded in approval.
The Kingslayer rode brilliantly. He overthrew Ser Andar Royce
and the Marcher Lord Bryce Caron as easily as if he were riding at
rings, and then took a hard-fought match from white-haired
Barristan Selmy, who had won his first two tilts against men thirty
and forty years his junior.
Sandor Clegane and his immense brother, Ser Gregor the Mountain,
seemed unstoppable as well, riding down one foe after the next in
ferocious style. The most terrifying moment of the day came during
Ser Gregor’s second joust, when his lance rode up and struck
a young knight from the Vale under the gorget with such force that
it drove through his throat, killing him instantly. The youth fell
not ten feet from where Sansa was seated. The point of Ser
Gregor’s lance had snapped off in his neck, and his
life’s blood flowed out in slow pulses, each weaker than the
one before. His armor was shiny new; a bright streak of fire ran
down his outstretched arm, as the steel caught the light. Then the
sun went behind a cloud, and it was gone. His cloak was blue, the
color of the sky on a clear summer’s day, trimmed with a
border of crescent moons, but as his blood seeped into it, the
cloth darkened and the moons turned red, one by one.
Jeyne Poole wept so hysterically that Septa Mordane finally took
her off to regain her composure, but Sansa sat with her hands
folded in her lap, watching with a strange fascination. She had
never seen a man die before. She ought to be crying too, she
thought, but the tears would not come. Perhaps she had used up all
her tears for Lady and Bran. It would be different if it had been
Jory or Ser Rodrik or Father, she told herself. The young knight in
the blue cloak was nothing to her, some stranger from the Vale of
Arryn whose name she had forgotten as soon as she heard it. And now
the world would forget his name too, Sansa realized; there would be
no songs sung for him. That was sad.
After they carried off the body, a boy with a spade ran onto the
field and shoveled dirt over the spot where he had fallen, to cover
up the blood. Then the jousts resumed.
Ser Balon Swann also fell to Gregor, and Lord Renly to the
Hound. Renly was unhorsed so violently that he seemed to fly
backward off his charger, legs in the air. His head hit the ground
with an audible crack that made the crowd gasp, but it was just the
golden antler on his helm. One of the tines had snapped off beneath
him. When Lord Renly climbed to his feet, the commons cheered
wildly, for King Robert’s handsome young brother was a great
favorite. He handed the broken tine to his conqueror with a
gracious bow. The Hound snorted and tossed the broken antler into
the crowd, where the commons began to punch and claw over the
little bit of gold, until Lord Renly walked out among them and
restored the peace. By then Septa Mordane had returned, alone.
Jeyne had been feeling ill, she explained; she had helped her back
to the castle. Sansa had almost forgotten about Jeyne.
Later a hedge knight in a checkered cloak disgraced himself by
killing Beric Dondarrion’s horse, and was declared forfeit.
Lord Beric shifted his saddle to a new mount, only to be knocked
right off it by Thoros of Myr. Ser Aron Santagar and Lothor Brune
tilted thrice without result; Ser Aron fell afterward to Lord Jason
Mallister, and Brune to Yohn Royce’s younger son, Robar.
In the end it came down to four; the Hound and his monstrous
brother Gregor, Jaime Lannister the Kingslayer, and Ser Loras
Tyrell, the youth they called the Knight of Flowers.
Ser Loras was the youngest son of Mace Tyrell, the Lord of
Highgarden and Warden of the South. At sixteen, he was the youngest
rider on the field, yet he had unhorsed three knights of the
Kingsguard that morning in his first three jousts. Sansa had never
seen anyone so beautiful. His plate was intricately fashioned and
enameled as a bouquet of a thousand different flowers, and his
snow-white stallion was draped in a blanket of red and white roses.
After each victory, Ser Loras would remove his helm and ride slowly
round the fence, and finally pluck a single white rose from the
blanket and toss it to some fair maiden in the crowd.
His last match of the day was against the younger Royce. Ser
Robar’s ancestral runes proved small protection as Ser Loras
split his shield and drove him from his saddle to crash with an
awful clangor in the dirt. Robar lay moaning as the victor made his
circuit of the field. Finally they called for a litter and carried
him off to his tent, dazed and unmoving. Sansa never saw it. Her
eyes were only for Ser Loras. When the white horse stopped in front
of her, she thought her heart would burst.
To the other maidens he had given white roses, but the one he
plucked for her was red. “Sweet lady,” he said,
“no victory is half so beautiful as you.” Sansa took
the flower timidly, struck dumb by his gallantry. His hair was a
mass of lazy brown curls, his eyes like liquid gold. She inhaled
the sweet fragrance of the rose and sat clutching it long after Ser
Loras had ridden off.
When Sansa finally looked up, a man was standing over her,
staring. He was short, with a pointed beard and a silver streak in
his hair, almost as old as her father. “You must be one of
her daughters,” he said to her. He had grey-green eyes that
did not smile when his mouth did. “You have the Tully
look.”
“I’m Sansa Stark,” she said, ill at ease. The
man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver
mockingbird, and he had the effortless manner of a high lord, but
she did not know him. “I have not had the honor, my
lord.”
Septa Mordane quickly took a hand. “Sweet child, this is
Lord Petyr Baelish, of the king’s small council.”
“Your mother was my queen of beauty once,” the man
said quietly. His breath smelled of mint. “You have her
hair.” His fingers brushed against her cheek as he stroked
one auburn lock. Quite abruptly he turned and walked away.
By then, the moon was well up and the crowd was tired, so the
king decreed that the last three matches would be fought the next
morning, before the melee. While the commons began their walk home,
talking of the day’s jousts and the matches to come on the
morrow, the court moved to the riverside to begin the feast. Six
monstrous huge aurochs had been roasting for hours, turning slowly
on wooden spits while kitchen boys basted them with butter and
herbs until the meat crackled and spit. Tables and benches had been
raised outside the pavilions, piled high with sweetgrass and
strawberries and fresh-baked bread.
Sansa and Septa Mordane were given places of high honor, to the
left of the raised dais where the king himself sat beside his
queen. When Prince Joffrey seated himself to her right, she felt
her throat tighten. He had not spoken a word to her since the awful
thing had happened, and she had not dared to speak to him. At first
she thought she hated him for what they’d done to Lady, but
after Sansa had wept her eyes dry, she told herself that it had not
been Joffrey’s doing, not truly. The queen had done it; she
was the one to hate, her and Arya. Nothing bad would have happened
except for Arya.
She could not hate Joffrey tonight. He was too beautiful to
hate. He wore a deep blue doublet studded with a double row of
golden lion’s heads, and around his brow a slim coronet made
of gold and sapphires. His hair was as bright as the metal. Sansa
looked at him and trembled, afraid that he might ignore her or,
worse, turn hateful again and send her weeping from the table.
Instead Joffrey smiled and kissed her hand, handsome and gallant
as any prince in the songs, and said, “Ser Loras has a keen
eye for beauty, sweet lady.”
“He was too kind,” she demurred, trying to remain
modest and calm, though her heart was singing. “Ser Loras is
a true knight. Do you think he will win tomorrow, my
lord?”
“No,” Joffrey said. “My dog will do for him,
or perhaps my uncle Jaime. And in a few years, when I am old enough
to enter the lists, I shall do for them all.” He raised his
hand to summon a servant with a flagon of iced summerwine, and
poured her a cup. She looked anxiously at Septa Mordane, until
Joffrey leaned over and filled the septa’s cup as well, so
she nodded and thanked him graciously and said not another
word.
The servants kept the cups filled all night, yet afterward Sansa
could not recall ever tasting the wine. She needed no wine. She was
drunk on the magic of the night, giddy with glamour, swept away by
beauties she had dreamt of all her life and never dared hope to
know. Singers sat before the king’s pavilion, filling the
dusk with music. A juggler kept a cascade of burning clubs spinning
through the air. The king’s own fool, the pie-faced simpleton
called Moon Boy, danced about on stilts, all in motley, making mock
of everyone with such deft cruelty that Sansa wondered if he was
simple after all. Even Septa Mordane was helpless before him; when
he sang his little song about the High Septon, she laughed so hard
she spilled wine on herself.
And Joffrey was the soul of courtesy. He talked to Sansa all
night, showering her with compliments, making her laugh, sharing
little bits of court gossip, explaining Moon Boy’s japes.
Sansa was so captivated that she quite forgot all her courtesies
and ignored Septa Mordane, seated to her left.
All the while the courses came and went. A thick soup of barley
and venison. Salads of sweetgrass and spinach and plums, sprinkled
with crushed nuts. Snails in honey and garlic. Sansa had never
eaten snails before; Joffrey showed her how to get the snail out of
the shell, and fed her the first sweet morsel himself. Then came
trout fresh from the river, baked in clay; her prince helped her
crack open the hard casing to expose the flaky white flesh within.
And when the meat course was brought out, he served her himself,
slicing a queen’s portion from the joint, smiling as he laid
it on her plate. She could see from the way he moved that his right
arm was still troubling him, yet he uttered not a word of
complaint.
Later came sweetbreads and pigeon pie and baked apples fragrant
with cinnamon and lemon cakes frosted in sugar, but by then Sansa
was so stuffed that she could not manage more than two little lemon
cakes, as much as she loved them. She was wondering whether she
might attempt a third when the king began to shout.
King Robert had grown louder with each course. From time to time
Sansa could hear him laughing or roaring a command over the music
and the clangor of plates and cutlery, but they were too far away
for her to make out his words.
Now everybody heard him. “No,” he thundered in a
voice that drowned out all other speech. Sansa was shocked to see
the king on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine
in one hand, and he was drunk as a man could be. “You do not
tell me what to do, woman,” he screamed at Queen Cersei.
“I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say
that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!”
Everyone was staring. Sansa saw Ser Barristan, and the
king’s brother Renly, and the short man who had talked to her
so oddly and touched her hair, but no one made a move to interfere.
The queen’s face was a mask, so bloodless that it might have
been sculpted from snow. She rose from the table, gathered her
skirts around her, and stormed off in silence, servants trailing
behind.
Jaime Lannister put a hand on the king’s shoulder, but the
king shoved him away hard. Lannister stumbled and fell. The king
guffawed. “The great knight. I can still knock you in the
dirt. Remember that, Kingslayer.” He slapped his chest with
the jeweled goblet, splashing wine all over his satin tunic.
“Give me my hammer and not a man in the realm can stand
before me!”
Jaime Lannister rose and brushed himself off. “As you say,
Your Grace.” His voice was stiff.
Lord Renly came forward, smiling. “You’ve spilled
your wine, Robert. Let me bring you a fresh goblet.”
Sansa started as Joffrey laid his hand on her arm. “It
grows late,” the prince said. He had a queer look on his
face, as if he were not seeing her at all. “Do you need an
escort back to the castle?”
“No,” Sansa began. She looked for Septa Mordane, and
was startled to find her with her head on the table, snoring soft
and ladylike snores. “I mean to say . . . yes, thank you,
that would be most kind. I am tired, and the way is so dark. I
should be glad for some protection.”
Joffrey called out, “Dog!”
Sandor Clegane seemed to take form out of the night, so quickly
did he appear. He had exchanged his armor for a red woolen tunic
with a leather dog’s head sewn on the front. The light of the
torches made his burned face shine a dull red. “Yes, Your
Grace?” he said.
“Take my betrothed back to the castle, and see that no
harm befalls her,” the prince told him brusquely. And without
even a word of farewell, Joffrey strode off, leaving her there.
Sansa could feel the Hound watching her. “Did you think
Joff was going to take you himself?” He laughed. He had a
laugh like the snarling of dogs in a pit. “Small chance of
that.” He pulled her unresisting to her feet. “Come,
you’re not the only one needs sleep. I’ve drunk too
much, and I may need to kill my brother tomorrow.” He laughed
again.
Suddenly terrified, Sansa pushed at Septa Mordane’s
shoulder, hoping to wake her, but she only snored the louder. King
Robert had stumbled off and half the benches were suddenly empty.
The feast was over, and the beautiful dream had ended with it.
The Hound snatched up a torch to light their way. Sansa followed
close beside him. The ground was rocky and uneven; the flickering
light made it seem to shift and move beneath her. She kept her eyes
lowered, watching where she placed her feet. They walked among the
pavilions, each with its banner and its armor hung outside, the
silence weighing heavier with every step. Sansa could not bear the
sight of him, he frightened her so, yet she had been raised in all
the ways of courtesy. A true lady would not notice his face, she
told herself. “You rode gallantly today, Ser Sandor,”
she made herself say.
Sandor Clegane snarled at her. “Spare me your empty little
compliments, girl . . . and your ser’s. I am no knight. I
spit on them and their vows. My brother is a knight. Did you see
him ride today?”
“Yes,” Sansa whispered, trembling. “He was . . .
“Gallant?” the Hound finished.
He was mocking her, she realized. “No one could withstand
him,” she managed at last, proud of herself. It was no
lie.
Sandor Clegane stopped suddenly in the middle of a dark and
empty field. She had no choice but to stop beside him. “Some
septa trained you well. You’re like one of those birds from
the Summer Isles, aren’t you? A pretty little talking bird,
repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to
recite.”
“That’s unkind.” Sansa could feel her heart
fluttering in her chest. “You’re frightening me. I want
to go now.”
“No one could withstand him,” the Hound rasped.
“That’s truth enough. No one could ever withstand
Gregor. That boy today, his second joust, oh, that was a pretty bit
of business. You saw that, did you? Fool boy, he had no business
riding in this company. No money, no squire, no one to help him
with that armor. That gorget wasn’t fastened proper. You
think Gregor didn’t notice that? You think Ser Gregor’s
lance rode up by chance, do you? Pretty little talking girl, you
believe that, you’re empty-headed as a bird for true.
Gregor’s lance goes where Gregor wants it to go. Look at me.
Look at me!” Sandor Clegane put a huge hand under her chin
and forced her face up. He squatted in front of her, and moved the
torch close. “There’s a pretty for you. Take a good
long stare. You know you want to. I’ve watched you turning
away all the way down the kingsroad. Piss on that. Take your
look.”
His fingers held her jaw as hard as an iron trap. His eyes
watched hers. Drunken eyes, sullen with anger. She had to look.
The right side of his face was gaunt, with sharp cheekbones and
a grey eye beneath a heavy brow. His nose was large and hooked, his
hair thin, dark. He wore it long and brushed it sideways, because
no hair grew on the other side of that face.
The left side of his face was a ruin. His ear had been burned
away; there was nothing left but a hole. His eye was still good,
but all around it was a twisted mass of scar, slick black flesh
hard as leather, pocked with craters and fissured by deep cracks
that gleamed red and wet when he moved. Down by his jaw, you could
see a hint of bone where the flesh had been seared away.
Sansa began to cry. He let go of her then, and snuffed out the
torch in the dirt. “No pretty words for that, girl? No little
compliment the septa taught you?” When there was no answer,
he continued. “Most of them, they think it was some battle. A
siege, a burning tower, an enemy with a torch. One fool asked if it
was dragonsbreath.” His laugh was softer this time, but just
as bitter. “I’ll tell you what it was, girl,” he
said, a voice from the night, a shadow leaning so close now that
she could smell the sour stench of wine on his breath. “I was
younger than you, six, maybe seven. A woodcarver set up shop in the
village under my father’s keep, and to buy favor he sent us
gifts. The old man made marvelous toys. I don’t remember what
I got, but it was Gregor’s gift I wanted. A wooden knight,
all painted up, every joint pegged separate and fixed with strings,
so you could make him fight. Gregor is five years older than me,
the toy was nothing to him, he was already a squire, near six foot
tall and muscled like an ox. So I took his knight, but there was no
joy to it, I tell you. I was scared all the while, and true enough,
he found me. There was a brazier in the room. Gregor never said a
word, just picked me up under his arm and shoved the side of my
face down in the burning coals and held me there while I screamed
and screamed. You saw how strong he is. Even then, it took three
grown men to drag him off me. The septons preach about the seven
hells. What do they know? Only a man who’s been burned knows
what hell is truly like.
“My father told everyone my bedding had caught fire, and
our maester gave me ointments. Ointments! Gregor got his ointments
too. Four years later, they anointed him with the seven oils and he
recited his knightly vows and Rhaegar Targaryen tapped him on the
shoulder and said, ‘Arise, Ser Gregor.’ ”
The rasping voice trailed off. He squatted silently before her,
a hulking black shape shrouded in the night, hidden from her eyes.
Sansa could hear his ragged breathing. She was sad for him, she
realized. Somehow, the fear had gone away.
The silence went on and on, so long that she began to grow
afraid once more, but she was afraid for him now, not for herself.
She found his massive shoulder with her hand. “He was no true
knight,” she whispered to him.
The Hound threw back his head and roared. Sansa stumbled back,
away from him, but he caught her arm. “No,” he growled
at her, “no, little bird, he was no true knight.”
The rest of the way into the city, Sandor Clegane said not a
word. He led her to where the carts were waiting, told a driver to
take them back to the Red Keep, and climbed in after her. They rode
in silence through the King’s Gate and up torchlit city
streets. He opened the postern door and led her into the castle,
his burned face twitching and his eyes brooding, and he was one
step behind her as they climbed the tower stairs. He took her safe
all the way to the corridor outside her bedchamber.
“Thank you, my lord,” Sansa said meekly.
The Hound caught her by the arm and leaned close. “The
things I told you tonight,” he said, his voice sounding even
rougher than usual. “If you ever tell Joffrey . . . your
sister, your father . . . any of them . . . ”
“I won’t,” Sansa whispered. “I
promise.”
It was not enough. “If you ever tell anyone,” he
finished, “I’ll kill you.”
Sansa rode to the Hand’s tourney with
Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, in a litter with curtains of yellow
silk so fine she could see right through them. They turned the
whole world gold. Beyond the city walls, a hundred pavilions had
been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in the
thousands to watch the games. The splendor of it all took
Sansa’s breath away; the shining armor, the great chargers
caparisoned in silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd, the
banners snapping in the wind . . . and the knights themselves, the
knights most of all.
“It is better than the songs,” she whispered when
they found the places that her father had promised her, among the
high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a
green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew
they were looking at her and smiling.
They watched the heroes of a hundred songs ride forth, each more
fabulous than the last. The seven knights of the Kingsguard took
the field, all but Jaime Lannister in scaled armor the color of
milk, their cloaks as white as freshfallen snow. Ser Jaime wore the
white cloak as well, but beneath it he was shining gold from head
to foot, with a lion’s-head helm and a golden sword. Ser
Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides, thundered past them like
an avalanche. Sansa remembered Lord Yohn Royce, who had guested at
Winterfell two years before. “His armor is bronze,
thousands and thousands of years old, engraved with magic runes
that ward him against harm,” she whispered to Jeyne. Septa
Mordane pointed out Lord Jason Mallister, in indigo chased with
silver, the wings of an eagle on his helm. He had cut down three of
Rhaegar’s bannermen on the Trident. The girls giggled over
the warrior priest Thoros of Myr, with his flapping red robes and
shaven head, until the septa told them that he had once scaled the
walls of Pyke with a flaming sword in hand.
Other riders Sansa did not know; hedge knights from the Fingers
and Highgarden and the mountains of Dorne, unsung freeriders and
new-made squires, the younger sons of high lords and the heirs of
lesser houses. Younger men, most had done no great deeds as yet,
but Sansa and Jeyne agreed that one day the Seven Kingdoms would
resound to the sound of their names. Ser Balon Swann. Lord Bryce
Caron of the Marches. Bronze Yohn’s heir, Ser Andar Royce,
and his younger brother Ser Robar, their silvered steel plate
filigreed in bronze with the same ancient runes that warded their
father. The twins Ser Horas and Ser Hobber, whose shields displayed
the grape cluster sigil of the Redwynes, burgundy on blue. Patrek
Mallister, Lord Jason’s son. Six Freys of the Crossing: Ser
Jared, Ser Hosteen, Ser Danwell, Ser Emmon, Ser Theo, Ser Perwyn,
sons and grandsons of old Lord Walder Frey, and his bastard son
Martyn Rivers as well.
Jeyne Poole confessed herself frightened by the look of Jalabhar
Xho, an exile prince from the Summer Isles who wore a cape of green
and scarlet feathers over skin as dark as night, but when she saw
young Lord Beric Dondarrion, with his hair like red gold and his
black shield slashed by lightning, she pronounced herself willing
to marry him on the instant.
The Hound entered the lists as well, and so too the king’s
brother, handsome Lord Renly of Storm’s End. Jory, Alyn, and
Harwin rode for Winterfell and the north. “Jory looks a
beggar among these others,” Septa Mordane sniffed when he
appeared. Sansa could only agree. Jory’s armor was blue-grey
plate without device or ornament, and a thin grey cloak hung from
his shoulders like a soiled rag. Yet he acquitted himself well,
unhorsing Horas Redwyne in his first joust and one of the Freys in
his second. In his third match, he rode three passes at a freerider
named Lothor Brune whose armor was as drab as his own. Neither man
lost his seat, but Brune’s lance was steadier and his blows
better placed, and the king gave him the victory. Alyn and Harwin
fared less well; Harwin was unhorsed in his first tilt by Ser Meryn
of the Kingsguard, while Alyn fell to Ser Balon Swann.
The jousting went all day and into the dusk, the hooves of the
great warhorses pounding down the lists until the field was a
ragged wasteland of torn earth. A dozen times Jeyne and Sansa cried
out in unison as riders crashed together, lances exploding into
splinters while the commons screamed for their favorites. Jeyne
covered her eyes whenever a man fell, like a frightened little
girl, but Sansa was made of sterner stuff. A great lady knew how to
behave at tournaments. Even Septa Mordane noted her composure and
nodded in approval.
The Kingslayer rode brilliantly. He overthrew Ser Andar Royce
and the Marcher Lord Bryce Caron as easily as if he were riding at
rings, and then took a hard-fought match from white-haired
Barristan Selmy, who had won his first two tilts against men thirty
and forty years his junior.
Sandor Clegane and his immense brother, Ser Gregor the Mountain,
seemed unstoppable as well, riding down one foe after the next in
ferocious style. The most terrifying moment of the day came during
Ser Gregor’s second joust, when his lance rode up and struck
a young knight from the Vale under the gorget with such force that
it drove through his throat, killing him instantly. The youth fell
not ten feet from where Sansa was seated. The point of Ser
Gregor’s lance had snapped off in his neck, and his
life’s blood flowed out in slow pulses, each weaker than the
one before. His armor was shiny new; a bright streak of fire ran
down his outstretched arm, as the steel caught the light. Then the
sun went behind a cloud, and it was gone. His cloak was blue, the
color of the sky on a clear summer’s day, trimmed with a
border of crescent moons, but as his blood seeped into it, the
cloth darkened and the moons turned red, one by one.
Jeyne Poole wept so hysterically that Septa Mordane finally took
her off to regain her composure, but Sansa sat with her hands
folded in her lap, watching with a strange fascination. She had
never seen a man die before. She ought to be crying too, she
thought, but the tears would not come. Perhaps she had used up all
her tears for Lady and Bran. It would be different if it had been
Jory or Ser Rodrik or Father, she told herself. The young knight in
the blue cloak was nothing to her, some stranger from the Vale of
Arryn whose name she had forgotten as soon as she heard it. And now
the world would forget his name too, Sansa realized; there would be
no songs sung for him. That was sad.
After they carried off the body, a boy with a spade ran onto the
field and shoveled dirt over the spot where he had fallen, to cover
up the blood. Then the jousts resumed.
Ser Balon Swann also fell to Gregor, and Lord Renly to the
Hound. Renly was unhorsed so violently that he seemed to fly
backward off his charger, legs in the air. His head hit the ground
with an audible crack that made the crowd gasp, but it was just the
golden antler on his helm. One of the tines had snapped off beneath
him. When Lord Renly climbed to his feet, the commons cheered
wildly, for King Robert’s handsome young brother was a great
favorite. He handed the broken tine to his conqueror with a
gracious bow. The Hound snorted and tossed the broken antler into
the crowd, where the commons began to punch and claw over the
little bit of gold, until Lord Renly walked out among them and
restored the peace. By then Septa Mordane had returned, alone.
Jeyne had been feeling ill, she explained; she had helped her back
to the castle. Sansa had almost forgotten about Jeyne.
Later a hedge knight in a checkered cloak disgraced himself by
killing Beric Dondarrion’s horse, and was declared forfeit.
Lord Beric shifted his saddle to a new mount, only to be knocked
right off it by Thoros of Myr. Ser Aron Santagar and Lothor Brune
tilted thrice without result; Ser Aron fell afterward to Lord Jason
Mallister, and Brune to Yohn Royce’s younger son, Robar.
In the end it came down to four; the Hound and his monstrous
brother Gregor, Jaime Lannister the Kingslayer, and Ser Loras
Tyrell, the youth they called the Knight of Flowers.
Ser Loras was the youngest son of Mace Tyrell, the Lord of
Highgarden and Warden of the South. At sixteen, he was the youngest
rider on the field, yet he had unhorsed three knights of the
Kingsguard that morning in his first three jousts. Sansa had never
seen anyone so beautiful. His plate was intricately fashioned and
enameled as a bouquet of a thousand different flowers, and his
snow-white stallion was draped in a blanket of red and white roses.
After each victory, Ser Loras would remove his helm and ride slowly
round the fence, and finally pluck a single white rose from the
blanket and toss it to some fair maiden in the crowd.
His last match of the day was against the younger Royce. Ser
Robar’s ancestral runes proved small protection as Ser Loras
split his shield and drove him from his saddle to crash with an
awful clangor in the dirt. Robar lay moaning as the victor made his
circuit of the field. Finally they called for a litter and carried
him off to his tent, dazed and unmoving. Sansa never saw it. Her
eyes were only for Ser Loras. When the white horse stopped in front
of her, she thought her heart would burst.
To the other maidens he had given white roses, but the one he
plucked for her was red. “Sweet lady,” he said,
“no victory is half so beautiful as you.” Sansa took
the flower timidly, struck dumb by his gallantry. His hair was a
mass of lazy brown curls, his eyes like liquid gold. She inhaled
the sweet fragrance of the rose and sat clutching it long after Ser
Loras had ridden off.
When Sansa finally looked up, a man was standing over her,
staring. He was short, with a pointed beard and a silver streak in
his hair, almost as old as her father. “You must be one of
her daughters,” he said to her. He had grey-green eyes that
did not smile when his mouth did. “You have the Tully
look.”
“I’m Sansa Stark,” she said, ill at ease. The
man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver
mockingbird, and he had the effortless manner of a high lord, but
she did not know him. “I have not had the honor, my
lord.”
Septa Mordane quickly took a hand. “Sweet child, this is
Lord Petyr Baelish, of the king’s small council.”
“Your mother was my queen of beauty once,” the man
said quietly. His breath smelled of mint. “You have her
hair.” His fingers brushed against her cheek as he stroked
one auburn lock. Quite abruptly he turned and walked away.
By then, the moon was well up and the crowd was tired, so the
king decreed that the last three matches would be fought the next
morning, before the melee. While the commons began their walk home,
talking of the day’s jousts and the matches to come on the
morrow, the court moved to the riverside to begin the feast. Six
monstrous huge aurochs had been roasting for hours, turning slowly
on wooden spits while kitchen boys basted them with butter and
herbs until the meat crackled and spit. Tables and benches had been
raised outside the pavilions, piled high with sweetgrass and
strawberries and fresh-baked bread.
Sansa and Septa Mordane were given places of high honor, to the
left of the raised dais where the king himself sat beside his
queen. When Prince Joffrey seated himself to her right, she felt
her throat tighten. He had not spoken a word to her since the awful
thing had happened, and she had not dared to speak to him. At first
she thought she hated him for what they’d done to Lady, but
after Sansa had wept her eyes dry, she told herself that it had not
been Joffrey’s doing, not truly. The queen had done it; she
was the one to hate, her and Arya. Nothing bad would have happened
except for Arya.
She could not hate Joffrey tonight. He was too beautiful to
hate. He wore a deep blue doublet studded with a double row of
golden lion’s heads, and around his brow a slim coronet made
of gold and sapphires. His hair was as bright as the metal. Sansa
looked at him and trembled, afraid that he might ignore her or,
worse, turn hateful again and send her weeping from the table.
Instead Joffrey smiled and kissed her hand, handsome and gallant
as any prince in the songs, and said, “Ser Loras has a keen
eye for beauty, sweet lady.”
“He was too kind,” she demurred, trying to remain
modest and calm, though her heart was singing. “Ser Loras is
a true knight. Do you think he will win tomorrow, my
lord?”
“No,” Joffrey said. “My dog will do for him,
or perhaps my uncle Jaime. And in a few years, when I am old enough
to enter the lists, I shall do for them all.” He raised his
hand to summon a servant with a flagon of iced summerwine, and
poured her a cup. She looked anxiously at Septa Mordane, until
Joffrey leaned over and filled the septa’s cup as well, so
she nodded and thanked him graciously and said not another
word.
The servants kept the cups filled all night, yet afterward Sansa
could not recall ever tasting the wine. She needed no wine. She was
drunk on the magic of the night, giddy with glamour, swept away by
beauties she had dreamt of all her life and never dared hope to
know. Singers sat before the king’s pavilion, filling the
dusk with music. A juggler kept a cascade of burning clubs spinning
through the air. The king’s own fool, the pie-faced simpleton
called Moon Boy, danced about on stilts, all in motley, making mock
of everyone with such deft cruelty that Sansa wondered if he was
simple after all. Even Septa Mordane was helpless before him; when
he sang his little song about the High Septon, she laughed so hard
she spilled wine on herself.
And Joffrey was the soul of courtesy. He talked to Sansa all
night, showering her with compliments, making her laugh, sharing
little bits of court gossip, explaining Moon Boy’s japes.
Sansa was so captivated that she quite forgot all her courtesies
and ignored Septa Mordane, seated to her left.
All the while the courses came and went. A thick soup of barley
and venison. Salads of sweetgrass and spinach and plums, sprinkled
with crushed nuts. Snails in honey and garlic. Sansa had never
eaten snails before; Joffrey showed her how to get the snail out of
the shell, and fed her the first sweet morsel himself. Then came
trout fresh from the river, baked in clay; her prince helped her
crack open the hard casing to expose the flaky white flesh within.
And when the meat course was brought out, he served her himself,
slicing a queen’s portion from the joint, smiling as he laid
it on her plate. She could see from the way he moved that his right
arm was still troubling him, yet he uttered not a word of
complaint.
Later came sweetbreads and pigeon pie and baked apples fragrant
with cinnamon and lemon cakes frosted in sugar, but by then Sansa
was so stuffed that she could not manage more than two little lemon
cakes, as much as she loved them. She was wondering whether she
might attempt a third when the king began to shout.
King Robert had grown louder with each course. From time to time
Sansa could hear him laughing or roaring a command over the music
and the clangor of plates and cutlery, but they were too far away
for her to make out his words.
Now everybody heard him. “No,” he thundered in a
voice that drowned out all other speech. Sansa was shocked to see
the king on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine
in one hand, and he was drunk as a man could be. “You do not
tell me what to do, woman,” he screamed at Queen Cersei.
“I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say
that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!”
Everyone was staring. Sansa saw Ser Barristan, and the
king’s brother Renly, and the short man who had talked to her
so oddly and touched her hair, but no one made a move to interfere.
The queen’s face was a mask, so bloodless that it might have
been sculpted from snow. She rose from the table, gathered her
skirts around her, and stormed off in silence, servants trailing
behind.
Jaime Lannister put a hand on the king’s shoulder, but the
king shoved him away hard. Lannister stumbled and fell. The king
guffawed. “The great knight. I can still knock you in the
dirt. Remember that, Kingslayer.” He slapped his chest with
the jeweled goblet, splashing wine all over his satin tunic.
“Give me my hammer and not a man in the realm can stand
before me!”
Jaime Lannister rose and brushed himself off. “As you say,
Your Grace.” His voice was stiff.
Lord Renly came forward, smiling. “You’ve spilled
your wine, Robert. Let me bring you a fresh goblet.”
Sansa started as Joffrey laid his hand on her arm. “It
grows late,” the prince said. He had a queer look on his
face, as if he were not seeing her at all. “Do you need an
escort back to the castle?”
“No,” Sansa began. She looked for Septa Mordane, and
was startled to find her with her head on the table, snoring soft
and ladylike snores. “I mean to say . . . yes, thank you,
that would be most kind. I am tired, and the way is so dark. I
should be glad for some protection.”
Joffrey called out, “Dog!”
Sandor Clegane seemed to take form out of the night, so quickly
did he appear. He had exchanged his armor for a red woolen tunic
with a leather dog’s head sewn on the front. The light of the
torches made his burned face shine a dull red. “Yes, Your
Grace?” he said.
“Take my betrothed back to the castle, and see that no
harm befalls her,” the prince told him brusquely. And without
even a word of farewell, Joffrey strode off, leaving her there.
Sansa could feel the Hound watching her. “Did you think
Joff was going to take you himself?” He laughed. He had a
laugh like the snarling of dogs in a pit. “Small chance of
that.” He pulled her unresisting to her feet. “Come,
you’re not the only one needs sleep. I’ve drunk too
much, and I may need to kill my brother tomorrow.” He laughed
again.
Suddenly terrified, Sansa pushed at Septa Mordane’s
shoulder, hoping to wake her, but she only snored the louder. King
Robert had stumbled off and half the benches were suddenly empty.
The feast was over, and the beautiful dream had ended with it.
The Hound snatched up a torch to light their way. Sansa followed
close beside him. The ground was rocky and uneven; the flickering
light made it seem to shift and move beneath her. She kept her eyes
lowered, watching where she placed her feet. They walked among the
pavilions, each with its banner and its armor hung outside, the
silence weighing heavier with every step. Sansa could not bear the
sight of him, he frightened her so, yet she had been raised in all
the ways of courtesy. A true lady would not notice his face, she
told herself. “You rode gallantly today, Ser Sandor,”
she made herself say.
Sandor Clegane snarled at her. “Spare me your empty little
compliments, girl . . . and your ser’s. I am no knight. I
spit on them and their vows. My brother is a knight. Did you see
him ride today?”
“Yes,” Sansa whispered, trembling. “He was . . .
“Gallant?” the Hound finished.
He was mocking her, she realized. “No one could withstand
him,” she managed at last, proud of herself. It was no
lie.
Sandor Clegane stopped suddenly in the middle of a dark and
empty field. She had no choice but to stop beside him. “Some
septa trained you well. You’re like one of those birds from
the Summer Isles, aren’t you? A pretty little talking bird,
repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to
recite.”
“That’s unkind.” Sansa could feel her heart
fluttering in her chest. “You’re frightening me. I want
to go now.”
“No one could withstand him,” the Hound rasped.
“That’s truth enough. No one could ever withstand
Gregor. That boy today, his second joust, oh, that was a pretty bit
of business. You saw that, did you? Fool boy, he had no business
riding in this company. No money, no squire, no one to help him
with that armor. That gorget wasn’t fastened proper. You
think Gregor didn’t notice that? You think Ser Gregor’s
lance rode up by chance, do you? Pretty little talking girl, you
believe that, you’re empty-headed as a bird for true.
Gregor’s lance goes where Gregor wants it to go. Look at me.
Look at me!” Sandor Clegane put a huge hand under her chin
and forced her face up. He squatted in front of her, and moved the
torch close. “There’s a pretty for you. Take a good
long stare. You know you want to. I’ve watched you turning
away all the way down the kingsroad. Piss on that. Take your
look.”
His fingers held her jaw as hard as an iron trap. His eyes
watched hers. Drunken eyes, sullen with anger. She had to look.
The right side of his face was gaunt, with sharp cheekbones and
a grey eye beneath a heavy brow. His nose was large and hooked, his
hair thin, dark. He wore it long and brushed it sideways, because
no hair grew on the other side of that face.
The left side of his face was a ruin. His ear had been burned
away; there was nothing left but a hole. His eye was still good,
but all around it was a twisted mass of scar, slick black flesh
hard as leather, pocked with craters and fissured by deep cracks
that gleamed red and wet when he moved. Down by his jaw, you could
see a hint of bone where the flesh had been seared away.
Sansa began to cry. He let go of her then, and snuffed out the
torch in the dirt. “No pretty words for that, girl? No little
compliment the septa taught you?” When there was no answer,
he continued. “Most of them, they think it was some battle. A
siege, a burning tower, an enemy with a torch. One fool asked if it
was dragonsbreath.” His laugh was softer this time, but just
as bitter. “I’ll tell you what it was, girl,” he
said, a voice from the night, a shadow leaning so close now that
she could smell the sour stench of wine on his breath. “I was
younger than you, six, maybe seven. A woodcarver set up shop in the
village under my father’s keep, and to buy favor he sent us
gifts. The old man made marvelous toys. I don’t remember what
I got, but it was Gregor’s gift I wanted. A wooden knight,
all painted up, every joint pegged separate and fixed with strings,
so you could make him fight. Gregor is five years older than me,
the toy was nothing to him, he was already a squire, near six foot
tall and muscled like an ox. So I took his knight, but there was no
joy to it, I tell you. I was scared all the while, and true enough,
he found me. There was a brazier in the room. Gregor never said a
word, just picked me up under his arm and shoved the side of my
face down in the burning coals and held me there while I screamed
and screamed. You saw how strong he is. Even then, it took three
grown men to drag him off me. The septons preach about the seven
hells. What do they know? Only a man who’s been burned knows
what hell is truly like.
“My father told everyone my bedding had caught fire, and
our maester gave me ointments. Ointments! Gregor got his ointments
too. Four years later, they anointed him with the seven oils and he
recited his knightly vows and Rhaegar Targaryen tapped him on the
shoulder and said, ‘Arise, Ser Gregor.’ ”
The rasping voice trailed off. He squatted silently before her,
a hulking black shape shrouded in the night, hidden from her eyes.
Sansa could hear his ragged breathing. She was sad for him, she
realized. Somehow, the fear had gone away.
The silence went on and on, so long that she began to grow
afraid once more, but she was afraid for him now, not for herself.
She found his massive shoulder with her hand. “He was no true
knight,” she whispered to him.
The Hound threw back his head and roared. Sansa stumbled back,
away from him, but he caught her arm. “No,” he growled
at her, “no, little bird, he was no true knight.”
The rest of the way into the city, Sandor Clegane said not a
word. He led her to where the carts were waiting, told a driver to
take them back to the Red Keep, and climbed in after her. They rode
in silence through the King’s Gate and up torchlit city
streets. He opened the postern door and led her into the castle,
his burned face twitching and his eyes brooding, and he was one
step behind her as they climbed the tower stairs. He took her safe
all the way to the corridor outside her bedchamber.
“Thank you, my lord,” Sansa said meekly.
The Hound caught her by the arm and leaned close. “The
things I told you tonight,” he said, his voice sounding even
rougher than usual. “If you ever tell Joffrey . . . your
sister, your father . . . any of them . . . ”
“I won’t,” Sansa whispered. “I
promise.”
It was not enough. “If you ever tell anyone,” he
finished, “I’ll kill you.”