SANSA
Sansa tugged on the reins and the old grey mare stopped at once with a relieved whicker, snuffling at the reddish-brown carpet of leaves on the forest floor. The doe gazed at her with soft dark eyes, utterly unafraid, her graceful head tilted atop her long queenly neck. Then she turned and bounded away, swift as the wind. She watched her disappear between the trees.
Struck by an impulse, a sudden wild hope, Sansa spurred the grey and followed her.
The gentle breeze turned into a high-pitched whistle in her ears as the grey mare's feet drummed against the ground. Squirrels darted from her path with tails twitching. Trees flew past her, oak and beech and willow and elm and juniper. There were hedgehogs and foxes too, and boar, and once or twice she even caught a glimpse of deer. Sansa clutched the grey's reins tightly and spurred her forth to a faster gallop, her hair streaming behind her, delighting in the patchwork pattern of light born of the canopy of leaves and the noon-day sun, exulting in the speed and beauty, feeling almost as if she were free.
Then she chanced a glance behind her, and she saw her guards, older riders with stronger, younger horses, always a dozen steps behind but easily matching her pace. Hope shrivelled and died within her. She reined in and brought the grey to a gentle canter. Stupid girl, she told herself, what was I thinking, that I was free? They wouldn't have given me a horse if they thought I could escape with it. I will never fly like the doe, careless, untroubled. They will never let me go, never, never…
It had been just a few minutes' folly, but nonetheless it sufficed to kill the joy of the ride. Sansa remained for a while, her horse plodding along while she stared at trees and those of their leaves that had fallen, beginning to lose the flowering height of summer glory. Then she called to her guards, "I should like to return, if you please."
The men gave her some gruff "M'lady"s and obeyed that wish. They led her back using the game trails and small bubbling brooks of the kingswood, following secret signs that they, crownlanders all, knew better by far than she. At last, after an hour's ride, they emerged from the trees and saw again the walls of the city.
She smelt King's Landing, stinking and vile, ere she heard it, and she heard it ere she saw it. When she had ridden out into the kingswood, King's Landing had been awakening like a sleepy cat, stretching out one limb while the others still slumbered. Now it was a cat on the prowl. Merchants shouted the names of their wares. Soldiers practised with thumps and clangs of wood and metal. Wagons loaded with food from the southern riverlands, sent by the will of Tywin Lannister, clattered through the gates and to the city's squares and marketplaces. But the greatest din of all came from the summit of the Hill of Rhaenys, where nigh all the masons in the city were gainfully employed building up the Dragonpit into a building fit for living in. That old ruined castle, Sansa knew from Old Nan's tales, had been deserted ever since a mob of starving smallfolk had broken in and slain the dragons chained inside, as an act of hatred against the feuding families of Targaryen dragonriders who were laying waste to the realm in the Dance of the Dragons. After retaking the city, the second king to be named Aegon Targaryen had removed the dragon carcasses and tried to restore the castle, but after his death and the deaths of the last dragons, the eleven Targaryen kings after him had refused to touch the place, seeing in it nothing but a painful reminder of the ending of their strength, but by the labour of those masons and Kevan Lannister's men-at-arms the rubble of that long-forgotten slaughter had been cleared away. Now they were restoring the shattered roof and converting a structure built to be a lair for monsters into a castle with rooms and floors, privies and kitchens, fit to house armies of mortal men.
Sansa neared the river Blackwater and crossed the bridge that spanned it. On the north bank, the guards of the River Gate, well accustomed to her rides, opened it for her without question, and the old mare trotted into the city without breaking step. Ahead of her lay Fishmonger's Square, and her guards closed in around her and drew their swords. Angry, sullen people gazed at her with expressions of loathing, but faced with such a large and well-armed party they knew better than to attack. Sansa saw all those thin, accusing faces and shuddered, remembering the fisherfolk's riot the day before yesterday. Even watching from the other side of town, the shouts and screams and smoke had made her afraid.
The road that led straight out of the River Gate, heading to the great square at the city's centre, was Muddy Way, but Sansa's party veered to the left and took the Street of Steel instead, winding up Visenya's Hill in the south of the city. The prices demanded by the blacksmiths' shops grew noticeably dearer as they made the ascent, but from all of them bellows blazed and hammers rang out on anvils, seeking to sate the Lord Regent's great appetite for more weapons and armour to equip his troops. The Smithing Guild and the Masons' Guild, she had heard, were among the few that bore much love for Kevan Lannister.
They turned left off the Street of Steel and between the Great Sept of Baelor and the Lion Gate they stopped at a fine manse with high walls, surrounded by red-cloaked Lannister soldiers with their lion-shaped halfhelms. Sansa dismounted and gave the reins to a stable boy. The well-oiled, pretty wrought-iron gates moved on their hinges nigh in silence and closed with a clang like the bars of a prison.
Sansa followed the cobblestone path to the blue painted door, which was opened by a servant. More red cloaks awaited inside. There were yet more red cloaks in the corridors she went through on her way to her private chambers, where serving maids stripped her of her clothing and gave her a warm, scented bath.
That afternoon, she received a message from a servant. The Lord Regent would that she dine with him tonight; and in this city his will was done.
Sansa told herself she would not be afraid. She was wrong, as part of her had known she would be. Built so that any woman or man on King's Way, the greatest road in the city, would have to look up even to see its base, the Red Keep loomed above the rest of King's Landing, wrought of pale red granite. An involuntary flash of fear came through her as she could not help but think of what that castle contained, of what she had endured there from Joffrey.
But Joff wasn't there when she met Ser Kevan in a small chamber somewhere in Maegor's Holdfast. Doubtless something else had been chosen to fill the king's time. The Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, yellow-haired, balding, bearded and portly, sat alone, and he said, "Come in, my lady, please, take a seat," with a kindly smile. As she did whenever she encountered him, Sansa met his eyes. They were as green as the queen's were. It helped her to see through his dwarf nephew's ploy, to remember that he was a Lannister, brother to Lord Tywin the enemy of her brother, uncle to Queen Cersei and the Kingslayer, great-uncle to Joff. Her father's head bore witness that he was never to be trusted, no matter that he spoke her more gently than Joff or that he smiled.
I hope Lord Renly cuts your head off, Sansa thought coldly, and said, "I am at your service, my lord Regent."
"I hope you have been well," Kevan Lannister said. "I recognise that it is smaller than your custom, and many of my men live near you, whom I cannot oversee directly now that I needs must live in the Red Keep to administer the city. I hope they have treated you respectfully."
"They have been unfailingly courteous, my lord."
"Are you sure?" The Lord Regent studied her with a frown. "If you have been at all treated in a manner inappropriate to your station I would like to know."
"I am, my lord," she said, and it was true. She had feared that she would be in danger from Ser Kevan's men, but Lannister killers though they may be, they were civilised ones. They knew better than to bother a highborn lady. Thanks be, she suspected, to her age, some of them had even greeted her warmly and smiled down at her in that way men did, as if they were her father's men, like Jory. Tyrion Lannister was a clever man; even knowing his ploy, it was fearfully easy to fall for it. It was hard sometimes to remember she hated them, though she always managed it in the end. It was much easier to hate Joffrey.
"I am glad to hear it," said Ser Kevan with a smile. "Now, my lady, I must ask: What do you know of Lord Renly?"
Sansa grew very still. Is this a trick? "He is a rebel and usurper and traitor to His Grace," she said, "and I pray nightly for the day His Grace's loyal men may bring him down."
"Not that. I mean, what do you know of his movements?"
What does he mean? "My lord?"
"I see. My lady, when he heard the tidings of Lord Stannis laying siege to Storm's End, Renly Baratheon split his host in twain. His foot remained at Bitterbridge where the roseroad crosses the Mander, while his horse came east to his own lordly seat, to settle matters with Lord Stannis. Once Lord Stannis was slain, he sent word to his host of foot by raven, and they have been marching up the roseroad. His freeriders and knights declined to follow the kingsroad to reach the capital fastest; they've been riding off-road westward to meet them. Lord Varys has been following their movements, and from what he's heard he now believes they met four days ago."
Why is he telling me this? Sansa thought.
Ser Kevan read her expression like an open book. "I say this because the main rebel host are close to the southwestern edges of the kingswood. Their outriders and their vanguard may be further ahead, much further. Tomorrow, my men-at-arms will begin to ride out for hundreds of miles on the north bank of the Blackwater, burning every bridge they find, and toppling those that have less wood than stone. I expect skirmishing in the kingswood to start within a week. The city, meantime, is a tinderbox; 'tis unwise to use so many of my men escorting you around it, for fear of the wrath of the mob. Under the circumstances, I'd be a fool to permit you to continue your riding trips. I am sorry, but your home is securely guarded and the situation is too dangerous for you to leave it any more."
Sansa was dumbstruck. She understood at once that for all Kevan's show of concern the danger was not truly to her; she was so valuable as a bargaining chip that Renly's men would be fools to do her harm. The danger was not to her; it was to the Lannisters, who might lose their prize hostage to another king. They liked taking things from her, these Lannisters. They had taken her pride when Cersei had betrayed her trust, her father's head when Joffrey had done the same, any hope of company when the Imp had sent her to his uncle's manse, and now the last joy she had remaining out of their own self-centred fear. In her mind she knew it should not have surprised her—Lannisters were Lannisters and always would be—but her heart said otherwise. The Lord Regent, like his dwarf nephew, was good at speaking gently and pretending to care, not at all like the blunt and open cruelty of Joffrey, so for all that she told herself they were not to be trusted, it was easy to unconsciously doubt it.
Sansa struggled for control, for a way of speaking that maintained the illusion of Joffrey's loyal betrothed. He means to lock me in the manse with the iron gate and throw away the key! In the end, she only said, "I understand, my lord," and gave him a smile that did not reach her eyes.
Sansa returned to her small room, less spacious than she was accustomed to in the Red Keep and earlier in Winterfell. She stayed in her chambers for a long while, alone save for the servants, older women who didn't speak to her. It was three days later, on a walk in the manse, that she overheard some of the soldiers gossiping.
"Who returned?"
"The Imp, m'lady," the man said. "He's back from Dragonstone and whisked straight to Maegor's, what he speakin' with Ser Kevan. Lord Renly is buggered. 'Tis said all the thousand ships of Dragonstone are sailing for the boy king."
That may have been so, but the thousand ships of Dragonstone—if there even were a thousand—did not appear on that day, or that week, or a turn of the moon afterwards. Indeed, save for the quiet starvation of the city—and even that was lightened, though not erased, by the grain and eggs and milk and meat coming in on wagons from the riverlands—one could have been forgiven for not realising that there was a war at all. There was no sign of it, save for the trickle of soldiers coming back from the kingswood and sailing across the river to King's Landing for wounds or for resupply. Tyrion Lannister's wildlings were in the kingswood, she had heard; none were left in the city. She took some solace in that. They had always scared her.
The men around her all spoke of fire, of how Lord Renly would surely burn the kingswood to smoke out the Imp's savages, but there was no such thing. Instead the skirmishes continued… but not forever. Little more than a turn of the moon after the Imp's reappearance, the great host emerged from between the trees.
Watching from the top floor of her manse, Sansa had thought that the nest of tents and campfires that had accommodated Kevan Lannister's army until the last of them had moved into the Dragonpit had been enormous. Now she saw how wrong she had been. The camp on the south bank of the Blackwater, not directly opposite the city walls but ending a mile upstream of the King's Gate, was a swarm of cloth and light that stretched far beyond the horizon. Was Renly Baratheon's host ten times the size of Kevan's? Twenty? She knew not. How could Joffrey defeat such a force? The King's Hand and the Lord Regent might be the best warriors in the world, but Sansa was not sure that a force of this size had ever been assembled in all Westeros, save perhaps the host Aegon the Dragon had destroyed upon the Field of Fire, and the dragons were dead. Could a host like this, all the uncountable strength of the south welded into one army, even be defeated?
She hoped not. Sansa knew near nothing of Lord Renly, but she knew that the Lannisters hated him and feared him, and for her that was enough. Thus she prayed, for the first time to the Warrior. "Lend a portion of your strength to the arm of Renly Baratheon, great god," she whispered, kneeling before an icon in an alcove at a time when no-one else was there. "Bolster his courage. Let him shatter the armies of this city, break the gates with his battering rams, burn the Red Keep, cut off Joffrey's head and put it on a spike where it belongs." She paused, choking back tears. "You're also the Father, truly, mother said so, the Seven are one, and the Father is just. Joffrey deserves to lose. Make him. Please."
There were standards across the Blackwater. Some of the smaller ones eluded Sansa, but the major ones she knew by rote: the haystack on a field of orange of House Errol, the sunflowers on blue of Cuy, the black and orange butterflies on white of Mullendore, the yellow field dotted with black nightingales of Caron, the red fox-head surrounded by a ring of blue flowers on white of Florent, and many more. But the standard that truly set the city's tongues a-wagging was the black crowned stag on gold of House Baratheon, huge, unaltered, just as it had been in old King Robert's day, in stark contrast to Joffrey's banner where the stag pranced on only half, with a Lannister lion on the other. The men-at-arms in this manse were all westermen, and unaffected, but she heard them speak of the unease in the city. Lord Renly had chosen well.
Sansa had expected Lord Renly to attack as soon as he arrived, but he did not. Though Joffrey's galleys pestered them with flights of arrows every now and then, and were showered with arrows in reply, the colossal army scarcely seemed to notice them. Instead they set to chopping down trees. Sansa did not know what they were building till she listened to the soldiers, who spoke of boats and bridges; the great army needed to do this to get across the river. That eve, she prayed to the Smith, who forged the lightning bolts, shouted the thunder, cried the rain and blew the winds with his almighty breath, entreating the god that the river be calm when the host of the south were trying to cross it and that it be fierce and furious to throw Joffrey's ships against the banks.
The next evening, she was summoned to the Red Keep. She feared that the Lord Regent meant to further her imprisonment under the ludicrous suggestion that it was for her safety, that in order to keep her securely in Lannister clutches she would have to live once more in the Red Keep, once more in the presence of Joffrey—that which she dreaded more than anything—but the gold-cloaked guards did not direct her to Maegor's Holdfast. Instead she was led up a very familiar staircase. Her heart skipped a beat. In her father's dining room, sitting in her father's seat and steepling his fingers, Tyrion Lannister gazed at her from his home in the Tower of the Hand with those queer mismatched eyes.
"Sansa." His voice was oddly rough. "I hope you have been well treated."
"Well, my lord." Sansa tried to conceal her excitement. There must be something special indeed for him to be so upset. She thought, Has Robb won another victory?
"Truly? Your new quarters have been to your satisfaction? My nephew hasn't bothered you, and nor has anyone? I'll be very displeased with them if they have."
"No, my lord. I like it very much, my lord," she lied through her teeth. She was getting better at that. Sansa was unsure whether he wanted her to thank him for taking her away from Joffrey. He had spoken derisively of the boy before, but the king and he were family, and he was a Lannister, and Lannisters played tricks and betrayed and lied. He might well be setting her up to speak ill of Joffrey and then be punished.
"Hmm." He did not sound convinced. "My lady… I regret to…" The dwarf halted. "Seven Hells. I know you won't believe me for a moment, but I am sorry." He took in a deep breath. "Your brothers are dead. Theon Greyjoy killed them."
For a moment it was as if she had not heard him, as if she did not understand what he was saying. "They… they're safe. You're wrong. They're at Winterfell."
"Winterfell was taken," the Imp said. "Not by us. By a host of ironmen led by Theon Greyjoy. Your elder brother sent him to Lord Balon as an envoy. Instead, Lord Balon has declared himself a king and invaded the north. He has met very little resistance. Your brothers were captives for about a fortnight. I'm told they tried to escape, and then Greyjoy committed this… this."
Sansa did not understand. We are winning. Lord Renly was going to take the city. Robb was going to defeat Lord Tywin. It doesn't make sense. We were going to win.
My home is taken. My brothers are dead.
Sansa fell back on cold courtesy, clutching at it like a raft for a drowning man. "Thank you for telling me in person, my lord. That was kind."
Lannister looked at her wretchedly. "I am sorry."
"Thank you, my lord," she said again. She scarcely heard him. It was as if there were a whirlwind, audible to her alone.
Lannister waved a hand. "You can go."
She remained the picture of politeness as she let the guards take her down the stairs and to the stableboy who had brought back her horse. When she mounted, she clutched her legs to it and held its reins so stiffly that one of the guards had to hold her as she rode. She even bade goodbye to the soldiers whom she left as she entered her chambers.
Only then, in her bedroom, alone, did she permit herself to cry.
Sansa lived in grief for a time, alone and not wishing otherwise. Theon had killed Bran and Rickon. Theon, with his arrows and his closeness to Robb and his cocky smile. She did not understand it. Why were the gods so cruel? Did they hate her House? Were they going to make Joffrey win the battle?
Mayhaps they were. When the Lannisters took her father's head, Sansa had learnt that the difference between life and the songs. In the songs, gallant knights slay monsters. In life, the monsters win.
She awoke with a hurting head, early, when the light of dawn that streamed in from her bedchamber's square window was still tinged with rust. There was a distant sound of screams and splashes and shouting from outside; the city's defenders were harassing the southern host again, but this time with a very early attack. Still tired, she listened motionlessly to the fighting for a while, till slowly she noticed that her inner thighs felt wet, as if she had soiled herself as she had when she was very small.
Sansa pulled off her blanket and saw that it was not urine but blood. For a moment she wondered whether she had hurt herself in her stillness last night, clutching the horse so tightly. Then she recalled that that had not been last night, but three nights before then. Or had it truly been three? Time was so fleeting. Had it been four? She scarcely knew. Then understanding came upon her, as she recalled what her lady mother had said, and horror was its companion. This can't happen now. It will let him take me, and he must never take me. Not now, not when Lord Renly is coming and I'll soon be free.
Madness took hold of her. Pulling herself up by the bedpost, she went into the washing chamber nearest to her bedchamber 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, so she went to the window and poured it out onto the garden. She breathed deeply, trying to be calm, until she remembered the bedclothes. She rushed back to the bed and stared in horror at the pale 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, Sansa 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. She watched the sheet burn, breathing in and out, in and out, in and out, and tried to think quickly.
The maids might notice the missing sheet and oil. A sheet could be taken from the store-cupboard, which was near her bedchamber; her chambers in this manse were not large. Anyone would be likelier to think that one of the maids had stolen it from the store-cupboard than that she had destroyed it. As for the lamp oil, she would have to pour in some more from various nearby lamps. Slightly less oil than expected in lots of lamps would be less obvious than a single lamp that was empty. She dressed herself as quickly as she could without a maid, though to her that seemed to take a painfully long time. Between her legs she already felt wet again. More blood. She almost wept with despair. She would have to change smallclothes frequently, and burn them. No. Then I will have none. She would have to wash them herself, and throw out the water. It would be wet and uncomfortable, but it might work. For the first time she was grateful for her isolation; she had her maids, but no highborn company, and few demands upon her time. And she would have to find something to wear at night. She had an idea for that. A torn-up shift would do nicely, if nobody noticed it missing. She would have to hope not. But what about the ashes from the fireplace? She would have to wait for the fire to die out and scoop them up to toss them in the garden.
Sansa found herself breathing more slowly, and tried to control herself. It was difficult to be calm. A few days, or weeks perhaps. That's all. Then the city will belong to Lord Renly, Joffrey will be dead and I'll be free.
She hoped so. The alternative, that Joffrey should defeat his uncle… no, no, no, no, no… It could not happen, she told herself. Lord Renly's army was too great. Not even the gods could be that cruel.