SANSA

The day of the Battle of King's Landing dawned with a clean sea breeze and a sky clear and blue. Sansa watched the sun rise. The Lord of Storm's End and his rebel host had arrived yesterday eve, so she had told a maid to wake her early and today she had dressed swiftly and made her way to the manse's highest window.

Grey-haired Willem was already there. "Mornin', m'lady," he said.

"Good morning, ser," she replied stiffly. The men-at-arms had long since stopped trying to make her speak to them less formally. It was a polite form of address, and she had no wish for this to be a place of familiarity, nor one of comfort.

"Didna expect you here so early-like." His tone had a question in it.

My fate will be decided here, along with the city's. It is not a moment I should like to miss. But all she said was, "I was restless, ser."

Other westermen drifted into the chamber, men of every age and shape of face, boys, young men, middle-aged men and greybeards, all of whose names she knew. She also knew why she must hate them. When the southerners had come back to the capital, she, lacking a godswood or a proper sept, had prayed before an icon in the likeness of the Warrior to give victory to their arms and to bring about the ruin of King Joffrey. She supposed these men, men who she had been living with, had made opposite prayers.

"Here to watch Lord Renly's ruin!" cried a brown-haired and fiercely-moustached man named Richard. "Death to traitors… 'twill be a glorious day. Praise be to the Warrior for the victory on the Blackwater. May he bring a dozen more!"

"A dozen more!" toasted the other men-at-arms, and drank heartily.

"Death to traitors, aye," said Willem, "but not all victories are as cheaply won as the Battle of the Blackwater. This'll be a bloody day, my word on it, no matter whether lion or rose prevail."

"Don't you mean, stag prevails?" asked Josua, whose cheeks were speckled with blond stubble.

Willem laughed. It was a deep rumble, though neither cruel nor mocking. "Tell it true, lad, d'you believe that?"

They watched the battle for many hours. As the morning sun rose in the sky, the rebels rushed to the city's southwestern wall and upward, though most of them that climbed swiftly fell down again. The air was filled with the clatter of metal and the shouts and screams of men living and dying both. Sansa could not say who was winning. It seemed a chaotic mess.

The western men-at-arms in her company seemed at first pleased, then worried, then once again rising in confidence, and for a time she feared the southerners would fail to break through. But at last, in the hour of the hawk, not long after day's noon, they all heard a clamour of voices to the east, obscured from view by Visenya's Hill and the one dome and seven towers of the Great Sept of Baelor that crowned it. The raucous chant was at first too disorganised to hear from as far as this manse, but soon their voices came together and Sansa could make out the words: "NO FIRE! NO FIRE!"

"What's that, you reckon?"

"Naught but a bunch of rioters," Philip answered his younger comrade. "Awful foolish of 'em to make a fuss durin' a battle, though. They've earned a hard hand for that, see if they 'aven't."

The chanting did not fade away. It did at some points turn into a rougher roar of hateful screaming, but that was no quieter. Then—it could not have been more than ten minutes later—there was the unmistakeable creak of gigantic hinges opening.

Trumpets brayed their call, a sound high and clear and golden. Coloured standards flew. To the west, a man in green plate armour with a helm adorned by antlers turned to his men and spoke a few words, far off and stolen by the wind. There was a cheer, and he turned, lifting a sword that caught the light and turned snow-white and blinding, and when he charged, without once looking back, there were ten-thousand men or more who charged in fervent loyalty behind him.

Sansa pictured him putting that sword through Joffrey's soft, pink, delicate neck. She thought, It's better than the songs.

She was an isle of calm in the midst of chaos. "The River Gate is open! The traitors come thither! They need help!" came a yell from golden-haired Jonothor, who had a habit of stating the obvious. Other men's exclamations tended more towards profanity. It took some time for a measure of control to be reasserted.

"Enough!" roared Willem. "Are you men or mice, to scurry so? The rest o' you, you'll do m'lord no good if you leave our charge all lonesome, get 'er raped by a mob, nor if y'all stay 'ere with the Lady Sansa. Go out—Philip will command—help defend the gate. Take the door guards as you go. Harry, Jon, Patrek, you're with me."

Such was the authority in his voice that all the other men obeyed him. Once they were gone, Willem turned to Sansa. "Sorry you 'ad to 'ear that, m'lady. Rough folk, they needs rough words. We ain't watchin' any more. You come with us."

"To the Red Keep?" Jonothor asked.

"Nah. Won't open their gates now for love nor money, sure not for the likes of us. We go to the cellar. Mob'll likely take all the food an' candlesticks an' such they can grab ou' o' the manse—can't be avoided, they'll need the men elsewise the city'll fall—but manse isn't our charge, you are."

There was no use in trying to disobey. She followed them down the nicely polished wooden stairs, and Patrek opened a door. It was a wine-cellar, and she found herself pressed between some bottles of nice, rich reds from the lands around the river Greenblood in southeastern Dorne. Her lord father had been partial to them, a moon and a year or else a lifetime ago. With her guards so close, Sansa could loudly hear their breathing. She was up against the hard muscle of tall, strong Harrold, whose body hid hers from view. In another time she would have felt embarrassed. Now that worry seemed light as a feather.

The clangs and shouts and screams of battle drew nearer. Renly Baratheon's men were close. Sansa had no need of expertise on military matters to know how the battle must be going. There were also closer and shouts and clatters from above. It seemed Willem had been right that the cityfolk would try to rob the house. Then she heard a female shriek, no, more than one, and male grunts.

"My maids—" she cried with a gasp of dismay, trying to push past Harrold.

"Shut up, bitch," Harrold hissed, slapping a hand over her mouth. She would have fallen from the force of the blow if his other arm had not sprung to hold her. "You want to call 'em 'ere? You want that to be you?"

"Now that ain't no way you speak to the lady," Willem told him, but his voice was similarly soft, and he did not disagree with Harrold's message.

"Sorry."

It went on, agonisingly long even to listen to. Sansa thought herself undiscovered till mayhaps minutes later, when footsteps drew up to the cellar.

Somebody opened the door. "Now what's all this you were sayin' about—" began the man, revealed as a wispy-moustached southerner of more than her lord father's age, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the lowness of the light. Patrek stopped his mouth with a sword. But the moustached man's dying gurgle alerted others, who came running downstairs, and these southerners were not caught by surrpise as their comrade had been. The westermen fought them. Patrek slew two more rushing down to fight him ere the second put a sword into his belly. Jonothor fell next, a fearsome blow severing much of his scalp along with his pretty golden hair. After that they rushed into the wine-cellar and were no longer fighting one man in the doorway at once. Harrold fell next, with a crash, his dead weight bearing her down, his bowels unclenching, shitting his breeches, and bleeding all over her.

Sansa could not stand the needlessness of it. "Stop it! Enough!" she commanded them.

Willem glanced at her. She would never know why he had done it. Reflex alone, perhaps. A southern soldier bleeding from his arm took up a sword and shoved it through the old man's belly.

"M'… m'la…" he gurgled at her, ere his head fell with a thud and the light left his eyes.

"Ser," Sansa whispered, trembling. He was an enemy, she told herself fiercely, I hate him, I hated him, I must not weep, I must not cry.

She did not cry.

Sansa drew herself up, bloody and filthy though she was, and put on her haughtiest, coolest and most imperious voice, the voice of the girl she had been ere the Lannisters put her here, ere they stripped her naked before the court, ere they slew her father. "My name is Sansa of House Stark, lately captive, and I have prayed for your triumph, sers. Pray take me to His Grace the King."

They did not take her at once to Renly. The lead southerner took one look at her, hearing the manner of her words, and hollered immediately for reinforcements. Soon she was surrounded once again by soldiers, this time ones she did not know.

She spent tonight in the same bed as last, watching the tide of steel and black-and-golden banners flow across the city. The next morning she was bathed and tended by her serving girls. They were taut and silent. Sansa was silent too. They were not well-practised, nor of gentle birth, but in her time here they had served her sufficiently finely. She knew naught of what she could or ought to say to them. She supposed that she would never face them again in her life, and in a petty shameful way a part of her was glad of it.

Her old clothes had been stolen from the manse during the chaos of the battle, so she remained long in her bedchamber, till someone hastily acquired a dress from nearby in the city. The dress had clearly been designed for a girl of somewhat greater girth than her, and on her it looked strange and drooping, as well as its rather faded colours, but it would serve. She felt no inclination to be picky, not with her maidservants, not today.

They took her out of her manse for the final time in the mid-morning of that day. The city stank, but no more than it always did, indeed less; the blood and gore and corpses had been cleansed from the streets, which sparkled cleaner than she ever remembered them being. No-one paid heed to her, nor did any look askance at her dress. All men, and women and children too, from richly clad lords and merchants to the meanest and raggedest of beggars, were looking intently at the King's Gate, the southernmost point of the capital.

The gate opened, and as the bells of the Great Sept of Baelor struck noon, Renly of the House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, rode into the city.

The new king cut a figure of the utmost splendour. Atop a great white stallion, a magnificent steed, the king was high and broad, with eyes like segments of today's clear, sunlit, noon-time sky and flowing shoulder-length hair that was black as midnight. Under a black-and-golden cloak so vast it covered his horse's hindquarters, he wore his shining mail, and near to his scabbard he held the helm with the golden antlers in the crook of his arm at his side. Here was no fat and drunken oaf like old King Robert, nor a cruel and pouting little boy like Joffrey. Renly was king, and it showed in his every part. He was everything she had imagined a king should be: tall and young, strong and proud, warlike and avenging.

Fair young Margaery Baratheon rode to her handsome husband's right, mounted on a likewise white-coated mare, and to the king and queen's every side rode his Rainbow Guard, seven helmed and armoured men in cloaks that dazzled her with colour: red and orange, yellow and green, blue and purple, and the black stag on gold of Baratheon for one who she presumed was their Lord Commander. The blue Rainbow Guard knight was the man who bore the royal standard. Behind Renly's mighty knights and boon companions she would have expected the highest and most esteemed of his lords bannermen, but they did not ride there, so close to their liege. Instead, the king rode into his capital city followed by a train of wagons, staffed by men and women wearing the stag and rose sigils of Houses Baratheon and Tyrell. "Food in the name of the king!" and "Food in the name of the queen!" they cried, moving out in all directions, kept in good order by the southern men-at-arms who lined each side of the road, giving their king an avenue within it. The road that Renly had chosen to follow on the way to his newly won castle was not King's Way, the greatest road in the city, and traditional for such occasions. It was River Row, which never strayed far from the city's southeastern wall, and went through Fishmonger's Square which bordered the River Gate. Folk from all across the city and beyond were present in great numbers, but none more so than the fisherfolk. The cityfolk cheered the king that they had made in spectacular numbers, cheers of such sort as she had never seen, nor dreamt of, for the Lannisters and for Joffrey, nor even for King Robert. They covered the king and queen with thrown flowers. King Renly smiled and raised his left hand to wave at them, as the right still held his helm, and applause redoubled. Sansa almost felt faint at the sound. It was plain to see King's Landing loved the victor, or at least hated the vanquished enough to love anyone who could expel them.

At last, after many wagons filled to bursting with the bounty of the south, sent from where they had been stored in the northern stormlands, were settled at the sides of River Row to feed the eager people, Renly's train of lords and ladies and great knights rode after him into the city, escorted by a forest of guards and servants and standard-bearers.

The gates of the Red Keep, over which the black stag on gold flew, opened at once before the king, ere their liege even spoke a word to command them. Sansa's assigned guards took her to join the men and women following the king, near the back of the queue. When she came in she saw that the king had stopped at the foot of the Iron Throne, and a squire was removing his armour. Beneath it he wore a fine doublet and breeches in the colours of his House, black and gold, but also green, perhaps in Queen Margaery's honour. The gallery of the court filled, and not only with the highborn. To her surprise, Sansa saw countless dirty ragged cityfolk escorted by the king's men-at-arms into the vast sprawl of the throne room, and many more watching from outside.

Two knights of his Rainbow Guard helped the king off his horse, and with a jolt Sansa noticed the king flinch with pain as the big blue knight grasped him. He is wounded, she realised. But he displayed very little weakness, however much pain he might have felt. Wearing the crown she had heard he had received at Highgarden, King Renly strode up the steps of his prize, favouring his left side, and sat down among the barbs and blades of the Iron Throne as if he had done so a thousand times, as if he belonged there.

The king smiled.

"Friends," he said in a clear, warm voice, like a big cat's purr, "be seated at my court."

Sansa sat in a rustle of skirts.

"King's Landing is ours," King Renly went on, sparking another round of cheering. He put it to an end simply by lifting his hand, without some haughty barked command with which she imagined Joffrey would have done it. "The crowned and anointed king sits on the Iron Throne, and you may rest assured that he will not forget those by whose chivalry and valour the capital was won."

"Greatest of them all yourself, Your Grace, conqueror of the city!" called a knight from somewhere in the gallery.

"You are too kind, Ser Harys," said King Renly, flashing another perfect smile. "Now it is time that such men be remembered. My leal Lord of Goldengrove, Mathis of House Rowan."

There was a great blast of trumpets as a stout, clean-shaven man in a white doublet strode into the room and knelt before the Iron Throne. "I am yours, Your Grace," he declared.

"My lord of Rowan, none dispute your valour and the example you set to your men. You have held the centre of my hosts outside my own seat, when I put paid to the ambitions of my brother Stannis, who sought to defy King Robert's decree out of greed for a castle that was never his by right, and in the Battle of King's Landing, fighting long and hard against the rebels in this very city. All the while, your elder son has remained to fulfil your title and defend the northmarch of the Reach against any threat emanating from the westerlands. All of this and more your king remembers, and your House will be rewarded, in land and not only in promises, at the traitors' expense when the war is done."

The first to be called, Sansa thought Lord Rowan might also be the happiest, not by coincidence. Certainly his king's praise pleased him greatly. "I thank you, Your Grace," he said.

"Be seated in this place of honour."

Lord Rowan took his place, separated from the king only by the queen and the Rainbow Guard, very near to Renly's side.

"My leal Lord of Horn Hill, Randyll of House Tarly."

With another blast, a thin, grey-bearded man with a sword in a jewelled scabbard strode into the room. He too knelt before King Renly. "What is mine is yours, Your Grace."

"My lord of Tarly, you have long provided me with sound counsel in my battle plans, for this battle and others before it. Your prowess as a leader of men has been beyond price. And you pinned down Ser Kevan Lannister, the leader of the foe, at the most hotly disputed part of the Battle of King's Landing long enough for me to make my breakthrough at the River Gate, and had the fortitude to endure and keep the pressure upon him, at hard and bitter cost, lest the full power of House Lannister fall upon my reserve and destroy us, when a lesser man might have sighed in relief and considered his task to be done. All of this and more your king remembers, and your House will be likewise rewarded when the war is done."

For such royal recognition and extravagant praise, Lord Tarly's face was split by a huge smile. "I thank you, Your Grace."

With a sweep of his hand Renly indicated a chair for him, on his opposite side from Lord Rowan's. "Be seated in this place of honour."

Lord Tarly too took his place.

"My leal Lord of the Marches, Bryce of House Caron."

This time there was no blast of trumpets. No man entered the throne room. Some of the smallfolk looked around in confusion.

"My lord of Caron served in my Rainbow Guard and he fought well for me in the Clash of the Stags, breaking onto the high ground for the first time against Lord Stannis's host. He also fought well in the Battle of the Blackwater, rallying my leal men against foes that none of us dared imagine, and he proved too mighty to be felled, save only by the vilest of treachery. He cannot be with us on this day, but he watches us from above, for I his king perceived the highest of worth in him and I have no doubt that the Father Above judged him accordingly. We shall remember him."

The mood of the court was solemn. "We shall remember him."

Next to be called before the new king was Lester Morrigen, Lord of Crow's Nest, a short scar-faced man with hair as dark as Renly's. He was rewarded for his role as one of the king's lords commander in the Battle of King's Landing. Then came Ser Parmen Crane the Lord Commander of the Rainbow Guard, Lord Selwyn the Evenstar of Tarth, Ser Garlan the Gallant of House Tyrell, and Ser Donnel Swann the heir to Stonehelm. After them came the great southern lords of Houses Staedmon, Willum and Cuy. In the fullness of time all of the Rainbow Guard were named by their king, including Ser Alyn Estermont, the king's cousin and the newest sworn brother of that order, named less than a moon past to the orange cloak. So were many other knights and lords of the Reach and the stormlands.

However, it was not only lords and knights of high birth who were honoured today by the king. King Renly's heralds told the deeds of dozens, no, hundreds of men of valour. It was if heroes were everywhere. Here, a freerider, not even a hedge knight, who had climbed up a wall by clinging to the grooves between the rocks after his ladder had fallen. There, a band of squires who had saved a sept from looters deserted from some army. There, a lowborn man-at-arms who had stood over his landed knight's body and kept defending him in spite of being showered with heated oil. Many of the men whom the king chose to commemorate were dead, some in the Battle of King's Landing or various minor skirmishes but far more in the Battle of the Blackwater, which on occasion lent the proceedings a darker air, but most were still alive, and stepped with shaking shoulders and wide smiles into their places in the sunlight that was the high regard of court and king. Of these, many were given gifts such as knighthood, small keeps, gold, horses, arms and mail, rather than the promise of great lands for dynastic position. But of all who were summoned before King Renly, very few seemed at all disappointed or upset. Most were openly in delight.

Hundreds of new knights were made on that day. They had held their vigil in the Great Sept of Baelor all through the night, an exhausting feat after a great battle, and crossed the city barefoot that morning to prove their humble hearts. Now they came forward dressed in shifts of undyed wool to receive their knighthoods. Most were dubbed by the seven sworn brothers of the Rainbow Guard, but some were granted the even higher honour of being knighted by the king. Once anointed in seven oils and sworn the oaths of knighthood and of loyalty to King Renly, each new-made knight rose, buckled on his sword-belt, and stood beneath the windows. Some had bloody feet from their walk through the city, but they stood tall and proud all the same, it seemed to Sansa.

By the time all the knights had been given their sers, it was late in the evening and the throne room was somewhat sparser, especially from smallfolk, who did not know it was discourteous to depart from the king's presence without his leave. All the highborn guests remained.

After he welcomed the last new knight into that honour, the king spoke, more gravely than before. "It pleases me greatly to honour those who chose the side of right, but not all in this city belong to that number. A bastard born of cuckoldry and incest, a monster, an abomination in the eyes of the gods, sat upon my throne until yesterday, and he could not have achieved such a feat unaided and alone. Some of his followers remain. The true king needs must sit in their judgement."

Whispers swept the court.

"Guards," said the king, "bring in Alester of House Florent, Lord of Brightwater."

Mailed men-at-arms, badged with the stag sigil of Baratheon, dragged in a tall, thin old man with silver hair and threw him harshly before the Iron Throne, at the feet of the king. His nose was aquiline, his face noble, but he was clad only in a grey shift as might have been worn by a beggar.

"Well, Lord Florent, your treason on the Blackwater has been observed by numerous witnesses, not least of them myself, in person. At last count, I believe there are at least fifty-two-thousand, seven-hundred and sixty-one able-bodied men who can testify." A chuckle ran through the court. Renly asked him: "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Mercy, Your Grace," said Lord Alester, "for I was led astray."

Sansa wondered at that choice. He betrayed them all. Surely none of them will believe him. What purpose does it serve for him to disavow Joffrey and die a traitor twice over and a coward too instead of a traitor only once?

"You strayed, for certain," agreed the king, humouring him, "though I am unconvinced you were led in that."

"I was deceived by the Imp," the old lord declared with aplomb, "and by my traitor of a brother, Axell, who fled with him to Dragonstone. I was led to believe the foulest slander about your and House Tyrell's intentions for my House. Disgrace, dispossession…"

"You were? And yet you and your men were amongst my host, my lord. You stood high in my councils." Sansa had not noticed it arriving—it was too subtle, not arriving in an instant—but a new edge had crept into King Renly's voice, not charming but hard and cold. "Should you have heard any slander, you could easily have come to me. Who is it that you believed to know your king's mind better than himself?"

"'Tis not that!" Lord Alester was at least clever enough to avoid that misstep. Then, straight afterwards, he made a different one: "Your Grace was watched, always watched! We could not speak, Loras Tyrell, Garlan Tyrell, a Tyrell, they were always near you—"

The king's voice became frost. "You will not speak ill of Ser Loras Tyrell in my presence. He served me as Lord Commander of my Rainbow Guard, he fought for me, and he died for me, which is more by far than you can say."

"Not Ser Loras, Your Grace," Lord Florent attempted, "doubtless he was loyal, but his father, his brothers, plotting against you, plotting against your leal vassals, he wants your crown for himself—"

"He does?" King Renly's voice softened, turned musing. "How strange. My lord, I do seem to recall there was indeed a certain… reaching above one's station."

Lord Alester grasped onto this like a drowning man given a rope. "Yes, Your Grace, absolutely! Your Grace is wise! For three-hundred years the Tyrells have reached—"

"…but not by Mace Tyrell," Renly cut him off, sharp as a sword-thrust. "What is your title?"

Lord Alester's face turned white. "Lord of Brightwater, Your Grace," he said.

"Is that all, truly?"

"Yes, Your Grace."

"Truly? Let me refresh my lord's memory. Lord of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Mander, High Marshal of the Reach, Defender of the Marches, Warden of the South… do any of these sound familiar, my lord?"

"Lannister work," Lord Alester rasped, "all Lannisters, Your Grace. They meant for me to overthrow Lord Tyrell, so that I might be further entangled in their fiendish plots, to make me seem ambitious so that I could never return to your side once you learnt the truth of it."

"So you never meant to be Lord of Highgarden?" The apparent courtesy to this man who had betrayed him left King Renly's voice; he was open now in his disbelief and in his contempt. "'Twas all the work of the Lannisters? You would not otherwise have claimed Highgarden, but the Lannisters forced that claim to power against the Tyrells, who even now you profess to be your foes, on your poor miserable leal self?" Another titter ran through the court. "'Tis not a claim your House has sought ever since the Hightowers, once mightiest of the seekers, failed in their bid to claim the Reach and were humbled by my royal ancestor in the Dance of the Dragons?"

"All Lannisters, Your Grace."

The noble lords and knights and ladies of the court were jeering openly.

"Spare me," said Renly with vitriol, and the court burst into applause. He halted it with a gesture. "I need hear no more of this. I, Renly of the House Baratheon, the First of My Name, crowned and anointed King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, do on this day decree that House Florent stands attainted for high treason; that all men of that House are stripped of whatsoever lands, honours and titles that they may possess or claim to possess; that any oath of fealty, loyalty or service of any form sworn to any man of that House is hereby rendered null and void, and to be broken with no dishonour; that all men of that House and its vassal Houses who participated in the aforesaid treason in the Battle of the Blackwater are hereby sentenced to death; and that the remainder of Florents be faced with the choice of the Night's Watch or the silent sisters or death. This is my will."

The court banged their hands on the wood. "The king's will!" cried some, and others "Death to traitors!"

"You don't understand, Your Grace," Lord Alester wailed as the guards dragged him out of the oaken doors. "'Twas all Lannister work, all Lannisters!"

Sansa felt no pity for the old lord, no matter his physical frailty. He's a traitor in truth, unlike my lord father, and he delivered the Lannisters their victory on the Blackwater. He would see my brother dead and me in Joffrey's power if he could. Let him die.

"That leaves Brightwater unaccounted for," continued Renly, "but no longer. Such a mighty keep should be held by a lord leal to Lord Tyrell and to me. And who will be more leal to a man than his own gallant son or brother? Ser Garlan, come to me."

The man who knelt before the Iron Throne was a tall, broad, bearded man who otherwise looked exceedingly similar to his younger brother, the late Knight of Flowers. Ser Garlan Tyrell had fought well for the king in the Clash of the Stags and the Battle of King's Landing; Renly had already mentioned he was due for a reward. It seemed that his was to come immediately.

"I need a leal Lord of Brightwater, and I judge you suited to the task. Will you serve?"

"With a glad heart, Your Grace."

Sansa wondered at that, for it was a common phrase and yet pain flashed like lightning over Renly's face. It was over in an instant. She almost thought she must have imagined it and seen nothing at all.

Once the new Lord of Brightwater had sworn his vows in place of the old, King Renly said, "Let us soon be cleansed of the filth of this task, to move to better, brighter things than the treachery in the hearts of men. I'll heed my lord of Florent in one thing, if one thing only. Guards, bring in the Lannisters."

Two more figures in grey shifts were brought into the room. The first was a man wounded and bloodied, but clearly treated with care, and Sansa noticed the portly figure, blond hair, short beard and solemn bearing of Ser Kevan Lannister. The second was a woman Sansa scarcely recognised, for she was full of cuts and bruises, her hair was dirty and her shift was covered with blood and filth and torn in several places. She may have regretted the latter, for she found herself clutching at her body with her arms to preserve her modesty. But there was no mistaking those eyes. Startled, Sansa realised that the woman was Queen Cersei.

"Kinslayer!" she screeched as soon as she saw the king. "Traitor, usurper, shame upon your House—"

"Your House by law," the king observed mildly, as though they were discussing the weather, "though I doubt you ever considered yourself Baratheon. Certainly you never bore children as such."

"Vile lies!" the former queen answered him. "You repeat your brother's treason. But where is your brother Stannis, I wonder? Whatever have you done to him?"

"Shut up," snarled one of the guards, moving in. Cersei lashed out at him with broken nails. The guards forced her to her knees.

"Claws like a hellcat, this one, Your Grace. Flings her shit and bites, too," another guard remarked.

"I daresay so," said Renly, filling his voice with exaggerated trepidation. The court laughed. "Very well, goodsister. You are accused of cuckolding and murdering my kingly brother and committing incest, sins in the eyes of men and gods. The matter is a grave one. What have you to say in your defence?"

But Cersei did not answer. Mid-way through that phrase, her mouth had dropped open and she had started staring at King Renly, eyes drinking in his face as if it were water and she were dying of thirst.

"Nothing?"

That broke her from her contemplation. "Traitor, I name you! Liar and traitor! Sentence and be damned! You have no right to judge me! The younger brother comes after the children of the elder, and that is the only foundation of your lie, the only reason for it. You are no true king!"

The court roared with outrage, but King Renly's reaction was calmer. "Truth be told, I expected an outburst of that sort. Fear not. She has no power to do harm to anyone, nor again will she ever. Guards."

As the king's men grabbed her by the armpits and bore her away, Cersei struggled and spat at them, and she did not stop shouting. "You're a baseless slanderer! You would murder your brother's children as you murdered your brother! You are no true king!"

The king paid her as much heed as he might have paid an ant under his heel. Sansa marvelled at her former tormentor's powerlessness. As Cersei was dragged out to whatever cell she had been thrown in, the king spoke again.

"Ser Kevan of House Lannister," he said. "Household knight of your brother Tywin, Lord of Casterly Rock. This no men deny. Claimant Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, a title to which your claim is considerably more disputable."

"Lord Regent by the will of the king," said Kevan Lannister. He was calmer than his niece but no less defiant.

"I see. I don't suppose it would do any good to remind you of the truth that Joffrey is no king, that your niece deceived you and your lord brother into serving an abomination born of incest who has no right to the Iron Throne?"

"It would not, for that's no truth. A lie that you may even genuinely believe, it may be, but a lie nonetheless, an invention of scarcely disguised self-interest."

"And why do you think that?" asked King Renly. "The evidence is rather overwhelming. My late kingly brother had many children, my own ward Edric Storm among them. Not one of them looked at all like Joffrey. And that is not all. When we met, Lady Stark told me that her second son fell from the window of a tower at Winterfell, a boy who'd climbed that tower hundreds of times and never fell from it before, and afterwards a hired man was sent to cut his throat, foiled by the boy's direwolf… and curiously enough, on the day he fell, my brother and Lord Stark were hunting but the Kingslayer remained, as did the former queen. I wonder why he fell. I wonder what he might have seen."

The throne room hissed with whispers. Sansa felt like a leaf in a storm at the casual ease with which the king revealed this secret. Bran fell because he was pushed, she thought, and Cersei did it. Her or the Kingslayer, it makes no matter. They tried to murder him, long before father tried to depose Joff. And I trusted her.

Father Above. I trusted her. Sansa thought she might be sick. She's scarce different from Joffrey.

"And Lord Arryn's death came too near to my brother's for me to think it coincidence," King Renly continued, "nor for Lord Stark or my other brother to draw such a convenient conclusion. Your niece overplayed her hand, Ser Kevan. Lord Arryn to catch a queerly sudden illness and die almost at once despite being previously healthy? My kingly brother to have his reactions so slowed he died fighting a boar, a boar of all things, when he's hunted them so many times before? Mayhaps. I might have believed one of them. But both, and Lady Catelyn's testimony, and the fact that you and I both know Ned Stark was not of the breed of man who could ever truly be a traitor… No, ser. I think not."

"You have a silver tongue, my lord," Ser Kevan allowed grudgingly, "but that cannot give your words truth they lack. Joffrey was King Robert's son and you his brother, no matter those words. No man dared to deny it when Robert still lived to defend the honour of his queen and of his children. You are no king. You never found King Joffrey, nor Prince Tommen who is his heir, not you, and one day the Iron Throne will be reclaimed."

"Oh ser," the king said with a sigh. He turned his eyes to the gallery. "I see how it is now, my friends. Ser Kevan here cannot deny the truth of what he hears, so he prefers not to contest it. Rather he chooses not to face it at all. He would not fear my words so much if he did not perceive the truth in them."

"You lie," Kevan Lannister said, "and you are no—"

A guard kicked him. Ser Kevan tried to speak, but then he was kicked again, driving the wind from his chest. Several more kicks followed, and he collapsed onto the throne room's floor, breathing heavily.

"So be it," said the king, and his voice held a simple sadness that was somehow more terrible than wrath. "I confess I'd hoped that you, mayhaps your lord brother as well, would see the light and refuse to throw away your House for the fruit of your niece and nephew's treason. I see now that view was rose-tinted. You are committed to treason, ser, and though I wish it not, if that be your resolve then I must sentence you to death."

"Your Grace!"

There was a stir. Across the court, like a wave through the sea, the heads turned to the one who had spoken.

"My lady of Stark," said the king, and though all the eyes in the room were upon her the only ones she felt were his, inquiring, cool and still and blue. "You have my leave to speak, if you so desire."

"Thank you, Your Grace," said Sansa. There were still so many people looking at her, the great and the good of the realm, even the king. She felt she might wilt like a flower, the ground swallowing her words.

She did not let it.

"I prayed for the arrival of your host, Your Grace," Sansa told him truthfully. Though all the hall was silent, she addressed only the king, as if she could avoid the other pairs of eyes by unflinchingly meeting his. "I prayed for your victory often, in yesterday's battle and also in the Battle of the Blackwater. I count your presence here as proof the gods have answered my prayers."

"Fairly spoken, my lady," Queen Margaery said, accepting the compliment with grace, but Sansa heard the voiceless addition: But why do you choose to say it now?

She gathered her courage as best she could. "Joffrey is a beast, Your Grace, more an abomination than even you may yet know or believe. When he had me beaten and stripped before his court—"

The whispers spread through the court swift as wildfire, the suddenness and loudness hurting her ears. Her pride was hurt more deeply. They were looking at her now, not merely looking—pitying her and thinking her weak and vulnerable, a silly helpless maid who needed strong men, knights, to save her.

There are no true knights, or at least none that will ever come for me. She carried on without a pause, a strong voice speaking high over them. "—for his amusement, most of his knights and his lords and ladies turned a blind eye, but there were some who tried to stop him. Ser Kevan took me away from Joffrey, him and Sandor Clegane and Ser Dontos Hollard and Maester Frenken and the Imp. They had me tended and borne to a manse away from the Red Keep. I was still a hostage, but that is a kindness I remember, and I would return it if I can. He's not a bad man, none of those I have named for you are. The king he served was evil, but he is no Joffrey; he does not deserve to die."

Those sky-blue eyes were still fixed upon her, filled with something indecipherable.

She felt timid all of a sudden, remembering courtesies. "…Your Grace. If you please."

"If it please me," King Renly said, his voice soft. "Does it please you? I wonder. Lady Sansa, you have been through much at the hands of the abomination, more than I wish to believe, and it would please me for you to consider, with great care, what you mean to do. Neither I nor any lord nor knight nor lady here will fault you if this is not your chosen course. Do you truly mean to plead for the life of Kevan Lannister?"

Her eyes met his. All the court looked upon her now, but in the throne room it was as if there were only two: the conquering king clad in his magnificent black and green and gold and Sansa in the old, ill-fitting, faded dress that somebody had found for her.

She told him, "Yes."

King Renly sighed. "I know not whether to regard you with horror or admiration, my lady. You must know this is a mercy that House Lannister would never dream of granting if they stood in the stead of you. Nevertheless… your wish is granted."

Sansa did not know what to feel. There was relief, mixed with disgust at herself for saving an enemy. She had long been her lady mother's daughter, and afterwards the king's betrothed and a presence at court, always beautiful and magnificent. Yet now, ugly, beaten, sleep-deprived, clad in a dress that did not fit her, she had never felt more powerful.

The king had turned back to the Lannister and was speaking to him harshly. "You must not imagine that this constitutes leniency. You will never again command hosts against your rightful king. Your life will not be taken, but it is forfeit nonetheless. You will take the black, serving the Night's Watch." He looked back up again, and his blue eyes blazed with condemnation. "And you will thank her for your life, ser. You knew what Joffrey was. At very least, you knew enough not to trust him with power over a girl. I cannot imagine, truly cannot even imagine, how you could possibly have seen fit to trust him with power over the Seven Kingdoms."

Kevan did not deign to answer that, or perhaps he had no answer. Regardless, he was staring up at Sansa as if he had never seen her before. "I thank you for my life, my lady."

She did not reply, for she knew not how. She did not even nod at him as the guards bundled him out of the throne room and out of her sight, though she was confident she would never see him again.

"The Imp will get the same offer," Renly Baratheon told her, "loath though I am to grant it to the man who planned that foul trick with wildfire. There is one more thing that I must ask of you, my lady. You spoke of Tyrion and Kevan Lannister. How did Cersei Lannister react to her bastard's mistreatment?"

"The queen?" She tried to kill Bran, and I trusted her. "She turned a blind eye."

"I see," said King Renly, as the throne room of the Red Keep hissed soft susurration.

I have killed her, Sansa thought, quite certain of it, and torn between thrill and dread and wonder. I purposely killed Queen Cersei with five words, and they were not even a lie.

Author's Note: This update is mostly self-explanatory, but there's one thing I should add. Renly got wounded, yes, because he's no great shakes and, although he was all the while well-guarded by some very capable men, he did lead a charge through a hail of arrows and scorpions and fight at the head of his men as they penetrated the River Gate and took the city. That isn't as stupid as it sounds. He didn't really have a choice. He'd stayed back in the reserve for the previous part of the Battle of King's Landing, and he hadn't fought at all in the Battle of the Blackwater, and he's an able-bodied man as well as a king. This was the moment which turned the tide, and he was perfectly placed to seize it. His men wouldn't respect him if he failed to seize that moment and delegated it to somebody else. This is a society where the image of a martial elite is still socially powerful, and therefore Renly has to play to it. It's already risky, in that sense, to stay away from the thick of the fighting and command from the reserve, though obviously there are also risks of a different sort in leading charges and suchlike. But staying in the reserve, seeing a decisive opportunity which could win the battle and then avoiding it anyway is too harmful to the image Renly is projecting of the ideal virtuous warrior-king for him to be able to get away with it. There's a line between being perceived as prudent and being perceived as cowardly, and an able-bodied nobleman who wants to be respected dare not cross it.