Eddard Stark had left before dawn, Septa Mordane informed Sansa as they broke their fast. “Theking sent for him. Another hunt, I do believe. There are still wild aurochs in these lands, I am told.”

“I’ve never seen an aurochs,” Sansa said, feeding a piece of bacon to Lady under the table. Thedirewolf took it from her hand, as delicate as a queen.

Septa Mordane sniffed in disapproval. “A noble lady does not feed dogs at her table,” she said,breaking off another piece of comb and letting the honey drip down onto her bread.

“She’s not a dog, she’s a direwolf,” Sansa pointed out as Lady licked her fingers with a roughtongue. “Anyway, Father said we could keep them with us if we want.”

The septa was not appeased. “You’re a good girl, Sansa, but I do vow, when it comes to thatcreature you’re as willful as your sister Arya.” She scowled. “And where is Arya this morning?”

“She wasn’t hungry,” Sansa said, knowing full well that her sister had probably stolen down tothe kitchen hours ago and wheedled a breakfast out of some cook’s boy.

“Do remind her to dress nicely today. The grey velvet, perhaps. We are all invited to ride with thequeen and Princess Myrcella in the royal wheelhouse, and we must look our best.”

Sansa already looked her best. She had brushed out her long auburn hair until it shone, and pickedher nicest blue silks. She had been looking forward to today for more than a week. It was a greathonor to ride with the queen, and besides, Prince Joffrey might be there. Her betrothed. Just thinkingit made her feel a strange fluttering inside, even though they were not to marry for years and years.

Sansa did not really know Joffrey yet, but she was already in love with him. He was all she everdreamt her prince should be, tall and handsome and strong, with hair like gold. She treasured everychance to spend time with him, few as they were. The only thing that scared her about today wasArya. Arya had a way of ruining everything. You never knew what she would do. “I’ll tell her,” Sansasaid uncertainly, “but she’ll dress the way she always does.” She hoped it wouldn’t be tooembarrassing. “May I be excused?”

“You may.” Septa Mordane helped herself to more bread and honey, and Sansa slid from thebench. Lady followed at her heels as she ran from the inn’s common room.

Outside, she stood for a moment amidst the shouts and curses and the creak of wooden wheels asthe men broke down the tents and pavilions and loaded the wagons for another day’s march. The innwas a sprawling three-story structure of pale stone, the biggest that Sansa had ever seen, but even so,it had accommodations for less than a third of the king’s party, which had swollen to more than fourhundred with the addition of her father’s household and the freeriders who had joined them on theroad.

She found Arya on the banks of the Trident, trying to hold Nymeria still while she brushed driedmud from her fur. The direwolf was not enjoying the process. Arya was wearing the same ridingleathers she had worn yesterday and the day before.

“You better put on something pretty,” Sansa told her. “Septa Mordane said so. We’re traveling inthe queen’s wheelhouse with Princess Myrcella today.”

“I’m not,” Arya said, trying to brush a tangle out of Nymeria’s matted grey fur. “Mycah and I aregoing to ride upstream and look for rubies at the ford.”

“Rubies,” Sansa said, lost. “What rubies?”

Arya gave her a look like she was so stupid. “Rhaegar’s rubies. This is where King Robert killedhim and won the crown.”

Sansa regarded her scrawny little sister in disbelief. “You can’t look for rubies, the princess isexpecting us. The queen invited us both.”

“I don’t care,” Arya said. “The wheelhouse doesn’t even have windows, you can’t see a thing.”

“What could you want to see?” Sansa said, annoyed. She had been thrilled by the invitation, andher stupid sister was going to ruin everything, just as she’d feared. “It’s all just fields and farms andholdfasts.”

“It is not,” Arya said stubbornly. “If you came with us sometimes, you’d see.”

“I hate riding,” Sansa said fervently. “All it does is get you soiled and dusty and sore.”

Arya shrugged. “Hold still,” she snapped at Nymeria, “I’m not hurting you.” Then to Sansa shesaid, “When we were crossing the Neck, I counted thirty-six flowers I never saw before, and Mycahshowed me a lizard-lion.”

Sansa shuddered. They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crookedcauseway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it. The air had beendamp and clammy, the causeway so narrow they could not even make proper camp at night, they hadto stop right on the kingsroad. Dense thickets of half-drowned trees pressed close around them,branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus. Huge flowers bloomed in the mud and floated onpools of stagnant water, but if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, therewere quicksands waiting to suck you down, and snakes watching from the trees, and lizard-lionsfloating half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth.

None of which stopped Arya, of course. One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hairall tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers forFather. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behave herself and act like the highborn lady she wassupposed to be, but he never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the flowers. That just madeher worse.

Then it turned out the purple flowers were called poison kisses, and Arya got a rash on her arms.

Sansa would have thought that might have taught her a lesson, but Arya laughed about it, and the nextday she rubbed mud all over her arms like some ignorant bog woman just because her friend Mycahtold her it would stop the itching. She had bruises on her arms and shoulders too, dark purple weltsand faded green-and-yellow splotches; Sansa had seen them when her sister undressed for sleep. Howshe had gotten those only the seven gods knew.

Arya was still going on, brushing out Nymeria’s tangles and chattering about things she’d seen onthe trek south. “Last week we found this haunted watchtower, and the day before we chased a herd ofwild horses. You should have seen them run when they caught a scent of Nymeria.” The wolfwriggled in her grasp and Arya scolded her. “Stop that, I have to do the other side, you’re all muddy.”

“You’re not supposed to leave the column,” Sansa reminded her. “Father said so.”

Arya shrugged. “I didn’t go far. Anyway, Nymeria was with me the whole time. I don’t always gooff, either. Sometimes it’s fun just to ride along with the wagons and talk to people.”

Sansa knew all about the sorts of people Arya liked to talk to: squires and grooms and serving girls,old men and naked children, rough-spoken freeriders of uncertain birth. Arya would make friendswith anybody. This Mycah was the worst; a butcher’s boy, thirteen and wild, he slept in the meatwagon and smelled of the slaughtering block. Just the sight of him was enough to make Sansa feelsick, but Arya seemed to prefer his company to hers.

Sansa was running out of patience now. “You have to come with me,” she told her sister firmly.

“You can’t refuse the queen. Septa Mordane will expect you.”

Arya ignored her. She gave a hard yank with the brush. Nymeria growled and spun away,affronted. “Come back here!”

“There’s going to be lemon cakes and tea,” Sansa went on, all adult and reasonable. Lady brushedagainst her leg. Sansa scratched her ears the way she liked, and Lady sat beside her on her haunches,watching Arya chase Nymeria. “Why would you want to ride a smelly old horse and get all sore andsweaty when you could recline on feather pillows and eat cakes with the queen?”

“I don’t like the queen,” Arya said casually. Sansa sucked in her breath, shocked that even Aryawould say such a thing, but her sister prattled on, heedless. “She won’t even let me bring Nymeria.”

She thrust the brush under her belt and stalked her wolf. Nymeria watched her approach warily.

“A royal wheelhouse is no place for a wolf,” Sansa said. “And Princess Myrcella is afraid ofthem, you know that.”

“Myrcella is a little baby.” Arya grabbed Nymeria around her neck, but the moment she pulledout the brush again the direwolf wriggled free and bounded off. Frustrated, Arya threw down thebrush. “Bad wolf!” she shouted.

Sansa couldn’t help but smile a little. The kennelmaster once told her that an animal takes after itsmaster. She gave Lady a quick little hug. Lady licked her cheek. Sansa giggled. Arya heard andwhirled around, glaring. “I don’t care what you say, I’m going out riding.” Her long horsey face gotthe stubborn look that meant she was going to do something willful.

“Gods be true, Arya, sometimes you act like such a child,” Sansa said. “I’ll go by myself then. Itwill be ever so much nicer that way. Lady and I will eat all the lemon cakes and just have the besttime without you.”

She turned to walk off, but Arya shouted after her, “They won’t let you bring Lady either.” She wasgone before Sansa could think of a reply, chasing Nymeria along the river.

Alone and humiliated, Sansa took the long way back to the inn, where she knew Septa Mordanewould be waiting. Lady padded quietly by her side. She was almost in tears. All she wanted was forthings to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs. Why couldn’t Arya be sweet and delicateand kind, like Princess Myrcella? She would have liked a sister like that.

Sansa could never understand how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. Itwould have been easier if Arya had been a bastard, like their half brother Jon. She even looked likeJon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face orher coloring. And Jon’s mother had been common, or so people whispered. Once, when she waslittler, Sansa had even asked Mother if perhaps there hadn’t been some mistake. Perhaps the grumkinshad stolen her real sister. But Mother had only laughed and said no, Arya was her daughter andSansa’s trueborn sister, blood of their blood. Sansa could not think why Mother would want to lieabout it, so she supposed it had to be true.

As she neared the center of camp, her distress was quickly forgotten. A crowd had gathered aroundthe queen’s wheelhouse. Sansa heard excited voices buzzing like a hive of bees. The doors had beenthrown open, she saw, and the queen stood at the top of the wooden steps, smiling down at someone.

She heard her saying, “The council does us great honor, my good lords.”

“What’s happening?” she asked a squire she knew.

“The council sent riders from King’s Landing to escort us the rest of the way,” he told her. “Anhonor guard for the king.”

Anxious to see, Sansa let Lady clear a path through the crowd. People moved aside hastily for thedirewolf. When she got closer, she saw two knights kneeling before the queen, in armor so fine andgorgeous that it made her blink.

One knight wore an intricate suit of white enameled scales, brilliant as a field of new-fallen snow,with silver chasings and clasps that glittered in the sun. When he removed his helm, Sansa saw that hewas an old man with hair as pale as his armor, yet he seemed strong and graceful for all that. From hisshoulders hung the pure white cloak of the Kingsguard.

His companion was a man near twenty whose armor was steel plate of a deep forest-green. He wasthe handsomest man Sansa had ever set eyes upon; tall and powerfully made, with jet-black hair thatfell to his shoulders and framed a clean-shaven face, and laughing green eyes to match his armor.

Cradled under one arm was an antlered helm, its magnificent rack shimmering in gold.

At first Sansa did not notice the third stranger. He did not kneel with the others. He stood to oneside, beside their horses, a gaunt grim man who watched the proceedings in silence. His face waspockmarked and beardless, with deepset eyes and hollow cheeks. Though he was not an old man, onlya few wisps of hair remained to him, sprouting above his ears, but those he had grown long as awoman’s. His armor was iron-grey chainmail over layers of boiled leather, plain and unadorned, andit spoke of age and hard use. Above his right shoulder the stained leather hilt of the blade strapped tohis back was visible; a two-handed greatsword, too long to be worn at his side.

“The king is gone hunting, but I know he will be pleased to see you when he returns,” the queenwas saying to the two knights who knelt before her, but Sansa could not take her eyes off the thirdman. He seemed to feel the weight of her gaze. Slowly he turned his head. Lady growled. A terror asoverwhelming as anything Sansa Stark had ever felt filled her suddenly. She stepped backward andbumped into someone.

Strong hands grasped her by the shoulders, and for a moment Sansa thought it was her father, butwhen she turned, it was the burned face of Sandor Clegane looking down at her, his mouth twisted ina terrible mockery of a smile. “You are shaking, girl,” he said, his voice rasping. “Do I frighten youso much?”

twhen she turned, it was the burned face of Sandor Clegane looking down at her, his mouth twisted ina terrible mockery of a smile. “You are shaking, girl,” he said, his voice rasping. “Do I frighten youso much?”

He did, and had since she had first laid eyes on the ruin that fire had made of his face, though itseemed to her now that he was not half so terrifying as the other. Still, Sansa wrenched away fromhim, and the Hound laughed, and Lady moved between them, rumbling a warning. Sansa dropped toher knees to wrap her arms around the wolf. They were all gathered around gaping, she could feeltheir eyes on her, and here and there she heard muttered comments and titters of laughter.

“A wolf,” a man said, and someone else said, “Seven hells, that’s a direwolf,” and the first mansaid, “What’s it doing in camp?” and the Hound’s rasping voice replied, “The Starks use them for wetnurses,” and Sansa realized that the two stranger knights were looking down on her and Lady, swordsin their hands, and then she was frightened again, and ashamed. Tears filled her eyes.

She heard the queen say, “Joffrey, go to her.”

And her prince was there.

“Leave her alone,” Joffrey said. He stood over her, beautiful in blue wool and black leather, hisgolden curls shining............