Sansa rode to the Hand’s tourney with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, in a litter with curtains ofyellow silk so fine she could see right through them. They turned the whole world gold. Beyond thecity walls, a hundred pavilions had been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in thethousands to watch the games. The splendor of it all took Sansa’s breath away; the shining armor, thegreat chargers caparisoned in silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd, the banners snapping in thewind … 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 hadpromised her, among the high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a greengown 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 sevenknights of the Kingsguard took the field, all but Jaime Lannister in scaled armor the color of milk,their cloaks as white as fresh-fallen snow. Ser Jaime wore the white cloak as well, but beneath it hewas 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 YohnRoyce, who had guested at Winterfell two years before. “His armor is bronze, thousands andthousands of years old, engraved with magic runes that ward him against harm,” she whispered toJeyne. Septa Mordane pointed out Lord Jason Mallister, in indigo chased with silver, the wings of aneagle on his helm. He had cut down three of Rhaegar’s bannermen on the Trident. The girls giggledover the warrior priest Thoros of Myr, with his flapping red robes and shaven head, until the septatold 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 themountains of Dorne, unsung freeriders and new-made squires, the younger sons of high lords and theheirs of lesser houses. Younger men, most had done no great deeds as yet, but Sansa and Jeyne agreedthat one day the Seven Kingdoms would resound to the sound of their names. Ser Balon Swann. LordBryce Caron of the Marches. Bronze Yohn’s heir, Ser Andar Royce, and his younger brother SerRobar, their silvered steel plate filigreed in bronze with the same ancient runes that warded theirfather. The twins Ser Horas and Ser Hobber, whose shields displayed the grape cluster sigil of theRedwynes, burgundy on blue. Patrek Mallister, Lord Jason’s son. Six Freys of the Crossing: SerJared, Ser Hosteen, Ser Danwell, Ser Emmon, Ser Theo, Ser Perwyn, sons and grandsons of old LordWalder Frey, and his bastard son Martyn Rivers as well.

Jeyne Poole confessed herself frightened by the look of Jalabhar Xho, an exile prince from theSummer Isles who wore a cape of green and scarlet feathers over skin as dark as night, but when shesaw young Lord Beric Dondarrion, with his hair like red gold and his black shield slashed bylightning, 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’sEnd. Jory, Alyn, and Harwin rode for Winterfell and the north. “Jory looks a beggar among theseothers,” 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 hissecond. In his third match, he rode three passes at a freerider named Lothor Brune whose armor wasas 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 unhorsedin his first tilt by Ser Meryn of the Kingsguard, while Alyn fell to Ser Balon Swann.

din 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 thelists until the field was a ragged wasteland of torn earth. A dozen times Jeyne and Sansa cried out inunison as riders crashed together, lances exploding into splinters while the commons screamed fortheir favorites. Jeyne covered her eyes whenever a man fell, like a frightened little girl, but Sansa wasmade of sterner stuff. A great lady knew how to behave at tournaments. Even Septa Mordane notedher composure and nodded in approval.

The Kingslayer rode brilliantly. He overthrew Ser Andar Royce and the Marcher Lord Bryce Caronas easily as if he were riding at rings, and then took a hard-fought match from white-haired BarristanSelmy, 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 cameduring Ser Gregor’s second joust, when his lance rode up and struck a young knight from the Valeunder the gorget with such force that it drove through his throat, killing him instantly. The youth fellnot ten feet from where Sansa was seated. The point of Ser Gregor’s lance had snapped off in hisneck, and his life’s blood flowed out in slow pulses, each weaker than the one before. His armor wasshiny new; a bright streak of fire ran down his outstretched arm, as the steel caught the light. Then thesun went behind a cloud, and it was gone. His cloak was blue, the color of the sky on a clearsummer’s day, trimmed with a border of crescent moons, but as his blood seeped into it, the clothdarkened 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 neverseen a man die before. She ought to be crying too, she thought, but the tears would not come. Perhapsshe had used up all her tears for Lady and Bran. It would be different if it had been Jory or Ser Rodrikor Father, she told herself. The young knight in the blue cloak was nothing to her, some stranger fromthe Vale of Arryn whose name she had forgotten as soon as she heard it. And now the world wouldforget 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 spotwhere 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 soviolently that he seemed to fly backward off his charger, legs in the air. His head hit the ground withan audible crack that made the crowd gasp, but it was just the golden antler on his helm. One of thetines had snapped off beneath him. When Lord Renly climbed to his feet, the commons cheeredwildly, for King Robert’s handsome young brother was a great favorite. He handed the broken tine tohis 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 outamong them and restored the peace. By then Septa Mordane had returned, alone. Jeyne had beenfeeling ill, she explained; she had helped her back to the castle. Sansa had almost forgotten aboutJeyne.

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 itby Thoros of Myr. Ser Aron Santagar and Lothor Brune tilted thrice without result; Ser Aron fellafterward 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 theKingslayer, 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 theKingsguard that morning in his first three jousts. Sansa had never seen anyone so beautiful. His platewas 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 wouldremove his helm and ride slowly round the fence, and finally pluck a single white rose from theblanket 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 smallprotection 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 alitter and carried him off to his tent, dazed and unmoving. Sansa never saw it. Her eyes were only forSer Loras. When the white horse stopped in front of her, she thought her heart would burst.

rSer 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. “Sweetlady,” he said, “no victory is half so beautiful as you.” Sansa took the flower timidly, struck dumb byhis gallantry. His hair was a mass of lazy brown curls, his eyes like liquid gold. She inhaled the sweetfragrance 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 pointedbeard 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 Tullylook.”

“I’m Sansa Stark,” she said, ill at ease. The man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastenedwith 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 smallcouncil.”

“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. Quiteabruptly he turned and walked away.

By then, the moon was well up and the crowd was tired, so the king decreed that the last threematches would be fought the next morning, before the melee. While the commons began their walkhome, talking of the day’s jousts and the matches to come on the morrow, the court moved to theriverside to begin the feast. Six monstrous huge aurochs had been roasting for hours, turning slowlyon wooden spits while kitchen boys basted them with butter and herbs until the meat crackled andspit. Tables and benches had been raised outside the pavilions, piled high with sweetgrass andstrawberries and fresh-baked bread.

Sansa and Septa Mordane were given places of high honor, to the left of the raised dais where theking himself sat beside his queen. When Prince Joffrey seated himself to her right, she felt her throattighten. He had not spoken a word to her since the awful thing had happened, and she had not dared tospeak to him. At first she thought she hated him for what they’d done to Lady, but after Sansa hadwept her eyes dry, she told herself that it had not been Joffrey’s doing, not truly. The queen had doneit; 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 doubletstudded with a double row of golden lion’s heads, and around his brow a slim coronet made of goldand sapphires. His hair was as bright as the metal. Sansa looked at him and trembled, afraid that hemight 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, andsaid, “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 wassinging. “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 u............