A Clash of Kings ÔÇö Sansa I
At Joffrey's nameday tourney a drunk Ser Dontos rides out in nothing but his smallclothes; Sansa's quick lie turns his execution into motley.
The chapter retold
Sansa has learned, in a single season at court, exactly how thin the ice under her is, and this chapter shows her walking it with real skill for the first time. At JoffreyÔÇÖs nameday tourney, a drunken Ser Dontos rides out in nothing but his smallclothes to general hilarity ÔÇö a joke that turns lethal the instant Joffrey decides a knight who embarrasses him should drown in wine for it. Sansa, thinking fast in a way the book takes care to notice, points out that killing him on his nameday is bad luck; better to make him a fool than a corpse. Joffrey, more interested in the second cruelty than the first, agrees, and Dontos lives, drunk and disgraced, dressed as a jester from that day on.
It is a small mercy bought with a lie of tone rather than fact, and it is SansaÔÇÖs real education: survival at this court is a performance art, not a moral one, and she has just given her first successful performance. Dontos will remember the debt long after everyone else forgets the joke, and the seed planted here ÔÇö a fool who owes Sansa his life ÔÇö will not bear fruit for many chapters yet, but the chapterÔÇÖs real subject is SansaÔÇÖs dawning fluency in the language that keeps her alive: tell Joffrey what flatters his cruelty, and steer it where you can.
This movement: The Comet
- A red comet splits the sky; five would-be kings each read their crown in it.
- On Dragonstone, Maester Cressen tries to poison the red priestess and drinks first; Stannis proclaims Joffrey a bastard born of incest.
- Tyrion takes the Hand's chair with Bronn at his back and starts removing his sister's men.
- Beyond the Wall, the Old Bear leads three hundred swords north into silence.