A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Sansa IV
Courtesies before the storm: the Tyrells fuss over Sansa's hair and hopes while a hairnet of dark amethysts waits, one stone short of innocent.
The chapter retold
In the anxious lull before Joffrey's wedding, Sansa Stark is fussed over by the Tyrell women, her hair arranged, her wardrobe debated, her role in the coming festivities discussed as though she were still the ornamental young lady the court first mistook her for rather than a Lannister bride sidelined by her own marriage to Tyrion. Amid all the attention to her appearance sits the one detail no one is discussing: the hairnet strung with black amethysts that Dontos gave her, worn now without a second thought, one stone quietly short of the innocent gift it was presented as.
The chapter's tension comes entirely from what the reader has been trained to notice and Sansa has not ÔÇö the hairnet's presence in nearly every scene involving her is no longer incidental, and the courtly fuss over her appearance reads, in hindsight, like preparation for a role nobody has told her she is about to play. It is the last calm before the book's second royal wedding turns into its second massacre.
This movement: The Wall Holds
- Mance's host hits Castle Black from both sides; Donal Noye trades his life for a giant's in the gate.
- Jon commands the Wall with quips and a crossbow ÔÇö until the Watch arrests him for oath-breaking.
- Stannis lands at the Wall with the fury of the one king who answered the letters.
- In King's Landing, the realm dresses for a royal wedding no god intends to bless.