Catelyn II

The journey to King's Landing proved absurd, but courtesy stilled her tongue. There was hardly a remark as the royal party passed by a battlefield where hundreds of stripped bodies lay, frozen and cold and white along the edge of the Green Fork.

"Good King Joff smashed 'em, right enough," a Tully man-at-arms said with satisfaction, and none thought much more on the matter.

When Catelyn met the king, she mistook him for Jaime Lannister for half a moment, though the knight in white armor at his side taught her better. Joffrey Baratheon was big and broad and wore plain steel, with the black axe the singers loved so well strapped to his saddle. Always open-handed, His Grace offered to find a place for Rickon at court ere they spoke but once. "You could stay yourself," he said easily. "Robb can hold the North for me. I'm sure my Hand would be glad to have you at his side." This youth clearly required no lessons in speaking like a king, as if all the world belonged to him already. "My Hand," he called Ned. Her husband had not been true, it seemed. Someone else had staked a claim.

Would he take my boy to war? She wondered. He took her girls. Arya wore mail and had a sword hanging from her belt! Catelyn would say Sansa had more sense; her older daughter was bundled up with a fur cloak over a heavy woolen gown, but the way she clung indecently to the king! Lady Stark was surprised she was not yet with child. Thank the gods they were to wed soon.

This was no honor guard to welcome her, Catelyn realized, but riders of war. They had hunted Greyjoy reavers from the Blackwater to the Trident, taking any they could catch. Jon Snow, the bastard, was there as well. "Ser Jon," they called him now, a knight sworn to the king, and high in favor. The easy way his wolf frolicked with those of her trueborn children rankled Catelyn fiercely, but she dared not complain.

Arya had always been wild, yet she hoped life at court might gentle her wayward daughter. A fool's hope, Catelyn realized. If anything, her wildness had spread to Sansa! How easy she rode in the midst of this warlike assembly, how natural it was. None, not even the lowborn archers, seemed to take note of a noble lady's presence. Sansa was the queen, though not yet crowned, and all accepted her at Joffrey's side in peace or on campaign.

They rode hard, covering much ground, and within a fortnight they reached the walls of King's Landing.

Ned looked older when they met again, and Catelyn wondered if she did as well. Her husband's eyes crinkled at the edges, and he smiled warmly enough to drive winter away, if only for a moment. Stark men were there to take her things to the Tower of the Hand. She wondered if her husband would come home now that his friend Robert was gone, but the state of the tower indicated otherwise. The Stark presence at court was strong and growing stronger. Men she remembered, old guards her husband had taken south, looked terribly comfortable here in the Red Keep.

She said the first thing that popped into her head, feeling half a girl again. "The city is cleaner than I remember."

They both laughed. "That it is, King Joffrey's work. I tell you, I was shocked out of my wits when I returned the first time. Robert couldn't help but brag, of course, his son is Bran the Builder come again, he told me."

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Bran.

They had not talked of Bran in some time, their boy lost beyond the wall, all but surely dead. Bran rode to war with the prince and never returned.

From the way her husband spoke, Catelyn realized Joffrey had charmed her husband as assuredly as he'd charmed her daughter. This nonsense with Arya learning the sword from a Braavosi was the king's notion as well; she did not doubt.

The wolves ran free wherever they willed, and had for years, a servant informed her. Rickon's Shaggy took no time at all to fall in with the pack. "You'll be fast friends with my brother, Tommen," Joffrey promised, and went off with Sansa on his arm. They were never far, those two. With bitter longing, she realized this castle was her daughter's home now.

Lady Stark took a deep breath to strengthen her resolve. She had a wedding to plan.

***

Catelyn always believed Sansa would grow into a greater beauty than she had ever been. This wedding proved her right.

Sansa stood before the High Septon in a gown of pure white satin, embroidered with cloth-of-silver thread and studded with diamonds and sapphires. The precious stones glittered with the rainbow light reflecting from the fat man's crystal crown. She looked a queen of winter, a vision of the Maid cast in ice. Her auburn hair, lighter than Catelyn's own, shined like burnished copper in the brightly lit sanctuary of Baelor's Sept.

The dress clung to the swell of her daughter's breasts and revealed the womanly flare of her hips. In her hand was a bouquet of roses, white and winter blue.

They would do two ceremonies in one, the wedding first, then crowning Joffrey and Sansa together. The queen mother, with Ser Jaime at her side, wept softly when Joffrey placed a Baratheon cloak on Sansa's shoulders. Catelyn, too, felt her eyes grow misty to see the little girl, the daughter she remembered, become a woman wed, and queen no less.

They said the words and kissed. Catelyn knew very well that it was not their first kiss, not near the first. Little time was wasted, and the High Septon quickly transitioned to the coronation ceremony. Joffrey and Sansa knelt to be anointed with the seven oils and took another set of vows. When the High Septon placed matching circlets of gold inlaid with red gold on their heads, Queen Cersei lost her composure completely. Ser Jaime took her well in hand and led her from the hall. Hardly anyone noticed. All eyes were upon Sansa's beauty.

My daughter is the queen, Catelyn realized with wonder. This was not courtesy, no sweet words, but a legal fact. She stood at Joffrey's side, and every knee bowed as one. Tears Catelyn had been holding fell at last.

Her husband said something to her when the royal procession began, but she couldn't hear a word of it. All King's Landing was waiting beneath the steps of Baelor's Sept, cheering like madmen. Joffrey and Sansa received their love with easy grace, waving and smiling.

Sansa smiled so wide her face could hardly contain the joy. Her eyes burned brighter than the High Septon's crown when the sun hit it directly. This was her hour.

Sansa in her wedding dress