“The servants kept the cups filled all night, yet afterward Sansa could not recall ever tasting the wine. She needed no wine.”
She was drunk on the magic of the night, giddy with glamour, swept away by beauties she had dreamt all her life and never hoped to know. Singers sat before the king's pavillion, filling the dusk with music. A juggler kept a cascade of burning clubs spinning through the air. The king's own fool, the pie-faced simpleton called Moon Boy, danced about on stilts, all in motley, making mock of everyone with such deft cruelty that Sansa wondered if he was simple after all. Even Septa Mordane was helpless before him; when he sang his little song about the High Septon, she laughed so hard she spilled wine on herself.
And Joffrey was the soul of courtesy. He talked to Sansa all night, showering her with compliments, making her laugh, sharing little bits of court gossip, explaining Moon Boy's japes. Sansa was so captivated that she quite forgot all her courtesies and ignored Septa Mordane, seated to her left.
“All the while the courses came and went. A thick soup of barley and venison. Salads of sweetgrass and spinach and plums, sprinkled with crushed nuts. Snails in honey and garlic.”
Sansa had never eaten snails before; Joffrey showed her how to get the snail out of the shell, and fed her the first sweet morsel himself. Then came trout fresh from the river, baked in clay; her prince helped her crack open the hard casing to expose the flaky white flesh within. And when the meat course was brought out, he served her himself, slicing a queen's portion from the joint, smiling as he laid it on her plate. She could see from the way he moved that his right arm was still troubling him, yet he uttered not a word of complaint.
“Later came sweetbreads and pigeon pie and baked apples fragrant with cinnamon and lemon cakes in sugar, but by then Sansa was so stuffed that she could not manage more than two little lemon cakes, as much as she loved them.”
She was wondering whether she might attempt a third when the king began to shout. King Robert had grown louder with each course. From time to time Sansa could hear him laughing or roaring a command over the music and the clangor of plates and cutlery, but they were too far away for her to make out his words.
Now everybody heard him. "No," he thundered, in a voice that drowned out all other speech. Sansa was shocked to see the king on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine in one hand, and he was drunk as a man could be. "You do not tell me what to do, woman," he screamed at Queen Cersei. "I am king here, do you understand?" I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!"
excerpt from A Game of Thrones, Book 1 by George R.R. Martin (Random House, 1997); images from Medieval and Middle Ages Costumes via Old Book Art; The HBO series based on this book has just wrapped up its first season; The latest volume, A Dance With Dragons, is now in bookstores.