Chapter 22: Joffrey's Public Correction of His Mother's Promise

The morning of the reading was bright in the particular way that King's Landing-upon-Thames managed brightness: abundant, indifferent, and flattering to nothing that did not require flattering. The sun came off the pale stone of the Sept of Riven with the cheerful disregard of a thing that had never heard of the proceedings it was illuminating, and the crowd that gathered on the broad steps and the avenue below — for the occasion had been announced three days in advance, which was either generous or theatrical, depending on one's relationship to the matter — pressed together in the way that crowds always do when they have been told to attend something and have not quite determined how they feel about attending it.

It is a truth of public occasions that the audience's disposition shapes itself to the occasion's declared meaning before the occasion itself has an opportunity to complicate matters. The crowd on the steps of the Sept of Riven had come to witness the formal confession of Lord Eddard Starkton — Lord of Wintermere Park, late Hand of the Crown, and gentleman of some northern distinction — to the charge of treason against the person and authority of King Joffrey Barrowmere, first of that name, long may he reign, and so forth. They had come, in the way that people come to such things, with the settled anticipation of a conclusion already announced, and the particular relief that comes from watching order reassert itself over disruption. The city had not been comfortable for the past three weeks. An acknowledgment of guilt, a gracious royal mercy, a dignified withdrawal to some distant northern property — this was the narrative that had been circulating, with the careful assistance of several parties whose names need not detain us, through every drawing room and coffee house in the capital.

Society, in short, had been promised a tidy resolution and had every expectation of receiving one.