Chapter 6: Prince Joffrey Barrowmere Distinguishes Himself at the Hunt

The royal hunting party was announced on a Wednesday, which gave Sansa precisely one day to reconsider her riding habit, revise her opinion of it, despair of its deficiencies, and arrive at the conclusion — by Thursday morning at seven o'clock — that it would do tolerably well if one did not stand too close to Lady Harwick, whose pale blue was frankly unassailable.

Arya, informed of the party at breakfast, expressed the view that hunting in palace grounds was not hunting at all but rather a theatrical performance involving horses, and ate her eggs with the emphatic appetite of a young woman declining to be excited about things that did not merit excitement. Lady Catelyn told her to sit straight, which she did, without any notable reduction in her opinion.

Lord Eddard received the invitation from the palace with the expression of a man tallying obligations. He had passed the previous night reviewing the Crown accounts at Lord Baelish's efficient recommendation, and the figures had produced in him a quietness so profound that Lady Catelyn had twice asked whether he was quite well, and he had twice said that he was, with the particular tone that meant he was not prepared to say otherwise.