Purple Wedding

There had been another betrothal before this one, and it broke. Joffrey was promised to Sansa Stark, but once House Tyrell swore itself to the Baratheons of King's Landing, the young king traded her for Margaery.

Sansa was not simply set aside: she was married off to Tyrion Lannister, the king's uncle, without anyone asking what she wanted. Before that, Lady Olenna Redwyne had taken the girl aside and asked her plainly whether the stories about Joffrey's cruelty were true.

The wedding morning opened with a breakfast in the queen's ballroom, Lannisters and Tyrell men mixed among a hundred lesser knights and lords; the women of House Tyrell ate apart, with the bride.

There was music, Ser Dontos Hollard clowning about on a broomstick horse, and crude jokes from Moon Boy as the trays went round. Once the food was cleared, Cersei handed Joffrey the bride's cloak — the same one she had worn marrying Robert, inherited from her mother Joanna Lannister.

Then came the gifts, which in the Reach are given separately to each betrothed before the wedding. Joffrey was showered with a golden bow strung with red-and-green fletched arrows, riding boots sent by Lady Tanda Stokeworth, a red leather jousting saddle courtesy of Ser Kevan Lannister, a scorpion-shaped brooch from Prince Oberyn Martell, and silver spurs from Ser Addam Marbrand. Lord Paxter Redwyne sent a model of a galley under construction at the Arbor, Tyrion an ancient book, and his grandfather Tywin gave him the sword Widow's Wail.

The wedding took place at midday in the Great Sept of Baelor, before the statues of the Father and the Mother, with the High Septon presiding.

Margaery arrived in Tyrell colors — green velvet and a hundred roses stitched in gold thread — rather than the black and gold she might have worn as Renly Baratheon's widow. Joffrey wore crimson velvet embroidered with the stag and the lion.

The seven vows were spoken and the seven blessings invoked. When no one rose to stop the marriage, Lord Mace Tyrell lifted his daughter's maiden cloak away, and Joffrey took the bride's cloak his brother Tommen handed him and fastened it around Margaery's throat. The High Septon closed the ceremony by declaring Joffrey of Houses Baratheon and Lannister and Margaery of House Tyrell one flesh, one heart, one soul.

The feast was held in the throne room of the Red Keep. The newlyweds rode in on white horses through scattered rose petals, and over the course of the night seventy-seven dishes were served, from crab in eastern spices to whole roasted peacocks stuffed with dates, capped by a two-meter pie that let out live birds when it was cut open.

Bards competed for the crowd: Hamish the Harper sang, among others, 'The Rains of Castamere'; Collio Quaynis performed 'The Dance of the Dragons', about the Doom of Valyria; Galyeon of Cuy spent seventy-seven verses on the Battle of the Blackwater. Dancers from the Summer Isles performed as well.

Tyrion, seated apart from the rest of the Lannisters next to Sansa, endured a drunken Joffrey needling him, urging him to join two dwarf jesters' comic act, and finally dumping the royal cup over his head and ordering him to serve as his cupbearer. Ser Garlan Tyrell was among the first to reach the king when, shortly after drinking from that cup and eating pigeon pie, Joffrey began to choke and convulse, unable to breathe.

The hall dissolved into shouting and people fighting to get out. Joffrey died pointing at his uncle, who at that moment was emptying the last of the wine onto the floor.

Behind the poisoning were actually Olenna Redwyne and Petyr Baelish, but the blame fell on Tyrion and Sansa. The poison, the strangler, had reached the feast hidden in the amethyst hairnet Sansa wore without knowing what it held.

In the chaos, Sansa managed to slip out of the city, where she had been held since Joffrey had her father, Eddard Stark, publicly executed. She was also the last known Stark heir still alive, so her escape was a real blow to Lannister control of the north.

Almost no one mourned Joffrey besides his mother; not even Jaime Lannister, his father, felt he'd lost much. In time the wedding came to be called the Purple Wedding: for the poison hidden in Sansa's purple hairnet, for the wine in the king's cup that some described as dark red and others as purple, and for the color Joffrey's face turned as he choked.

Months later, far from the court, a soldier named Polliver told his own version of that night: 'The northern girl. The daughter of Winterfell. We heard she killed the king with a spell, then turned into a wolf with great leathery wings like a bat, to fly out through the tower window. But she ran off after the dwarf, and that means Cersei will want her head.'