The Kingsroad

Long before the armies of the War of the Five Kings marched along it, this road had already seen blood: in 131 AC a clash took place there that the realm remembers as the Battle of the Kingsroad. Neither the sides nor the outcome are known, only that it happened and that the road itself lent the event its name.

When King Robert Baratheon's retinue leaves the North behind on the way to the capital, it stops to rest at an inn beside the road. It is there, while the company recovers, that a squabble between children ends up touching half the court.

Near a stream close to the inn, Arya is sparring with sticks against Mycah, a butcher's son, when Joffrey and Sansa come upon them. The prince draws his sword and cuts the boy's cheek; Arya strikes him and he flees. When Joffrey then tries to hurt her, the girl's direwolf, Nymeria, bites his arm and gives her time to get away. Arya throws the prince's sword into the water and hides with her wolf until nightfall.

Back with the group, Joffrey lies and blames Mycah, Arya and the direwolf for what happened. Sansa, betrothed to him, cannot bring herself to contradict him outright and says she did not clearly see what took place. King Robert, irritated, rebukes his son for having been disarmed by a little girl and rules that each father will discipline his own child.

Cersei nonetheless demands the death of the wolf that wounded Joffrey, and since Nymeria has fled, Sansa's wolf, Lady, is marked in her place. Eddard cannot change the king's mind and chooses to kill her himself rather than leave it to anyone else; on the way he crosses paths with the prince's bodyguard, already carrying Mycah's lifeless body.