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There is a chill in Sansa’s rooms that night, a strange tiring dread that makes her legs feel like stone and keeps her from leaving her room. So she does not meet Dontos that night, to reassure him that the Tyrells care, that they can be allies.
The guests begin to arrive for Margaery’s wedding, and Sansa slides between the shadows, which seem deeper than they should be.
She is a figure of pity, heiress to the North who is the King’s plaything, and she hears men talk about what they could do to convince Joffrey to make them castellan in his name.
She watches them plan, and sees the same cool bemusement in Margaery’s eyes, is protected by a watchful wall of ladies who always sweep in at just the right time.
Illness, she notices coolly, begins to strike the menfolk of the Red Keep, and she realizes that she is not the only heiress in King’s Landing. Elinor mentions, once, Lady Shyra, a lady who was with Renly and died the night he did, and that her cousin and heir had supported Stannis. Lady Alysanne is still young, but the Haysford girl is evidence enough.
Many of the men are Westermen, true, but Reacher lords as well, and Sansa remembers hearing Lady Olenna claim that the Tyrell hold on Highgarden is technical at best. (She looks it up, one day, in the library, and finds that it is more at dragonpoint than anything else, which explains quite a bit about why they stayed away from Court until now.)
Sansa pointedly muses to Margaery, one morning stroll in the godswood, that a war with Dorne over a paucity of stomach aches would be a folly, and mentally sends apologies to the Manwoody family later.
Margaery had sent her a wicked grin, though, and said it was sweet to make a viper sweat, occasionally.
~
Margaery’s brother leaves Highgarden in the hands of a castellan to ride to King’s Landing, and Sansa suspects that some of the illnesses have been more delicate than she knew.
Tywin Lannister paces furiously, but his son can barely rise from bed and Lancel is nigh-delirious.
Oberyn Martell once took to walking with her about the Red Keep, making pointed comments designed to make her smile or… she is not certain, perhaps show her rage, but she keeps it to gentle irony and a raised eyebrow, and he leaves with a bemused smile.
The next day, Margaery wakes her before dawn for riding, and they do not return until dusk. Tywin Lannister is seething, and Prince Oberyn winks at them both.
Willas Tyrell arrives at the Court the next day, and Sansa cannot stop blushing, which possibly helps their plan.
Or creates it, in Margaery’s head.
Willas is gentle and kind, and he has a pained look on his face whenever someone says something particularly outrageous, and she thinks him an overly retiring lord until she hears him muttering filthy implications in a stream at dinner, insulting them so cleverly all Sansa can do is giggle as she blushes like a pomegranate.
Margaery is nearly staring, and Sansa realizes that she is laughing so hard she is half-collapsed against Willas.
~
Alla fetches her early that morning, bouncing. “Hurry, hurry, we have a cloak,” she hissed.
Sansa dresses in a simple blue gown, because if she cannot dress in Stark colors, at least she can dress in her Mother’s colors.
She slips out, and she is not terribly surprised to see Prince Oberyn and Willas chattering familiarly in the sept.
“You needed a witness who was not in the future queen’s retinue, and they cannot afford to punish my family too harshly right now,” Oberyn said, something dangerous in his lazy smile. “Besides, bearding the lion in his den seems very fun. I only wish I thought of it first.”
“I think I will be very happy with my choice,” Sansa said, remembering laughing in front of the Court for once, “but I thank you for your kindness.”
“Vengeance, kindness, occasionally with Oberyn you cannot tell the two apart,” Willas said fondly.
“We should hurry,” the septon said nervously.
Sansa nodded.
The uproar was entirely what she expected, but the Lannisters were truly against a wall that appeared to be of their own making, so Sansa ducked her head and smiled and let people think her merely a blushing bride.