Chapter Text
Sansa was to remember this incident many years after it took place—she often wondered why she and Jeyne had not heeded the witch’s warnings. After all, the girls had sought her out to learn their future—and when they were told what would happen, they had gone away, refusing to believe her words.
They did not meet the witch at Winterfell or on the road south, but in King’s Landing, of all places, and at the Hand’s Tourney. Septa Mordane, who had been with them on the first day, was too ill to take them to the tourney on the second, so the two girls, along with a very reluctant Arya, had to go with Lord Stark. Sansa and Jeyne went to meet the witch after the tourney was over—the Hound, who had rescued Ser Loras from the Mountain on the first day, had been declared champion, as Sansa had hoped he would be.
She did not now recall where her father and Arya had gone—her father must have gone to see the king, who was threatening to participate in the melee, and Arya had probably decided to sit and talk to Jory and the other guardsmen who accompanied them. One of them mentioned seeing a tent where a maegi was seated, and spoke of how these women foretold the future after tasting your blood. Arya had laughed at the man, telling him that no one sensible believed in prophecies or witches, but Sansa and Jeyne took him aside while Arya spoke to someone else to ask him where he had seen her. Hesitantly, he told them where to find her, but he did advise them not to go to her, for blood magic was dangerous—everyone said so.
They left soon afterwards—luckily, the woman was camped not too far from the tourney grounds. Sansa felt no need to consult the witch—she knew she would wed Joffrey and become queen, but that would come about years later, by the grace of the gods. However, Jeyne did want to know whom she would marry and how many babes she would bring forth. And she did advise Sansa to ask the witch if she would bear sons or daughters.
They found the old woman (for she was a wrinkled old woman, her skin as mottled with warts as that of a toad) fast asleep in the chair in her tent when they arrived. Sansa cleared her throat loudly and rapped thrice on the table in front of her to awaken her. The old woman opened her eyes, which were large, bulbous and yellow in colour, and looked at the girls, who curtsied to her, for they had both decided to be as polite as possible—if she was a powerful witch, she could curse them, which would do them more harm than good.
“Be seated, ladies,” she said, in the wheezing voice of an old woman. “No doubt, you two northern lasses would want to know who you will wed and how many sons you will bring forth.”
Sansa looked at her, surprised. “My lady,” she asked timidly, “how can you tell we are from the north?”
“Why, my pretty one, everyone knows that Lord Stark, the King’s friend and now his Hand, has brought his daughters to court. The older and prettier one is betrothed to the Crown Prince—and you must be she. This child,” indicating Jeyne, “must be your friend—your sister is much younger than you, is she not?”
Sansa nodded her head dumbly as she and Jeyne seated themselves on chairs across the table from the old witch. They then silently proffered her their hands—she took a shiny needle, soaking in a glass filled with wine, heated it using the lit candle on her table and pricked their ring fingers. When a drop of blood, as red as a ruby, appeared on each finger, she put the finger in her mouth and sucked at it greedily. When she had done this, she looked at them both and spoke:
“Neither one of you will have joy of this—your sojourn in the south. You will lose all you hold dear here and will suffer greatly, living apart, even as you both long to go home. You, my lady,” she looked at Sansa as she spoke, “will be very happy when the king breaks his betrothal to you. But you will not be free to leave, for then you will wed a kind man whom his own lord father treats as a bastard, even though he was born of his wedded wife. And it will be many weary years yet before you fly home to gather your flock together and rebuild your nest. And you, my girl,” she said, looking at Jeyne, “will dress in false colours to wed a cruel man who is bastard born, but whom his lord father will legitimize for want of heirs. You will return home before your friend, but only to a broken nest, which you will flee with a broken man, when war is brewing and the world is white with snow. Now, girls, your future is told—leave an old woman to sleep, why don’t you?”
Chastened, the girls left her tent, not knowing what to make of these prophecies. They both regretted their visit to her—Sansa could not help remembering how Maester Luwin used to pooh-pooh all talk of magic and prophecies, even though he had earned a link in magic at the Citadel. They both decided they would try and forget what the old woman had said, and they did—until the day that Sansa arrived at the Wall, to find Jeyne and Theon guarding Jon’s body against the red woman.