Chapter 47 – The Purple Wedding
"Look! Our wedding cake!"
Just as uncle and nephew stood locked in an awkward standoff, the Little Rose intervened at precisely the right moment. Joffrey finally shifted his attention as several attendants pushed a towering cake into the hall.
When the cake was cut, she fed him the first bite herself.
As Tyrion and Sansa were about to withdraw, Joffrey suddenly called out:
"My dear uncle—are you truly going to watch as I choke to death?"
Left with no choice, Tyrion stepped forward and poured him a goblet of red wine.
Joffrey drank a couple of mouthfuls. Then, just as he opened his mouth to demand more, the words caught in his throat.
He opened his mouth—
but nothing came out.
Instead, he began coughing violently.
Tyrion was the first to sense something was wrong.
"Fetch a healer," he snapped to a nearby servant.
The others soon noticed as well—this was no ordinary coughing fit. Joffrey clutched at his throat, gasping, as if something had lodged there, unable to draw breath.
The Little Rose stood frozen, cake still in hand. She was closest—and she knew at once that Joffrey was not choking on food.
Something else was wrong.
From the shadows, Varys, who had been watching Joffrey's earlier antics with a dark expression, now felt his blood turn cold.
"Could this be… the great upheaval in King's Landing the mysterious one spoke of?"
He had never imagined that the so-called upheaval would be the assassination of the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms himself.
Below the dais, Cersei had already rushed forward, clutching Joffrey as she screamed and wept.
On the platform, Tyrion silently stepped forward and picked up the golden goblet Joffrey had dropped—the very cup of wine he himself had poured.
"It was him! It was him!"
Cersei shrieked, her voice cracking with hatred.
"That dwarf murdered the king! Guards—seize him!"
Joffrey's eyes bulged grotesquely, his face purple and lifeless in her arms.
Tyrion allowed himself to be taken without resistance.
From his seat, Varys watched, his breathing growing shallow.
Was this all the work of the mysterious one?
Poisoning Joffrey. Framing Tyrion. Forcing him—Varys—to throw in his lot with Queen Daenerys?
The thought sent a chill down his spine.
The plan's secrecy alone was terrifying. Varys had scoured King's Landing for any hint of the "coming upheaval" and found nothing. Only the one who orchestrated it could have known in advance.
Keeping his composure, Varys scanned the guests carefully, searching for the true executor of the deed.
Then he noticed something.
A heavyset servant approached Sansa, grasped her arm, and began pulling her away.
She seemed to recognize him. After a brief hesitation, she slipped away from her seat amid the chaos.
Varys did not move to stop them.
He had no idea who was spiriting Sansa away—but intervening now would only paint a target on her back.
In Cersei's blind rage, Sansa might easily become the next accused.
Varys swept his gaze across the chaos and noticed Shae, standing frozen with a serving tray in her hands, staring blankly at Tyrion as the guards dragged him away.
It was time.
He rose slowly from his seat and slipped away.
From his vantage point, Drogon also saw Sansa being led away.
With Robb still alive, Sansa could never become Queen in the North. Drogon could not understand why Petyr Baelish would still choose to spirit her away.
That man—the greatest instigator in the Seven Kingdoms—was clearly plotting something again.
---
The wedding feast dissolved into utter chaos.
Tyrion was arrested.
Maesters rushed to examine Joffrey's corpse.
Guests fled in panic, terrified of being implicated in the king's death.
Having seen enough of the spectacle, Drogon quietly slipped into the kitchens and storerooms, stuffed two large bags full of food, and departed King's Landing for Dragonstone.
What followed the king's murder was now Varys's responsibility.
---
After leaving the feast, Varys sought out Shae immediately.
Without Tyrion's protection—and no longer concealed by her role as Sansa's maid—Shae had nowhere to hide.
Cersei already knew her identity through reports from other servants. While Tyrion had lived freely, Cersei had been forced to restrain herself. Now, with Joffrey dead, her hatred burned unchecked.
Once she recovered from her grief, Shae would be next.
Varys explained the danger to her in plain terms, but Shae refused to leave.
She insisted on waiting until Tyrion was safe.
She knew that once she left King's Landing, she would never see him again.
Unable to persuade her—and unable to reveal his plan to smuggle Tyrion away—Varys resorted to deception.
He lured Shae into a secluded alley, and when she turned her back, struck her unconscious with a swift blow.
Growing up in the lawless slums of Lys, Varys had never been a helpless eunuch.
He summoned two men already waiting nearby and had Shae quietly taken away—an unpleasant necessity he had long prepared for.
Once Shae was secured, Varys turned his attention to another critical matter: confirming the readiness of those tasked with extracting Shireen.
That, too, could not be allowed to fail.
---
Blackwater Bay
Sansa followed the fat servant in a small boat to a deserted stretch of shore.
Moments after they arrived, another vessel emerged silently from the fog.
As the servant helped Sansa aboard the second ship and turned to leave, a sword suddenly thrust out of the mist—piercing straight through his chest.
Sansa spun around in horror.
Standing there was Petyr Baelish—long-faced, narrow-eyed, his thin mustache curled faintly upward.
"Why did you kill Ser Dontos?" Sansa asked, her voice tight.
The fat servant was Ser Dontos Hollard, the drunken knight Sansa had once saved—later made Joffrey's fool.
"For our safety," Petyr replied lightly. "I had no choice."
"We could have taken him with us," Sansa insisted, shaken.
Petyr smiled faintly.
"Do you know what we've just done?" he said softly. "We murdered the King of the Seven Kingdoms. If word gets out, Cersei will hunt us to the ends of Westeros."
Sansa's eyes widened in shock.
"We… we killed Joffrey?"
"You really are careless," Petyr said.
He raised his hand toward her pale throat.
Sansa flinched—then realized he was removing the crystal necklace she wore.
It was a gift Dontos had given her days earlier. She had refused at first, but he claimed it was a family heirloom and insisted she wear it as repayment for saving his life.
Now Petyr held the necklace up.
Sansa stared in disbelief.
One of the crystal "stones" was missing.
Petyr rubbed his fingers together at the empty setting.
"A gentle squeeze," he said, "and the poison slips neatly into the goblet."
With that, he tossed the necklace onto Dontos's corpse.
Sansa's chest rose and fell rapidly.
She had never realized—
never even suspected—
that she herself had been the instrument of the king's murder.
Her mind raced back over the wedding, searching for anyone who had touched her neck.
A kind, elderly face slowly surfaced in her memory.
So that was why the Queen of Thorns had invited her to visit.
Why she had asked so many questions about Joffrey.
Sansa finally understood.
To keep her granddaughter from marrying that monster, the old queen had dared to commit regicide.