Sansa Stark is being worked on in King's Landing. But it is, in fact, being done gently. Cersei and Pycelle tell her about how evil Ned has been. Cersei works on Sansa's princess complex directly: "You're the daughter of a traitor. How can I allow you to marry my son?" Sansa swears she'll be a good, obedient, mild queen, just like Cersei. If she had ten percent of Cersei's spirit, I'd like her a lot more. It turns out I like evil characters more than wimps. Littlefinger, presumably reading from the script that Cersei handed out before the meeting, says that Sansa should be given a chance to prove her loyalty. She's told to write to Catelyn and Robb and urge them to keep the King's Peace. And Robb needs to come down to King's Landing and swear fealty. Sansa is a little overwhelmed (because normally all she has to do is look pretty and do some embroidery) and says she just wants to see her father and talk to him. This doesn't go over well: "We've told you of your father's treason. Why would you want to talk to a traitor?" So what, Sansa asks, will happen to her father? Depends on Robb. And on her. Sansa takes the quill.

In Winterfell, Robb is outraged by the note. Say, these ravens are quick, aren't they? The specific word he objects to is "treason," but Luwin says that even though it was Sansa's hand, the words were Cersei's. And it's a royal command. Robb says he'll go to King's Landing, but not alone. "Call the banners," he says, and it's not as impressive as the show thinks it is. Although it turns out that calling the banners means assembling a giant army of people sworn to defend the Starks, so I guess that's pretty good after all. It just sounded like he wanted some flags and bunting. Theon smiles, because I guess he likes to see some action. Luwin goes off to do some banner-calling and Theon asks Robb is afraid. Robb looks at his trembling hand and allows as how he appears to be. "Good. Means you're not stupid." I think he could still be stupid. Just not for that reason.

A wide shot of Winterfell shows thousands of crows ascending into the sky and going in all directions. This is probably supposed to be ominous or portentious or something, but it doesn't work on me. See, I work at a place that's directly in a crow migration path or something, so twice a year there are thousands of crows making a racket in the parking lot for a week. It was cool and horror-movie-like at first, but now I'm just used to it. So my reaction to this shot was basically, "Oh, is it October already?"