She may have been through her own kind of gauntlet, and she knew her own kind of hardship, but she had no inkling of how impressive even this modest spread was to a boy from Flea Bottom. Sansa had always understood that the common folk did not eat so lavishly, but even Winterfell did not eat as lavishly as the Red Keep. She never considered the difference might be even more disparate between her experience and his, still assuming he would have bread on his table and meat in his stew.

This table was graced with decidedly Northern tongue in mind: beef and bacon pie; honeyed chicken with roast leeks; baked apples; mulled wine. But the bread and salt held a place of prominence above these other dishes, and Sansa saw it as her duty to personally lift the plates and hold them out to Gendry in a solemn offering. She hoped he knew what he had to do; she hadn't considered how deep the tradition penetrated through the classes. The bread and salt were not necessary; he would eat regardless, and that would cover it. But it had been Petyr who had suggested she make the hospitality unmistakeable.

Approaching him with the guest right -- a few weeks too late, perhaps -- gave her the opportunity to see him scrubbed and de-grimed. What she assumed to be a Baratheon beneath all that dirt turned out to be a rather handsome Baratheon at that. A broad and reliable face, so wholesome when compared to sharp angles she'd once convinced herself she loved on Joffrey.

"I hope the water was to your liking. Not too cold."