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"Stable boy." Willas hears behind him, he cracks his neck and schools his face to indifference. "I've come to check on my horses." Joffrey is dressed entirely to well for a man come down to the stables, smirking at him from the doorway.
Willas hates the man, hates him for all he's done to Sansa, poor sweet Sansa, but he turns to face his employer, gripping the brush in his hand so tightly that his knuckles have turned white.
When he speaks though, his voice is perfectly even, ever the polite man his grandmother raised him to be. "Of course, Mr. Baratheon." He holds a hand to gesture that they walk and begins recounting the status of the horses as they pass each stall.
Talking about the horses calms him, he knows them and stopping to pet their manes soothes his irritation at Joffrey's presence, his existence, the nerve of him to come here to Willas's stables. But of course, Joffrey knows nothing of what has transpired between Willas and his wife. To him, Willas is only the stable boy, and so Willas continues to focus on the horses, drives thoughts of Sansa from his mind.
He is halfway through explaining the re-shoeing of his favorite mare when Joffrey interrupts him.
"Yes. While thats all very well and good, tell me of my stallion."
Willas inwardly sighs. Joffrey was a fool to buy that stallion, stallions are hard to break even for the most experienced rider and Joffrey is as much an experienced rider as he is good to his wife, so the training of the stallion has fallen to Willas. Willas has been working hard with the stallion every day for weeks now, has built enough respect with the animal to at least saddle him and ride him tentatively around the pen, but even then the stallion only allows Willas to be seated for a few minutes before trying to buck him off.
And Willas is not even the one meant to be riding him, Joffrey is.
But Willas is only the stable boy here and as Joffrey said, it is his horse, so Willas leads him over to the stallions pen. "He has not been easy to break, sir." Willas says. "I have been working with him everyday, trying to build trust, but it is a slow process."
"Well thats your problem there." Joffrey sneers. "You need not earn the animal's trust, only break him. Mayhaps, I should start coming down to train the beast. I am its master after all."
Willas bites the inside of his cheek but nods along, He'd like to see Joffrey try to break a stallion.
"You see, stable boy, to break an animal, one needs only show it that it has no where else to go." He reaches out a hand to touch the stallion's mane, The stallion rears back and Joffrey's expression goes sour.
He is livid now, so upset by the notion of one of his belongings not completely subservient to him. "I could break this animal in a week." He proclaims. Cocky in his anger. "It wouldn't be the first animal I broke."
He fumes. "You've seen my wife Sansa haven't you? She is lovely isn't she? So obedient, always there to greet me at the door, never a hair out of place."
Willas's skin feels like its on fire. He sets his jaw and keeps his eyes to the ground, he cannot let Joffrey see the hate in eyes, cannot give him any inclination that something might be going on between he and Sansa, not before they can get away. Damn Loras for taking so long to get those tickets.
Joffrey is unaware of Willas's rage though, too busy bragging. Talking of how he has subjugated poor Sansa has seemed to soothe his anger, her pain a lullaby for his injured ego. "The trick, stable boy, is to use them for their worth and nothing beyond that. If you allow them beyond their position too much, they will believe that they are worth more than they are, will think they have the right to expect things, have the right to disobey. Wives are good for nothing else then fucking and looking pretty, and bearing children of course."
Willas's vision has gone white, but he is holding onto his composure, if only barely. It disgusts and enrages him to hear Joffrey talk of sweet Sansa this way, but they are only words, and it won't be to anyone's benefit if he reveals their affair now, before they have a chance to get away.
"Sansa is such a lovely little fuck," He goes on. "So tight and sweet. She might be a little prudish, a little quiet, but she knows her place and will do as I tell her. And if I want to hear her, she screams so prettily when I use my belt, or pull on her pretty pink ni-"
When Willas runs at Joffrey, it is entirely intentional. His hands are at the bastard's neck. His face fierce and teeth bared. "Do not. Talk of Sansa that way."
Joffrey quickly overcomes his surprise at being throttled, weaselly little face twisting from surprised to livid in a matter of seconds. "You dare to give me orders? Have you forgotten that you are the stable boy here, this is my estate. My stables. I am the heir to the Baratheon fortune, you simpleton."
Willas makes a noise that sounds like a growl, and shakes the heir to the Baratheon fortune.
Joffrey may be Willas's social superior, but Willas easily towers over him. He is glad to see the fear in Joffrey's eyes looking up at him. "I could care less that you are richer than me, sir. You will not speak of sweet Sansa that way. She is worth more than a thousand of you."
Recognition dawns on the bastard then. "Oh, sweet Sansa is it? Are you in love with her, stable boy?" Joffrey's eyes are bright with manic excitement. "Does she know?" He sneers. "Should I tell her that the lowly stable boy is in love with her? I wonder what she would think of that? Or maybe I should just fuck her downstairs, and make sure she screams loud enough for you to hear her? Would you like to hear her scream, stable boy?"
Willas shoves Joffrey harder against the door of the stall. "Don't touch her."
"Or maybe she already knows? Have you told her? Did she turn you down? Did she let you fuck her, my simpering fool of a wife?"
"You know nothing of me and Sansa."
Joffrey's face turns red at that. "She has, hasn't she!? That slut! The whore! I will fucking kill her, useless cunt!"
"Don't. Speak of her that way!"
Joffrey turns his rage on Willas then. "I should kill you first. You dare lay your filthy hands on my wife, stable boy. I'll have you castrated, I'll cut your fucking hands off!"
"And how do you presume to do that, Joffrey. I have you by the throat. You are helpless to me." Willas reminds him, so angry, but so smug in his control over Joffrey. It feels only justice to have him at his mercy after what he has done to Sansa.
Willas should not have underestimated Joffrey though. Vile as a he is, he is cruel and to be cruel, one must also be clever.
Joffrey reaches behind him, grabbing the nearest instrument, the handle of a rake. Willas is unconcerned by that. With the wooden staff, he will be able to do little to Willas.
But Willas is not his target. Instead, he reaches the rake behind him and wacks it soundly against the forgotten stallion's rear.
The stallion rears up, whinnying wildly and kicking its hoofs out into the air. It careens madly, crashing through the door of its stall then into Joffrey and Willas.
There is no time to move, no time to think. Willas barely gets one more glance at Joffrey's mad eyes before they are both being trampled. Joffrey goes down somewhere off the side of him, face down in the hay. Willas cannot really say what has become of his employer, for when he went down, he was taken down by the legs.
He heard the crack of his knee and shin even before he felt it. And now he finds himself blinded by the pain and unable to move besides.