beta: Kira Tamarion
-o-o-o-
King Loghain took the missive from the courier's trembling hands and dismissed him with a silver and a fatherly ruffle of hair, which was dripping with sweat from the recent ride. The boy performed a heartfelt bow that almost made him slam his forehead against his knees, and then went away smiling, his face purple red.
The missive bore the seal of Redcliffe: Maric was traveling to Denerim, announcing his impending arrival for a visit at court. Loghain smiled, he had not seen his best friend for over a year now, busy as he was rebuilding what the war had destroyed, renewing relationships with Fereldan nobility, ruling a country that was no longer used to freedom or their own king sitting on the throne.
After delivering little Anora to Mother Ailis he strode to the upper floors. It was a rainy afternoon and he was sure he would find Rowan engaged in some foolhardy game with her two small rascals. Before he started up the stairs he could already hear the battle cries and recognized the voice of brave Ser Gareth challenging the treacherous Rendorn in a fight to death. Loghain knocked at the door, but the roar of battle drowned out every other sound. He heard a female voice crying, struck down to die. He entered and saw his wife lying on the ground with a wooden sword tucked under her arm, there were overturned chairs and two little boys were thrashing each other in the middle of the room, their faces reddened with excitement.
"Rowan!" He called his wife with pretended disappointment but without being able to hide a smile. "If you let them do whatever they want one day they'll gouge out each other's eyes!" He gave a quick look at the devastation that reigned inside the room and saw his precious chessboard upside down, the pieces scattered all around under the table. He snorted. "I've never asked you to keep them under a glass jar but..."
"Attack!" cried Gareth, lunging at him with his wooden sword. Loghain dodged and disarmed his son, lifted him with one hand and approached his wife handing the missive to her while his little victim kept kicking the air and screaming, "Help! A Dragon! Help!"
Rowan squeaked in excitement and hugged him, hopping with joy like a little girl. "Maric and Katriel are coming! And they're carrying Cailan and their little daughter with them!"
During his visit to Redcliffe, Loghain had already had the pleasure of meeting his friend's firstborn, a lovely boy with honey-blond curls and eyes very similar to his mother's green, though not so bright. Little Cailan was about Rendorn and Gareth's age, his twins born soon after his coronation five years ago, Moira was born the previous autumn like Anora. Each girls were given the name of their respective paternal grandmothers to honor the memory of two extraordinary Fereldan women, both brutally murdered before the eyes of their young sons. It was just one of the many things the two friends shared. Of course, they also shared being married with two wonderful women who had given them equally wonderful kids.
After their escape through the Deep Roads and the retaking of Gwaren, Loghain had been tempted to tell Maric that Katriel had betrayed them all, and that she was the one to blame for the death of Arl Rendorn, Rowan's father. He had her followed and had discovered she wasn't headed to Amaranthine, but to the usurper's palace in Denerim. Not that Loghain needed any proof to understand that the elven woman was a spy and a traitor, but Maric did, and it was about time someone finally opened his eyes.
But something kept him from doing it. News had come that King Meghren's right-hand man, senior enchanter Severan, had placed a bounty on the girl's head and this made him change his mind about her, opening a door to give her a second chance. But the main reason Loghain held back from telling Maric was the knowledge that the boy would be totally destroyed. Maric was his best friend and loved that elven girl with his whole heart, he trusted her blindly, and he would surely go crazy from the pain of discovering who she actually was.
No, he could not do that to him, not even in the name of justice.
So he decided to leave the matter to evolve on its own, and simply kept his eyes open. It didn't take long for things resolve on their own, and brilliantly so: Katriel confessed her betrayal to Maric, telling him soon after about her recent turnabout towards her former agents, and finally she confided her love to him. Maric, well, he cried aloud and was nearly insane with anger for a few minutes, shed a few tears to soothe his wounded pride, and in the end forgave her without reservation.
Everything turned out for the best and, thanks to Maric, Katriel, had become an entirely different person from the unprincipled bard who had lured them into the trap. Additionally, Maric had come to understand that he hadn't had what it takes to be a good king: he was too naive to survive in a world of intrigue, and in any case he had never wished to. Not to mention that dear old Fereldans would never have accepted a queen of elven kind and he had no intention to give up his happiness to pander their prejudice. He had already given much of himself to Ferelden, maybe even too much; he felt it was time to start living.
And thus, in the end he decided to abdicate in favor of his friend, the man without whom he would have ended up dead at least three times, and without whose help he wouldn't have been able to carry forward the Rebellion begun by his mother Moira, the Rebel Queen.
Loghain accepted. He felt he had what it takes to rule and he loved his country more than anything else in the world, except perhaps Rowan. The nobles who fought at his side during the rebellion, or who supported it from a distance, welcomed him as their legitimate sovereign without question, while the commoners were enraptured at seeing one of his sons ascend to the throne.
Loghain Mac Tir became the living symbol of the Fereldan belief that a man is to be judged for his actions, not his origin.
Rowan was excited. "We have to start making the arrangements, we will give them the rooms facing east, they are the driest and when the sky is clear you can see the ocean from the windows! Ah! Children, put everything in place, I'm going to take you to Mother Ailis. Your father and I have things to do now, come on! "
Loghain watched his wife as she ran to and fro across the room, pouring out a steady stream of words and bouncing in excitement; he was seized by a profound sense of peace and smiled. Suddenly, he felt as something was wrong, and the voice of Rowan sounded more and more distant, muffled, unreal.
"Loghain wake up!" A female voice made him abruptly emerge from that dream. He opened his eyes and after a few moments of confusion he remembered he was not in any way the King of Ferelden but the Teyrn of Gwaren.
A few rays of a pale autumn sun filtered through the window of the castle and Rowan was lying at his side. "Good morning beauty, what is it?" He asked smiling at two bright grey eyes staring at him with their usual expression, between the blissful and the impish.
"Nothing, you were stirring in your sleep and anyway it's time to get up... aaaaahhh...mmmmh... good morning to you my beloved husband!" She replied yawning and stretching.
Loghain sat on the bed and rubbed his face to chase the memory of the dream that was so vivid.
Maric had not abdicated, but had become the king, he had even managed to push his people to accept an elven queen and now they almost worshiped her.
The Fereldan people, after all those years of humiliation and abuse, would have accepted anything from a king returned from the dead to free them from the invaders. Maric was more than loved, he was worshiped as a living legend, and if a living legend had made an elf his queen it could only mean that the Maker himself wished that the elves be considered as equals. After centuries of slavery, twelve years reign of Maric the Savior had given the elven race equal rights and the same opportunities of human kind. Even if by choice many remained segregated in their quarters, these were no longer gloomy ghettos full of poverty and rats, but had become real jewels of architecture.
Some Dalish had returned to live among their city cousins, bringing the culture of their people to those who had forgotten, and now the Elven districts shone with beauty, their gardens were famous even outside of Ferelden and bards played Dalish traditional music at court.
Loghain felt shrouded in a sense of peace: just like in his dream, his life had been blessed by the good fortune of having married the woman he loved, and she had given him three remarkable children. Rendorn and Gareth were now almost twelve years old and were strong, lively, and smart boys, with a keen sense of honor and justice. He was so proud of them that there were moments when, looking at them, he felt like his heart exploded in his chest. Little Anora was going to be eight and she was turning a real beauty with those raven curls and grey-blue eyes and, thank the Maker, Rowan's nose.
Loghain had always sworn to himself that if ever fate gifted him with a daughter, he would have named her after his mother. Little Anora didn't have the looks of her paternal grandmother, but she shared her same attitude—so fierce and determined... and she would certainly have scolded him if he arrived late for breakfast.
He left the room and hurried down the stairs, slipped on the wet steps and tumbled down the ramp knocking his head against the wall.
"Honey, are you hurt?"
At the scent of the toasted bread he had rushed down the stairs ending up face down on the kitchen floor. Loghain opened his eyes on his mother's smiling face. She had jade green eyes and mahogany colored hair. He had just turned ten and he was happy because he was now big enough to help his father plow a new piece of land. They were going to plant pumpkins, cabbages, potatoes, turnips, and all other vegetables to be stored for the winter.
After breakfast Gareth Mac Tir reached the stables, Loghain put the last bite of bread and jam into his mouth and went to join him, but there was a sudden uproar, he heard Adalla's furious barking followed by a yelp. His father burst through the kitchen door and bolted it. "The Orlesians!"His mother glanced out of the window and barely held back a scream. "Oh Gareth, I told you we would have regretted our refusal to pay the taxes, what are we to do now? "
"There are at least ten, and well armed, I never imagined to have a that many soldiers inside my farm early in the morning!"
There was a loud thud, other men had broken through the back door and had entered. There were more than they thought. His father launched himself against them with an angry cry, he was a huge man, six feet tall and as strong as a bull, but he was just a farmer.
Loghain heard hoarse laughter, the voices mocked him in an incomprehensible language, then two strong arms held him in place and a hostile hand grabbed his long black hair to immobilize his head, his neck ached. He heard his mother's cries mingle with those dreadful voices.
"Tais-toi, laide salope!"
"Cette chienne gigote comme un animal sauvage!"
"Aïe! La putain Fereldènne m'a mordu!"
His mother cried for help but he couldn't move, panic seized him.
...
Loghain emerged with a start from his short, restless sleep, the hideous laughter of those men echoing inside his head.
A faint light filtered through the tent and he guessed it was dawn. He ran a hand over his tired face, focusing on his heavy eyelids, swollen from the lack of sleep. His mother's widened eyes however kept staring at him, almost as if to ask forgiveness for what he had been forced to witness.
His mother was a strong, fierce woman, a true Fereldan, and on that cursed day she fought with all her strength, overwhelming large number of soldiers before being overpowered, and even when forced against the kitchen table she kept fighting like a fury. Perhaps that was the reason why they slit her throat before his eyes after having raped her one after the other.
Why did those memories re-emerge from limbo to haunt him after all those years? Was it not enough that dreams of what his life could and should have been plagued him almost every night? The demons of the Fade seemed so eager to torture him with those visions that, by now, he was even afraid to close his eyes. Or maybe the demons had nothing to do with it and it was just time for him to come to terms with his conscience. Or who knows, maybe it was Katriel herself who enjoyed haunting him from the Fade in revenge for having her life taken away when she was so young. Yet Maric had confided to him that the girl's spirit was at peace, she had forgiven... but perhaps she had forgiven only Maric, not him.
Silence reigned in the camp at Ostagar. He sighed. If indeed it was dawn he had slept about an hour, maybe two if he was lucky.
He sat up on his couch, which bore the signs of a restless sleep, picked up the pillows from the floor and tossed them on the rolled-up blankets. Then he got up and poured some remains of tea into a cup left on the table. One sip was enough to make him cringe, but it was still better than the taste he had in his mouth.
For more than forty years after his mother's death, the mere memory of the revolting sound of the Orlesian language was enough to cause him waves of nausea. He turned his eyes to the small mirror placed on the bedside table and caught a brief glimpse of a face devastated by a prolonged lack of sleep. He quickly looked away from that unedifying image, which he still found hard to get used to. He took another sip, it was as bitter as his mood, then he tried to remember the last time he had enjoyed a good night's sleep. His mind brought him back to an early spring morning when he had opened his eyes on his wife's beautiful face, noticing the first signs of the illness that was about to kill her swiftly. It had been twelve years now.
His Celia, just like Rowan, had been taken away by a violent fever without a name, nor any apparent cause, and above all, completely refractory to any cure, magic or not.
Both women had surrendered to it without fighting, accepting the extreme bodily weakness and the resulting forgetfulness as a blessing, and had burned away like straw on fire.
After having sacrificed her youth fighting for the Rebellion, Rowan had lived a very short life, and it had been a half-life of pretense; exactly like his, except she hadn't chosen it. As much as Loghain had tried to convince himself that Rowan had been tainted with the corruption during their flight through the Deep Roads, as Maric had told him to believe, he knew in his heart that it was a lie. He had killed her.
That cursed night, after they retook Gwaren his boundless pride prevailed. Maric was his best friend, and yet he put him back against the wall in a moment of extreme exhaustion to pour upon him something he wasn't able to bear. Needless to say, the emotional pain drove the young man mad, in his anger-induced folly he struck Katriel dead and spent the rest of his life tormenting himself with guilt.
In that moment, the young Loghain had had the hubris to presume to be the only one to understand what needed to be done. He was gripped by a thirst for revenge after her betrayal, and his hatred for Orlesians had reached its peak. Katriel was both a traitor and an Orlesian spy; he wanted her dead. Caught by the irrepressible impulse to show Maric how foolish he had been, he was seething with desire to slam his ingenuity into his face, and a part of him had even enjoyed seeing him gasp in disbelief, discovering that his beloved elf had deceived him for so long. In fact, news had come that Severan had placed a bounty on the girl's head, but that hadn't been enough to stop him.
That unfortunate night, Loghain also broke Rowan's heart. He never understood what had driven him to do such thing, but at that time he felt that the responsibility for how things would turn out weighed entirely on his shoulders. Maric was hopelessly naïve, and Rowan was a great soldier and an amazing woman, but she had a soft heart, and she was in love. It was up to him to pull out of Maric the King Ferelden needed. He knew that in the future, Maric would need a strong woman like Rowan at his side in order not to collapse under the weight of responsibility.
So Loghain took hold of everyone's lives, pulling the strings of events and forcing the hand of fate. He was full of self-righteous energy, so determined to finish what he had fought for years, that it was as if some demon had possessed him. And maybe that was the case, he told himself bitterly.
He had always repeated to himself that, after all, he only pushed Rowan away so she could marry the man she had been in love with for so many years... years in which he had stayed on the sidelines seemingly aloof but suffering in silence, while she only had eyes for her blonde prince, and Maric was too dumb to realize how lucky he was.
He smiled bitterly. That there might be, beneath his act, a desire for revenge for having been unkindly rejected, it was a thought he had never taken into consideration, but it seemed the time for confessions had come, and so he also pondered that possibility.
Now, however, they were all dead, he was left alone.
Rowan ... They had experienced their first and only time in the least romantic and hospitable place in the entirety of Ferelden—the Deep Roads. They were dirty, intoxicated by the smoke, and exhausted from the fight against the spiders. The cave was cold and there was not much that could ease the contact of their skin with the bare rock, but the years spent in the open as rebel fighters had hardened their bodies. Loghain only remembered the feel of Rowan's scorching body, so soft and strong at the same time, the intense scent of her skin, the passion with which she clasped and kissed him, as if she was trying to regain all the lost time in those few moments, the intensity of the pleasure that caught him almost by surprise, as a nice side effect consequent to his union with the woman he had desired for so long with every ounce of his being.
For a long time the only thing that made their lives bearable were their clandestine meetings into the Fade. These had begun before Rowan's declaration of love in that cold cave in the Deep Roads, but until that night both had believed they were nothing more than prohibited dreams. However, after that infamous night when Loghain had decided the future for them, Rowan didn't show up anymore. Loghain believed she hated him for what he had done, but in the end she had realized how much she had repeatedly wounded him, and what a fool she had been.
A few months after the battle on the shores of River Dane, in a stormy night Loghain found her on the bank intently staring at a weird ocean whose waters stirred in an unnatural way, in a grotesque imitation of reality as always happened in the world of spirits and demons. The landscape often mutated in the Fade, and without following precise rules, it was a chaotic realm in which the places disappeared and reappeared from moment to moment, but the creek between the rocks and the small beach overlooking the ocean were still there, unchanging and ever-present, waiting, complicit, for the two lovers.
Loghain and Rowan were both already married and supposedly happy: Maric was an adoring husband, he filled Rowan with care and attention and bent over backwards to meet her every desire. Celia was a very beautiful woman and an exemplary wife, madly in love with the man she had married. Supposedly, they could not have wished for more, but it felt as if both were living the lives of someone else, and it wasn't what they were meant for. Their nightly meetings into the Fade lasted a few years until one night he joined her in order to tell her it was over. His gaze was not as hard as the night he had spoken the same words in the real world, but rather pained. What they were doing was not fair to Maric and Celia.
His wife had realized she wasn't the one who dwelt in the deepest corners of his heart, she had repeatedly heard him shouting Rowan's name in the middle of the night, and although he loved her with sincerity and was a devoted husband, Celia felt as if she were a stranger to him. As much as she tried to hide it, his wife was in distress. Loghain understood it from her sad eyes hidden behind smiles, the way she looked at him, the way she burst into tears for no apparent reason. From that night on, Loghain didn't show up anymore in the corner of Fade that someone had created specifically for them, but the small creek on the ocean stood there, waiting.
A few months later, a courier came to Gwaren delivering a letter: the queen was dying. She was hit by an obscure fever and she didn't have much time. Loghain saddled his horse and galloped away without saying goodbye to Celia and without giving any explanation. He rode hard and arrived in Denerim in time to be greeted by an ashen-faced Maric who joined him shaking his head. Rowan wasn't dead yet but she was a ghost of herself, she was often delirious, and now had not regained consciousness for days.
He took him to her. Loghain followed him at deliberate pace, counting the steps that separated them with a heart full of fear. He saw her lying on a small bed by the window, her face pale and gaunt skin stretched over bones, her beautiful features almost unrecognizable. He crossed the room in a trance, fell on his knees at her bedside and took her hand in his. It was light and cold, looking as fragile as glass. He called her name in a voice choked with emotion but she did not answer, she was lost in another dimension, her eyes fixed on something only she could see.
That night he sought her in the Fade and found her lying on the small beach by the ocean. He ran to meet her, but when he reached her his heart stopped. She was as pale and emaciated like in the real world, breathing heavily, and her eyes open wide focused on an inner world. He took her hand in his. "Rowan!" He called her, but she remained motionless and unresponsive. "Rowan come back please, I'm here," he pleaded. She finally looked at him and her eyes filled with tears, but she was too weak to utter a word. He took her into his arms to rock her like a child and it was there, in his arms, that Rowan gave up to death.
The following day all the people of Ferelden mourned their beloved queen and clung to their king in his time of grief.
Loghain's thoughts were interrupted by the voices of the first men waking up and coming out of their tents, and between them he could discern one voice that struck his nerves, which were already tense like lute strings. It was more tinkling and jovial than usual, and he wondered what could ever put such a good mood into the empty head of his son in law so early in the morning. Hoping it was not news of the arrival of the Grey Wardens from Orlais. Although the Grey Wardens were, according to them, an apolitical order, and with a purpose, officially, for the greater good, he did not trust them as he did not trust anyone else who came from those lands.
For three decades he had found solace in the knowledge that his sacrifice was meant to forever rid Ferelden of that cursed race, and now that pathetic puppet of a king kept talking about diplomacy and cooperation with them. The Orlesians ... Beasts! Nothing but botched, grotesque imitations of people, and if there really was a Maker he must have lost any interest in human race as the result of his shame for allowing the Orlesians to twist what he created, he was sure.
Loghain clenched his teeth and swallowed hard, an intense bitter taste contorted his whole face into a grimace of disgust.
How could that irritating brat even think about asking the help of a people who found a source of pride in the skill of subterfuge, and who had elevated the pettiest intrigues to the status of a fine art? Did he not realize, naive as he was, that they would have stolen Ferelden from under his nose with a game of cards?
During the Rebellion the young Loghain had had the opportunity to sample the natural talent of Orlesians for double-dealing, as well as their immense taste for the abuse of power, but on the other hand he also had to acknowledge the ease with which many Fereldans were willing to betray their own people and sell themselves to foreigners. A contact with Orlais, albeit temporary, was too risky. Blight or no, they could not take the risk to nullify all the efforts made and all the blood spilt to retake their land.
Now, however, he seemed to be left alone to remember those things, or nearly so. Many of the Banns who had supported the Rebellion had been slain in battle, or being already mature in age thirty years before, were now dead by old age or illness; now their heirs ruled those lands, but few of them were willing to remember the dark times of the Occupation, and even less had fought against the usurper.
If only Maric was here...
But in the end, Maric was also gone. Now the fate of Ferelden was in the hands of his son, Cailan, who had never lived as an outlaw for a single day of his privileged life and thus had no idea what it meant to suffer every kind of deprivation. He never slept in the open, or starved, he never fought a real battle and the most serious wound he ever suffered consisted of a bad skinning of his knees. But nonetheless Cailan allowed himself to treat him like an old paranoid pain in the ass.
Loghain swore that if the insolent brat had taken the liberty to taunt him for his alleged fussiness in planning the war strategies, he would have smashed his face against the table. Things rarely went as planned even when there was a detailed strategy, as he had personally experienced, but every time he tried to put common sense into that empty head, all he got in response were wide yawns accompanied by impatient glances, followed in turn by annoying barbs about his lack of spirit for adventure.
What had so far prevented him ridding himself of Cailan wasn't the fact that he was his best friend's only son, nor that he was his only daughter's beloved husband. That young man embodied the main reason, the ultimate purpose, and the very essence of his sacrifice—young Loghain Mac Tir had fought for over three years to regain the throne for Maric, and then had thrown the woman he loved into his kingly arms in order to give an heir to Ferelden.
If the result of his sacrifice was Cailan, then he just had to get over it.