I wish I had been a king for you, little angel.
"We should move on, sire."
"I came to watch and listen, Alun. I can't do that if we hurry past." Nevertheless the guardsman had grounds to be anxious. They had only just left Denerim's market district and it was not long past dusk, yet the streets were noticeably darker as well as in ill repair. No doubt it was because the buildings huddled so closely together that they blocked out the light. Some of the second stories reached even across the narrow alleys to lean on each other for support. The buildings were so decrepit that it was support that was desperately needed. Still, the most threatening thing they had passed were brazen rats the size of mabari whelps. It was suppertime and many elves were in their homes, though the ones on the street cast suspicious glances at the two human men that passed by, one of them with hood drawn.
At a confluence of alleys, the men paused. From inside the tenements they could hear the rattle of cookware, a hum of conversation, and what sounded like a marital argument. A woman leaned out of a window and called down an insult to youths loitering in the street, which was promptly returned to her tenfold. Across from them, two men were working in a sooty basement workshop, banging out pots in almost pitch darkness but for the light from their forge's flame. Maric watched them for a moment, then turned his head to look up one of the alleyways where some children were shouting in the middle of a game. Apart from them, in a pool of lamplight, a young child perched on a wooden block. She made such a solitary figure that Maric turned to walk towards her, curious.
As they approached, Maric saw that the child had another block set up next displaying ornaments woven from straw. They were pretty in a crude way: Two-dimensional stars, doll figures and animals. The child herself sat with head bowed, arms wrapped around her knees. She wore a filthy shift that once might have been yellow. As the two men stood directly over her, she lifted her eyes to look at them.
"Buy," she said in the uncouth dialect of the alienage, gesturing with a grubby hand towards the ornaments.
As the child looked up at him, Maric's throat caught. Her dark hair was greasy and unkempt, and her face was streaked with dirt, but the small dark eyes struck a chord in him so deep that he was instantly in another place and other time. That had also been a cheerless, dank place. He accompanied several Grey Wardens on a dangerous mission in the Deep Roads. The threat that hung over him in that place was far greater than anything that stalked Denerim's alienage, but he had volunteered for the mission in part because his life as king of Ferelden and widower had grown empty beyond endurance. The mission had been a mixed success, nevertheless Maric came out of it with a new sense of hope, largely because of the elven Warden who accompanied them. More than companion, she had become his lover, eventually the mother of his youngest son.
He had returned to the kingship with a new sense of purpose, but lost Fiona and lost their son. There was no place for Fiona outside her order and he could offer her nothing in the palace but indignity. Their son they had sent away to be raised without knowledge of his parentage. Yet Maric never forgot her, and it was because of her that he sought to walk the alienage, after dark and in the guise of a commoner. Is life as an elf really that terrible? he had asked her, and everything about her told him that yes, it could be that terrible. For Fiona's sake, Maric wanted to understand. More than that, he wanted reason to believe that the choice they had made for their son- to not know his parents and to believe himself the son of a human woman- had been the right one. Of late he had started to question himself and wonder if he should not recognize Alistair. Then it would become known that he was son of an elven woman. There was more than one noble bastard in the alienage, Maric knew. Even if he brought Alistair to the palace, he would only suffer from the comparisons to Cailan. It might be futile, but Maric had come out to the alienage to seek some kind of guidance. If life as an elf was as bad as Fiona said it was, then maybe he could convince himself they had done the right thing.
Their baby had favored him more than his mother, resembling his older son Cailan, but the little girl gazing up at him from her perch on the street looked so much like Fiona that for a moment he could imagine she was theirs. She was so underfed that it was hard to tell her age, but Maric guessed that she was no older than six or seven. Alistair was now eight years old, almost the same age. He made sure never to see the boy, though he had caught a glimpse of him from a distance at Eamon's Denerim estate. It was hard to tell from a distance, but Maric was certain that Alistair had it better than this little girl. He trusted Eamon and never interfered, not even so much as to ask after the boy.
"Buy." The girl had waited patiently while Maric stared at her, but finally took one of her straw ornaments, a dog, and held it out towards him. "Buy it," she insisted. Maric crouched down closer to eye level. The child gazed back at him. Though she had Fiona's coloring, she was pitifully thin and filthy, and there was one other respect in which she did not resemble his beloved at all. Fiona's eyes had been bright and lively, at first snapping at him with hostility, later on softening, but brimming with a vitality that had awoken in him longing he had thought dead and buried with his wife. In contrast, the little girl's eyes were empty. She looked at him with neither interest nor anxiety. In fact, she did not seem to really see him at all. Pretty as her eyes were, blue like a midnight sky and faintly shimmering in the elven way, it was as if there was nothing at all behind them.
She was, however, very clear on what she wanted from him. "Buy," she repeated again in the same flat, featureless tone. Maric smiled at her, but his surprise at being reminded of Fiona was turning to dismay. The child was too small to have made these trinkets herself so she must be planted at that spot at an adult's behest, and told to remain there, unlike the other children in the alley. If he bought one of her trinkets, he would only encourage that adult in forcing a young child into servitude. Yet perhaps if she did get some money for her wares, the child might end up with a meal in her belly.
An idea struck him. "How much for your pretty trinkets, little one?" he asked gently. In reply, the child held up her stubby hands, showing ten fingers. "Ten coppers apiece?"
"Silver," the girl corrected.
"Ten silver!" Maric laughed in spite of himself. It was a ridiculous sum, but the girl must have been instructed to charge high if the customer was a well-dressed human as he was. He hesitated, then glanced up at the guardsman and said, "Alun, give our friend here her fifty silver." The guardsman sputtered, but eventually obeyed, counting out the coins onto the girl's table. Maric waited until the transaction was done, then gestured at the coins. "Now, I've paid for all your trinkets. You don't need to sell any more tonight. Why don't you go play with those children?" The girl glanced up the street at the other children, then back at Maric, giving no answer. In fact she gave no sign that she had even understood what he said. Leaning forward, the king spoke earnestly. "Go play. You can go play now. Do you understand? I've bought all that you have. You can give your parents the silver later, but for now you can play. Or if you don't want to play, go find some food."
The girl tucked her arms around her knees and regarded him dully, saying nothing. Maric sighed in frustration. He was sure that the amount of silver he had given her was more than she normally took in for a whole week, yet rather than registering any happiness or relief, the child looked as though it would be all the same to her if the ground opened up and swallowed them on the spot.
"Sire, best leave her. There's nothing more we can do here."
"Just a minute, Alun," Maric said. He looked at the girl, desperate for some way to get through to her. Finally he reached inside his tunic and pulled at the chain around his neck. In a moment he had the chain loosed and held the amulet on it out towards the elven child. It was a cast tin amulet of Andraste's symbol, a blazing sun. He had sent his own amulet of Andraste, passed down to him from his mother the Rebel Queen, with Fiona's son, instructing Eamon to tell the child that it had belonged to his "human mother." Maric had wanted Alistair to have something of himself, of his family, and the story would keep anyone from asking questions. The tin cast that Maric now wore instead had been pressed into his hand by a well-wisher in a crowd. He had taken to wearing it as a reminder of his people, of where they found hope, and of how they invested hope and love in him as their sovereign. The amulet would be valuable in the alienage, but he hoped it would not be so valuable that the little girl might actually keep it for herself rather than sell it. "Here, take this, little one. It is Andraste's holy symbol. Do you know Andraste? She was a woman and a slave, but she became a great leader, the hope of millions of people. She prays to the Maker for us."
The little girl stared at the amulet. At first Maric didn't think she would accept it, but after a moment a grubby hand reached out and took it from him. The child was looking down at it when a shadow fell over her. Maric raised his head. A boy had approached them, a few years older than the girl but close enough in appearance that the king guessed he was a sibling. Out of the corner of his eye, Maric noticed that the little girl quickly slipped the amulet in a pocket of her dress. That made him smile a little.
"Evenin' sers," the boy greeted them warily, sizing the two men up. His eyes fell on the fifty silver and he gasped, bending down to scoop it up. Maric watched to see if the girl would protest, but she said nothing and her expression never changed, not even when the boy finished collecting the silver and cuffed her on the ear. "You was going to keep it for yourself, wasn't you, you little chit?"
Maric reached for the boy, grabbing his arm and spinning him around. His momentary anger abated, however, and he released him almost as soon as he had done so. When he spoke, his voice was calm. "That is not the way we treat a young lady, is it?" The king tried for a smile.
The elven boy looked shocked as Maric grabbed him, then confused by his words. He paused, weighing them. Finally he leaned in and asked, "You like Esra, ser? You want her special? I can see you got the coin. For... one sovereign you can have her here, quick. If you want to take her home, maybe... ten sovereigns." Maric's face colored, first with disbelief and then with anger as he comprehended what the boy was offering. The girl's brother, and himself a boy no older than ten! For his part, the boy realized that he was not closing the sale and interjected quickly, "Five sovereigns. But ten is a good price! She's... a lady, ser. Like you said!"
Maric stood up, his head swimming. For a moment he was tempted to beat the boy senseless, however, that impulse passed. A boy of ten was no more responsible for this morass than the little girl. He could demand to see her parents, but what would he do to them if he found them? Lock them up? They would no doubt feign innocence, claim that the boy had come up with the idea himself, that they hadn't known their small daughter was being offered for sale like a piece of veal on a butcher's cart. The girl did not just look like Fiona. She was Fiona all over again, and here in his own kingdom.
After a long while, he spoke quietly. "Yes, I would like to take her away from here. But not tonight. I'll pay you two sovereigns now, and another five tomorrow morning when I come to collect her. You'll be here, both of you? I want her unharmed and untouched or you get nothing."
The boy looked stunned and pleased. He, at least, was capable of showing emotion. "Yes, ser! Seven sovereigns it is. She'll be here in the morning." He held out his hand to take the promised deposit. Maric gestured at Alun and turned away, head still swimming and his stomach churning. He glanced back once and saw his guardsman depositing coins on the boy's palm. The little girl sat at their feet, vacant eyes looking straight ahead at nothing.
The following morning, it was not Maric who returned to the alienage, but a small contingent of palace guard and templars, guided by the royal guardsman Alun. Despite their fearsome appearance, the boy still protested when he learned that his sister was going to be taken away without the promised five sovereigns. The guard informed him that she was now ward of the crown and would be taken to the Chantry to be raised by the sisters there. Esra, the little girl, went along with the soldiers without fear and without a look back. In her hand she clutched her only possession, a tin cast amulet bearing Andraste's symbol.