Fifty-five Lashes
He counted the lashes.
He timed it with thumbing through pages in his ledger. It was easier, somehow, to meet the rhythm of abuse with his work than try to move in opposition to it. Each lash was a page. He had turned thirty since it began.
And she was crying.
Solivitus didn't look up; the gate was down between his stall and the first true courtyard of the Gallows. There was little he could do, little he could see without going to the grate and pressing his face to the steel, and that would only invite similar. Meredith was good to him, and he did not want to risk what freedom he did have. There were rumors that she would soon crack down on even the Lucrosians, even the Formari, but until that day, he would sit in the sun on the burning hot paving stones of the Gallows, watching the comings and goings of templars and the few visitors, and he would ply his trade, make his poultices and potions, and wait.
He was getting very good at waiting.
Forty lashes, forty pages, and he reached for a cup of water. He himself was only thirty-eight, hair thinning far before his time, expression worn and tired beneath his pleasant merchant's facade. He had already been in the Kirkwall Circle when Meredith was made knight-commander; he could remember the day. He could remember, too, the first and last rebellion of the mages under her rule, a year later. He had already been Harrowed, and he had stayed quiet and apart as a good Lucrosian did, and he had made his goods and made himself useful, indispensable, to the Chantry.
He had earned his freedoms the only way that he could, but his freedoms were not endless. He, too, had a cell for a room. He, too, now took his meals in isolation. He had sun and shade and the promise of endless work, endless coin, and near-freedom from the pain of being within the gates just to his left, but he could not cross that metal barring unless invited.
Fifty-two. He was turning now to blank pages, but it was easier than trying to think or work. Fifty-three. Fifty-four. She wasn't crying anymore, at least not that he could hear.
Fifty-five.
Silence.
Fifty-five was more than normal. Fifty-five could kill a person. His fingers trailed down over the page, and he went through his inventory in silent thought. How many poultices did he have on the shelves? How many elfroot potions? Restoratives? Stamina draughts to keep her awake, coherent, alive - if she even was?
But they would send for a healer. All he had to do was wait, and the steady march of booted feet would begin and then die away, and he would be alone, in the sun, with his work and his coin. And his forty-two poultices, twenty-six elfroot potions, five restoratives, and-
"Do you mean to tear that page out?" asked the Tranquil who worked beside him, and he started. She was watching him dispassionately, her hood keeping the sun out of her eyes and off her brand, and when he looked down, he saw his fingers crumpling the bare ledger page.
"Ah, no. No," he said, and uncurled his fingers, then tried to smooth it down.
The Tranquil made no response, and he sighed as she turned back to her own work. The page would need to be removed, anyway; he had crumpled it beyond use, the peaks and valleys of the paper too stiff and precipitous to do anything but catch and throw ink. He did not mean to tear it out, no, but it would happen all the same.
He rolled his eyes at metaphors, and carefully pulled the page free of the binding.
There were booted footsteps. He could hear them over the sound of soft conversations, dull conversations, and the paper in his hands as he balled it up. They were supposed to be moving away, fading until they disappeared into dark, narrow halls.
They approached him instead.
He tried to look busy, tossing the paper over his shoulder before turning and shifting the pots and vials on the table. Perhaps, if he kept his head in the shade, the Chantry sun would pass over him like it usually did. There was no reason for them to stop by him. It was only the common path, down and around and out to the visitor's courtyard. His stall-
"Formari Solivitus," said one of the templars, and he turned with a bright smile hastily put on to see the knight-lieutenant Helaine and one of the newest full-templars, a boy he didn't yet know the name of.
"Yes? May I help you, sers?" He spread his hands wide in invitation, smile unfaltering out of long practice even though his pulse had risen and his stomach was beginning to work its way through the library of knots he had learned as a young boy on his father's ship. "A refreshing elfroot tincture for the heat?"
"Gather your poultices, Formari," Helaine said, arms clasped behind her back. "You are needed."
"I- what?"
"You are needed," she repeated.
"To- patch somebody up?" His thoughts immediately flew to her cries, fifty-five lashes, and his stomach dropped. "Are there no healers available?"
"The knight-commander has decided against the use of healers in this matter. Please, bring your supplies, and follow."
Well, if that wasn't ominous- but fifty-five lashes, enough to kill a person, and he was grabbing two of the largest pots of poultice he had, bandages too, elfroot potions and rinses, and any number of any other potions that could help. The ceramic clattered and tinked as he piled it all into one of the baskets hidden beneath the table, and then he was hurrying after Helaine. The younger templar brought up the rear. He tried to reassure himself with the thought that, if he were in trouble, if he were suspected of rebellion or sedition, there would be more templars escorting him, and older, too.
No, this was a routine doctor's visit, in a world where healers were not trusted enough to do their work. It was just the world tilted slightly off center as it was every day.
She was still in the main courtyard, on her belly on the stones flecked with blood and spittle and Maker knew what else. He knew her dark hair, the rich teal of her robes, the curling of pale fingers against the ground. Bethany Hawke. He saw her sister often, more often than Bethany did by far. He worked with her sister. And he knew from her sister that Bethany was a good person, a good sister, and a good mage.
Her breath came only shallowly, and he tried not to rush to her side.
"Tend to her so that she can be moved back to her room. You will be allowed to continue your work there, unless you believe another herbalist will be better suited for the task." Helaine looked and sounded impatient, but Solivitus ignored it, kneeling beside Bethany and beginning to unload the basket. Poultice, yes, but also a draught to ease her labored breathing, another to help prevent corruption of the blood. He set it all out, in a careful line, and then looked back to the knight-lieutenant.
"I will see to her through her recovery," he said, then waved a hand. "Give her space. She needs space."
"She has had enough space," the younger templar spat, and Solivitus had half a mind to ask what Bethany Hawke's crime had been, but Helaine waved the younger man off.
"You will have your space," she assured him, and pulled the other templar away.
He turned to her as soon as they were more than ten paces away, rolling up his sleeves. First he had to ease the pain; a potion would have been the easiest, but her cheek was pressed to the stone and her back was- well. Her back had taken fifty-five lashes, and if they had been light and had started while her robes were still whole, now her skin was broken and bleeding, a mess of welts and weals, cuts and bruises. There was cloth from her robes - what was left of them - caught in the wounds, and he took a deep breath.
Solivitus unscrewed one of the pots of poultice and dipped his right hand in. While he coated each finger, he leaned down.
"Enchanter, can you hear me?"
His only answer was a weak moan and a shifting of her fingers, and then she was still again but for the stammering rise and fall of her breathing. He reached out, hand just above her skin, above the worst of the welts.
"Bethany," he said, slipping to her name in the hopes she would hear and understand, "I'm going to touch you. It's going to hurt. Please trust me." His mouth turned into something like a smile, but it was taught and tense and pained in sympathy.
He thought he saw her nod, and he began his work.
He was no healer. His magic was paltry and poor compared to the others in the Gallows. He could make light to read by, or chill a drink, and if he was truly lucky, he could crack a lightning bolt onto a metal target. But he knew herbs, poultices, and draughts as well as he knew business. The application was something he knew less well - but he had been there during the first and last rebellion, and had tended the wounds of friends and colleagues back when they were not confined to their rooms whenever not teaching or working.
It didn't make it easier to listen to her whimpers and weak, broken sobs, but it did make the work go fast.
There were definite advantages to never bringing any more notice to himself than what his gold in Chantry coffers earned. The knight-commander gave him sun and fresher air, and the knight-lieutenant allowed him to move Bethany to her room and continue his work there, uninterrupted and unwatched.
Another mage would have had a watchdog on him. He, however, could sit by her bed and watch for signs of consciousness in peace.
Her back was slicked with poultice, and bandaged, if awkwardly. Though her robes were split down the back, and though care was by its nature intimate, he hadn't crossed the line to undress her, or to reach under her to pull the bandages taut. Instead, they were tacked down with another, stickier salve.
In his lap was the ledger, with its ruined page carefully excised. It was night, now, the sun long ago set, and though Bethany's breathing had turned more even, she still had not stirred. It worried him, and he tapped the tip of his quill against his finger, staining it black until the ink dried.
He had salts that might wake her, but he wasn't sure if it wasn't better to let her sleep. The longer her recovery took, the longer she would be given peace. His work would suffer. He could not, in good conscience, leave her alone in such a state. The stall would need to be managed by somebody else the next day, if anybody else at all, and if Marian came...
If Marian came, there would be nobody to tell her what had happened.
Perhaps that was better. Things like this couldn't be changed, they could only be danced around, and Bethany Hawke had done a tremendous job at doing just that. They had tried to kill her with a Harrowing too soon, back three years ago when she had come to the Gallows. She had triumphed. They had sought in her any sign of corruption. They had neve found a single one, no matter how their eyes were primed to see it.
Perhaps it was a miracle that she had dodged retribution for this long.
He sighed, dipping his quill into the inkpot and writing out the newest inventory, accounting for every piece of his work he had used to put her back together.
Dawn was breaking in the small, barred window of her cell when she stirred, her breath hitching for the first time in hours. He'd changed her bandages twice in the night, and had dozed three times between, but he was awake to see the sudden curl of her fingers, the tensing of her shoulders.
"Mistress Hawke," Solivitus said, picking his words and tone and volume carefully, the skills of a salesman (and a sailsman, as his father had taught him - ports must always welcome). She twitched, as if to turn towards him, but she didn't manage it. "You're very hurt."
"Where are the healers?" she mumbled into the mattress, almost too quiet for him to hear.
He grimaced. "I am your healer," he said, setting the ledger that had become his resting blanket to the side. "The knight-commander... did not allow those with healing skills to your side. I've done what I can."
"She's a right terror," Bethany mumbled, and he couldn't help the twitch of his lips.
With a glance to the closed and locked chamber door, he returned, "That she is, Mistress Hawke."
Finally, she managed to turn her head. Her cheeks, at least, were not bruised; the brutality had been confined to her back, and only to the lash. It had been above-board, to the letter.
Fifty-five lashes.
"Solivitus, right?" she asked, and he nodded, gaze returning to her face. Her mouth was drawn, her eyes filled with the particular haze that came with pain, but she watched him. "You get to talk to my sister, don't you?"
"On occasion, when the Maker favors me."
"When the Maker favors your stocks and coffers," she said, but it was without censure or judgment. He thought he heard a thread of amusement, and he shifted in his seat to turn towards her.
"Just so," he admitted, and she laughed, weakly. "Your back- I was not able to bandage it well. Or to change your robes. Would you- shall I-"
"I would appreciate the help. ... How bad is it?"
He frowned as he rose, going to retrieve a roll of bandages and sit on the edge of her bed. "... It is- how much of it do you remember?"
She slowly, carefully pushed herself up, and he averted his eyes from how the fabric of her robe fell forward and gaped, beneath her chest. "I lost count at thirty-six," she said, voice thin and unsteady as she finally sat up, kneeling with her back towards him. "And that's all, really. Did they go the whole fifty-five?"
"They did," he said. "I'm about to work the dressing up. Is that alright?" His hand hovered above her skin until she nodded, and he began to carefully slip his fingers around the edge of it all. "There were fifty-five, and then they sent for me. It is... as bad as that sounds." He couldn't help his grimace as he peeled off the blood-stained fabric and set it aside, reaching to his hip for one of the tonics he still had left. "Stay still, please."
Bethany did, fingers curling tight against her knees, breathing held to keep it even. When he had dripped the liquid down her back and smoothed it into ever weal, he touched a hand to her shoulder. "It's okay to breathe," he said.
"Maker," she said on an exhale, shoulders bowing and trembling. "Maker, I didn't- they've never done that before. Not to me."
"I know," he said, unrolling the long strip and passing it gently around her body, fingers slipping beneath her robe. "What happened?"
He thought he heard her gasp as his hand once more slipped under her robe as he made the second loop of bandage. But then she shook her head and took a breath, saying, "I went up to the top of the Gallows. I figured out, how, and climbed all the way-"
Solivitus's hands stilled.
"Were you going to jump?" he asked, quietly, hands hovering.
She twisted to look back at him, eyes wide. "What? No! No. I just... wanted to see a sunrise again." She looked away, then turned to the other side, towards the window. "That's all. I can't see it from this room."
Slowly, his hands began to move again. "... They probably didn't think that," he said after a moment. "They probably thought you were going to jump." She has had enough space, he remembered, all too clearly. "And if Marian Hawke's sister killed herself while in the Gallows, the knight-commander could... potentially be faulted for it."
"... Do you think so?"
"Don't try it again," Solivitus said, with a laugh to soften his own anxiety, his own flare of panic. "Or they'll lock you in your room for the rest of your days."
"Don't joke about that," she said, pulling away as he tucked the last end of the bandage. Bethany turned to look at him fully, gaze serious. "It isn't funny when it's close to truth."
"It is sometimes all the humor we have." He rose from her bed, moving to the side table where there was a bowl of elfroot water to wash his hands in. Some of the ink fled his fingertips as he worked them, and he frowned, hoping that none had gotten onto her back. "... I'm charged with your care," he said, "until you're recovered. So you can send me away or keep me here as you like."
Bethany looked to the door, then gingerly swung her legs over the side of the bed, finding her feet only with great difficulty. She was swaying when she stood, and he went to take her elbow. She pulled him by dint of will and determination to her small closet, and he tried not to look at how her robes were close to slipping from her shoulders, or at how she pulled a new set that looked soft and lovely.
He was a healer. And, more importantly, she was Marian Hawke's little sister.
But he helped her stay steady as she changed, avoided looking at her in that brief moment when she was all bandages and smalls, and then helped her back to her bed.
As she settled back onto her stomach with a relieved sigh, she looked up to him and said, "Will you stay?"
In that moment, he didn't think about how much gold he might lose the next day, or even the sunlight and shade afforded to him. He simply nodded, and with a small smile said, "As long as you want me to."
As long as she wanted him to ended up being another day. He sat at her bedside and let her tease him, took her awkward humor and her quiet moments where the memories of the day returned in stride. The templars checked in regularly once the sun had risen, and they brought food, but every time Bethany Hawke went abed and shivered and Solivitus told them not yet, she is mending, but not yet.
And when the sun set, she managed to sit up in bed long enough to eat her meal, instead of having to do it in shifts. The blinding pain that had been her back that morning had faded to a steady ache, unless she tried to twist at the waist.
It had all happened so fast, the day before. She had slipped out of her room before dawn - the templar in the hall had been asleep, like he always was - and though she'd known it was a bad idea, she'd followed the path she had heard of all the way up to the top of the tallest tower.
She'd watched the sun rise.
And then there had been boots on the stair, and she had turned around, hands empty and apart so they knew she had no knife, no staff, nothing but herself, but it hadn't been enough of a surrender. Her shins and knees ached from being dragged back into the old prison, and her back told the rest.
But it had been worth it. Maker, it had been worth it.
When she settled down to sleep at the end of that second day, Solivitus rose from the seat that had become unarguably his. He had bid her good night. He had touched a light hand to her shoulder, and he had told her, I'll give my regards to your sister.
He waited for her outside of the classroom, or what served as a classroom. They were beyond when he needed to check in on her daily or every two days, but the templars didn't need to know that. There were, of course, templars - all around, at the doors and at the corners of the hall. He remembered, years ago, when lessons had instead used the open courtyards, few as they were. He remembered, when he was an apprentice, sitting in the sun or at least gazing out a window.
This room had no windows. None. The templars at least had the good graces not to say it was for the students' safety; it was because there were fewer potential exits to guard, and children raised without sun learned not to want it so badly.
Solivitus frowned, watching the door. Just two weeks ago, those sorts of thoughts had been safely buried under thoughts of ledgers and coin andproviding a service and pride through his work. But Bethany Hawke, with her slowly healing scars and her bitter humor, more than any number of visits by her sister who looked constantly to the gates and who he had heard worked to protect mages, had brought that resentment back. Now he had a plan, one that involved dancing about and lying out of the corner of his mouth to templars, who he had always worked to appease.
It was dangerous, and he sighed, feeling too much like a Tranquil as he tried to bury it all - albeit one with good business sense and an even better sense of humor.
She didn't expect to see him, especially not with children not beyond their tenth name day running circles around her legs, circling their safe spot ofMiss Bethany. As far as she knew, and as far as he'd told her, he didn't come into the Gallows most days, and rarely to the teaching wing. But he was there, picking at the crusted herbs and oils under his nails, head bowed. She didn't think he saw her, and so she crouched to bid good-day to the youngest, hugs and kisses, some of the only touch allowed.
That was one of the saddest parts, the most frightening parts, of the last year. There was little time or space for physical contact beyond hurried trysts, and she didn't dare approach those. She toed the line when there was little reason not to, and these were all men and women she didn't know, not really. They, at least, had grown up with one another, even if privacy was something like a distant dream.
And Solivitus-
Was a little too old, much too focused on money, and balding.
And yet, the memory of his gentle touch, therapeutic if nothing else, was still fresh and clear in her mind, and if at times, when he'd checked in on her recovery, it had turned more comforting... she accepted that eagerly.
One of the apprentices squealed at a joke, and Solivitus finally looked up, catching her gaze and smiling briefly.
"I thought," he said, "that I should check in with you. To see that everything has healed properly." The words were a lie - he already knew that she had healed days ago - but he did it with such ease that the templar nearest them - his escort, she decided - nodded and pointed to the classroom.
And just like that, they had privacy, the door shut behind them and nobody else in the room.
"How do you do that?" she asked, voice still hushed for fear of eavesdroppers.
He shrugged, running a hand over his head. "They... trust me. I pad their coffers, they give me liberties. It's a life."
"It is a strange life," she said.
"It is also a life that keeps your sister well-supplied and not falling apart."
Bethany frowned, moving to tidy up the desks in an effort to keep her nervous energy in check. "Falling apart? How is she? Is she-"
"She's doing fine. The last I saw of her, she had a fresh scar on one cheek, but I do think she leaves them intentionally." He chuckled. "She said to say hello. She doesn't know about, ah, how we met- and I'd say she's a bit suspicious of my sudden interest in being the go-between.
Bethany stifled a laugh. "Don't make her think we're- well, she can be protective." She blushed, and hid it by turning away, moving another desk back into place. They had cleared them for a demonstration in how to conjure fire, keeping the wood far away from little apprentice hands.
"A fair warning. Thank you," he said, and his voice was nearly as warm as her cheeks.
She glanced over her shoulder to him. "Is that why we are playing at healer and patient? Because of my sister's message?"
He had moved to lean on the instructor's podium, arms crossed over his chest. "Some of it, yes."
"And the rest?"
Solivitus shrugged, smiling a sly little smile. "I," he said, "have an idea. That I think you'll benefit from. How is your back?"
"I- it's fine. You know that." She turned fully towards him, canting her head. "... Unless you think it shouldn't be?"
"Well, I just found a very interesting recipe for a tonic. It's called bottled sunshine and must be made in a place without shade, and consumed immediately. The best thing is, the book's not even forged." He chuckled. "But if you are in need of it, we will need a sunny spot- perhaps the top of the Gallows?"
"And I'll need to be there when you make it," she said, slowly, a grin catching on her lips.
"And you won't be dragged off down the stairs by templars after it, either. Though I can only offer you a sunset." He pushed away from the podium, crossing the room to her. He stopped a few feet away, and didn't reach for her, but his nearness alone left her giddy.
"Sunsets are just as good," she said.
"Good. Then I'll see what I can do." He bowed. "Thank you, Mistress Bethany - your cooperation will greatly help your recovery."
It took another week to arrange, almost too long for the knight-commander to believe him when he said it was necessarily, wholly necessary. It helped that he agreed to increase the price of his wares (though it was all for profit and nothing to do with quality), and that he kept his visits with Bethany short and where templars could at least hear. He was the very model of an obedient Circle mage, though he felt less and less like one with every day.
He was falling for her, and it was driving him to stupidity, to foolishness, to danger. He was not a man who sought danger. That had been his father.
And yet instead of, perhaps, longing after Marian Hawke with her broad muscled shoulders and lovely laugh, he was instead wishing that his stall somehow allowed for a young teacher, with a penchant for fire and pressure, to work beside him. As it was, he could only see her when they met for her check-ins that were unnecessarily and would soon be known to be unnecessary. They no longer ate in a mess hall all together. Six months earlier, the rule had shifted to all meals being brought to individual rooms.
If only she would take up herbalism, then he could find excuses.
But this last one would be enough, and for the best. One gift of what she craved, and then he would disentangle himself and return to writing notes in ledgers, return to being able to handle the Tranquil who worked at his side without fear or disgust beyond the usual background letter. He'd be able to (almost) stop fearing the templars. He could go back to how things had been.
First, though, he had to find a way to convince the two templars he was running his supplies by that fruit or sandwiches or some other appropriate picnic food as necessary to the healing process.
Somehow, some way, she was sitting safe atop the Gallows, looking out at the harbor, and feeling nothing but calm.
Her back had healed days ago, leaving only a few pale scars, and the brutality of her punishment had given way to a sort of quiet apology. At least, she chose to interpret it that way. She had been given more space than she had had in some time, and perhaps it was the knight-captain's doing, or perhaps she had taken her beating, in some respect, well. The memory of it still ached, still made her blood boil.
But it was past.
And now she sat on a blanket that Solivitus had told her was from before Meredith was knight-commander, back when they had all kept mementos of home, when they hadn't been made to give up the scarf their mother gave them for their sixteenth name day- back when they could even go to lowtown to shop, with an escort.
It was a bit of a ratty blanket, but it felt as silk beneath her fingers, just like the setting sun bathed her in warmth despite the early autumn chill in the air.
"I hope," Solivitus said as he settled beside her, not too close except where his pinky nearly brushed hers, "that it didn't taste too bad."
"The berries?"
He laughed. "The tonic. If those berries tasted bad-"
"They didn't. None of it," she cut in, and edged her hand a little closer to his. She glanced to him, lit softly by the failing light reflected off the water far below. "It was perfect. I haven't had a picnic in... years. Since before Kirkwall."
"They used to let us," he sighed, and then shook his head. Her finger touched his, and he moved smoothly to cup her hand in his. "I was almost a sailor, you know," he said. "Almost set the rigging on fire, would have if it hadn't just stormed."
"You?" she asked, moving close enough to bump her shoulder with his, filled with nervous fluttering excitement, but more with the deep relief of human warmth beside her. "I don't think I can... have you met Isabela? The one without pants?"
"Who travels with your sister? I've seen her, yes," he said, lacing their fingers together as if it wasn't something forbidden, as if it wasn't something craved. Her heart felt halfway to her mouth; she'd wondered what it would be like, when it came, this sense of calm closeness, or not-so-calm nearness. She had wondered what the boy would be like, or the girl, who it would be, what they would sound like.
She hadn't expected them to be an almost-sailor who lied too well but was always honest with her, who smelled like elfroot and was going bald before his time, and who knew just how to bend the rules by playing along, even if she didn't always agree with the game.
"She's a pirate, you know," Bethany murmured. "Nothing like you, though. I think you lie more often."
"My father taught me that," he said with a shake of his head, looking to her. "A merchant's gift, and a sailor's, to find safe harbor and an end to all your plans."
"So you're more like Varric, then," she said, leaning her cheek against his shoulder. Three years ago, she would have been too scared, too trembling. Now the need to be close trumped those fears. "An end to all your plans..."
"A happy one, if you're lucky," he said, and she felt him turn, hesitate, then press a kiss to her forehead. "Even if it's only a sunset on top of a prison. There's something to that."
She laughed, the motion shaking off the lingering, clinging ache of her back, of fifty-five lashes suffered for a deep need, and a deep need satisfied by fifty-five lashes repaired. When the sun sank to darkness, they would need to return to a land of steel, separated into lands of too-narrow halls and too-bright sunlight, of various deprivations, but a sunset- that was something to be kept.
Sunshine in a bottle.
"Yes," she said. "I think there is."