Loghain stood at the window of his office, watching the cold spring rain drizzling down outside. "You're sure it's him?" he asked sharply, looking over his shoulder at the merchant, just one of his many contacts.
"As sure as I can be, ser. He's not even changed his name; still calling himself Alistair. And boasted once, in his cups, about being bastard royalty. Has the look of the old king, as well, except the eyes."
Loghain grunted. Two years without any least sign of the bastard; he'd begun to believe that Alistair must have been among the unnamed dead in Denerim. So many had died to the darkspawn that there'd been no way – and no time – to attempt identifying them all. The pyres had burned day and night for weeks afterwards, and even then most of the dead had needed to be buried in a massive charnal pit outside the walls rather than cleanly burned, all ready supplies of oil and wood – even most of the wood from the many destroyed buildings – having been consumed for the purpose.
He sighed. "I thank you for bringing me word so directly. You normally sail west from Kirkwall, not south, if I am remembering correctly?"
"Yes, ser."
"There will extra gold in your purse to make up for your inconvenience then. Please feel free to stay in the Keep as long as you need to before resuming your travels; with this beastly weather I'm sure you'd prefer to wait until the roads have dried out again."
"Thank you, yes," the merchant said, bowing deeply before leaving the room.
Not that the spring rains would hold Loghain here; he preferred to head to Kirkwall immediately to retrieve the bastard, before he moved on again. He sent for Varel – arrangements would need to be made for while he was away, so he wouldn't come back to the same sort of disaster he'd found last time he'd had to leave his seat for a while – and then sat down at his desk, drawing a sheet of paper close and beginning to make a list of who and what he'd need to take along with him. And he'd need to write a few letters, as well, to keep up the proper courtesies and let Queen Anora and Teyrn Fergus know he was going abroad briefly, and why.
He'd never particularly enjoyed travel by sea; good solid land was what he preferred, and there was little of Ferelden that he hadn't walked or rode over at one point in time or another, in his long years of service to the Crown. But he'd never much cared for ships, even as the Teyrn of a port city, and especially not since King Maric had been lost at sea. Accordingly, he was in a sour mood by the time, a week later, that his ship put in to the harbour at Kirkwall.
By necessity his first stop in the city had to be up in Hightown; a courtesy visit to the offices of the Viscount. It was a long walk, made rather easier by the fact that he wore plain clothing rather than his armour for the day, not wishing to be easily recognized as a Grey Warden. Partway up the long stairs from Lowtown to Hightown his escort suggested he and the pair of men he'd brought along – also plainly dressed – might want to rest for a moment.
"I am not tired," he informed the man. "Believe me when I say that to someone who spends much of their time in the Deep Roads, this staircase is hardly enough of a climb to work up a decent sweat over," he said, and kept walking, his pair of wardens and the guide of necessity following along behind them. He was unduly pleased when they reached the top to see the guide was breathing deeply while his own men looked as fresh as when they'd left the ship. He refrained, however, from pointing this out, and instead stepped to one side, where he could look out over the lower reaches of the city, allowing the guide time to catch his breath.
He didn't think much of the city; much of it a dense warren of buildings, packed with the lower class workers and the poor, an unfortuante number of them refugees from Ferelden. Kirkwall was the only place he'd ever heard of where there were those even the alienage elves could look down upon; the even more desperate poor inhabiting Darktown, their only home a claim on some patch of tunnel floor deep beneath the city. An unpleasant place even before the chantry had effectively taken control of it, some years prior to the Blight War. Small wonder the previous Viscount had wished the templars gone; a desire he could agree with, given Ferelden's own experience of the chantry.
He turned away from the view after a few minutes, and gestured for their guide to lead on. Not that he actually needed a guide; he'd been here twice before, once as part of a diplomatic mission, and then again years later when searching for any sign that King Maric, or even any of the crew of his ship, had survived the storm in which his ship was presumed to have sunk. But it never hurt to let people think you were less knowledgeable than you actually were, so he merely followed quietly.
He had only a brief wait in the anti-chamber to Viscount Dumar's office before he was shown into the man's presence. The seneschal hovered nearby after introducing him, but there being no need for any real privacy in their talk, he chose to ignore the intrusion.
"Viscount Dumar," he said, and gave him a properly deep bow of greeting, arms crossed in salute.
"Warden-Commander Loghain. I'm surprised to see you here in my city," Dumar said, rising to his own feet and nodding his head in greeting. "May one ask what brings you here?"
Loghain grimaced. "Minor Grey Warden business; nothing to do with darkspawn or blight," he hastened to assure the man. "But as I'm here, however briefly, I felt a courtesy call was necessary. I'm here in search of a deserter from the wardens, if he hasn't already departed the city since being spotted here a few weeks ago. I hope to only be here long enough to retrieve him, and then depart on the morning tide. Though if he's already moved on, my stay will of necessity have to be longer, while I try to track down where he might have gone from here."
Dumar's eyebrows rose slightly, as did his Seneschal's. "You pursue a common deserter yourself?" the Seneschal asked.
Loghain glanced at him, and decided he was likely asking on his master's behalf, not solely out of his own curiosity. "Yes. He is, unfortunately, no common deserter. I'm sure even here you must have heard of Maric's bastard and his appearance at the Landsmeet where my daughter was confirmed as Queen by the Hero of Ferelden?"
"Yes, we have," Dumar agreed. "And you believe this man is here in Kirkwall?"
"Yes. I've been seeking him ever since the end of the Blight War, and he was spotted here a few weeks ago by a merchant of my acquaintance."
Dumar frowned. "You're not seeking him in order to, err... see to it that he is no threat to Queen Anora's rule, I hope?"
"No," Loghain said. "Though it's certainly better to have him back in the ranks of the Grey Wardens where he belongs rather than rattling around Thedas, and possibly becoming the focus of any discontent with Queen Anora's rule, though so far there seems to be blessedly little of that. I merely wish to take him back to where he belongs."
Dumar nodded. "All right. Thank you for notifying me of your intentions here. Bran, take him to see the Guard-Captain; she can accompany the Commander and make it clear that he's not kidnapping some random refugee."
"Of course," the Seneschal said, bowed obediently to the man, and led the way out of the office after Loghain and Dumar had exchanged civil farewells.
The Guard-Captain's office was not very far away, just the other side of the entrance hall from where the Viscount's offices were, and down a set of stairs. There was someone in with the Captain already, a guardsman told them, and they had to stand and wait for some time, the Seneschal looking mildly irked at having to wait.
The door of the office finally opened, the first out of it a white-haired elf in tight-fitting leathers with a large sword in a hanger on his back. He'd be rather tall for an elf, if it wasn't for his hunched posture, Loghain judged. The second person, a woman with orange-red hair and freckles and dressed in guard armour must be the Captain, he decided; it surely wasn't the elf.
"...it's only been three months. I'm sure they'll be back soon," she was saying to the elf.
The elf sighed and nodded, looking glum, and glanced incuriously at them before turning his attention back to the woman. "I hope you're right," the elf said, nodded to her, and left, head bowed and his bare feet almost silent on the stone steps.
The woman turned and looked curiously at the group of them, her expression hardening for a moment as she looked at Loghain. "Seneschal Bran, you wish to see me?" she asked, turning to look questioningly at him.
"Guard-Captain Aveline, the Viscount asked me to introduce Warden-Commander Loghain to you, and bids you assist the Commander with the arrest and removal of a deserter believed to be here in Kirkwall," he explained.
Aveline nodded, and turned to look at Loghain. "Why don't we take this into my office," she suggested, then turned to the Seneschal. "Seneschal," she said, dipping her head to him in clear farewell.
"Guard-Captain," he said, gave her an equally minimal nod of the head – clearly there was no love lost between the two, Loghain found himself thinking, before the man turned to him as well. "Warden-Commander. If you need any further assistance from the Viscount's office, do let me know," he said, and gave Loghain a considerably deeper bow.
"Thank you," Loghain said, bowing slightly to the man. "Wait for me here," he told his men, then followed the Guard-Captain into her office,.
She had a large and pleasant office, one wall lined with well-filled bookshelves and another with narrow windows that flooded it with a pleasant amount of sunlight. A large wooden desk stood to one side, admirably free of visible paperwork, with a comfortable-looking chair behind it, large enough to allow someone in full armour to sit. She walked around the desk, and gestured to a like pair of chairs facing it. "Please, be seated," she said, and lowered herself into the chair with the casual grace of one well-used to moving and sitting in armour.
He took a seat as well, studying her face as he did so. She seemed vaguely familiar, though he wasn't entirely sure from just where, not until she turned to one side to remove pen and paper from a desk drawer, her lips thinning, and he saw her profile. "You were at Ostagar," he said, surprised. "In King Cailan's service."
She turned and looked at him, jaw setting and expression distinctly cool. "Yes, I was. And almost died there." The accusing look in her eyes made it clear where she felt the blame for that lay. "But that's not what we're here about, is it. Your deserter," she said, dipping her pen and looking questioningly at him.
"Yes. My deserter. According to my sources he was spotted living here in Kirkwall some weeks ago, at a place in Lowtown called the Hanged Man. Apparently he spends his nights drinking himself into a stupor and his days sleeping it off to do all over again, so I have hopes that he has not yet moved on."
"I'm familiar with the place," she said guardedly. "What does he look like?"
"As of the last time I saw him he was big, broad-shouldered... a warrior. Short-cropped dark blond hair, brown eyes, named Alistair if he hasn't bothered to assume some other name yet..."
"I believe I know the man you're speaking of," she interrupted, frowning slightly. "Sometimes claims to be King Maric's bastard. Is he?"
Loghain gave her a look. "You knew Cailan; you tell me."
She looked thoughtful for a moment. "It's certainly possible; he does have the look of the Theirin's about him, apart from the eyes. He is, then?"
"As far as I know, yes. And before you ask, I don't intend the boy any harm. Rather the opposite, if anything, since the first step after I retrieve him will have to be drying him out," he added with a grimace.
"Why do you care so much about a deserter, other than him being Maric's son?" she asked curiously, leaning back in her chair.
"Isn't that reason enough?"
She merely looked at him, one eyebrow lifting minimally. Clearly it wasn't enough for her.
He shrugged; no reason to keep it entirely secret. "A promise I made, to the Hero of Ferelden before her death; to seek Alistair out and see him was properly looked after. She loved him."
The woman's eyebrows rose in surprise. "And she trusted you to look after him? After Ostagar?" More than a touch of disbelief in her voice.
"It was no choice of mine that Cailan died at Ostagar," he said, voice hard. "Though everyone believes it was some personal treachery of mine that caused his death. I had a choice to make; a fool-hardy attempt to rescue the king after the battle was already clearly lost, or to preserve the soldiers under my command. It's a choice I never wanted to make, and one I've relived in nightmares ever since. If I could turn back time... I cannot say that I would make the same choice. But if I could turn back time, I'd hope to use it to better effect and keep Cailan off that killing field. But the past is not something I can change. Alistair's future is something I can. And I will fulfil my promise to Solona, with or without your assistance in retrieving my wandering warden."
She studied his face for a long moment, then gave a short nod. "All right. I'd suggest taking him after he's retired for the night already; less fuss likely that way."
Loghain nodded. "So I'd planned. One of the men I've brought along is a mage; he will see to it the boy remains asleep until we're well out to sea."
Aveline's lips thinned for a moment. "Not giving him much choice, are you. No, never mind, I know you're within your rights," she said. "All right. When should I meet you this evening, and where? Outside the Hanged Man?"
"At my ship might be better; I plan to return there once I'm done here. I'm hoping to avoid word of Grey Warden presence reaching our subject and scaring him off. Hence why I and my people are not in uniform, though we'll be in full armour tonight. Not that it's likely to be needed, but as with your presence, the more official we look, the less chance someone will mistake us for common kidnappers."
"Or slavers, which are sadly still all-too-common here," Aveline agreed grimly. "All right. At your ship. When?"
"Shortly before midnight, I think; he's likely to have drunk himself into oblivion by then."
She nodded agreement, then scribbled on the sheet of paper before her for a few minutes, pressed a sheet of blotting paper over it, then folded it and rose to her feet, holding it out. "An arrest warrant for your deserter, to make it all official," she said.
"Thank you," he said, rising as well and accepting it. "Tonight then."
She saw him to the door, giving him a rather chilly bow before returning to her own work. Loghain rounded up his men and left, headed back down to the docks, their guide rejoining them as they exited the building.