Chapter 3

Uncooperative Hauberkery

Holding court in the arling of Amaranthine had become an intensely entertaining affair. Since the suicide of Bann Esmerelle and the rescue of the city there was an air of reverence from the local Banns, few had enough courage to challenge the Arlessa on any subject, no matter how trivial. Varel had taken something of a back seat in court now, Elissa heading the proceedings. The heads of her burgeoning army, as well as the leaders of the Silver Order, always accompanied her, which might have sounded dignified, but a drunken dwarf, an apostate mage (and his cat), a legionnaire rogue, a dishonoured nobleman, a rotting corpse and an ex-farmer weren't exactly a regal entourage.

Nathaniel watched Elissa sprawled out across her throne, flicking grapes at Anders and looking away innocently whenever he looked back at her. A mabari puppy lay on her belly, yapping happily. How his father would weep to see such behaviour in his throne room. It probably would have livened things up a bit in the old days, he could just imagine Delilah flicking her food at their grandmother.

The new Arlessa's smile had never healed, and the wound had left a noticeable scar running from her right eye down her chin. He didn't think it much marred her beauty. If she had been some insipid noble who care for little other than her hair and dress it would have been horrendous, but on the battle hardened commander it was a mark of glory, matching perfectly with the many identical marks on her armour. She'd managed to get away relatively unharmed apart from that scar, although there might have been a lasting mark made by simply witnessing the monstrous broodmother.

"Nate, can you go check on the rogues training? I caught one trying to sneak into the larder last night, they should be able to hide better than that."

"Of course, commander." He bowed and turned to walk away.

"Nate!"

She looked up at him through innocent eyes, the corner of her lip turning up cheekily. He stifled a grin but placed a quick kiss on her lips before heading for the stairs. She was incorrigible. He looked back for a moment, taking in a glimpse of the long legs flung casually across the arm of the throne, keeping the image in mind to admire while he worked. Now that was worth getting up in the morning for.

The yard was full of knights of the Silver Order, going through Dworkin's extremely entertaining explosives training. The yard was a mess of barricades, one group training in aiming by hurling grenades at the second group, training in dodging and blocking. Anders' mage apprentices stood to the side, wringing their hands in anxious anticipation of the numerous burns they were sure to treat, and Wade could be heard loudly complaining about working under such conditions. Other merchants and soldiers were trying to keep safe distances from the barrage.

He paused to watch as one mistimed grenade hit the prison wall and the entire yard ducked under shields and barricades. The wall exploded in a cloud of tangy smoke and rock chips that rained down on the defending Order. Dworkin roared laughing, admiring his handiwork. Amazingly, as the smoke cleared, the prison wall seemed barely damaged.

"It'll take more than your toys to destroy my walls, Dworkin!" Voldrik, the pint sized engineer called out over the pandemonium.

"Is that a challenge, brother?" Dworking yelled back.

"No." Nathaniel took the situation in hand, pointing a finger at each of the dwarven brothers. "That was not a challenge. No blowing up the Keep."

Both brothers grumbled their assent, allowing the rogue commander to continue out the Keep gates. The rogues were training in the forest today, working on their apparently sub par stealth. He was surprised Sigrun hadn't drilled that into them a dozen times over. He himself was no master of stealth, but the little legionnaire could disappear into an unadorned wall in broad daylight and she was merciless when it came to training.

Nathaniel didn't make it to the forest, though. While everyone had been distracted by the explosion a party of knights had rounded the corner and were heading straight for the Keep. These weren't from the Silver Order, although their armour gleamed in the same light, definitely high quality, and they moved in a strict formation, a golden knight at their head. He watched them approach.

"Watch!" He called out, startling a young recruit up on the wall who was still transfixed by the steady explosions happening behind them. "We have visitors."

"Who goes!" The young man shouted at the approaching party.

"High King Alistair Theirin!" A woman's voice replied.

Nathaniel muttered an epithet under his breath. They weren't expecting a royal visit. He glanced behind him at the utter disarray of the courtyard, knowing that upstairs had probably devolved into a food fight by now. A little warning would have been nice, but he wasn't sure that the Keep could be brought to royal standards even if all hands pitched in over a week. It was a barracks now, not a castle.

"Your majesty."

Nathaniel knelt as he greeted the king. The young royal was almost exactly as his ballad described, handsome, gold skinned and with friendly eyes. The king opened his mouth to speak, but his face stilled as his eyes landed on Nathaniel. It was fairly traditional for the king to command him to rise at this point, to prevent any strain on petitioners, so he was quite surprised when the king did no such thing.

"Maybe I'm mistaken, I've only seen his likeness in pictures, but are you Rendon Howe's son?"

"I am, sire. Nathaniel Howe at your service."

"I see." The king frowned. "And what are you doing here?"

That question came as a bit of a shock. He was used to accusations of treachery and tyranny due to his name, but people generally didn't question why he was in Amaranthine or the Keep.

"I'm a Warden, sire. We reside here."

"A Warden? As in a Grey Warden? The Warden Commander allowed you to become a Grey Warden?"

Ah, so this man knew the Couslands, maybe even knew the Arlessa. He had heard that the king had some part in the Archdemon's slaying, although Elissa assured him that the ballad was full of the most spectacular lies she'd ever heard. She rarely spoke of the king, and always with a note of derision that Oghren was happy to turn into an entire symphony. Nathaniel had to admit that his sore knees were not completely happy with their first impression of the king, either.

"Yes, sire."

"Maker's breath, she's lost her mind. I knew it would happen one day. You can only kill so many Darkspawn without going a little loopy. I suppose she's also recruiting abominations and ogres, now."

"Your majesty." A voice made Nathaniel look back to see his saviour. Elissa knelt on the ground beside him, bowing her head. Her long hair was unbrushed and flecked with grape seeds, but she held herself with the regal bearing of a teyrn's daughter.

"Rise, Cousland." The king flicked his fingertips upward. "I see you have some interesting new recruitment policies. A Howe?"

"You mistake me, sire. Warden Nathaniel wasn't recruited, he was conscripted."

"I beg your pardon?"

Something in the way they spoke twigged some memory in Nathaniel's brain. He looked between the two, the tension in their postures. King Alistair was a man who needed an heir, above all else. And now that he thought about it, an orphan and a Grey Warden. This was her templar. Her templar had him kneeling on the ground like he was about to be executed.

"I conscripted him." Elissa said, hoping she could convey a sneer into her tone. "And he has duties that he can't attend to from the ground."

She licked her lips, trying to keep her face straight. This was Alistair, he didn't have a mean bone in his body, he wouldn't try to humiliate a good man. He was just being protective. Why was she making excuses for him? The king grudgingly nodded to Nathaniel, who stood. She wanted to kiss him, to remind herself who she was now, remind herself that her past was far behind her, but that wasn't appropriate. The knife wound in her chest was gaping. Instead she allowed herself to squeeze her lover's fingers gently. He was real.

Alistair's eyebrow rose. "Really?"

"Nathaniel, please go see to the rogues, and tell Sigrun we have company."

"Ser."

She watched Nathaniel dart away, relieved to be out of harm's way for the moment. Honestly Elissa hadn't really expected a reunion with Alistair to be conducted in front of her new paramour, and she certainly hadn't expected it today.

"Him?" Alistair asked.

"What brings you to the Keep, sire?"

An explosion detonated right behind her, shaking the ground and she turned a warning eye on all in the courtyard. A few apologies were shouted to them and she turned back to the king, wanting an answer to her question.

"Well my last visit came at a fairly inconvenient time, I thought I'd come and see how the Keep was coming, the reconstruction and so on. I can't say the demolition work was expected."

Elissa glanced back at the grenade training. She grinned, but it came out wrong on her lips, twisting like her stomach into something ugly. "The dwarves are working on reconstruction. My army has been given permission to make training a priority."

"I'm surprised you have time for everything, seeing how much you have on your plate."

His implications were clear and Elissa let her ugly grin blossom. So that was how he wanted to play it. He throws her away like yesterday's trash and then gets irate when she moves on. Well she could play that game, and right now he was making her more than happy to join in on a little petty sniping.

"I wouldn't think that would surprise you, sire," she purred. "You know personally just how talented I am."

Alistair's jaw tightened. Bullseye. "Yes, I do remember. Talents I'm sure come from extensive experience."

Ouch.

"Yes, I have to say I find it much better to have experience under my belt than to go into a situation... unprepared." She couldn't help preening just a little as he frowned. "But please, sire. You've travelled so far, let me get my seneschal to quarter you and your knights, and then I'll give you a tour of the facilities."

Alistair gave a curt nod, still bristling from her remark. She called Varel over from where he was berating Dworkin about the minutiae of court manners, such as not hurling grenades anywhere near the king or ordering others to do so.

"Ser Cousland?"

"Varel, have the king and his knights shown to the guest rooms, get the Order training at something less hazardous and, uh..." Her voice dropped a couple of decibels so that their guests wouldn't hear. "Have some recruits clean up the throne room, there are grapes everywhere."

"Grapes, ser?" Varel replied, giving her an increasingly familiar look of tolerant disapproval.

"Anders started it."

"Of course, ser."

Elissa breathed a sigh of relief as her guests were led away. She'd truly forgotten how handsome he was. The way his eyebrows sat, permanently sardonic, and the lush roundness of his bottom lip. And that sweet little hollow under his cheekbones that felt so perfect to run her fingers over. She would have growled from frustration if she wasn't in full sight of half her army. Every time she was around him it felt like she was completely drunk, totally out of control. The kind of woman who could get drawn into childish arguments. Had he really just insinuated that she was easy? That man. That infuriating, childish, irritating, gorgeous man.

Walking into the forest to find Nathaniel had to be done at an extremely precise pace if she was going to save any face. Knowing Alistair he'd want to stay for a month, just to annoy her, and if she couldn't pass through the first ten minutes without making a fool of herself then she stood no chance of lasting to the end of his visit, so she measured each step carefully until she was out of sight and could start stalking.

It's in the past, Elissa, she thought, hanging onto the words like a lifeline. You've moved on. You have a castle and an army and a lover and a puppy. You even have your own seneschal. No perfectly chiselled jawline can compare to that.

He dumped her. There was no pretty way of putting it. He dumped her and he had never shown a moment's regret of that decision. Clinging onto her old happiness was pathetic, she had a world of good things going on for her as Warden Commander. Every Bann in the arling was terrified of her, that was something. Nathaniel hit all the right spots, which was more pleasing every day. Hell, she'd constructed a fortress that could take hold out against a full Darkspawn army for a week, even Denerim had fallen in under a day.

Nathaniel was walking away from Sigrun when she found him, and she waited until he was out of earshot of the recruits before calling out to him. He gave her a tired smile, laced with anxiety and she instantly knew that he had figured out why the king's visit was grating in that special way. That wasn't entirely surprising, he was a smart man. She leaned against one of the trees, toying with her hair.

"So. How much do you want to light yourself on fire?"

Nathaniel laughed, broad and genuine, the tension dispelled. "It's not often I get compared to an abomination and an ogre in the space of a single breath. The same breath he used to tell me you'd lost your mind for recruiting me. Thank you for the rescue."

"Any time."

Elissa wrapped her arms around his waist, cursing the pain in her chest and how it refused to dissipate even as he held her. Nathaniel deserved better than this, she knew it. They made no declarations of love, and no word ever escaped his lips that he wouldn't back up with his sword, but he was a man of action, not words, and his actions spoke of a deeper attachment than either of them had professed. The thought calmed her a little, let the blood flow through rapidly hardening veins, slowed her descent.

The pain dulled, but her stomach was still twisted into horrible knots. Love bore the most remarkable resemblance to indigestion, and she cursed it to hell. Love had never done a thing for her except impair her judgement and destroy perfectly good happiness found in duty and accomplishment. It was too soon for him to be visiting her like this, to expect her to just be over him.

"How are the rogues?" she asked.

"I assure you, your larder will be raided with maximum efficiency from now on."

"That's good to know." She groaned into his chest, "I can't stay here long, I promised his majesty a tour of the facilities that I'm sure he won't let me out of. Don't suppose you'd like to join us?"

"And deprive you of alone time with your long lost love? I wouldn't dream of it."

"Everyone's a comedian. I guess I'll see you tonight, then. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it when I go on trial for assaulting the High King."

"Wait." He pulled her against his chest as she tried to disentangle herself. "Are you going to be alright? I know you're not the type to fall apart over this, but it's only been a few months since you left Denerim, this must be a fairly fresh wound."

Ah, damn lovers and their caring. She didn't really want to think about whether or not she'd be alright. She planned to ignore any jibes he made, any sexy raised eyebrows he shot her way, and act like the completely professional Warden Commander that she was until he went away. Then she could consider being alright again. Elissa let out a dramatic sigh.

"No, this is surely going to devastate me both emotionally and physically. So I expect you in my chambers tonight to kiss it better."

She laughed and leaned up to kiss him, a gesture he returned easily. Nathaniel had taken a blow to the face as a child, accidentally catching the edge of an aegis. Elissa, emboldened by the privacy of the forest and a need to be caught up with her current lover instead of her past, ran her tongue over the dent in his lip that remained, the distinctive dip. Dented, not rounded. He opened his mouth, catching the flat of her tongue with his and letting their chaste kiss evolve into something hot and open. A fire ignited low in her belly.

Hands wove through her hair and coursed down her back, tugging her tasset aside to get a grip on the legs he was so obsessed with. Elissa groaned into his mouth, letting him slip her hauberk further down her shoulders, exposing her shoulder to his hands and mouth. Her deft fingers worked at his back, rubbing out knots of tension he had developed crouching in shadows. She hooked one leg behind his knee, making their position all the more scandalous.

"Nathaniel," she breathed. "I have to go. The king is waiting."

"Let him wait," the rogue said.

She was so tempted. The idea of getting ravished up against a tree in broad daylight was a little thrilling, if not very becoming, and it would definitely be a more pleasant way to spend the afternoon than what she had in mind.

"No!" She pulled out of his grasp with a groan of frustration. "I have to go. Tonight. Promise me."

"You couldn't keep me away," he assured her as she retreated back toward the Keep.

Elissa let the dopey grin spread across her face. Now there promise that would get her through the afternoon. A promise he would keep. She adjusted her hauberk as she approached the Keep, trying to get it to sit right on her shoulders, still grinning, but it wouldn't cooperate and she was still fussing with it, trying to keep her shoulder from being completely exposed, when she walked back through the gate.

Her face was still red, she was sure of it, when she saw the king talking to Varel near the prison. Blood rushed to her cheeks with renewed ferocity when he looked over at her. She had planned to have some time to freshen up, to let Mistress Woolsey straighten her out before meeting with Alistair, and she conjured a mental image of herself, hair wild, face flushed, shoulder exposed and tasset tucked into her belt. The way Alistair's face darkened upon seeing her told her that she was spot on. Elissa ran a hand through her hair, trying to tame it, and tugged at the ends of her tasset, trying to get herself into some kind of state, even though it was appallingly obvious what she had just been doing. She should have let him take her against that tree, she hadn't managed to save face anyway and now she was frustrated.

"Ser Cousland," Varel greeted her. "I was just showing his majesty the construction we have been working on."

"I can't say attempting to blow up the buildings as they're constructed is a very productive method, Commander."

"We have to make our own fun around here." Elissa shrugged.

"So I see."

The side of the prison wall looked like it had taken a fairly heavy explosion recently, and she glanced at the bomb master, who gave her an innocent shrug. They really needed somewhere else for grenade training. That would have to wait.

Alistair was just being irritable now. Whenever he disagreed with her decisions they had to go through this, however unlike those previous times she was obliged to listen to him now, and not inclined in the least to do so. This was likely to cause problems. She used to actually enjoy his input, she had valued his opinion above all others in most cases, no matter how agitated he became when giving it to her.

"Come, sire, you wanted to see the real training fields, let me show you."

Elissa shot Varel a pleading look, but he refused to follow her. She led Alistair into the keep and down toward the training halls.

"How did you... get that?"

Elissa raised a hand to the scar on her face. "Broodmother. Nasty one. She caught me in the face as she died, that'll teach me to let my guard down, hey?"

"Where was your mage?" He was frowning, that big brother look that she'd become so used to, and she suddenly felt keenly exposed.

"Well, this was kind of before we were recruiting properly. I didn't have a spirit healer or anything, Anders did the best he could, but we'd been fighting for hours and he was tired. He's not really a healer anyway, he'd only learned healing arts just after your last visit here and he was..." She realised she was babbling. "Are you saying I'm horribly mutilated?"

"No! No, I didn't mean it like that, I just..." He sighed. "I worry about you."

The confession brought a rush equal parts affection and anger. "You don't need to."

"I know that. Just looking around, it's only been, what? Two months since this place was completely overrun by Darkspawn? And now you have dwarves engineering for you, a new order of knights already renowned across the country, the Grey Warden order all but rebuilt. A crisis that would destroy anyone else you just fight through and come out the other side stronger. Like it's nothing."

"I had my face torn in half. It was really something, believe me."

"We all have battle scars, but I don't worry about that, I have yet to meet a man who could best you in battle. It's the other things that scare me."

"Other things." She had a feeling she knew where this was going.

"I come here and the Keep and the arling are in order, but I find you... you... shacking up with Rendon Howe's son?"

"He has a name, you know. It's Nathaniel. And I don't see how any of this is your business."

"You're the one greeting me half-dressed, if you were anyone else – "

"If I was anyone else you would have thought it was hilarious. You probably don't even care that he's a Warden and you certainly don't care that he's a Howe. This protective act doesn't suit you, sire. Amaranthine is all in order, things are running smoothly and I'm more than happy to show you that, but my private life is not your affair."

"I know what the Howes did to you, Elissa, it's no joke to me."

"And it is to me? Nathaniel is not his father. End of story." She was dying to tack onto the end of that sentence the many things that he was, like constant, honest, devoted and dynamite in the bedroom, but she held her tongue. Admitting what was going on here would be a big mistake. She had to keep this as a conversation between sovereign and vassal, or at the very least, between former comrades.

"Then do you want to tell me why your back is so badly bruised?"

Elissa's hand flew to her shoulder. She hadn't realised she'd taken any hits in the past few days, and there was no tenderness in the area. Then the implications of what he had just said hit her, and her vision turned white with outrage.

"How dare you insinuate such a thing!" Okay, this was not keeping her cool. "Any hits I take, I take on the battlefield. In the service of the crown. Your crown! I don't have time or patience for this petty jealousy!"

Dammit, dammit, dammit. Dammit. That was a pretty good admission of what was going on, and her face burned with humiliation. She had actually just suggested that her former lover, the king no less, was jealous of a nameless rogue because she was sleeping with him. Oh, she was never going to live this down. She prayed for the narrow hallway swallow her up just to avoid the derision she was going to suffer. Alistair was silent as she examined her feet, too timid to look him in the face. She could see his hands clench. Things didn't used to be this hard with him. Whenever he was angry, even so angry he could barely form words, she could take his hand and ask him to trust her and he would. That wasn't an option anymore, she just had to take his anger as it came.

"It's not petty."

Elissa whipped her head up, staring at him. He looked completely ashamed of himself.

"What?"

"I'm being unfair on you, and I'm sorry. But it's not petty. You know I could never keep my head on my shoulders when I'm around you."

Elissa said nothing for a moment, trying to kill the bubble of hope that was forming in her chest. This didn't change anything, he was just being territorial, that didn't mean he wanted her for himself.

"Just me?"

His boyish grin made butterflies explode in her belly.

"Very funny. You know I'm your lord and sovereign, right? I could have you flogged for that."

Elissa felt blood rush to her face and lightning crackle down her spine at the image he evoked. The king seemed to realise at the same time what he had just said and his ears burned pink. She managed to untie her tongue long enough to completely ignore that remark.

"So, I brought your here to see the training. Shall we?"