Chapter 4: Mothers and Daughters
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
--
When I walked past the barracks in the early morning, the quarters were filled with the sounds of men going about their preparations. There were swords being sharpened, armor being beaten flat with a hammer, and men talking, laughing, coughing. The castle ranks has swelled over the past three days to a great number, with the cooks kept busy in the kitchen for the entire day from sunrise until sunset. I could not walk past a doorway without someone bowing and saying lady or step into a hall without a messenger running past me, intent on their task. We all had our roles and our places. I was relegated to the task of working alongside Master Hastings and Eirik, to prepare the mabaris in our kennels for the approaching march. The air was filled with the sense of excitement and nervousness, ready for action whenever the king calls.
We were knee-deep in pups half-grown, checking their eyes and their ears for signs of ticks or other diseases. Our mabaris had just recovered from a severe bout of kennel cough the previous spring, and the servants were vigilant for signs of wheezing or unusual fatigue. Eirik was there nuzzling pups or growling them into submission, his energy high as he butted the smaller dogs around easily. Some of the bitches regarded him wearily, for breeding season has passed and they were not in heat. They were skittish around dominant males, and there were tails flicked or head ducked down low, their own forms of communication.
Master Hastings sent me with the figures and names of the dogs that Father requested for the war council. Arl Howe had arrived the previous night, with a lesser number of men than expected, which was a relief to Nan, when I spoke to her briefly and she shooed me out of the busy kitchen. It was said that his men were delayed on the road, and he was meeting with Father in the great hall.
I threw open the doors to the room and the sound was thunderous through the space, echoed off the ancient stone walls. The few men inside were spread sparsely throughout, looked like scattered toys in the distance. Father was speaking to a man I recognized, the Arl of Amaranthine, who was a frequent guest at our home. I held back for a moment for them to finish speaking, a discussion about troops and the missing men. Father noticed me a moment later, waved me over to where they stood in front of the fire.
"What do you have there, Elika?" He saw the vellum in my hand.
"Here are the figures that you requested, Father." I handed it to him and he skimmed quickly over the inked numbers.
"My thanks," Father said, rolling the vellum and placing it in a pocket. "I trust that you will be in charge of the castle with your Mother when I am gone."
I nodded. Only a token force would remain at Highever, and I knew that the responsibility was a great one. We will need to protect and defend our people while the majority of our warriors were at Ostagar. There was no need for me there, for I was to be a wife and mother, and I had no place on the battlefield. These were bitter thoughts.
"Ah, Rendon, you remember my daughter." Father introduced me to the Arl.
The Arl of Amaranthine looked me over once, with the calculating expression of most nobles when they assessed another. It was important in the game of survival in the circles of nobility to know who could be bought, who could be trusted, and who could be used. I hated the scrutiny, the need to be kept under constant watch. It was not a dance that I performed well.
"She has turned into a beautiful woman," Arl Howe said with a smile.
"Hasn't she?" Father said with pride.
"She has a fighter's grace." The man nodded. "I often wish Thomas had a similar sort of confidence about him, such spirit!" Thomas was his son, and I had only vague memories of him from years past.
His eyes narrowed as he regarded me. "It would please me, m'lady, if you would be one of our honoured guests at Amaranthine this winter. Deliliah quite looks up to you." The last memory I had of Delilah was a round girl, with a snotty pig nose. I had no doubt what sort of strings he was trying to pull, and I wished he was not as obvious.
"I've no interest in an arranged marriage with your Thomas," I said brusquely, finding no use for pretty words. My reputation was already flimsy, so I imagined nothing I said could harm its already shaky status.
"Elika!" My father exclaimed, and said immediately to Howe. "You see what I have to contend with here?"
"Such candour!" The arl just laughed. "If only everyone spoke as straightforward as she." I almost rolled my eyes, but refrained at the last moment. The door opened then, saved all of us from the awkwardness of continuing the conversation.
"And here he is!" A man walked in, dressed in battered leather armor and two blades on his back, his hair tied back in a simple style. He was no man I recognized. He inclined his head in greeting, while the three of them exchanged pleasantries. He wore no marking that was familiar to me, not the arm of Amaranthine or a mark that would distinguish the loyalty of a soldier. He was introduced as Duncan, of the Grey Wardens, and his presence here puzzled me. The Grey Wardens were a rare sight outside of their fortress, but since there was a Blight approaching from the south, I thought all of them would be there in preparation to face the darkspawn. The presence of a Grey Warden in Highever was indeed sombre news, for they only appeared amongst us during times of need.
"I wish I arrived in time for the festivities, and to bring better news," Duncan said simply. "It was gracious of the teyrna to extend an invitation."
"The Grey Wardens are always welcome in Highever," Father laughed and embraced the man warmly. There was a hint of a smile on Duncan's face when he stepped back.
"I look for recruits all over the country, our youngest and our brightest," the warden said. "But may I make mention that your daughter is one of the finest fighters that we considered, and if there is a possibility…"
He did not have a chance before Father cut him off. "You may not consider it." Father's face had changed, to something angry and unfamiliar. "Unless you intend to invoke the Right of Conscription." His tone was a challenge, as if he dared Duncan to push him further.
"Peace, Bryce," Duncan did not lose his composure as he smiled, loosening the situation deftly. "I have an eye on one of your men, as per the teyrna's recommendations and with your approval. Ser Gilmore, I hear, almost won the tournament, and against seasoned knights who have seen true battle!" My heart turned to stone in an instance at that name, even as I puzzled over the fact that my mother would communicate with the wardens. It made sense then.
I was used to challenges in the practice ring, where I had to prove myself as a warrior-rogue, as adept as anyone of them. I could hold my own against a single opponent, to slash and parry, learning that for each battle there were never the same rules for different challengers. I knew how to use the sunlight to my advantage, to reflect some stray beam into an eye to dazzle or to weave elaborate footsteps to disguise my true intentions. These were all skills I practiced endlessly with Ser Peter, and he told me that this way of fighting was only for those willing to commit to it with staunch dedication. For one had to focus on abilities other than strength and more difficult tactics than sheer intimidation. React split-second to a slip, to holes in their guard, the cracks of their armor. I knew all of this training, but I was clumsy at social niceties. I did not know the art of how to cut with a careful phrase or threaten with a barbed taunt. I flew to a rage quite quickly and it was not difficult to provoke me, with Fergus always joking, calling me a simmering pot, ready to bubble over.
I boiled then, with a white hot fury. I barely listened to the fretting comments made by Howe regarding the unexpected arrival of a warden and the appropriate protocols. I left when Father told me to, with a message for my brother. But I had someone to find first.
--
There was a brief moment in time when I thought that being stumbled upon by Terrell would prove a blessing. I would keep my love, my family, and everything held together in a patchwork, regardless of how thin the threads were tied. We would exist in a moment in time, stilled by a mage's spell. I imagined foolishly that Roddy would remain at the castle as one of Father's wards, and we would go on, like we always had. I would do whatever it took for him to remain near me, no more years separated season to season, spring to autumn. Mother and I argued deep into the night, the eve before the news of the Blight arrived: her persuasions and my stubborn counters, until she reminded me of the power she wielded as the teyrna, that she could send Roddy away into one of our farthest outposts or arrange a marriage with a lesser bann's daughter… offers that he would not or could not refuse, for a future that he could not achieve without my mother's nudge in an appropriate direction. Mother was correct, my pride bid me to choose and she forced my hand.
I was on edge when I found Mother speaking with a few nobles in the hallway, and I said all the right things, made all the right gestures, but I was barely restrained. When Mother and I were alone, I started to speak through the churning tempest that was thrashing inside of my mind.
"If you had any consideration for my happiness, you would not have sent that invitation to the Grey Wardens, " I told her, my voice rising as I continued. "You betrayed me, Mother!"
"I had forgotten that Duncan does not know the intricacies of our court," she frowned. "With the Wardens being kept separate from the nobility." It was just like Mother, to not address my accusation directly, and it made me even more furious.
"You told me," I spoke through gritted teeth. "You told me that if I handled it myself, that if Ser Gilmore and I were able to end our...meetings, you would not punish us. I did not expect you to make him a recruit, a wandering pariah from the rest of Ferelden!"
"Daughter," She looked at me with sympathy. "Did you think it possible that I would have Roderick remain as a constant reminder to you, even when married off and away?"
"He would have been just fine at Highever, this is his home." I raged on. "I could simply remain at my estate, tending to the household, without having to travel around the country with my husband. Our paths may never cross again. He could even take a...take a…" I could not bring myself to say it. Wife.
Mother regarded me with a knowing gaze, her sympathy weighing on me heavily. "You close your eyes and you lower your head and you run into whichever obstacles you have in your way. This is how you resolve your confrontations, with a challenge to a duel."
"But you are a child no longer, Elika. I have to remind you time and time again, and it is time you learned your duties. Brashness and impulsivity are not traits befitting of a noble wife. You have to learn how to curb that tongue or your husband will curb it for you, and the method will not be gentle." My face stung at the insult, a reminder of how unmarriageable I was, echoes of the insults that were inflicted upon me in the days I spent with men and told how I was unlike them, how I did not belong.
"I do not wish to be crude, yet I have to be harsh with you or else you will not listen. You cannot hope to marry Roderick and set up a cottage somewhere. Young love often blinds you to the realities of what you are facing. You are not fitted for a life of toil and misery, for that is what you will gain as the wife of a poor knight."
"I will join the Grey Wardens, then," I had a reckless and wild idea, placed into my mind by Duncan's earlier comment. "I will become a Grey Warden, with Roddy-"
Mother slapped me, hard and unexpectedly, and my face was thrown sideways from the force of it. I tasted blood in my mouth where my tooth had clipped the side of my cheek.
"Do not consider this foolishness," she said sharply. "Do not stoop so low for a man. Have I taught you nothing?"
I could feel the rush of blood where she struck me, coupled with the sensation of burning embarrassment at being treated like a child. I resisted the urge to touch the side of my face.
"Go then and find your brother. We will speak of this no further. It has been decided." She dismissed me by walking away, and left me standing there.
--
I did not cry when I left to find Fergus, although I wanted to. I swallowed the tears and envisioned myself as made from steel, impervious and impenetrable to human emotion. Fergus was talking with his wife and Oren, saying their goodbyes in preparation for his leaving. My goodbyes with my brother were a blur, my mind contending with other things. I knew that Fergus' presence at Ostagar would be a limited one, relegated to scouting and reconnaissance instead of facing the darkspawn in battle. We were all relieved, even Fergus himself, who admitted he would rather return to us safely than die a hero. I retired to my chamber early, knowing that he wanted more time with his wife and child.
--
The door shook as it was knocked into the wall, the hinges rattling as it swung back from the force of its opening. I woke at the sound, with the quilt half on and half off of me. The cold air rushed into the room and made me shiver at the touch of it against my bare skin. I was dressed in a plain nightshift, with my arms and legs exposed. Eirik bristled in a corner, a low growl vibrating the air. I saw only the outline of a person, features obscured by the dimness in my room, and it scared me, brought back memories of all the childhood tales of monsters from the forest stealing children from their beds. But the figure turned its head and it was just Mother, with a bow in her hand, stringing an arrow. I heard the scream of a man in agony.
"Get dressed," she ordered, composed even under duress. "Highever is under attack."