The shabby homespun of her dress, soaked through with rain made a poor comparison to the fashionable array of pastel flounces spinning like parasols around the polished floors.
"You've already lost." Cassandra informed her over the edge of her book and Josephine scrutinized the board for a moment before asking, "How do you know?'
Cullen smiled, perhaps too smugly. Ruthless matches with Mia had destroyed his ability to win without arrogance, "I'm afraid she is right."
Sinking back into the chair, Josephine heaved a sigh, "This is why I prefer cards. This game…" she broke off to wave a hand over the board in disgust, "Is much too impersonal. Real strategy isn't about how many moves you can keep in your head."
Perhaps he should have let her win, he thought. Cassandra completely refused to play, saying she lacked the patience for it, and Solas rarely left his cabin during the day when the decks and parlors were full with people. Given Josephine's expression, he was certain he'd managed to alienate his one opponent away from the game. The loss was his entirely, he was terrible at cards.
"You were on your sixth move." Cassandra pointed out, flipping a page.
"No matter." Spirits recovered from her defeat, she leaned forward on her elbows and templed her fingers together over the table, ""We're due in Ostwick soon. There is still much to discuss."
They were in the ship's parlor, tucked away from the early morning socialites by a marble pillar and a potted fern. The room was massive, the ceiling ended two decks above and was frescoed with plump cherubs dancing over ocean waves. If it weren't for the ever perceptible pitch and roll of the hardwood beneath his feet, it would have been difficult to believe his mind when it reminded him that they were still on a ship, marble staircase notwithstanding. Why in Andraste's name did a ship need a marble staircase was beyond him.
Cassandra's eyebrow arched, "You're just trying to change the subject."
"Don't be ridiculous, I simply wanted to review the itinerary."
"Which will be revised as soon as we get any real information. We have no idea what awaits us in Ostwick."
"We have some idea." Cullen said, having cleared the table of the game board and its ivory pieces.
"Yes." Cassandra admitted, "Some. But much can change. I'd rather wait to make decisions until after I conduct my interviews."
"Interrogations is the more accurate term" Josephine corrected, cutting her eyes across the table at Cassandra before turning to Cullen, "Please try to keep her from stabbing anyone's personal belongings."
"That hardly ever happens." Cassandra said.
The ship horn bellowed out, rumbling through the clatter of teacups.
The three of them pressed against the gleaming brass rails, watching the approach of the shoreline with the rest of the crowd on the deck. Ostwick tumbled down the slopes of the forested foothills right up to the rocky shore. Red tiled roofs and plaster walls turned gold in the early morning sun clustered along the water's edge, growing larger and larger further up into the hills, where manors perched prettily amid the greenery. Overlooking it all stood a grand cathedral with a copper dome gone milky jadeite from the salt air. The ship was still far away and the entire scene was tiny and peaceful, looking like a cookie village he'd once seen in the shop window of a patisserie in Val Royeaux. He half expected someone to sprinkle sugar over the rooftops.
"How picturesque." Josephine said.
Cassandra hmphed.
Ostwick was all hills and the roads were narrow and rutted, crowded with shopfronts just opening for morning business. Their car was having a hard time of it, every pothole sending it into a violent jolt. Twice, the engine chugged and whined, threatening to stall on one of the steeper ascents. Cassandra looked about ready to put the vehicle out of its misery herself, if the roads did not beat her to it.
He was not far behind her. Every lurch sent a finger of pain through his temples, each clamping down harder than the last. It was insistent, an impatient hand growing tighter and tighter the longer he tried to ignore it. Cullen withdrew a vial from his vest pocket and emptied half the contents into his mouth, having done it now enough times not to gag anymore at the taste.
Cassandra watched him evenly, "Do you want to return to the hotel?"
"I do not wish to be coddled." he snapped peevishly and felt foolish halfway through for directing his frustration at her. He pinched the bridge of his nose, a tactile distraction from the rattling of his bones as the car bumbled over poor road.
"My apologies." he said, "But no. I would like to be useful if I can."
Cassandra simply nodded and then winced in irritation as the tailpipe backfire rang out like a shot.
Morning sunlight flickered through the birch boughs overhanging the road, a bright morse code stippled onto his coat. Cullen watched it dance over the tweed amid the shadows left by leaves swaying overhead. When he looked up, the bell tower was emerging from a thicket of chestnut trees, followed by a sloping rooftop buttressed by elaborate masonry curling around enormous panes of translucent glass that caught the light and cast it back in new colors.
The scene shifted, blurred, and he saw the shelled-out corpse of a building scorched black from high explosives. Outlines were set into what was left of the walls, some barely knee-high, dark shadow forms pressed against mortar. He knew with a terrible certainty what had left them. Skeletal, pock-marked stone clawed through the dust laden air and amid the ruins of human and stone alike, was the Chantry's statue of Andraste, untouched.
"Bastards." Lt. Hawke muttered beside him.
He closed his eyes for a long time and when he opened them again, Lothering's chantry and Carver Hawke receded away into shadow and memory where they belonged. A second longer and he realized the car had stopped.
The nave was almost empty save a scattering of early-rising parishioners in the wooden pews. They were reciting the Chant of Light, but the words were swallowed up into the vaulted ceilings, leaving only faint imprints of sound in the overwhelming quiet.
His footsteps echoed on the stone, and they faded just as quickly. The silence reminded him of home, of a dock and a lake and a village chantry much less grand. It was the silence of first snowfall, a world muffled in white.
A line of sisters and brothers appeared from the periphery in of the chancel to arrange themselves in the quire encircling the gilded statue of Andraste.
"That is her." Cassandra whispered, indicating one of the sisters at the front of the choir, a tawny woman with angular features and upturned eyes, "We will have to wait for them to finish."
They took a seat in the last pew just as the choir began to sing.
Somewhere in the scarred hillsides of Lothering, he had lost his faith. He wasn't sure if it was the last remnants of Lothering's faithful seared onto the chantry's crumbling walls, or some other grisly scene that silently cut the last fraying threads holding it in place. He didn't even realize it was missing until he had opened up his psalter, always kept in the breast pocket of his uniform, and felt the ragged hole where peace and acceptance used to be. For months, he still recited the Chant of Light from memory, from his psalter, substituting routine where belief used to be. He hoped more than believed it would suffice.
Music swelled up to the clerestory, transforming in the jeweled sunlight piercing through glass into one high, pure note held in the air. The dome captured it and amplified it until it rang out like struck crystal, resonating through stone and wood and bone until he felt his heart thrum with it. It felt like coming home again after a long absence-scraped knees, wind-tugged hair and Branson calling out to the rest of them to wait as he fell behind like always. Except, it was somehow more personal. Not like returning to a place in time but a person-the person he had been when his future was bright and shiny around the edges, a silver coin in his palm, a currency with limitless value.
But too soon it was over, the last voice dimming back into revered silence, taking with it the brief flicker of someone more substantial and leaving behind the man filled with nothing but threadbare hope and hollow motions.
Cassandra stood as the choir began emptying from the room and Cullen followed, the stiffness in his knees giving some indication that more time had passed than he thought.
"Do you think she will be willing to talk to you?" he asked her under his breath.
"She will if she cares for her sister."
Cullen frowned, "You mean to threaten her?'
His question earned him a searing look of derision and a haughty, clipped tone, "That is hardly necessary. People either wish to be helpful or wish to appear helpful to avoid scrutiny. The best way to protect her sister from our suspicion is to cooperate."
They intercepted the sister just as she passed by one of the slender stone pillars arching over the door leading from the apse.
"Excuse me, Sister Rosalina, might I have a moment of your time?"
The woman paused and as she turned towards them, Cassandra took the opportunity to slide a thumb under her lapel, flashing the silver of the all-seeing eye. The effect was near instantaneous on the other affirmed, who immediately averted their eyes and shuffled away from the woman among them who had been singled out. Finding herself abandoned, she fixed Cassandra with an imperious jut of her chin, "What is this regarding, Seeker?"
"Certain local events that took place almost twenty four years ago involving your family."
Wary trepidation fell away as she straightened, shoulders tense, a guarded expression shuttering away whatever flash of emotion preceded it, "I will do my best to help, but I was only twelve at the time. My knowledge is limited."
Cassandra merely inclined her head, steely and scrutinizing, "Is there a place we can discuss this in private?"
Green eyes flickered over him for a moment as if calculating what role he could possibly have here. Finally, she nodded, "Yes, perhaps the archives. Follow me."
She led them through corridors of the same white stone of the cathedral until they reached a cramped room turned labyrinth by the towering bookshelves stacked full with manuscripts and the cracked leather spines of aged tomes. At the corner was a large table, placed before a window so that sunlight spilled across yellow parchment. Sister Rosalina took a seat with her back to the window and gestured for them to sit in the chairs directly across.
"You are a cleric, is that correct?" Cassandra fingered the frail edge of a scroll with mute interest.
"Yes, that is right." Sister Rosalina answered, sounding warmer and less guarded, "I worked for some time with Elder Gertrude, she was a prolific mind in the study of ancient religious texts."
Cassandra nodded and added, "Your father's aunt."
"Yes...although, I had several other relations in the church as well. It was often said that the best place to find a Trevelyan was within these walls. Our family has always been very devout."
Not likely said anymore, Cullen thought. Sister Rosalina was the sole Trevelyan left in Ostwick's chantry. He studied her face discretely, wondering if it would hold any acknowledgement of the distance that had grown between her family and the local religious leadership. He found no sign, leaving him wondering if this assertion and the serene smile that accompanied it were calculated to impress just how very devout the entire family was.
Cassandra was sterner than usual, bristling with authoritative command as she left off with the parchment and straightened in her chair, "I am Cassandra Pentaghast and this is Cullen Rutherford, formerly of the Ferelden Expeditionary Force. We are here on behalf of the late Divine Justinia, investigating a connection between your youngest sister, Adelina Trevelyan, and a recent surge in terrorist activities."
Tawny skin paled against the cream and red of her habit, "Terrorism? Adelina would never-" Catlike, her eyes narrowed at them as fear gave way to anger, "If you've come to investigate all those ridiculous rumors, I'm afraid you've wasted your time."
"That is for us to decide." Cassandra replied, "Could you please recount, to the best of your knowledge, the events of your youngest sister's naming celebration?"
The anger vanished back behind the careful expression shielding her features. She suddenly looked much older, the severe cut of her cheekbones and the set of her mouth more at home on a face twice her age, "I was twelve at the time so I was not allowed to attend. I had no idea anything unusual happened until the next morning, but at the time, my parents were more concerned with the fact that our house guests had left in the middle of the night after they were blamed for the whole business."
"House guests?" Cullen ventured. There hadn't been any mention of that in the rumors Leliana's agents had gathered. Of course, those had all skewed into the wildly unbelievable. House guests were mundane compared to elven sorceresses and whatever other nonsense people could conjure up in their minds.
"Yes, some distant relatives of my father's from Tevinter. I didn't know the details, but they were discussing some sort of joint business venture. My father was furious over it falling through after."
Cassandra leaned forward, "You said they had been blamed?"
The seeker's focused attention seemed to discomfit her. Perhaps because of the two of them, Cassandra was the only one with any real authority and she wore it like one of her well-tailored suits.
Sister Rosalina hesitated before proceeding cautiously, "Yes. The teryn's first wife was explicit with her opinion regarding the...unconventional customs in Tevinter. She thought the whole thing was a tasteless prank and accused them as charlatans peddling parlor tricks and explosive powders."
He nodded. The opinion was hardly uncommon outside of the Imperium.
"What sort of business venture?" he asked, noting the lines furrowing at the corners of her mouth.
As intended, the new line of questioning left her more relaxed, "I'm afraid I wasn't privy to most of their dealings, but I believe it was something involving a seaside resort."
"Did you parents speak of the old woman?" Cassandra asked, switching back to dangerous territory so rapidly that, for a moment, the other woman did not think to resume her careful guard.
"Only after…"
Tension coiled through the room, and she was stiff-backed, looking momentarily like someone who had accidentally stepped off a cliff edge
Cassandra would not let her backpedal, pursuing the word ruthlessly, "After?"
Gone was the serene face of the devout sister, the imperious tilt of her chin. She recoiled away and stared down at the table sullenly, refusing to speak.
"After the first death?" Cassandra demanded, "The maid?"
Rather than be intimidated, the woman fixed a cold stare on them and said, "I think you should leave."
But Cassandra was tenacious, she stood up, her chair screeching over the floor as she leaned over the cleric's downcast head, "Henrietta Toubes, who somehow severed her spine on your family's estate."
Green eyes flashed up, "No one knew what happened. It could have been a wild animal."
Her words were well-worn and trite, a phrase she did not believe but repeated often enough that she did not have to think about it anymore. It was the first thing that sounded like a lie and by the triumphant gleam in Cassandra's eye, he knew she recognized it too.
"How was it that a child escaped this attack unscathed? Why was the body found so far away from the house?"
Sister Rosalina was no woman of weak will, but he was certain that Cassandra's brutal barrage of questioning was calculated to expose another weakness entirely. Temper flaring in response, she stood and shot back, "She was found by the creek where she had attempted to drown an infant merely for possessing a glowing hand. I do not know what stopped her, nor, Maker forgive me, do I find myself caring overmuch that malignant superstition was prevented. Now, you will excuse me."
She swept out of the room and Cassandra made no move to stop her.
"That went well." was all she said, looking pleased enough to indulge in the barest of smirks after the sound of footsteps faded completely, "Better than I expected."
She turned to him, "You have a knack for putting people at ease, like Leliana. I do not have that talent."
"Will you attempt to speak to her again?" Cullen asked. Privately he thought that anyone would put a person at ease compared to Cassandra when it came to interviews. Josephine's description was more accurate than he expected.
"Not me, but you perhaps. Leliana always had luck with seeking them out later and apologizing for my hostility. It made her seem like a sympathetic ear. You could do the same."
Cassandra left him to do just that, eager to drive back to the telegraph office and communicate with Leliana. She would send a carriage back for him-no more cars in Ostwick, they had learned their lesson.
