Chapter 9
He returned to her again the next day. The keep was buzzing with activity, but he stepped around all of it, save for the letter from Delilah saying that she and Albert had gone off to Denerim for a month or two. Nathaniel couldn't fault them, and once he had checked with Mistress Woolsey that the road they had taken still appeared to be safe (and had been doubly reassured by Garavel's insistence), he actually felt rather relieved. It was better than worrying about her half a day's ride away in such troubled times, and he had heard that the capital was nice this time of year.
Over breakfast, Vanadia sat with Oghren, a toy horse on the table before them. He had done his best not to eavesdrop. And as he descended the steps out into the main yard, he caught sight of Justice being approached by a woman- who then began to backpedal swiftly.
He looked away.
Samuel caught him before he could reach the prison door, asking after his health and Delilah's. He fought the urge to rock onto the balls of his feet as the conversation dragged on. Behind Samuel, he caught glimpses of the Commander speaking with Justice, and then the two heading for the stables, Sigrun emerging from the higher walls to join them. By the time Samuel excused himself, the three had left the keep.
He shook his head, relieved that Vana hadn't pulled him along with them. Balancing the now-cold offering of food in his hand, he pulled open the prison door.
The sound of panting, pained breath caught him, and he shoved the plate aside onto a nearby barrel.
"Cauthrien?" he called, rounding the corner with his heart in his throat.
He was met by the sight of her looking back at him from where she had suspended herself, a few inches above the ground, with her arms wrapped around the bars. She lowered herself gently. "Good morning," she said.
Nathaniel's cheeks burned and he tried to stuff down the feeling of embarrassment. "I.. yes. Hello. I thought-"
She quirked a brow.
"… Never mind," he said. "Let me grab your food. Do you- did they bring you water yet?"
"They did. As did Justice, shortly thereafter."
"He came by again?" Nathaniel asked, frowning as he retrieved the plate and brought it to her. "He didn't tell me."
"Briefly. Just for the water, and to encourage me to keep up my strength. He's… a good sort, after a fashion." She shrugged and settled down cross-legged.
"Oh. Hence the…" he gestured to the bars. She nodded.
"It's pathetic, what I can still do," she said, reaching out to take the half-loaf of bread he'd brought her. "When I was still in Drakon, I did what I could to keep up my exercises. I fell off when I came here. The lack of light, the uncertainty of it all… when you're sure you've been left to rot, it all stops seeming as important." She took a bite, then rolled her shoulders and flexed her arms and fingers, shaking her head. Once she had swallowed, she looked to him. "I'm probably half the size I was, between the lack of any sort of food and how… sedentary I've been."
"You're in prison," he said, and tried not to think about her with broader shoulders, stronger legs.
"True," she conceded, and took another bite.
Was it odd, watching her eat? Maybe he should have held off on eating, so that he could join her. As it was, he found himself watching the flex of her jaw, easy to see now with her shorn hair.
Maker, he'd cut her hair for her the night before.
He cleared his throat. "Do you- mind if I bring something to work on?" He was sure some of his armor fastenings needed mending, and he could always pick up arrows to be fletched. He had lost more than he had planned on in the Blackmarsh. "I have the day, but I'm not sure you'd want me staring at you the whole time."
"And you do appear well-rested, so a hay nap isn't in order," she said with a laugh. "Go ahead."
He spent the next four days sitting with her, leaving only to check on what went on in the keep and to sleep. Sergeant Maverlies was kind enough to bring their meals, and while Cauthrien ate or worked strength back into her limbs, he sat with a stack of arrow shafts and a little pot of wax and resin with a candle burning beneath it, trimming feathers and attaching them carefully. It took a steady hand and some peace of mind, and it was gratifying to know he could still manage it.
They talked of idle things - the quality of the food, the weather outside when he marked it. He told her about Kal'Hirol and the Blackmarsh, leaving out the pieces that he doubted Vanadia would appreciate being spread. She told him about life in the barracks, and he gave her in turn stories of his life as a squire. He told her about Kirkwall, and she told him about the farm she had grown up on.
He wanted to offer to take her there - it was not more than a few days' ride southwest. But he kept the thought to himself, focusing instead on his work.
It grew harder to ignore that he enjoyed sitting with her, and that he enjoyed talking with her, and enjoyed looking at her. He felt flustered when Vana's party returned from the city and Justice came by with an offering of a cup of water, to find Nathaniel sitting away from his work and against the cell bars. He had been listening to the story of King Cailan's coronation - the revelry, the underlying note of mourning that lingered, the King's drunken order to find him a dragon and fight it, as a knight should. Cauthrien sat nearby, leaning against the bars a little further down, her feet by his hips. They could have been touching, and the arrow he held in his lap sat idle, his fingers wound with thread but unmoving.
And then the smell had preceded him and Justice had greeted them both with, "I have brought water," and then a more questioning, "Has Warden Nathaniel discharged that duty already?"
Nathaniel had been glad his back was to the spirit.
"Yes, and food," he said.
Cauthrien nodded. "Thank you, Justice."
"Good," Justice said. "Do you require anything more?"
"No," Cauthrien said. "You don't need to worry."
"I spoke with the Commander," Justice said, and Cauthrien held up a hand.
"Unless she's about to walk in with the key, I don't want to know."
Justice fell silent, and Nathaniel finally twisted around to look up at him. He looked thoughtful- confused. "I… see," he said at last. "I think I might understand."
"You probably do," Cauthrien said, and Justice nodded.
"Very well," he said. "I will return tomorrow."
And he did, of course. He stopped in, with water, and with the desire to talk to Cauthrien, and again Cauthrien waved him away. She told Nathaniel later that it was a little overwhelming, having a spirit of Justice take her side. The judgment he had passed on her at first had been easier; his belief in her goodness was much more uncomfortable. Nathaniel couldn't argue.
Sigrun came by as well, once, to bring Cauthrien a book. It was in Orlesian.
Cauthrien shut it after five pages (once Sigrun was safely gone), cheeks pink.
"It's, ah," she said when he questioned her, "not… the sort of book I usually have an interest in."
He took it back to the library for her later that night, and stole a glimpse. His Orlesian was rusty, learned years ago and not used since, but even he knew what une femme d'une grande passion would lead to. He flushed and shelved the book, and tried not to think of what Cauthrien would sound like reading it aloud.
On the third day he came in from taking another bundle of fletched arrows to the keep fletchers to find Justice standing by Cauthrien's cell again. They were speaking in low voices, and Cauthrien was shaking her head.
"It was a mortal failing," Justice said. "I… feel I may understand its provenance. This body, the man who it once was, he loved a woman. Very… deeply. The other day, I met this woman. It brought back some echo of that longing."
"It wasn't love, Justice," Cauthrien said, sighing and running a hand through her hair. Nathaniel recognized it as a nervous gesture, and uncertain one. He opened his mouth to speak, but found his lungs wouldn't cooperate to form sound, let alone words.
It was an intimate moment, an intimate question. He was intruding. Where words didn't come, his feet also didn't move. And so he watched from the shadows, barely able to see her.
"What you have described, it sounds similar. I do not see the difference."
"Idolization and love are very different," Cauthrien said, and Nathaniel's pulse quickened. Loghain. They were talking about Loghain. She hadn't told him about Loghain, not in any depth, except to dispel the rumors that she had ever been his lover and to stress her loyalty to him, and where it had led.
"But you have said that this man respected you, as you did him."
"It was hardly as equal as you make it sound, Justice." Cauthrien folded her arms around herself. "I… when I was younger, when I was more lost in him, I called it love, if only to myself. But love… no, it never was. What we had- I believed in him. You believe in the concept of justice with all that you are, right? That's what makes you up?"
"Something… like that, yes," Justice said, frowning.
"And I believed in him. I followed him to protect Ferelden, and he- becameFerelden."
"He became a piece of land?"
She shook her head, gaze growing distant. "He became home. And I suppose you can love a home, do anything to protect a home, but that's not the type of love you're talking about, Justice."
"Have you felt the sort I speak of?"
Cauthrien looked up to Justice then, and shook her head. "No," she said. "I've never had the option, or sought it out."
"This is… a shame. From this body's memories, I feel that it is something worthwhile. Something beautiful."
"It's supposed to be, yes," she said, with a little smile.
"And Warden Nathaniel?" Justice asked, and Nathaniel waited for his vision to swim from the stilling of his heart. He stared, holding his breath.
Cauthrien flushed, smile twitching and then failing. "What about him?"
"He visits you often. The guards say that he sits with you often. You trust him."
She swallowed and turned away. "He is an ally."
"Is that the correct word?"
Cauthrien's shoulders rose with her slow inhale. "It's a word," she said at last. "It's mostly correct."
"I don't understand," Justice said, and Cauthrien laughed, rough and uneven.
"You don't have to." She looked to him. "… Can I have some time alone?"
"Of course."
Nathaniel shook himself, and slunk back to the door, slipping out of it. The cold air outside was bracing and he sucked in great breaths of air. He'd expected her to laugh it off, to wave it off, and instead, she-
She-
"Warden Nathaniel," Justice said, and Nathaniel startled. "… Are you well?"
"What? Yes," he said, turning. "Just thinking."
Justice watched him passively, then nodded. "Have you spoken with the Commander of late?"
"No. Why?"
"Nothing has happened." Justice frowned. "We should be hunting the darkspawn, and yet we remain here."
"She's Arlessa," Nathaniel said. "It wouldn't surprise me if she's handling paperwork. And there are the ongoing repairs to the walls." He pointed towards the outer ring of stone. "We've barely had more than a week together to breathe and regroup."
"The countryside suffers while we 'breathe'," Justice said, his frown not lessening.
Nathaniel sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose and using the motion to hide his continuing blush. "Raise the issue with her, then. I have arrows to fletch."
"Do you visit her out of penance?" Justice asked, and Nathaniel muttered a curse.
"Could you fixate a little less on us, perhaps?" he snapped.
Justice canted his head. "I did not mean to offend."
"It's not…" He sighed. "I'm not offended. Just- yes, and no, and maybe. Does that answer please you?"
"No."
"I didn't think it would," Nathaniel said, shaking his head and moving to the prison door. "Good day, Justice."
He didn't wait for a response.
He wasn't entirely convinced that Cauthrien hadn't noticed him. At the very least, the conversation left both of them awkward and less prone to speaking while he sat across from her. The tips of his fingers were pink from the draw of thread across them and the touches of hot wax, and he likely should have taken a break. But he didn't.
She was the one to break the silence. She had just finished a round of holding herself up against the bars (which he had studiously ignored, because the last time he had watched he had caught a glimpse of her waist and the flare of her hips), and sat back against the far wall now, one knee drawn up to her chest. She didn't look at him as she spoke.
"I don't think about him as often as I thought I would," she said.
He stilled. "Who?" he asked. "My father?"
"Loghain," she said, and he looked up. "If you'd told me a year ago that I could go a year sitting with nothing to do for weeks on end without thinking about him more than once a day… I would have agreed, but I wouldn't have believed it."
"It was during a war. Of course you thought about him often then," he said, and she snorted.
"Thank you, but you know it was more than that." She laced her fingers together against her knee. "… I just never thought I would move on so easily."
"I wouldn't call this easy," he said, rubbing his fingertips together a moment to massage the feeling back into them. "And I'm not sure I'd call it moving on, either. I think surprisingly little of my father nowadays. In both senses of the word."
Cauthrien smirked a moment, then leaned her head back and looked up at where the bars met the ceiling. "I suppose you're right. Still… he was such a large part of my life for so long. And now he's- gone. And that's it."
He nodded, setting down the arrow he was working on. His mouth felt dry already; she didn't speak to him like this, not about Loghain. And yet as he settled back, he knew what he wanted to say, how he wanted to respond.
Nathaniel met her eyes.
"Do you think you loved him?" he asked.
She didn't sigh or turn away like she had from Justice. Her gaze dropped a moment, then returned to him. He watched as her tongue peeked out from between her lips to wet them as she considered her answer.
"Not in any healthy way," she said at last.
Nathaniel nodded.
"And what about you?" she asked.
His smile came unbidden, nervous and a little exhilarated, and he looked down. "I take it," he said, "that you're not asking about my filial love for my father."
"No."
"… I didn't spent my time in the Marches chasing skirts, if that's your real question."
"Something like it."
He swore he could hear her breathing, and when he glanced up again she was watching him with a nervousness, a cautiousness, that almost read as shy. Allies, he thought with a stuttering breath.
That was mostly correct.
She was lovely, he admitted to himself. Lovelier than the stories had made her out to be. Her skin was flushed with exertion and maybe, hopefully, with warmth. Her eyes were alight. She was a far cry from the wasted woman he had met the first time the torch had been lit.
And she knew him. She-
There was a sharp knock at the door. It opened in another breath, the sound of shouted orders crashing down into the small room. With it came Sigrun, half in her kit of armor.
"Darkspawn mass outside of the city," she gasped. "The Commander needs you."
"Amaranthine?" Nathaniel was on his feet, and Cauthrien with him. "Of course. I'll-" He looked to Cauthrien, and she nodded. "I'm with you," he said, and then he followed Sigrun out the door, leaving half a dozen arrows behind him.
The yard was chaos, men preparing, not to be prepared, as they had for weeks, but to fight. The Vigil's army, small though it was, assembled in ranks. He followed Sigrun around it all, heart in his throat and in his gut simultaneously. He had seen the state of the city - it would fall. It could fall before they even reached it, and certainly before an army could.
They entered the audience hall to a scene of near chaos, nobles who had been called to discuss defenses filling the hall with a roar of protests, complaints, fears. Vanadia stood at the head of it all and it was to her side that Sigrun led him.
Vanadia looked him over with a calmness he couldn't comprehend.
"Commander," he greeted with a bow, and she waved a hand.
"Nathaniel," she said, then glanced out at the sea of bodies. "… I leave to protect Amaranthine as soon as the horses are readied."
"Of course," he said, nodding sharply. "I will get my bow-"
"And you will remain here."
The weight of his heart grew tenfold. "I- Excuse me?" Stay here? Delilah was safe towards Denerim, but the rest of the city, the rest of the fight-
"You have been with me through Kal'Hirol and the Blackmarsh, Nathaniel. You have seen how wily these new darkspawn are." Vanadia sighed. "Do you believe their whole force crashes against the city?"
Nathaniel shook his head. "I-"
"I need good men here to defend the keep." She stepped close enough to clasp him on the shoulder, a touch that made him jump, made his foot tap anxiously against the ground.
"And what of Oghren and Anders?" he asked. "Are they no longer up to the task?"
Vanadia looked back to the door, and he followed her gaze. A stablehand waited there, breathless, palms pressed to his thighs. "You will remain here and protect your home. I need your eyes and your sense here more than I need them in a burning city." She smiled grimly. "I am leaving Anders with you, as well as Justice. Sigrun, Velanna, and Oghren go with me. I expect to find this fort still standing when I return, is that clear?"
He inhaled shakily. "Yes."
"Good," she said. "Because you're in charge until I return. Make yourself ready." Her expression flattened, growing more solemn as she turned back to him. "And may the Ancestors watch over you."
"Maker keep you," he said, ducking his head and swallowing around the lump in his throat.
"… And make sure Ser Cauthrien survives," Vanadia added. "Though I doubt I need to ask that."
"I- of course. Commander."
"Good man, Howe." She flashed a wicked, cruel grin, and then she let go of him, shouting to her team to follow her. Five guards followed. Nathaniel remained on the dais, staring after her and trying to remember how to breathe and how to move.
She left him, he realized as he went over the numbers, with less than half the garrison, walls still a good week and a half from being completed, and a dwarf with a very happy trigger finger and a lot of very powerful explosives.
"No, Dworkin," Nathaniel said, crossing his arms. "We can't lay the trip wires yet. It's too dangerous. With your brother still working on the outer walls-"
"Sod 'im! He's taken long enough, he should be done by now."
"Well, he's not, and we have a lot of men assisting. What's the minimum amount of time you need to do your work?" He had a grand headache brewing, and he hadn't managed to get down to see Cauthrien again. It didn't help his anxiety at a potentially approaching enemy to know that the person he cared about most in the whole keep likely knew nothing of what was going on, save that there was an attack somewhere on the horizon, against some location.
"Do it, or do it well?" Dworkin asked, and Nathaniel threw up his hands.
"Both. Either. Do it."
"Half a day minimum."
"Well, then," Nathaniel said, "unless the darkspawn have learned to ridehorses you will have enough time between when the scouts alert us to when they reach the walls. It will have to do. And," he added, "you had best plant those explosives far enough away that they don't undo everything your brother has done to buy us time."
"I'm not stupid, Warden," Dworkin huffed, and then he shook his head. "Bloody humans, don't know a thing about defense."
"We do know a great deal about making due, though. Do what you can short of digging the trenches."
Dworkin waved a hand dismissively as he turned.
Nathaniel sat back on what had once been his father's chair, closing his eyes and trying to ignore memories of sitting in it as a boy. He was no Arl. And he was no head of his father's garrison. He felt like a joke - a very stressed, angryjoke.
"Warden Nathaniel-"
"Yes, Justice?" he snapped.
"I have a suggestion," he said. Nathaniel opened his eyes to find him standing to his left, head bowed. When he spoke again, his voice was pitched more quietly, as if to avoid detection by anybody else.
He certainly learned quickly.
"It would be best for all involved if you released Ser Cauthrien from her cell and requisitioned her aid against the potential attack."
Nathaniel stiffened. "I can't do that, Justice."
"Explain," Justice said, brow furrowing. His eyes seemed to glow from within. "It is an option that will save lives and harm none."
"The Commander didn't give me leave to do it," Nathaniel said. "And what if she runs? What if she gets killed? And I can't imagine anybody here would enjoy taking orders from her."
"She is a noble woman who has done penance for her crimes, and she is just as likely to die where she cannot defend herself as she is helping," Justice said, the even cadence and inflection in his voice making Nathaniel's jaw clench against it.
"You certainly do think the world of her," he said.
Justice simply stared, and slowly Nathaniel realized that he didn't blink. Of course he didn't blink. It wasn't something he could mine from a man's memories.
And then Justice looked down at his hands and frowned. "… I believe she reminds me of myself. Or of other spirits. She is not as muddled as the rest of you humans are. She has a clear sense of purpose and of honor."
Nathaniel could almost hear Anders' voice in his head, singing, does Justice have a crush?
He grit his teeth.
"Trust me, she's quite muddled, and quite human. And so is everybody else here. I don't know if she would be safe-"
"She is capable of protecting herself," Justice said, and Nathaniel thumped his head back against the chair.
"… Fine. Fine, I'll let her out if she wants it." He ran a hand over his face and tried not to think about what it would be like, to sit next to her instead of near her, to see her walking by, to… to not know where she was at all times. He took a deep breath.
Justice was right. Her help would be invaluable. Captain Garavel had left with Vanadia to the city, leaving him without a leader for his men beyond himself and Justice. She knew more about commanding armies than he could imagine. If he had to hide her somewhere beyond her prison cell and only relay her words to keep order, he would do that.
"I'll get her," Nathaniel said, and pushed himself up. "I need you to check on how Wade is doing."
"Of course," Justice said, and with a sharp nod the walking corpse turned and left.
Nathaniel took a deep breath to still himself, and then he waved Varel over. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes," he said. "I need you to have somebody clean up one of the guest rooms - I need fresh sets of clothing to fit somebody of about my height. Shoes, too. And let the armory know that I'll be bringing somebody by."
Varel frowned, and for a moment Nathaniel expected an objection. But then he nodded, and Nathaniel clasped the man on the shoulder.
"And," he added, "I need the keys to the prison."
