A Future Unsettled and Undefined
Except for horseback lessons, which continued despite Alistair's successful mounted charge at the battle, he and Loghain spent little time together, so it was unusual in the extreme for the young King to call the old warrior to his throne room late one night when he ought to have been sleeping.
"What do you need, Your Majesty?" Loghain asked, brow furrowed in worry.
Alistair looked worried, too. He paced back and forth on the dias. "I've been hearing many… rumors. They have me… upset."
"Rumors about the Orlesians?"
"No. About my father."
Loghain was confused. "What do you mean? What kind of rumors?"
Alistair stopped dead in the middle of the floor and stared hard at Loghain, something deep and disturbed in his hazel-greens. "Rumors that he's alive out there somewhere."
"My King, those rumors have always existed. People want him to be alive. People will repeat anything they hear from any dubious source simply because they do not wish to accept the truth. Alistair, your father is dead. Believe me, I know."
"But how do you know?"
Loghain took a step back and drew himself up. "I… I went in search of him, of course. I spent two years at sea, looking for any trace of him. I found nothing. Nothing at all."
"But how do you know?" Alistair was fairly pleading now.
"I… suppose I really can't, but you can't hold forever to hope that simply doesn't exist," Loghain said. "He was lost at sea. Finding someone whose ship sank is nearly impossible. You can't hold forever to hope that simply doesn't exist."
"He may have cast me off, but he was still my father."
"I know. And he was the closest I ever had to a brother. If I truly believed he was out there somewhere, anywhere, I would go to him. You know I would."
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Prince Duncan was now the proud master of a fine specimen of mabari pup, one of the stable master's litter. Mustard, he'd named her. Her coat was yellow. They were inseparable, as was only right, and it gave Loghain some small comfort in troubled times to know the boy would have a stout hound to watch over him. Elilia first met the pup on a visit to the nursery accompanied by Loghain and Seanna, and she expressed due appreciation for the creature, to its young master's delight.
"You are a lucky young man, to have so fine a hound," she said to the prince, while rubbing Mustard's oversized ears. "My Kiveal was my finest and most faithful companion for many years."
"What happened to him, Lady Cousland?" Duncan asked, with interest.
"He lived to a ripe old doggy age, at least for a mabari that had tasted Darkspawn blood. He passed away some time ago, however."
The boy's arms tightened around Mustard's neck protectively. "You must miss him."
"I do. I think of him often."
The boy pondered deeply for a time, while scratching the itchy places he already knew Mustard liked best to be scratched. "The stable master's bitch had a very large litter," he said at last. "Several of the pups haven't imprinted on anyone yet. Perhaps one of them would choose you."
She smiled sadly. "It is a nice thought. I miss very much having a good hound at my side, though I could never replace my dear old Kiveal."
"He can't be replaced," Seanna pointed out, "but he can be succeeded."
"Seanna's right," Loghain said, though he felt something of a hypocrite even as he said it. He'd never been able to contemplate another mabari in all the many years since Adalla died, though he'd certainly enjoyed being part of Kiveal's pack while it lasted. "You should have a look at them. Seems to me someone like you would have a better-than-average chance of being chosen."
"I would love to see the mother," Seanna said. "I'd never seen a mabari until I was with the army, and I was too afraid to get near. They're so big, they looked like they could swallow me entire. I should like to meet a full-grown hound up close, as long as I'm not alone."
"Well, I suppose we could take a peek, if you really want to see," Elilia said, as she tried and failed to hide her excitement at the thought of possibly having another mabari companion. "We can go down to the stables after tea."
Interested to see what would happen, Loghain went with them. He stayed well back, however, to avoid the possibility that one of the pups might accidentally imprint to him. There were four fine pups remaining from the very large litter of seven, two of them yellow like Mustard. The other two were quite unusual creatures, however. One, a male, was pure white with brilliantly blue eyes. The other, female, was black as midnight in the Deep Roads with a white blaze upon her snout and another upon her chest. All the pups clambered over each other in excitement to greet their distinguished visitor and sniff her hands and lick her face. Seanna made a valiant effort to approach the mother of the pups but an incurious glance in her direction from the great hound sent her slinking back to stand behind Loghain.
Eventually the yellow pups returned to their own amusements and the black female wandered off. The white male, however, clearly thought Elilia quite a satisfactory individual. He had chosen her. Loghain smiled despite himself. The black female was the biggest and most impressive of the pups but the white one had Elilia written all over him from the start and looked like he would grow to be quite the hound. White mabari were very rare. Elilia looked over at him, grinning, face covered in dog slobber and radiantly happy. Her gaze caught on something and she laughed. "Don't look now, but I think you've got an admirer."
He felt something heavy press against his leg. He looked down and saw the black female looking up at him, leaning hard against his shin, tongue lolling and stumpy tail wagging vigorously. "Go on, get back to your mother, now, you," he said.
The pup whined, urged forward slightly, then subsided, sat down on her haunches, and looked at him with dark amber eyes that implored.
"Does that mean she's imprinted?" Seanna asked, excitedly. "She's chosen you, hasn't she?"
"No, she just wants the wedge of cheese I've got in my pocket," Loghain growled. He took it out and tossed it in the direction of the stables and the puppy's mother. The pup paid no attention to the treat whatsoever, and the yellow pups got into a brief squabble over it.
Limpid puppy eyes waged battle with ice-blue eyes, and the blue eyes were the first to falter. Elilia laughed merrily. "Yield, Loghain, and have done with it. She's chosen you, and that's all there is to say about that. This is hardly the first time you've been defeated in single combat by a young bitch."
"Is she your chosen Champion, then?" Loghain mocked lightly, though he felt far from jocular. He knelt down and the pup put a paw on his knee. "You have atrocious taste in humans, youngling," he muttered as he scratched her ears. Ecstatic to receive attention from her chosen master, the pup closed her eyes and leaned into his hand, panting.
"What will you name him?" Seanna asked Elilia as she and her new pup joined them.
"He's white as snow, so I think I shall call him Haakon, after old Haakon Wintersbreath."
"Heathen," Loghain muttered under his breath, though with the half of a smile.
Elilia fisted her hands on her hips. "All right, Devout Andrastian, what shall your new friend's name be?"
He thought for a moment, and then realized he'd already found the proper name for such a fine dog. "Champion."
"But it's a girl!" Seanna blurted. Loghain cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Champions cannot be female?" he asked. "Elilia is Champion of Redcliffe, though of all her honors I'd call that the very merest. A few years back the city of Kirkwall declared itself a Champion that was also a woman, if I heard the news correctly."
"Right, you're right. Forget I said anything. It just sounded rather boyish to me at first. Champion - it's a good name."
Loghain stood and found the stable master. He presented him with a handful of gold coins. In Ferelden only the unscrupulous sold mabari puppies, but when one was fortunate enough to be chosen by a pup bred by another, and one could afford to pay, a kind of gratuity was only proper. It showed that you were aware of the honor you'd received in being chosen, and expressed thanks for the care the dog had been given before it imprinted.
Duncan and Mustard watched all of this with great interest from the far side of the yard. The boy's keen eyes saw that not only had the Lady been chosen, but so too had Grandfather. And by the finest pups in the litter. Excited, he raced his pup back inside, eager to share the news with mother and father.
As the trio - quintet now, with the dogs - left the stables the stable master dropped to his knees before his own mabari, took her face in both hands, and roughed her up lovingly. "Pups gone to the young Prince, the Lady Cousland, and Teyrn Loghain himself! Mirani, my lass, you've done well by your babies, you have! You're the Queen of Mabaris!"
The dog barked her complete agreement to this sentiment.
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He woke with a start and reached for the blade he kept on the bedside table, but in a heartbeat he registered the sound of snuffling and his memory returned. He lifted the sleeping fur and peered beneath it to see a pair of shining eyes staring back at him from somewhere near his knees. Champion had nosed her way under the covers at the foot of the bed and started burrowing her way up to the head of it.
"This will not stand, young lady," he said as severely as he could manage, "if it should happen that there is a human lady in this bed with me some night." The dog's stump of a tail wagged briskly and she whined her understanding. "Come on up, then, if such is your intention."
She bellied up and stuck her head out from under the blankets. She licked his face to show her gratitude and stretched out beside him with her head resting on his chest. He scratched her ears and that itchy spot on the side of her neck - her human had smart hands, such a blessing! - and petted her a bit before falling asleep again, his hand still at rest upon her back. Champion missed her mother, and her brothers and sisters, but the sound of her human's steady heartbeat was soothing and soon she was asleep herself. She was not homesick, for the part of her that knew this was her proper master knew also that where he was she was home.
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Good King Alistair didn't want to hear Loghain's opinions on the matter of the likelihood of another Orlesian attack, but to his credit he did not close his mind and refuse to see and hear, as his brother almost surely would have done, at least the Cailan who was so eager to open Ferelden's borders to the Chevaliers in the first place. The worn, haggard look in his face seemed to say that he'd known all along it was too much to hope they were free and clear.
"What do you think they'll do?" he asked, dully.
"For now I believe they'll think. We took them by surprise, and they'll be wondering just how strong we are in our allies, how much support we can mount against them from dwarves and werewolves and mages. We need to use this time, My King, to strengthen our borders the best we can. Our biggest weakness is our coastline - we're shit for sailors and our 'navy' is a joke. We have a large population of unemployed, put every man jack of them with a strong back to work strengthening harbor fortifications. These are the main priorities here, here, and here," he said, pointing out Denerim, Amaranthine, and Highever ports. "If you still have resources you should do what you can here at West Hills and Gwaren. Is Old Ironsides afloat?"
The King looked momentarily puzzled, then sheepish. "She's in dry dock."
"Well get her out of dry dock and get her seaworthy. She's the only real for-the-purpose warship we've got, and while it's nowhere near enough it is at least a start. Hire mercenary vessels to patrol our waters if you can find any that seem reasonably trustworthy. Send other vessels again to Kirkwall and all the other seaports that took in Fereldan refugees and do whatever you can to bring more of them back - reinstatement of rank, full salary, whatever you can to get more soldiers on the field. Offer jobs and citizenship, too, and see if you can't lure a few of the poorer Marchers over with opportunities. There's going to be plenty of work for everyone, and we need all hands. Start courting allies, too, in the Free Marches, yes, but I suggest sending emissaries to Nevarra, far as it is. They hate the Orlesians as much as we do and have better resources to fight them. Perhaps they can't be persuaded to send us direct assistance but if they could be convinced that this would be an opportune time to strike at Orlais' western border that could only be a help to us. And Alistair…?"
"Yes?"
"It's time to stop accepting the excuses of the Banns who've shown reluctance thus far to honor their obligations to the Crown. If any of them still wish to hem and haw about sending their forces to aid their country, you need to show them what they risk by disobeying their rightful King and Queen."
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Anora sipped her tea and spoke of inconsequential things, and that worried Elilia. If the Queen didn't want to get right to the point then the Queen had something up her capacious sleeve. Eventually she set her delicate cup aside and spoke more directly, though Elilia was sure she was still not getting the full story.
"I spoke to Ser Cauthrien recently. She's been in charge of my father's former Teyrnir for some time now, you are aware, protecting my daughter's interests for the day when she may take her rightful place as Teyrna. It is rather difficult to get word to and from the village with the Imperial Highway running through the Blight Lands and the Brecilian Passage often beset by werewolves, so I was eager to hear her account of how things are going there. She is rather frazzled, poor soul, by the demands of rule, though she's done admirably well. Are you aware of the changes that have come over my little home village since the Blight?"
"I've never been there, Your Majesty, but I understand that many inhabitants of the worst-hit areas fled there hoping to make passage to the Free Marches."
"And many found they could not afford it. And later many found there were no ships to be had, for once the captains left Ferelden behind they did not choose to return. The Darkspawn, for whatever reason, never turned their aggression much toward the village, and so many chose to remain there, feeling it was safer than trying to leave. They live there still. Gwaren has become rather a large town - almost a city."
"So I've heard."
"After hearing Cauthrien's report on the situation there, I have concluded, and the King agrees, that Gwaren may now require the services of a Bann to oversee the town, and take pressure off the one in charge of overseeing the wider scope of the teyrnir. It was never large enough to require more than its mayor in the past, but we must accept that times have changed."
"Bann of Gwaren," Elilia stated, tasting the words. It would be better to be Bann of a town far isolated from the rest of the nation than to be the wife of some pompous blowhard here in the center of it all.
"Cauthrien is quite keen on the idea. She is very hopeful that it comes to pass."
Elilia felt a small twinge of prickled pride at being the underling of a woman of no noble birth or official station, but swallowed it. She hadn't been a Cousland again for long enough to get uppity about such things. "Provided I'm given the time to complete the mission your father and I are planning, I suppose I would not be adverse to the idea, if Your Majesty wishes it. Am I then to be Bann of Gwaren?"
Anora's perfectly-plucked blonde eyebrows rose into her hairline. "Maker, no. Cauthrien is to be Bann, Lady Cousland, not you. It is a far better reward for her service than the position she has now. The conferment of noble status, her own vote in the Landsmeet. Right now she has the power only to advise my vote on behalf of Gwaren. She will also not be spread so thin trying to juggle the demands of city and teyrnir. Even my father had his difficulties, and he had not the burden of a large town at his doorstep to bother over."
Elilia was confused, and told the Queen as much. "Who then is to be King's Protector of Gwaren?"
Anora waved a hand over her teacup as though she waved off steam. "The position will be dissolved. My intention is to install a proper Teyrna, provided I have that Teyrna's assurance that my daughter will be her lawful heir."
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The Grand Cleric at last came before the King and Queen with word from the Divine. The old priest looked ill-pleased by the news she had to convey.
"Her Grace the Divine implores me to reason with Your Majesties," the woman said. "She does not wish to see more bloodshed. Surely the rulers of Ferelden can see they are better off to surrender than to engage in endless battle?"
Anora's lips compressed into a tight white line. Alistair jumped up out of his throne and swore. "So we're supposed to lay down arms and give up our nation just because we're fucking smaller than Orlais?"
Instead of taking affront, the Grand Cleric looked only as though she would like to add a few choice words of her own. "I fear for too long has the hierarchy of our Chantry been tied to the fortunes of the Empire. They have forgotten their just place above the petty tyrants who seek to grab power and wealth for themselves at the cost of those who are weaker than they. I cannot in good faith counsel appeasement with Orlais, no matter that my duty calls me to stand behind the word of the Divine. All of Thedas should take alarm at this precedent of the Chantry deciding the fate of free nations. The Empress and her knights and nobility believe themselves the chosen of the Maker, and set themselves to be greater than those beneath them, demigods who are free to take what they will from those less than they, as if the lower classes were less even than animals. To my way of thinking, if the Maker were truly to look down upon Thedas and decide to take a hand in the way things are run here, He would smite Orlais with both fists."
Too bad we didn't call Loghain in to hear this, Alistair thought. I think he'd jump up and kiss this woman full on the mouth.
But the Grand Cleric had more to say. "I do not wish to precipitate war, you understand. I'm sure you are as painfully aware as I of Orlais' strength of arms and resources. If they truly wish to retake Ferelden for their own then I fear greatly for the nation. I have sent a messenger to the Divine, imploring her to reconsider her position. I do not think I have much chance of changing her mind, but hopefully I can buy Ferelden a bit of extra time. I will hold her off as long as I can. If I might be so bold as to suggest, Your Majesties, it would seem to me a fine idea to seek all the allies you can muster against this impending danger. Perhaps if our armies are fortified strongly enough, Orlais will decide it is simply not worth the effort."
That seemed to be the end of it, but a strange half-smile curved one corner of the Grand Cleric's mouth. "The phylacteries of the mages of the Ferelden Circle are here in Denerim, in a locked storeroom under the Chantry. If they were destroyed it would be a small disaster, at least if the Circle were to be reestablished, so I do hope Your Majesties will say nothing of this to any but your most trusted advisors, for fear of the unscrupulous. But that's as may be. Given that the untrained eye might have believed us to be aided by magic in our defeat of their first assault, I believe it very likely that the Empire will find whatever magical aid they can to fight against us. If Your Majesties were able to find more of those clever souls who were able to mimic magical talent so very closely, I believe that would be most wise."
"You are not afraid of the consequences of using…mimicked magic?" Alistair asked, cautiously.
The Grand Cleric's smile was tight and hard. "I remember the Occupation, Your Majesty, quite vividly. Not all of my Revered Mothers will agree, but for myself I'd sooner risk billeting ten maleficarum than one sodding Chevalier."
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She slipped through the darkened streets of the lower market in a black woolen cloak, hood drawn up to shroud her face. She'd left Seanna behind, not wanting to risk her in this insane venture, and Haakon as well. The pup had begged and pleaded to follow but his white fur was a beacon. She commanded him to stay and guard Seanna.
The front doors of the Chantry were unbarred, and she slipped inside. A quick peek around the interior showed the place was eerily silent and utterly deserted, which should never be true of a place of worship the size of this. Either she was walking into a trap or the Grand Cleric had sent the priests and the old bat of a Revered Mother off on nighttime errands. If the former turned out to be the case she had her sword in harness on her back under the cloak. If it was the latter she would stand in the palace square in full light of day and declare the Grand Cleric Ferelden's own White Divine. She slipped into the vestry and down the narrow stairs into the underbelly of the house where dwelt the Brides of the Maker.
She found the locked door, wished vainly for a moment that her training had included the fine art of lock picking or that she had thought to ask Loghain along - he probably knew a few of the more "practical" arts of survival, even though he would just scoff and tell her that breaking into locked rooms was "not my area of expertise." Leliana would have been a useful companion on this mission but she had gone back to her beloved Chantry and once more renounced her bardic training. Zevran was off somewhere waging war against the Antivan Crows. Nathaniel and Sigrun were busy in Amaranthine. With a sigh for the good old days, Elilia brought her fist down hard on the lock. The wood of the door splintered and it popped open. Messy, but perfectly adequate to the purpose. Her hand hurt, though, even through the dragonbone gauntlet. Note to self: make friends with a trusty cloak-and-dagger type keen on adventure. A good lock-picker and trap-snapper was a must on any well-organized expedition.
She more than half expected to be beset by enraged templars the moment the door was open, but the room proved as empty as the rest of the building. She crept inside and found the racks of crystal vials containing the blood of scores of mages. She carefully loaded them into the pack she'd brought along. She would destroy them someplace more private, and wash the blood away. She would not leave it to pool and possibly be collected again by resourceful priests. Finally she found the most important name - Seanna Surana.
"They still have you caged, Little Bird," she whispered, "but that ends tonight."
With a brief prayer of thanksgiving for clerics who knew the difference between what was law and what was right, she hurried back out of the house of worship and into the night.
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It was much as it had been in days long past, countless hours planning and drafting blueprints for defensive structures, setting up training programs, hearing reports on military activity. Part of him wished to be dead and not have to see this, not have to deal with all of this again. During the Rebellion he'd been a young man who could not honestly conceive of failure, and with few ties to worry him. Now it was different, he'd tasted the bitterness of defeat and knew it could be his again, and the stakes seemed so very much higher.
Every spare moment found him with the children, either enjoying their company or standing guard over them while they slept. He very seldom slept at all these days, even when he felt he needed it. There was so much to do, and so very little time. At his side always was Champion, already as dignified and stalwart a hound even with her puppyish awkwardness as a dog of many years and campaigns. Such a fine animal, a worthy successor to beloved Adalla. Their bond grew stronger daily.
Even in the face of bustling preparations, Elilia seemed perfectly optimistic. He wondered at that. Was it a brave face she wore, to keep those around her from despair? Or did she truly believe that they'd managed to land a blow powerful enough to shake the foundation of the Empire? He had to bear in mind that no matter how hard she'd toiled to prepare for the defeat of the Blight, essentially it had all come down to one grand battle - cut the head off the demon and save the world. Leaderless, the Darkspawn were no longer a threat. All of her battles, right down to the one she fought against him to end the civil war, were very much the same: prove your might to the adversary and accept its surrender. Real wars, against ordinary enemies, were a bit different. If he sent an assassin to Val Royeaux tonight to stab Celene in the heart then tomorrow there would be a new head on the snake, probably all the more eager for Fereldan blood because of it. It might slow them down, and if he had a worthy assassin on hand he might think to attempt it, but the only way to be sure and dissuade the invaders was to catch them each time they made a sortie, and crush them into the dirt. Ferelden…didn't have the strength to keep that up for long, not as they stood now. The little pouch of ashes he carried always at his belt seemed to carry also a small weight of hope. If it worked, if he could restore even a portion of the once-rich Fereldan breadbasket, if they could feed their soldiers…
They had to leave soon, no matter how dire the situation here at the capital. He took out his map once more and added a lighter outline defining the many hundreds of acres of land that could be worked but which now produced no more than stunted, withered crops that tasted bad and were likely poisoning the poor people who depended on them for their daily provender. If the ashes worked, the crops growing there now might by harvest grow strong and fruitful. If they recovered no more than that it would be a bountiful miracle indeed. If they could save the truly Blighted lands where nothing would grow, then if the nation still stood in the spring they could sow crops and pasture animals enough to feed the country and every ally they could draw into it. He still hated to leave with things so up in the air, but between the two of them he believed Alistair and Anora were equal to the task of carrying out and even improving his plans for defense.
Well, tell the truth and spurn the Black Divine, he was counting on Anora perhaps a bit more than Alistair. He was a good lad and far better as King than Loghain had ever expected he'd be, but he was still…Alistair.
He moved in darkness to Baby Anora's crib side. The little girl wrestled with demons in her sleep, and by the triumphant smile on her face she was getting the better of them. Dear little thing, she had the makings of a legendary warrior. He smoothed back her unruly curls and kissed her, and the nightmare loosed its grip upon her slumber. He covered her little, cold feet with the blankets and moved on to Duncan's bed. The boy slept peacefully, his dreams untroubled, the dark spirits of the Fade perhaps held at bay by the talisman of the fine silverite dagger that lay beside the pillow, carefully sheathed, and the mustard-yellow pup that sprawled across the foot of the bed. The boy was thoughtful and knew the value of both caution and boldness, which many of his elders had yet to learn so well. He was well on the way to becoming a just and wise King.
But no child's future was set, and there would be no future for them at all if they did not live. He remembered what the Orlesians did to the Theirin family the last time they felt Ferelden needed to be made an example of. Unspeakable tortures would be visited upon the children, and their deaths would be public spectacle. He could not bear such a cruel fate. He would not leave them to the "mercy" of Orlais. If the kingdom looked to be overthrown and there was no escape he would take his father's blade and slit their throats himself.