Chapter 10 The Way Home
Usual disclaimer: The characters in this story are not mine and are owned by EA/Bioware. However, I feel no shame in taking their Cousland noble Warden and his dog as my own.
Nigel and Iolanthe made small talk as they walked back to the castle, his guards behind them, close by in case of danger but politely out of earshot, and Buddy on her other side. Or rather, he made small talk most of the way, while she responded with murmurs and nods, still stunned by the day's events. The nods were only perceptible to him because of the movement of the pheasant feathers attached to a narrow band on her hat. She rested her slender gloved hand on his arm lightly, seeming to him she feared being close enough for him to grab her. He also thought she seemed to be looking around as if seeking an opportunity to escape. But with him to her left, Buddy to her right, and guards behind, straight ahead was the only way to go. She looked like she could give armored guards the slip, and even him, but he hoped she wasn't panicked enough to try to outrun a mabari charge.
The wind began picking up, the first sign of the storm the red clouds had foretold this morning. As much as he wanted to find out what had really happened, her mood was understandable. Therefore, he avoided questioning her about the unusual circumstances of Ser Anton's death. Instead he tried to distract her until she let down her guard by sharing anecdotes about his time in Orlais, and particularly in Val Royeaux, talking in soothing tones to the beautiful dark-haired elf. He hesitated for a moment, then offered her a small flask of brandy that he withdrew from his belt pouch. "Here, this will take the edge off."
She sniffed the contents, and then took a sip, shivering at both the sweet citrus taste that told her it was Antivan, and the burn, and took another sip before handing it back. By the time they neared the palace, he had gotten her to tell him about her mother and older sister, and their little shop where they made masks and hats, which she told him she had sent them the money to start. "Certainly not on an elven maid's salary, not even the salary of the personal maid of a noblewoman," he thought, confirming his suspicions that this woman's duties involved more than cleaning her lady's chambers and tending to her wardrobe.
He turned a broad grin at her and said, playing the fop, "What a fortuitous coincidence! I shall need to purchase some masks and hats when I arrive, so that I don't look so completely out of place in court. You know, something to make me look like less of a Fereldan bumpkin. Did they make your fabulous hat, or did you make it yourself? It's adorable!" He smiled at the proud smile this provoked, despite her anxious state.
She indeed momentarily forgot her distress, and turned her head so he could see it better. "Yes, Your Highness. This is my mother's own design."
He widened his eyes, "Oh my! She's very talented, and if I may say, you make a perfect model! You must do me a great favor and give me the address of their shop!" He smiled disarmingly, but he was sincere in his praise of the craftsmanship shown in her hat, and in his request. At the same time, he thought he might check in on them while he was in Orlais, being concerned for them in the event that Iolanthe was blamed for Anton's death. He had enough understanding of Orlesian law that he could see her mother and sister being thrown into the street after their shop was seized to compensate Anton's family, even though they were completely blameless.
She couldn't help but smile at the prince's self-depreciating, but accurate description of how he would be perceived in the Empress's court. To present oneself without wearing a mask would be nearly the same as walking in naked, and being seen in the same one too often would be considered gauche. She didn't tell him that a popular slang term for 'gauche' in Orlais was 'fereldan.' Yet she couldn't resist being a bit condescending in her reply, because he was rather fereldan. "Of course, your Highness, you are wise to wish to do whatever you can to fit in. You will be taken more seriously that way." She gave him the address and directions, already making mental calculations about how much his purchases would bring to her family.
He repeated the address. "I know that street, or I used to. There was a barber there above a shop that sold meat pies. Oh and Maker, the shoe shops! I loved the shoes! That is a good location from what I remember of it." He cocked his head and looked thoughtful. "It's rather odd that your mistress didn't mention their shop to me last night, however. She highly recommended a Messere Worth's, a Madame Tolliver's, but not your family's shop. She must not be aware your family has one, perhaps?"
His poison arrow struck home. He could tell from the way a red blaze instantly flushed her cheeks and by a brief flash of anger in her lovely emerald eyes that was not the case. He suspected as soon as she mentioned it that the ambassador had deliberately omitted their shop because of who owned it, having made clear during their talk the night before her opinion of elves who got above their place. He repeated back other three names that the ambassador had given him to twist the arrow. "Well, I'm sure it was an oversight, which I promise to remedy." He offered the flask again and smiled his disarming smile, using this obvious slight as a way to driving a wedge between Iolanthe and her employer.
He looked up at the sky as they reached the palace. "Just in time, that sky promises a downpour within an hour."
As they passed through the inner gates, he asked her whether she was born in Val Royeaux, and she tensed, her face momentarily becoming an angry, dark scowl, and she replied through gritted teeth, "No, Jader." Why did he have to ask that? It was suddenly all she could do to keep from breaking into tears, as just saying that name evoked painful memories that normally she could endure, but not today. Why didn't she just lie? It was all too much to bear.
He motioned his guards to halt, then led her to a covered bench inside a small courtyard. He could tell she wasn't feigning her distress to elicit sympathy. It wasn't difficult for Nigel to infer that something terrible had happened to her in Jader. He handed her a silk handkerchief and his brandy flask again, and implored her, "Please, tell me what is wrong. I want to know."
She took both, and took a generous sip of the brandy. Iolanthe didn't know why she should trust this shem prince, yet she found she couldn't stop the flow of words that poured out of her. It was like he had tossed a rock which had broken the ground where it landed, and a spring just below the surface had burst forth. She took another drink for courage and told him her story―her father had been killed in an accident in a factory when she was a girl. Her mother and older sister after that toiled away long hours for one of the city's most exclusive tailors. She told Nigel she had tried that too when she was old enough, but she didn't have their skill with a needle, and so had resigned herself to factory work.
But a few weeks after her fourteenth birthday, a human woman named Yvette, who supervised some of the cleaning staff at one of the local lord's estate, approached them on their way home and remarked on her prettiness, despite a coating of factory grime. Too pretty for a factory, she had added. Yvette had told her mother she could get her on as an upstairs maid, if they would sign a contract for three years of service. The promised pay was more than the factory paid, for much easier work, and she also would be given something suitable to wear, two meals a day, and her own bed in the servants' quarters. Yvette had even promised her one day off a month to visit her family. She dabbed at her eyes and met Nigel's. "How could I have said no to that?"
She told Nigel that when her mother had brought up rumors of the man's harsh treatment of his servants, Yvette dismissed them as spiteful gossip, and added that he and his wife were usually away for the better part of the year, either at their country estate or in Val Royeaux. So after a brief, tearful farewell, she and her mother made their marks on Yvette's contract, and she followed the woman to her new life.
She looked down at the ground and stirred pebbles with the toe of her boot. "Unfortunately, the rumors about him were all too true, and I came to realize that Yvette's job, besides supervising the third floor staff, was to procure girls for him."
Nigel listened, and replied with disgust, "By the Maker, I am sorry that this world can be such a wicked place. I swear, he, and men like that deserve everything bad that will come their way."
She wiped away her tears and continued, "I didn't discover this for many months, as he and his family had spent the spring and summer away in the country. The work itself was easy enough, and even boring with no one there to serve. I had time to learn to read enough to follow written instructions should I have to." She took another drink of brandy before she continued. She closed her eyes, almost coughing at the burning it caused in her throat, but taking strength from the warm sensation that spread from her head to her toes.
"One morning, the head housekeeper, she informed us that the masters were returning. We were so busy for the next few days, making everything perfect to please them so that no one got punished, no? We were expected to line up outside to greet them. When they arrived, Madame, she brushed past us, leaving only a cloud of sickening perfume in her wake, as if we were statues along the fence, and she couldn't be bothered to acknowledge us. But Messere walked down the line without a word, nodding at each one of us as we bowed or curtseyed.
She sobbed, but ignored his whispered "You don't have to go on." But she must. She hadn't been able to tell her mother or sister her shame. This shem was the only one she had ever told this to besides Madame Laverna, and thinking back, from the nature of her questions at the time, while sympathetic, Madame didn't seem like she had been concerned about much else besides gaining useful information about her former master and his close associates that Iolanthe knew she could barter to others later.
She looked up at the prince's face, trying to read the emotions there, as she had been taught, and read only concern. "The next morning, I was sent to one of the distant guest rooms to clean the mud off his favorite hunting boots. I hadn't expected he would be there, wearing them...he watched me work silently, and when I had finished, he grabbed my wrist and forced me to the floor. I managed to scream once...if anyone heard me, no one came to investigate, but for days after some would not meet my eyes. Yvette came there after he finished with me, with a blanket and salve for my bruises, and said she heard that I must have fallen down the stairs. I said nothing about what he had done to me, I was crying too hard. She scolded me for being clumsy as she removed my torn dress and helped me to my bed. But the next morning she came to me, and made me drink a bitter tea then gave me a gift of a new dress from the master, as a reward for doing such a good job..." She sobbed and buried her face in her hands.
Nigel was being careful not to touch her, but he tried to comfort her anyway as he spat, "The sick bastard! I am truly sorry, Iolanthe. Maker willing, he will get what's coming to him." It reminded him of what he had learned about the former Arl of Denerim's son Vaughn and his friends raping the women of the Alienage with impunity because who would have believed an elf, even the hathran, against the word of the future arl? He regretted that he didn't slit his throat when he and Zev freed him from Howe's dungeon, but he needed his voice in the Landsmeet. Perhaps this was the Maker's hand, showing him another monster. As Zev used to say, 'Some people need assassinating.' He offered a brief prayer of thanks.
He his attention turned back to Iolanthe, knowing the rest of her story. "And you were trapped there, because that contract bound you. That would be the only reason to compel household servants to sign one."
She turned her large emerald eyes up meet his. He understood too well. "I threw his gift on the floor and tried to leave, though I could hardly walk, but Yvette blocked my way and reminded me of that damned contract. She said my mother would have been responsible for reimbursing him for my lost service! Impossible! Either I stayed, or we all would be sent to debtors' prison. So I had no choice, but I learned how to hide to avoid that bastard. Most of the time I was successful, unless he ordered Yvette to send me to him. When the contract finally expired, he and his wife had just left for Val Royeaux for the tournament season, and so I stayed on. I warned new girls whenever I could, and I stayed even after they returned. Ridiculous, no? But by then I think I had become accustomed to my life, not believing I deserved anything better, believing it was all my fault as he would say, until that day that Madame Laverna came to entertain..."
She gasped, realizing that she had almost told him too much about Laverna and how she came to be in her service. Yet she could read his concern in his storm gray eyes, as well as a deadly anger now that he didn't care to hide. She shivered. She knew that look; this was a man who could kill with little remorse. Yet he did care. So though that caused a twinge of guilt about playing on his sympathy, she did it anyway and confessed her biggest fear. "If I should be sent back to explain the circumstances of Anton's death, I will be sent to Jader, where Anton's mother lives."
"I see. And if your former master heard about it, recognized you, and was feeling vengeful, he could accuse you of anything he wanted. Please don't think that I'm accusing you of anything, but I surely wouldn't blame you if you had...gotten whatever revenge you could when Madame Laverna hired you away. At the same time, if she had done anything while entertaining at his estate, he could put the blame on you for helping her, and I don't believe she would be at your side to take the blame in that case." Though it was still too common a practice in Ferelden to give elven servants the switch for the most minor infractions, Nigel had seen first hand how much worse it was for elves in Orlais, where an elf could be thrown into prison, and even be hanged based on an accusation by a noble human, whether there was real proof of a crime or not.
"Your people have been treated horribly by mine. It's little wonder that you don't try to avenge the wrongs we've done you any chance you get." He told her of a time when he and some fellow students had traveled through the Alienage in Val Royeaux to a seedy tavern, in search of misadventure, a beautiful elven bard reputed to have a voice like a lover's caress, and illegal intoxicants. He told her that night they strolled past rows of ramshackle tenements that rose so impossibly high they surely blocked out the sun in the daytime hours. He had watched his surroundings nervously, seemingly the only one aware that five young, well-dressed shems made tempting targets for an attack of opportunity.
"One of my Orlesian companions laughed at me, told me to relax, and said loudly that if any of the knife-ears so much as looked at us the wrong way, his father would deal with the lot of them, and he waved his hand around to indicate the entire street." He shook his head. "The lot of them, whether they had done anything or not. I swear, I could feel the hate at his words that streamed from the shadows and shuttered windows, and I know heard muttered threats as we passed, though none of my other companions seemed to be aware. By the time we reached the tavern, I was too on edge to participate in the promised debauchery, though I could still appreciate the bard's voice."
It was difficult to maintain his foppish act thinking back on those days, and this young woman's story. Surely that was why so many elves who could turned their backs on the Maker and Andraste's true teachings and struck out into the wilds to find the Dalish. No wonder either that many who had no choice but to stay tried to get payback from the shemlen in any way they could. He grew silent, thinking about the son he had seen briefly this evening, for the first time in weeks, that he hadn't officially acknowledged.
She seemed to read his mind, and she flushed again as she heard herself reply tersely, "A noble sentiment. Yet Madame has heard...there are rumors of you getting a child on one of your elven housemaids." She couldn't believe the words that came out of her until they were out. She hastily set down the brandy, thinking she must have drunk more than she realized. What had she done? Madame would have slapped her silly for laying out all her cards at once like that.
He chuckled mirthlessly. "Indeed, and it's true. You no doubt think me a hypocrite. Before you judge me, let me tell you about my one and only affair with a member of our household staff. My first love was called Darlea. I met her one day when I dropped by the kitchen hoping for a treat from my old nanny, who had been promoted to head of household. I thought Darlea was the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen, not that I had seen many. Looking back now with the experience of age, I can't fault her for taking advantage of an eager young pup who was obviously smitten with her by the way I seemed to find excuses for hanging around her. It was easy for Darlea to persuade me to follow her into one of the pantries, where in all of five minutes she seduced me out of my virginity, and it required no effort at all to persuade me to meet her when she finished work, in a storeroom near the servants' quarters."
Iolanthe scoffed. "So you say, but in reality, what chance did she have to deny your advances?"
He thought he should be angry at the accusation, but he found himself surprisingly calm as he took another drink. "You think I'm making too harsh a judgment? My dear, she admitted this to me when I found her in Denerim years later. She suggested it, not I. She also insisted we must keep our relationship quiet, while foolish boy that I was, I would have happily stepped out into Highever with her on my arm. It was not a casual tryst for me."
Iolanthe gave him a skeptical look as she took back the flask, and repeated, "So you say. Next you will tell me she deliberately got pregnant to trap you, no?" Somewhere, in the back of her mind, a small voice was warning her about this conversation, but she ignored it. She wanted to hear this shem justify himself.
He leaned back, remembering those days. "No. We both foolishly ignored the consequences. She hadn't thought beyond how much of my generous allowance she could get out of me before I inevitably grew tired of her. I was too callow to think of anything beyond the next time I could be with her. And then one day, she was gone without a word. My Nan told me she had quit, just like that. I was devastated and searched throughout Highever trying to find her, but no one knew anything. I began drowning my sorrows in the taverns. Within a month my father told me they had decided to send me to the university earlier than they had planned, for a change of scenery. Once I settled in, one of my new friends suggested plenty of drink and women as a remedy for a broken heart, and I took his advice, to the detriment of my scholarly career and my family's shame."
She waved her hand dismissively. "Someone found out about your affair and got rid of her. Could you have even let it slip without being aware of it? Bragging to a friend, perhaps? And she was left to fend for herself in life, alone with your child, while you continued on your merry way with no repercussions." While Iolanthe resented his attempt to place the blame on his elven lover, she couldn't forget that a few of the new girls she had warned so they could avoid their master had instead sought out his perverted attention for what they could extract from him. A minute later, to her shock, she realized she had said that aloud!
"Understandable, when they have nothing, and perhaps weren't as innocent of men as you were." He sighed, having expected her disbelief, and knowing how implausible his story sounded. He knew perfectly well why he wanted to justify himself, or bare his secrets to this stranger even if she didn't.
"I went on with my life, and eventually learned the difference between true love and puppy love, but I never forgot her. Years later when I stumbled upon her, literally, here in Denerim, she told me Nan had learned of our tryst from one of the other elven servants and reported it to my mother, who confronted Darlea, only because of my age. If I had been a few years older, I'm sure her only concern would have been that I didn't get too attached. Darlea said Mother gave her her pay, and told her to get her things and get out, so she revealed her condition. She told me she had decided by then to break it off anyway, having grown tired of me first. If Mother hadn't intervened, Darlea said she was about to tell me, hoping she read me well enough to know I would give her money to go away."
"You make your lover sound heartless. Are you being fair to her, or are you letting bitterness color your memories?" Iolanthe knew she had definitely had too much to drink of the strong brandy, and she hoped it would wear off before she had to face Laverna.
He shook his head. "Do I? Not at all, she wasn't heartless, nor even calculating, but certainly opportunistic. She left for Denerim, which was her choice, in a coach hired by my mother, with more than enough gold to allow her to keep her child and start a new life. She told me that Mother had dropped in on them whenever she was in Denerim to see how her other grandson fared. I told Darlea that if I had known, I would have insisted on marrying her when I came of age the next year."
He looked up at her disbelieving snort. "Well, I was still young, and suffering from the foolish romanticism of youth. She patted my cheek and pointed out that as the son of the teyrn, I would have had to renounce my inheritance to marry an elf, and then what? We live on a farmstead somewhere, scraping by on handouts from my family, and me with no skills to speak of other than a knack for lock-picking? She said, probably correctly, that we would have grown to hate each other within a year. She would have refused my proposal for my own good, as well as theirs."
"And so you really never knew about your child?" Iolanthe still wasn't sure she believed all of his story, but she now believed he believed it. She handed the flask to him, because he looked like he could use a drink.
Nigel pushed back his long pale hair, which had come loose in his race through the city and was being blown about by the wind. "No. I don't know whether my parents would have told me about Dahven if they had lived. For that matter, I don't know if my father even knew. My brother Fergus didn't, or if he had, he is a damned good liar. After their murder, the payments had stopped, but her shop outside of the Alienage provided them enough to get by on. She was dismayed to learn that I was a wanted fugitive and in no position to help them, but I gave her everything I could, and gave her the names of some merchant contacts I had made in Orzammar. I have quietly continued to support my son since coming to the throne, and have visited with him when I could spare a few minutes here and there. And yet he's never met my wife, and his three sisters don't know they have an older brother, and we are acquaintances at best."
"Indeed, it must be hard to sneak away from your duties." A drop of rain hit her forehead. She stood and looked down at him, feeling sleepy now from the brandy and wanting to get her interrogation from Madame Laverna over with so she could go to bed. She was surprised to discover she was growing sympathetic, not with him so much as with the boy. "You have not formally acknowledged him, but that is for the best. Otherwise, whatever he accomplishes in his life, some will be thinking is due only to his father."
Nigel swirled the remains of the bandy in the flask, then slipped it back in his pouch and stood beside her. "That used to be my thinking as well, but lately I'm not sure." He wasn't ready to have this conversation either, even with a disinterested party. It reminded him all too well that Anora would have to give her approval. He motioned towards the door. "Anyway, let's get inside before the rain starts in earnest. Are you ready to face the dragon? She drank quite a bit last night, and I suspect she's wickedly hung over, so let me do the talking."
Iolanthe put her hand over her mouth, and her eyes widened in feigned shock at his referring to her employer in that manner, but she chuckled. "I would not be surprised if word has already reached her through castle gossip, which is like meat to her, assuming she was out of bed today. I will have to tell her you were a beast and kept interrogating me...about shoe shops, and then after hearing what happened, I am sure she will want to spend the evening writing letters to Anton's family and...to others, and deciding whether she should deliver them herself or send them through a courier. "
Iolanthe sighed. "She will be angry that she was put in this position." She closed her eyes and looked ill, and he leaned close to catch her if she fainted. Buddy leaned in on her other side and brushed her hand with the top of his head.
Nigel frowned. She had drunk more than he expected, but not enough to make her pass out. Then again, she was tiny compared to him, and she probably didn't drink strong brandy regularly either, even without his additions. Zev was much better at estimating doses. He said softly, "Angry with you? Not to worry, I've slain dragons before."
As his words sunk in, she paled, thinking she must make sure her family got a letter and the money she had saved, if things went badly for her. She said frantically, I need to write a note to my mother telling her...Perhaps you could take my mother a parcel from me when you visit their shop? I send them much of my pay, but when we are away from Val Royeaux, it sometimes does not reach them. Some couriers don't care about stealing from elves."
He squeezed her hand. "I'll take it by their shop as soon as we arrive, right after I drop off my things at the Grey Warden outpost. I'll let Buddy carry it to the door in his mouth. That will be amusing, no?Perhaps I can even persuade them to move here to join you, if you find that you are unable to return to Orlais anytime soon. But if you must, I'll tell the ambassador that you and she can travel on my ship, and I'll go with you to deliver the tragic news to Ser Anton's mother."
His implication was clear, and she was painfully aware of her situation. She already knew in her heart that she wasn't so valuable to Madame Laverna that she would stand up for an elf in a court of inquiry. Therefore, she would be on her own. In that case, it would be better to go to ground, as he seemed to be suggesting...but she would be hunted, and alone in a strange land. Would her mother believe him, even if he came bearing her letter? Could he convince her to leave? She craned her neck to look up at him, and he smiled down kindly. It all became clear. Better yet, she could forge a new alliance, based on Madame's reaction. If Madame was loyal to her, she would repay her in kind. On the other hand, if she was to be thrown to the wolves, there was much that she knew that the prince would like to hear on that ship to Orlais.
Though still feeling she was walking through a cloud because of the drink, it occurred to her that he could be playing the Game as well as an Orlesian. Was that even possible? That would mean that he suspected what Madame Laverna and her associates planned, and she would be valuable to him as an ally. Could she betray Madame? But how could she not?
Nigel studied the emotions playing across her face. He got to know ambassador last night well enough that he was certain she would cast this woman aside to save herself, even if all she was saving herself from was political embarrassment. She would promise her to write letters explaining Anton's death as an unfortunate accident, to which this woman was unfortunate to be the only witness, but he was certain Laverna would stay safely here in Ferelden until it had blown over. If he was right, and if he had read Iolanthe right, he would approach her again the night before their ship landed, when she had had ample time to dwell on her fate. "If she doesn't accompany you, I have an old friend in the Chantry who serves the Grand Cleric I'll introduce you to. I'm sure she can help you too."
He was glad he had the flask with him. He had planned to give it to Teagan for liquid courage, hoping the drug would allow him to overcome his shyness and speak his heart, and give him a nudge towards the fair Bella's bed. Instead, this poor woman was going to have a headache in the morning. He felt like he needed to visit one of his understanding favorites at the Pearl tonight for a well-deserved session with the lash, if he hadn't agreed to spend the evening teaching Anora the highlights of using poisons. It was a pity, because after what this woman had gone through, he felt like he had abused her as much as her former employer had, and he deserved the lash. But her former employer and this Yvette deserved far worse. If he had time, he would drop by the market and arrange for a little bird to visit them.