A/N: Thank you, Lisa! Your beta goodness is always appreciated!
Thank you to all those reading, and especially those who are reviewing. I appreciate it very much!
Zute, if you're still reading you'll recognize Grace's last spoken line. :)
Against the Grain
Bran refused to pace his office. He refused to allow his concern to manifest in any form, preferring to occupy his mind with the business of governance. He examined the list of criminals who stood in gaol awaiting sentencing. He amended his original budget to include ten new guardsmen and made a mental note to seek out the guard captain to express Viscount Dumar's dissatisfaction with the number of criminals still running amok in the streets.
He read through a detailed account of a Mother Petrice, who appeared to be organizing an anti-Qunari group. The person responsible for the report wrote with a familiar flamboyance of language, but apparently did so with the quill between her toes, judging from the scrawling, haphazard formation of letters. He leafed to the last page and dropped the papers on his desk in favor of removing his pince-nez and massaging his temples. Questions and thoughts collided in his head, creating a dull ache at the base of his skull and a sharper pain in his temples.
She had been gone for over two days. Surely she and her cohorts should have returned by now? What was she thinking, traipsing off into the night with only a dwarf and an elf as companions? How painfully would she kill him if he sent a squad of men out in search of her? Who had taught her to write? A drunken sailor during a storm at sea?
"Ah, Bran, there you are," the viscount greeted, strolling into the office with a sheaf of papers in his hand and an absentminded smile on his face.
"Yes, here I am. In my office. Where I have been every day for the past twelve years. Astonishing, is it not?"
The viscount glanced at his papers and then at Bran. "Saemus wasn't overstating your mood when he claimed you were cantankerous and snappish. This wouldn't have anything to do with young Grace, would it?"
With great care Bran stood and straightened his doublet, smoothing unseen creases with exacting precision. "This would have to do with the stranglehold the templars have on this city."
"Ah. Has this changed in any manner since Threnhold's death? Have the templars suddenly become impossible to deal with?"
"Mock me if you must, Marlowe, but do not cry foul when they overwrite every good or honorable achievement you have managed to accomplish. And they will, make no mistake about it.
"Have you heard of Mother Petrice? If so, are you aware that she is stirring up anti-Qunari sentiment? And lest you think it was our own city guard who brought this matter to my attention, let me assure you it was not. Gr – Serah Hawke wrote a report on her findings and suspicions. I find it incomprehensible that we pay our guards to keep this city safe. We would be better served to hire Grace and her companions. Think of the budgetary gains!"
Bran wondered if the viscount would take notice of his seneschal's informality in using Grace's given name. He also briefly debated the merits of an apology to the viscount for the invective nature of his words, but withheld it as his friend turned sharp blue eyes on him.
"Then we must defuse the situation as quickly as possible. Send a runner to Grand Cleric Elthina with a request for a meeting. After hours," the viscount added. "What? You don't honestly think your tirade fell on deaf ears, do you?"
"Of course not, Viscount Dumar. You are a leader without peer," Bran replied, any irony in his tone the product of relief for Marlowe's decisive manner. Said relief had nothing to do with Marlowe not mentioning anything further about Grace Hawke.
"Now, let us discuss the city guard. When we hired Aveline Vallen I expected there to be an adjustment period. Is that the issue? Or is she incompetent?" the viscount continued.
Bran waved the viscount to a chair as he sat down behind his desk. "I suspect that there are agents who wish to see the city guard fail with the intent of replacing their ranks with the templars. That will not happen as long as I am the seneschal, but Captain Vallen must deracinate the provocateurs promptly and decisively."
"Hmmm, she'll also need to get rid of the troublemakers quickly and resolutely."
Bran eyed his friend, an unwilling smile threatening his stern expression. "I believe that's what I said."
"Yes, but which of us will she understand?"
"She may understand your words more easily, your Grace, but she will understand my intent more readily."
"True. I leave such a task in your capable hands. The woman looks as though she could turn me into a pile of broken bones without raising a sweat. Have you seen her arms? She reminds me of that strongman we saw when the circus came to Kirkwall all those years ago. I can't help but feel a certain apprehension at the thought of ringing a peal over her."
Bran's smile broke through, but was quickly extinguished by a sharp rap on his door. "Enter!"
A soldier, still panting, his helmet in hand and face awash in perspiration, gave a brief nod. "The party returned to the city approximately ten minutes ago."
Bran heard the viscount's snicker but chose to ignore it. "Thank you. Was there anything untoward in their appearance?"
The soldier scratched his head. "None's I noticed, Seneschal Bran. Except Grace – er, Serah Hawke. She was walking funny."
Bran frowned. "In what manner was she walking funny? Do you mean humorously or curiously?" He ignored the erratic tattoo of his heart and refused to acknowledge his concern.
"Well, I can't say for sure. But she appeared to be favoring one leg over the other, sorta like my mum on account of her bad hip."
"Thank you; that will be all."
The guardsman saluted and eased out of the office, shutting the door quietly. "I'm sure your concern for Grace's health has everything to do with her assistance to the fair city of Kirkwall and nothing at all to do with your feelings for the woman."
Bran's brow quirked. "As you have so ably reminded me on many occasions, Your Grace, I am sans heart and therefore sans feelings."
Marlowe laughed. "And I stand by my words. As my financial officer you are without heart or feeling, as it should be. However, as a man you obviously have heart and feeling, especially for our friend's daughter."
"You mistake the matter greatly, Marlowe. You have no friends," Bran replied, dropping his brow in favor of a brief, smug smile.
"There was a reason I was more popular with the ladies than you were!"
"Yes, I believe that had to do with the amount of sovereigns in your pocket and absolutely nothing to do with the size of your – "
The preemptory knock was answered by a relieved Marlowe Dumar, who used the excuse to exit with alacrity, if not grace.
~~~oOo~~~
"Are you quite sure you're up to this, dear? We can visit the market tomorrow as easily as we might today, and I've – "
"I am positively, absolutely, unquestionably, undeniably certain I wish to perambulate through the market, Mother. Please do not fidget, fuss or fret over me."
Grace ignored the deep ache in her hip where an arrow, demonstrating great temerity, had landed with unerring precision. She'd been a blundering bungler in marching out to the Wounded Coast with neither healer nor health potions and, rightly or wrongly, she blamed the seneschal for upsetting the perfect order of her brain which was rapidly disintegrating into a frighteningly whimsical and flighty creature.
"Don't look now, Grace, but I believe that rather handsome gentleman, the one with the distinguished grey hair, has his eyes on you."
Naturally Grace ignored her mother's advisement, turning her head and staring at the tall man dressed in the robes of a scholar, a pretension Grace found both annoying and amusing. His eyes widened and he looked away in a completely furtive manner, which made Grace long for her daggers and a menacing scowl. Instead, she affixed a bored expression on her face and turned away with what she hoped was haughty disregard.
"He's old enough to be your father, Mother, and is not in the least attractive, comely, handsome or otherwise pleasing to the eye. I really believe you are in need of a set of those spectacles Seneschal Bran pretends he has no use for. And that antiquated old fossil appears to be fixated on you, dear Mama, if I am not mistaken."
"I most certainly do not need a pince-nez, Grace Hawke! I am inconsolable that you could so heedlessly wound my heart in such a manner. You demonstrate an utter disregard for my person. I am hurt beyond measure."
"Mother, that wound is not to your heart but to your ego and truly, had I made so dubious a statement with regard to Serah Long-in-the-Tooth, I would hope you had the strength and resolutement to offer the same clear-sighted advice."
A titter, hastily resolved into a genteel cough, was followed by a chastisement. "Grace Hawke, resolutement isn't even a word!"
"Such a pedantic and vain woman, Mother," Grace chided with a smile, unwilling to upset the woman beside her. She withheld the information that the man appeared to be following them as they made their way along the square. He also seemed to be listening to their discussion, which dropped him even lower in her estimation, which was critically low to begin with.
"I need to step into the milliner's shop, dear. I want to add a bit of ribbon to my latest bonnet."
"I will be at the bookseller across the way as I've no desire to be inundated with a veritable profusion of frills and furbelows," Grace replied, unable to dissuade a shudder from chasing along her spine as images of the Pink Monstrosity rose in her mind.
As soon as her mother entered Millicent's Millinery Marvels, Grace made her way across the street to the bookstore. To her dismay the elderly gentleman followed her. Surely he couldn't be interested in her? She was young enough to be his granddaughter.
She entered the small shop and smiled at the man behind the counter, who doffed an imaginary cap and smiled in reply, his face the texture of old Antivan leather.
"Good day, Lady Grace, it's kind of you to patronize my establishment."
"Good day, Master Dickens," she replied warmly, moving to a tempting stack of books on a nearby table. The latest Orlesian romance novel beckoned, a literary diversion her mother would find fault in but eventually borrow and read in the privacy of her bedchamber.
The door opened again and she continued to fix her gaze on the book titles, pretending ignorance of the doddering old codger's sudden presence in the small shop.
"Messere Quentin, that book you ordered has arrived. I'll just fetch it, shall I?" the proprietor asked, his voice as chipper as a spring morn. Odious toady! But since he was as unctuous with her, she could hardly fault him. Truth be told, she did like his sunny attitude, as he was not at all like his brother, Charles, who was mordant and morose in the extreme.
"Thank you, Dickens."
Alone in the shop with the mysterious malingerer, who seemed completely content to study her from beneath shaggy grey brows, Grace found it impossible to concentrate on the book she held in her hand. She'd be thrice cursed by the Maker if she would initiate a conversation with the man. And was his interest in her or her mother? Of course he couldn't go into a milliner's shop, his only avenue was to enter the bookstore if he was to continue his reconnoitering. She bit back a smile as she decided to test her theory on where the Ancient One's attentions were affixed.
When Dickens returned with a bound package, she spoke up, her voice all that was sweet and innocent. "Dear Master Dickens, have you a book on growing lilies? My mother has taken a notion into her head to grow her favorite flower and, while I am uncertain that this is the correct climate for such an experiment, I cannot deny her."
The bookseller stared at her, eyes as wide as saucers, no doubt surprised by her sudden interest in horticulture. "A book on lilies, you say? I'm not sure. Which type of lilies do you mean?"
She cast upon the man another sweet smile, believing she should be on the grand stages in Orlais, so nimbly did she play a part. "Oh, you know, those lovely white ones with the long stems." With nary a pause, she turned her bright smile on the object of her efforts. "I prefer anemones, but Mother believes they are little more than weeds," she continued, babbling on like the veriest brook and grinning internally at her superb performance.
"Indeed? I have always found –" Quentin began and she felt her smile slipping at his portentous, pretentious tones. Old and pretentious, how marvelous.
"Oh, pardon me! Mother is beckoning! I'll be back later, Master Dickens!" With that, she hurried out of the shop and into the brilliant sunshine, wondering if it would be unseemly for her to grab her mother's arm and propel her back to the estate with all due speed.
"Dear, what is it?"
Unwilling to alarm her mother with as yet unfounded fears over a stranger, Grace smiled and admitted to a certain weariness from her recent journey to the Wounded Coast, forcing her steps to slow. In truth, she was tired and her wound seemed to be reluctant to heal.
"Then let us away, dear child, and have tea and scones in the garden."
Grace looked back only once, under the guise of adjusting her collar, and found that Messere Quentin was following at a leisurely pace. She absolutely refused to entertain the shiver that wanted to dance down her spine.
As they sat in the garden sipping tea a short time later, she realized she had gone several hours with nary a thought of Bran Drummond mucking about in her mind. As if to punish her for her ebullience in the matter, he came to settle in her thoughts with unseemly persistence, much to her displeasure.
"What a sweet smile you wear, darling daughter. Will you share the object of such happy thoughts?"
Happy thoughts? Sweet smile? She slapped her tea cup onto its saucer with enough force to send the tepid liquid in every direction. "I am most certainly not entertaining happy thoughts," she growled.
"No, of course not, dear. It must have been the waning light."
~~~oOo~~~
"I have it on good authority that she received an arrow in her left hip. She limped all the way back from the coast and went to see that healer friend of hers. What's his name? Anton? Adams? Ansel? Anyway, she's still favoring it, so I wouldn't expect her here for her dance lesson today," Saemus said, slouching in a chair across from Bran.
"The healer's name is Anders," Bran said, quite pleased with his detached tone. He had spoken to Aveline the previous evening and knew precisely what had occurred, due in large part to her predilection for apricot brandy.
"Right, that's the one. Anyway, if we aren't going to have a dance lesson, do you mind if I skip out?"
A fissure of alarm broke through Bran's detachment. The last time Saemus had used that tone, he'd been found with a dead Qunari on the Wounded Coast. "Skip out? To do what, precisely?"
"You're beginning to sound a lot like my father," the young man accused, his smile hidden behind a growing frown.
"If you wish to escape from lessons today, insulting the instructor is hardly the manner in which to do it."
"Fine. Some friends and I want to go see Sally Mae's new act at the Blooming Rose."
"Codswallop! Sally Mae has no new act and, in fact, is no longer employed by Madame Lusine. I'm deeply disappointed, Saemus. All these years in the halls of government and you cannot come up with a better tale than that?"
Saemus's frown gradually disappeared, replaced by an embarrassed shrug and self-effacing grin. "Politics is obviously not in my future," he agreed. "The truth is I feel like an extra button when I'm with the two of you. You know, a button without a buttonhole, like those extra ones Madame Debary sews into the shirts she makes?"
"A spare button? Truly, Saemus, you are more than a spare button, I assure you. I suspect that were you not with us, Serah Hawke would have slain me many times over."
"You do seem to enjoy upsetting her."
"It is never my intention to disaccommodate the woman, but she seems ever prone to misinterpret anything I say or do, searching for the least hint of a possible affront to her very graceful personage."
"What a bouncer!" the young man exclaimed, laughing outright. "Father and I have a bet as to –" here Saemus stopped, a stricken expression wiping away the laughter. "Never mind that. I'll swallow my own tongue before I say another word."
"I hear tongue is quite a delicacy in certain countries, although I am not partial to it in the least," a familiar voice remarked. Bran felt an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach, as if he was falling, and attributed it to the warmth in his office.
"Grace! How's the wound? Was it really from a magical bow wielded by a magister?" Saemus asked.
"What wound?" she replied, opening her eyes wide and smiling with uncommon and uncustomary innocence.
Bran eyed her warily, completed unaffected by the obvious affectation of her smile. "Speaking of bouncers," he muttered, half to himself, moving back to his desk and settling behind it.
"Why, Bran Drummond! Did you just accuse me of being a prevaricator?"
"Serah Hawke, not only are you a prevaricator, but also an agent provocateur."
"I'll just head off now, great seeing you, Grace!"
"How hen-hearted of you!" Grace teased, linking arms with the young man and flashing a grin up at him.
"If I've learned nothing else from roaming these halls, it's how to beat a hasty retreat," Saemus retorted and, with a final grin, he disengaged himself from the woman, opened the door and was gone.
An unusual silence fell after his departure. Grace turned to offer Bran a raised brow. "I assume with Serah Scaredy Cat gone there will be no dance practice this day. What have you in mind then, oh great taskmaster?"
It was apparent that she was in a strangely unsettled mood and he felt discomposed by her disconcertion. He realized that she was, indeed, favoring her left hip and that her eyes glittered too brightly.
"You should not be here," he said quietly, standing up and stepping around his desk to walk the few steps to her. "You are unwell."
"Don't be missish, Seneschal Bran. And," she added with a light laugh, "don't pull a face at me. If I wanted to be scowled at, I would visit the Arishok. That man is a master scowler. Yours is rather weak by comparison, although I applaud your attempt."
"You appear feverish."
"Nonsense. It's a warm day and your office is stuffy which is hardly surprising considering you are of equal stuffiness."
His concern grew and he reached out to her only to have her slap his hand away. "Do not fuss like an old – old fussbudget," she hissed.
"Sit down, Grace, before you fall down. You should have sent a note round that you were not feeling up to crack."
"I am feeling up to crack. In fact, I have never felt more up to crack," she argued, taking a step away from him.
"Sit down!" he commanded, moving to his door. "Hudgens, get the viscount's healer here immediately."
"You are, as I mentioned some time ago, very high in the instep."
"Yes, I believe we've established that. And you are irresponsible and absurd, in need of a sound –"
"Kissing?"
"Thrashing," he replied in the same instant, turning away before he performed the former and not the latter. She was obviously not of right mind and he would not take advantage of her. He sighed. Even he didn't believe such faradiddle.
The healer, an older woman with a glass-eye and a bellicose nature, entered. "Well, what have you called me for? A paper cut? Back injury from kow-towing to the nobles? Speak up, man!"
"See to Serah Hawke," he commanded quietly and left the room, unsure how far he would have to pace to work out the knots of worry in his stomach.
~~~oOo~~~
Grace slapped at the old woman's hands. "I have seen a healer and he assures me the wound is healing nicely."
"What? That young pup, Anders? Don't look so surprised, of course I know him. He's not exactly keeping low, is he? Now, I'm sure he's fine, dearie, but I've been healing since before he was born. So, show me this wound of yours like a good girl before I put you to sleep and do it the hard way."
Feeling certain she knew who had taught Bran his charming manners, Grace was unwilling to argue. She allowed the mage to poke none too gently, and prod with the same gentility, until she finally stepped back, glaring. "Poke me once more and I assure you, your poker will be little more than a stump."
"Well, listen to you, all high and mighty. You've a fever because you've an infection, dearie. Now, stand still while I work my magic on it."
Every instinct in Grace rebelled. She had suffered many indignities in her young life but bent over the seneschal's desk with her skirts hiked up, leaving her feeling entirely too exposed, was among the most egregious. She blamed, however unfairly, the seneschal for her current predicament and tried to focus on the various ways she might retaliate.
An unkind and injudicious thought came to mind that she doubted the old crone capable of healing more than a hangnail but that thought was lost to a most unladylike screech when the healer decided to use a machete to excise her wound.
"As I thought!" the old mage crowed, waving a bloody bit of fletching about like a madwoman.
"You cantankerous, crotchety old cr ..." A wave of magic flowed over Grace, stilling her diatribe mid-word. "Oh."
"Now, I'm going to put a poultice on your hip. You're to sit down in that chair and let it do its job. In other words, dearie, sit down and shut up for the next hour. You can do that much, right?"
"You quarrelsome hag I can – ouch! Yes, fine. Sitting. Quietly," Grace hissed, glaring her most murderous glower at the completely unconcerned old harridan, who proceeded to ignore her in favor of cackling on her way out the door.
The seneschal entered a moment later, his expression a perfect imitation of a thundercloud.
"If you are here to tell me I've cut yet another caper, I appeal to any sense of decency you might harbor within you and beg you not to," she said and then sighed. "I'm sorry. Thank you for your timely intervention," she added with such quiet dignity and forbearance that they were both stunned into a momentary and incomprehensibly companionable silence.
Unable to look away, she allowed her gaze to settle on his full lips, wondering what a lingering kiss would feel like. Not a brief angry buss, but a long, sensuous kiss that started slowly and softly, with tongues -
"Dancing seems to be out of the question. I propose a geopolitical lesson for today. Tell me what you know of Rivain," Bran said in such a brisk and impersonal manner that she found herself blurting out her answer without thinking, the image of them kissing dissolving under the bright glare of reality.
"They grow grain."
"I beg your pardon?"
"In Rivain," she added with an internal groan of mortification. What had befuddled her to such an extent she was incapable of coherency? The ignominy of her baffling behavior was enough to make her writhe internally.
"Do I understand you correctly? They grow grain in Rivain. Is that the extent of your knowledge?"
"The grain in Rivain grows mainly on the plain," she added helpfully.
What had come over her? She was a complete dolt, a nodcock, a nattering ninnyhammer. What had that old crone done to her to make her turn into an utter addlepate?
To her chagrin and continued discomfiture, laughter bubbled up and spilled from her. A moment later, Bran's rare, rich laughter joined hers.