Alistair glared at Loghain's retreating back, then looked at the approaching dwarf. She was short, shorter even than Oghren; short even for a dwarf. Words like 'petite' and 'scrawny' came to mind as she walked towards him. She had short black hair tied by in stubby ponytails, and the S-shaped cheek tattoo of a Duster overlaid with one of the skull-like full-face tattoos of the Legion of the Dead. An odd combination; last he'd ever heard, the Legion was restricted to Warrior caste dwarves, it being considered an honourable vocation, even if a deadly one.
She stopped just a little more than a foot away from him, leaning back slightly and hooking her thumbs in her belt as she looked him over. He returned the look, and found himself adding 'dangerous' to the list of attributes as he eyed her well-worn armour and the sharp-edged daggers she wore. "Nugbait but you're a tall one," she said, frowning slightly. "Come on, the boss wants me to take you to get properly outfitted."
She walked by him, heading for the door he'd entered by. He turned and followed, having to take a couple of long strides to catch up, and then easily staying alongside her. "I'm Alistair," he told her.
She glanced sideways at him. "I know," she said, then paused after a moment, before turning to face him, a look of realization crossing her face. "Oh, wait, you mean you want to be properly introduced and everything?"
"Err... yes?"
She smiled crookedly, upper lip lifting in a curl that bordered on being a sneer; but as she continued speaking he realized it was just the way her mouth moved; lopsided, as if the left side couldn't open quite as far as the right. "I'm Sigrun, which you'd know if you were paying attention in there."
"I was. I know. I just... how'd a Duster end up in the Legion of Dead? And then here? I thought they only took warrior caste?"
"Oh," she said, and shrugged, then turned and resumed walking. "Things changed, after Bhelen became King. He threw entrance to the Legion open to Dusters; said any who joined up and distinguished themselves in battle against the darkspawn would win warrior caste status for themselves and any sons they fathered. They were really only figuring on taking men, you see, but I'd had a friend who'd done Bhelen a few favours before he'd taken the throne. And I had another friend who was pretty close to him. So I was able to kind of diplomatically pull a string or two and get myself in; it was the only way I could see to ever get out of Dust Town. I didn't have the looks or the connections to be a noble hunter, even if I'd ever wanted to. Which I didn't," she added firmly.
"And then you ended up as a Grey Warden... why? How?"
She shrugged again. "The will of the Stone, I suppose you might say. My patrol was wiped out by a darkspawn ambush; all but me. I ran, when I saw the way the battle was going. Almost made it out of the Deep Roads, and then some darkspawn caught me anyway – hurlocks – and were dragging me back down under. But the Stone must have had plans for me – a group of Grey Wardens happened along just then, and rescued me. And then the whole group of us went back to where my comrades had died, and we avenged them all. Cleared out an entire nest of darkspawn – including several broodmothers. They would have been a bigger problem eventually if I'd died there too, the boss said; he wouldn't have known to go down hunting them if I hadn't survived and been there to tell him about the ambush. He told me it was a good thing I'd lived to hunt darkspawn another day, nothing to be ashamed of, and offered me a place with his wardens."
"The boss... you mean Loghain by that?" he asked, frowning.
She stopped walking again, and turned to give him a narrow-eyed look. "Yes, I do mean Warden-Commander Loghain by that. Why? Got a problem with it?"
"No," he said grudgingly, then as they resumed walking, found he couldn't keep an additional thought in. "Though he'd certainly know all about running away from battle," he added bitterly. And yelped, as an armoured toe connected bruisingly with his ankle. He added 'fast' to her list of attributes. And also, at the moment, 'furious'.
"That's enough out of you about him," she said, her face mottled red with anger. "You're hardly one to talk about someone else running away, are you? Deserter?"
It was his turn to flush, in mingled anger and shame. "No," he answered in a strangled tone of voice.
"No, you're not going to shut up, or no, you're hardly one to talk? Which is it?"
"No. I'm hardly one to talk," he agreed stiffly.
She glared at him for a long moment, then finally turned away and resumed walking. The two stayed silent until she led him through a door he vaguely remembered waiting outside of the day before with his two guards, while the mage had gone inside to get clothing for him from the quartermaster. "Herren," she called out as she walked up to the counter inside. "Got someone else for you to outfit."
"Coming," a voice called out from somewhere in back of the looming shelves, and a moment later a man walked around one and up to the counter. A man with a familiar face, the name familiar as well.
"I remember you," Alistair said, half-surprised. "Herren, right? You had a shop, in Denerim, with..."
"Wade," Herren said, nodding. "Yes. Until we were asked to come out here to the keep and help equip the new wardens properly."
Alistair frowned, looking over Herren's clothing; the same griffon-marked grey tunic and dark blue leggings as he himself had been supplied with. And realized he'd seen Herren earlier today, in the great hall, the fourth figure in Sigrun's group. "You're a Grey Warden!" he exclaimed, shocked.
Herren made a face. "Unfortunately yes. Not that I had much choice; it was attempt the joining or die."
"He was here during the siege," Sigrun spoke up. "Him and Wade both."
"Wade came through all the fighting without a scratch on him, but I wasn't so lucky," Herren said. "Blight disease; I'd have died, if the Commander hadn't come back so quickly afterwards. He did a joining ritual for all of those who were still strong enough to attempt it."
"Over half of them died anyway," Sigrun said sadly. "The rest are wardens now."
Alistair cocked his head to one side, frowning as he looked Herren over. The man wasn't old, but he looked to be on the high side of middle aged, and not particularly fit. "And you fight?" he asked, perplexed.
Sigrun and Herren both laughed.
"Only when I have to," Herren explained. "The Warden-Commander feels my talents are more useful here at the Keep."
Sigrun grinned. "Keeping Wade in line and working happily. And dealing with our suppliers; Herren's good at haggling. Not bad with a pair of knives, either, if another body is really needed for a patrol, but we're better off using him as support than as front line."
"Speaking of Wade, if you want this man-mountain geared up we'd better get him in here," Herren said, running an evaluating eye over Alistair. "He'll need to take measurements."
Sigrun nodded, and Herren disappeared into the back again. There was apparently a door back there somewhere; they heard it open and close. Alistair and Sigrun waited for his return.
"So how many wardens are here now?" Alistair asked after a while, wanting to break the silence.
"Including you? Fifteen," Sigrun said, and frowned unhappily. "We need more."
"Why? The Blight's over."
"Up here on the surface, maybe, but you've seen the Deep Roads. There's still plenty of darkspawn down there. We're helping Orzammar to clear out and recover the old thaigs; if we can recover the Deep Roads underneath Ferelden, there's that much less chance of a second break-out ever happening here. And that much more chance of warning from the dwarves if something nasty is going on, before it becomes a problem up top too."
Alistair frowned in thought, then slowly nodded, remembering the things he'd seen down there with Solona when they'd been searching for the Anvil of the Void. "Good point," he agreed grudgingly.
The door opened again, and Herren soon walked back into view, the blacksmith following close behind him. Wade was as big and as bald as Alistair remembered, though his once-dark moustache and line of beard were now lightly touched with greying hairs. Under Herren's watchful eye Wade quickly took a number of measurements, scrawling numbers down on a slip of parchment and complaining bitterly about how long it would take him to make a full set of Grey Warden heavy armour, and how boring it was to work on, and when was he ever going to get to work on something nice again. Herren and Sigrun both alternated flattering and soothing him, and he was soon headed off back to his forge, looking pleased despite all his complaints.
"Well, that will take a few days to put together, but we'll have you properly outfitted soon," Herren said. "Now, what else do you need?"
"He'll need a full kit of clothing and toiletries and so on," Sigrun spoke up. "Towels and bedding too."
Herren nodded, disappearing into the back to rummage among his shelves. He returned in a surprisingly short time with a bulging backpack and a cloth-wrapped parcel. "That should be all. If there turns out to be anything else you need, just come on by and ask for it." And then made them sign off on a long list of what had been supplied to Alistair; for his records, he said.
"Come on, I'll show you where you're to be quartered," Sigrun said. "And then give you the grand tour, so you know where everything is."
She led the way up through the Keep, several floors up. "This is mostly Grey Warden quarters on this floor," she said, gesturing around them as she led the way down a broad corridor on the third floor. "Used to be part of the Howe family quarters, but the boss had it all made over. Little suites, one per person. We have enough room for more than twice our number before we'd have to start making people double up. There's also some quarters for the officers of the guard, and barracks downstairs for the rest of them"
"The guard... they're for the Arling?"
"Yeah. There's three different groups that answer to the boss; us wardens, the soldiers that are his responsibility as Arl of Amaranthine, and the city guard in Amaranthine, who answer to him through their captain. The soldiers and city guard mostly stick to their own duties, though they can call on us or us on them if needed."
"Right," Alistair said, frowning slightly. "What about Gwaren?"
"That's not his any more; he was stripped of his title when he was made a Grey Warden. The Queen holds the title now. He's only Arl of Amaranthine."
Alistair refrained from pointing out that being an Arl was hardly an 'only'; it wasn't small thing, in a country that only had a double-handful of those. Besides, it meant that between the two of them, Anora and Loghain controlled almost half the country. Technically all of it, when you considered that Anora was Queen, but half of it more directly.
Sigrun led the way up another set of steps, a spiral staircase winding up within a tower at one corner of the building. There was a small landing at the top, and a doorway – with a very thick-planked door standing open – leading to a foyer area. A pair of guards stood there, wearing the shiny silverite mail and that seemed to be the uniform of the Arling's guards. They were holding a pair of ceremonial pikes, but Alistair noticed that the pair also wore entirely serviceable swords at their belts.
"Senior Warden Sigrun. You're expected," the guard on the left said, the pair of them stepping aside from the doorway they were guarding.
The door that filled it looked every bit as stout as the door at the top of the stairs was; even heavier, with metal strapping to reinforce it. Heavy enough to have been the door to the keep itself, not just to rooms within it. Which Alistair only belatedly realized should have made him guess where he was being brought, as well as the fact that the door was guarded; into the personal quarters of the most paranoid man in Ferelden. But they were in Loghain's sitting room, the man looking up from where he was sharpening a sword in a chair near the window, before it sunk in to Alistair just where they were headed.
"I thought you said you were showing me to my quarters," he said to Sigrun, keeping his eyes locked on Loghain as the man calmly looked back at him. "There seems to have been some mistake."
"No mistake," Loghain said, and pointed with the sword at the entrance to an archway leading off of the spacious sitting room. "Through there. Second door on the left is your rooms."
Alistair's jaw set. "I'm to stay in your rooms?" he asked, voice tight with disbelief and anger.
"You are going to be my squire," Loghain said with a strong I'm-being-very-patient tone to his voice. "Which means you need to be on hand at all hours, not off in the bowels of the Keep somewhere. These rooms include squire's quarters, and quite nice ones at that, as the Howe's used them for the fostering of allied noble's sons. You have your own study, bedroom, and bathing chamber. Now go put your things away. Sigrun, you might as well go back to your own duties; I'll see that Alistair gets a proper tour of the keep later."
"Sure," she said, looking worriedly back and forth between the pair of them, then turned and left.
Loghain went back to polishing his sword. After a few minutes, when Alistair hadn't moved, he looked up. "Is there a problem?"
"Yes. I don't want to be here. I don't..."
"What you want or don't want is immaterial," Loghain interrupted, and rose to his feet, setting the sword aside. "You are here, you are under my orders, and you will obey them. Now go put your things away."
Alistair just stood frozen, staring at him. Part of him knew he was being foolish to resist; he'd agreed to this, when he agreed that he understood the terms of his provisional reinstatement downstairs. But to actually obey this man's orders; to live here, in these rooms with him... his stomach churned. His muscles were so tense he was trembling.
"Alistair..." Loghain began, taking a step forward.
The rage burst free. The backpack and parcel he was carrying hit the floor as he lunged for Loghain, a loud scream of anger bursting from him as he once again tried to attack the man. And had no more luck at it than when he'd first tried on the ship; a single confusing flurry of movement led to the air being knocked out of him as he landed hard on the floor. Before he could rise he found a knee pressing painfully into his kidneys, his arms yanked back and held. He couldn't break Loghain's grip. He swore furiously as he struggled, only barely aware that the two guards had burst into the room, and that Loghain was reassuring them and telling them to go back to their posts.
He stopped struggling, eventually, realizing it was futile. "Had enough?" Loghain asked, sounding more bored than anything.
Alistair flushed, still angry, and now feeling humiliated as well. He pressed his forehead against the cool wooden floor, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths through his nose, jaw muscles working. "Yes," he managed to grate out at last.
Loghain released him and rose. "Go put your things away," he said again, not even a trace of anger in his own voice. "Come back here when you're done. We need to talk, you and I."
He didn't say anything in return; he didn't even look at Loghain. He just gathered up his things, and started off down the hallway.
"Second door on the left," Loghain called quietly after him.
He stopped, realizing he'd been about to walk right by it, and felt another surge of irritation and anger. He forced it down, then turned and opened the door.