Alistair leaned back against the door, his stomach churning with a mix of anger, resentment, and shame. The old man had put him down so easily, as if he was an untrained boy, not someone who had been a well-trained warrior. The operative words, he grudgingly admitted to himself, being 'had been'. Two years of spending most of his time parked on a bench and drinking had taken their toll; what had been hardened muscle was soft flesh now, his stomach swelling out in a noticeable gut. He'd already noticed on the journey here from the city just how low his endurance was, compared to what it had once been. His feeling of shame only worsened, as he catalogued all the ways in which he'd let his condition fade since leaving Ferelden.
He muttered a curse and straightened, dropping the backpack and cloth-wrapped parcel to the floor, and looked around. This must be the study, he decided, eyeing the desk pushed under a window in the wall to his left. There was a small fireplace in the opposite wall, flanked by bookcases – empty, and with traces of dust in the corners of the shelves, as if only recently cleaned. There were two doors leading off of the room, one on his right just beyond the fireplace and bookcases, and another placed slantwise in the back left corner of the room, beyond the desk. He walked over and looked through that one first of all.
A bathing chamber, built in a rounded room that must be one floor of a corner tower. There was a wide raised stone ledge filling in the far side of the room, most of its surface occupied by a metal tub inset in the stone. Above it was a large embrasure, with a narrow window at either side of the embrasure and the space in the middle filled in with shelving; a handy place to keep soap, towels, and other toiletries for the bath. To his left there was a washstand, with a mirror fastened to the wall above it, and a palm-wide shelf on which to keep things like his shaving supplies. Between it and the tub was a deep floor-to-ceiling cupboard.
He walked over and looked inside; the space was filled some sort of tall metal container. He tapped it with one knuckle; it made an odd sound, as if it was full of water, and when he pressed his hand to its side, proved to be hot to the touch. A memory stirred, and he bent down to look underneath, where a thin length of copper tubing ran into a piece of metal shaped like a large flattened ring, the top surface pierced with many pin-prick sized holes and dancing with flame. A boiler, he remembered now – he'd seen their like in the hostel they'd stayed at in Orzammar, and in Arl Eamon's Denerim mansion – a part of dwarven plumbing, used to keep water always warm for a bath. It burned the noxious gasses that would otherwise collect in cess pits. He rose and turned, and smiled in sardonic amusement to see that, yes, there was a garderobe closet on the other side of the small room. An obviously efficient system; wastes dropped down the shaft on that side, and the dwarven boilers made use of the gasses given off by it on this side. He wondered if the tower had been specifically raised with the function in mind, or if the plumbing had been added later.
He went and peered into the third and final room; a bedroom, as expected, a surprisingly large one. An empty armour stand was in one corner of the room, beside a large clothes-press, most of the room taken up by a sizable four-poster bed, currently devoid of hangings or bedding, the rope-laced frame filled only with a pair of ticks; a large one on the bottom that he assumed was stuffed with straw or similar coarse material, and a thinner one on top, doubtless filled with some finer material. There was also a large chest at the foot of the bed, and his eyes widened as he saw his familiar old backpack resting on top of it. Only as he hurried over did he notice the other thing that was there; a cloth-covered shield, leaning against the side of the chest. He stopped, just staring at it, then slowly walked over and bent down to lift it up. He ran one hand gently across the heavy canvas, seeing in his mind's eye the painted surface hidden under the cloth. Then sighed, and tucked it under one arm long enough to lift aside the pack and open the chest. He put the shield away for now, tucking it carefully into the bottom of the chest. Something to deal with later.
He put the backpack back on top of the chest, then returned to the study long enough to fetch the larger backpack and the cloth-wrapped bundle he'd left by the door. Time to put his things away; he was stuck here for now.
Loghain was beginning to wonder if he was going to have to go and winkle the boy out of his room when he heard the faint sound of a door opening and closing down the hallway. He set aside the book he'd been reading as Alistair entered the room, and gave him a rapid look over. The boy looked considerably more subdued now than he had earlier, shoulders hunched and head lowered, face almost expressionless, apart from a flash of dislike as he first looked up and met Loghain's eye.
"Sit," Loghain told him, and pointed to a chair facing his own. "There."
Alistair said nothing, just silently obeyed, big hands clasping loosely in his lap after he'd lowered himself into the chair. Loghain frowned, studying him silently for a long moment. The bright afternoon light streaming in a nearby window was not kind to the boy; it showed up the signs of his long dissipation all too clearly. The pale complexion, the dark bags under his eyes, the puffiness of his features and the slackness of what had once been muscular flesh. It roused a stray memory in Loghain; of how Maric had looked, when he'd finally talked the man out of his weeks-long immurement in his rooms after Rowan's death. He put it aside to consider later; right now it was merely a distraction from the job at hand.
"You will have a number of duties as my squire," he began. "Some few of which will involve your actually serving as my squire, but most of which will involve your proper education. Some of your learning will involve accompanying me on my daily tasks; other things involve information you will gain from books, or from teachings that I will ask others within the keep to undertake imparting to you. In addition there is the matter of your physical condition, which currently can only be described as execrable. Oghren will continue to oversee your recovery from your excess of drinking, with assistance from Jowan as needed, and apart from that you will be spending some time each day in exercise and practise at arms."
Alistair said nothing, just shifted slightly in his seat, hands tightening, his jaw setting stubbornly.
Loghain sighed. He'd seen that same bull-headed look before, on both Maric and Cailan. "I cannot force you to do any of this, though I can, of course, make it extremely unpleasant for you if you fail to co-operate. I would also point out that if you do not co-operate – if you fail to satisfy myself and my Senior Wardens – that we can and will punish you as harshly as the situation seems to justify."
"Kill me, you mean," Alistair said, his voice tight with anger.
"In the last extremity, yes. Though far more likely some lesser punishment, to make it clear to you that we are entirely serious in this matter. Time in the stocks, perhaps, or a flogging. Though there is a time limit on how long we can indulge you..."
"Indulge me!" Alistair exclaimed, voice full of disbelief. "You'd call a flogging indulging me?"
Loghain simply sat and stared at the boy until he fell silent again, the resentment simmering off of him almost palpable. "I would. You're a soldier, boy, or at least you used to be one. You're a deserter, too. Tell me, in your training as a templar, what was the penalty proscribed for desertion?"
Alistair gritted his jaw, but when Loghain merely sat watching him, patiently, he gave in. "Flogging if it was judged to have been without forethought, with additional punishment such as confining to quarters or time in the stocks if their commander felt it needful. Execution for intentional desertion, ether by the sword or by hanging at the commander's discretion based on the severity of their crime."
Loghain gave a single tiny nod. "And do you know what the usual punishment for deserters is in the army of Ferelden?"
Alistair's jaw set again, but only briefly, and when he spoke again, there was obvious reluctance in his voice. "The cage. Death by exposure."
"Did Duncan ever tell you what the Grey Warden punishment for deserters is?"
"No." Very reluctantly.
Loghain rose, and walked over to a bookshelf, taking down a well-thumbed copy of a book, and resumed his seat, quickly flipping through it to find the page he needed, then held it out to Alistair. Alistair stared at the book as if it was a poisonous snake that might strike and bite him. "You can read, can you not?" Loghain asked tiredly after a long moment had passed without Alistair moving to take it.
"Yes," Alistair admitted, grudgingly, then reached out and took the book, setting it down carefully in his lap.
"The right hand page, about halfway down," Loghain told him, and watched as the boy frowned in concentration, mouth silently shaping out the words as he read. Slowly; clearly not a skill he'd made much use of. He knew that Alistair had reached the relevant bits as the boy paled, then looked up, eyes wide in shock. "You'd do that to me!?"
"No. A barbaric practice, and I suspect one in the rules more as a deterrent to the sort of hardened criminals that are most commonly conscripted into our ranks rather than out of any real intention or desire to make it the usual punishment. Though I am sure there have been times when it has been used, as a very gruesome example to the rest," he added grimly. "But rest assured, if the Senior Wardens and I decided that you were beyond redemption, and judged you a danger to others, we would kill you rather than allow you to walk free. Though far more humanely than by the method described there."
Alistair looked only slightly chastened. "I wasn't any danger to anyone where I was," he pointed out angrily.
Loghain snorted. "Perhaps not, but you weren't any use to anyone either, were you? You're a Grey Warden; something you once claimed to take pride in. A Grey Warden fights darkspawn. You belong here, in Ferelden. There is a place for you here; a role. A job that needs doing."
"Being your squire," Alistair said, with contempt.
Loghain snorted again, in disgust this time. "A means to an end. There are things you need to learn; things you should have been learning a full decade or more ago, rather than learning how to shovel out horseshit or sing Andraste's praises. Things you would have learned, if you'd been properly fostered out as Maric's bastard son rather than raised as a peasant by that clodpole Eamon. History, geography, genealogy, heraldry, mathematics, manners and etiquette, proper penmanship and diction, better horsemanship, a few other things. You are at least adequately trained in the basic martial skills, or were, and will become so again, as well as learning more about strategy, tactics, command, and supply."
Alistair's expression had changed as he talked, from mulish to vaguely horrified. "All of that? In one year?"
"No. We will only be making a start on it, in one year. A knight starts their training in all of that when they're first fostered out as a page, most commonly some time between their sixth and eighth year of age. They become a squire usually by their twelfth year, when they're large enough to begin learning at least the basics of their martial skills. And assuming all goes well, they become a knight in their late teens or early twenties, with at least a decade of training behind them."
"I'm no knight," Alistair said, with that stubborn set to his jaw again.
"That is self-evident," Loghain said dryly. "And you're damned old to be a squire, though as it stands right now a page of ten likely has more knowledge than you do. A situation we must rectify, as part of your training. But you are not an eight year old boy and we do not have ten years to accomplish it in; we will, of necessity, have to skimp a little, even if you apply yourself."
Loghain sighed silently, and sat back in his chair, studying the young man again. Alistair was looking at least somewhat chastened and thoughtful now. "Keep that book for now," he told him, gesturing to the volume still sitting open on Alistair's knees. "It's among the knowledge you will need to learn. Read it through several times. Think about what you read. You'll be doing a lot of reading, and much of it will be things you must come to know was well as you know your own name, that you can call up from memory rather then relying on having a book to hand."
Alistair looked down at the book, then closed it, the fingers of his left hand resting for a moment on the flaking silver-foil griffon embossed on the worn leather of the cover before he looked back to Loghain again. He sat silently, but at least the stubborn tension had left his jaw.
"Your days will start early," Loghain continued. "Unless some other duty interferes, you and I will be starting our day with exercise down in the yard; you will rise, dress in the under-padding for your armour – practise with full armour will come once you are in better condition – and then come to my room to help me arm. Then at least an hour's practise in the yard, followed by breakfast in the refectory, after which you will have some time to bathe and dress in more appropriate clothing. The remainder of the morning you will spend in study, unless I tell you otherwise; you will be supplied with additional books as I judge you ready for them. You will lunch with me, usually here in my rooms, which we will use as an opportunity to work on your manners and conversation. I hold an informal open court most days after luncheon; you will attend me for that, after which you will spend some time in additional tutoring, which depending on the subject will be supplied by myself, one of my senior wardens, or such other staff at the keep as are particularly knowledgeable in the subject at hand. You will have a brief period of free time again until the evening meal, after which you will spend an hour or two with me to review what you have learned that day. The remainder of the evenings will usually be yours to do with as you see fit. Apart from these duties, you will also attend on me and serve as my squire whenever I need your services as such. Do you understand?"
Alistair drew a long breath. "Yes, I understand," he agreed quietly. Grudgingly, but agreement.
Loghain nodded. "Good. It's past noon now; for today you may chose whether you'd prefer to have a tray in your room, or to join me at table. Your duties will not start until tomorrow morning; you may use the remainder of the afternoon to settle into your quarters."
"And the tour of the keep I was supposed to have?" Alistair asked suspiciously.
"It can wait until after the evening meal."
Alistair nodded. "I'd prefer a tray in my room," he said. Loghain raised an eyebrow at him, and he bit his lip. "Ser. Please."
Loghain nodded. "I'll see that something is brought to you. You may go."
Alistair rose and left, taking the book with him.