17th Kingway
In the end, it was Aveline who came looking for Killeen, on the morning of the second day.
Killeen had slept badly, troubled by dreams of Cullen begging her for help, it won't stop, Kill, she won't stop, dreams in which she held out her hands to take him in her arms and found herself offering him vials and vials of lyrium …
Subsequently she was in no sweet mood when Aveline rapped on her door, but the Guard-Captain's first words swept the memories of the dreams away. "We've got a lead."
Killeen hammered on Fraser's door as they passed. He opened it, wide-eyed, half-dressed. Andraste's tits, I'm not waiting for him to get his boots on. "Meet me at the Keep," she ordered, and kept walking.
As Killeen followed her down the stairs and out into the street, Aveline explained that the Guard's enquiries had turned up reports of a devout and wealthy widow opening her private residence in Hightown as a refuge for young women in difficulties.
"Maryam de Folette," Aveline said.
"Never heard of her," Killeen said as they made their way to Hightown, Aveline's squad around them.
"Neither have I," Aveline said grimly. "Want to bet that's because she's exceptionally law abiding?"
"No odds," Killeen said.
Maryam de Folette's house was large and imposing, all the windows that faced the street shuttered. "No back door," Aveline said, and hammered on the door.
It was opened after a moment by a very large man dressed as a butler — dressed as one, Killeen thought, taking in the twice broken nose, the bulging chest, the shoulders that seemed to come straight from his ears, but if he is one I'll eat my armour. Her impression was confirmed as soon as he opened his mouth and grunted, "Yeah?"
"Guard Captain Aveline here to see Mistress de Folette," Aveline said.
"Not here." He started to shut the door.
Aveline and Killeen moved at the same moment, stepping forward, shoulders to the door. They heaved — he strained — two of Aveline's soldiers added their weight and the door flew open, the 'butler' staggering back.
"Mitchell, Simkins, watch the door — no one in or out," Aveline ordered. "The rest of you, by twos, search the house. Killeen, with me."
"Yes, ser," they chorused, Killeen included, and moved.
The foyer and the public spaces of the house were well-kept and well appointed, but beyond them, paint peeled from the walls, dust collected in corners, what furniture there was was cheap and old. Three empty rooms on the first floor, up a flight of stairs and —
A woman screamed, and Killeen drew her sword, ran after Aveline down the corridor. They rounded the corner to see —
Two of Aveline's squad trying to calm a red-haired girl cowering away from them and screaming like a whistling kettle. "Hush, hush now," one of them pleaded. "It's all right, it's all right!"
Killeen sheathed her sword and strode forward. "Shut up," she said, and slapped the girl across the face.
The noise stopped, the girl staring at her in shock.
"They're Guard," Killeen said, jerking her thumb at the others. "They ask nicely. I'm not. I don't. Have you seen Jean Hanmount?"
"I don't — I don't think so?" the girl quavered.
"Dark haired, pretty. Eyes like mine. Might have had a kid with her."
"Oh, you mean Amaryllis," the red-head said.
One of the Guards snickered and Killeen glared at him, then turned back to the girl. "Probably. Where is she?"
"Gone," the red head said. "Madame de Folette got her a job, with four of the other girls, last week." She rubbed her cheek. "It's my turn next. If you've bruised me …"
"A job where?" Killeen asked. "And where's Thomas? Her kid. With her?"
"I don't know where," the girl said. "Madame never says. And no, you can't take children. Madame finds them good homes, with nice families."
"And where can we find Madame?" Aveline asked.
The red-head hesitated. "I'm not sure. She only comes here every few days, to bring new girls, or take the lucky ones to jobs."
"Is there anything you can think —" Aveline began.
Killeen glanced behind her, saw the staircase and its banister, seized the redhead by the arm and hoisted her over one shoulder. Ignoring Aveline's shout of Killeen! she carried the shrieking, struggling girl to the landing at the top of the stairs and tipped her, head down, over the edge.
The girl screamed and kicked. "If you keep moving around," Killeen said conversationally, "I'm going to lose my grip."
"Killeen Hanmount, I order you —" Aveline snapped.
"Not a Guard," Killeen reminded her, and then to the red-head, who was now holding very still, "Now, I'm going to hold you here until you think of something that helps me find this Madame de Fillet. Of course, eventually my arms will get tired, and I'll drop you. So you'll probably want to think hard, and help me, before that happens."
"I don't know, I don't know!" the girl babbled.
"Does she come in a carriage or on foot?"
"I, um, I never saw. In a carriage! In a carriage! I heard horses, more than one time, stopping!"
"Good," Killeen said. "Are you from Kirkwall?"
"Yes!"
"Then what does she smell like? Hightown, Lowtown? Darktown?"
"None of them! She smells of … I don't know, something sweet!"
Perfume and bathing, and a residence outside the city walls, Killeen thought. All of which means not just money, but connections. "Good. That's helpful. What does she look like?"
"Orelsian!"
"Well, shit," Killeen said. "You mean she wears a mask?"
"Yes! Pull me up, pull me up!"
"Killeen, enough." Aveline's voice cracked like a whip — the original on which Killeen's own parade-ground bellow was based, and still able to make her sphincter tighten.
She hauled the girl back over the banister and let her collapse on the floor, and turned to face Aveline. "An Orlesian woman with local connections to the great and grand, living outside the —"
"I gathered," Aveline said tightly. She turned, began issuing orders to round up any women found in the house for interrogation, for the 'butler' to be taken to the cells in the Keep, and for the heads of each gate roster to report to her office, immediately. Then she turned back to Killeen. "And you — a word."
It was more than a word, and delivered in a tone that would have blistered paint. Killeen set her face in her best blank expression, looked over Aveline's shoulder, and thought about good homes, nice families, and how unlikely that would be.
"Are you listening to me?" Aveline demanded.
The correct answer was yes ser, of course, ser.
"Not really," Killeen said. She shrugged slightly. "I don't work for you anymore, Captain. Stop expecting me to act as if I do."
"I let you come here today as a favour." Aveline's tone was icy, her eyes blazing. "I don't expect you to act like you work for me. I expect you to act like you're a guest in my city — not like the Champion of Kirkwall herself! Flames, as if we needed another one!"
Killeen was startled. "I thought you were friends."
"Until she vanished and left me to deal with the mess," Aveline said. "Like Cullen Rutherford. Like you."
Well, shit. "Captain …" Killeen paused. "Cullen left because he had to. But I — I left for him. And I'm sorry. It was selfish, and I'm sorry."
"You were in love with him, back then?" Aveline asked.
"Maker, yes," Killeen said. "I was half in love with him the minute I saw him."
"No wonder you took his side, after Meredith," Aveline said.
Killeen's standing at ease in the Guard Captain's office, wishing she was anywhere but here, gaze fixed on the wall to make absolutely sure she doesn't catch either Cullen or Aveline's eyes.
But here is where she is, because after the night of blood and fire Kirkwall has been through, after the Guard has fought inch by bloody inch to restore a semblance of order to the streets, with the Chantry still smoldering, Aveline had said I need a runner to get down to Gallows and get the Knight Commander up here and Killeen had volunteered, despite legs rubbery with exhaustion, because the Gallows is where Cullen will be —
If he lives.
As distant as he's been since the night he let her know he could never return her affections with a pointed comparison to the Hero of Ferelden, Killeen wants him to be alive. Needshim to be alive, even if they have exchanged, will exchange, only the most perfunctory of greetings when they meet.
She trots on legs that want to give way beneath her through Hightown and Lowtown and across the long walkway that leads to the Gallows. Even from the town, she can see the smoke rising — when she gets closer, she can see rubble, shattered statues, the proof of a mighty battle in which magic was deployed.
Can see the Champion, coming wearily down the stairs.
Can see Cullen, behind her.
Her knees want to fold beneath her, but she forces them to hold, although she can no longer raise more than a walk. Closer, she can see that Cullen's face is ashen, his eyes hollow: he moves like a man asleep.
"Cullen," she says when she's close enough, and it takes a moment before he turns his head to look at her, without recognition. "Cullen, where's Knight Commander Meredith?"
"Gone," he says flatly.
"Dead?"
"No," he says, and something like a horrible imitation of a smile twists his perfect lips.
With the feeling that she is out of her depth, very badly out of her depth — and that she had better learn how to swim really fucking fast — Killeen puts her hand on his arm. "Aveline asked me to fetch the Knight Commander."
The answer is a long time coming. "I think that's me."
"Then you'd better come to the keep."
"All right," he says numbly.
They make a sad pair as together they make their way to the Keep. Cullen seems uninjured, but Killeen would bet a week's pay against him knowing where he is or why. She herself is weaving on her feet with exhaustion, starting to become light-headed.
To cap it off, it begins to rain. Not a light rain, either: one of Kirkwall's patented shittiest-place-to-live-in-all-Thedas driving rains that gets down the neck and creates puddles in the street in moments.
Killeen slips in one of them, goes down on one knee. Can't summon the strength to get up.
She realises after a moment that Cullen has stopped, too: not waiting, so much, as simply standing now he has been deprived of the motivation to keep walking.
"You go on," she says. "I'll catch you up."
No flicker of expression on his face to show he's even heard her.
Killeen manages to get her feet under her, heaves to her feet and slips again, going down full length this time. "Andraste's frilly knickers!" She scrabbles for purchase on the slick cobblestones. "Maker's geriatric truss, fuck this rain, why does it always rain on a bad day, you never have a fucking military disaster in full sunlight, oh, no, it's always — Andraste's nipple tassells — fucking rain —"
A hand takes her arm, lifts her to her feet, holds her there. She looks up into Cullen's face, rain running down his forehead, something like recognition in his eyes. "How long have you been on your feet?" he asks.
"What year is it?" Killeen asks, and the corner of his mouth lifts slightly. She steadies herself on the wall."I'll be fine. You need to get up to the Keep. Aveline wants someone's bollocks for earrings, and if I were you, I'd be quick to volunteer someone else's."
"I'm not facing Guard Captain Aveline without backup." Cullen pulls her arm over his shoulders, taking her weight. "Come on."
And that's how she ends up in the Guard Captain's office, staring at the wall as the full horror of the Gallows is discussed, as Aveline tells Cullen the Templar order in Kirkwall should be dissolved and Cullen disagrees.
"What do you think, Killeen?" Aveline asks.
Well, shit. This entire conversation is above her pay grade and expressing an opinion on it …. "You're both right, sers," Killeen says.
"Very diplomatic," Aveline says.
"Ser, I don't mean to be. You're right — what happened in Kirkwall's Circle was more than a few abuses. The mages who left fled, escaped — anyone would have. And they're men and women, and children too, with families in the city, families who now know what happened. Knight-Captain Cullen, ser, you can't pretend that nothing's changed."
"Thank you," Aveline said.
"But Cullen's right, too, Captain Aveline, ser," Killeen said. "Jeven was before my time, but everyone knows the story. And he wasn't the only one in the Guard's history, was he? What about Rundle? Trading favours with the girls at the Rose. The Guard wasn't disbanded, it was reformed. The Kirkwall Templars can be, too."
"The city's in pieces," Aveline says. "I've no room or time for anyone to hold themselves above the work that needs to be done."
"The Templars won't," Cullen says. "I promise you."
"Will you work withthe Guard?"
"Give us a liaison." Cullen glances at Killeen. "Sergeant Killeen. I promise, her words will be taken as commands."
And that is how Killeen finds herself promoted, fired from the role she loves, thrust into the deep end of a new order in Kirkwall, without a word from herself.
Finds herself in the corridor outside Aveline's office, unable to make even the slightest sense of what's happened, unable to catch her balance or make her legs support her …
Firm hand closes around her arm, steers her sideways until her shoulder fetches up against the wall and between the cool stone on one side of her and the gauntleted grip on her bicep she can keep her feet.
"All right?" Cullen asks quietly, his broad shoulders between her and the main hall and any curious bystanders.
"I'm fine," Killeen tells him and any unseen listeners. "Sorry."
"You should be," Cullen says softly. "Fighting all night after a day on patrol, running the length of Kirkwall on an empty stomach … what sort of Guard can't do that and turn around for a full day's duty?"
"Are you all right?" she asks him.
And for a second, his warm brown eyes register complete surprise, as if the last thing he ever expected is for another human being to ask him how he was — and mean it.
"No," he says, after a moment. "No. But I am … all right for now."
"Did you just get me fired?"
"I'm sorry about that." There's amusement in his voice, she's almost sure. "I — Kill. I can't do this … I need your help."
"You could have just asked . "
"Next time, I will," Cullen promises. "Can you walk?"
No, she wants to say, because then she can stand here a little longer, and Cullen will keep talking to her without either the cool distance of recent months or today's dull numbness in his voice.
"Yes," she says reluctantly. "What's first?"
"First?"
Killeen looks up at him. "I'm your official liaison to the Guard, so liaise with me. What do you need from the Guard, first? What are the Templars going to do?"
Cullen shakes his head. "I hardly know."
Killeen runs her hand through her hair, and then scrubs her face as if that will substitute for six or seven hours sweet sleep."You need to update the active roster to reflect who's still fit."
"All right," Cullen says. He lets go of her arm, steps back, hand still raised. "It'll be ready for you when you've rested."
"An hour."
"Two," he counters. She nods, turns to go and seek her cot, stops as he says, "Kill." He pauses, adds very softly, "Thank you."
Killeen shook off memory. "I didn't take his side," she told Aveline. "I didn't take anyone's side. You asked me what I thought. I told you."
"And you ended up working side-by-side with Cullen Rutherford every day of the week," Aveline said.
"I didn't plan it," Killeen said honestly. "At the time, if you'd asked me, I would have told you I didn't want it. And, Captain … you can't honestly say it didn't help. Can you?"
Aveline gave her a long, steady look. "No," she said at last. "Things would have been a lot worse without Templar co-operation. You did good work, those three years." She paused. "Before you left."
"Well, I'm back now," Killeen said. The words came out without her planning them, but she realised that she meant them as she heard them out loud. "And I'll stay, if you want." Maker, don't say yes, Aveline, she thought, knowing that she'd stand by her offer if it was taken up. Don't say yes, Aveline, please.
"As if you would," Aveline said, and Killeen felt her knees weaken with relief. She took a deep breath as Aveline said, "Come on. Let's find out what the butler saw."