Anders squeezed his hands into fists to hide the way they were beginning to tremble as the waggon rolled in through the gate of the keep. He darted a glance up to the walls over the gate. Templars, standing guard. More waiting on the steps of the keep, waiting to greet Sebastian and his party. He felt his fingernails digging painfully into his palms and forced his hands to relax a little bit. He swallowed, then swallowed again, feeling the sour taste and bite of bile in the back of his throat.
Haelioni rose to a sitting position and looked around attentively, then turned and nosed at his hair, warm breath gusting against the back of his neck. He released a little sigh, and reached up to sink the fingers on one hand into the thick fur at her neck, scratching around the base of her ear, taking comfort from her presence.
The waggon slowed further. Fenris was up and out over the side before it had even fully stopped, looking around with interest. Anders knew he needed to get up and get out of the waggon as well, but his legs were refusing to obey him. He didn't want to get out. He didn't want to be here, surrounded by templars and mages. He wished he was back in Starkhaven, facing nothing more threatening than another day of working in the clinic and listening to Fenris talk about life as a slave in the Tevinter Imperium. He closed his eyes for a minute, trying to gather the courage to get up and out of the waggon.
"Anders?" He heard Sebastian say, softly. He opened his eyes again, found the prince looking at him, a faint crease between his eyebrows and a look on concern on his face. Fenris stood beside him, one gauntleted hand resting on the horse's neck, looking at him as well, face still.
"I think my legs have gone to sleep from sitting in this waggon all day," he said lightly, forcing a smile at Sebastian. "They don't want to move."
A slight smile crossed Sebastian's lips. "Is that all it is? Well, easy enough mended," he said, then dismounted from his horse, tossing the reins to a nearby foot-soldier and stepping to the back of the waggon. He dropped the gate, then leaned forward over it. "Give me a hand, Fenris," he said over his shoulder as he reached out to take hold of one of Anders' arms. Fenris stepped over and silently grasped his other forearm, and the two of them pulled him to his feet and helped him out the back of the waggon.
His legs really were half-asleep, enough so that he leaned on Sebastian for support for a moment. "I promise, you'll be leaving here with me," Sebastian breathed into his ear, hand tightening on his arm for a moment before releasing him and stepping away.
He drew a deep, shaky breath, and nodded in acknowledgement at Sebastian before straightening up. Haelioni was pressing up against him, her head turned to look up at him. He rested one hand on her back, other reaching to touch Ashes' head where the cat was peering out of the bag still slung over his shoulder, woken up from his nap on Anders' spare clothes. Ganwyn pranced over and leaned against his leg for a moment too, tail whipping energetically from side to side.
Sebastian was moving off to speak to the templars waiting on the keep steps. Fenris moved to stand near Anders. Anders wouldn't have thought he'd ever find the elf's company particularly reassuring, but today... it somehow was. He gathered together the ragged shreds of his courage, and followed after Sebastian, Fenris walking along a few paces to the side. He took Ashes out of his bag as he walked, holding the cat in his arms, scratching at his jaw and neck, as much to soothe himself as the cat.
As they approached the templars, the group of them moved down off of the stairs to level ground, one moving a few steps ahead of the others to greet Sebastian.
"Prince Vael," the templar said, giving him a deep, formal bow. "I am Knight-Commander Lawrence, lately in charge of the Ansburg Circle of Magi. Or at least what remains of it," he added grimly. "Thank you for offering us the use of this keep. The shelter is deeply appreciated by all of us."
Sebastian nodded his head in formal greeting to the man. "I hope the keep meets the needs of you and your people? We have brought you additional supplies, foods and warm blankets and such. The Revered Mother has also sent you some necessary supplies..." he turned and gestured to the first waggon, where a large locked chest was even then being lifted out by a pair of guardsmen.
The Knight-Commander looked relieved, and quickly signalled for a couple of his men to go take charge of the chest. "Yes, thank you, the keep is quite adequate," he said with an easy smile. "Would you care for a tour?"
"Certainly," Sebastian said. "That would be enjoyable. Oh, and let me introduce my companions – these are Fenris, and Anders," he said, gesturing to each in turn.
Fenris nodded graciously to the man. Anders had to force himself to move, to dip his head in greeting as well.
Lawrence turned away, leading the way up the stairs and into the keep, talking easily to Sebastian. Anders paid no attention, concentrating mainly on just walking, following behind Sebastian. Past the other templars, who were moving towards the waggons now, presumably to help unload them, and into the keep. Sebastian and Lawrence had stopped a few paces inside the door, Sebastian looking around appreciatively at the entry hall. It was spotlessly clean, though sparsely furnished.
"You've made a great difference here already, I can see," he said approvingly. "I must apologize for the filthy conditions you likely found here when you arrived; sadly it was not until I was seeking a place to put you all that I discovered the caretaker had been senile for some years. Though as apart from the dirt this was the most suitable building I had available, in the end I thought its defensibility overcame whatever drawbacks its unkempt condition represented."
The Knight-Commander nodded. "We've been making good progress on cleaning and repairs; the work is serving to keep our hands busy and our minds occupied, at least. But come, let me show you what we've done," he said, and resumed walking. "We've taken the bottom two floors to house the templars, and the mages are setting up places for themselves in the higher levels."
He led them through the simple dormitories that most of the templars were currently sharing. Only a very few of the most senior templars had separate quarters, the lower levels of the tower running more to quite large rooms than to smaller ones suitable for offices or private quarters.
The second floor had three large rooms, the smaller set aside as an armoury for the templars, the second room as another templar dormitory, and the largest set up as a refectory that was also used by the mages, served by a kitchen down in the basement of the tower, where the storage rooms were also located. There was also a number of smaller rooms here, which had been set up as offices for those templars who required one – the Knight-Commander and a couple of his officers, presumably one for the First Enchanter as well.
It was in the refectory that they encountered the first of the mages, a pair of tired-looking women sitting on a bench in one corner of the room, a large group of apprentice-aged mages perched on the benches, floor, and tables around them, clearly in the middle of a lesson of some kind. The teachers stopped when they saw the group, the older of the pair rising to her feet. She had brown hair well-threaded with silver, and warm brown eyes. Her brow was creased with worry-lines at the moment, but judging by the smile-lines elsewhere on her face, it was not her usual expression.
"Knight-Commander Lawrence," she said, dipping her head.
"First Enchanter Elisa. This is our host, Prince Sebastian Vael, and his companions. I am conducting them on a tour of the tower. Would you care to join use?" he asked formally.
She dipped her head again. "Gladly," she said, and turned to the other woman. "Carry on with the lesson, please," she said, and then threaded her way through the apprentices and walked over to join them, bowing to Sebastian and glancing curiously at Fenris and Anders and his menagerie before turning back to the Knight-Commander and looking expectantly at him. He set off again, higher into the tower.
Here they saw more mages, most of them at work either cleaning or at setting up the cleaned areas as bedrooms, studies, what would be a library and classrooms once they had books and other necessary furnishings for them; they had fled Ansburg with little more than the clothes on their back, and had almost nothing apart from what could be salvaged out of the dilapidated furnishings of the keep and whatever Sebastian and the Starkhaven chantry sent them. Anders found himself feeling even more on edge than he had when just templars had been around; now there were templars and mages, and as many mages as he'd interacted with in his long years in Kirkwall, he was sure that sooner or later...
And there, a face he recognized, someone who'd been part of the mage underground, one of their contacts inside the Gallows in Kirkwall for years. He saw he look up from the dark old wooden desk she was labouring to clean, see them, see him, her eyes widening momentarily in shock... he forced himself not to react, not to look at her. Her felt her eyes on him as they moved by and continued on across the room, felt her staring at his back. He felt... light-headed, and more than a little nauseous.
Someone who had known him in Kirkwall. Someone who might well know what he had done there, that he was responsible for all the terrible things that had started there, result of his and Justice's unreasoning anger.
He should have stayed in Starkhaven. He wasn't sure why he'd come here. He edged a little closer to Sebastian, hand tightening in Haelioni's fur.
He shouldn't have come.