Anders had been tense since their arrival, Sebastian had noticed. The man was hiding it reasonably well, but it was obvious to him that the mage was deeply unsettled by the presence of so many templars. He really should have considered that before inviting him along on this trip, he'd belatedly realized when he'd seen Anders go pale and tense as they entered the keep's courtyard, his eyes darting around to take in their surroundings.
He'd at least begun to look a little less haunted when Sebastian had reassured him while helping him out of the cert. And his dogs were staying close by him, which seemed to be helping him to stay calm.
It wasn't until they had finished their tour of the tower and were walking back down to the lower floors that he noticed that Anders was looking pale again, sweat beading on his brow, the hand holding Ashes visibly trembling.
"Well, I hope you don't mind, but I could use a bit of a break before I do anything else," Sebastian casually remarked to the Knight-Commander. "It's been a while since I was last in the saddle for so long a time, and my legs are demanding a rest. If you could show me to the room I'll be staying tonight? And we can talk further after the evening meal..."
"Of course," Lawrence said. "I hope you don't mind, we weren't expecting anyone other than yourself and your guards... will your companions prefer to stay in with the guards, or should we arrange a second room for them as well?"
"Oh, no reason to bother, they can share mine, assuming it's large enough for a couple of extra cots?"
"Of a certainty," the Knight-Commander agreed, and led them to the room in questions. It was indeed more than large enough for a couple of cots – the bed filled less than half the floorspace, and apart from an empty armour stand and a small table beside it, the bed was the only furnishing. The Knight-Commander promised to send up two cots as soon as they'd been unloaded from the waggons, then said his farewells and left them alone.
"Have a seat, Anders," Sebastian said, taking the mage by the arm and leading him over to the bed, the only place to sit available in the room apart from the floor. Anders gratefully sat down, closing his eyes and just shaking for a minute.
"I should have thought, before bringing you here among templars... is there anything I can do? Anything you need?" he asked anxiously.
Anders shook his head, eyes still closed. "Just... don't leave me alone, please," he said faintly. "I should have thought too, about how... difficult, being around templars again was going to be for me." He stopped, biting his lip as if biting back additional words.
Sebastian moved to sit on the bed as well. Ganwyn jumped up on the bed, and leaned against Anders' back, with his hindquarters and gently waving tail pressed against one of the mage's shoulders and head curving around the opposite shoulder, head turned to sniff at the side of Anders' face. Anders gave a short surprised laugh as the dog's tongue flicked out and swiped wetly against his chin, and opened his eyes again. Colour was slowly returning to his face. He drew a deep breath, and glanced nervously at Fenris, standing quietly near the door, then looked at Sebastian. "Sorry," he said quietly.
"No need to apologize," Sebastian said. "We'll just rest until the evening meal, and then after that you can come right back to the room again. I'll likely need to spend some time talking with the Knight-Commander, but you'll have your dogs to keep you company... or I could make an excuse about being too tired, if you need to me stay?"
"I will stay with the mage after dinner," Fenris said quietly. "We could talk further about Tevinter."
Anders nodded. "Thank you, I would welcome the company," he agreed faintly.
There was a knock at the door just then, a couple of Sebastian's own guardsmen arriving with the requested cots. After they'd been set up Anders moved from the bed to one, stretching out on his back, Ashes curling up on his stomach. Ganwyn immediately climbed up as well, draping himself over the mage's legs, and Haelioni moved to lie down alongside the cot, nosing briefly at Anders' elbow and upper arm before finally lowering her head to the floor.
Fenris took off his sword, leaning it in the corner by his own cot, then sat down, stripping off his gauntlets and dropping them on the cot beside himself, turning to look briefly at the mage before turning to look at Sebastian. "This keep seems a good choice of location for the Ansburg mages and their keepers," he said.
Sebastian nodded. "I thought it seemed quite suitable," he agreed. "I am pleased to see them settling in so rapidly. The supplies we brought them will certainly help to make the place much more comfortable, though there is a long way to go before this place would even begin to be up to the standard of most formal Circle towers."
"No library yet, for one," Anders pointed out, eyes still closed. He was looking much more himself now, his colour good and his hand steady as he slowly stroked it along Ashes' back over and over again.
"Nor likely to be for quite some time," Sebastian agreed. "Having books copied and sent here from elsewhere will be an expensive proposition, and with so much turmoil currently, few other Circles will likely be able to spare the resources to assist in making such copies in the first place."
"Could you not have some of the books in your own library copied?" Fenris asked, looking faintly puzzled. "Would not that be cheaper than sending abroad for books?"
"Aye, but there are two problems. One is that it is books on magic that mages mostly need, for their studies, and such are likely rare in my collection, or in the chantry library. The second is having enough trained scribes to do the copying; Hawke had started to teach you reading and writing, hadn't he? Did you find it easy to learn?"
"He intended to, but we only ever had one lesson," Fenris said, then flushed, looking slightly shamefaced. "It was quite difficult, and I grew more frustrated than I perhaps should have allowed myself to, and... he never attempted a second lesson."
"Ah. Well, it usually takes years of training for someone to become good enough at reading and writing to become a copyist," Sebastian explained. "The chantry maintains a small scriptorium for the maintenance and copying of the works in their own library, but they have the benefit that most clergy are trained in the work of clerks and scribes from a young age, most of them being orphans raised within the chantry itself; once their avocation makes itself known, they go directly into training. Then there are usually a few scribes for hire in the general populace, many of whom are also chantry-raised, and the scions of noble families, such as myself, who are given a formal education from a young age. Apart from that there are almost none who can manage even the most basic of reading and writing, so hiring people to do the work is difficult. The children of nobles rarely have interest in or the need to take such menial work, the chantry folk are usually busy with their own duties within the chantry, and trained scribes are uncommon and expensive to hire for the length of time needed to copy out books."
Fenris frowned and nodded. "I see. But aren't the mages themselves trained in reading and writing? Since the library is for them, could not they do the bulk of the work? At least with any books available locally that would suit their library?"
Sebastian started to speak, then stopped and just sat there for a long moment, frowning in thought. Anders opened his eyes after a moment, raising himself up on his elbows, and turned his head to look at Sebastian.
"It's a good thought," Sebastian said slowly. "The only bar I can see to it being a workable one would be the perceived danger of allowing such a group of mages within the walls to do it; emotions are still higher against them than I am happy with. But... perhaps, if we started quietly with just a very small group of them, it might be doable."
"You could start a scriptorium of your own then," Anders said, and smiled lazily. "Maybe even have the mages teach reading and writing to others, like the chantry school does. Found a school of your own."
"Found a school?" Sebastian asked, looking mildly surprised. "Whatever for?"
"Why not?"" Anders asked with a shrug. "You have many refugees in need of work; surely some of them would be intelligent enough to learn reading and writing, even figuring. Then they'd be able to get work as clerks or scribes... or copyists. Books are expensive, but the market for them is always there, and you undoubtedly have many rare or unique volumes in that monster of a library of yours. With sufficient copyists, you could spare some to work on copying some of the rarer volumes to be sold abroad, and that would help offset the cost of the copies being made for the mages themselves. More, some of the rare volumes should be copied – think of how much knowledge was lost, when the library in the Ansburg circle burned," he said bleakly, looking saddened for a moment. "Or the library of the original Starkhaven Circle – that burned too, didn't it. And I doubt the library in the Gallows has faired much better."
"Or that in the Kirkwall chantry," Fenris pointed out dryly.
Anders winced, but nodded in agreement. "Yes, or that," he agreed quietly. "I remember reading for a while in there once, one rainy day when Hawke had dragged me there while he spoke to the Grand Cleric about something or other... they had some wonderful illustrated herbals. And a complete collection of the travelogues of Brother Genitivi. I was never sure which I was more jealous of."
Sebastian laughed. "I possess copies of most of the good Brother's writings myself," he said. "They're somewhere in that 'monster' of a library, the ones that aren't squirrelled away in my own quarters anyway."
"Travelogues?" Fenris asked, looking perplexed.
"Writings about his travels abroad," Anders explained. "Places he went, the things he saw and people he met there, interesting folk customs and costumes... if you can't travel somewhere yourself, his books are the next-best thing. Though I suspect he exaggerates the excitement of what has happened to him in some of them. One can hardly write a travelogue about Antiva and claim to have met no Crows, for instance," he said with an amused smile. "The readers will want you to have not just met Crows, but somehow been witness to some grand plot and the resultant assassinations. So sometimes, I think, he maybe... makes up bits. To make it more interesting."
"This sounds suspiciously like Isabela and Varric's 'friend fiction'," Fenris pointed out.
Anders shrugged. "Even their writings have value, to people of a certain frame of mind. And who knows, some of their tales might still be titillating folk a hundred years from now. Varric always assured me that his 'Hard in Hightown' is a series for the ages," he said, lips twisting in an ironic smile. "All knowledge is of some value to someone, somewhere. Even knowledge about sex, though it isn't to everyone's taste in reading material."
"The erotic uses of exotically shaped tubers are certainly something I wish I had never heard Isabela mention in my vicinity," Sebastian said dryly. "That is knowledge I could have done without."
Anders barked with laughter, and even Fenris smiled.