"You're planning to go in unarmed? Are you mad?"
"You and Leliana will be armed," Rìona said calmly. "We were fortunate to find armor that will fit Leliana well enough. As for me and Zevran... I see no other choice but for us to pose as whores that the two of you are bringing back to the barracks."
"I shall not be unarmed," Zevran assured Alistair, withdrawing a stiletto from someplace upon his person, and tucking it away again. Rìona had no doubt there were many more weapons than that one blade secreted upon his person.
"But Rìona will."
"We'll find a bow for me once we gain access to the estate. Leliana, I want you to carry the Cousland sword until I have need of it. Will you do that for me?"
"Of course." Leliana accepted the blade, the hilt and scabbard of which had been wrapped in rags to disguise their distinctive laurel-wreath crest.
"You're still going to be unarmored," Alistair pointed out. "Both of you."
Rìona shook her head. "It can't be helped. I'll try to find a chainmail shirt once we're inside, but we can't go in armor if we're to be masquerading as whores, and I can't think of any way to bring our armor along, or stash it beforehand, that doesn't expose us to unnecessary risk of discovery."
Alistair turned away in disgust, and she felt a pang, that this was troubling him so. "This is insanity."
"It's my brother, Alistair," Rìona murmured, reaching up to touch his shoulder. "What would you have me do?"
He stood there stiffly for a long moment, not responding to her touch, until finally he sighed and turned to look at her. "Nothing. Fine. If we're going to do this, let's go."
They waited until nearly evening to make their move, for that was when many of the guards who were off-duty would be returning to the barracks with whores in tow. With the increase in comings and goings, it would be easier to blend in. Howe's guards were getting more and more lax in their duty, as their pay kept coming late. It helped, also, that there was a mob of angry merchants and craftsmen at the gates of Howe's estate, demanding payment for services they had rendered in good faith. Bitterly, Rìona wondered what had happened to all the wealth Howe had pilfered from Highever's coffers, if he was unable to pay his guards and merchants in a timely manner.
"At least some of it, we stole back," Zevran chuckled when she ventured to speak the question aloud, and Rìona laughed softly, remembering their last visit to Denerim.
"A little less giggling, please," Alistair said tightly as they approached the guard-station at the gates.
"Try to look more lecherous," Rìona hissed, affecting a slatternly saunter and shrugging her thin shawl down her shoulders to reveal a low-cut bodice that did little to conceal her swollen, milk-full breasts. In response, Alistair's hand swung down with a loud smack, drawing a startled yelp from her as he somehow managed to both slap and grope her backside in a single move. Alistair gave a grimace that could only charitably have been construed as a lewd smirk, but it didn't matter. The guard's attention was on Rìona as she scowled at Alistair and rubbed her stinging posterior. He waved them through the gate with a leer of his own.
"That lecherous enough for you?" Alistair asked once they were past the guard.
"It certainly was for me," Zevran said with a lascivious grin. "I wouldn't mind seeing more of that in a more private setting."
"Perhaps we should first concentrate on getting out of here alive?" Leliana suggested sweetly, a hint of humor coloring her voice as it echoed behind her helm.
"Agreed," Alistair replied. "Maker's breath, cover yourself! Half the city is gawking at you right now. And just when did you get so... plentiful... anyway?"
"After the babe was born," Rìona snickered and pulled her shawl up again, giving him an affectionate smile. As delightfully shameless as he could be privately, it was charming to see that not all his innate modesty had disappeared, and that much of his possessiveness still lingered. "Oh, Alistair, I do adore you."
He blushed and ducked his head, smiling at her. "I should hope so. Now let's find you some armor and a bow before I lose my mind with worry."
"I suppose this begs the question of whether we intend to try to sneak into the dungeons without confrontation, or if we are going to fight our way in," Leliana pointed out as they worked their way through the manor, seeking an armory of some sort.
"Fight our way in," Rìona declared. "If Fergus is down there, we have no idea what condition he's in, and we couldn't bring Wynne along because there was no way to disguise her. We'll remove any potential resistance first, so that once we have him, we can get back to Eamon's estate without endangering him further."
No sooner had she spoken, than Alistair opened a door to a large chamber lined with bunks, trunks and armor racks. Four half-armored guards sat around a table, dicing. Two were dead before they even noticed aught was amiss. The other two scrambled off the benches beside the table, but barely had laid hands to their swords before they fell, also.
The chainmail shirt Rìona found on one of the armor racks was too tight across her unfettered bosom and too loose everywhere else, falling past her hips until they belted it snugly about her waist. Leliana and Zevran had to rip strips from one of the dead men's bloody shirts to bind the chainmail sleeves tight to her arms so that they wouldn't impede her draw. But once she had donned it and armed herself with a bow that had been propped by the door, Alistair relaxed visibly, and even more so when Zevran strapped on a hardened leather cuirass.
"Better." He nodded once, brusquely, and led them out of the barracks toward the dining hall, where many of the guard were feasting and gambling.
Perhaps she should have felt guilty, slaughtering men at their leisure, but Rìona found her conscience troubled her not at all. She remembered Oren and Oriana, murdered as they lay sleeping in their beds, and wondered if any of these men had taken part in the sneak attack on Highever. Nearly a year, now, retribution had awaited its day, and that day had finally arrived. Her head was clear and her heart cold as she calmly nocked one arrow after another, sending men to the rush-covered floor with their last breaths gurgled out around the arrow shaft protruding from their throats.
It wasn't even about Fergus, anymore, Rìona realized, troubled by the fact that she wasn't troubled. She wasn't certain she actually believed he was being held here. No. This was about duty. This was about the vow she had made to her parents, to see Howe pay for his crime. After today, for better or worse, it would be done, and that horrible sense of waiting would be gone.
Each dead body was one less man standing between her and Howe.
The massive iron portal that seemed to lead down to the dungeon was locked, and none of the guards they had killed appeared to carry a key. Thus they were forced to make their way room by room through the manor house, as more guards arrived in waves from the grounds and barracks, drawn by the furor. Those men fell, also.
It was in what was clearly the lord's bedchamber that they found another entrance to the dungeons.
"Wait!" Leliana called, kneeling beside a chest. "If you want a look into Howe and Loghain's schemes, this may be a good place to begin."
Within were a number of ledgers, records of payments made to bands of mercenaries and to purchase the paraphernalia of supporting an army. That, Rìona thought, was where Highever's wealth had gone, and considerable other funds as well. They detailed expenditures for salaries for Howe's guards, armor and weapons, foodstuffs, tents and blankets, and much more.
"Maker! Where has the funding for all this come from? The royal treasury must be tapped dry by now!"
Alistair peered over her shoulder. "Income from the Alienage?" He pointed to a recurring figure in the credit column. "How does that work?"
"The Alienage has been closed off for months now, by Howe's orders. Some sort of riot at first and now a contagion, the city guard says. But even if it weren't, certainly it boasts no industry which could yield this sort of profit." Rìona frowned. "This makes no sense. Could it be coin from somewhere else that he's embezzling? Or perhaps the proceeds from his blackmail and ransom plots?"
At the bottom of the chest lay another sheath of documents, these stamped with the seal of the griffon.
"That's the Grey Warden emblem," Alistair remarked. "Let me see those. Hm. They're in some sort of cipher. Duncan was just beginning to teach me to read some of the Grey Warden codes when he was killed. Not enough to translate these, though."
"It also begs the question of what Howe is doing with Grey Warden documents," Rìona added. "Did these come from the Warden compound, do you think?"
"Perhaps." Alistair didn't sound convinced. "But why only these few encoded documents? Do they have some special significance? This looks like the sort of sheath a courier might carry. It's not even a portion of the records that were kept in Duncan's study."
"These are all excellent questions, but there will be time to puzzle over them later," Zevran suggested. "For now, we must move on, before more guards arrive."
"Good point." Rìona handed the ledger referencing the Alienage and the Grey Warden documents to Leliana. "Put these in your pack. I want a closer look at that ledger later."
As they started down the stairs into the dungeons, Alistair muttered softly, "Just why would someone have a door to the dungeons in their bedchamber?"
Zevran chuckled wickedly. "I can think of a number of reasons. Some of them quite pleasant, in fact."
Alistair blushed.
Rìona swallowed hard at what appeared to be a splatter of old blood on one of the damp stone walls. "Something tells me pleasure has little to do with what transpires in these dungeons, save, perhaps, the arl's own."
"That's... a disturbing thought," Alistair replied with a shudder.
Feeling slightly nauseated that her brother might be in this place, Rìona nodded bleakly. "Come. Let's find Fergus, if he's here, and get out."
The first prisoner they freed was not her brother, but a fellow Grey Warden who spoke with a lightly Orlesian-flavored accent.
"I know you," Alistair said, frowning thoughtfully. "You were at my Joining. You were visiting from Jader. Riordan, right?"
"Alistair. It's good to see you, brother. And... sister?" he turned a questioning glance to Rìona.
"Pleased to meet you, ser. I'm Rìona. I took my Joining just before the battle at Ostagar. Aside from Alistair and Duncan, you're the first Grey Warden I've really had a chance to meet."
"Duncan?" The Warden's voice brightened. "Is he here with you?"
"I'm sorry," Alistair replied sadly. "He fell at Ostagar with the rest of our brethren."
Riordan bowed his head, shaking it sorrowfully. "Then it is true? All the Wardens were lost?"
"All save Alistair and myself. How came you to be in Ferelden, much less in Arl Howe's dungeons?"
"That is a story that can wait for another time," he said. "I suggest we get out of here."
"We can't. My brother may be down here."
"Brother?" She didn't understand Riordan's frown. "You are not here on Grey Warden business?"
"No. This is a private matter. Even if he's not, I have business with Arl Howe." Rìona gave the Warden a scrutinizing look. He was pale and appeared half-starved, yet he'd dispatched a guard quite efficiently. "Are you well enough to fight, or at least make it out on your own?"
"I can make it out. I would highly recommend you come with me, though. After what I have experienced in these dungeons, I have no objection to seeing this Arl Howe dead. However, the middle of a Blight is no time for 'personal business.'"
"It is when Arl Howe is one of the obstacles standing between us and the support we need to actually end this Blight," Rìona answered tersely. "If you're not going to aid us, I suggest you make your way out before the guards regroup. We're staying with Arl Eamon of Redcliffe at his estate. Seek refuge there, if you have nowhere else to stay, and we'll convene with you later to discuss what brings an Orlesian Warden to Denerim."
With a distant and courteous bow, the Warden walked away, sliding deftly into the shadows when he was nearly out of their sight.
The stench of the dungeons was enough to make Rìona retch, despite the fact that she was no longer pregnant. Rotten blood and offal besmeared the stone floors. Corpses that hadn't yet been carried to the pyres hung from shackles and lay stretched upon racks, their limbs grotesquely disjointed.
Her face ashen, Leliana approached an empty rack. "It was here that Tug was killed," she murmured mournfully. "Sketch and I found him, after Marjolaine betrayed us."
"Here?" Shocked, Rìona stared at her. "You never mentioned that, when Marjorlaine betrayed you to a guard, he kept you in these dungeons."
"At first I didn't know that Arl Howe had taken over the estate of the former Arl of Denerim, where I had been imprisoned. I'd assumed he had his own estate. And then, once we were here..."
"Do you need to leave?"
Leliana shook her head, setting her jaw. "No. I freed the prisoners from this dungeon once. I'll do it again. I wouldn't leave your brother here to suffer what I suffered in this place. I just... it's been so many years, but nothing here has changed."
"That's... actually rather odd, now that you mention it," Rìona remarked. "I didn't know Arl Urien, but none of what my parents told me indicated he was the sort of man to countenance... this. He was said to be a very stern, ascetic man, and the biggest conflict of his tenure as the Arl of Denerim was that he neglected the Alienage, and imposed harsh penalties upon elves who broke the law, harsher than those visited upon humans for the same sorts of crimes. Some say he was a hard father to his son, Lord Vaughan. Others say he wasn't hard enough and that Vaughan was a lech and a wastrel who deserved what he got. But none of what my parents told me mentioned anything of this sort."
"It wasn't Arl Urien who held me," Leliana replied. "It was a commander in his guard, Harwen Raleigh. He was trying to instigate a war between Ferelden and Orlais. I don't know if Arl Urien was aware of his activities."
"Raleigh?" Rìona frowned. "I've heard my father speak of him. He used to be a minor bann, who lost his lands to the Orlesians. My father supported King Maric when Maric refused to return Raleigh's lands to him, because the company of men he led were little more than thugs who conducted themselves like brutes upon their prisoners of war. Rape, torture, the dishonorable slaughter of troops who surrendered in good faith. He said Raleigh and Howe... Oh, Maker."
"What?" Alistair asked sharply.
"He said Raleigh and Howe were cut from the same cloth, that Howe supported Raleigh's bid in the Landsmeet to reclaim his lands when Maric denied him. Dishonorable conduct toward prisoners of war was really the source of my father's first falling-out with Howe. He said the war highlighted Howe's vicious side. He claimed some men were simply like that; they saw the chaos of warfare as an opportunity to inflict their sadistic impulses upon others. During the Occupation, father had to censure Howe for abusing—and allowing his troops to abuse—Orlesian prisoners. Howe claimed Raleigh's methods were perfectly justified, that Orlesian whores on Fereldan soil deserved what they got."
Rìona covered her eyes for a moment, trying to sort through the hours and hours of discussion she'd had with her parents about the state of Ferelden politics, about the leanings and allegiances of each bann and arl. "Was Raleigh a bann sworn to Amaranthine? Ah! I can't recall. Leliana... do you know who hired Marjolaine to bring those Orlesian documents to Ferelden?"
Leliana shook her head. "I had assumed it was Raleigh. Or that Marjolaine did it for her own amusement."
"You think it was this Howe?" Zevran inquired.
"I think somehow Loghain became convinced that Orlais was a more pressing threat than the Blight. I had assumed that the paranoia was all Loghain's, and that Howe was simply toadying to him and using it for his own profit. But what if it's more than that?"
"That's another interesting question," Alistair agreed. "But we need to move on."
"Of course," Rìona murmured, though her mind continued to spin. Raleigh and Howe, two noblemen who both fell into disfavor after the Occupation for similar causes. Howe had been disliked in the Landsmeet, for he was crude, his honor suspect, and his father had been a traitor. If Arl Eamon was to be believed, Howe had been attempting for years to smear her family with reports that Eleanor Cousland had been an Antivan whore. Such gossip would have backfired upon him, of course. Had he been more credible, perhaps it would have found purchase, but with such a reputation, it would have been dismissed as petty spite. With the Ferelden penchant for leaving private matters private, likely any attempt to spread such salacious rumors would have shamed Howe far more than her parents.
If Howe had been carrying his grudge against the Couslands since the Occupation, was it possible he'd decided to take a leaf from Raleigh's book and attempted to instigate a conflict that would discredit his rivals while justifying the very behaviors for which he had been shunned in the first place? Had Loghain's paranoia and isolationism given him the means to enact a decades-old vendetta?
The next prisoner they freed was the son of Bann Sighard, who claimed to have been imprisoned while in the process of tracking down his wet-nurses' son, who reported that Loghain quit the field before Cailan fell.
"You're certain?" Alistair demanded. "Everyone's been saying Loghain withdrew his troops because he saw the battle was unwinnable, that he saved them from needless slaughter."
"Not according to my milk-brother," Oswyn said with an emphatic shake of his head. "He said the retreat sounded before King Cailan's troops were overwhelmed, that if Loghain had flanked the horde when the signal went up, it would have turned the tide."
"Do you have any idea where your friend is now?"
"No," Oswyn replied. "He disappeared, and when I tried to find him, I wound up here. Arl Howe tried to force me to confess to sedition, to spreading false rumors against the regent. I can only assume that my friend succumbed to similar torture."
The bann's son limped from the dungeons, and it was shortly thereafter that they finally encountered Howe, overseeing the torture of yet another prisoner.
"Bryce Cousland's little spitfire," he sneered. "I'd wondered when you'd show up."
"Where is my brother?"
Something flickered in Howe's eyes, before his mouth curved in a cruel smile. "Dead, of course. He died weeks ago, here in this very chamber as a matter of fact. Apparently the demands of entertaining my men were simply too much for him. A fitting end for a whore born of a whore, I think. And now here you are, the final Cousland whore come to share her mother and brother's fate. Oh, yes. Shall I tell you how your mother died? The strumpet your father bought for a few sovereigns all those years ago? Shall I tell you just what it was your father saw, in those final moments of his life, as she put her talents to use for me and my men in the hopes we might spare her?"
"You're lying," Rìona said coldly. "My mother may have been a whore, but even whores have their standards and you would never have been worthy of her. She may have serviced fat, sweaty merchants and flaccid drunkards, but she would have died a thousand deaths before letting a craven weasel like you touch her."
Howe's mouth tightened, though he shrugged. "She kissed my feet like a properly broken mabari bitch and called me her lord, before the end. And you'll do the same. All these years, I've waited, while your family of Orlesian-loving traitors profited and claimed the glory and renown that should have been mine. With every lucrative trade deal bought between your mother's thighs, every vote in the Landsmeet, every time you Couslands held yourselves up as paragons of honor and respectability, I've awaited this day, when I would see the last of you dead. Born to a family of whores and pimps, and fighting for the cause of a dying and dishonored order, you're nothing. Your family's deaths raised me to the ear of a king, and soon you will join them."
Howe drew his sword as an arrow from Leliana's bow pierced the throat of one of the mages among his guard, and he rushed Rìona with no warning. His sword splintered her bow as she raised it to ward herself and caught her upper arm. Her left arm fell limply to her side, numbed to the point of uselessness, as Alistair thrust himself between her and Howe and Howe raised his sword for the killing blow. With a roar, he unleashed a bright burst of holy energy that sent Howe and his guards, and the one remaining mage, off their feet. Zevran appeared behind one of the guards, suddenly emerging from the shadows to nearly sever his head from his body as both daggers slid across his throat, and then he was in motion, spinning toward the remaining mage who was struggling to regain enough power to cast a spell after the force of Alistair's holy smite.
Tucking her injured arm close to her body, Rìona drew the dagger she'd strapped to her waist after arming herself and looked for an opening that never came. This was her moment of vengeance, and she was all but useless. Never before had she despised her lack of fighting prowess as she did in that moment, when she had to be helped to her feet and handed her family's sword to plunge it into Howe's still-heaving chest and stop his final, burbling breaths.
Only afterward did she realize she was sobbing, and not with pain. Truthfully, she could barely feel her arm, as Alistair and Zevran rushed to unbind the sleeve of her chainmail shirt and inspect the massive bruise slowly darkening there. The bone, at least, didn't appear to be broken.
Had Howe been telling the truth? Had Fergus died here? Or had he never been here at all?
"We must hurry," Zevran said tensely. "If this is a trap, it is not yet sprung, for there has been no ambush, and very little resistance."
Wiping at her face, Rìona nodded and sent Leliana with Howe's keys to release the rest of the prisoners, who included an elf from the Alienage and Lord Vaughan, the late Arl Urien's son.
"That's him!" the elf cried, grabbing Leliana's arm. "He's the one who kidnapped my wife and cousin and brought them here."
"Is this true?" Rìona demanded, gritting her teeth against the throbbing heat that was beginning to settle in her arm.
"How should I know?" Vaughan snapped. "You think I keep track of every knife-eared whore in the Alienage?"
Rìona shook her head with disgust. "Oh, for Andraste's sake! Zevran, kill him."
She walked away with the sound of Zevran's dagger driving into the man's chest and his last pained gasp in her ears.
"Are you all right?" Alistair asked in concern, falling into step at her shoulder.
"Zevran's right. There's been far too little resistance, so far. Either Anora wasn't playing us false when she sent us here, or the trap isn't what we think it to be," Rìona fretted as Leliana attempted to soothe a man who appeared to be in the throes of lyrium withdrawal. The only coherent speech he could manage was a request to take his ring to his sister, a signet which bore the crest of the Waking Sea Bannorn. Unable to take him with them, they saw to his comfort as best they could and swore to send rescue as soon as they were safe.
A heavy feeling of anxiety was upon all of them as they hurried from the dungeons to the front doors of the estate, only to find them blocked by twenty armed troops, led by Loghain's own lieutenant.
Loghain's men. Not Howe's.
"Wardens, I'm here to arrest you for treason, and for the murder of the Arl of Denerim and his men. Surrender peacefully, and your companions may go."
There were far too many of them, and Rìona was injured.
"Now we know what trap the queen laid. But why?" Alistair asked in an undertone.
"Not a trap. A diversion. She wanted us away from the arl's estate," Rìona said with mounting horror. "Zevran, go. Get to Ella, now!"
She loved him madly for dashing away without question as, bleakly, she and Alistair surrendered to the knight.
Author's Note: I went with the "Leliana's Song" version of Leliana's backstory, not the one from Origins. It fit better.
