As they reached the Guerrin family quarters, the passage widened to accommodate decor more fitting for an arl. Crude iron brackets for torches were replaced with hanging wheels of long-dead candles; suits of armour faced each other in eternally frozen rivalry. The walls were wreathed in tapestry, each woven artwork depicting a scene from Fereldan legend. Many bore signs of inattention: damp stains disfigured the hunters and their Mabari, while moths had dined on embroidered borders. The arl's personal quarters had escaped deliberate sabotage, but not the creeping decay of neglect.
Alistair lingered beside a door that prompted a tantalising flicker of memory. He could glimpse bookshelves through the few inches of space and thought perhaps that the chamber beyond was the arl's study; where two of the most significant events of his childhood had taken place. Each had changed the course of his life; neither had been welcome.
When he made himself return to the present, Leliana had fallen into pace beside him. Her quiver rattled with each booted step: only a handful of arrows remained within the leather bindings. The lay-sister usually retrieved her shafts from the slain in the aftermath of combat, but this had proven impossible when the foe was demonic in origin. When the creature died, all of its conjured minions melted away like frost at the first spill of sunlight.
"You look full of thoughts," she murmured, each word infused with Orlais. "Or perhaps full of memories. Does it feel like coming home?"
Alistair wondered how she had come to be so familiar with his past; then remembered that she was a bard as much - more?- as she was a scion of the Chantry.
"No," he replied, and it emerged shorter than he had intended. "Not really."
She smiled: not offended in the slightest by the tautness of his reply.
"I believe I would feel the same way about Val Royeaux, if I ever were to return there. Although it was the place where I spent the years of my youth, I always felt that I did not entirely fit within their world. My mother was Fereldan and a commoner, so perhaps that was why - I always felt the pull eastwards."
They passed a portrait of a Guerrin ancestor, his scowl softened by years and fading pigment.
"I thought you were from money," Alistair said, then clarified. "You smell expensive."
This was in reference to the scent that the bard doused herself in as liberally as water. Leliana laughed and it sounded genuine; not the silvery practised titter of the court.
"An illusion only," she replied, glancing back at Eamon's glowering forebear. "I was as poor as a church mouse after the death of my mother. If not for the kindness of my mistress, I would have been on the streets."
It was perhaps the first exchange between them that did not involve some reference to the Maker. Alistair appreciated the candour: wondering if the bard had shown her true face, or merely taken off one mask to reveal another.
Meanwhile, the bann had fallen into step beside Flora. She was drifting in the rear, distracted by the ending sprawl of chambers and passageways. A stuffed creature - posed mid-lunge beneath an archway - almost made her summon her shield.
"Eh! What's that?" she demanded, appalled.
"It's a tyger from Antiva," replied Teagan, glancing at the motheaten predator: a shadow of its former glory. "Our father had it imported for some Maker-known reason, probably after too much ale. I've spent years trying to convince Eamon to get rid of it. Hideous, isn't it?"
Flora was not convinced that it was even a real creature: tyger sounded made-up. She curled her lip in distaste and then reached out to hold the bann's hand; fingers curling tight around his.
"It's not alive anymore," said Teagan, reassuring. "It won't hurt you."
She shot him a vaguely bemused glance. The bann felt a prickling across his palm and realised that Flora was mending the bloody gash between his thumb and forefinger. It took only a few moments; when she released his hand, only a smear of new pink skin remained. He looked at the renewed flesh in astonishment, flexing his fingers. Flora drifted away as though carried on the tide, her pale eyes meandering over a carved bust.
Two guards flanked the entrance to the arl's quarters. Their crimson Guerrin livery was crumpled and in need of mending: the castle laundry had not been in operation for months. Despite the disheveled state of their garb, their pikes were sharpened and their eyes watchful behind their helms. They had remained loyal to their ailing arl.
When they saw the bann, they shifted the haft of their weapons from left hand to right in salute. One stepped aside, whereas the other went to open the door.
"Who's here?" demanded Teagan, striding past his squire.
"The lady Isolde has come from master Connor's chamber," replied the guard still facing them. "The Circle mages are there too."
There was unease behind the helm: the last mage to infiltrate Redcliffe Castle had caused untold chaos.
Alistair glanced sideways at his sister-warden, who had just caught up with them. He noticed the corners of her mouth turn down at the mention of the mages: she was expecting impending interrogation. He gave her a gentle nudge; she returned the pressure by leaning surreptitiously against his elbow, eyes fixed ahead. The apprehension in Alistair's belly waned as though someone had unclenched a fist.
"My lord Teagan," the guard said hesitantly, just as the bann was about to step across the threshold. "The arl - he doesn't look as you remember."
The bann did not flinch, although his eyes widened imperceptibly. He took a moment to ensure the evenness of his voice before speaking.
"What do you mean? I saw him barely a week ago."
The guard opened and closed his mouth, then bowed his head; unsure of what to say. Teagan's nostrils flared and he strode across the threshold as though entering the field of battle.
Eamon's chamber was high and draughty, granite walls interrupted by windows too high and narrow to see from. Thin shafts of light fought through blurry glass, illuminating the faded details of the arl's quarters. A hearth grumbled in the far corner, adding smoke to the scorched stone above. A Mabari guarded the heat, head set wearily on crossed paws. Portraits adorned the walls, bleached by sun and age; a tapestry worth more than a coastal town lay crumpled on the floor.
There was a strange stillness in the air, like a breath held and not released. A group of figures were gathered in a tableaux at the foot of a vast and imposing four-poster: with its columns of dark wood and mildewed hangings it seemed more a prison than a bed. The curtains were drawn sufficient to conceal what lay within.
First Enchanter Irving and Wynne had just finished a murmured exchange, their heads turning at the sound of the door. Their faces were alike in somber resignation: she heaved a long sigh. The hems of their long robes swirled patterns across the dusty boards.
The arlessa stood slightly apart from the mages, her back to the door. Her narrow shoulder blades were high and taut: she stood with the unyielding rigor of an iron bar. Undermining the severity of her appearance were a few blanched strands of hair hanging loose from the net.
Teagan did not hesitate, striding across the chamber towards the bed.
"Pull those curtains back," he instructed. "I won't have my brother hidden away. He needs air and light."
Flora thought that there was little light to be had in such a gloomy chamber. To her, there was scant difference between the dark and musty quarters of the arl, shot through with smoke and damp; and the smaller confines of her family's cottage in Herring. One was larger and more difficult to heat. She followed Alistair into the heart of the chamber, boards protesting more under his tread than hers.
The bann, now at his brother's bedside, drew in a shocked breath. He stared down, grey-faced and -for the first time - appearing his four decades in age.
"Maker's Breath."
"This is why I did not want him on display," a brittle Isolde Guerrin retorted. "I won't have my husband's sickness on the lips of every peasant in the Bannorn- "
Her words died in her throat as the arlessa realised who had accompanied Teagan to the chamber. She slid a swift eye over Alistair before her gaze came to rest on Flora. Isolde blinked rapidly, a hand fluttering to her throat.
Ehh, thought Flora in sudden remembrance. The last time we were together, you cracked my head and bashed my brain.
Whatever the expression on Flora's face was; the arlessa flinched as though similarly struck. Flora immediately felt guilty - it had been the most efficient way to get her in the Fade - and attempted to rearrange her features to appear friendly. This seemed to have the opposite effect since Isolde swiftly looked away, perspiration beading across her brow. The Chantry sunburst she wore around her neck twisted back and forth, caught between restless fingers.
"So it's a curse, then?" demanded Teagan of the First Enchanter: this was the first time that the bann had the opportunity to interrogate a senior mage about his brother's ailment. "What sort of curse is it? Can't you just lift it? Maker's Breath, this isn't the Ancient Age. Curses and hexes - they're the stuff of history books."
"Like dragons," murmured Leliana from beside the hearth. "And werewolves."
Irving kept his composure in the face of the bann's eruption.
"It's an ancient blood curse," he replied, evenly. "Sunk deep into the marrow. It cannot be removed once it is placed."
Teagan was at a loss for words, casting about for a solution.
"But you're mages . This is magic . Can't the lass heal him?"
The lass was Flora, who glanced up with a start. She was not entirely sure why she and Alistair were here: perhaps to prove that the arl was beyond help.
"This is beyond any living creature's ability to remove," Wynne added, softly. "Even her. It is neither disease nor injury. It is not something that can be healed . It is magic and not mortal. See for yourself."
She gestured for them to approach. Alistair hesitated, unsure if he wanted to see the man who had shaped the course of his youth in such a state. Flora, who had no acquaintance with the arl, took the lead. She approached the end of the bed, making a detour around the threadbare hide, fixed mid-snarl, on the floorboards.
Teagan stepped back to make a space for her. Avoiding the eyes of the senior mages Flora came to a halt at the wooden bedpost, gazing down at the figure in the bed. At once she was transfixed with a healer's curiosity: never before had she seen a creature so perfectly suspended between life and death. The flesh on the arl's body had fallen inwards: deep valleys were sunk within the ribcage and the skin of his face cleaved to the contour of the skull. His hair had fallen out in clumps: no eyelashes or brows sprouted from the decaying flesh. His skin was a mottled and amphibious grey; each vein and vessel stained unnaturally dark. The third most powerful man in Ferelden more resembled a corpse brought out of a millennia-old tomb: decaying in the weak winter sun.
Alistair stopped short beside her, drawing a breath so swift and sharp that it sounded like it hurt.
"Maker's Breath. Is he… still alive?"
A faint puff of air escaped the arl's lungs, accompanied by a dry and dusty rattle.
Flora noticed that sprigs of juniper and rowan had been placed within the bedclothes; the bundles tightly fastened with twine.
I ain't never , she thought, the room fading into shadow as her mender's eye came into focus, never seen an illness do this before.
Because it is not an illness. It is a curse. See for yourself.
Flora's hand drifted onto the arl's chest. The mottled grey skin beneath her palm felt dessicated and reptilian. She let her gaze drop below the outer mantle; the veins and vessels of the arl's body blossomed on the insides of her eyelids. The fetid green aura of the corrupted Fade radiated from the marrow of the bone, tendrils of ancient magic clung to the organs like a vast and seamless cobweb. It was wholly different from any infection that Flora had ever seen, and she had mended the gamut of them. The arl's heartbeat was an ailing stutter: the broken wing of a moth against her fingers.
He's dying, ain't he?
Yes.
And I can't cure this?
No.
Flora felt the sting of frustration: she was not used to feeling impotent. The conversations of those in the chamber around her were muffled while she was immersed in the body of the patient; as though they were on land and she underwater. She spent a few moments more gazing at the effects of the arcane intoxication, then shook her head to clear her vision.
The bann and the arlessa were in the midst of another barbed exchange.
" - don't think bundles of twigs are going to aid him. He won't last another night."
"Rowan is a known antidote for several malignancies," retorted Isolde, tautly. "In Val Royeaux- "
"Of course an Orlesian is familiar with poison!"
"At least I am doing something to help Eamon! All you offer, Teagan, is criticism - "
"That's because I've been busy defending Eamon's castle from the demonic spawn of the fucking Fade- "
He caught himself and ground his teeth, staring hard at the ceiling.
"Eh," Flora announced bluntly, her voice cutting straight across their burgeoning quarrel. "I can't mend this. It ain't a sickness or a wound, it's magic."
Teagan Guerrin's shoulders slumped. Against the advice of the First Enchanter, he had harboured a fine sliver of hope. The weary-eyed Mabari lying at the foot of the bed gave a shiver of resignation; resting its chin on crossed paws."
"Well," interjected Wynne briskly. "Perhaps you can do something to keep the lord stable until a solution… until a solution presents itself."
Flora did not know what the elder mage meant, until Wynne angled her stare to where Flora's hand rested, supine on the arl's sallow chest. Beneath her palm, the mottled grey of the flesh had returned to a healthy pink flush. She gazed at it in astonishment.
That was me?
Her spirits did not bother to respond to such an obvious question. Taking their silence as confirmation, Flora shoved the mildewed curtain aside and clambered onto the bed; pleased that she could at last contribute to their endeavours within Redcliffe Castle. In her opinion, the killing of a harmless sea creature in the Fade did not match the efforts of her companions.
The cold, clammy condition of the body - and even it's three-days dead pallor - prompted fond recollections of underwater creatures, such as her dad might fish up from the depths. She felt that she might prefer the arl as a slime eel to when he was walking around as a noble. Without hesitation she positioned herself bestride the ailing ail and bent forward, clasping his face with a professional confidence. The aether rising in her throat in a joyful surge, she pressed her mouth to his croaked lips and exhaled.
Alistair wanted to witness his sister-warden in the strange and intimate trance of mending; to watch the veins under her skin run hot and gold and the beds of her bitten nails ignite like candles. Her magic now fascinated him as much as it had once disgusted him: he marvelled that he had ever been frightened of it. The Chantry had taught him that magic was divine punishment; watching Flora, he could not believe that her abilities could be anything other than a gift from the Maker. He could almost envision it: the finger of the divine pressed against the burgeoning belly of Flora's unnamed mother, and then he realised that she never spoke of her mother, only a father -
His wandering thoughts were interrupted by a delicate, pointed cough. This particular sound had dogged his footsteps throughout his childhood and haunted his dreams for the first six months at the monastery. Alistair was surprised at how it still clenched his belly ten years and two feet in height later.
"Alistair."
Isolde stood gazing up at him. He wondered if she would ever regain the blond lustre he recalled from his youth. The flesh fell away from the bones of her face in folds. She had not been eating, or at least not enough to sustain her. The arlessa bore an unfamiliar expression; after a moment, he recognised it as a hesitant form of contrition.
"I wanted to say," she began, and faltered. "Wanted to say. To you and your… your sister both. Thank you."
Alistair wished that people would stop referring to Flora as his sister; even if - thanks to the taint they both bore - it was partly true.
"You don't need to- "
"You saved my life in that battle," she continued, voice strengthening as she warmed to her subject. "Despite our shared history. And you took the blow for Connor that would surely have killed him."
"I never bore any ill feeling towards your son," Alistair said softly, and realised that it was true; even though the boy's birth had led to his own expulsion from Redcliffe. "And what happened in the past - it doesn't matter anymore."
The arlessa continued to stare at him, her eyes wide and wondering. It was though she were seeing Alistair for the first time, or perhaps recognising what he had always been. Her gaze darted sideways, quick as a fox; he followed her eyes to a painting that hung in pride of place above the mantel. It had been created within the current Age; the oils still had a glossy veneer and the faces only a little faded. It showed a group of men clad in armour, helms beneath their elbows and crests emblazoned across their shields. They stood close, companionable; it was not a formal posing despite the high ranks of the subjects.
"Maric Theirin, King of Ferelden," Leliana said quietly and on cue, as if she had been waiting for the moment to speak her line. "Loghain Mac Tir, Teyrn of Gwaren. Leonas Bryland, Arl of South Reach. Eamon Guerrin, Arl of Redcliffe. And Bryce Cousland, Teyrn of Highever."
AN: This was such a fun chapter to write - I love writing about decaying, mouldering old grandeur! I think that originated from falling in love with the aesthetic queuing pre ride bit before the Hollywood Tower of Terror.
Ha ha ha Teagan thought that Flora was holding his hand, somewhat randomly - when she was just healing it! The only person who she holds hands with for non-healing purposes is Alistair. It also makes me laugh how Alistair is like FML stop calling Flora my sister T_T, even though he uses the reference sister-Warden all the time!
Flora definitely prefers the arl when he's all cold, grey and clammy - reminds her of a sea creature, whereas she's not that keen on a noble walking around XD
Oooh the portrait! Looking forward to getting a bit more into that next chapter :) also, I've got my quiet writing time back on my commute and I'm so happy, just one hour on a deserted train, so perfect for writing!
thank you Judy xxxx