Rebels in the North

My mind decided to go chasing Mabari Plot Puppies and I have ended up deciding to adopt one from the lovely Arsinoe de Blassenville that goes along the lines of "Cousland walks into the Great Hall to speak to her father and Arl Howe. With her is Nathaniel Howe, just back from the Free Marches." I'm bending it a bit to suit my tastes but the original idea goes to her! Merci beaucoup!

Chapter One: Poor Planning and Mad Weather

The Howes were due to arrive at Highever today.

Eliante Cousland did not ask the servants who whispered about Rendon Howe's new mistress or her father who had made the announcement that they could expect the Amaranthine forces by the end of the morning. Instead, she rose from the breakfast table and excused herself, ignoring her brother's raised eyebrows, her mother's delicate indrawn breath, and her mabari hound's soft whine. They could make of it what they would, she decided as she stormed down to the armory, face as dark as the clouds gathering above. She did not care.

It was in the practice yard that Fergus found his little sister dressed in an outgrown, worn-raw leather jerkin: her forehead scorched a heated pink, sweat like tears dripping beneath blue-grey eyes, knives like grown-out talons in her fists. He leaned against the fence and folded his arms, watching her throw blindly and miss again and again, each needle of a knife wildly missing the target and disappearing between blades of grass. He watched her fling blade after blade like their mother tossed barely concealed insults across a Denerim dinner table and did not interfere, not until she had run out of knives and run out of breath with them.

"You keep throwing like that, you're going to miss every time," Fergus remarked from Eliante's periphery vision.

With a snort, she tossed back her red-brown hair, so alike in hue to his. "Maybe I don't care."

"Or maybe you just don't want to hit your target." With easy grace, he vaulted the fence and crossed to the straw and down stuffed dummy. Eliante stayed silent as he pulled off the bit of parchment tacked to its head and studied the scrawl of a sketch that stained the vellum. "Well," he said slowly, "you got the nose right. Not much else. Afraid it's not much of a likeness, little sister. You'll never make it as court painter."

"I don't care," she repeated and then set to hunting amongst the grass and packed dirt for her discarded daggers. "Which one do you think he brought?" Eliante threw over her shoulder like a May Day trinket. "Thomas? I suppose that's the only one he can still put into play, now that he's of age. Frankly, I don't know why he bothers at this point. There's no hope for a Cousland-Howe marriage."

Fergus looked down at the parchment in his hand, and she watched as his mouth struggled to keep straight. "Clearly," he managed and Eliante had had enough.

Standing, she snatched the paper from his grip, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it up and forward with her left hand. With a flick of her right, she drove the first of her recovered daggers through the air after it. The blade stabbed clean through, gravity brought both back down to the ground, and Fergus could not manage his laughter anymore. As he dissolved into chuckles, Eliante shot him a look to kill.

"See?" he told her between bouts of laughter. "When you actually want to—"

"It's not fair!" Eliante exclaimed when her heart simply could not stand to ricochet between her ribs one more time and her thoughts needed to be voiced. "Every able-bodied man and woman with training by sword or bow is marching south to a glorious battle against monsters out of legend, and I'm here." She plopped down onto the training yard floor hard and fast, strands of hair falling into her face. "Babied and coddled, left behind to play house in an empty manor with my mother and nursemaid. You have a wife and a child, Fergus. If anyone should stay put, it's you."

Fergus picked up one of the scattered blades and twirled it between his fingers. "You're not a warrior, Eliante," he told her levelly. "That's what Father will tell you, and it's the truth. You're intelligent and clever and lovely — don't I get to tell my little sister she's lovely? — but you're not a warrior. Granted," he allowed, "you're not terrible with a blade, nor with a bow, when you want to be… but you never wanted to be. So there's that."

"There's that," she agreed glumly. With a sigh, she let her spine curl in on itself. "So who do you think it will be?"

"Thomas," was the decisive reply. "He's who's left to play guard-captain to his father's garrison, should that old devil decide to put Lowan out to pasture eventually. Don't let the git slobber over you too much. I don't think I could bear it."

"Nor could I," Eliante said between her teeth, obviously thinking of another Howe boy.

Castle Cousland was alive with activity. Guardsmen in Cousland livery marched down the open-air passages as servants darted between and amongst their ranks, chattering about blankets to find, rations to set aside for the troops. Her brother walked her to the double-doors of the Great Hall and left her there, muttering something about Oriana throwing a fit at his inevitable parting that afternoon.

Eliante heaved a sigh, pushed ajar one of the massive doors, and walked into the shade of the Great Hall, her mouth set in a steady line of resentful resignation, her mind compelling icy cool indifference from her heart at the plain injustice. What she was not prepared for was that it was not Thomas Howe standing beside his father, shifting from foot to foot, ill at ease in the doublet and trousers that had never seemed to suit his character, brow and mouth set in an expression she knew too well: it was Nathaniel.

Why had no one seen fit to warn her?

It was a true testament to her good breeding that she did not spin on her heel and walk out or pull the bow from her back and notch an arrow, prepared to fire at what seemed most convenient: the doorjamb across the room, the cold pork left over from supper on the table, the offending party himself. Her father had not yet turned away from his conversation with the arl himself; there was still a moment to whip out the arrow, lay it flat against the bow's cool wood, pull back the string, and let loose. But no. He was looking at her now, even if no one else was.

Why had no one warned her?

Arl Howe and her father had been speaking of darkspawn when she entered the room but their talk quieted quickly once they caught sight of Eliante's arrival. Her father was a tall man with a crop of graying red-brown hair that had once been the shade of his daughter's and strong features that bordered on being too square for traditional good looks. He seemed a bear in contrast to Howe's hawkish appearance. The Arl was thin and all angles, even when standing tall.

"And here's my girl now," her father said, turning toward her with a tight smile. "Arl Howe has just arrived, Birdy. Did you leave your mother upstairs?"

"She's with Lady Landra," Eliante answered quietly. "I don't think she predicted you would arrive so discreetly, my lord Arl."

"Poor planning and bad weather delayed my men," replied Arl Howe with a shrug, "as did… unexpected developments. I'm sure you remember my son Nathaniel." Was it her imagination or did she see the shadow of a smirk in that statement. "He's recently returned from his squiring in Starkhaven."

"I can see that. Is he here to stay this time or can we expect him to run off again?" she asked evenly in response and Arl Howe chuckled.

Nathaniel's expression tightened slightly, whether in response to his the sound of his father's laugh or the cold gaze she directed his way. "I came back to fight the darkspawn," said the younger man coolly, eyes fixed on her. "I'm not one to remain abroad when there's a threat to my homeland."

"It's not my choice that keeps me home when there's work to be done," she retorted and her father frowned.

"The matter is closed," Bryce Cousland reminded his daughter and when she turned to glare at him in response, for his answer, for not allowing her to accompany him and Fergus, for not warning her, he was struck for a moment by her resemblance to her mother. He softened his tone. "You know that you're needed here."

"Hardly a moment ago, you said that there was no telling your daughter what to do," said Arl Howe with a smirk. "I can now see what you mean. But truly, my dear, the warfront is no place for a noble lady, especially when it comes to the darkspawn. The reports from the front lines tell of men strung up by their ankles and left to rot in the wilds, mutilated corpses dangling from trees, men dragged off by ogres and the like to what purpose we can only imagine–"

"I think you've made your point, Rendon," spoke up Bryce, a note of sharpness in his voice. "This is my daughter that you're telling this to and on the eve of when her father and brother depart for the front lines. We cannot linger on tragedy. And I would that you would excuse her impertinence. Her inexperience speaks for her and understandably so, for she is hardly twenty."

"Close enough in age to Nathaniel," Eliante pointed out, ignoring the twist in her belly at the sound of his name coming from her lips. Why had no one warned her? She smiled poisonously. "At least where it once seemed to matter to you."

"Forgive me if I would like to keep at least one of my children out of this war," Bryce snapped at her. She flinched despite herself. "Go to," he told her. "Find your brother, tell him he must leave ahead of us with our men, and I will see you at dinner after the Arl and I discuss strategy. And there will be no more talk on this matter, understood?"

"Understood," she repeated, taking a step back toward the door. "Don't strain my abilities or anything."

"Don't strain my patience, little bird."

The remark was directed at her retreating back, as she stalked toward the door. There was a rustle of movement behind her and suddenly another hand was placed above hers on the door, holding it shut. She looked up and to the left, saw Nathaniel looking down at her, his expression something more intense than the insolence they had exchanged earlier.

"May I speak with you?" he asked.

"No," she replied.

"It's urgent."

"I don't care."

"Please."

Something in that word almost caught her. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, reminding herself that she was not something to be caught. But Arl Howe's voice saved her:

"Nathaniel. We need you here during these discussions, especially since young Fergus is riding ahead to the south."

Nathaniel's hand did not move from the door. "Please," he said again.

She heard Arl Howe sigh heavily at his son's inattention to his call. She heard her father clear his throat. She looked at Nathaniel again. "We have nothing to say to each other," she told him, her voice quiet so only he could hear, and only then did his hand drop and she went out.

"Why did no one warn me?"

From the stone floor, Hunter whined along with his mistress. Eliante's slender fingers curled tightly around the bedpost as the Teyrna's lady's maid yanked at the laces of the corset that encompassed the young woman's already slender waist. In Eliante's opinion (not that anyone seemed to care about that these days), it was far too hot for this sort of nonsense; she could already feel the telltale prickle of sweat dripping down between the inner boning of her ribs and the outer of the corset with only the thin sheets of her shift and skin separating one skeleton from the other.

For what seemed to her the umpteenth time, Teyrna Eleanor Cousland lifted her silvery blonde head from the mass of tangled jewelry she had unearthed from her daughter's dresser drawer and sighed. "Darling, we didn't know. Rendon didn't write ahead to tell us that he was bringing him; I'm not sure he even knew Nathaniel was coming home when he wrote us. And you saw them before I did. There was no way I could tell you ahead of time."

"Father could have sent his man upstairs with the news when he came to fetch me," Eliante grumbled before a particularly harsh pull of the stays incited a shallow gasp from her lips.

The Teyrna lifted a slender silver chain set with a delicate emerald from the mess in her lap, lifting it up to the light for inspection. "I cannot believe you left this all to tarnish. These pieces would suit you very well, you know, and some of them are quite old."

"Then give them to Oriana," her daughter replied, taking slow, shallow breaths as the maid tied off the laces. "And don't tell her about Nathaniel. She'll have conniptions over the impropriety."

"What was so improper about it to warrant conniptions?" Eleanor asked, looking past the jewels in her hand to gaze frankly at her daughter.

Eliante flushed deeply, deeply thankful that she was turned away so that her mother could not perceive the hot shame that flooded her face. "I misspoke," she replied somewhat lamely. "Impropriety is not the right word; you know Oriana. She turns everything into one of those Antivan romances."

Her mother sighed again. "That she does. But, little bird, no one knew you were so affected by it, and the betrothal was ended nearly four years ago besides."

"I am not affected," she started to protest, spinning around to face her mother as the maid bobbed a curtsey and took her leave, and then ceased, seeing Eleanor's skeptical expression. "I am… taken aback. You know that I haven't seen him since he left for the Marches."

"And he has probably grown up since," Eleanor pointed out, "As have you, my bird. And people change. You must always remember that."

"If I'm so grown up," replied Eliante, looking at her reflection in the polished metal of her mirror, "why do I get to stay behind when I could make a difference in the south? They say we nobles make sure to have two children: an heir and a spare. Am I just the spare then?"

"You are your father's and my darling girl," said the Teyrna, setting aside the tangle of chains and pendants to rise and set her hands upon her daughter's shoulders, "and we do not want to risk you while your father and brother are in danger in the south."

"I could do with a little danger," Eliante muttered.

"You say that now," replied Eleanor reprovingly, "as did your father before the Rebellion, I'm sure. If you keep saying such things so rashly, your opinion may quickly change, as his did. Think of it this way, birdy: tomorrow morn, young Howe will ride off with his father and yours to battle and you will be rid of him."

"And I will be grateful."

"So you will be. Just suffer through one dinner, my little bird. Just one dinner, is all I ask of you." Eleanor smoothed a hand through her daughter's hair, so similar in color to that of her husband's. "And then your father and I will arrange that you need not see him again in such… intimate circumstances."

Like a flower turning to the sun, Eliante turned to look at her mother behind her. "Landra will be at dinner also, no? With her son?"

"Dairren. Yes, we weren't about to make him eat in the kitchens." Eleanor frowned. "Why?"

"No reason in particular," replied Eliante carelessly. "Can you hand me that brush?"

Arl Howe had been correct on one matter: the weather was terrible.

The poor servant bringing the first of the meat course was positively bedraggled as the hall door swung shut behind her, muted the sound of the howling wind and pouring rain. Eliante swirled a bit of Nan's bread in the dregs of her soup as she listened to her father and the Arl discuss the battles in the south and the king as they conversation wafted down the length of the table:

"Sighard wrote to tell me that the king is telling anyone who will listen that he will slay the Archdemon with Maric's blade," said Bryce over his wineglass.

"If this even is a real Blight," sniffed Howe as the shivering servant set down a covered platter before him. "Part of me wonders if Cailan's not just trying to glorify a few skirmishes to impress the Orlesians."

Bryce paused before taking a sip of his drink. "The Orlesians? What have they got to do with anything?"

"Their chevaliers have been sniffing at our borders, if you hadn't already noticed," replied Howe.

"From what I understood," said Lady Landra, seated at Eleanor's left, "those were Grey Wardens that the king has invited to fight with our troops against the darkspawn."

"Oh, I'm sure that's what the story is;" said Howe, "but Orlesian Grey Wardens are Orlesians after all. Besides, there's been nothing heard of any Wardens being invited in from somewhere else, like the Marches, isn't that right, Nathaniel?"

"I can't speak for all of the Free Marches," answered his son. "I was only in Starkhaven these past few years, after all."

Howe's lips curled. "And doing little of use it seems."

"Well, I hope Loghain is able to convince the king of a more realistic strategy to defeat the darkspawn," said Eleanor quickly, drawing the conversation elsewhere.

"Cailan is a child," Howe sneered. "He ought to listen to his elders but I rather doubt he will. This seems to be the tune of this generation."

Eliante cast a glance at Nathaniel, seated across the table and down one place, tracing the line between the hard look in his grey eyes to the napkin clutched in his fist. There had been a time when she might have been able to make a face at him and bring a smile to his lips, or, bolder, reached across and gently unfolded his fingers from the cloth. But times had changed and so had they.

"At least the queen is sensible enough," said Eleanor, picking at her dish of whitefish.

"She is her father's daughter," remarked Bryce with a wry smile, catching Eliante's eye. Eliante looked away: not quite ready to make peace.

Her eye fell instead to the table, watching as Lady Landra reached for her third glass of wine and as her son Dairren's hand gently pulled it away out of her range as he conveniently reached for a dish of small birds in a light sauce. She caught his eye and smiled slightly, letting him know that the gesture had not gone unnoticed. Dairren's face colored in return, perhaps out of a combination of embarrassment and gratitude for her acknowledgement. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she caught Nathaniel glower.

"Your son's wife isn't dining with us," Eliante heard Howe remark as she fiddled with the napkin in her lap, suddenly at a loss of appetite.

"She's taking her dinner upstairs with our grandson," Eleanor answered. "It's Oren's first night he can remember without Fergus. I'm worried that this entire campaign will be hard on the both of them."

"As it is on all of us," said Landra with a quaver in her voice. "My husband is already at Ostagar and Dairren will be riding south tomorrow as well."

"Only as a squire," Dairren replied. "You needn't worry so, Mother."

"You should know better than to tell a mother not to worry," said Eleanor, her jovial tone belying a sadder tune to her words. "You all should."

Bryce and Howe turned the conversation to the Orlesian occupation, as the arl so often did, with occasional input from Eleanor and Landra. Eliante resumed picking at her plate of food.

Nathaniel leaned forward, eyes intent on her cheekbone for she would not turn her gaze towards him. "Are you so certain that you cannot lend me your company for a moment?"

"Is it not enough that I am sitting at a table with you?" Eliante muttered back at him across the table, still without looking directly at him. "If you have something so critical to say, out with it already. Plenty of opportune moments are passing."

"A private moment," he clarified, the corners of his mouth tightening.

"No. Dairren, so you will be riding as my father's squire?"

Dairren choked a little on his drink, surprised to be so abruptly addressed. "Um, yes? I mean, yes, I will be. I'll be seeing after his armor and his horse and the like and hopefully I'll see some fighting while I'm at it."

"Yes, that would be the point of going off to war," muttered Nathaniel into his wineglass.

Eliante smiled brilliantly at Dairren. Encouraged, he asked, "And what might you be occupying yourself with while your father and brother are away, my lady?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Eliante idly, tracing patterns in a bit of spilled wine on the table with her index finger. "I might go out riding, hawking, dissuade my mother from ordering me dresses, do a bit of baking… I can make almond pudding."

This time Nathaniel choked on his wine. Drawing his sleeve across his mouth, he said, "You left out the part where you hole yourself up in the guards' training room and hack away at practice dummies until they find themselves short a head and all their limbs. You can be honest, you know," he continued with a smirk. "Your brother's wife isn't around to be scandalized."

"I think if we were all honest around this table, there'd be larger scandals at hand than headless dummies," she retorted.

"Well, I think that if I were left to my own devices in this castle, I would never leave the study," said Dairren, oblivious. "I noticed there was a particularly impressive copy of The Dragons of Tevinter."

"Yes, it was my grandfather's," replied Eliante blandly, still glaring at Nathaniel, who smiled crookedly back at her. "As was the study; I go there often."

"Do you have a favorite book, my lady?"

"The Art of Passionate Love by Brother Capria," she answered: her tone just as flat as before even as Dairren began to grin and Nathaniel's smirk turned into another scowl.

"Oh," said the younger nobleman. "I hear that was banned by the Chantry. It's understood to be quite—"

His response was cut short by a quick, surprised gasp of pain. Quickly, he looked to his mother across the table on Eliante's left, but she was quite absorbed in Eleanor's recounting of Bryce's recent trip to Orlais even as Arl Howe's expression grew sourer by the moment at the description. Eliante frowned and glared at Nathaniel. Nathaniel took a sip of his wine.

However, they seemed to have caught Bryce's attention. From down the table, he called, "Whatever you all are talking about, it sounds much more fascinating than some old chestnuts of war stories."

"I haven't the slightest idea of what you mean, Father," replied Eliante demurely, avoiding Nathaniel's eyes.

Bryce chuckled. "You see, Rendon? This is what I get for letting my girl make her own way."

"One to watch," Howe agreed with a smile that didn't make it to his eyes.

Eliante rose to her feet, the napkin falling from the green velvet of her gown. "I think I had better go up to bed before I fall asleep face first in the dessert," she declared.

"You'll be getting an early start tomorrow," Bryce nodded in approval. "Go on then, birdy."

She paused by her mother's chair, leaning down to kiss Eleanor's cheek. "Don't worry," her mother murmured. "I'll be here for a few days before going with Landra to her estate."

She nodded quickly, embarrassed over how easily her mother could read her, and followed the length of the table to her father's side. The teyrn grasped his daughter's hand tightly. "You will do just fine, birdy," he murmured, for her ears alone. "And you'll have plenty of adventures soon enough. Just you wait."

"Of course, Father," Eliante replied quietly, squeezing his hand. "I'll see you off in the morning. And my best to you as well, Arl Howe," she added, raising her voice slightly.

Howe blinked. "Thank you, my dear," he said, somehow embarrassed, "but that's quite unnecessary."

Walking to the door, something compelled her to glance backward. Nathaniel was staring at her with the same intensity.

Please.

She opened the door and went out into the pouring rain.

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