9:27 Dragon

Highever, Teyrnir of Highever, Ferelden

Gwyn guided Cricket along with just her knees and Cavall, as ever, trotted just behind. Every so often, she felt her father glance her way. Normally, she would be discussing the business they had conducted on their recent visit to Highever with him or repeating her lessons. Complaining about Mother or her latest batch of suitors. Father was concerned with her silence.

Gwyn was concerned with the state of the Highever Alienage and furious that it had taken Father's return from the Landsmeet with news of the Denerim Purge for her to see what had been there to see in her family's own largest city every time she visited all her life. She wanted to kill something. Or for Mallol to give her forty lectures on the Maker's mercy. Apparently, she hadn't been listening.

"Copper for your thoughts, Pup?"

Gwyn looked up. She had been staring over the hills for a good long while now without seeing them, and she saw that she had knotted Cricket's mane in several places without realizing. She bit off a curse and began to work to undo the damage. Cricket tossed her head but otherwise did not complain.

"Do any humans live in Highever's alienage?" Gwyn asked her father. "Or any elves in other neighborhoods?"

A crease between Father's eyes deepened. His shoulders and face seemed to fall. He looked older and suddenly tired. "You've been thinking of the reports from Denerim."

"Arl Urien's soldiers killed six of the alienage elves in the capital," Gwyn said. "They imprisoned several more. And I'm not the only person who has it in mind. Did you see the way they looked at us? Elen's husband! Tulia's sister!"

"Our family is safe in the Highever alienage," Father said. "Elen, Tulia, and the others are treated well in our home and paid a fair wage for their work. We've always listened whenever the hahren brings his concerns. They know our people had nothing to do with what happened in Denerim."

"I wasn't worried about our safety!" Gwyn snarled.

Father was silent. Gwyn looked sideways at him. She had never seen Father look so—guilty. Regretful. Ashamed. It made her angrier still. "How many people from the alienage own businesses in the town?" she pressed, though he had not answered either of her previous questions.

"Several residents of the alienage own shops or businesses within the neighborhood," Father answered. He did not look at her. "One or two outside—modest establishments."

"How many humans are patrons?"

Father didn't mince words. She would give him that. "Few. Yes, Pup, the alienage in Highever is almost entirely elven. But one or two elven families live outside it, and they are usually persecuted by their neighbors. Yes. Our alienage is not the crime-ridden slum of Denerim. I allocate the same funds for the upkeep of the roads and buildings there that I do for other neighborhoods of the city, and our officials in Highever see that the alienage receives them. The buildings there are not of a size with buildings in the rest of the city, nor are the gardens, nor are they usually owned by the elves who live inside them. All this is not my doing. And the elves in the alienage do not enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities as the rest of our people, and they do often resent it, especially in times like these."

"Why don't they receive the same freedoms and opportunities?" Gwyn demanded. At her tone, Cavall raised his head beside her and let out a low growl.

"Douse that fire, daughter," Father told her. "Do you think me pleased with this? You know your history."

Gwyn did not appreciate the condescension. "It's been thousands of years since the magisters threw down Arlathan and hundreds since the Fall of the Dales. Should citizens in our teyrnir suffer for that? What? Just because they have pointy ears? Tulia and Elen helped deliver Oren. Henry and Jill sit with us in the chapel and sing the Chant with us every rest day. All their families pay the same taxes to the king that we do."

"This can hardly be the first time you've encountered the gulf between what should be and what is, Pup," Father pointed out. "You know your economics too. Resources are finite. Unfortunately, many humans have been reluctant to relinquish all they took from the elves. Even if it has been generations between the elven man who lives peacefully on River Street and his ancestor who sacrificed to heathen gods and turned his back on those who suffered in the Blight, many humans remain inclined to make our friend on River Street pay. Particularly if it means their children live in larger homes and receive choicer positions than the children of the alienage. And if our friend on River Street is the son and grandson of servants and tenant farmers, how likely is his son to rise to be a merchant?"

This was the way Gwyn had learned all her life—from Father, Grandfather, and Master Aldous. History, economics, infrastructure applied. How should the stonemason build this bridge if he is to keep the road from the worst flooding in the spring? On this ground, what was King Calenhad's best approach? If we needed this many bags of grain to make it through the winter for the past ten years, are we likely to need more or less than are in the granary now? If we have an excess, what should we do with it according to the principles of trade and agriculture? If we have a need, which is the best market in which to purchase it?

Academic learning and facts observed seemed cold, heartless things held against six dead in Denerim and several hundred of their people in Highever living in generational poverty, with what Father was telling her was little hope of escape. "If the boy has a turn for business, he should be able to grow and ply his trade without interference," Gwyn said, referring to their hypothetical youth from River Street. "And the poorest part of Highever should not be filled with elves. And only elves."

"I agree with you," Father told her. "So how would you fix it? How would you convince the landlord in East Market to let his store space to the young man from the alienage, when he fears property damage from disgruntled citizenry or that his new tenant will not make rents for lack of income? How do you convince the young man from the alienage to let a shop outside the alienage's boundaries when he knows his store may be attacked? How do you empty the jails of the elves who steal to supply their lack or convince the city watch to be less wary of a populace more inclined to steal?"

Father still looked straight ahead. "I haven't answered these questions in more than twenty years, Pup. Nor did my father before me. If you have a better solution than paying the elves we hire a fair wage, than keeping their neighborhood as safe as we can make it, than patronizing those few brave souls outside the alienage where we can—your thoughts would be welcome."

Gwyn could see Castle Cousland in the distance up the last hill before home. They would arrive within the next quarter hour, then the conversation would dissolve into caring for the horses and washing and dressing for dinner. They would report on the morning's visit and exchange notes with Fergus, who had been riding to inspect the holdings and villages to the south, and Oriana and Mother, who would have been working with the castle ladies through the morning while nursemaids cared for Oren. Then Fergus would begin on his afternoon's correspondence, Father would to his desk to handle other business of the teyrnir, Oriana would return to the nursery, and Gwyn would to her afternoon's lessons with Mother and Aldous. She would have no further opportunity to address the Highever alienage alone with Father for days at least. There was work enough for both of them to fill the time—for Gwyn, her own letters to write, calls to make and take with Mother, more lessons, patrols with Fergus or the soldiers by land and by sea, and the hunting, not to mention her chores.

Perhaps the time would give her the chance to consider the circumstances of the Highever alienage more carefully, to discuss the situation with Aldous, with Fergus and Oriana and with Mother, and perhaps even the servants, if she could persuade them to speak freely—and she usually could. But remembering the tight corners of the Highever alienage, the buildings crammed too close together behind the alienage walls for the health of the residents, let alone for their comfort; without gardens for the people to grow vegetables and healing herbs or to take an afternoon's joy, Gwyn was reluctant to wait even the few days to address the issue. She thought of the thin, pale faces of people of Highever their family was charged to protect, their sullen, resentful stares, and bodies burned in Denerim, and she felt the injustice of it like a gnawing in her stomach, and the urge to correct it like a fire in her blood.

"Experiment is the foundation of progress, or so I'm told," she told Father. "Have you attempted nothing for the elves in Highever beyond what you have told me? You are teyrn. Our family has some influence in this region. Your efforts to see our people treated fairly can surely extend beyond the expenditures and behavior of our own household."

Father was silent, and Gwyn felt immediate shame and regret. She was working on her sarcasm. She truly was. When she used it in anger, as now, it nearly always went past hurtful and became counterproductive. Wit had its place; irony and humor their uses too, but belittling people you were trying to influence only estranged them from you. Mother had taught her that in her diplomacy lessons. Holding your temper against the temptations offered by fools and scoundrels was the difference between the victors and the losers, the leaders and those who were swayed at every breath of breeze. Besides, Father wasn't a fool or a scoundrel. He was trying to speak with her like an adult.

Gwyn closed her eyes. "Forgive me," she murmured.

"Of course," Father answered. "What is it you would have me do?"

Gwyn dithered. "Well," she began, "you say you allocate the same amount of money to the alienage each year as you do to every other quarter of Highever. Could not you allocate more, for instance? Just for a time? Use it to tear down the walls, make the alienage a true part of the rest of the city! Force everyone outside to live with everyone inside, and the other way around? Expand the streets, give them room for gardens and such. Better gutters and drainage systems—I don't know!"

She knew what Father would say before he said it. "And should I take this money from the budget for the other quarters of the city for the year, or raise tributes in Highever? Or perhaps, take from the funds Oriana brought us, which we had planned to use improving roads and ports throughout the teyrnir and in some of the towns and villages? And what of the freeholders and landlords who own the buildings you would have me renovate? What if they do not care for our improvements? What will you do to lessen violence and quarrels in the streets around where the alienage walls used to be? What if the rents should go up in the alienage itself, when the improvements are made, and its residents prove unable to find places that suit their income?"

"They could find places, surely," Gwyn protested, but knew it was a weak argument. "And if they were spread out among the city instead of all in one quarter, all the better! You might pass regulations prohibiting any one street to be dominated by humans or elves . . ." pausing, as she recalled that restrictions were never as effective or popular as enticements . . . "or encouraging landlords to let a certain number of their rooms and houses to elves in addition to humans."

She broke off, frustrated. Father was looking at her, a single eyebrow raised, waiting. She growled. It would never work. Too much too soon, with not enough resources available to the teyrnir or the city to enforce anything like the renovation and redistribution of an entire quarter of the city, cutting through all the mess of the citizenry that owned those buildings and worked and lived upon those streets to begin with. Father didn't have the coin or the manpower for anything upon that scale, and if he attempted it anyway, he was likely to start off rioting in the city.

"Fine," she bit off. "What of the temporary workers the city hires each year for each year's restoration projects? Road repair, bridges, ongoing improvement, and so on? Couldn't you ask the chiefs to go first to the alienage? It could serve as a public token of our support and a way to ensure the alienage has additional income for a time. We could try it for a specified period of time—say five years or so."

Father actually reined in his horse at that and looked at her, seeming intrigued. Gwyn grinned, thinking she had hit upon a viable idea. A public show of support! That was what they needed. But then Father frowned out between the ears of his gelding. "It could put many qualified human pavers, stonemasons, and carpenters out of work for five years, Pup," he said. "They might not be too happy with us. There also might be a deficiency of elven workmen for the task, and we don't want the quality of work in Highever to suffer, or to give the impression that we are not looking for Highever's elves to rise to do other sorts of work—to open that shop in East Market, for instance."

Father was silent another moment, but this time, Gwyn could see him thinking. "Still, it is not a bad notion in some ways," he murmured, seemingly to himself. "Something smaller, perhaps, with the cooperation of the hahren and some of the alienage's own business and landowners . . ." he trailed off. "And you are quite right that without the effort to experiment, there will be no progress."

He smiled suddenly, and it was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. "We could ask the city officials to use the alienage funds for this year for a specific purpose. We've made similar requests when there was need. We could ask they begin a community garden on a lot they are planning to tear down an old and dangerously decrepit house, for instance. A place the alienage elves can grow the vegetables and healing herbs they do not have behind or in front of their own houses. We could ask they hire the alienage elves for this task, and appoint alienage elders to supervise the project upon a local level."

"You could appoint alienage elves to be over more than just the project in their own quarter of the city for this year," Gwyn pointed out. "You do appoint teyrnir nobles and public officials. You could put them in the watch. You could institute an entire committee for the promotion of Highever's elves."

Father hesitated at this, however. "That would be a good aim to achieve in a few years' time," he agreed. "All at once, after a purge in Denerim, with the bad feeling in the alienage now—it might not be so wise. It would also be difficult to ensure the safety of the elves I chose to appoint, to convince the other officials in the city to give them credence, or to build in protections to prevent the collapse of the committee I created or its takeover or defanging by human nobles and officials."

They had come to the castle gate. A man-at-arms cried a greeting, and the portcullis began to move upward for them. Gwyn and Father slid from their saddles, and Gwyn's hand fell to Cavall's head. Her dog licked her fingers and whuffed softly. He would be as glad for some water and a rest as Cricket.

Their time was up. Gwyn fought down her disappointment. For a moment, she had thought she had actually been on the brink of Doing Something. She had seen a problem, raised it, and begun work on a solution. Now she could feel the tenuous plan they had formed collapsing around her like a house of jackstraws—what should be collapsing, once again, into the ruthless reality of what was. Six dead elves in Denerim. A walled-off section of her family's teyrnir where the elves were alien and other, forced down into poverty and squalor and hopelessness instead of accepted as people as deserving of their share of protection as anyone with rounded ears.

But Father clapped a hand upon her shoulder. "These are good thoughts, Pup," he told her. "I will hear more of this, and we will work together to make things better for the people we saw today. We will not do it without a great deal more thought, or the cooperation of the elves of the alienage themselves, as well as at least some support from other merchants, artisans, and nobles in the city. There are one or two I know who think as you do and might be encouraged to speak. And thank you for speaking with me. I'm proud that you don't hesitate to do so when you see where I may be falling short."

Gwyn smiled, suddenly feeling lighter and happier. Father did not think she was a fool. He would continue to think on what they had discussed. And so too could she.

Now the time spent reflecting on the subject with the rest of her family would not be idle. She could hear their input upon the ideas she and Father had already had. They could form a solid plan, a smart plan. They could discuss where the coin and manpower to enforce it would come from, which human nobles and officials and alienage elders to approach for support, and how best to protect them all. "I'll talk more about it with Fergus and Oriana," Gwyn said.

"I hope you do," Father told her. "Your sister-in-law has a sense for diplomacy. A gift from her parents. As for Fergus, he is likely to be more optimistic about your plans than I am. Young men are often braver making change than old ones. Sometimes they're even right. And I don't doubt the three of you will think of things that we haven't. But to the stables with you now." He reached down himself to scratch Cavall behind the collar. "I shall see you both at dinner." He led his own horse across the yard to its own side of the stables, far away from where Gwyn kept her mare, and Gwyn did likewise, to think. And to plan.