Surprise And Heartbreak

It had taken Elle and Loghain years to find evidence to get rid of that Orlesian, Erlina. And then, as luck would have it, it was a bit of serendipity that uncovered the plot. As Elle walked out of the palace, she noticed some kind of ruckus in the courtyard of the warden compound — but really wanted to get out of that dress — so she just walked to the entry courtyard. She had to roll her eyes at the coachman standing next to her carriage, holding open the door.

"That's all right, good sir." Elle smiled at the coachman. "It's a lovely day. I'll just walk back to Highever House."

The man looked like Elle had just told him the most horrible and profane thing she could think of! "But … but … my lady! I … I promised Lord Nathaniel that I would see to your safety." He looked horribly upset for some reason. "Please, my lady?"

Well, that certainly set off alarm bells, but she gave in to the poor man's mental state. "Very well. The carriage it is." However, she was a bit on edge about the entire encounter.

Elle could never think of one good reason to love Denerim. It was so hard to think straight here. Now, her thoughts were turning to doubts about Leliana … only because of her Orlesian bard past … but, it was awfully convenient that she just found that message. Did Celene decide Erlina was too much of a risk and had her eliminated? Who was this Briala? Maybe Leliana was a bard working for Divine Beatrix who might have had a tif with Celene for some reason? Aaaarrrrrgggghhhh! She knew she had to get out of the city soon or go mad!

Then, it dawned on her that the carriage trip was taking too long. Elle hadn't been paying attention to the streets, but then noticed they were not heading back to Highever House. She kept quiet, but carefully eased a dagger out of her thigh holster and slipped it under her dress skirt draped across the seat.

They were heading toward Howe's manor. A smallish home, no doubt stripped of anything valuable in order to pay for Rendon's mercenaries and other plans. Did Nathaniel cause this change of course? Was that why the coachman was so nervous? Elle really wished that Midnight was with her, poor boy. He deserved his rest, but she had come to rely on him. It left a large hole in her personal defenses!

But then they made another turn. She couldn't see Zevran on any of the streets as the carriage pulled to the left … into the Arl of Denerim's estate. The home of Vaughan Kendells. Hopefully, the Antivan was on his way to alert her father.

Elle slipped another slim dagger into her glove and smiled at Nathaniel waiting for her. A smile that did not reach her eyes. Vaughan Kendells stepped out of the estate door behind Nathaniel, carrying a bow ready to shoot an arrow for some reason ... no doubt, a reason Elle really didn't want to stay around to find out.

Elle leaned forward, "Please take me to Highever House."

The coachman turned and looked very frightened. "They have my girls, my lady. I cannot …"

The arrow left Kendells' bow and ripped through the side of the coachman's neck. Arterial blood sprayed all over Elle. The innocent man dropped the reins across his bench as he fell to the side. Elle was not liking her chances as she ducked behind the coachman's bench. "Have you both lost your minds?!"

Then, she saw Marresia — one of the elves in her Denerim network — look in horror around a corner from the back of the manor. Almost all of the elves in the Kendells' place were in her network because they hated their masters so much. To be honest, most of the citizens of Denerim hated the Kendells, as well. Marresia narrowed her eyes and made a hand sign that she would get help.

"We don't want to kill you, bitch. You're worth more to us alive ... for the moment," Vaughan laughed. "Just wanted to see you have a nice time while you're in Denerim ... while we're waiting for your father to give us Highever in ransom for you."

"Stop it, Vaughn," Nathaniel growled. "I just need to talk to you, Elle."

She didn't move from where she was hiding. "So you had to kill an innocent man?!"

"I had no idea Kendells was going to do that, Elle," Nathaniel said. He was sounding very nervous. The man who was her rock for a long time was cracking.

"See?" Vaughan laughed again. "She's not interested in talking! The coachman knew too much. Come inside whore and I'll show you a ... very ... good ... time."

Elle just shook her head and thought to herself, Next time I walk. Aloud, she yelled, "Do you guarantee my safety, Nathaniel?"

"Yes. Vaughn is just being ... Vaughn. He's aware of everything I have to tell you. Come inside and I can show you my documents, Elle. Your father isn't the man you think he is." She could hear one of them take a step or two toward the carriage. Maker save me, but I will gut anyone who opens the carriage door, she thought to herself.

"That wouldn't be very wise of me, Nathaniel, would it? Just show me what you've gone to all this trouble to show me." Elle then noticed Marresia climb over the wall to the compound. The walls were old and unkept. The worn stonework was like a ladder, for Maker's Sake.

"Quit being a lovesick idiot, Howe! I can drag her inside," Vaughan said. Elle heard a scuffle. Nathaniel must have won because Vaughn added, "All right, you fool! I'll be inside planning our attack on Highever ... in case Bryce doesn't think she's worth it."

Since he said that in front of her, Elle wasn't liking her chances of surviving this encounter. Was there something in the air of Denerim that caused insanity!? she wondered.

Then, she noticed a small slit between the bottom of the coachman's seat and the top edge of the open carriage. Elle chanced a quick look through the dangling reins toward the doorway. Vaughan walked inside and slammed the door shut.

Nathaniel showed his hands. "I'm coming around, Elle." He slowly reached inside his coat and pulled out a sheaf of parchments. "This is what I need to show you." When he stepped around, holding up both his hands — the documents in one of them — her hand wanted to slap him hard... after making a fist. It really did. This was not the man who had caused her to close off part of her heart!

But, she needed to give Marresia and Zevran a bit more time. She sat on the seat, making certain both daggers were slipped under her skirt ... but still handy. She held out her hand. "Stay there. Hand it to me."

"My father was right, Elle. Your father is the traitor." He handed her the documents. Trade deals with Orlais were on top.

She took extra time to read them, making him nervously stand there. "Nothing here that gives Highever any more than anyone else in Ferelden, Nathaniel." She wadded up that page and dropped it on the floor of the carriage. The next was a list of Banns loyal to Howe. "Thank you for this one, Nathaniel. Handy to know who your father's lackeys were."

"Those are all the nobles who will rise up against you, Elle! Don't you realize how powerful my father was?! Are you that blinded by your father's smooth lies?" He started to open the door to the carriage, but her glare stopped him. "Read the next one." There it was. Rendon's sneer. There were damn few times where Elle's hands shook. This was one of those times.

The next one was definitely damning — an arrangement to soften the nobles of Ferelden to be more accepting of Orlais, to arrange marriages with certain Ferelden families to Orlesian families, to aid "palace royal servants" to spy on the Royal Couple and subvert their attempts at an heir, a plan to put Fergus Cousland up as King once the Queen is set aside and Cailan is killed heroically.

The last item in the contract made Elle laugh. "To marry me to Gaspard de Chalons!?" She became thoughtful. "Now, that could be interesting, really. He's quite charming I hear, and very powerful. I don't believe he ever killed a coachman in cold blood. And, his daddy never sent him away in a snit." She glared at Nathaniel. "Vaughan's right. You are a fool."

She showed him the first thing she spied as she opened up the contract. The words were arranged so some of the spaces outlined a bow. Her gloved finger outlined it for him to see it clearly. "This is forged by the Orlesian, Marjolaine. Likely paid for by your treasonous father. A very good forgery, actually … but her vanity has gotten the best of her again. Tsk. So sad to invalidate such an able craftsman."

How many of these damned letters were there! she thought to herself. The other letter signed by her father in Rendon's hidden box must have been the reject?

"I don't believe you!" He ripped the pages out of Elle's hands and took a closer look. "Father sent these to me last month for safe keeping." Nathaniel's hand started to shake. "He said that I might need to avenge him." He started sweating, but the day was cool. He knew he was in the wrong and he would likely be executed for this as an accessory to treason. There would be no exile for him. All the color drained from his face.

Elle saw Vaughan slip out of the door and lift up the bow. "You really are bad at this retribution thing, Howe. That document cost me and your father a lot of coin." He pulled out an arrow and aimed it at Nathaniel. "I guess I'll have to take the reins on this action against Cousland."

The word reins gave Elle an idea. She grabbed the reins from the coachman's bench and whipped the horses to head for Vaughan. The shot went wide as Vaughan fell beneath the horses hooves. They heard a bone crack. Vaughan screamed, "I'll see you hang for this, you whore!" He stopped screaming when blood started to bubble from his mouth, pooling on the cobblestones under him.

She tried to subdue the horses, but it was no use. She was no teamster. The hooves then caused another bone to crack in his ribcage. By the time the horses calmed down, Vaughan was silent. Then, Elle turned back toward her seat and looked for the daggers that had been under her dress … realizing, too late, that Nathaniel had jumped up onto the carriage steps and taken one of them.

Nathaniel looked frantically at Kendells, the pool of blood enlarging. "You … you killed him." Nathaniel held the dagger tightly. She didn't know what he planned to do with it. She knew he was breaking.

"He was about to kill you, you know." She spoke quietly and deliberately.

They could hear many feet running toward the gate from the outside. "Give me the dagger, Nathaniel. You've been unduly influenced by your father. He sent you away to separate you from your more rational sister … so he could send you lie after lie and turn your head."

He backed away from the carriage. She thought he was going to run, but he didn't. He decided to take the coward's way.

As Marresia, her father, Zevran and several other Highever and city guards ran through the gate, Nathaniel took the dagger, turned it toward himself, lined it up with his own heart and ran against the metal side of the carriage.

He must have known exactly where to align the blade thrust to die instantly.

That broke Elle.

She remembered screaming, "No!" She remembered being held tightly, her father's soothing words whispered into her ear.

She remembered a sunny day, riding along the coast with Nathaniel, both laughing and loving … spending a wonderfully perfect day together. She remembered thinking how very happy she was to be betrothed to a man she actually loved. Rare for a noblewoman. Then, she remembered riding home to witness his father, Rendon Howe, drag him away to send him to Ostwick. She never saw nor heard from him … until today.

And now, she would never see nor hear from him again.

Then, she remembered nothing.

The problem with acting strong and witty most of the time was that a fall into despair was treacherous. And, inevitably, one would fall. Lengthy and deep, into a chasm where few could climb out.

That was what Elle now faced.

Over the next few days, she would awaken from time to time … to eat, to drink, to bathe, to cry. Her father left her alone because he was wise above all others. The servants would put down trays of food and drink and take them away whether or not she ate or drank. A bath was drawn and drained whether she used it or not.

After some unknown amount of time, she explored her secret places in her room. She opened them one after another and removed the contents to remind herself of past times. Good times.

She actually found a new compartment behind a loose stone in back of the table next to her bed. Inside was a dusty, old box that held one thing … an ornate amulet with a red liquid inside, maybe blood? With everything that had happened lately … even though the frame was a lovely golden dragon with its tail wrapped around a crystal vial … she threw it into the fireplace in her room. It smashed against the back firewall and the liquid hissed and snarled as it evaporated in the heat, a red cloud escaping up the flue. The sound and sight was rather disturbing, but soon even the metal deformed and began to break apart in the fire.

It took a while for Elle to get over her feeling of dread, but soon she continued looking through her old treasures. Oddly, coming upon the betrothal ring Nathaniel had given her did not worsen her depression. It snapped her out of it. His love on that sunny day long ago had been real. She knew it.

Something else was wrong.

Unless she was still deluding herself. Quite possible in her current state of mind.

However, time had also blunted her pain. If this had happened shortly after Nathaniel had abandoned her, she might have never climbed out of that chasm of emptiness.

Her roof garden in Highever was filled to bursting with herbs and vegetables, well tended by the kitchen staff. The garden in Denerim was mostly flowers. Just before the delayed funeral for Nathaniel she chanced a quick visit there. She awoke to find a notice of his service on her nightstand a day or so ago. She overheard the servants say that they had delayed it for her. She was almost positive that she could attend. Almost.

She expected to see the garden in crisis, but it was beautiful! Father must have hired someone to take care of it. A raven sat atop one of the trellises and squawked. Elle smiled up at the bird. "It is a beautiful place of peace, isn't it," she said to the raven. The sound of her voice surprised her. She hadn't heard it in days, but felt her mental state continue to improve. She was still uncertain about how she would take a person speaking back just yet.

But, she would survive. Of that, she was certain.

Elle attended the funeral for Nathaniel the next day and placed a bouquet of yellow roses on his shrouded body. They were his favorite. She held hands with both Thomas and Delilah. They didn't speak to her, either. They were also wise. She left immediately after the ceremony and fled back to her room to get ready to re-enter the world.

A note was on the floor just inside her room. "We owe you one for the Kendells bastard. —The Friends of Red Jenny." Elle still hadn't decided how she felt about her part in Vaughan Kendells' death.

Red Jenny was a bogeyman for most of the nobility. Her "Friends" were faceless, nameless pranksters and thieves. Even executioners, sometimes. Red Jenny's attention usually struck fear in the heart whenever one would receive a notice ... if one received notice. Elle usually supported The Friends' activities ... gave them a few ideas of her own once or twice. Elle considered herself one of Red Jenny's "Friends". She just felt that it was better to be on Red Jenny's good side and it just wasn't that difficult. Don't be an ass. It was all that was usually needed.

No one really knew who were Red Jenny's Friends — or who was Red Jenny —but Elle suspected that Martin, the old seaman in Amaranthine, was one.

If that was so, Elle really owed them for so much more.

Just after dawn the next day, Elle found herself dressed in her armor and blades, sitting atop the stairs leading down to the entry of Highever House. Midnight was sitting to her right. Since her father had carried her home, Midnight had never left her side except to attend to doggie matters. She started to get a little depressed, when she remembered seeing Nathaniel at the bottom of those stairs, but forced herself to recall it fondly and then, let it go. All she had to do was remind herself of her own doubts upon seeing him that day.

In short order, her father walked out of his study and climbed the stairs to sit next to her. "It's good to see you out, Pup." He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a brief hug.

"It's good to be out of that room." She turned to face her father. "What's been going on?"

When he sighed and dropped his forehead into his hands for a moment, she knew it wasn't going to be good. "I'm afraid we may have civil war on our hands … not because of Howe or Kendells … but because Ostagar is actually looking to be dangerous. So, no one wants to send their good men and women to actually fight with the Wardens. The king is livid.

"The forces in Ostagar had their first major engagement with the darkspawn a week ago." He shook his head. "As soon as I can make my way back to Highever, Fergus will be on his way down with the men who survived Howe. He's going to attempt as much recruiting as he can in the interim. Duncan and Loghain survived the battle … barely. Loghain's plan of pulling a last-minute flank was hugely successful, I'm told. The Circle mages and Templars that were part of the Ferelden cadre made all the difference for healing and devastating magical offense. Unfortunately, many of the soldier survivors of that battle are now valuable Grey Wardens. That should be fortunate, but it's precipitated the talk of withdrawal."

"Thank the Maker neither Duncan or Loghain had to babysit Cailan," Elle mumbled.

"The outcome would have been disastrous, I'm certain, Pup. Anora is doing whatever she can to keep Cailan from riding back down there. Duncan had already sent a few wardens out, armed with ancient treaties, to see if the dwarves and the Dalish will honor their contracts. They left likely the same time you left Ostagar. The mages and Templars have already pledged to send more in support."

"Really? Even Templars? Greagoir is easing up on the locked doors and shackles?" she snarked.

"Can you believe it?" He gave her a smile that warmed her heart. "We've overcome treason and treachery, only to fall to the Blight because we can't rally enough men and women for our Wardens."

Elle sighed. "You know, Father, Cailan could be the best recruiter around for the Wardens … as much as I know Anora will kill me for saying so."

That made her father chuckle. "He's already thought of that. I think Cailan and Anora are working out a contract between themselves for Cailan to swing south and start recruiting there."

"That leaves the north for me!" she announced. "I have some thoughts about that, but there are a few things I need to tie up first." It worried her that she might have caused something … not that she would have done anything differently … now that she had had some time to think about things. She eventually realized that she could not have stopped Nathaniel from killing himself. She knew she needed to get back to helping the Wardens, starting with investigating that old warden keep … still … "Father, what do you know about blood magic?"

He looked at her in surprise. "I don't know anything about it personally, Pup. I know the Chantry has quite a few opinions about it. Why do you ask?"

"I was curious if it was something that could affect an entire city. Denerim's residents have gone … peculiar … well, more peculiar." She shrugged. "Maybe I'll go to the Chantry and see if Ser Otto can set my mind at ease."

She looped her arm through her father's arm. "You saw Nathaniel when he was here … and then, he was a totally different person at the Kendells' estate. Of course, I'm sure Vaughan had an aura of evil surrounding him at all times … but even Vaughan, Father … Vaughan has been absolutely abhorrent in recent months."

Bryce sighed. "We got word yesterday that Urien died in his sleep at Ostagar. Some are claiming Vaughan arranged it long ago. So, now, we have two arlings without leadership. Denerim, I'm not worried about. The Crown can handle it." He turned to look directly at her. "Delilah and Thomas want to clear up Rendon's mess here and at the Vigil. They've both been worried about you, Pup. Apparently, Nathaniel had tried to convince them to turn against us to no avail, of course. They suspected he had something to do with it all and were on their way here to share misgivings when that falderal at the Kendells' place was going on. Delilah sat by your bed for quite some time, but she said you were oblivious and despondent."

He stopped and took a deep breath, apparently realizing that it was a topic even he didn't want to talk about. "Anyway, do you think Delilah could handle Amaranthine? Even Esmerelle has agreed to swear fealty to her."

"Esmerelle likely thinks she can control Delilah." Elle frowned. "That's one old bat who would be in for a rude awakening. But! To answer your question, yes, I think she would make a good Arlessa. It will have to be Interim until whenever we can hold a Landsmeet again, so give her a try, I say." Elle smiled.

"That's what I like to see! I've missed your smile, my dear girl." He slapped his thighs and got up, putting his hand down to help her up. "If the atmosphere of Denerim worries you, Pup, go visit with your friends at the Chantry. I'll begin arrangements for us to head back to Highever with stops at Amaranthine and the Vigil ... and the warden ruin, if you want."

"Then, that is what I shall do, Father. Come on, Midnight! Time to see what's going on in the world," Elle said as she bounded down the stairs.

...

AN: Nope, Elle cannot escape Denerim just yet! Stay tuned. :)

The Invisible Pretender, thank you for your review! I like a happy royal couple. So, it isn't bad to wish them the best and it certainly isn't awkward. :) This is all real, right? ;)