Seven: In Praise of Difficult Women


Alistair:

Somehow, he doubted that this was going to end well.

It was the morning after the masque, and Rima had asked that—well, demanded, but he'd intercepted the runner she'd sent and amended her message—the two Grey Wardens and their "entourage" attend her. Now.

The runner had come back to the bower with the message that the Grey Wardens would meet with her that afternoon. This had gone over almost as well as, say, a darkspawn invasion. Not that Rima had lost her temper. She had simply sent another message, and Alistair hadn't managed to deflect that one.

The messenger had come back pale and visibly shaken. "The Grey Warden Kathil is…unwell," the poor man said, almost stuttering. "Her bodyguard, the elf…he pinned me to the wall. With daggers." He raised his arm, and Alistair could see the holes in the man's sleeves.

Alistair could imagine what exactly Zevran had said when he'd sent the runner away. Rima's eyes were narrow, and her fingers were curled into the arms of her chair, denting the velvet-covered padding. "You'd best let them be," he said. "Zevran will probably kill the next one. Leliana said that Kathil was poisoned, remember? She's probably not in any shape to drag herself up here this morning."

Rima took a sharp breath. "They have been nothing but trouble, Alistair. I know they are your friends, but death follows them. Denerim will be talking about the masque for years to come, and it won't be because anyone had a good time. There are negotiations that have stalled because one side or the other wants to court Kathil's support. Others have fallen apart entirely. If she stays much longer, things are going to deteriorate even more than they already have."

He fought not to grit his teeth. "And whose fault is that? You've placed her publically in opposition to you."

"It was Kathil who had that little outburst." Her mouth firmed. "Not I."

"No, you just arranged for Isolde to ambush her." He took a breath and let it out. Rima hadn't been in Redcliffe, he reminded himself. She still had only the vaguest idea of what lengths they had gone to in order to save Connor and Isolde's life.

"Only to give her an opportunity to show her true colors." His wife sat back in her chair, and now there was a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She was always like this, quicksilver flowing away from any attempt to categorize her. It was one of the things he loved best about her. "Alistair, she is dangerous. You have admitted as much. Remember?"

"As I recall, I also said that I was dangerous," he pointed out. "Grey Wardens are dangerous sorts. We have to be. Seriously, Rima, I know you don't like her. But it would be better to work with her rather than against her. She makes a bad enemy. So do you, for that matter."

Well, at least Rima appeared to be thinking about it. This was as far as he'd gotten in a discussion with her about Kathil since he'd gotten back from Waking Sea. "I need to get everything back on track as quickly as I can. The summer season has only a month left to go." She drummed her fingers on the chair's arm. "And then this…whatever it was, at the masque. We can't afford internal strife. We have enough trouble coming from outside Ferelden—if what that bard says is to be trusted."

"A suggestion, love?" Rima turned to him, and her fingers paused for a moment. "Kathil will be gone by the end of the summer, and wherever she goes, she's likely to end up somewhere that she can do either great harm or great good for us. Even if you two dislike each other, at least you could respect each other."

"Perhaps, perhaps. If I gave her a problem that needed to be solved…" There went those drumming fingers again. "I have little choice at this point, it seems." She rose from her chair, and came to Alistair's.

They were alone in the bower but for a few guards. Rima leaned over, tracing one hand along Alistair's jaw. "You truly do not love her any more, do you?" she said, and it was question and statement both.

"She is my friend," he said. "Anything else between us is done." He grinned and waggled his eyebrows at his wife. "Besides. You're prettier."

"Appealing to my vanity will get you nowhere, dear." But she was smiling now, and he pulled her into his lap for a kiss. She was laughing, and for the first time in a while she was the girl he had married, the one who had shoved her way into his heart long before he'd thought he'd be ready to love anyone again.

He'd been prepared to like her and to do his duty by her. But he hadn't been prepared for how lost Kathil's abrupt departure had left him, or the fact that despite being noble and educated in statecraft, Rima too was lost in the winding halls of the palace. They'd started out needing each other—he leaned on her knowledge, she clung to him as the one person in the palace who was slightly less strange than everything else around her. Then, as they started to know each other better, he started to appreciate her for the person she was, and what had started out as awkward had become much less so.

It had taken him almost six months to become friends with his wife. Another year to begin to love her. A time after that before he forgave himself for letting duty come between him and Kathil, and it had taken them traveling together again to stop feeling like being a ruler had destroyed the best part of his life.

And it had taken becoming a father to understand that the grass on this side of the fence was the most amazing shade of green.

He kissed Rima again. "I should be off, if we're not meeting with the Grey Wardens this morning. I just wanted to make sure that a fight wasn't about to break out."

Rima snorted gently. "Aren't men supposed to like watching women fight?"

"Not when they're a Grey Warden and my wife, I don't." He smiled. "And—ah. I think we may have a visitor after all." If that commotion out in the hall was anything to go by—

Rima was off his lap a heartbeat later, brushing her skirt back into place. Her face smoothed into her familiar Princess Consort mask, and Alistair stood and faced the door. "She called for me," he could hear a testy voice on the other side of the door say. "Seriously. Ask her."

The door opened, and a guard cautiously stuck his head through. "You wanted to see the Grey Wardens, your Majesty? And their…entourage?"

"They are something of a traveling circus," Alistair muttered.

Rima ignored him. "Send them in," she said. "And in the Maker's name, someone tell the kitchens to send up something to refresh ourselves with." The guard nodded and his head vanished, to be replaced a moment later by the door swinging wide and revealing familiar figures on the other side. "Come in, sit down," Rima said. "I believe we have much to talk about."

Kathil stepped into the room, and Alistair could see something familiar on her face, the silent, exhausted what now? that he'd seen every time they had encountered yet another obstacle between them and the Archdemon. And what had always followed that look was one of cold stubbornness…and there it was, her jaw firming and her shoulders straightening.

This wasn't going to end well at all.

*****

Kathil:

The bower had been rearranged, with two chairs on Rima's low dais and others arranged in a semicircle below. She settled into the one in the center. Her muscles protested; this morning, she felt about twice her age.

It was better than it had been about an hour ago, when she'd felt about ten times her age and had hidden her head under the blanket, muttering just kill me now. Then Zevran had turned away two people at the door (the second one a bit violently), and hadn't told her who it had been until after she'd threatened to do something quite awful to his manhood with a knife.

Two cups of willowbark tea later, she was feeling like she might have a shot at being a person sometime today. Seeing what it was that Rima wanted was a priority, and she'd chivvied Zevran into clothing and gone to rouse Cullen. Leliana, bless her, had been waiting out in the hall when they emerged, looking unconscionably perky despite the fact that she had been up later than the rest of them.

"The trick is not to sleep at all," Leliana had told her when Kathil asked. "Sleeping only a few hours fogs the mind."

And now she was sitting in Rima's bower, and Alistair looked like he expected something to explode at any moment. For that matter, so did Zevran as he settled beside Kathil. Cullen just looked worried.

Leliana crossed her ankles and folded her hands, and Kathil suspected that she might be worried as well, though it was always hard to tell with her. Lorn settled down between Kathil and Zevran's chairs, his ears swiveling. Rima had just dismissed all of the guards in the room, and the door was just now closing.

"I apologize for not arriving sooner," she said. "The poison that was used on me last night evidently gives its victims a very nasty hangover the next morning, if they survive. You wanted to speak to me, Rima?"

"I did," Rima said. "I wish to discuss alliance, Grey Warden."

Kathil blinked. Alistair looked thunderstruck; evidently, he'd been expecting this about as much as she had. "Ah…in what, may I ask?"

Rima's eyes were the electric azure of the summer sky, and right now they told Kathil nothing at all. "We have never gotten along, Kathil, and we are unlikely to ever be friends. But I believe we have more interests in common than we have opposing. Your…bodyguard saved my life last night."

Only because our presence here was what put you in danger. Kathil quashed the thought. "I am glad he did, your Majesty. Ferelden needs you. Rima, if this is about all of the banns who keep coming to me and asking me my opinion on things that I honestly don't care about, I will be more than happy to refer them to you. I keep trying to tell them that, and they keep coming after me."

Ah, and that had struck a chord. "Bring them to me, Grey Warden, when they ask. That is not quite what I had in mind, however." Rima paused, and she glanced at Alistair. Her hands were still in her lap. "This does not go beyond this room, yes?" The Princess Consort glanced around, and all of them nodded. "I am officially my father's oldest child. I have two younger brothers. Officially. Unofficially…my oldest brother Niall was taken to the Circle when he was eight years old. On his deathbed, my father told me that he had two older brothers who were taken by the Templars before he was old enough to remember. The mage talent appears to run strongly in the sons of my family."

Maker's Breath. Niall. "You're worried about Duncan."

Rima nodded shallowly. "All I ask is that if you are in a position to do something about it if he shows the taint, that you do. We need an heir, Grey Warden. And I need to know that my son is safe, and whole."

Kathil closed her eyes briefly, taking a breath. "You have to know that there's not much I can do, Rima. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. I could not keep Connor from the Tower. I can't keep Duncan from it either, if it's his destiny to go there. Not as a Circle mage, not as Warden-General."

The Princess Consort raised one delicately arched, golden eyebrow. "Can you not, Kathil? You are a Grey Warden, and thus not confined to the Tower. You are a Circle mage, and qualified to teach its arts—did I not hear you telling Isolde that her Connor was to be your apprentice? And you have a man with Templar powers sworn to you. I would say that you are likely the only person who might be qualified to teach a prince how to use the power he is heir to, if the worst is true."

Oh, no. No, no, no. "The Circle is a law unto itself," she said quietly. "I defy that law at my peril. And raising mages outside of the Tower is…" She stopped, and frowned. "Apostates have rejected Circle teachings, not merely fled the confines of the Tower. It is not done, no, but I might be able to convince the Circle and the Chantry that it is in the country's best interest that Duncan not be Tower-educated." Irving would have her hide. Several times over. Not to mention Greagoir.

Rima looked pleased. "It seems such a shame that mages are taken from their families," she said. "Wouldn't it be best, if we can, to keep him with us?"

Kathil shot a grim look at Alistair. If you weren't King, I would kill you. I might kill you anyway. Or maybe just hurt you some. It was probably useless to be angry at Alistair for that one last betrayal of her secrets, but she wasted the energy anyway. It wasn't reasonable to expect him to keep things from Rima, but for a moment she could wish. "I will warn you that this might be ill-considered, and it will set the Chantry against the crown." She shook her head. "We might think we could keep it a secret, Rima, but we won't be able to. And every noble family who hears about it and has a mage child will bring that child here—" She broke off. I will accidentally found another Tower.

Rima was nodding. "Do you see? A group of mages who have their memories intact, who still have their families. They would not have to lose their families and their homes, or their titles and lands."

"No." Kathil shuddered. "Rima…what the Tower does is horrible. But it is also necessary. You don't know just how necessary. If absolutely nothing else, it places us all on equal footing. Noble, tradesman, human, elf—all mages are equal. That is one thing I do not want to change. It is miserable enough to be one of us without dragging the baggage of our birth behind us. I will not found another Tower, and I especially will not found one that is under the direct control of the crown. Because that is what would happen, and were I the type of person to wager, I would say you know that."

There was just the smallest flash of triumph in the Princess Consort's eyes. "But you could take Duncan as an apprentice. Especially if you become Warden-General, Kathil, you will need our good will."

You are probably a terror when you're negotiating with tradesmen, Kathil thought. Try for the unacceptable and what was previously refused suddenly becomes a bargain. "Fine. But there are terms. One, he won't be studying here in the palace. You will be free to visit, wherever we settle, but he will not be living here. Two, the study of magic is dangerous, and I want no ill will if the worst happens." Rima hesitated, and then nodded. "Three. If he survives, and he is ready, I will take him to the Tower for a time when he is of age. And four, absolutely no more apprentices, noble or otherwise, unless they're your children. Agreed?"

"Agreed and done, Grey Warden," Rima said. She smiled, just a little. "I hope it does not become necessary, Kathil. I would like nothing more than for Duncan to grow up a mere human."

Kathil let the insult roll off of her. She'd heard so much worse, in her time. She'd been very neatly outmaneuvered, but what she was not going to say right now was that it was something she would have done for Alistair anyway, had it become necessary. Let Rima have her triumph. No wonder she's been so nasty. I don't know if Alistair would have married her, had he known that the taint runs in her family.

She was saved from having to reply to Rima's words by the arrival of tall flasks of small mead and honey cakes. The servants swept in with trays and glasses, and in what seemed like nearly an instant they were gone again, leaving the edibles behind. Lorn was giving her a hopeful look, and she broke one of her honey cakes in half and gave it to him.

The warhound set his head on her knee, trying different ear and eyebrow positions to see if any of them would result in Kathil deciding that she'd had enough cake and needed to do something with the leftovers. Unfortunately for Lorn, she liked honey cakes.

Now the conversation turned to far safer subjects, and Kathil breathed a sigh of relief and sank back into her chair a bit. She might survive this audience after all. Her head was pounding, but only distantly. A few minutes later, Leliana suggested that it was possibly time for Kathil to go back to bed. Rima agreed, to Kathil's great relief.

All the way back to her room, though, she was thinking about the very dangerous idea that Rima had tried to plant in her head. The Circle maintained its independence fiercely. Kathil had never paused to wonder why. Now she knew, and it was not simply that it was a kindness to everyone. It was because a mage with a family was a mage who could be influenced by that family.

We would be terrible weapons in the wrong hands. Maybe even in the right ones.

But nothing had exploded, and she'd gotten an answer for why the Princess Consort had taken such a violent dislike to her in the first place. By Andraste's little ankles, the woman was Niall's sister. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Kathil realized that it was likely nobody had ever told her what had happened to her brother. It was a heroic death, at least, as heroic a death as a mage ever dies.

He'd stood in the Raw Fade, clinging to sanity by only a thread, his body dying by inches for days in the Tower. She could have been him, she knew. Alone, stranded, the Fade wearing down her purpose and her mind until only fear and a sense of failure remained.

And with Niall as an example of the price of failure, she had been determined to succeed. Terrified, but determined.

She'd fought her way through the sloth demon's realm with everything she had in her…and when she had come out the other side, after the demon was dead and his domain collapsed back into the sparkling nothingness of the Fade, she was whole and as sane as she ever was.

Niall was dead.

Kathil didn't think Alistair remembered the name of the mage who had died to find the Litany. He had no reason to remember, after all. Just another dead mage in a Tower full of them. Rima would never have been told what had happened to her brother, that he had died in an attempt to save the Circle from Uldred.

She knew all of their names, those whose lives had been lost. Every last one, from Niall who had been her friend to the cook's daughter Elsa, whose existence she'd been entirely unaware of until she had quizzed Irving on who had died, after she'd gotten back to the Tower.

She snagged the book she was working her way through and climbed into bed, curling up on top of the blanket. "I have some errands in the market district," Zevran said, coming over to the bed. Lorn hopped up beside her and settled down.

"If you happen by the scribe's stall, pick up a few new quills for me? I'm running low." She flipped through the pages until she found the faded blue ribbon she used to mark her place.

He leaned over to kiss her. "Of course, my Grey Warden," he said, his voice warm. "Do not do anything dangerous while I am gone, yes? I hate to miss any excitement."

"Bed, book, warhound." She grinned at him. "What could go wrong?"

He gave her half a smile. "Once upon a time, little bird, I would have said nothing at all, but traveling with you has expanded my imagination significantly."

There was silence between them for a moment, and then she smiled. "Go, Zevran. If it makes you feel any better, tell Cullen you're going and have him check on me in a bit. This book is probably going to put me to sleep quickly."

He kissed her again and then he was gone, and she turned her attention to her book, petting Lorn's head absently. The woman who had written this book was discoursing on an ostensibly interesting subject—a catalogue of various plants she had come across on her travels and some information she'd talked the Dalish into giving her about them—but unfortunately, she was a very boring writer.

It wasn't too long before she'd set her head down—just for a moment, she told herself—and found herself drifting off, lulled into sleep by the warmth of the air and the quiet of the room.

*****

Cullen:

He stood in one of the outer courtyards, watching Fiann charm her way through what seemed like half the population of the palace. He had been given an assignment today—take her out into the palace and have her meet as many different kinds of people as possible. So far, they had visited the armory, the bailey, the stables, and the library.

Right now, Fiann was working her way through a crowd of maids, going to each of them in turn and letting them pet her and exclaim over her. Her grey-blue eyes had turned a deep brown, and she had been gaining weight rapidly as she got closer to weaning. The pup rolled onto her back and wiggled appealingly for the woman who was kneeling down, murmuring, "Who's a cute dog, then? Who?"

Me, me, me, said those flailing feet.

He was supposed to take her out into the city tomorrow, and the Tranquil in charge of the pups had especially instructed him to take her both around the market district and into the Alienage. Yvrenne was getting to the point where she was starting to think about weaning her now-mobile and rapidly growing brood, and it was time to start teaching the pups their manners and introducing them to things they would need to deal with all of their lives.

Fiann rolled to her feet and trotted over to the next woman, sitting down in front of her and cocking her head, which earned her a coo and a good petting. Cullen looked up as someone else approached.

This person wasn't a maid, but his sturdy clothes and well-made shoes suggested that he was a runner. The road dust on him suggested that he had just arrived, as did the hat that was pulled down low over his face to shade his eyes. "Grey Warden Cullen?" the man asked, looking at him.

He still wasn't used to being able to be recognized on sight by strangers. Recognized as a Templar, that was what the armor was for. But he wore no Grey Warden emblems at the moment. It was a little eerie, to tell the truth. "That I am. What do you need?"

The runner handed him a thick packet wrapped in oilskin. "I was instructed to give this to either you or the Grey Warden Kathil. It's from the Tower." He looked down as Fiann reared up and put two enormous paws on his knee. The man's face softened, and in his thick beard his mouth smiled. "Your newest recruit, I see."

Fiann's nose was working, and there was a look of concentration on her face, furry brows knitted in thought. Dust…blood…big-hooved-thing?…mage! Her stubby tail wagged wildly.

"Very good, he came from the Tower, there are a lot of mages there." He gave the runner a small smile. "Best give her a scratch or she'll follow you until you pay your tribute."

The runner chuckled and reached down to give the pup a scratch behind the ears. "I had better be off. Good day, Grey Warden." He made his way through the crowd, and as he left Cullen saw that the man limped slightly. That was odd. He seemed…familiar, somehow.

If he was a regular messenger to the Tower, Cullen had probably seen the man before and just didn't remember his face. He forgot all about it as he crouched down and beckoned to Fiann. "Letters to deliver, pup." He needed to go check on Kathil anyway.

Fiann perked up and came to him, putting one large paw on his knee and swiping a lightning-quick tongue across his face. She wore a flimsy collar that trailed a light line; while Mabari didn't usually walk on lead like normal dogs, the line was a precaution against Fiann getting too distracted by a smell and running off to follow it. The line was only to make catching her easier. Once the imprinting process was complete, she would wear the collar but no lead.

He scratched her under her chin and stood. She was at his heels as he walked into the palace, though she did dart here and there, dropping her nose to the ground and scampering off. They managed to make it to the guest wing without serious incident, though there was a close call with one of the scribes who was carrying a large armful of scrolls and nearly tripped over Fiann as she ran up to greet him.

He knocked twice on Kathil's door and entered. As he opened the door, there was a whuff from Lorn, followed by a surprised whine as Fiann ran into the room. Cullen saw Kathil sprawled on the bed, and from the way she raised her head and blinked he thought she'd been asleep.

Fiann immediately galumphed over to the bed, putting her paws up on the edge, her whole body wagging. Lightning-lady-mage! It was lightning -lady-mage whose smell her human carried! The pup whined, trying to scrabble her way up to the bed.

There was abruptly a massive head in her way. My human, said a low whuff. Also, my bed.

Fiann fell back and rolled to show her belly, licking the air. (As Cullen supposed was entirely prudent, considering that Lorn was ten times her size and he could bring down a deer by himself; a pup was no contest.) Lorn peered over the edge of the bed, his tail wagging slowly. "You've met Fiann before," Cullen said.

We just have to get some things straight, said the warhound's sidelong look.

Fiann wiggled. See what a good pup I am? See how harmless, how cute? She raised her head to check whether it was working, decided it was not, and promptly redoubled her wiggling into a near-frenzy.

"Andraste's ankles, Lorn, be nice. Cullen's her human, she doesn't want me." Kathil set her head back down on the blanket. There was an open book next to her, a faded blue ribbon lying across the pages in the afternoon sunlight coming in through the window.

"I actually just came by to see if you needed anything," Cullen said. "I have to take this one back to the kennels before her mother decides to come looking for her."

The mage rolled a bit and propped her head on her hand. "Company? After you return Fiann, of course."

Next to her, Lorn stirred and got to his feet, going into a deep stretch. He hopped down, to the accompaniment of a happy puppy-bark from Fiann. The dust-knight should stay here. Lorn had a tree to water. He had been in here with his human forever, and now that her dust-knight was here he could leave for a time. The warhound grabbed the line attached to Fiann's collar, and walked off with her in tow.

Bemused, Cullen stepped aside to let them pass. "Be good for Lorn," he told Fiann, who looked confused. "I'll check on you later to make sure you made it back all right."

The pup gave a happy bark and bounded to keep up with Lorn, who was stretching his legs. Soon enough, both of them were gone.

Cullen remembered the letters in his hand, and took a breath.

He had to wonder what the Tower wanted with her now....