title: "Blood and Rhetoric"
chapter: 2.1
characters: Tabris, Nathaniel, Fergus Cousland.
8
8
From Amaranthine to Highever, the high road skirted the edges of the sea. The northern part of Ferelden rose in great rocky headlands, sea-cliffs that sloped away inland to fields rustling yellow with summer grain. Paved stones of the Old Tevinter highway made a dividing ribbon between cultivated land and scrub-grass and heather cropped by goats' blunt teeth. The breeze that stirred the grasses of the road's verge carried the scent of brine and the distant booming rush of wave on rock.
Perfect country for smugglers and sea-harriers. Even more so now, with half the watch towers in the teyrnir of Highever burned out or undermanned on account of two years of war and disturbance. Cousland had faced a daunting task in bringing stability to his demesne. He had done much already -
But the impossible, Kallian Tabris reflected, eyeing the scrubby growth and tumbled rocky outcrops flanking the road ahead, always takes a little longer.
If, two years ago, someone had told her that she'd be not only a Grey Warden - Commander of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden, all three of them - but an intimate of the king and acting arlessa of one of the country's oldest arlings, she would've laughed in their face and gone looking for the asshole who'd slipped ergot in the beer.
If they'd told her she'd find herself trudging the Highever road on her way to the betrothal of Fergus Cousland, Teyrn of Highever and Ethelfred, youngest sister of Bann Alfstanna of Waking Sea, she might have been less sceptical. But she'd never have dreamed she would attend as Cousland's neighbour, a guest invited to witness the posting of the banns.
She fingered the leather binding of her swordhilt meditatively, dropping her left hand to Reaver's wiry scruff. The mabari bumped his massive head gently against her thigh, before loping off to investigate the verge.
"Think we'll see trouble?" she said to her other companion. He was a tall man, lean, and taciturn, with a trick to moving near-soundless even in his light mail. At the moment he carried his longbow slung over one shoulder, the better to lead their obstinate, ancient packmule.
"The teyrn," Nathaniel Howe said, with morbid certainty, "is going to kill me." He scowled as the mule rolled one eye and snapped her teeth at him, and slid his right hand higher on the leadrope towards her halter. "That is, if this blighted mule doesn't do so first."
"You're a Grey Warden now. Cousland has to go through me to get to you." And he's going to have to get used to dealing with you, since after me, you're the senior Warden, and his lands border Amaranthine. I can't stay at the Vigil forever. But since that was two-thirds of the reason she'd chosen him to accompany her and Nathaniel already knew it, Kallian forbore to repeat herself. "And I meant on the road, Longshanks."
"Then -" Nathaniel made a show of surveying their surroundings "- I doubt it, Commander." He flicked the mule on her muzzle irritatedly with the end of the leadrope when her snapping teeth darted for his shoulder. "Maker's breath, you blighted creature, be still. We're only a couple of hours from Highever town - we'll be able to see it soon, over the next dip in the land - and Cousland's letter said he's cleared out the brigands within two days' ride."
"Brigands." Kallian's lips quirked, sourly. Half of them refugees run off their land and starving because of the Blight, and the other half - Deserters from dead men's armies, for the most part: neither Rendon Howe nor Loghain Mac Tir would ever pay another hired sword's wages, but civil war and Blight had left plenty of armed men who'd found intimidation and murder an easier way to make a living than honest work. "Pity," she said, as Reaver came bounding back licking his chops and shaking dust from his coat, tail awag with doggy joy. "Brigands might have a better mule."
Nathaniel chuckled. It had taken fire and storm and siege, Kallian reflected, but he'd finally got past seeing her as the elf who killed my father and begun to relax a little in her company. Her trust in him, at least, had borne fruit. But no more trusting smartmouth mages.
Damn Anders for running off in the night without a word, anyway.
Highever sprawled across one side of a deep bay, a neat town of slate-roofed houses defended by high granite walls. The keep stood solitary on a headland, overlooking the harbour, the charred stonework of its eastern tower wreathed in scaffolding. A handful of lumbering coastal traders lay at anchor in the bay. Out in the channel a Rivaini barque beat back and forth against the wind, and the sails of a fishing fleet were strung out along the horizon like a line of coloured beads
Kallian let Nathaniel take the lead on the well-travelled road around the town walls to Castle Highever. Habits acquired as a wanted fugitive were hard to break. And it helps that Nathaniel's human. Carts are more likely to get out of the way for him than for me. The way of the world: she'd learned early there was little point in nursing any bitterness for it.
Carpenters' tools and piles of dressed stone jumbled the courtyard of Castle Highever. A constructive, ordered sort of chaos: after Denerim and Amaranthine, Kallian had experience enough to judge. At the gate, a youthful soldier, intimidated into politeness after his first challenge by Nathaniel's scowling rebuke - Longshanks had a pointed aristocratic delivery on This is the Hero of Ferelden, puppy! Commander of the Grey Wardens and friend of the King! for those who raised their eyebrows at an elf: he'd started to get really good at it - summoned the seneschal and a boy for their mule.
The seneschal, a greying man who could have been Varel's long-lost brother, responded to their griffon tabards with rather more respect. "Warden-Commander Kallian? We did not look for your arrival before tomorrow, my lady. The teyrn will be glad to see you." His eyes flickered to Nathaniel, and his tone hardened. "Less so your companion, I am afraid. I must wonder why he accompanies you. Teyrn Fergus is not alone in having lost kin to this man's father, though his loss is particularly grievous. There is little affection here for the name of Howe."
"I'll be glad to see the teyrn." At Kallian's shoulder, Nathaniel shifted uncomfortably. She gave him a reassuring glance. Stand, Longshanks. Let's see some of that stiff noble pride. "But first I should make something clear, Ser Gabran." Her voice grew chill. "Nathaniel is a Grey Warden. He bears no responsibility for his father's actions - I would not insult Fergus by bringing him under the teyrn's roof if that were the case - but it makes no difference to what he is now. The man he was died when he joined the Order. The man who stands beside me today is not Nathaniel the Howe but Nathaniel the Warden, my brother. Respect him as such, if you please."
The seneschal bowed, stiff. "I hope the teyrn may see it so." Implicit in his tone: I do not. Well, so be it. That was his problem, not hers, unless Fergus chose to be difficult. "His grace is overseeing the work on the east wall, if you wish to make your respects. Leave your baggage with the boy, and I'll send one of the elves" - his glance flicked to Kallian's ears - "to show you to your rooms afterwards. For myself, there is much work to do."
He stalked away in the direction of the keep without waiting for a reply, a straight-backed figure in old-fashioned arming robes. Thoughtful, Kallian watched the proud line of his shoulders disappear behind the scaffolding. "I do believe, Longshanks," she said, "that Alistair is going to have more trouble than he's been anticipating this autumn, when he comes to ennoble my cousin and settle the bannorn of Amaranthine town on your sister."
Nathaniel snorted. "You expected otherwise?"
"I'm not sure what I expected." She hooked her thumbs behind her belt buckle. "Come on. Let's go pay our courtesies."
The noise of tools, the cursing of masons, and the creak of blocks being swayed up scaffolding on pulleys rang out loud enough to be heard from the stableyard. The teyrn didn't prove hard to find. Fergus Cousland stood square-hipped on the driver's bench of an unloaded cart, the palm of one hand shading his eyes as he watched the hectic clamour of the work.
"My lord teyrn," Kallian said, as she came level with the cart. And again, louder, "My lord teyrn!"
Cousland glanced around. Despite the knotted scar tissue that crawled up his neck to trail from his left jaw to his temple, he could still be accounted a handsome man; broad-shouldered, dark of eye and hair, with a commanding presence that put Kallian in mind of his sister, Alistair's queen. "Kallian!" His expression lit when his eyes fell on Kallian, but instantly shadowed. "And Warden Nathaniel, I see. You have some nerve, Tabris, bringing a Howe here."
"Your grace," Nathaniel said tonelessly, abasing himself in a bow far lower than strict etiquette demanded.
Kallian gave Cousland a cold stare. "Nathaniel shares with me the honour of expecting a short life and a brutal death for the sake of men like you, my lord teyrn. Are you really going to hold his father's acts against him, acts of which he had no knowledge and for which he bears no responsibility? I had thought you a fairer man than to judge someone by another's deeds, and not his own. Was I wrong?"
Fergus Cousland's jaw tightened. Kallian was reminded that despite having had - and lost - a wife and son, he was still a young man, as the nobility accounted such things. Young, and proud. For a moment she worried she'd pushed him too hard. The aftermath of Denerim's siege and the pageant surrounding Alistair's hasty royal wedding to his sister hadn't been the best time and place to get a handle on his mettle. I know there's a limit to how far I can press his goodwill. But let's see if he's the man I took him for.
Then the teyrn exhaled, passing a hand over his face. "You shame me, Warden-Commander," he said, softly. "You're right, that was unjust. Nathaniel..." He paused, obviously searching for the right words. "It's not easy, to lose so much. I can't promise not to hold your father against you, Nate. But I'll try."
"Thank you." Nathaniel glanced from Kallian to Cousland, and hesitated. "I'm... sorry. About your family. Delilah told me what our father had become, but I was away in the Free Marches. Maybe if I'd been at home, I could have..."
"What?" Cousland's eyes were an old man's, quiet and ironic. "Stopped him? You don't know how often I've been down that path, Nate. Trust me, it doesn't lead anywhere good. What's done is done. Those of us who survived just have to live with it, Maker help us." He sighed. "And speaking of living with it... My soon-to-be betrothed arrived last night. You're the first of the guests to arrive, apart from her family. You've met Alfstanna, of course, Warden-Commander, but I should show you up and introduce you to the lady and her companion."
Kallian's eyebrows rose. "Still in the dust of the road? My lord -"
"Why not?" When the teyrn grinned, it chased all shadows from his face. He jumped down from the cartbed, landing lightly on the balls of his feet. "This is a working keep. Armour's as good as court dress around here, especially for a pair of famed Grey Wardens."
"I've spent long enough in armour, my lord, to enjoy the occasions when it's not an absolute requirement." Wry: "But if your lordship insists -"
"Maker, of course not." Fergus's grin quirked, pulling at his scar. "I know you must want to wash and change. You'll forgive me for teasing."
"You have your sister's sense of humour, my lord."
"Really? I'd say she has mine. And, Warden-Commander? You're on first-name terms with the King and with my sister. You may as well call me Fergus in private."
It's hard not to be on first-name terms with a man who calls you "sister" and looks horrified and self-conscious when you use his title. Alistair's insistence on informality between them, even in public, had given rise to a number of rumours about the depths of their familiarity. By the challenging glint in Cousland's eye, he'd heard at least some of them. Well, I can count on Lissa Cousland to have told her brother that I was never Alistair's woman. Let's just hope he believed her. Kallian hid her sigh, and forced a smile. "You honour me, my lord - Fergus."
He wasn't, she thought, a bad man for a teyrn.