CHAPTER TWO: Another Word for Lamentations
I knock too hard on the door, three strikes that sting my knuckles, and wait breathlessly atop the stairs leading up to the library's south wing. On the other side of the door is a hallway leading to several apartments, seldom used, too small for visiting nobility but occasionally offered to travelers like artists or clergy. If Fergus' report is accurate, they are occupied now by Lady Landra's attendants – Iona among them, I hope.
I still offer up a silent prayer that whoever answers my knock will be discrete. It's too much to hope that Iona herself will open the door. For all the nervous anticipation of the last few days, and the fevered imaginings on my walk from the kitchen to the library, I have no idea what I will say if she does, but at least it might spare us prying eyes and wagging tongues.
As shaky as I am, it's hard to judge how much time has passed, but I hear no movement inside. I count five breaths and then knock again, more slowly and deliberately this time, and still nothing stirs. I press my ear to the wood, and still hearing no sound, try the latch, only to find it locked from within.
Muttering curses, I walk back down to the library's main floor.
The library is still empty but for a handful of children, slightly older than Oren but stilly shy of adolescence; they are seated around an enormous oak table, which itself is set on a dais at the back of the library. It feels like only yesterday that Aeron and I sat there with our own fellow students, surrounded by quills and parchments and ink and small towers of thick, leather-bound books.
Unlike many I've visited, Highever's library is brightly lit, with a vaulted ceiling that separates the north and south wings and runs the length of the building. At the back of the library, above the oak study table, and at the front, above enormous ornate doors that open out to the courtyard, stained glass windows rise almost two full stories, to the peak of the red-tiled roof. Green carpet runs from door to dais, a walkway that bisects the sturdy shelves, which are built between the stone walls and the exposed wooden posts that support the floors of the wings.
As a child, this was one of the few places I visited willingly without Aeron. He could never stand books or studies, and avoided the library whenever possible. Although I joined Aeron in harassing our longsuffering tutor, Brother Aldous, even then I secretly enjoyed the act of learning. Not just learning, but reading, and not just reading but books themselves. Here, their smell fills the air, at once nostalgic and tantalizing, like the musty aroma of grass drying after a cut, but also warm like old spices.
At the bottom of the stairs, I turn into the stacks of books, absently running my hands along the spines of rowed and ordered books. So many memories between these stacked volumes…
...
Iona and I fell for each other in this library. She shared my love affair with books, with their physical form, with the hand-inked illustrations, with the various calligraphies, with the art of written language, and – above all – with the knowledge the books contained.
Although we played together regularly as young children, I saw very little of Iona during my early school years. At the time, neither Aeron nor I had seen any particular use for girls, most of whom seemed to be interested in the womanly skills of sewing and simpering; they were certainly useless to us in our manly pursuits, which at the time were limited to fighting, belching, and frivolous mischief. For her part, Iona, like many elven children, she was put to work early, sometimes at her home in the Alienage, and sometimes by assisting her mother in the servants' duties; when we saw her it was only during lessons, which we shared only rarely.
As we moved into adolescence, Aeron in particular began to change his outlook on womenfolk, and developed a reputation for chasing skirts almost overnight. I was interested to hear his stories, but the interest was mostly academic, perhaps a bit voyeuristic, but not in any way relevant to my life. It wasn't until Iona began attending some of the same classes as me that she caught my attention. Even then, the only thing I noticed – at first, anyway – was our shared interest in learning.
Discussions during class led to conversations afterwards, most often in the library. We soon realized that we'd read many of the same books and poems, and that we shared a passion for history.
Naturally, the more I talked with her, the more I noticed how beautiful she was: golden hair, elegant facial features, emerald eyes just a bit larger than a human's, ears that rose to points instead of round lumps like mine, and the early hints of a woman's curves beneath her simple dresses and smocks. Her smile was infectious, her laugh intoxicating.
Iona was particularly fascinated with the history and culture of her people, before the Alienages. She was fascinated by records of a time, half a millennia past, when elves ruled a nation of their own, called The Dales, gifted to them by Andraste herself. Together, we learned that before the Dales, the elves were enslaved by the Tevinter Imperium, which had conquered an even older, greater elven empire that different records referred to variously as Arlathan – or sometimes Ar La'than – and The Elvhenen.
This was not a topic that Brother Aldous taught, nor one that was encouraged among the elves of the Alienage, who clung to fragments of tradition passed down through generations, but had little interest in discovering the origin of those traditions. So that we were co-conspirators of a sort, uncovering forbidden knowledge, secrets to be shared only between ourselves.
What happened next was inevitable. I fell in love with her, with such certainty and finality that it might as well have been gravity.
...
Our first kiss was between these very shelves. I was fifteen, she sixteen. The kiss had been building between us for years, but still, my heart stopped, held tight in the grip of fear and desperation and anticipation. I tell myself that I can still taste her, still smell her, as clearly as though the moment has not yet ended, but that's not the truth. The truth is that the memories haunt me, sensations at the edge of perception, close enough to be achingly familiar, but lost to the years that have passed.
After that kiss, we had almost a year together, casting each other smiles we thought no one else could see, stealing away on summer afternoons for kisses that lasted hours, curling up in front of untended fires in the winter and talking about dreams that never bore fruit.
Then fate took her from me, not long after I turned sixteen, and just days before Aeron and I took our titles and our duties.
After she left, we didn't see each other for a full year. In that time, my parents flatly refused to allow me to write her, and if she tried to write me, this was also prevented. At the time, only newly out of my studies, I was neither old enough nor experienced enough to figure out a way around them.
"Your affair must end," my father had told me simply, and not a little sadly, when I pressed the issue. His words crushed not only my heart but the illusion that my romance with Iona had been any sort of secret. Later, my parents explained this was not due to Iona's common birth, nor because she was an elf, but because the city had come too close to blood already during the events surrounding her departure. Any future I might find with Iona would be salt in wounds that my parents had fought hard to heal.
No doubt they believed another pretty girl would capture my heart soon enough, and although they never forced any matches on me, Aeron more than made up for their restraint.
Predictably, he was convinced that a tumble in the hay would solve my heartache. "It works for me," he said more than once. To my knowledge Aeron himself has never engaged in a relationship that lasted much longer than it took him to part a girl's knees - something he'd developed a knack for around the time I found myself falling in love with Iona – so why he felt qualified to give advice on heartbreak, I don't know.
...
I did not see Iona for more than a year. Even then, we met only by chance, during the summer Landsmeet in Denerim. I was standing in a crowd, listening to my father debate the merits of new trade agreements with Orlais, and I shifted ever so slightly, moving weight from one foot to the other, and there she was, standing next to me, staring at me, her eyes fixed on mine, the faintest of smiles playing at the corners of her lips.
The sight of her, so much the same and yet so changed, froze me to the spot. I started to say her name, but she silenced me with a look; the entire hall was listening to my father with rapt attention, and I was ready to stammer out every feeling that had choked me and sustained me in the years since I lost her. Instead, she said all that was needed by slipping her hand in mine and standing beside me the length of the debate.
Whenever the crowd cheered or laughed, we could trade a few words, but only a few – just enough to know that her family was safe, that Landra was fair and even kind, that she was healing. Even if we'd had more time, I don't know what I could have said. The only thing that mattered were her last words, as the debate ended with thunderous applause for my father and angry glares from his opponent.
Iona leaned in to my ear and squeezed my hand and whispered, "I still miss you."
And then she was gone again.
...
Behind me in the library, one ofthe heavy doors to the courtyard groans open, startling me from the most personal of memories. Self-conscious, I spin toward the sound, peering between the tops of books and bottoms of shelves to see a pair of squires trudging in, carrying schoolbooks slung over their shoulders.
"Did you do the reading?" asks the smaller of the two as they pass me by, earning a glower from his companion.
"Why would I?" the larger grumbles. "It's all so bloody boring…"
I can't help smiling as I hear this.
The squires must be arriving for morning lessons, still delivered by Brother Aldous, who teaches language, history, and the arts to all children of school age, noble or common, just as he taught me and Aeron. That squires, pages, and the children of servants receive the same education as the young nobility is yet another oddity of Castle Highever, one due in equal measure to my mother and to Brother Aldous.
Brother Aldous has been a fixture in the castle since he tutored my father more than thirty years ago, and Father respects him deeply, treating him with deference even in court. Perhaps some of this is due to their history as student and teacher, but I suspect it has more to do with the brother's keen intellect and encyclopedic knowledge of history and theology.
"Knowledge is the beginning of wisdom," Father used to tell me endlessly, so often I hoped he'd choke on the words. That I resented this persistent advice, only to fall so deeply in love with books and scholarship myself, is an irony not lost on me.
If the brother's tutelage nurtured my father's studiousness, it is my mother's common birth that has influenced his egalitarian policies. I'm certain we are the butt of many a joke amongst other Ferelden noble houses, but there can be no denying that our servants are generally brighter than theirs – and more loyal besides.
After the squires pass, I step out onto the green carpet and glance up to the dais. The brother is nowhere to be seen, but that's not especially surprising; he often assigns work to be completed while he attends other duties, and his pupils learn early not to mistake absence for ignorance. It's almost as though the library's very stones whisper reports to him, and I cannot count the number of times Aeron and I were punished for mischief that we were certain had gone unwitnessed.
Brother Aldous' office takes up the bottom floor of one of two ornamental bell towers that flank the library's doors. The door is closed, but I can picture the desk, an island of tidiness in an ocean of discarded paper. Books on every subject, notepads, letters opened and unopened, boxes filled with records, volumes of poetry, stacks of unused parchment: these things and more were heaped into corners, piled on either side of the desk, and occupied all but two of the room's many chairs.
Only last year, I learned there is a trapdoor in the office ceiling, above the desk and a ladder that folds down, granting easy access to the second floor of the tower, which in turn leads to the library's northern wing. That wing contains the administrative archives, a record of all Highever's business that dates back more than five centuries.
Family legends claim that our ancestor, Sarim Cousland, built both the library and the chapel, which face each other across the courtyard, as dual memorials to Highever's previous lord, Bann Conobar Elstan. At the time, the Cousland family had served the Elstan line for generations, much as the Gilmores now serve us. After completing the memorial, Sarim Cousland assumed lordship of Highever, and the Cousland line has been unbroken ever since.
According to the tale, Elstan and most of his court were murdered in a fit of rage by the Bann's own wife, an infamous bog witch named Flemeth; the bards claim that evidence of her furious magic can be seen in scorch marks on the walls of the keep's great hall. If you ask me, these alleged scorch marks look more like the soot stains one would expect to accumulate from hundreds of years of smoke from wood fire places. As a child, though, I used to look at the marks and imagine them in the shapes of men, immolated in place by a raging witch, and feel shivers run down my back.
Brother Aldous told me later that while historical records indicate Bann Elstan was indeed murdered by a wife, they do not name the wife at all, let alone identify here as Flemeth, the witch of legend. Flemeth, the villainess of dozens of Ferelden folktales, is much better known than Elstan himself, and Aldous believes she was likely added to the story over time by bards to better entertain their audiences.
His analysis is good enough for me. The brother loves history and therefore the archives, and spends hours every day combing through old ledgers and accounts to piece together more of Highever's past. Since the archives, like the apartments opposite them, have windows overlooking the library floor, I suspect this explains why he always seemed almost supernaturally aware of any and all mischief Aeron and I attempted during our studies.
...
Opposite the brother's office, at the base of the south bell tower, is a guest suite, which is where Lady Landra herself will be staying with her husband, Bann Loren of Caer Oswin, if he has joined her, and any other members of her family.
I consider knocking there, since Fergus told me Iona is now one of her ladies-in-waiting, but decide against it. Even if Landra or another family member is still in the suites when all the servants are missing, I'm not sure I want to see any of them. There is also the matter of Landra herself. Lady Landra Loren is one of Mother's oldest and dearest friends, and she has been kind to Iona, but she is also, politely speaking, quite enormous, extremely loud, and notoriously fond of wine and other indiscretions.
A year ago, at a Summerday celebration hosted by her husband, Landra cornered me and flirted shamelessly, either ignorant of or unconcerned with both my parentage and my obvious discomfort. When Aeron attempted to rescue me, she shifted her attentions to him with renewed vigor, practically draping herself over his shoulders, until her embarrassed husband had her escorted from the party. Since then, both Lady Landra and Bann Loren have seemed markedly uncomfortable around me and Aeron. It's a feeling I, at least, reciprocate.
...
After Landra embarrassed herself at the Summerday party, Iona found me in the gardens, her enormous emerald eyes sparkling with laughter. With her blond hair tied back in a loose bun, dressed in a simple brown dress and a dark shawl, she could almost have stepped directly out of my memories.
We had seen each other earlier in the day, but it had only been little more than a glance. She was across a room, dressed in finery, her face a careful mask of pleasant deference, serving drinks to Bann Loren's guests. Of course, I'd been looking for her since arriving at Caer Oswin, and daydreaming for weeks before, and as soon as I saw her, everything else faded. Other than fending off Landra, and pulling Aeron away from an argument that was straying dangerously close to a duel, I remember nothing of the party after that glimpse and before we met in the garden.
Unlike Highever, which was built on coastal plains with the castle occupying a lone promontory, Caer Oswin sits on the side of a mountain, and the gardens look out over smaller peaks and thick forests. Only on the eastern horizon do the hills and trees give way to the rolling farmland of the central bannorn, and when Iona found me, the sun was already behind the mountain's peak.
"I hear my mistress is trying to steal you away," Iona told me when we broke our long kiss, laughter still in her eyes.
I said I wasn't tempted, which would have been an understatement in any circumstances, but doubly so with Iona finally pressed against me, my arms around her waist, her hands at the back of my neck, her lips moving closer again.
...
That night in the garden was not the first time Iona and I had seen each other since we held hands so desperately at the Landsmeet. After the first year of her absence, things had gotten easier, in more ways than one.
Knowing she was safe, and knowing she still missed me, helped with the daily heartache. So did the steady increase in my responsibilities, which left little time for lovesick sighs. More importantly, the duties themselves necessitated greater personal independence and a measure of authority, within the castle and the Teyrnir. It was enough for me to ensure we could write to each other.
Our correspondence, coupled with the friendship between mother and Lady Landra and the business ties between my father and Bann Loren, made it easy to arrange occasional meetings like the one at Caer Oswin. My parents are not fools, and knew all along what I was up to, but they seem to have grudgingly accepted that I cannot simply let Iona go, no matter the political dangers our relationship might pose. Until now, they have carefully avoided any circumstance that might return Iona to Highever, but have not otherwise obstructed our relationship.
So we see each other when we can, usually once every few months, sometimes for a full day or night, more often for only a few minutes. So far, it's been enough. It has to be.
And perhaps that's all I can ask for. There was never any question of marrying Iona – even at fifteen, in the afterglow of our first kiss, we knew that – but thanks to Fergus, I need not marry at all. His union with Oriana has already produced one heir, in Oren, with another on the way, ensuring the Cousland lineage.
All I want is to find her. Since the first news of a mobilization, when I should have turned my mind to matters of state, I hoped she would come; this morning, when Aeron told me he would join the Wardens, I knew she must, because only with her could I lower my guard and admit that his absence, stacked upon hers, just might break me. To be so close to her now, especially in this place, with all its memories…and not find her?
I draw in a long breath, trying to regain control of thoughts and emotions. Standing here won't do any good. It's not a large castle; we'll see each other soon enough, and even if we can only smile at each other for now, the sight of her alone will be a luxury too long denied.
...
For the second time in only a few minutes, the library doors startle me out of daydreams. Standing just outside the entrance to the guest suite, I have to jump out of the way as the door swings inward, and am almost bowled over by Aeron, who stops short, obviously as surprised to find me here as I am to be found.
"Thought I might find you here," Aeron says. "Just didn't figure you'd be lurking behind a door." He sniffs the air with distaste. "I'll never understand what you see in this old place."
There's no way to articulate the honest answer. Instead, I ask if all the books are triggering his allergy to learning.
"Absolutely!" He feigns a shudder. "So much knowledge, trying to creep in even through my nose! That shit's contagious, you know."
"If it is, you must have been born immune," I reply automatically.
"Ha! No doubt." He looks around the library, nodding at the students who have looked up to see the cause of the commotion. "Anyway, your father sent me for you. Well, not really – he sent a guard to send me for you – but he wants to see us both in the hall." Then, more quietly: "Did you find her?"
I shake my head.
Aeron claps me on the shoulder hard, the sound echoing up to the vaulted ceiling. "Well, come on then. We'll see what your father wants, and then find her. We know she's not in the library, and we know she's not in the basements, so it shouldn't be too hard."
He pulls the door open again and beckons me through. The chapel is opposite the library, and together their front walls form the east and west edge of the courtyard. A tall stone curtain wall is the courtyard's southern border, and the keep rises to the north. Small alleys on either side of the library, chapel, and keep provide access to the rest of the inner ward, which is comprised of the barracks and training yard on one side of the keep, and stables, a kennel, and an armory on the other.
The courtyard is almost empty – the calm before the storm, I suppose. The bulk of the army is already assembled just south of the city walls, already almost a thousand strong, and those banns and arls who will accompany their men south to battle fill the keep's guest rooms; below, in the city, the inns are crowded with lesser nobles, heirs and stewards, generals and guard captains, freeholders and mercenaries.
All are waiting for the order from my father to march south for the king, and my father in turn has been waiting for Arl Rendon Howe and his troops to arrive from Amaranthine, the largest and easternmost of the vassal states that make up my father's Teyrnir. Now that the Arl is here – albeit without his troops or his family, apparently, and without the usual pomp and circumstance that marks the arrival of such an esteemed ally – something is bound to happen. If there is not an assembly soon and a feast tonight, it will only be because the army has already marched. Either way, the courtyard won't be empty long.
For now, though, the only other person here is Brother Aldous. He is standing directly across the courtyard, in front of the chapel, his back to us. He is slightly frailer than in my memories, but he stands as he always has: back rigid, shoulders square, hands clasped at the small of his back. A tight roll of papers is clasped in one of his hands, and a small hammer and leather pouch hang from his belt, the belt itself pulled tight over a thick yellow sash worn over a hooded brown overcoat. The Chantry's sunburst emblem is stitched just below either shoulder of the overcoat, and on the breast of a red undershirt.
On impulse, I start across the courtyard toward the brother.
Behind me, I hear Aeron sigh in frustration. I can imagine him rolling his eyes behind my back. We are due at an audience with my father, I still haven't found Iona, and yet here I am, striking off to talk to an old teacher.
There's a method to my madness, however. Just as Nan rules the keep from the basements to the dining halls, there is little that goes on in the rest of the castle, and especially the inner ward, that escapes the brother. It's a safe bet he knows where I might find Iona. Even if he doesn't, it's been several weeks since I last spoke to the brother, whose company I seem to enjoy more with every passing year, and it won't hurt to pass a few minutes with him before continuing to Father's great hall.
"Humor me," I tell Aeron, quietly, over my shoulder, and I hear him follow after a reluctant pause.
As I approach, I see the brother is studying the Chanter's Board, a large, ornately-framed set of wood panels that hang beside the chapel door.
I'm told that throughout Thedas, in every town or village where the Chantry has a presence, you can find Chanter's Boards. They serve as a community's hub for news, prayers, contracts, sales and services, and posters advertising rewards for fugitives and missing persons. Anyone can post anything to the board, although the brothers who maintain the boards are vigilant against inevitable pranks and blasphemies; the brothers also assist those who cannot read or write in posting and reading.
The board sees steady use, but for the last week, it's been common to see three or four people at a time standing in front of the board, and rare to see it unattended. New announcements and orders from father's court have been posted almost daily, but the focus has mostly been on two documents nailed to the middle of the board. Both are transcribed copies of other letters – the first, of the Grey Wardens' message to my father, the second of King Cailan's order to draw up the army.
No doubt both letters were intended solely for my father and his advisors, but neither made this explicit, and Father has little use for secrecy; he removed only a few lines about troop movements and state of fortifications at Ostagar from the copies, which by now will probably have reached every Chanter's Board in the Teyrnir. Father has told me believes his people should be kept informed whenever possible, and he justifies this philosophy with a more pragmatic observation: bad news only becomes worse when repeated as gossip.
Personally, I have misgivings about this approach, now and in the past, but I am not the Teyrn, and so far there have been no consequences – no one is rioting, and there has been no wave of refugees fleeing the rumored Blight. If anything, since the notices went up, the ranks of our militias have swelled and the Chantries – the one here in the castle's inner ward, and several more in the city below – have been filled with the faithful at prayer. I've even noticed a decline in the volume of frivolous claims and spiteful misdemeanors brought before me at petty court, so it seems my misgivings may be groundless. They often are, when it comes to Father's peculiarities.
As I approach Brother Aldous, I wonder if he is reading the letters. If so, it can't be for the first time, but he wouldn't be the only one who's had to read them more than once. I have, if only to reaffirm this is all real – history really is being made, the world really is shifting beneath our feet.
Instead, I see he is leaned slightly forward, brows furrowed, his focus is on a new message, scrawled with what looks like charcoal, across both of the copied letters:
And so is the Golden City blackened
With each step you take in my Hall.
Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting.
You have brought Sin to Heaven
And doom upon all the world.
...
Despite Brother Aldous's best efforts, I am not a particularly religious man. Unless duty requires it, I rarely attend services at the Chantry, and I have not sung the Chant itself since I was a child. But I recognize this passage immediately: it's one of the most famous passages in the all the Chant of Light, and one of the few passages that Brother Aldous insisted I memorize when I was still his student.
For many years, until well past an age when my youth could excuse my ignorance, I believed the canticle, like so many others, was named after one of the many disciples who followed Andraste, the Bride of the Maker, before her death and ascension. When Brother Aldous discovered my mistake, he corrected me with more than a hint of irritation: "Threnodies is just another word for lamentations."
Even when my ignorance clearly astonished him, Aldous was generally a patient teacher when it came to secular matters; he became genuinely frustrated only when students demonstrated ignorance or, worse, apathy to matters of faith.
Still, he was persistent, and with the peculiar glint that always appears in his eyes when discussing The Chant, Aldous explained that the Canticle of Threnodies is uniquely named, because a Threnody is not merely a lament, but a dirge composed upon the death of a loved one. A threnody is personal, he told me, unique to the person lost and specific to the grief of those left behind.
"A fitting title for the chant," he said.
"Because of the Blights?" I asked, confused. The blights were a punishment, not a loss; one might sing a dirge for all who had died in the four blights, but the passage seemed to me less a lamentation than a warning.
"No." He shook his head, his lips tightening. "Threnodies does not begin by discussing the Blights, or end with such a discussion, for that matter."
At that point in my education, I'd read the entire Canticle more than once, and had sung many of its passages in the Chantry with my family. My prior knowledge of a subject never deterred the brother from a lecture, especially on a topic for which he felt as much passion as he did faith.
"The Canticle's first chapter tell the creation story," Aldous began.
...
Before our world, the Maker spoke another into existence: the Fade, a realm of magic, populated with His first children, spirits created in His own image. At the Fade's center was the Golden City, where the Maker made His throne. The spirits marveled at their realm, which they could shape with nothing more than their own will. The first children worshipped the Maker and filled the Golden City with praise, but He was dissatisfied with his first creation, because the spirits could only reflect what He had already shown them.
Our own world, Thedas, came next, built for us, His second children, in whom He placed a spark of His own divine creativity. Between these two worlds, He set the Veil, so that men could not see or enter the Fade except in their dreams. But when mankind slept, our thoughts and prayers flowed through the fade, until they found the Golden City and the Maker's ears. In our waking hours we shaped our world with imagination and ingenuity, to fit our own needs, and we praised the Maker for His gifts.
Among the first children, however, some watched with jealousy, and in ages long past, tempted men away from the Maker, teaching their new followers to draw on the Fade and work magic of their own. The Maker cast these spirits out of the Fade, imprisoning them deep in the earth itself, but still they whispered in the hearts of men, and the people of Tevinter conquered all of Thedas in the name of their false gods, until all of Thedas worshipped the Old Gods of the Tevinter Imperium, and no one remembered their own Maker.
This was the First Sin, and the Maker turned away in sorrow, for his first children could not create, and his second children created sin itself.
Even then, the Old Gods were not content. They taught the mage-kings of Tevinter the forbidden arts of blood magic, and guided them to breach the Veil itself, and enter the Golden City. In their hubris, the magisters sought to usurp heaven itself, but instead they destroyed it. They were cast out by the Maker Himself, twisted and cursed by their own corruption, and they returned as monsters, the first of the darkspawn.
...
"Their trespass was the Second Sin," Aldous concluded, and by the time he'd finished, sadness had clouded the familiar joy of imparted knowledge from his eyes. "The Golden City is dark, and the Maker's throne is empty. As terrible as they are, Blights are only moments in history, one consequence among many. The Maker's absence is something we should feel in every moment, throughout allof history. That, pup, is what we should truly mourn."
He looked away, then, and I remember glancing at the other students, and finding that even Aeron had been listening with rapt attention, captured by the brother's intensity.
For a while, all of us were silent while the brother stared away, lost in thought. Eventually, he sighed, and, speaking to no one in particular, asked "What would it be like? To know our prayers are heard?"
...
I do not share Aldous's sorrow, but the memory has stuck with me through the years. It was the first time I really understood the tragedy at the core of the Chant of Light. That moment has colored my perception of Brother Aldous ever since, and of our faith as a whole.
...
"I didn't write this, in case you were wondering." Brother Aldous speaks conversationally, but without looking away from the charcoal message.
"I – came over to say good morning, actually."
"Well, then, a good morning to you, too, pup."
Pup. A childhood nickname, one that was used only by my parents, Nan, and the brother. Although I'm nearly halfway through my twentieth year, I still can't seem to shake it off. At this point, I suppose I never will.
"Have you seen it already?" he asks, turning to me for the first time and gesturing at the holy graffiti. "I've been thinking of this verse since I first saw the Wardens' letter. Apparently I'm not the only one."
"Looks new," Aeron says, taking his turn to lean in.
"It wasn't here when I came from morning prayers, but that was several hours ago."
"Making you the prime suspect," Aeron remarks, straightening and pretending to glare suspiciously. "You were a good tutor, but you've always seemed a bit religious, you know, brother. And this" – he points dramatically at the verse – "is clearly the work of religion!"
"If I were truly such a good tutor," Aldous replies neutrally, "then I expect I would not encounter such insouciance in my pupils." The brother pauses a moment and when Aeron's brows scrunch at the word insouciance, a slight smile creeps across Aldous' face. "You can look it up later, Ser Gilmore."
It takes Aeron a moment to realize that the brother is toying with him, but when he does he throws his head back and laughs. "You always did get the better of me," he admits at last, still smiling.
"My many years of toil are no doubt the only reason you can write your own name and tie your own laces, and I'm pleased to say it has not been in vain. I'm told you've grown into a rather admirable young man."
"Oh," Aeron chuckles, a flush spreading between his freckles, "I don't know about all that. But I do know how to tie my own laces. And wipe myself, as well."
The brother crinkles his nose, and now Aeron has scored a point in their bizarre rapport.
"Some things," I point out, "never change."
"Indeed." The brother sighs, and looks around the courtyard, then back at me. "If you're not really here to harass an old man about some scribbles on the Chanter's Board, I assume you're looking for your friend, Iona?" A smile creeps into the corners of the brother's lips. "Some things never change, after all."
I smile. He's always seen right through the both of us – through everyone, maybe.
"She was among Lady Landra's retinue when Her Grace paid homage at the Chantry, maybe an hour ago," the brother says. "I'm not certain where they were going next, but two rather ill-mannered young ladies at the back of sanctuary whispered so loudly it was impossible not to overhear them, and it seemed they thought their next destination might be a visit with the Teyrna. Neither of the young ladies were Iona, obviously."
"Thank you, brother."
He inclines his head. "Of course. Was there something else on your mind, as well?"
Memories of his lesson about the Canticle of Threnodies are still fresh, but I'm not in the mood to discuss religion, so I tell him I saw his pupils in the library.
"They all look so young," I add. "I remember lessons like they were yesterday, it's just hard to believe we were ever so…small.
"You all look young to me," he chuckles, "but I suppose they are a bit smaller than you too. There should be a handful of them in there by now. They were doing their reading, I hope?"
"They looked more studious than we ever were," Aeron confirms.
"You were both a pleasure," Aldous says, before turning back to the Chanter's Board. "But you did require more looking after than these particular students. I can leave them to their reading for quite some time before I have to worry about anyone climbing the shelves or putting snakes under my door."
"You can't prove the snake was mine!" Aeron exclaims delightedly.
"No, of course not."
"His name was Count Slippy, I think," Aeron admits, still delighted.
"Well, not having to deal with 'Count Slippy,'" the brother says wryly, "I have a bit more time now. I've taken over the Chanter's Board for Sister Clara. A relatively easy duty, until this week, at least."
He holds up the roll of papers he'd held behind his back, showing off a mismatched jumble of papers and parchments. The brother begins to leaf through the notices he's rescued. Some have messages written in a steady hand, but most contain only a few, crudely scrawled words. Some are only pictograms.
"The guards just nailed the Wardens' missive over all these postings, and the King's order, as well," he says. "I had quite a time getting all of them out from under, and now I wonder if it was even worth my effort. Someone needs a horse but has a donkey to trade, someone else asks for prayers for an unnamed nephew's wedding prospects. It all seems to pale in importance, doesn't it?"
He shuffles the stack and rolls it back up, before sliding it into a pocket on the front of his robes and focusing again on the verse written in charcoal.
"Doom upon all the world," he quotes, "and here I am, tending to requests for chickens."
"So, Brother," Aeron says, his tone serious now. "You think there really is a Blight?"
Aldous looks surprised. "Wardens do not prepare for a Blight idly, and they are certainly making preparations. They are here for recruits, I hear." He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and then draws in another; I realize he's steeling himself. "Will they take you both?" he asks.
The question hangs between me and Aeron for a moment, and the brother's unease grows as we each wait for the other to answer.
"I know they have asked," he presses. "They would be fools not to."
Reluctantly, Aeron nods. "They...they asked, and I have agreed."
Aldous looks at me, and all I can do is shrug.
"Your father refused?" Aldous guesses, and when I shrug again he squeezes my shoulder before letting go. "I'm sorry, pup," he says, sounding relieved, "but your father is right to deny their request."
"I - I'm not even sure they asked," I admit, glancing sidelong at Aeron.
"Ah," Aldous says, nodding.
The truth is, I know they didn't ask. The Grey Wardens are elite warriors, not foot soldiers or clerks, and they choose their recruits accordingly. I'm skilled with a bow and arrow, and can hold my own with swords, but Aeron is a master with weapons of every kind. He's won recognition in the last dozen tournaments he's entered, and not just here in Highever, but throughout Ferelden. Ser Gilmore may be my bodyguard and seneschal, but his name is far better known than my own.
So it's no surprise that Aeron was summoned to meet with Duncan without me, and no surprise that the Grey Warden had offered him a place in the order. It's also no surprise that Aeron accepted. He has had other offers, from other noble families and from professional mercenary companies, but he turned those down for the same reason he accepted the Warden's offer – the same ideal that drives his family and mine: duty.
"I should have guessed," Aldous is saying. "The Wardens have few enough friends in Ferelden. They would not risk alienating your father by conscripting you."
I glance at Aeron to see if he knows what the brother means, but he looks puzzled.
"What do you mean?" I ask. "The Wardens are heroes."
Aldous sighs, betraying a hint of familiar impatience. "Apparently you two paid even less attention than I hoped. I doubt either of you has time for a lecture on history?"
"Sorry, brother," Aeron says, smiling. "The Teyrn sent me to retrieve Liam, and you've both distracted me long enough from my task."
"Hmph," Aldous says. "Then it's enough for now that the Couslands have always been the Wardens' allies, something that cannot be said of most noble families. When this is all over, you can come and find me if you really have the interest." By his tone, it's clear he doubts we will.
Neither Aeron nor I answer, and in the silence, I can hear the clash of steel blades on wooden shields from behind the barracks as the drills finishing up. Doors open and close near the gate in the curtain wall, crows call out on the battlements, and high above us, at the top of the keep, banners crack in the breeze. I can smell herbs, slow-cooked meat, and baking bread from the kitchens, the scents mixing with the dry smell of dust from the training ground and the fragrance of flowers blossoming early on the cherry trees that ring the courtyard. It is all familiar to me, the sounds and smells of my home, and for the second time this morning, the moment feels eternal.
But in the distance, I hear my father's soldiers marching in step in the outer ward; commands are being shouted by ranking officers, and cadences are being sung, the rhythmic call-and-answer of men marshalling for war.
Perhaps not doom, but change, certainly, is coming.
Aeron and I shift, about to be on our way, searching for the right words to bid Aldous farewell.
"The road ahead…" Aldous begins suddenly, before trailing off. He seems to be searching for words, and when he looks up again I'm surprised to see he is struggling to keep back tears. He sucks in a long breath, and then looks directly at Aeron, reaching up with frail hands that he rests on Aeron's broad shoulders.
"May the Maker watch over you," he says, and it sounds like a warning as much as a blessing. "May He guide your feet and your blade, Ser Gilmore."
Then he drops his hands and begins to quote the Chant of Light, speaking slowly and rhythmically, so that he almost sings the words: "Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter. Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just. Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker's will is written."
The words are from the Canticle of Benedictions, I believe, a traditional blessing upon warriors, almost as well known as the passage from Threnodies.
Aeron thanks the brother uncertainly.
"And you, pup." Aldous turns to me, and again I can see relief in his eyes, but also, I think, pity. "The path set before you is no less arduous, and if history is any guide, it may be no less bloody. Your people will need you here."
It seems the brother has also heard, or guessed, that the city is to be left in my care while Father and Fergus march south with the army. I have no great wish to join the Wardens, nor any pressing desire to test myself on a battlefield, but it is impossible not to feel shame when I am told to remain behind and play governor while those I love march into danger.
"Highever needs careful stewardship in such dark times," Aldous continues. "The people will look to you for guidance and protection, and more may be asked of you if the battles in the south do not go well. You should not think your path less honorable than Ser Gilmore's."
I nod, not trusting my voice. Brother Aldous's words are offered as a kindness, and no doubt sincerely, but they only add weight to my guilt and depth to my sense of loss.