The next day passed with agonizing slowness. There was still no word of Anora, no clue as to where she and Erlina had vanished to. Loghain forced himself to remain outwardly calm, overseeing the search for her, though inside a part of him was gibbering in rage and near-madness, drowning in overwhelming fear and horror as minutes crawled by like hours with no word on her.
The worst part was hearing about some of the things his men did find, in the course of their quiet search. Bodies, abandoned here and there – nothing particularly new in Denerim, people died in the streets all the time, but these bodies... the condition they'd died in... Ser Cauthrien tried to keep the news from him, but he heard anyway. The thought that she might be in the hands of someone capable of that... Maker, Maker, let it not be so! He would run mad and tear people apart with his bare hands and teeth if she came to such harm...!
Howe was by his side constantly, helping with the search, pointing out areas of the city that had yet to be checked, quietly keeping him up to date on what was found, learned, or merely suspected. Topping up his wine glass whenever it emptied, though as driven as he was right now Loghain barely touched it to lips all day long, too shattered to eat or drink until Ser Cauthrien dressed him down like a lowly recruit at the day's end and stood over him while he choked down food.
"Are you going to see me off to bed as well, mother?" he sourly asked her as he sipped at the glass of strong spirits she'd pointedly held out to him when he'd finally eaten enough to satisfy her.
She coloured slightly, but lifted her chin. "Only if I thought you needed it. And you don't. You're a better man then this, sire," she said calmly.
Her calm voice was more of a rebuke then anger would have been. He sighed, knocked back the drink, set down the glass and rose to his feet. "I'll be in my room," he said dryly. He said nothing about actually sleeping; he doubted he would, this night.
He did not ask her to send word if anything new was found. He knew she would.
He lay in the darkness, rigid on his bed, mind conjuring nightmares more then sufficient to keep him from any sleep.
The second day was a repeat of the first, only worse. He was so tired he wasn't sure he could trust his judgement any more. Howe was a rock at first, but quickly became an irritant, with his quiet calm voice and flat unemotional eyes, and the soft tone of voice in which he'd describe the latest atrocities the guards had discovered in their search for the missing Queen. Finally he broke, and ordered the man out of his presence. Better not to know at all, then to listen to the man quietly describing some broken body and imagining Anora in that person's place. It was driving him mad, enraging the beast that lurked within his breast and longed to break free, to rend and tear and destroy until she was brought back safe to him.
Even the word that his seneschal had been openly robbed by the damned dwarf late the day before failed to distract him from his obsessed worry over Anora' safety. The loss of that damned circlet meant nothing right now. He could worry about it later, once his daughter was found and safe. If she was not found... Maker, if she was not found, it would not matter.
In mid-afternoon, he went looking for Ser Cauthrien, only to be told she'd received word of some kind and gone out, accompanied by a strong force of guardsmen and a couple of mages. He preyed that she'd found a lead, had gone out to check on it, and spent over an hour pacing back and forth in his office before she finally returned, looking grim and tired, her mouth compressed into a flat, foreboding line.
"Cauthrien! Have you found anything? Is she...?"
"Sorry, Sire, there is still no sign of Queen Anora or her maid. However, there's... been an incident at the Arl of Denerim's estate. I believe you need to come see for yourself, my liege."
His heart felt like it stopped and restarted again. Still no word... then why did Cauthrien look so grim. "What is it?" he demanded as he followed her out. "What has happened?"
She glanced around, making sure no one was near, then spoke in hushed tones. "The Wardens have slain Arl Howe. And... there are things in his house you need to see. Please, do not ask me more. I would rather you witnessed this... untainted by my suspicions on the subject."
He paused, and stared searchingly at her. He could not ever remembering her seem so distraught. Few others would he trust enough to lead him blindly into what promised to be a dire situation, but she had earned his trust many times over during her years of service. "All right, Ser Cauthrien," he said quietly. "Lead on."
He knew it was doing to be bad as soon as they entered the house. It smelled of death, like the aftermath of a battlefield; blood, feces, urine. Like that room in the Pearl, where Arl Howe's men had been slaughtered. Several guardsmen stood around, faces pale and white and in some cases tear-stained. He smelled vomit, and wasn't surprised when they reached the first cluster of bodies. Howe's guardsmen, variously dead, the work of edged and pointed weapons and a mabari's teeth, by the looks of it.
"How many?" he asked, voice harsh.
"Dozens, sir. We found some surviving servants. This... this was all the work of two men, they said. The Grey Wardens."
"Two men did this!" he demanded, appalled, as he followed her through the house, looked at the carnage, the bodies lying in scattered droves everywhere. Tried to picture Right and Alistair doing this much damage, by themselves. Remembered, suddenly, the almost preternatural combat abilities of the few Grey Wardens he'd observed fighting before. Yes, with that sort of uncanny speed and strength and teamwork, pitted against normal guardsmen in tight quarters, it was just barely believable that two men could have done this.
"Yes, my liege. And this is not the... the worst of what is in this house," she said, voice shaking slightly, and led him on, through to the family quarters, into what was clearly the master suite. He was surprised to see a stairway down at one end of the room, had vague memories of a large tapestry covering that wall the one time he'd ever seen the inside of Arl Urien's quarters years before.
"There is another entrances to the dungeons, but I believe this is the one they actually used; the other was still locked," she said, voice flat.
An entrance to the dungeons! Off of the master suite, of all places? He remembered Sanga's words about Howe and Urien, and was coldly certain that he was not going to like whatever Cauthrien was about to show him. "Lead on," he said, flatly.
It was every bit as bad as he'd imagined. The rooms full of torture equipment, some of it still bloody from recent use. The cells. The mangled remains. Those bodies his men had found while searching for Anora – had they been Howe's work? He remembered the man sitting in his office just this morning, quietly describing the most recent gruesome findings, not seeming to realize how it was driving Loghain mad with fear for his daughter... but he'd known, hadn't he. Oh, yes, the man delighted in torture, there could be no doubt. By the time they reached Howe's cold remains, all he could wish was that it was possible to raise the man from the dead so that he might kill him himself. He stared coldly down at the man's corpse for a long moment, then turned and walked back out to the hallway.
"There was no sign of Anora?" he asked, hearing the pleading note in his voice and no longer caring.
"No, my liege," she answered quietly. "I... have the Grey Wardens locked up at Fort Drakon. What do you want done with them?"
He blinked at her in surprise. "You... captured them?" he asked, surprised.
Her lips thinned. "Yes. More correctly, they surrendered when I demanded they do so. Considering what a slaughterhouse they made of this place, I suspect I am lucky that they chose to be... reasonable."
Loghain frowned. "What brought you here, anyway?"
"I received a note, claiming that the Grey Wardens planned to slay your ally, the Arl of Denerim. I came here immediately to warn him; my men and I had to break in as there was no answer at the doors. We'd found the first bodies, and then encountered the wardens as they were about to escape. They were covered in blood, as if they'd bathed in it. I was sure the Arl must be dead already, as soon as I saw that. It wasn't until they were already on the way to the Fort that I discovered... all that they'd done. Or any of this," she added, gesturing at the dungeon around them.
Loghain nodded. "You've done a good day's work here, Cauthrien. I'll want to see that note, if you still have it."
"Yes, sire," she said, digging in a belt pouch, and handed it over.
He felt a knot loosen slightly in his chest as he looked it over. She'd tried to disguise her hand... but he'd know his daughter's writing anywhere. She'd penned this note, may well have engineered this event. She was still alive – or at least had been recently enough to have written this. He could only hope and prey that she still was, that she had not somehow fallen afoul of whatever scheme she was working.
"Thank you, Ser Cauthrien," he said quietly, and folded it up, putting it away in his own pouch as a talisman, ignoring her questioning look.
"And the Grey Wardens?" she asked after a moment.
He grimaced, feeling his lack of sleep over the last few days catching up with him. "They'll keep until morning," he grated out. "Order the bodies here gathered and burned – identify them first, if possible, have scribes take down descriptions of everyone. If any prisoners still live, see they're cared for. Discretely, for now, the last thing we need is the entire world finding out what a monster Howe was. They will, eventually, but hopefully by then things will be... stable. Any papers of his you find, gather up and have delivered to my office, I'll need to go over them and see if there's any clues to the extent of what that madman did. Make sure your men know to keep their lips sealed about this for now as well. With luck we can keep it quiet until we're past this damned Landsmeet."
"Of course, my liege," she said quietly.
They returned upstairs in silence. She escorted him back up the street to the palace herself, before returning to oversee the clearing of the estate.
As tired as he was, it was a long time before he managed to sleep. Every time his eyes started to drift shut, he saw scenes from that blood-daubed dungeon, or worse, Howe's quietly knowing smile as the man lovingly described torn and broken bodies.