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Chapter 12: L'Audace

It is becoming harder and harder for Ophélie to hold on to her jaded understanding of religion as she sits in the pew and the service wraps itself around her heart with silken tendrils. She feels… something in the cathedral, a serenity and warmth she can't quite place. Rays of early morning sun fall through the high windows, liquid gold reflecting off a fine mist of dust as it dances slowly in the emptiness. Everything is soft in this place, the sunlight and the candles, the polished, cherry wood and gentle soapstone and marble that frame and fill the sweeping arc of the nave.

She has known — and not known, because she has never seen — just how large the Grand Cathedral truly is. It's majesty and magnificence, meant not only to endure the millennia but stand as a beacon in the wilderness, a dream and a promise made manifest for all the generations of the world. Nothing, it seems, would ever shake these foundations.

At first, Ophélie barely paid attention to her surrounding, more interested in observing the Orlesian elite attending the service with her. For, although the Cathedral was huge, it could never house all the people of this congregation. Ophélie had received an invitation from the Divine's office, bearing her seal and her signature, as an apology for the treatment she had suffered at the hands of the Templars.

Normally, Empress Celene herself would attend service, seated in a lavishly decorated and curtained loge raised above the pews, but as she had in the months leading up to this day, Celene merely sent a lady-in-waiting in her stead and an escort of her personal guard. The world, it seemed, was still a dire place and it denied the empress these few hours of revery.

The Divine's sermon, after the end of the service, had an odd note of urgency in it, despite the level voice in which she delivered it. The great choir drifted only quietly in the background, using the Chant of Light in all its glory to frame this one woman's words. It took a long moment for Ophélie to understand that Justinia was telling of a dark time ahead of them, that they were all heading for chaos and war and death. Even the people here, dressed in finery, who had breakfasted healthily before the service and who would dine with wine and music as the day progressed and who knew nothing of hardship. In this storm, Justinia said, they would have to learn to swim lest they drown. And learn to pray above all else, because only with luck and fickle chance on their side as well, would there be any hope for any of them.

The other nobles were all listening with the same rapt attention as Ophélie, caught by the Divine and the cruel vision she was spinning for them in the sunlight and beauty of the Cathedral. At some point, Ophélie had looked away from the splendour to stare at the pew in front of her, where the edge of a lace stole hung over the edge. Lost, Ophélie traced the intricacies of the material, listening to the Divine, but chasing her very own tangled memories.

It was strange, to sit here and listen to this story and to realise she was, however faintly, involved in it. Hawke stands in the background of what the Divine is saying. Ophélie had pierced it together, eventually, in the night after the Templars had left her alone. Put it together from the shards the Templars had told her as they asked their questions, from the things the assassin had said to her all the way in her country home when he brought the strangers. And not least, in the end, from the secrets Hawke had been so keen not to share. Everything will change, he had told her and she had been all too willing to think of it as a seduction, done for no other reason than that he needed to keep her favour.

It was not without irony that Ophélie, lost in her thoughts and the abstract of change, missed the moment when the tide began to come in, missed the words the Divine used and in the days to come, they would be reported and mis-reported by everyone in the city and far beyond, so she would never learn what Justinia had really said. Perhaps it didn't matter, in light of all the other stories, growing in the telling as they flew from the Grand Cathedral. Perhaps it didn't matter when everyone, finally, understood in what age they were living: the true meaning of dragons.

The rustling of silk drew her back, forced her attention as the lace over the pew shivered as its owner turned in her seat. As everyone turned in their seat, following the Divine's words, no doubt. All the assembled nobility of Orlais, transfixed. In turning, Ophélie caught sight of Empress Celene's lady-in-waiting lean over the loge to say something to her guard, only to stand, frozen, with her hand still on his shoulder.

The honour guard by the great door drew back, as if moved on invisible strings held in the Divine's hand. They opened the door and it moved on perfectly oiled hinges and allow new rays of golden light to fall into the Cathedral and paint the floor, showing the way.

Among all of them assembled on the pews, Ophélie alone knew enough — of what little she knew — to recognise him standing there. The man she thought she had cleverly seduced, the swashbuckler she had wanted to keep by her side to take Val Royeaux's society by storm, only to find she had underestimated him. In all her flights of fancy, she would never have dreamt up a scene like this.

In truth, Hawke only stood there for no more than a minute, but time might as well have stopped for him, holding its breath along with everyone else for what would follow next.

He strode along the aisle calmly, his heels making low clicking sounds through the carpet and the hard stone beyond. The golden sunlight caught on the merciless silverite edges of his armour and played in cool, dull white on dark leather and faded red cloth. He could have walked out from a storybook, except he carried so much history with him, so much solidity. Hawke of Kirkwall, the Champion who defeated the Qunari and saved the city. Hawke of Kirkwall, who would not bow to the pressures of society and would consort with elves and pirates and apostates. Hawke of Kirkwall, who would have been Viscount, if the world were a different place.

But could they know? Ophélie wondered. She knew Hawke for what he was, now in perfect hindsight, because the truth seemed to have always been there right in front of her, but those people? All the movers and shakers of Val Royeaux, who had heard only those stories? To them, couldn't Hawke of Kirkwall be any man walking into their midst with more confidence and swagger than a stage actor?

Perhaps, then, they did not know him at all in that moment. Ophélie turned her head to watch as he passed her and moving from a streak of sunlight into shadow, casting him differently, a flicker of something otherworldly before he crossed back into the light.

Another man was walking behind Hawke, neither as tall nor quite as broad as Hawke and older, too. At first, he seemed out of place, too stiff and uncomfortable, undermining Hawke's display by his very presence. A long staff was slung over his back, polished wood and battle-worn, tipped, in powerful symbolism bordering on blasphemy, by a statue of Andraste. It took a long moment to see the dignity in his tense stride, something eternally defiant.

And behind him, like a joke or the very essence of subversion, padded a large mabari dog, as proud as either of the men.

They were pieces of a puzzle, thrown into their midst to confound until they were assembled in the mind and it occurred that Hawke was not here out of some secret plot to subvert the Chantry, but he was here, because there was no other answer left, because the Divine had asked him to be.

Hawke passed past the front pew and left the apostate and dog behind to stand alone in the open space before the dais, where Justinia was waiting and the great statue of Andraste held sway above them all.

Hawke stood for a long moment, watching the Divine as she watched him in turn and the congregation held its breath.

Ophélie could have laughed when Hawke bowed. A flawless court gesture, executed as if he had been raised since childhood to awe the nobles of Orlais. Except, Ophélie remembered teaching him, mere months ago, in badly lit tavern room on the journey to the city. In a way, she could believe she had been teaching him for this moment, as if he had known it would come, as if he had played for it all along. Perhaps he had, or perhaps the storm had merely cast him to this shore and left him to struggle, for better or worse, as well he could.

As Hawke straightened, he tilted his head a little, gauging the acoustics, and said, "I'm Faolán Hawke. I've come to offer my services to the Divine and the Chantry."

There was just the beginning of murmuring, swelling through the Cathedral, but dying down almost immediately, still raptly held by the incredible events unfolding before them all.

The Divine inclined her head, a minuscule gesture, regal and befitting her station and just possibly leaving Hawke to hang a heartbeat longer than could be comfortable. Behind him, the apostate widened his stance ever so slightly and the tiny movement made him seem dangerous suddenly, so close to the heart of the Chantry.

"I welcome you, Master Hawke," Justinia said and paused, still regarding him. "Thank you for following my call. You come at an unusual hour, but since we are here and Thedas stands on the brink, let us not waste time. Let it be known, to this congregation and all the good Andrastians, that I name you, Hawke, formerly of Kirkwall, as my Special Envoy."

Something broke in their rapt audience. Shattering the silence into a cacophony. There was talking and chattering among the nobles, in hushed voices and as the noise level rose, in ever more agitated tones. Here and there, someone cheered and others clapped. Yet others seemed less pleased and cast a dark eye toward the Divine's new Special Envoy. The empress' lady-in-waiting hurriedly left the loge, no doubt to report the events just past to her mistress.

Hawke bowed again and turned around as he rose, facing the pews and his entourage. He caught Anders' gaze and smiled in the rising noise.

For a woman in heavy armour, Cassandra was suspiciously quiet as she stepped to Leliana's side.

A small smile stole onto Leliana's face, hidden by the shadow of the curtain where she stood by the side of the dais.

"Well played," Cassandra said. "But I'm not sure…" she stopped and when Leliana offered no explanation of her own, Cassandra continued, "Why do this? Just because your Warden friend asked you to?"

"No," Leliana said. "I admire you greatly, Cassandra, but I sometimes think you paint the world with too broad strokes."

Cassandra snorted. "So enlighten me," she said with tight impatience.

"No," Leliana said again. "I don't need to. You see the world the way you see the world. I see it differently. Each way has its strengths and each blinds us to other things. I think the Divine, I think she really sees. I did not manipulate her into this, neither did Hawke, even if perhaps he believes that. No, look at the world, Cassandra. If you throw someone like Hawke into this chaos, he learns to swim while most of us would just drown. He will be useful in the dark times ahead."

"He's dangerous. And the apostate he's guarding… I don't even want to think about that."

"Same difference, Cassandra," Leliana sighed and shook her head. "I'm not sure I can explain it to you. But think of it as not tossing away your best weapon at the beginning of the fight."

Cassandra said nothing for the longest time. The Cathedral began to empty sluggishly as they stood there, the nobles crowding in clusters around the place, none of them yet working out how to gracefully approach Hawke. He had taken a seat in the front row, long legs extended in studied casualness, just like the first time Leliana had seen him in Le Jardin des Etangs; another echo. Leliana wondered if he was doing it for her, if he knew she was watching.

Finally, Cassandra said, "Let's try not to cut ourselves, shall we? What happens now?"

"Now?" Leliana echoed and felt a new story take shape in her head, still barely defined, the ending she had just seen bleeding into a new beginning.

"Now it begins," she said.

End

Il nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!

(We must dare, dare again, always dare!)

— Georges Danton, Speech

I hope you enjoyed the story at least a little bit! Thank you all for reading!