Mistress Woolsey looked cautiously pleased as she looked over the accounting exercise she'd had Alistair perform, her own test of his skill level entirely independent of all the testing Loghain had already put him through. "You at least seem to understand the basics reasonably well," she said. "Which is more than I can say for most apprentices that cross my path. Not that you're my apprentice, of course, but... anyway. Chantry trained?"

"Yes ma'am."

Mistress Woolsey nodded approvingly. "You write a decent plain hand. Loghain mentioned he wanted your penmanship improved. And training in proper letter-writing. Did you learn any of that in the Chantry?"

Alistair shook his head. "We'd only just started on penmanship before I was changed to Templar training. I never developed much of a hand. Letters... we mostly did copy-work, not composing."

"Hrmmm. Write a few sentences for me," she said, sliding a scrap piece of parchment across the desk to him. Alistair picked up the pen and dipped it, tapping it lightly against the rim of the ink well to remove any excess, then laboriously wrote out a couple lines of the Chant, chewing on his lip as he concentrated, trying to remember the changed shapes of the letter, and when to press harder or lighter, and where all the tails were supposed to go. He slid it back when he was done. Mistress Woolsey looked it over, face expressionless, her only comment a "We'll need to work on that."

Once she was done with him he went back to his rooms, loaded down with books to read, a blank ledger to practise mathematics and accounting in, and several lengthy samples of writing in Mistress Woolsey's best hand that he was to copy out on scrap parchment, also provided.

It seemed to be almost no time at all between when Alistair had very little to do each day and when he suddenly found himself with far too much, lessons multiplying like mushrooms in a damp wood. Mathematics, accounting and penmanship with Mistress Woolsey. Geography, genealogy, and heraldry with Seneschal Varel. Tactics, strategy, and supply from Captain Garevel. History, manners and etiquette from Sister Keri, the priest who looked after the Keep's little chapel, separate from the larger Chantry down in the village which had a proper Revered Mother. And all of them from Loghain, to one degree or another, as well as law. The laws of Ferelden, the rules the army followed, and those of the Grey Wardens. Dwarven law, too, and what little was known of Dalish thoughts on such matters.

What little free time he'd had disappeared, swallowed up in studies. And when he wasn't studying, he was practising; sword and shield mostly, and sometimes sword alone, which never failed to leave him feeling off-balance and uneasy. He seemed to rush through his days full-tilt, busy from the moment he woke up in the morning until he fell back into bed each night, exhausted.

Sigrun's patrol went out. Oghren's returned, bringing along a dwarf from Kal'Hirol who'd managed to get himself tainted while exploring. Sadly he didn't survive his joining. Oghren's patrol went out again a week later; Nathaniel's was still not back, but also not expected back quite yet. The keep seemed peculiarly empty when the only Grey Wardens on hand were Loghain and Alistair, even though it swarmed at all times with guards and servants at work, with villagers and townspeople and Banns come to see their Arl.

Wade finally finished work on Alistair's armour. It felt very strange to dress in warden blue-and-silver again. Doubly so when it was newly made armour, all stiff from never having been worn, and not the well-worn, refitted hand-me-downs which had been all the Fereldan wardens had available when he'd joined.

Nathaniel's group was late. Sigrun's patrol returned again, and in their wake, a messenger who'd come by ship all the way from Gwaren, with word from Nathaniel. Somewhere near Gwaren he'd found a place where a sinkhole had opened a route into the Deep Roads, and signs of darkspawn nearby. He planned to take his patrol and descend into it after restocking supplies in Gwaren, and would send back further word when they could. The messenger could tell them nothing more; the patrol had set off from Gwaren back to where they'd seen the sinkhole mere hours before his ship had sailed. They might already be out, and on their way back; they might still be wandering around in the Deep Roads; they might be dead.

Loghain's mood turned foul, perhaps understandably so, with a quarter of his wardens vanished down a hole somewhere in the Southron Hills. Alistair's mood, never cheerful since being dragged back from the Free Marches, suffered as a result as well.

Alistair looked around the crowded refectory and frowned. Oghren's group had arrived back again the night before, after a patrol that had taken them all the way past the northern end of Lake Calenhad and up into the mountains to the gates of Orzammar, and then back again. Sigrun's group was still here as well, Loghain having decided to hold all the wardens here until he'd had further word from the south; there was a possibility that the entire command would be marched south to investigate this sink hole Nathaniel's patrol had found, if it proved to be more than his group alone could handle.

Alistair found a seat at the long end of a table crowded with wardens, all talking animatedly about what little they knew from the south – almost nothing, really – and speculating on what might have been found there. He found himself seated beside Cale, with Gwill and the elf, Tisha, across from him, the chin of Gwill's big red brindle mabari Rosey resting on the table between the pair. Rosey wasn't exactly begging, but she silently rolled her eyes from person to person, and bits of food were appearing from those around her with amusing regularity.

Not that Alistair was in the least immune to her charm himself. Even if he hadn't spent time as a dog-boy while in Arl Eamon's employ, he was Fereldan; he liked dogs as much as most of his countrymen did, which is to say very much indeed. More than a few bites of his steak ended up going the dog's way over the course of the meal, and he was delighted when she came around the end of the table and allowed him to scratch her ears.

"She likes you," Gwill said, sounding amused.

"She's a beautiful girl," Alistair said appreciatively, then looked curiously at Gwill. The man had an accent – faint, but definitely Orlesian. "How'd you get her?"

Gwill grinned. "Luck. Sheer blind luck. My squad-mates always used to joke about I could fall into a cesspit and come up clutching a handful of gold and smelling of roses. I suppose they were right, in a sense, since I was taking cover behind a manure pile in a burnt-out farmyard when I found her. She was just a puppy then, and starving. Started whining when she saw me, so I had to feed her something to shut her up or the Teryn's solders might have found me. Well, I would have fed her anyway, after all I could hardly leave the poor thing to starve there. So I've been her human ever since."

"So was it the saying you named her after, or her coat colour?" Alistair asked, ruffling the mabari's ears again.

Gwill grinned again. "Both, of course."

Alistair tilted his head, thinking about the story Gwill had just told. "The Teryn's soldiers were after you? When was this then?"

"During the civil war, in the Blight Year," Gwill said.

"He fought on both sides of it," Cale chipped in, sounding amused.

"What? Really?"

Gwill laughed. "Yes, really. See, I was in the army for a few years. Which mostly just involved guard duty and a lot of drilling and practise until Ostagar. I was there, you know. My luck was running strong that day, let me tell you, though I thought it was bad luck at the time. See, originally I was supposed to be one of the men waiting up in the tower to light the beacon. Nice light duty, I thought. Only my tent-mate decided to try and desert the night before – no stomach for real battle, not after he'd seen the darkspawn corpses one of the patrols hauled back, or the men sickening who'd been tainted by them. I didn't know he was going to try something that stupid; I slept right through it. But he was my tent-mate, and the captain didn't believe I couldn't have known nothing at all about it. He couldn't exactly punish me since I hadn't done nothing wrong, but he decided he'd like me where he could keep an eye on me. So I was off Tower duty and stuck in the reserve group off in the woods instead."

"So when Loghain retreated, you survived," Alistair said, voice a touch grim.

"Blighted right I did. And was thanking my lucky stars the whole way back to Denerim that I wasn't one of the poor bastards up in the tower; none of them ever made it back from Ostagar. Or that tent-mate of mine; last I saw of him he was sitting in a cage waiting for judgement still. I doubt the darkspawn treated him very kindly."

"But then you were on the opposite side in the civil war?" Alistair asked.

"Yeah. Some funny things happened after we got back from Ostagar; funny as in unpleasant, not as in laughable. Like there was a few people who'd begun questioning why Loghain had retreated. Most of us just laughed that off, I mean, what else was he to do? But when people who'd questioned started disappearing? Maybe there was something to what they and the rebel banns were saying after all. It made you think, anyway. And then I started getting worried because of my parents. They were both Orlesian originally, you see – came to Ferelden with their Lord, stayed here after he went back to Orlais during the rebellion. Started a little tea-shop together in Amaranthine, which my mother still runs. But Loghain's always disliked Orlesians, and while my ancestry had never been a problem before, I started thinking it might be now. One of the soldiers who disappeared, he was of Orlesian parents too, you see, and had never said a thing about Ostagar, or disappearances, or anything. So I decided maybe I'd better make myself scarce before someone else decided to make me scarce."

Alistair frowned. "So you went over to the other side?"

Gwill grinned, then shrugged. "I hadn't intended to, but there's only so many directions you can go when you leave Denerim. South and west were out, between the darkspawn and the rebels, so I decided to head north and go see my mother in Amaranthine. Only I never got there; a squad of soldiers crossed on my trail and my luck was bad for once – one knew my face, and knew I must be a deserter, and there was a nice little reward for such if they brought me back in. So I ended up heading west into the Bannorn hoping to lose them. Which is when I found my girl," Gwill added, smiling fondly at Rosey and reaching out to scratch her neck. "I was cornered, and thinking I was about to end up dead or disappeared after all, and then a group of rebels came along, and had a nice little fight with the Teryn's men and drove them off. And, seeing that the Teryn's men were after me, they assumed I was on their side. I'd had enough of being chased by soldiers by then, so I was hardly going to disillusion them. Especially when by that point I was feeling pretty damned rebellious myself. Thankfully the civil war ended just afterwards, without me ever having to go up against any of my old comrades. And seeing as my old squad was among those left behind to garrison the walls of Denerim when most of the army headed to Redcliffe... well, maybe my luck was still working after all," Gwill finished grimly.

"And now you're a Grey Warden, and Loghain is your commander again. How'd that happen?"

"I finally made it to Amaranthine to see my mother, a few months after the Battle of Denerim. Reached the city just in time to be there for the darkspawn invasion."

"Oh. Let me guess... you got tainted?"

Gwill laughed. "No, my usual luck held. Came through the whole thing without a scratch on me, though my mother's tea shop was a wreck. I was still there helping her with the rebuilding when I heard Loghain was looking for more wardens. It sounded interesting work, and I trust him as a commander, which I can't say about everyone I've ever served under. And having seen what the darkspawn were like... well, I was willing to sign up."

Alistair frowned. "But it was his men after you... and the disappearances..."

Gwill made a face. "Only a fool could have been behind all those men vanishing; it wasn't the sort of thing that could be kept secret, and it was certainly terrible for morale. I wasn't the only man who deserted as a result of it all. Commander Loghain is many things, but he's rarely a fool."

Alistair's frown deepened. He found himself remembering the words of that noble they'd found being tortured in the basement of Arl Howe's estate; that he's been investigating the disappearance of his milk-brother when he himself was 'disappeared', and ended up in Howe's hands. Alistair had always assumed that Loghain had been aware of and complicit in such disappearances and torture. But... he couldn't think of anything that definitely tied the man to them, other than Howe being his lackey. And maybe Gwill was right about it being something only a fool would do; it had certainly cost Loghain considerable support in the Landsmeet, in the end.

Gwill was still talking, not having noticed Alistair's brief inattention. "No, love him or loathe him, Loghain is a good commander to have over you. You can at least be fairly sure that if he spends you, it'll be because it needs doing, not like some of these damned banns and arls who have less military experience than my big toe does."

"Spends you?" Alistair asked, puzzled.

"Sends you into something you're likely not coming back from," Cale spoke up, then paused to wipe his mouth clean with a napkin. "A good general spends his men like a miser spends his coppers; with care and forethought, and begrudges every one. A bad one... well, it's not their blood they're shedding, is it?"

"Though Loghain's led from the front as often as from the rear," Gwill said, the approval obvious in his voice.

Tisha suddenly slammed her cutlery to the table, a scowl on her face, then rose and stalked off. Gwill winced; Cale muttered a quiet "Ouch".

"She's got more reason than most to hate Loghain," Gwill explained quietly to Alistair's surprised look.

"City elf," Cale contributed, equally quietly. "Denerim alienage."

"Oh. Ouch," Alistair said, remembering a certain adventure he and Solona had been on there just prior to the Landsmeet. "Then what's she doing here?"

"Surviving, like most of us," Cale said bluntly, then shrugged. "Not my story to tell though."

"Just take it as a given that if she could put one of her knives between the Commander's ribs, she would," Gwill said, then rose to his feet. "I better go talk to her for a bit." He hurried off, his mabari trotting along behind him.

Cale rose as well. "I should be off too... we're running short of nails and Wade always has conniptions when he's expected to manufacture such plebeian items," Cale said, the grin on his face making it clear his last few words were quoting the other blacksmith.

Alistair snorted and nodded, and finished off the few bites of food on his plate. He wished he could linger, maybe talk to some other of the wardens while they were here... but Loghain would be expecting him in their rooms around now, he knew, and sighed and rose to his feet, and headed upstairs.