Loghain was up, shaved, dressed, and cooking breakfast before Alistair finally stirred, a groan of pain escaping him. Loghain did his best not to smile as he added bacon to one pan, then checked the progress of the pan-bread be was baking in a second pan. "Breakfast shortly," he called out, and dug in the pack at his side, taking out tin mugs and spooning tea leaves into both of them, listening as Alistair rose – with more groans – and stumbled off into the bushes to take care of morning necessities, before returning for his shaving kit and heading down to the stream to see to cleaning himself up for the day.
Loghain had already consumed his own breakfast – a sandwich of warm panbread filled with slices of crisp bacon and melting cheese, and a mug full of well-sweetened tea – by the time Alistair had washed, shaved, dressed, and returned to the fire. "You can clean up and pack the dishes," Loghain informed him, and went off to see to their bedrolls and the tent. He took his time, and was pleased to see that Alistair ate while cleaning up and packing things away, so that they finished at much the same time. A short pause to fasten on their armour over the gambesons and leggings they were already wearing, and then they tacked up and loaded the horses and mules and set out.
It was early enough in the day that there was still mist rising from the watercourses that sometimes wandered near the road. He paused on a hilltop on the border of the woods, looking out over the misty landscape drenched in morning light, and could think only of how much he loved this land. "That's the Aralt ridge over there," he told Alistair, gesturing at the rocky heights off to their left, the hill they were on part of its outskirts. "North of it is the Blackmarsh; south of it is Denerim Bay."
Alistair grunted, and looked around, studying the landscape. They continued down the hill after a few minutes, neither speaking further. Loghain glanced along the wide stream at the foot of the hill, one the road arched over on a small stone bridge; it was, he knew, the point where they crossed from the Arling of Amaranthine to the Arling of Denerim.
Their road was almost all downhill from there, winding down into the broad river valley where Denerim lay, tucked in along both sides of the Drakon River where it flowed into Denerim Bay at the foot of Dragon's Peak. They reached the gates of the city shortly after midday. Loghain stopped to exchange a few words with the men on the gates, then they rode through and into the first ward if the city.
Alistair looked around curiously. "It looks a lot different than I remember," he said.
Loghain reined in his horse for a moment, turning his head to glance at Alistair. "That's right, you'd left Ferelden before the Battle of Denerim, hadn't you?" He looked around as they moved on, remembering what the city had looked like before, and then the devastation afterwards. "Most of it was destroyed when the darkspawn invaded. Much of what wasn't destroyed outright either burned in the fires afterwards, or was pulled down to make fire breaks. The city burned for days; almost everything north of the river was gone, and there was significant damage to the south bank neighbourhoods as well," he explained, then smiled slightly as he turned to the right at the first major intersection they reached, just before the gate to the second ward. "Anora took advantage of the destruction to have a few changes made during the rebuilding."
Which was, of course, an understatement. The old Denerim had been a close-packed warren of half-timbered buildings, acres of buildings made of wood and wattle-and-daub, mostly with roofs of thatch or wooden shingles. Highly flammable, as the days after the battle had so amply demonstrated. And also largely indefensible, once the city walls were gotten past. There had been little interior partitioning of the city, and that mostly unmanned stretches of far older city walls, poorly maintained, and too low to be of much help in preventing the spread of fires. Or of darkspawn. Only the noble quarter and alienage on the south bank had maintained half-decent walls, and even that had been more suited to keeping out the riff-raff – or keeping them in, depending on your point of view and which location you were speaking of – than any actual defensive function.
Faced with rebuilding almost her entire capital city, Queen Anora had made a number of decisions of which Loghain could only approve. She'd had the city divided into wards, separated by high walls that doubled as both defensive structures and fire breaks, and also had a grid of wide streets marked out, solving what had been a long-standing problem with transport through the city. Parks and marketplaces had been placed adjacent to the gates between wards, providing open areas that could become killing fields in the event of an invasion; places where defenders on the high walls could have clear fields of fire at and forces trying to take the gates. It was illegal to build adjacent to a wall; laneways ran along the base of both sides of all of them, providing additional room for a firebreak, and making it that much harder to any attacking force to try to gain the tops of the walls.
Within the grid of the larger streets the city had resumed its former maze-like tangle of winding side-streets and alley ways, but there were significant changes even there. Anora had pushed through a system of building codes, largely about the exterior facing of buildings, covering everything from the minimum thickness required for each floor to what materials were allowable to use. It was now a requirement that all exterior walls be faced in materials that weren't easily flammable; stone, brick, stucco, and tile walls were now common, with roofs of slate, tile, or clay-covered thatch. Where the flammability of a surface was in dispute, she'd instituted a test of having a lit torch held to the surface for five minutes. After a newly rebuilt tenement subjected to the test had gone up in flames early in the rebuilding, and its owner subsequently fined – the stucco coating over its board walls had been too thin, and adulterated with too much organic material – people had adhered to the new laws much more carefully than they might have otherwise.
She'd also hired dwarves to build a modern sewer system under the city, something Denerim had been needing for ages. People had complained about the cost, of course, but no one was complaining about the results; the streets were already much less noisome, the river ran cleaner, and there'd been noticeably fewer deaths to summer fever the year before, and would likely be even fewer this year as the system was expanded further.
"Aren't we going the wrong way?" Alistair asked, looking around with a puzzled expression, and recalling Loghain from his wandering thoughts.
"Hmmm? No, we're not," Loghain told him. "I have routes open to me that the general public are unable to take," he added, not without a touch of smugness as they approached the well-guarded gates to the army compound. Its grounds lay on both sides of the Drakon River where it first entered the city, with a large keep and barracks on the south side, and extensive practise grounds, stables, and more barracks on the north side, the two halves connected by a pair of bridges whose centre spans could be retracted from the keep side of the river, that being by far the more defensible location. It had been one of the few places in the city to survive the Battle of Denerim relatively intact, though attacks by the darkspawn and Archdemon had damaged it enough to require extensive repairs to the main fortification and the walls that separated it from the remainder of the city.
"Ser," the soldiers said as he approached, formally saluting him with arms crossed over chests. A courtesy that strictly speaking they no longer owed him, but which he accepted in the spirit it was offered, saluting them in return before passing through the long tunnel through the heavily fortified wall and out into the practise yards of the compound.
When he had been General of the armies of Ferelden, this had been his domain, every man and woman therein his to command. They were the responsibility of someone else now, and yet it still lifted his heart to enter the grounds. He took a deep breath, drawing in the well-remembered scents of dust, armour polish, sweat, horse manure, and army cooking. He longed to stop and watch the men drilling, but quelled the desire, knowing he would only be a distraction. That didn't stop him from keeping a sharp eye out as they rode through, of course. He noticed more than a few faces he knew, and was pleased to see at least two of them with higher rank marked on their uniforms than when he'd last seen them. A few noticed him, and either nodded or saluted, he responding in kind but otherwise trying to draw no particular attention to himself.
Alistair, he was amused to see, was trying to look everywhere at once; clearly fascinated by all the purposeful activity going on around them. He supposed the boy must have had very little exposure to any real military organization. Templars had their own ways of doing things, and Grey Wardens barely had ranks, much less any organization, though he was trying to ensure that the Grey Wardens of Ferelden actually had some form of one. He made a mental note to make sure that the ranks and organization of the army were among the subjects he covered with the boy; even if it was unlikely to ever be applicable to the wardens, it never hurt to know how those you might have to work with were organized.
They crossed one of the bridges to the keep, and only there did he stop, pausing long enough to send word to the present General that he was in the city and could be reached at the palace if desired; a courtesy only, of course, and mostly so that Cauthrien would learn of his presence officially rather than through the grape-vine. They continued on, passing out the south gate of the keep and along a sharply dog-legged, steep road to the main thoroughfare that encircled the noble quarter. Turning right would have taken them on to Fort Drakon, also part of the army's holdings in Denerim, while turning left as they did led them around the base of the wall enclosing the noble's quarter – a much higher and more well-guarded wall than had been there at the time of the Blight – to the entrance gate closest to the palace.
Though it, too, had suffered damage during the Blight year, the palace overall looked little changed now than it had when he'd first seen it. Not for the first time he found himself wondering just how many times he'd passed through its gates. Hundreds of times, certainly, perhaps even thousands, sometimes several times a day when Maric had been in an especially irksome mood. It felt almost like coming home, returning here now. Almost, but not quite – not since Maric had disappeared. Died, he reminded himself. Though no body had ever been recovered. But it was years ago when he'd decided to stop allowing himself the false hope that Maric was alive; that he would return. It was, what, seven years ago now? Eight? An ungodly long time, anyway. If Maric was alive, he'd have returned by now. Therefore he must be dead.
Servants swarmed down the steps as soon as he drew them to a stop in the courtyard; word had clearly been sent ahead of him at some point; likely a runner had been sent off the moment he was spotted approaching the city gates. "With me," he told Alistair as he dismounted, and led the way up the stairs, leaving their gear and horses for the servants to deal with.
Anora met them as they entered the palace, a warm smile on her face as she swept into the entrance hall. It faltered for a moment as she caught sight of Alistair, though he only noticed because he knew her so well.
"Father," she said, moving forward to take both his hands in his.
"My Queen," he said, and went down on one knee. She hated when he did that, he knew, but he did it anyway; it was her due. And the more excitable of her nobles would have fussed if word ever reached them that he hadn't. Some of them still hadn't forgiven him for his actions after Cailan's death. He hardly blamed them, not when he couldn't entirely forgive himself either. She sniffed to signify her dislike, as she always did, and once he'd risen kissed his cheek, also as she always did, then released his hands and took a step back, glancing at Alistair and frowning slightly.
"Anora, I'm sure you remember Alistair. He's my squire."
"Ah," she said, face setting and chin raising just slightly. "Yes, I remember him quite well," she said, then turned slightly, so she was facing toward Loghain in a way that subtly but clearly ignored the boy. "I've ordered your usual rooms opened for you. I can order part of the Grey Warden compound opened as well..."
"There's no need for that, as there's just Alistair and myself. My rooms should be sufficient for the pair of us."
"Are you sure that's appropriate?" she asked, eyebrows raising pointedly. Clearly she did not wish Alistair here in the palace.
"He's my squire," Loghain repeated firmly. "He'll stay with me, either here, or in the Grey Warden compound."
Anora stiffened slightly, her lips pressed together and nostrils flaring just slightly. "Very well," she said, a touch coldly. "Your rooms it is, then."
"Thank you," he said, smiling gratefully at her, and bowed slightly.
She sniffed again, making it clear she still wasn't entirely happy about the matter, then changed the subject. "Have you lunched yet?"
"No, we were close enough to the city by midday that I saw no point in stopping."
She smiled. "Will you join me at table once you've had a chance to refresh yourself, then? When word reached me that you were coming I decided to delay my own meal, in the hopes that you would be available."
"Of course. Oh, and while I'm here, could I borrow the services of Corey?"
Her eyebrows rose again. "I thought you said you have a squire," she said, glancing pointedly at Alistair, who had turned an interesting shade of red during all their back and forth but was wisely holding his tongue. Clearly he'd caught on that Anora was rather less than kindly disposed to him.
"Yes, but he's barely begun his training. He'd benefit from seeing a properly trained squire at work."
She sniffed again, but gestured to one of the pages waiting nearby. The boy dashed off, doubtless to let Corey know that he was being loaned out to Loghain again. Loghain smiled warmly at his daughter. "Thank you. And now I'd best go prepare for lunch. Your rooms?"
"Yes. Half an hour?"
"Of course. Thank you," he said, and bowed more formally to her as she departed, Alistair hastily doing the same. "This way, he told the boy, and set off down a nearby hallway, soon turning to take stairs upwards. Alistair muttered something under his breath; Loghain chose not to hear it.
Maric had put a suite of rooms aside for Loghain's use the day he'd reclaimed the palace, even before he'd ever named him Teyrn of Gwaren. It had not been until after Rowan's death that Loghain had begun to make any regular use of them, but over time they'd become more of a home to him than his own manor in Gwaren ever had, or even the townhouse in the noble's quarter that was his as Teyrn of Gwaren, or the rooms in the army compound that had been his as General of Ferelden. The former now belonged to Anora, the latter to Ser Cauthrien, but these rooms... they were still his, still held ready for him whenever he should chance to be in Denerim and filled with the detritus of close to thirty years of on-and-off residence.
Corey was waiting outside the door of his rooms, not looking even the least out of breath, though he must have had to run to beat them here. Either that or he'd assumed he'd be wanted, as he usually was, and come ahead on his own beforehand. "Good afternoon, Arl Loghain," he said, and bowed politely before looking at Alistair curiously.
"My squire, Alistair," Loghain told him. "Alistair, this is Corey."
"Huh. Bit old to be a squire, isn't he?" Corey asked as he followed the pair of them into Loghain's suite, the lad not being without a certain amount of cheek.
"Yes, he is. And not even as well-trained yet as a proper page. I was hoping that while we're here you could take him in hand and show him what his duties are."
Corey grinned, clearly liking the idea of being in command of someone so much older and bigger than he was. "Yes, ser," he said cheerfully.
"Good. While I go freshen up, you two lay out some clothing for me to wear to lunch; nothing too formal. And then you can help Alistair with the unpacking, show him where his bed is, and see to it that he gets some lunch as well. Alistair, you can study after that, I expect I'll be closeted with the Queen for much of the afternoon."
"Oh, err, I didn't bring any of my books," Alistair admitted, looking surprised and, to his credit, somewhat shame-faced.
Loghain snorted. "Show him where the library is after lunch," he told Corey, then looked back to Alistair. "I do hope you at least remember the titles of what texts you were currently reading?"
"Yes, ser," Alistair said.
"Good," he said, and headed off to the bathing chamber.
Corey barely glanced at the neat pile of luggage the servants had left in one corner of the room, then headed over to one of a pair of large clothes-presses against one wall. "His more casual things and gambesons and the like go into the one on the left," the boy said, then opened the doors of the one on the right. "Court clothes and formal uniforms and so on in here. There's suitable undergarments and sockings and shoes in the drawers underneath. You do know what he means by not too formal?"
"Er, no, not really," Alistair admitted. "He usually selects his own clothes, back at the keep, and I just help him with his armour."
"All right then," Corey said, and then went into a long explanation having to do with seasons, materials, colours, and crests that made Alistair's head spin, then gestured for Alistair to make a selection from the neatly hung clothing.
"Like this?" he asked after making a choice, having tried to keep in mind everything Corey had just explained.
"Almost. Good material for the season, but look at the crest, it's the wyvern of Gwaren – he can't wear that any more, those are Queen Anora's lands now."
"Oh. Then why does he still have it here?"
Corey shrugged, and moved to perch on a bench at the foot of the bed.. "No idea. He got rid of most of his crested things after they stripped him of the terynir. Or had the crests removed or changed. But he kept a few pieces; for the memories, I suppose. Anyway, hang that up at the other end of the pole and try again."
The younger squire approved of Alistair's next selection, an unmarked deep blue tunic with small silver buttons at neck and cuffs. Leggings and stockings to go with it were much easier to select, as well as a pair of soft indoor shoes. He was unpacking and putting away Loghain's things under Corey's direction when Loghain came back in, freshly bathed and wearing nothing but a towel around his hips.
"Show him where his bed is," Loghain ordered, and the two quickly left the room, Alistair pausing only long enough to grab his own pack from the pile.
The bed turned out to be built into a curtained alcove just outside the bedroom, in the short hallway between it and the sitting room. It was built into the wall, with storage underneath it – drawers, and a small cupboard – and some shelves over it, with a clever folding desk built into the back wall. Thankfully it had been designed to accommodate even quite well-grown squires, so it was reasonably comfortable even for someone of Alistair's size. By the time he'd put away his own belongings, Loghain had finished dressing and left for lunch, so they returned to the bedroom to finish unpacking and putting away his things.
"You're really his squire?" Corey asked as he arranged items on the small night stand by the large curtained bed, glancing sideways at Alistair.
"Yes, I'm really his squire," Alistair said, unable to keep the resentment entirely out of his voice as he transferred stockings and smalls from the packs to the left-hand clothes-press.
"Huh. Why?"
"Honestly? I'm not entirely sure, other than that it gives him yet another reason to order to me around. And he says I need to have a proper education."
"Huh. You're lucky."
Alistair gave Corey a disbelieving look. "Lucky? To be his servant?"
"Yes, lucky," Corey said, sounding mildly annoyed. "A squire is a lot more than just a servant, you know. Ser Loghain doesn't take on squires very often, and he usually only takes on the really good ones. I'm lucky that he thinks well enough of me to let me squire for him when he's here, but then he's known me since I was just Cailan's youngest page. Anyway, Loghain has only had two squires in the last twenty years, and one of them is now General of the Armies of Ferelden."
"Wait... isn't that Ser Cauthrien?"
"Yes."
"He had a woman as his squire!?"
"Yes, though she wasn't one for very long, only until he knighted her. For bravery in battle; that was when the Orlesians tried our borders again back in 17 Dragon, and he held them off at the Battle of Gherlen's Pass. She was his aid for years after that, until she was made Commander of Maric's Shield."
"Huh. You seem to know a lot about her."
"Of course I do. I've been properly educated. And she's General of the Armies of Ferelden, so she's pretty blighted important, isn't she? Anyway, let's go get something to eat."
Alistair nodded, and followed the boy out of Loghain's rooms, and downstairs to the kitchens. There was an alcove full of benches to one side of it, where a number of pages, squires, and younger servants were lounging around, some of them eating, some of them just talking. A row of small bells hung on the wall overhead. Alistair remembered a similar – though much smaller – arrangement in a room near the kitchen at Redcliffe, where servants could wait out of sight until a bell summoned them.
"Who's this then?" one of the cooks working nearby asked, eyeing Alistair suspiciously and frowning at his dusty armour. "A Grey Warden?"
"Yes, and Ser Loghain's latest squire," Corey said, taking a seat. "Just rode in, and hasn't lunched yet. Nor have I."
The cook snorted, then called out to one of the scullions, and in fairly short order they were brought bowls of lamb stew and a crusty roll apiece. Alistair ate quietly, listening to the conversations going on around him. There was clearly a pecking order among the people gathered there, most of them boys, though there was a female page and two female servants. The pages were lowest, the servants next, and the squires higher than them, with an order of some kind within each group as well, though he wasn't sure if it was based on their own accomplishments or on who they served. Probably on who they served, if it was anything like the way things had been back in Redcliffe in his youth.
The thought made him feel unexpectedly homesick for Redcliffe. Things had been so much simpler when he was just a stable-boy. He'd had a place, friends... he'd thought he'd known what his life would be like, a servant among other servants. He wondered what his past self would have thought if he'd known all that would happen in his life later. Probably wouldn't have believed it.
He noticed that despite the pecking order, everyone stopped and listened when one of the pages spoke; a slight boy, with curly black hair, a dusting of freckles on the bridge of his nose, and large dark eyes set in a surprisingly serious face for one so young. The tabard he wore was worked with the royal mabari; one of Anora's own pages then. There was also a smaller crest on a small badge on his upper sleeve; the bull's head of West Hills, Alistair realized after a moment.
He asked Corey about the boy on their way upstairs to the library after eating. "Why'd everyone stop to listen whenever he spoke? Is it because he's Anora's page?"
"Galway? Nah, it's because he's got a good head on his shoulders. He doesn't have to worry about whether or not he'll make squire. They'd have made him one already, except he's too young for it yet. Next year. And I bet he makes knight at sixteen, too. People listen to him because he's special."
"Why? What's so special about him?"
"Well... To start, you know that during the Blight, Arl Wulff lost all three of his sons to the darkspawn?"
"Yes, I heard about that," Alistair agreed, remembering an angry, bitter man he and Solona had encountered in the Gnawed Noble shortly before the Landsmeet, and his later support of Solona against Loghain.
"Well, that was just the true-born sons. A little before his wife died he'd taken a mistress, one of the maids, and she'd given him a natural son; that's Galway. Arl Wulff had been planning to foster the boy out when he was old enough; there wasn't anything for him in West Hills, not with three older legitimate brothers. But he wanted to do right by him, see him raised properly and knighted some day. Anyway, when the darkspawn showed up Arl Wulff went out in one direction with his youngest son, who was his squire, and sent the oldest and middle sons out the other way, to warn his villagers and get them all moving toward his keep, where he could protect them. Galway went with his brothers, since he'd been acting as page to the eldest to prepare him for being a real page once he was fostered out. Everything went fine at first, and then while they were escorting back the group of villagers, darkspawn came swarming out of the hills. The two older boys and the guards they had with them engaged them and fought a rearguard action, and Galway was ordered to go with the villagers and see they made it to safety."
"And all his brothers died, so he ended up heir?"
"Yes, but that wasn't all. That's not why he's special. See, he'd seen how many darkspawn there were, and figured there was a good chance that the rearguard would fall, and he knew it was far enough to the keep that the darkspawn might overtake them while they were still outside the walls. So as they moved along, he organized the villagers he had, putting anyone who had anything that could be used as a weapon at the rear, and anyone who didn't was to help carry the kids, so they could all move faster. And he gave his own horse, the only one they had by then, to a girl who knew how to ride and told her to get to the keep and get help for them," Corey explained further.
"When the darkspawn did catch up with them they were ready for them, and he kept the villagers from panicking and managed a fighting retreat until guards from the keep showed up and killed the remaining darkspawn. He only lost ten of the villagers, six to darkspawn and three to blight sickness afterwards, and one heart attack. And killed two of the darkspawn himself, to top it all off. So there he was not even really a page yet and he'd already done stuff that would have seen him knighted if he was old enough for it. So he's already proven himself, and is going to be made a squire the minute he's old enough and likely knighted early too. And he's his father's only living son, since all three of his older brothers died, so he's been named the heir now, and some day he's going to be the next Arl Wulffe. Gallagher Wulff isn't exactly a young man, either, so there's a chance he might make Arl even before he makes knight. He doesn't talk much, I guess because of everything that happened, but anything he says is usually worth paying attention to."
"Huh," Alistair said. "That does sound pretty special," he agreed.
They'd reached the doors to the library then, so they broke off the discussion, Corey helping him to find several of the books he needed and then showing him the way back to Loghain's rooms before finally leaving him on his own again. Alistair put the books away on the shelves over his bed, then settled down with one of them to read. Though he found himself unable to concentrate, thinking instead of the dark-haired boy. A bastard son, but his father had been planning to have him made a knight some day anyway, not just raising him to be nothing more than a servant. He was surprised to realize he felt a little jealous of Galway. Not because he was hi father's heir, either, but because Galway at least knew his father, and his father cared about him and his future.
Then he found himself remembering something Loghain had said that first day, when explaining his decision to make Alistair his squire, and his upcoming education. "There are things you need to learn; things you should have been learning a full decade or more ago, rather than learning how to shovel out horseshit or sing Andraste's praises. Things you would have learned, if you'd been properly fostered out as Maric's bastard son rather than raised as a peasant by that clodpole Eamon."
It made him wonder; when Maric had left his raising to Eamon – had he expected that his son would be nothing more than a servant in Eamon's castle? Or had he expected him to be properly fostered, to become a page and a squire and eventually a knight, as Arl Wulff had planned for Galway before the Blight year had changed everyone's plans?
The worst thing was realizing he had no real way of knowing, no one he could ask who might know. Except, perhaps, Loghain himself. And asking Loghain anything about his father... no. Not now. Probably not ever.