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Rating: T
Spoilers: May contain spoilers for Origins, Awakening, and Dragon Age II as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling.
A/N: Mabari plot puppy, free to good home: see my profile for details (a LOT of details, probably more than you want).
No Bull From the Big Bull, Volume One, by Varric Tethras, a Humble Storyteller
Excerpt: Ferelden's Pride
Ah, the Landsmeet. The yearly gathering of self-important fools who met to swear loyalty to their sovereign and squabble for days over which bannric held the rights to a particular wellspring. Standing in his ill-fitting armor, arms crossed characteristically across his chest, a fortress of enchanted silverite which no siege weapon could breach, Loghain glowered at the gallery, simultaneously on the alert for hostile overtures directed toward the King and silently judging each noble bastard therein. He'd give a copper for one or two of them, but few were worth a tinker's damn.
There was Ranulf Wulffe, a good man, one of the few truly good men Loghain could name amongst the nobility. Well, there were other good men, he supposed, but few of them knew the value of actually working for and serving the people who paid taxes to them the way Wulffe did. And there was Bryce Cousland, another reasonably decent man who was good to his vassals. Leonas Bryland; another decent man, but the half-blood made Loghain a little bit edgy. Sometimes when he caught Bryland's eye, like now, the man would give him a bit of a nod. Probably nothing to it, of course, but somehow he couldn't help but suspect Bryland knew they shared more in common than having been raised more or less peasant. Loghain didn't worry for himself if it became known he had elven blood, but he worried for his daughter. Bryland's own little girl undoubtedly suffered due to the fact it was widely known she was quarter-blood, and she already had a reputation as a right little shit; whether directly as a result of the snubbing or because of the way Bryland spoiled her to make up for it, Loghain didn't know. Either way, he didn't want Anora to go through that. She got enough pettiness from the little noble ninnies due to the fact she wasn't born in their circle. Fortunately she was quite a bit older than Habren Bryland, who was only six or so, because he didn't doubt for a minute Leonas' daughter would have loved a chance to put down the common-born girl, since quarter-elf or not, at least she was the child of the acknowledged bastard of a nobleman, with that nobleman's last name and everything. Not that Habren, young though she was, wouldn't gossip about Anora every chance she got, anyway, but Anora was too old to encounter the preschool set and it wouldn't reach her ears. Often.
Evidently the run of these thoughts through his mind reflected in and darkened Loghain's already thunderous expression, because Bryland began to fidget nervously and looked away. It was almost too bad - almost - because Bryland really was what Loghain considered an all-right sort and if he were the type to actually cultivate such relationships (what few he counted himself as having all happened accidentally), they might actually have become friends. They did, after all, have a few things in common.
Bryland quietly excused himself to Bryce Cousland and moved to stand on the other side of him, on the far side of Ranulf Wulffe, and Loghain saw that he may indeed not have been the source of the Arl of South Reach's sudden discomfort. Arl Rendon Howe, of Amaranthine, had come up from the back of the gallery to stand behind Bryland, and now stepped into the place he had occupied at Bryce Cousland's side. Long ago, Bryland and Howe had been friends, but that time was long past. The time when anybody, pretty much, had been Howe's friend was past. The only person who still seemed able to stomach the man was Cousland, and that perhaps more out of a sense of duty than warm feeling. Quite apart from being one of his most important sworn subjects, Howe was a man who had fought beside Cousland with unquestionable valor during the rebellion. Cousland was not a man who could let that service be forgotten, or allow an old friend to be completely bereft of kinship, regardless of how unpleasant that friend had become.
Howe had a daughter, Loghain remembered suddenly, a pale, quiet little thing whose name he couldn't quite recall. Deirdre? Dahlia? Whatever it was, she seemed nice enough, what little he knew of her. Too young, though, to think about the possibility she could be a companion for his own child. Cousland had a little girl, too, if he remembered rightly, but he'd never met that child or heard much about her. She was supposed to be a bit of a rapscallion, from what little he had heard, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing depending on the child's intentions - Anora had certainly had moments when the term applied to her, as well. But she was, he thought, only about eleven or so. Still too young. Maybe he'd waited a little bit too long to start worrying that his daughter might be lonely, but now that her mother was passed away it was easier to notice that Anora didn't really seem to have any social life, per se. Or rather, she didn't seem to have anyone she cared to associate with beyond simply building political connections. Anora was very keen on politics, which he supposed was a good thing.
And she didn't really seem to like children very much, and hadn't even when she was one. Anora gravitated naturally to adults and adult pursuits and conversations, she didn't have much common ground with other children. Maybe that was Loghain's fault, since he had no idea how one was meant to speak to a child and so he typically addressed his daughter, from her earliest days, in exactly the same way he would have addressed any grownup. When he taught her things, too, he taught her as if she were an adult being brought to a new skill set rather than a child with no skill set at all. It hadn't seemed the wrong way to go about it at the time, since she was so smart and picked things up so easily, but perhaps one thing she'd failed to learn was how to be a little girl. And now Anora's governess informed him gravely, in a tone that suggested he ought to know about all of this already, that although the betrothal meant she was, in essence, not on the market, Anora was now officially "out," whatever that meant, and having her first "season," which was also a completely foreign concept to him, but whatever else it meant it clearly meant that the time for her to be a little girl was past.
Time flies, especially when you don't spend enough of it with your child.
Loghain arrested his wandering thoughts at last, but not his wandering eyes. He continued to scan the audience for hidden assassins, since Maric was entirely too naïve about such things. His guardsmen were stationed much too far away to be of use in a tight situation, which was why Loghain habitually stood very near and slightly in front of the throne. If daggers or arrows started flying, he didn't intend to be more than one quick step away from putting himself between Maric and danger. It was not really the place he was supposed to stand, since it put him very much in the forefront of everyone's vision of the King. If he was to stand anywhere on the dais it was supposed to be behind the throne. He didn't give a damn. Maric wasn't going to take a quarrel in the eye because some brainless Bann couldn't see him well enough.
His eyes traveled over every face at least twice before landing momentarily on the face of Arl Howe again. Howe caught his look and smiled ingratiatingly, though his smile never looked like anything so much as a grimace. Howe was a greasy little toady, among other things, and Loghain knew the man didn't like him. He wasn't of the Amaranthine Howes, not directly - Arl Byron had died without issue. Rendon Howe's own father, Byron's brother Padric, disappeared shortly after the rebellion, apparently to join the Grey Wardens, although some said it was to escape the stigma of his father's execution when Harper's Ford was taken and old Tarleton Howe was hanged for treason. Maybe Howe would rather have had Harper's Ford, where he was raised, than Amaranthine, which made only little sense since Amaranthine was one of the most important holdings in the country, but for whatever reason he was quite bitter with his lot in life, and Loghain was reasonably certain it was not merely paranoia that told him Howe resented the fact that he, a peasant, had been raised above him. Not that he was the only one that resented it, of course. But even so, Howe went to a lot of effort to keep on Loghain's good side even though his lands were not under the auspices of Gwaren, and even occasioned to offer political advice from time to time, since he clearly recognized that Loghain wasn't exactly keen on the game. His motives could have been as relatively innocent as merely keeping out of the ire of a Teyrn and the King who was devoted to him, or he could be plotting something. Something told Loghain that Howe was always plotting something. But if he was careful, he could make good use of the man's advice.
The session finally ended and Maric gestured Loghain to wrap up the proceedings for the day, which he did without the traditional closing speech but with a harsh shout that the show was over and everybody needed to get the hell out of the Landsmeet chamber before he started cracking skulls. Truthfully he was a disgrace to the kingdom as a Teyrn, but Maric was only amused by it. Maric, of course, was amused by pretty much everything.
Loghain scowled until the last jack-in-office was gone, and then Maric kicked his feet up across the arm of the throne and slung an arm carelessly over the back of it. "Well, my friend - what did you think of today's session?" he asked, after he regained the powers of speech from a jaw-splitting yawn.
"In all honesty, Maric, I don't remember much of it. Too busy making sure no one took advantage of your lax security."
Maric goggled at him, mouth agape. "What? You weren't paying attention? But it was so tense, so thrilling! Don't tell me you missed Bann Reynelda and Bann Talman arguing over Reynelda's cats!"
Loghain turned, just his head, to give Maric a gimlet eye. "Reynelda's cats?"
Maric nodded, delighted past expression. "Reynelda's cats. She has a good many cats, you know. As pets. More than thirty."
"Thirty cats."
"Thirty cats. Plus."
Loghain closed his eyes and squeezed them shut for a moment, then looked at Maric again. "And in what way do Reynelda's thirty cats impact Bann Talman's life so severely that the matter must be brought before the King and Landsmeet?"
"Well you see, Reynelda's bannric and Talman's bannric abut one another, and Reynelda's manor sits on the border of Talman's hunting green, and Reynelda lets her cats roam where they will. Talman says they have chased all the rabbits off his hunt, and wants compensation and the removal of the cats. Reynelda says the rabbits eat all the vegetables from her garden, for which she must keep the thirty cats, and wants compensation and the removal of the rabbits."
Loghain raised a hand to his brow, shook his head vigorously, and finally lowered himself to a seat on the edge of the dais, with a rattle and clank of armor. "Oh my bleeding piles, please tell me you're making this up."
Maric burst into laughter. "It's all true, I'm afraid. Surely you've noticed by now that Fereldens do not settle matters between themselves? They're too damned prideful. So they drag it out, blow it out of proportion, and finally the problem looms so immense in their minds that they can see no recourse but to bring it to head in the Landsmeet, because they've lost all perspective. So what if there's an outbreak of plague in Oswin? Reynelda has too damned many cats!" The king slapped his thigh and howled laughter.
"It's not really that funny, Maric," Loghain groaned. "There really is an outbreak of plague in Oswin."
"Of course it's not funny, Loghain. It's terrible, and it's sad; the plague and the cats both. Or I should say, the fuss they're making over the cats is sad and terrible - I expect the cats themselves are fluffy and content, after eating all those rabbits. But above everything else it's absurd, and you have to laugh at the absurd, even when its terrible, because otherwise the world just doesn't make any sense."
Maric peered at him then, an earnest expression on his face that Loghain wasn't sure he'd ever seen before. "You should pay close attention to the Landsmeet, Loghain, and not just watch for assassins and bark at people to sit down, stand up, shut up, or leave. It's a good thing to know your neighbors, after all, and one thing you can say about all the foolishness, it serves as a marvelous salutary warning against the dangers of Ferelden pride."