Victory at Ostagar

Here I must insert a disclaimer, as sometimes my readers think that the words and thoughts I assign to my characters represent my own beliefs and opinions. Please understand that just because Howe, for example, thinks something, and I don't add a long sermon about the many ways in which he is wrong, that does not mean I agree with him. I am trying to do justice to the characters. In the case of Howe, especially, I think there must be a reason for his behavior, aside from the usual "Ha-ha! I am evil!" one. A reason: not an excuse, certainly.

Chapter 18: Queens and Knaves

"Your tea, Majesty," Erlina murmured.

Fragrantly steaming, the little tray was arranged on her desk exactly as the Queen liked. Before her was a dainty pot of Highever honeygrass tea, her special painted cup, and a silver dish with half a cucumber sandwich and two oatmeal cookies. In a slender, iridescent vase two white roses were arranged, proud and perfect.

Anora was a disciplined person, first and foremost. Unlike her disorganized and lovable King, she was an adult, and behaved so on all occasions. There was a time and place for everything: mornings for the careful grooming befitting a public figure, a brisk walk in the garden, a sensible breakfast, reports from her seneschal, her guard captain, and her major-domo; afternoons for the verbal combat of audiences and council meetings and the respite of a quiet cup of tea; evenings for correspondence and wholesome suppers, followed by some music or reading or a game of chess; a relaxing bath, her hair brushed a hundred strokes, and then plenty of refreshing sleep. It would be so easy to grow slovenly and self-indulgent; sitting up all night in revelry and drinking and flattery. She was Anora Mac Tir Theirin, Queen-Consort of Ferelden, and did not need the opinions of others to judge herself fairly.

She was quite aware that Cailan found this regimen of hers a trifle—dull. He was such a boy, after all. And naturally, as a young man, he felt the need for more physical activity. Anora was quite willing to walk with him in the palace garden, but he walked so very fast, and was so easily distracted by everything from a new guard to a pair of butterflies, that it was difficult to achieve the proper rhythm for the exercise to really do one good.

The parts of her day that he found the dullest were the ones she found the most essential: the cup of tea, partaken of in quiet, while she digested the latest news; and the long ritual of bath and hair-brushing and eight hours of sleep, without which she would be raving like a madwoman and tearing out huge clumps of the golden hair that Erlina brushed so assiduously.

She allowed herself a small sigh, glancing at the neat pile of correspondence. There was plenty of cause to tear her hair and rave.

That unspeakable ruffian, Rendon Howe, had set the north of Ferelden ablaze, murdering Bryce and Eleanor and their little grandson and their daughter-in-law. Anora hated the thought of Eleanor being dead. When Anora had first come to Denerim, so many years ago, it had seemed to her that the only real people there were her father, King Maric and Cailan, and Bryce and Eleanor Cousland. Otherwise the much-anticipated Court was a snake pit of petty spite and selfish maneuvering. Eleanor, especially, had been unfailingly kind to her, and had been able to converse with Anora about the things that mattered: about politics and foreign affairs; about poetry and history. She had fought as well as read, and had stories of her own about the Rebellion. And both her appearance and her manners were irreproachable, and would have been quite acceptable even at the Court of the Empress herself.

It was Eleanor who had helped her to accept that things are the way they are, and that most people were blind to anything but what they perceived as their own personal interest. Most of the time they were deceived even in that. The ability to rise above greedy short-sightedness was the hallmark of the truly great, like her father, and to a certain extent, like King Maric, she supposed. The Couslands, too, had had a touch of greatness, and put duty before all else. Fergus would be teyrn now, of course, which was as it should be. Anora quite liked Fergus Cousland. He was a genuinely nice man, and too devoted to his wife to remember that he was supposed to stupidly flirt with the Queen. It was very refreshing. How tragic for him to lose his little son...

It frustrated her beyond words that the forces she had at her disposal in Denerim were completely unequal to doing anything at all about Arl Howe. They could only guard the northern approaches to the city and keep watch lest the madman try to attack while the bulk of the nation's forces were in the south. Meanwhile, what intelligence she received indicated that Highever was in chaos, and that Amaranthine was being squeezed by the Arl's ruthless demands for money to prosecute his campaign to subdue the Couslands' rightful teyrnir.

If only Father would settle the darkspawn, and come home!

That was a foolish fantasy, and Anora sipped her tea, forcing herself to be calm. Cailan was convinced that this was a Blight, and even her father now seemed to believe it. Of course, that was only because Bronwyn Cousland said so.

As fond of Eleanor and Bryce as she had been, Anora was not sure what she thought of their daughter. She had not seen Bronwyn in years, and there had been horrid gossip about her: Habren Bryland had told her that Bronwyn had had a bastard by an elven servant, and had been sent to a remote farmhold to deliver the child, which was born with a harelip and six toes on each foot, and which was then shipped to distant cousins in the Free Marches. No one else seemed to believe that, and Habren was so very, very nasty that Anora acknowledged that she was capable of concocting that vicious lie all by herself.

The story that Anora did believe was that Bronwyn had been rusticating in the country because she was in love with someone unsuitable, and her parents wished to avoid a scandal.

Was it Cailan she loved? That had been the most likely possibility, and it had bothered Anora a great deal. It had bothered her even more when that first dispatch came from Ostagar, consisting nearly entirely of Cailan's rhapsodizing over Bronwyn the Beauteous Battlemaiden.

For Bronwyn Cousland was now a Grey Warden, and Anora knew from experience that Cailan found the Grey Wardens very exciting. Cailan was such a boy.

However, Father himself had written of Bronwyn's brave deeds in the great battle against the darkspawn, and Father was not one to exaggerate heroic exploits, whether his own or anyone else's. He did not go on as Cailan did about her appearance, but rather wrote quite a bit about her fine mabari hound, who was named Scout and who evinced near-human intelligence. That Father actually knew the name of Bronwyn Cousland's dog seemed very significant to Anora.

A subsequent letter had piqued her interest further. Cailan waxed hilarious over the sight of Father flirting with the young Grey Warden! Anora found the idea markedly less amusing, but Cailan could not have invented every detail.

"There he was, Anora—I swear to you. He was whispering in her ear, and his fingers lingered on hers as he passed her a cup of wine. Bronwyn blushed very becomingly, and looked into his eyes with her soul shining in hers. It is perfectly clear that she fancies him: her warrior's heart beating in sympathy with the rugged older hero's. All very understandable, I suppose, though the sight of Loghain expressing the tender passion to a beautiful young woman was not one I had previously hoped to witness in this life or the next…"

Allowances, large allowances must be made for Cailan's tendency to embroider the truth when he found it too dull. He was hopelessly fantasy-prone,. Nonetheless, the sight of Father flirting with Lady Bronwyn had quenched Cailan's own desire for her quite entirely, for while he described her as beautiful and heroic and all that was admirable, Anora noticed that his descriptions were no longer those of a man personally enamored. Perhaps Father should try that technique more often.

Could Grey Wardens marry? It had occurred to her from time to time that a second marriage might be a very nice thing for Father, if only to absorb some of his boundless energy. Cailan did not seem to consider Lady Bronwyn marriageable, but Anora had heard that Orlesian Wardens did in fact sometimes marry. Duncan himself had referred to such a couple in her hearing once.

Duncan! Well, he was gone now, and Cailan remembered to be sad about it from time to time, but Father could hardly contain his satisfaction. Whether it was simply satisfaction to be rid of someone he had disliked so cordially, or satisfaction that Duncan had been replaced by the comely and amiable Bronwyn, Anora could not hazard a guess.

And she was a true Fereldan, which clearly pleased Father, as it would any sensible person, for that matter. People were already calling her "The Girl Warden," which was an perfectly ridiculous name, but just the sort of thing to capture the imagination of the common folk.

At any rate, Bronwyn had left the camp to track down Grey Warden allies for Ferelden, which was more than Duncan had ever undertaken. Anora liked that very much indeed. Whether Bronwyn succeeded in her quest or not, she was not in Ostagar flirting with Cailan or enticing Father into an undignified dalliance.

She did not like so well the news that Bronwyn was accompanied by the only other Warden in Ferelden: Alistair, Cailan's bastard half-brother. It was a niggling worry in the back of her mind. A Cousland and a Theirin—even a half-blood—made for a potent combination. Were Bronwyn not romantically involved with Father, it might even be alarming.

A knock at the door already, and she had not even finished her second cookie. Anora eyed it with a hint of regret. Erlina went to speak to the visitor, explaining that Her Majesty was involved in affairs of State and could not be disturbed.

"She'll see me, surely," the self-satisfied male voice declared. Anora forbore to make a face. Making faces, even when alone, was a bad and undisciplined habit. She found Bann Vaughan profoundly repugnant, but he was part of her world, and she must deal with him.

After she finished her cookie.

While munching, she mused on the complications of being Queen in the city of Denerim, which, while the capital of Ferelden, was not precisely the King's—or Queen's—city. It was the fiefdom of the Arls of Denerim. Anora could command the Palace and Fort Drakon, and to some extent the Great Gate. Everything else was under the direct jurisdiction of the Arl of Denerim, and in Urien's absence, of his son, the odious Vaughan. So it had been for hundreds of years, and so it would be, it appeared, for hundreds of years to come. It was a most unsatisfactory arrangement. In a well-ordered world, the King of Ferelden would also be the Arl of Denerim. Anora had amused herself once, planning out a very pretty and efficient city charter that eliminated the existence of the inconvenient Kendall family. It was tucked away in a drawer, along with her plan for a Fereldan university that Cailan had found so very amusing and that Father had grunted at dismissively.

The cookie was consumed, and she had no further excuse for delay, other than the fact that Vaughan really was odious. Anora knew more than she liked about him. Erlina hated him, and had told Anora how he leered at her, and touched her in 'accidental' ways. Vaughan's behavior in the Alienage was a scandal known to the entire city. The most recent story put about by the Arl's people was that an elven whore had attacked the bann and tried to rob him after a night of sport. Opposed to that was the tale, spread by a reputable priest of the Chantry, of young brides and their attendants abducted from their own wedding and brutalized. One of the brides had attempted to preserve her honor and had been killed. Her body had been strung up in front of the Arl's estate, naked and bloody, as a warning to—whom? Anora's lips thinned. To other women not to resist Vaughan? It was cruel and unfair, but the elf had raised a weapon to the bann and he was legally within his rights to have her killed as he liked. There was no doubting he had the law on his side in that, and it was impossible for the elves to sue for satisfaction in the matter of the abductions and rapes. The bann had legal jurisdiction over the Alienage, and the cases would obviously never be heard. However, Anora herself was keenly aware of the difference that sometimes existed between the legal and the right.

The Alienage itself was a scandal, for that matter. Perhaps Alienages were a necessity, but it was hardly necessary for them to be so entirely squalid and disorganized. It was impossible for her to interfere directly, and Vaughan—and his father Urien—were deaf to her hints.

She would certainly not admit Vaughan to her private sanctum. If he wished to speak to her, he could do so next door in the Little Audience Chamber, with her guards out of earshot, but able to see her clearly.

The linen napkin was touched briefly to her lips, and she rose, drawing herself up straight. She glided through the door, head held high. Vaughn bowed, and gave her that horrid, slieazy smile he imagined charming. Anora noted with satisfaction that the well-deserved scar from jaw to ear was still luridly red.

"Your Majesty," he simpered.

"Bann Vaughan. An unexpected pleasure..."

"Another caravan on its way, my lord," Captain Chase informed the arl. "Went past the Keep just now. Three wagons, and six-and-twenty elves. Wagon master told me that elves were coming from all over the country now, hoping to be hired on."

"Splendid," Rendon Howe told the man. "Accompany the wagons to Amaranthine, and send someone ahead to alert Caladrius."

Just when he thought there was no more coin to be had, a brilliant idea had come to him.

Rendon Howe had been let down by some of his more recent brilliant ideas—the purging of the Couslands had not gone at all as he had planned—but this was a genuinely brilliant idea—an idea that no one who mattered would care about. He could take a resource of no value—something that Ferelden had entirely too much of, and which was worthless to the nation—and turn it into pure gold.

Pure gold Tevinter coins, to be exact.

If a few elves left to seek their fortunes and never returned home, who would be the wiser? If every elf in Ferelden vanished, who would care?

The idea had needed some tweaking. It had not come to him instantly. Amaranthine had no Alienage of its own, and the elven population was not large. Highever's Alienage however, was just as unruly as the rest of that contentious, desirable teyrnir. The elves, for some unfathomable reason, were very attached to the Couslands, and had rioted in the streets. A number had been hanged or otherwise colorfully executed to make Howe's ascendancy perfectly clear, but shortly after the fact, Howe had found himself approached by an—entrepreneur, he might call him. Yes, an entrepreneur of sorts, who explained that dead elves were worthless, but that live elves, while not exactly worth their weight in gold, could still have real value among men of good sense.

The deal was struck, the ships were loaded under cover of night, and Highever lost its excess population. Strong males and pretty females commanded the best prices, but even children were worth something. The story given out was that the elves were to be imprisoned in Amaranthine for their trouble-making. For the most part, not even the human rebels themselves cared for the fate of the elves. It had been done all at once, too, so there were no survivors telling tales. Howe had learned his lesson about leaving survivors. The Alienage itself would be demolished, and a fine estate erected in its place. Highever Castle was hopelessly antiquated, and no one had yet managed to scrub out the bloodstains.

So the elves were sold, and that great, sudden infusion of gold brightened Howe's prospects immeasurably in the north. He had paid his men, kept their loyalty, and gained precious time.

For time was what he needed most: time to strengthen his position; time to subdue Highever; time to gain allies; time to correspond with Loghain, to make him understand the absolute necessity of what he had done; time for the Queen to calm down; and time for his assassins to do their work.

While he could not duplicate the feat of turning hundreds of elves into gold with a single transaction, he still had a steady income, due to his quiet arrangement with that greedy fool Bann Vaughan. Howe had sent a reliable agent to tell Vaughan about Amaranthine's desperate need for manual labor, and they had settled on a moderate sum, in exchange for which Vaughan would send teams of elven laborers up from the Denerim Alienage, up the Pilgrim's Path, to Amaranthine. Vaughan welcomed this opportunity to get the overcrowded population of the Alienage under control. The elves were driven directly to the docks; with some persuasion, they were loaded on to the ships, where they were promptly chained and caged; and then, after Howe received a bag of gold of appropriate size, they were taken away, over the horizon, and good riddance.

Really, when the people of Ferelden understood what he had been doing, they would probably erect a statue to him.

"Father!" Thomas Howe barged into his father's study, made bold by indignation and a little too much to drink too early in the day. "That bastard Chase forbade me the stables! Says I can't have a horse to go to Amaranthine!"

"Not today, Thomas," Howe said calmly. "This is not a good day for you to go. Tomorrow you may go to Amaranthine. Perhaps we should all go: you, I, and your sister as well. You can enjoy yourself with your friends, and Delilah can do a bit of shopping. I have some people to see. Yes, tomorrow will do very well."

"As long as I don't have to make up to that horse-faced Esmerelle," Thomas muttered.

"You will speak courteously of our loyal ally Bann Esmerelle. She is a personal friend of mine. I do not ask you to "make up to her," but to conduct yourself toward her as a nobleman does to a noblewoman. 'Make up to her?' What a vulgar phrase."

Thomas studied his boots, cowed and unhappy.

His father walked over to the window and looked at the little wagon train disappearing into the northern horizon. "However, there will be a dinner, no doubt, that I require you to attend, and to attend in possession of all your faculties. Afterward, you may do as you like. There's no reason we need hurry home the following day."

Thomas had not left, but lingered, looking anxiously at his father's desk.

"You've had a letter from Nathaniel."

"I have."

"Is he all right?"

"He is." Thomas was looking at him like a child pleading for sweets. Howe hated that kind of sniveling, but he supposed the cause was not inappropriate. Brotherly affection, after all, was a useful tool in maintaining family alliances and standing strong against the enemies of the Howes. "He has learned all he believes he will learn there. If the situation here improves in the next month or two, I shall send for him. It is time."

"He'll find himself in a hornet's nest if he comes."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I am hardly beaten, Thomas."

"The Couslands aren't exactly beaten either."

Howe laughed mirthlessly. "Perhaps not yet. 'We have scotched the snake, not killed it,' as the old story says. Never fear. The Couslands are doomed. Even if my hirelings fail, the evidence is on my side. Bryce and Eleanor were traitors, and sold themselves to the Orlesians a thousand times over. I suspected the worst when Bryce lingered there a little too long last year. When those documents came my way, I was not entirely surprised."

"What about Fergus' son? He was six years old. Was he a traitor, too?"

"The death of young wolves is never to be pitied," Howe declared loftily. "Once Loghain examines the documents, the Couslands and all their heirs will be attainted traitors. Fergus will be lucky to be exiled, rather than executed outright. He can scrounge for scraps at the Empress' table like the dog he is. The Couslands as a family are dead. They just haven't realized it yet."

"Bronwyn's a Grey Warden now, and I hear the King thinks a lot of her. Teyrn Loghain, too. Won the Battle of Ostagar for them, everyone says..."

"Yes, yes, how very nice. Bryce's little spitfire, still playing the man. No doubt Loghain finds all that rather stimulating. Quite understandable, and right up his alley, if the old rumors are true... It is even possible that the girl was ignorant of her parents' plans for her—which are now moot, due to the interference of that fool Duncan. At any rate, she will be exempt from the King's Justice, as the crime was committed prior to her recruitment. If she survives—which given her adventurous nature is rather unlikely—she will no doubt be allowed to slink off to the Anderfels when the darkspawn incursion is over and done."

"Father..." Greatly daring, Thomas burst out, "Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure? Or do you believe this because it fits in with your plans? Because Bronwyn said no? Could the papers be forged? What if it's an Orlesian plot to divide the nobility?"

"The evidence was damning," Howe said with satisfied certainty. "A disaffected bard picks up all sorts of odds and ends. I have seen the papers for myself. The Crown for Bryce, and marriage with an Imperial Prince for the daughter. Ferelden sold like an ox at the market. Once the woman finishes collecting the rest of the correspondence, I shall present it to Loghain, and I have no doubt he will know exactly what to do with it. I am happily certain that the Girl Warden's charms are not proof against threats to the security of Ferelden."

Note: thanks to my readers and reviewers: most especially roxfox62, khaos974, Cobar713, Amhran Comhrac, Sarah1281, Enaid Aderyn, Zute, Shakespira, Have Socks Will Travel, Aoihand, mille libri, mutive, almostinsane, JackofBladesX, Windchime68, jen4306, rascality, Costin, quintessa, ElaineMcFG, demonicnargles, and derko5. I really appreciate you taking the time to give me your opinions and advice!

Yes, there were little bits from Macbeth, Othello, and the Duchess of Malfi among Howe's speeches.

Yes, the Orlesians are up to something, because the Orlesians are always up to something. They may be up to more than one thing, and they may be up to something you didn't expect, and not up to something you anticipated. Ever since David Gaider announced that Loghain was absolutely correct in his analysis of the Ostagar letters, I've been revising my original outline like mad.

Next chapter: In the Halls of the Dwarven Kings