Author's Note: Just a warning, this chapter has earned the M - rating for violence against women and a rape sequence. Be aware of this before you read and if such things are upsetting for you then please skip this chapter. You have been warned.

Chapter 20: The Woman Waiting

Arlessa Ayleth Crewe

"Not all beings in the Fade are evil. Some are just and can be moved with compassion for the suffering of mortals…"

I should know, I have been here for a long time, waiting.

I had been told the old stories as a little girl. The stories taught me all I should have known. If only I had listened. If only I hadn't scoffed at them once I became a woman, thinking I knew so much better than the stories.

"Svenya was betrothed by her father to a powerful lord and did not meet this lord until the day of the wedding. On that fateful day, the first time she looked on her husband she was greatly distressed…"

The first time I saw Donngal Crewe, he appeared to be everything that I had been told. His read hair framed a strong nose and jaw that fit a handsome face. It was his eyes, though, the eyes gave him away. They had a yellow hue that resembled a fox. Those eyes were hungry with something that could never be sated. Those eyes perused me on that first meeting like a predator sizing up potential prey. How grateful I was that I could not see any farther into his mind. If only I had heeded my first instinct to run…

His father had recently passed away as had his older brother; he needed a wife to cement an alliance with Herfirien. Politically it made sense. I was of an eligible age and he was only five years older than I. Since Cloughbark was the next arling to us, I would be close to home and able to visit my brother and family as I pleased. I could not back out of the contract my father had bound me to in his desire to provide for my comfort. I consoled myself with the reassurance that I could gentle Donngal, help to mold him into the just and compassionate arl he had the potential to be like my father. If only…

I realized my error that first night after the Chantry had blessed us and the guests had gone home. I was finally alone with my lord husband. The fire crackled in his room, spitting sparks from a particularly stubborn, heavy oak log as it had just begun to burn slowly. He closed the door, casting me a long look before he locked it with a small gold key that made a less than reassuring click. The ring on my finger and that gold key in his pocket signified how completely I was trapped.

He sauntered over to me, pinning me with his gaze, never taking his eyes from me as he drew closer. When he was only a few feet away from me, he grabbed a chair from near the fire and purred as he sat down, "Now, my treasure, take your trappings off so that I may more closely inspect my new acquisition."

My mouth went dry; I could not find words to speak. No man had ever seen me without my clothes and, though he was my husband, I suddenly felt shy. I felt like a deer frozen in a clearing as a hunter sites it with a crossbow and the sense of doom enveloped me.

My hesitation was not met with approval from my lord husband, and his voice became terse, impatient, "Come now! Do as you are bid. I command you to remove your clothes or are you simple and hard of hearing?"

My fingers clumsily fussed with the buttons and laces that graced my gown. The gown had been lovingly sewn by my grandmother and had been worn by my mother on her wedding day to my father. The embroidery at the cuffs and bodice had been painstakingly rendered to resemble the mountain flowers that bloomed near our home, reminding us of the land that bore us and our ties to it. Mother had proudly presented it to me and helped me dress that morning for some of the laces could be tricky to reach for one alone. Now I trembled visibly to untie the laces that lined the back just beyond my reach as I was scrutinized by my impatient husband.

"Enough," the sudden growl thundered as my husband got up from his perch with exasperation in his gait, cursing me as he approached, "foolish girl. Can you not perform a simple task? Since you cannot even undress yourself I will assist you magnanimously." With that, he gripped me by the arm and braced me as he grabbed a handful of laces in the back in the other hand and unceremoniously ripped them with one harsh pull. The sound of the fabric tearing pulled a sob from my own throat that I tried vainly to stifle, pressing the palm of my hand to my lips as tears spilled down my cheeks.

"Now, finish taking off the dress." He urged irritably, pushing me away from him slightly so that he could watch with his arms crossed.

Tenderly I finished pulling down what remained of the gown, allowing it to pool around my feet, and gingerly stepped out of its discarded folds. The light of the fire danced across my pale skin, dappled with pale freckles. My limbs were long and lean from hours of walking the land with my brother, seeing to the animals and the people that relied on our family for their livelihoods. I was completely naked save for the pendant displaying my family's seal of a prancing mountain goat against dark green enamel, framed in silver. I raised my teary eyes uncertainly to my husband, hoping to see some kind of approval or favor.

"You look like a brindled fawn," he chided, "all legs, skinny, no meat to be seen anywhere. You have no softness, no curves. How can a man's head be pillowed by these?" To make his point he reached out his hand and harshly grabbed my breast, squeezing it in a punishing grip. More tears ran down my cheeks, but I managed to remain silent.

"My father said skinny ones are not good breeders," he roughly pulled me with a bruising hold on my arm closer to the fire so that he could examine me more closely. Walking around, circling me to look at me at every angle, again he reminded me of a predator, hungry, but at the same time appraising, deciding if the meal was worth the effort.

"In two years," he warned, squaring off before me again and raising my chin with a finger so that he could look into my teary eyes, "if you do not provide me with an heir, I will declare you as barren and send you back to your parents. I will not be made a fool. You are my property until then. Understood?"

I nodded as well as I could with my chin levered against his finger.

It seemed like something broke in that moment. His hand dropped to the chain holding the pendant around my neck and tugged, ripping it from my throat much as he had ripped away the laces of my dress. The suddenness of the action caused me to lurch forward as the chain cut into my neck before breaking, leaving a harsh red line at my nape. The pendant was thrown to the floor and crushed under his heel before he grabbed me, lifting me into his arms momentarily before tossing me punishingly onto the large bed at the center of the room.

I shrank back into the pillows while he took a moment to remove his tunic and breeches before pouncing, falling on me like a falcon after a small, white mouse. Underneath him, I could barely breathe, his weight was crushing me as he pinned my wrists to the bed with one hand and raked his other over my breasts and down my body, his fingers leaving bruises wherever they roamed. I whimpered in fear at one point only to be struck soundly on the jaw as he commanded, "Silence!"

He bit my neck so hard I thought blood would flow, before moving his fangs to my breasts, all the while pinning me and I dared not move. He dug his nails into my hips and buttocks, grinding his growing hardness against me before moving off me enough to rest his hand between my legs. He grinned evilly into my face as he crudely forced a finger inside me as far as he could, watched me wince with the pain. When I seemed to be wincing less he forced a second finger in with the first, thrusting with jagged strokes, causing me to bite my lip and suck in my breath so as not to cry out.

Once satisfied with my responses, he then maneuvered himself over me again and with his hand guiding him, he forced himself inside me. I felt like I was being ripped in half as he pushed in, stinging, burning with every hard thrust and I turned my head into a pillow and bit down to prevent screaming. It was agony and he grew rougher, more fevered with every passing moment until abruptly he groaned with one final push and collapsed on me.

After a moment he withdrew and I could feel myself throbbing with the hurt he had caused. I closed my eyes tight, praying to the Maker that it was over, afraid to move, afraid to cry, afraid to breathe. I felt him roll over on the bed and draw away from me, the feather mattress shifting with his weight, his back to me. He lay there for a moment and I wondered if he had fallen asleep before he sat up, stretched his muscles languidly and gathered his clothes from the floor, putting them on briskly. He paused a moment to look down at me with an air of gloating, his mouth in a crooked half-smile, before he walked through the chamber door without a word.

I was in shock; I hurt, the bite marks and bruises were readily apparent in the fire light, a trickle of blood between my legs announcing that I had been fully claimed by my lord husband. I managed to hold back my trembling enough to sit upright and gazed around my new room, my eyes then wandered vaguely before coming to rest on my discarded gown and the broken pendant that glittered in the firelight. I forced myself to stand, gathered the torn fabric from the floor by the bed and walked on unsteady legs to where the pendant lay before collapsing in a naked heap, snatching the broken necklace into my hands, pressing it to my cheek and sobbing with it into the remains of my grown.

How long I stayed like that I am unsure, but I froze when I heard the door handle turn and the creak of someone entering the room. I cowered in the firelight, clutching the fabric to me, covering my bruised nakedness, waiting for a blow or a harsh word, but after a moment gentle hands patted my shoulders and helped me up, guiding me back to the bed. A gentle feminine voice called, "Rose, have a bath drawn in my room. We will bring Arlessa Ayleth there once it has been prepared."

Gentle fingers stroked my hair, soothing me, wiping my tears away as a motherly voice whispered, "I'm sorry, child. I wished to spare you this. I had hoped it would be different for you."

I finally focused enough to look up into a weathered, regal face framed by scarlet hair tinged with streaks of soft gray at the temples and scattered around her crown. She smiled apologetically as she wiped my face and examined some of the bruises. It took me a moment to collect myself enough to realize that this woman was my mother-in-law, the Lady Carys, who I had only briefly met before the ceremony but had not had an opportunity to converse with.

When Rose returned, the two of them dressed me in a loose robe and flanked me to guide me across the hallway into Lady Carys' room. The two women gently ministered to my needs, bathed my injuries, and applied soothing balm when necessary. Under their tutelage I learned how to survive as a woman within the Crewe household, maintaining my dignity in the face of outright brutality.

Rose, a lovely girl with light auburn hair and green eyes, was a woman only two years my senior but seemed vastly older than I. She had been a servant in the house from the time of being a young child. She was in a similar situation as I, for she had been singled out by my husband at a young age for his amorous advances with his burgeoning manhood and had none of the advantages that I possessed. Her camaraderie and empathy enabled me to withstand some of the more brutal nights. My mother-in-law did her best to assist and shield us, though she could not do so outright without facing the same wrath she had come to expect from her own husband. Often we retreated to Lady Carys' room and tried to fill our time with needlework, music and stories.

After the first couple of months, I received the blessed news that I was with child. In this I found some solace since my mother-in-law could openly request that my husband allow me some privacy and quiet for the sake of the unborn heir that I carried in my belly. The reprieve from his brutal ministrations for me, however, was not a blessing for Rose. When he was unable to bed me, his attention returned to her and our roles became reversed. Lady Carys and I cared for her on those long winter nights after Donngal's dark passions were spent and he retreated again to his own rooms. Mere months after me, we also found that she was with child, but she could not claim the respite that I had.

Shortly after her body began to show her fruitfulness, she lost the babe in one particularly brutal night under the care of my lord husband. It was a heavy blow for the three of us: Rose, Carys and I. He had barely stopped short of killing her in his rage and we feared that he might turn on me, but he was suddenly called away to administer to some affairs of the arling. He left to meet with the Arl Gethin Boese of Swidden and was his guest for two months. We found out from varying gossip in reports that Donngal had developed a friendship with the arl's son, Leofrik, and the two of them spent much time whoring and drinking to pass the time.

In his absence, Donngal's mother ministered to the needs of the arling and kept everything running. Both Rose and I were spared for a time and she was able to heal from the loss of the child. Shortly before the winter broke and I was great with child, we received word that he was returning and everything returned to much as it had been before.

After the birth of Fendril and a "discrete" healing time, my husband returned his attention to my bed, though he was more subdued with me, as if some of his darkness had been exorcised in his time with Leofrik Boese. He was more calculating now, more concerned with what would come later. Occasionally he would return to the man's company for weeks at a time, usually once or twice a year and his violence would be sated somewhat, though I shuddered to think how that was possible.

When I became pregnant with Ronan, Donngal again haunted the bed of Rose and again she became with child, but this time he left to visit in Swidden before she began to show. For fear for her life, Lady Carys and I made a plan to save Rose from my husband's clutches out of fear that another bout of his passion on finding her pregnant would prove the death of her.

My mother-in-law sent Rose to Amaranthine with a guard of two men and enough money to provide for her journey and then some. Carys had family there, since she was distantly related to the Howe family and sent word through a missive for the Howes to find Rose a berth within their household, recommending her in glowing terms.

The night Rose left we clung to each other and cried. She was closer than a sister to me and to be separated from her nearly ripped what was left of my heart from my chest. I knew that it was the only way to save her and so I bestowed the broken remains of my pendant as a remembrance, kissed her cheek and watched as she escaped into the darkness with the men hand-chosen by Lady Carys to convey her to Amaranthine and safety.

When Donngal returned to find that Rose had been sent away by his mother, he was furious. It was the one time that I witnessed his ire being turned upon his own mother. He beat her with his fists, blackening her eyes and splitting her lip. He seemed possessed by a demon that night and I could not stand by and watch for fear he would kill her. I threw myself over her, taking some of the heavy blows before stopping himself to drag me away from her, throwing me against a wall and holding me there, his hand tightly gripping my neck. The heat of his sour breath as he leaned his face into mind was scalding, but he was caused to pause and release me when he heard a weak voice from behind him intone darkly:

"Let this curse fall on you alone, harming not your flesh and bone. All you desire will remain beyond your reach, while at fate you endless screech. Let the blood you spill mark your head, and cling to you until you are dead. The violence you readily bestow will become a source of your own woe. Those who willingly follow your ways will come to a premature end of days. Those who refuse to follow your design are the only heirs of mine who will rule this land and beyond long after you have gone. Never claim surprise, man of hungry yellow eyes, when all you favor is torn away, the Maker hears the words I say. You have formed your destiny, so let what I said ever be."

Lady Carys hissed these words through her swollen lip and her eyes glittered within her bruised face, her finger was extended accusingly towards her son. Donngal's face was white and his eyes wide. I had never seen fear upon his face, but it was blatantly there now as his lips opened and closed, no sound issuing forth. He flexed his fist once where it hovered over me in midair before abruptly lowering it and stalking out of the room, leaving me behind with Lady Carys.

I went to her side and cradled the woman I recognized as a mother in my arms. The strength and power that she had exuded only moments before seemed to ebb away now and she was once again fragile. Carys looked into my face before speaking again, "You and Rose were the only daughters that the Maker saw fit to allow me. I suppose that was a blessing, since my husband would have used and abused any girl-child of my body much the same way he did to me. I was able to save Rose from Donngal, but I fear that I have only managed to further ensnare you. Forgive me, for my time is running short and I will leave you alone with him before too long. I am very sorry, Ayleth"

"Hush, Mother Carys," I pleaded, still fearing that Donngal would return and exact further retribution, "it will be well again. This too shall pass. We will be quiet and he will leave us be. All will be well."

"Someday…someday all will be well. Someday we will all be free." She agreed weakly, smiling sadly as I continued to rock her before a servant plucked up enough courage to enter the room and assist me in caring for her injuries.

Ronan was born, screaming at the world a week later, and the week after that Lady Carys was laid to rest without a word. My husband spit upon her grave when he thought no one was looking and allowed himself to grow complacent enough to forget her curse upon him. After a few months he returned to his wrathful ways of which I was the sole recipient, even when I was pregnant with the twins, Donngal did not stay his heavy hand.

"In the years that followed she suffered in silence under the persecution of her husband, causing her to feel completely alone and helpless. Many nights she cried herself to sleep, but even in her sleep she had no relief and often her troubles followed her into her dreams…"

The children grew and, when my husband deemed them old enough, they also became recipients of his bile. Fendril and Ronan witnessed their father's cruelty first hand and slowly began to adapt his habits much to my horror and Donngal's delight. They were the heirs he wished to mold and I was powerless to stop them. Over time they began to despise me much as Donngal despised his own mother for her weakness and inability to stand against him and his own father.

When the twins were born, I was attended by an Avvar woman named Bruna since they came early as a result of Donngal's passion one evening. She saw to my needs and helped me to heal and took care of the twins. After months of slow recovery and her caring for us, it seemed natural to employ her as a nanny for the little ones. Perhaps something about her reminded me of Carys and she made me feel safe. Inversely, Bruna made Donngal uneasy and he made avoided her and therefore rarely saw the twins. The children became Bruna's shadow and I allowed it for she offered sanctuary where I could provide none.

In the evenings I would creep to the twins' nursery and listen to the comforting sound of Bruna telling stories. The children still loved me then. They would crawl into my arms and hug me close, trusting me to not hurt them. Their trust made my heart ache, but they could not understand how things would change.

I again found myself with child, but this time Donngal's brutality was too much to overcome. One cold night my last child, a daughter, was born still and silent onto a bed soaked with blood. Bruna could not save the baby, but managed to save me, for good or ill. After fevered nights of sleep, I awoke to the sounds of Bruna singing at my side and my Maewynn crying for me to wake up. At the time she must have been eight winters gone. I do not remember what I dreamt in the passage of time, only that I had been called back by Bruna's voice.

Weeks later, when I became stronger, Bruna informed me that I would be unable to bear more children as I had been too greatly damaged by my husband to recover fully from it. I was too numb to feel sorrow; I had been broken by the losses heaped upon me that I found I could no longer care. My only comfort by that time was that Murchad and Maewynn were overlooked by my husband and it enabled them some semblance of peace. I was allowed to send them during the summer season to Herfirien where I knew my brother would dote on them as I was unable to do for fear they would be taken from me as well. Distance from Cloughbark meant safety for them and part of me hoped that Trian would fully adopt them since Donngal had no use for them with Fendril and Ronan as his intended heirs and Trian had no children of his own.

When Murchad and Mae would reluctantly return to Cloughbark after their seasons of freedom, I was hungry to hear of their exploits and adventures in my one-time home. They would humor me and describe every moment in minutest detail and I would claim a sense of freedom for myself vicariously through their stories.

My children continued to grow and with age came understanding. Bruna and I could no longer hide what their father was for their brothers had grown to mirror him. The abuse that was heaped on them was in turn heaped upon the younger, more helpless siblings. To remove them from their influence, Bruna would take the twins on walks into the deep woods, along Avvar trails that my husband and older sons were unable to navigate in their ignorance. Eventually even that was not enough. At one point, when Mae received the most hideous treatment at the hands of my irate lord husband which left her scarred, she escaped in the dead of a snowy night.

I feared that in her haste she had gone into the snow and frozen to death to escape, but Bruna shook her head and promised to find her. Murchad was left behind to comfort me, acting as a worried shadow. It would be weeks before we would receive word from Herfirien that Mae had gone there and was recovering from an illness. Once the winter season had abated and the roads were clear, my brother escorted her and Bruna home. Before they arrived my husband threatened me that he would take Murchad and give him to the Templars for initiation if I said anything amiss to Trian. I knew of their brutality, the rumors of what they had been doing to our countryside had reached me and I feared that those monsters would break my gentle son, so I held my silence and received my daughter into the hole of a life that was my prison.

When Mae came of age, my husband began brokering an alliance with Swidden and his fond companion in debauchery, Leofrik Boese. Leofrick had inherited his father's lands with the older man's sudden death. The death had been a subject of gossip for many, since Gethin Boese had always been a healthy man before he succumbed to a wasting illness. It was baffling, but none dared to question it. It was Donngal's wish to unite Cloughbark and Swidden.

Mae had allowed many outrages to befall her, but did not allow my husband to harm others. That was the weakness my husband exploited. When she refused to submit, Donngal threatened to turn Bruna over to the Templars, who would certainly kill her. After Donngal had laid out his plans, he left behind my daughter in fury and I was helpless to console her.

"How could you stand there?" she demanded, "How could you say nothing? Is it not enough that you have stood by and allowed this," her hand fluttered near her marred cheek, "but you would also let him harm Bruna without a word?"

That was the last time I saw Mae. Both my husband and I underestimated her. She stole from the house that night and escaped with Bruna. I received word later that Bruna had established herself in my brother's household at Herfirien, but Mae was nowhere to be found. Even the inquiries and spies sent into the rest of Thedas brought no word of her. She had disappeared, as if she had been swallowed by the Fade.

The land in which I dwelt was destroyed in slow increments. With Leofrick's help, my husband embraced the Templars and allowed them free reign on our countryside. The people feared them and feared my husband because he held their leash, lord of Cloughbark. The Avvars retreated under the Templars advancing. Our own people were eventually taken by the Templars, leaving fields unattended and livestock to fend for themselves. The food stores became scant but my husband seemed to not notice as we were running short of people to till and harvest the land.

It was not until the Chantry was threatened that I dared to speak up. Interestingly enough, unlike the passionate rage of his youth, it was my husband's cold fury that undid me. He locked me away and allowed me no interaction with anyone. The servants who brought me the food were too terrified to defy my husband and would not even look at me. The only sympathy afforded me was my son, Murchad, who I dissuaded from doing more for fear that my husband would fulfill his threat from long ago and hand him over to the Templars for training. My life was reduced to a box and my only escape in my dreams.

"…Svenya went to sleep and dreamed of a vast lake in a clearing surrounded by trees and shrouded with mist. It was so peaceful that Svenya sat at the water's edge and dangled her feet in the water. …"

When I passed into the Fade, it was as if I had returned home. I found a sanctuary and was attended by gentle ladies who neither pressed me nor asked questions. I was permitted to exist in peace. No one chased me away or forced me to leave. Time was interminable, it did not matter. All that mattered was that it was far from my husband.

One woman kept me constant company, a woman in a black cloak, who sang with a soft voice and took my hand when we walked the byways of a small island in the center of a lake. She made sure that I was comfortable and when she had to leave me to fulfill her responsibilities, I would sit on the lush grass and dangle my feet in the cool water.

Here I have stayed, waiting for something that eludes me. Perhaps I wait for Lady Carys to fetch me and help me to cross into the border I have been instructed to never cross until I am given leave. Perhaps I wait for Bruna to fetch me and help me return back to the waking world as I vaguely recall her doing once before, long ago. All I know for certain is that I will not travel alone again into the wilderness of this place.

I did not expect the woman in brown to scream my name from across the water as she waved frantically to me from the pebbled shore opposite. She was both familiar and strange, her face concealed behind a mask. The confusion was evident upon my face, but I raised my hand in greeting, unable to speak. This seemed to signal something to the woman for at that moment she threw herself into the water and began to swim to reach me, her strokes frantic like the beating of a bird's wings. She was fighting a current that I could not see which pushed her back with each stroke forward until she was gasping with the exertion.

To encourage her, I kneeled on the shore and reached out my hand to catch her once she was close enough. The water began to exhibit I choppiness I had never before witnessed here and it swiped the mask from off the woman's face, but she noticed it not, so focused was she on her goal. With one final burst of strength she surged forward and clutched at my waiting hand and I pulled her ashore and into my waiting lap.

She coughed and choked a few moments as she clung to me and I soothed her with my rocking, her head tucked under my chin. When she finally pulled back enough for me to see her I was startled by my own mother's eyes and her face, but it was the scar, the spidery lines down her face that caught my memory and made me more alert than I had been in a very long time and I whispered uncertainly, "Mae?"