Notes: Thank you again for the interest in the story! Any Sanctification readers? A treat for you—POV Elissa Cousland to open the chapter! Unfortunately the scene is... well, read on.
There is another NSFW scene, this one at the end of the chapter. It's rather less sweet than the preceding one.
Song: Blind Guardian – "War Feeds War," from the same album as last chapter's. Because of my specific AU twist, I am leaning in heavily on Reformation era-related inspirations.
Chapter 72: Fate Is in Love with Hate
The Imperial Palace at Val Royeaux.
Elissa Cousland was not sure if she should actually be at this event. She had not wanted to tell Anders and Hawke, but the darkspawn that was harassing her Wardens was infiltrating her nightmares too. The fact that such a monster was trying to manipulate her through the dark magic of the Taint did give her pause about being in the presence of the Divine and the Empress.
Well, just the Divine, she amended. Empress Celene was not present for her ball after all. She was in Halamshiral. It was bizarre to Elissa. King Alistair, she acknowledged, might well turn over the Royal Palace of Denerim to the Grand Cleric and then depart elsewhere. But Queen Anora wouldn't. It would be a display of discourtesy and vulnerability. That it would not be so in Orlais was very odd to her. She had been with Leliana for almost a decade, but she still had not grasped all the oddities of the Great Game.
The Divine was here, though, and that gave Elissa far greater pause. If Celene died, someone would succeed her. Elissa hoped for personal reasons that it would not be Gaspard de Chalons, but it would be someone. If Justinia died, it would mean chaos. And since Ferelden had allied with the mages, an unfriendly Divine would be a disaster for her beloved homeland.
Leliana is here, Elissa reassured herself, smiling at that thought. She gazed across the Divine's dais where her lover stood vigilant, sharp sapphire eyes scanning the crowd for threats. In the sea of masked faces, only the Divine, her staff, the Templars, and Elissa herself stood barefaced. It was scandalous for Elissa, as she was not a member of the Chantry, but she did not care. I am the Hero of the Blight, she thought confidently, slayer of the Archdemon, one of five people in a thousand years. I do not have to follow the Orlesian nobility's rules any more than the Chantry does. I am above the Game too.
Leliana descended from the dais to approach a pretty black-haired female Templar. They began talking, but it was inaudible to Elissa. She tried to focus on their conversation, tuning everything else to a vague rumble in her brain.
"There are many who believe significant escalation of the war is inevitable, that the Chantry has not done enough to support the Templars, that the Free Mages have gone too far with their tactics. They say we must pick sides."
"And you're saying I was chosen to guard the Divine tonight because you believe I've picked a side?"
Elissa knew what her lover was doing. She was feeling out this Templar's trustworthiness. Leliana had long suspected infiltration of the Templars by the schism, and before that, the mage-haters who mostly became the schism. But "mostly" was not all, and some agents could still remain, waiting to do harm.
Alternatively, her partner might be looking to identify an additional ally.
She could not tell if the female Templar said anything to satisfy Leliana, for in the next moment, another Templar approached them both. A rumble of gossipy noise drowned out their talk, to Elissa's extreme irritation.
But Leliana herself then approached Elissa at the dais, leaving the Templars to themselves. "We need to take our leave," she said quietly.
Elissa drew back, startled. "Why?"
"I have been told that Wynne has arrived at the Spire earlier than expected."
Elissa's gray-blue eyes widened. If their old companion from the Blight wanted to see them, it could be for only one reason: Justinia had managed to secretly restart the Tranquility-reversal research that she had begun, but that the Lord Seeker had shut down a year ago.
She glanced back at the Divine. "Will she be safe?" she asked quietly.
"The Templar, Knight-Captain Evangeline, is not an enemy."
Elissa did not ask how Leliana had figured that out. She took her lover's gloved hand with her own, openly and proudly flaunting their relationship before the Orlesian nobility, as they descended from the dais together.
But before they could leave the ballroom, Justinia called for attention, raising her robed arms high in the air. The murmur subsided. Leliana halted.
"We must wait. It would be a terrible slight to leave as she speaks."
"Of course," Elissa agreed. Wynne could wait. And, she reasoned, better to tell their old friend what Justinia said. Wynne was recalcitrant about the Circle rebellions. Perhaps the words of the Divine would sway her.
"Honored citizens, brothers and sisters," Justinia began, "we gather here tonight to give our thanks to the Maker, for it is by His will that we enjoy so many privileges: prosperity, freedom, an empire that stretches across half of Thedas. It is in this city that the Chant of Light first began its journey to the four corners of the world, and so it is fitting that we stop to consider our role as the Maker's favored children."
Elissa suppressed her frown. She understood why Justinia had to speak like this. Orlesian nobles were the most pompous, self-obsessed, arrogant people in the world—at least south of Tevinter. And it was abundantly clear to her that Justinia was doing it to butter them up for the radical proposals that she was about to make. Elissa was a Cousland; she understood politics. But this kind of talk still rankled her as a Fereldan patriot and one of only three living who had earned a sight of the Ashes of Andraste before their disappearance.
Elissa gasped, and beside her, Leliana tightened her grip on her hand in alarm, as Justinia descended from the dais. It was a shocking thing for a Divine to do... and far more worrisome, it made her very vulnerable.
"What is she doing?" Leliana hissed in panic. She tried to push her way back through the crowd, Elissa at her heels, to get near Justinia again.
Justinia continued her descent, greeting several nobles personally, taking the hand of an elderly woman. The crowd parted for her, suddenly creating two masses with far less space. Elissa and Leliana were caught in this backward surge. Leliana grimaced as she found her approach to Justinia blocked.
"We should not allow fear to cloud our reason," Justinia said. "We must remember all of those who have defended us in the evil times of ages past, who allowed us our prosperity through their sacrifice. We owe them a debt, and yet we have been shamefully forgetful of that fact." She paused as everyone fell silent. "I speak of mages. The Chant of Light says 'Magic exists to serve mankind, and not to rule over him.' And so it has been. The mages have served us well, in many wars over the ages, in Blights and Exalted Marches, in brave leadership to quickly end the violent conquest of the Qunari."
Elissa knew whom this last inclusion meant. It was a nearly explicit defense of the Viscountess of Kirkwall, who was ruling. Justinia was arguing that even mages who ruled could "serve" their subjects as good rulers did. It was dangerously close to the Tevinter view, a shockingly radical position.
"Yet in times of peace, how well have we served them?" Justinia challenged the crowd. "We mean them no harm, yet have we not harmed them even so?"
"You lie!"
Leliana snarled under her breath at the cry. She broke her handhold with Elissa and tried to shove her way forcefully through the crowd.
A masked nobleman in black velvet stood forth as the crowd parted for him. He tore off his mask to reveal a face filled with fury. The crowd surged again, hindering Leliana's approach. Elissa's heart palpitated in terror.
"You mean us every harm!" he snarled. "It's the Chantry that teaches them to fear us! You keep us under your thumb, reminding us again and again how you let us live only because we're useful!"
He is a mage! Elissa realized. Leliana was a person's length away from her, trying to shove through. Elissa tried to follow her. But the idiots in the crowd let him continue to approach Justinia, creating a sea of backward movement that shoved her and Leliana inexorably back like ocean waves preventing a drowning swimmer from reaching a raft.
Justinia was alarmed, but she held her cool. "Please, everyone," she called out, "there is no need to be frightened. There are better ways to get an audience, I'll grant you, but I'll happily hear this man speak."
It was what a rescuer might try to do to talk down a violent person who had taken a hostage. Justinia hoped to calm him. Elissa prayed that it worked...
"You'll hear me speak?" the mage mocked. "You've disbanded the College of Enchanters, silenced our leaders! You refuse to give Viscountess Hawke any real support as she faces a gang of heretics who'd kill us all! You've done anything but listen to us!"
"I am listening," she replied, "but order must be kept; surely you realize that. Peace cannot be accomplished through threats and demands. The lives of many more than just the mages are at stake now."
The mage was shaking, nearly crying in fear of what he was doing. "We see no peace being accomplished," he spat. "Hawke and Anders saw that, even if you don't! They saw what you people are willing to do," he snarled, "and they drowned a Circle in Templar blood to prevent it! They saw what was necessary and did it! They are doing it! They are fighting this war! Kirkwall has shown us that nothing will be accomplished unless we fight for it!"
"The Viscountess of Kirkwall's actions have also provoked the first schism in the Chantry since Tevinter's," Justinia said, stark coldness suddenly in her voice. "Tevinter broke with us partly because of our treatment of mages. We chose war to try to reunite them—and failed."
The Orlesian aristocrats gasped in shock. It was true, but no Divine said it. To give any validity to Tevinter's Chantry was blasphemous. And while some priests thundered denunciations of the current Marcher schism, others did not, put in the awkward position of disagreeing with its actions while basically agreeing with its views. For a Divine to say what Justinia had just said, condemning the current war and past Exalted Marches, was beyond shocking.
"Now Tantervale and Starkhaven have broken with us over the same issue, just the other side. Viscountess Hawke might win new freedoms for mages in Chantry lands, but how broad will those lands be if the lesson learned from all this is that, when one has a disagreement, the answer is to declare a schism, build up arms, and make war?" She sounded passionate in her view, and Elissa could tell that she truly meant it—that this was very important to her.
As she had done with the Orlesian aristocrats, Justinia reached out to the mage. "Please. This is what I meant that many lives are at stake. The dark spirit of war will tear the Maker's Chantry to shreds if we do not try talking!"
The mage almost seemed to see her perspective for a moment. Elissa's heart soared. But then the moment passed. He snarled, "Then let it begin here, because you are too late." He raised his hands to cast a spell.
That got the crowd moving. The nobles scattered in panic like a nest of ants kicked over. It allowed Leliana and Elissa to rush for the Divine alongside the Templar, Ser Evangeline, as the mage assassin called down fire.
The Templar disrupted the inferno and slashed the mage across his chest before Leliana and Elissa could reach the site of the attack. "Bitch!" snarled the mage, dabbling his fingers in his own spilled blood. He looked at his red-tipped fingers, glowering, then faced Evangeline—and Justinia.
The ballroom was in utter pandemonium, as panicked nobles fled and rushed for any exit they could find. The mage called forth a spell that was horribly powerful, fueled by blood magic—and the room erupted in a firestorm.
Elissa, Leliana, and Evangeline were all flung back. They landed hard on the floor, armor only somewhat cushioning them, disoriented and concussed, as the flames crackled and the nobles scattered. In the midst of the chaos, the assassin stalked toward Justinia. He was doomed. He had nothing to lose.
"They already fear us," he hissed. "Let them have a reason."
The women were too late to stop him. Justinia was suddenly no longer the benevolent, almost unearthly representative of the Maker's Bride. She was a vulnerable silver-haired woman knocked to the floor with no one to defend her.
The assassin sneered as he whipped his hand before her face, magic trailing behind him. Cuts appeared on the Divine's face and rapidly started bleeding.
"No!"
Leliana and Elissa were barely on their feet when Evangeline cut him down.
Kirkwall.
"Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast demands to see Your Graces. Both of you," reported Seneschal Bran. "And she says it is most urgent."
Caitlyn and Anders exchanged alarmed looks. What had happened?
Jo Beth stuck her tongue out at the seneschal. "I hate people who take Mama and Daddy away. Make her wait."
"Do you have any manners at all?" Mal hissed at his little sister. He was rewarded with a sight of her tongue as well.
"Little lady, her orders supersede yours. She reports directly to the Divine."
Caitlyn frowned at her daughter as she and Anders left the sitting room arm-in-arm. Jo Beth was not quite three, so there was plenty of time for her to learn how to behave... and Caitlyn certainly did not want to crush her fiery spirit... but there had to be a happy medium. If nothing else, she wanted Jo Beth to learn some self-regulation before she did magic, which Caitlyn and Anders both saw as inevitable with so much magic in her heredity.
But for now they had to meet with Cassandra. This seemed dire. If Justinia ordered it, Cassandra could command heads of state even in their own Keep, but she usually would not do it. Something was very wrong.
They took Cassandra into an audience chamber, and the Seeker did not wait.
"There was an attempt on Divine Justinia's life at the Imperial ball," she said bluntly, without any useless pleasantries.
Anders' eyes widened. Caitlyn gasped. "Is she all right?" she burst out.
"Yes. Her face is scarred but she is well. The assassin was killed."
Caitlyn's gaze hardened. "An agent of the schism, no doubt?"
Cassandra smiled mirthlessly and grimly. "No. A Libertarian Circle mage named Jeannot who condemned her for being insufficiently supportive of mage rights and performed blood magic against her."
No! she panicked, sharing a horror-struck look with Anders. Not our side!
"And before he tried to kill her, he invoked your names as examples of good and deserving leaders for mages. Before scores of Orlesian nobles."
Caitlyn and Anders instantly thought the same thing: This is an accusation of collusion. Their fury and denials filled the chamber in a din of noise.
"We had nothing to do with it!" Caitlyn roared, eyes blazing, her panic forgotten. "How dare you insinuate otherwise? What kind of fool do you take me for to think I'd want Justinia dead?"
Anders was heatedly, though rather less effectively, defending himself and her. "If we wanted to kill a Divine, you think we'd pick Justinia?" he shouted. "Instead of that bitch in Tantervale? I'd kill her if I could, but Justinia?"
"I know you didn't!" Cassandra shouted over them.
Caitlyn and Anders fell silent at once.
Cassandra glared at them. "You two need to control your passions," she spat. "I know perfectly well that you had nothing to do with it—but I have to say, if I didn't already know that, this unproductive, violent outburst against an ally would certainly make me wonder!"
With a grimace, Caitlyn recalled the thought that she had had about Jo Beth just before this meeting—how her daughter needed to learn self-control. I guess I do too. But, however intemperate she and Anders might have been in their intensity, she still felt that she had had no choice but to defend herself...
Anders named the problem. "What do you think it sounds like when you demand our presence and then say it like that? 'Was he with the schism?' 'No, he thought like you and invoked your names.' It sounded like an accusation."
"That was not my intent," Cassandra said tightly. "If you two will let me, I will explain further." When the pair glowered but fell silent, she continued. "We have an intelligence source indicating that Jeannot, while sincere in his own convictions, was allowed to enter the ball due to compromised guards and Templars who—yes, Viscountess Hawke—are agents of the schism. We believe they chose him for the job, abused him at the Circle, and then let him escape the tower and enter the ball."
Caitlyn glared at Cassandra. "He might not have become quite so radicalized if someone had stopped the abuse while it was happening."
"Justinia is looking into the conditions at the White Spire."
"Right," Anders scoffed, "just like I'm sure Elthina would have 'looked into the conditions' at the Circle here in Kirkwall if she had remained Grand Cleric. And decided that it was just spiffing if Meredith violated Chantry law about Tranquility for Harrowed mages and let Templars use it to create sex slaves. It happened for years on her watch, after all. No one will ever convince me that she didn't know about all of it."
"Do not compare Divine Justinia to that woman," Cassandra said sharply. "She does mean well for mages, whatever you want to believe. And regardless of the conditions of the White Spire, and their effect on his radicalization, Her Perfection cannot have every person who wishes her dead hunted down. The bigger issue is the infiltration of the Templars and Imperial Guard by schismatic agents—and the attack on your reputation, frankly. I know you had nothing to do with it. Leliana and I are spreading the word that our intelligence points to schism agents and that you were not involved."
"But it looks bad nonetheless," Caitlyn concluded in a pinched voice.
"Yes," Cassandra said brusquely. "It does."
"We have had some troublemaker mages here," Caitlyn said, thinking. "Mage supremacists. They call themselves Potentatists and Restorationists and claim to be a fraternity. I have declared that this view is seditious," she said with a grim smile, "and will be treated as such in the law. But it might be worth looking into whether this type of group exists on the sly in the White Spire and if this Jeannot was one of them."
Cassandra considered that. "I have never heard of this group among the fraternities of Enchanters," she said, "though of course they would keep it very quiet if they held such opinions. Perhaps they have always existed and only made their existence known among the Free Mages."
Anders bristled again. "If they have always existed, they've just hidden in the shadows and plotted anyway. Don't blame mage freedom for this."
"I am not. And I will inform the Divine and her Left Hand of this. But, again, I think the more pressing issue is the infiltration of the Templars and Imperial Guards at a very high level."
"Well," Caitlyn said, "I don't put my personal security in Templar hands. Something I told you, over two years ago, that Justinia should stop doing too," she said pointedly. "The Captain of the Guard is a close friend who is very zealous about rooting out corruption, and I have a militia I trust utterly."
"I am glad to hear that. But you do need to be very careful."
"The thing about being a mage is that I can defend myself without any weapon in hand and I can cast wards to add additional security to wherever I need to be. I'm more concerned about defending my reputation."
"As I said, we are putting out the word that we suspect schism involvement and that you are a friend to the Divine with no connection to the assassin. I'm afraid you are on your own about controlling the message in Kirkwall."
Caitlyn and Anders stayed behind in the audience chamber when Cassandra left. They were speechless, taking in the news and growing more horrified by the second as its import hit them.
"This is an unmitigated disaster," Caitlyn said to him.
He could not argue with that.
"It's not right!" she burst out suddenly, rising to her feet in agitation. "We had nothing to do with this! We'd be absolute idiots to attack Justinia, and this mage was an idiot to try to kill her if he really did support us. How could he have thought that would help us? But because he said he admired us, we'll be blamed anyway, no matter what she and Leliana say. It's unfair!"
Anders agreed. It was unfair. It was unjust. "The world is filled with unfairness and injustice," he said. "Sometimes I think there's little else."
"And the event itself. Anders," she said, eyes wide as she turned to him, "this scares me. She was almost killed. And... I knew intellectually that it was possible that she could be assassinated. I also knew that it would make my own position—and that of the Free Mages—very precarious if she were killed."
Anders suddenly understood where she was heading with this. "I know," he said. "I knew it too. And I didn't want to think about it either," he added, since he was certain that was what she would say next.
Caitlyn smiled mirthlessly at him. He knew her very well. "I was irritated with her," she said. "Her absence from the war... it was frustrating, and I had stopped thinking of her as anything but an ally in name only." She shuddered and drew suddenly close to him. He enveloped her in his arms instinctively to comfort her. "This attempt on her life makes some things real again to me that I hadn't wanted to be real." She faced him with a deadly serious expression. "Anders, if Justinia is killed, chaos will unfold. 'That bitch in Tantervale,' as you say, might become the Divine. Especially since the Orlesian Templars are this compromised. The priests there might be too." She trembled. "If that happens, we'll have to run for our lives. Our children will be fugitives." She shook in fury and terror at that thought. "The Free Mages may remain an army, but they'll have to fight without the resources of Kirkwall and our allies. This war is uncertain enough with those resources available. If we have to go it alone, what odds would we have?"
"Greater than zero," he said hopefully, "but..."
She sighed. "No. They would be zero. This is terrifying, Anders. I have been annoyed with Justinia, and I have made some intemperate comments, but I never wanted her dead. She hasn't given us armed support, but she hasn't actively hindered us either. A Divine who sides with the enemy and persecutes us? It would be over, Anders. You know that."
He didn't want to admit it, but he knew she was right.
They trudged back to the sitting room, where Mal and Jo Beth were still waiting for them. The sight of her children's innocent faces, and the idea that some assassin far away could, with one twist of a knife or blast of magic, ruin their lives, nearly froze Caitlyn's heart.
But as she gazed at them, that terror transmuted into anger. No, she vowed. I will not let it be so. No matter what. If the worst happens... well, if those bastards to the north could declare a schism, so could we. And we could back it up with the threat of magic. I would tear the Chantry to shreds before I let harm come to my children. And so would Anders.
As she glanced at him, she saw the same hardness in his face and knew that he had come to a similar resolution.
Over the next few weeks, Caitlyn made sure that her propaganda proclaimed her condemnation of the attempt on Justinia's life, repudiation of the assassin, and support of the message Justinia had apparently planned.
It was not quite enough. Caitlyn knew from reports from Varric, Charade, and Merrill—who had their ears to Lowtown, Darktown, Hightown, and the elven alienage—that people still murmured about the fact that the would-be assassin had supported her and Anders, and that Justinia had reportedly spoken against Caitlyn for "provoking" the schism. Caitlyn had not heard that bit from Cassandra's visit, and when the rumor reached Kirkwall, she again found herself somewhat out of charity with Justinia.
But not entirely. She did know how dire her, her family's, and the Free Mages' positions would become if Justinia were killed.
The activities of Petrice's people picked up noticeably after the attack. Although her organization was divided, with many of its foot soldiers hunting down actual schismatics in Hercinia, it had enough of a presence in Kirkwall to find troublemakers. And there were people who suggested that the Viscountess and Consort quietly approved of the assassination attempt.
Anders did not think this was heresy. It was sedition, definitely. But he did not believe it was the Chantry's place to make the arrests.
"I see your point," Caitlyn said thoughtfully when he confided his concern to her, "but at the moment, I don't mind it too much. It could be politically beneficial if the Grand Cleric arrests these people, all things considered."
"They won't be convicted," he said. "The Seekers overseeing her won't allow it. Because it isn't heresy. It's sedition. It isn't a religious crime. We should be trying them. They'll be acquitted at a Suprema trial and walk free."
"I don't like that," Caitlyn agreed, "but it still looks good for a Grand Cleric to make the arrests instead of me, even if she can't get convictions."
Anders frowned at her. "That isn't justice. It's politics."
"Politics is what we need right now, Anders."
He gave her a disappointed look, shook his head, and headed to the clinic.
Varric, Charade, and Merrill had a situation to investigate. Through the rumor mills of the Merchants' Guild, the Red Jennies, and the whispers of city elves, word had reached them of a "history" play to be performed in a converted Darktown enclave. It was said to tell the story of the final uprising that overthrew the magisters' rule, but Charade had a bad feeling about it. The snickers and winks that people exchanged when they spoke of it suggested to her that something else was up. They needed to find out.
All three were disguised. Charade was a master of the skill and had done up all three of them. Merrill had taken a lot of enjoyment in it. Varric had grumbled more, because he had had to remove the jewelry from his piercings—it made him too recognizable—and absolutely could not have his unique crossbow with him. For that matter, Merrill had to leave her staff behind. But at least no one recognized the trio, and that was crucial tonight.
The crowd gathered around the makeshift stage, passing bottles of ale around, chuckling and winking to each other. The chatter subsided as the dirty curtain parted and the play was introduced: "The Last Magister of Kirkwall."
A shabbily costumed actor emerged onstage, chains on his wrists. "Emerius!" he proclaimed, hands out. "City of Chains! And I, Radun, leader of slaves, bear these chains myself." He held up his shackled wrists. "We fight for the magisters and suffer from hunger and poverty because of their wars."
"Radun was a slave who became an underworld leader," Varric explained to Merrill quietly. "He tried to rally the slaves and the poor."
The crowd cheered in support of Radun's attempts to muster an uprising against the wicked magisters. But everyone, it seemed, knew how the rebellion would end. Varric and Charade certainly did.
The magisters didn't appear onstage during the first act. Their grunts and thugs did, the actors appearing onstage to wave fake staves around. Mock blood—or, perhaps, real blood—was splashed from poorly concealed bottles to represent blood magic, and the slaves fell to the ground "dead." All but Radun.
The actor playing Radun stood up after all of his supporters had fallen in a pool of "blood magic." He clenched his chained, shackled fist. "Maleficarum serving the wicked Magister Fausta have sent my friends to the Maker's side," he said, shaking his fist.
"Magister Fausta?" Varric repeated in a whisper so low that only his two companions could hear him. "The last ruling magisters were a collective, not a single person, and nobody knows their actual names anymore..."
It was all too clear why this particular historical liberty was taken. Even Merrill knew what was coming. They waited for the metaphorical axe to fall.
The Radun actor continued to speak. "My followers are dead, but the spirit of freedom will live on! I will gather more supporters to the cause!"
"Radun" could not finish his speech. A menacing figure stalked onstage, an actor wearing a costume of stiff black cloth sewn to resemble spiky drakeskin armor and painted with red and white details. The actor carried a huge fake staff with a head in the shape of a demon head.
And she wore a long red wig. There was no doubt of the play's target.
"I am Magister Fausta," the actor declared, holding her staff prop high, "and this is my city! It belongs to mages like me! It always has and always will! You are just bodies to fight the wars of mages! You will fight for us or we will kill you! Just look at your Maker's chosen!" She winked at the audience to make sure they knew she did not mean Andraste, but rather Justinia.
The trio sighed, their worst fears confirmed, as "Magister Fausta" stalked up to "Radun" and splattered an entire bottle's worth of stage blood over him. He fell inelegantly. The magister actor turned around, smirked, and raised her arms high in triumph as the first act ended.
"Sensationalism to rile people up. History says that they poisoned Radun," Varric muttered to Merrill.
Varric, Charade, and Merrill did not want to see the second and final act, but they knew they needed to. They watched in increasing concern and irritation as the actors playing people of Emerius rose up in vengeance and took down first the blood mages who had quelled the rebellion, then stormed the Gallows—a poorly painted wooden prop—and violently overthrew "Magister Fausta."
Or rather, Magister Hawke.
Caitlyn summoned a Small Council meeting the very next day, barely able to conceal either her rage or her fear.
Varric and Merrill explained what had happened at the performance to the rest of the Council members. Those who did not know already—and only the two of them, Caitlyn, and Anders knew before the meeting—grew increasingly disgusted as they described the play's plot and the actors' appearances.
"If it really were just a historical play about the magisters' fall, that would be fine," Ser Marlein Selbrech said, "but this is propaganda. There was no 'Magister Fausta,' and obviously, the character's physical appearance is a direct attack on Her Grace."
"It's not propaganda," Caitlyn said tightly. "It's sedition." She clenched her fists in anger. "It uses historical events, twists them, to call for insurrection! This is no history play, not even satire. Satire might be propaganda. This is a call to violently overthrow me! It hints that I colluded with that assassin! It is sedition," she repeated angrily, "and I want the playwright found and arrested."
"Not the actors, not the rest of the people involved?" Aveline asked.
Caitlyn's gaze hardened. "Well, if you can get them all, yes. This has to be the Coterie," she muttered. "Or the schism. Or both. Who else could organize something like this? Who else even knows that history well enough to write a play that twists it like that? The actors might be ignorant, but this is the work of someone reasonably educated. I want the playwright most of all."
"Understood," Aveline said.
Silence fell for a time before Comte de Launcet spoke. "I don't mean to sound in sympathy with seditionists, but times are still hard. The food kitchen has made a difference, and so have the healing clinics, but it's been close to a year. People are muttering about a permanent decline in trade for Kirkwall and what it might mean. Especially after the assassination attempt on Divine Justinia, there is mounting pressure to end the war." He turned to Caitlyn. "I hear it from my crew at the docks. They're less afraid of the mages than of the war continuing, trade suffering, and, Maker forbid, someone succeeding at killing the Divine. That would empower the schism, and it would be bad for Kirkwall. They think Your Grace should seize the momentum after Hercinia, strike while the enemy is weak, and attack Starkhaven and Tantervale."
Caitlyn exchanged an unhappy look with Aveline. "I wish I could right now," she said. "But do your crews know that Starkhaven has massive earthen and stone walls, Tantervale has high walls of granite, and both have the natural defense of a nearly-mile-wide river?"
The comte sighed. "I don't know if they do, Your Grace."
"And they would have warning of our attack. Our fleet couldn't sneak up. We would be spotted on the Minanter. If we approached from the south, our army would be spotted miles away in the Wildervale. This is very difficult, Comte." She glowered. "Whatever we do will need to be done openly, since stealth is not possible, but because of the defenses... we need to breach, top, or undermine the walls, and we need overwhelming force, frankly. And we don't have that yet. I don't want to throw countless lives away in a futile attack."
The Comte was unhappy with her reply but he could make no argument against it. "I see your point," he said regretfully. "We persevere, then."
Aveline wanted to send the City Guard to ambush the next performance. Caitlyn wanted to send the Kirkwall Militia.
"You do not know that this is Coterie," Aveline argued. "You have no real evidence that it is. Are you going to invoke your war powers for this too?"
Caitlyn glowered at her friend. "It's sedition. They're calling for me to be overthrown and accusing me of conspiring with an assassin. Yes, I am!"
Aveline did not approve, but she obeyed. When Varric heard of a second performance, the Kirkwall Militia stood disguised in Darktown, appearing to be part of the audience, but they knew who their fellows were. They even sat through the whole play, intending to arrest the performers at the end when they strode onstage for a curtain call. And when they did, Aveline gave the order.
It was an ugly scuffle. She had known that it would be. There was no weapons check to see the play. Some of the audience got involved to defend the performers, and after the fights were settled, they were arrested too. Aveline had mixed thoughts about it all. She understood Hawke's point. It was seditious, and dangerous if enough people took the call to arms seriously. The Satinalia 9:36 Massacre indicated that there would always be some people who took such messages seriously. But this was an ugly scene.
No one was killed, Aveline thought as she ordered the prisoners taken away. Blood was spilled, but no one died over it. And it is not treason. They were not actually plotting her death or backing the enemy in the war. I hope imprisonment for a term is enough to sate her need for justice... and her fears.
She made this argument to Caitlyn when she told her about the arrests.
Caitlyn considered it. She was still very angry and frightened, and the attempt on Justinia was definitely a factor in her fear, but she saw Aveline's point. Killing more people probably wasn't the answer.
"Agreed," she said. "They're not guilty of treason, as far as we know. They'll be imprisoned for sedition for the term required in law." She gave Aveline a pointed look. "Did you get the playwright?"
Aveline sighed. "No. I did not."
"I want the person responsible for this," she insisted. "The performers are conspirators, but they probably didn't come up with this idea or write the play."
"I'm working on it, Hawke. I'll question the prisoners."
Caitlyn and Anders were enjoying a pleasant evening with the children and pets when it was, yet again, interrupted by urgent pounding on her door. Not even trying to hide her anger anymore, Caitlyn stormed to the door and popped it open, facing Aveline.
"They're rioting, or protesting, outside the Keep. Again," she added sourly.
Caitlyn's patience frayed. "So what are you doing here? Do you need my permission to do your job? No, you do not."
Aveline glared back. "I wanted to tell you about it, Hawke," she said sharply. "I've already called the Guard on them. But I thought you would want to see what they're saying. And," she added pointedly, "two of them appear to have been the playwrights. I wanted your ruling about how to charge them."
That got Caitlyn and Anders to their feet. Telling Mal to watch Jo, Caitlyn pulled on a set of leathers and Anders donned one of his coats.
Aveline had activated both the Guard and the militia. They had disarmed, arrested, and corralled the protesters by the time Caitlyn and Anders entered the outer Keep. A pile of extinguished torches lay to one side.
"Down with the Red Magister!"
"Think you're better than us, do you? Superior to us? Think you robes have the right to rule us?"
The guards nearest these protesters cuffed them hard on the jaw, silencing them, but they still smirked and glared. As Caitlyn and Anders drew near, they noticed something else.
"There is a lot of Coterie armor here," she said in hard tones to Aveline.
Aveline nodded, her expression dark. "We noticed. We are investigating."
"You lot tried to kill the Divine! Murderous heretics!"
Caitlyn and Anders bristled as the militiaman nearest this protester slugged him in the face. "You know," Anders said in a low, angry tone, "I understand your bloodlust when I see this, Cait. And it's good we have them and not Petrice. With sedition and assault charges, they'll actually be convicted."
Caitlyn squeezed his hand unobtrusively. She was glad that he was on her side in this. She respected his ideals of free speech, but she still felt that he had been too easy on their domestic opposition in his views of how to handle it. But, she reflected, he objected to the idea of Petrice's Suprema arresting people on the street for speaking against battle tactics. These were thugs standing before the Keep and saying I'd tried to have the Divine killed, accusing me of being a mage supremacist, and Maker knows what else.
At that thought, she turned back to Aveline. "Where are the playwrights?"
Aveline led her and Anders to the confined pair. They were better-dressed than the other prisoners. "They gave their names as Natter and Jean."
Caitlyn smiled malevolently as the men glared back at her. "I hope your fun was worth it. Perhaps you can entertain the rest of your cell block now."
She was inclined to leave the matter at that—albeit further investigating their Coterie connections—until word reached her later that week that people were still speaking against her.
"They're saying you suppressed the play because it hit too hard. Also still calling you a mage supremacist who wanted the Divine dead, wants their blood, and so on," Varric said with a roll of his eyes.
Caitlyn sighed, trying to calm her anger and think rationally. "Curse those supremacists, and curse that idiot of an assassin," she growled. "I win battles but have to contend with this on the home front! Just how widespread do you think it is, Varric?" she asked seriously. "Is it a relative handful of people who are disproportionately loud, or are we looking at thousands?"
Varric did not like having to give her the bad news. "The latter, I'm afraid," he said grimly. "In a city the size of Kirkwall, 'thousands' is still few, but..."
"But it's a problem," she agreed. "This stupidity that Anders or I had any part in trying to kill Justinia, when intelligence has it that the schism did it!"
"You realize that getting you blamed for it was likely one of their goals," he pointed out. "Whether the assassination succeeded or not."
She groaned. "Ugh. You're absolutely right. The schism agents among the Templars must have chosen that mage because he had expressed support for me before. And all that I can do about this is arrest people for sedition. Incitement against me. It doesn't help."
Varric sighed and shook his head in disgruntled commiseration.
Later that day, a messenger from the Chantry arrived with an urgent message for her—not Anders, just her. Caitlyn wondered about that but did not delay. Hopefully it would be something to help her political problem.
The Grand Cleric looked insupportably smug when Caitlyn was admitted to the chamber that she had set aside for her Suprema trials. Varnell, Orwald, and Keili also bore smug grins. The four officials sat at a long table, with an extra seat for Caitlyn herself, and she noticed that in front of Petrice were documents.
"Viscountess Hawke," Petrice said, absolutely beaming, "we have received stunning news—evidence, actually. We wanted you to know at once." She removed the vellum covering the documents. "Those two pathetic playwrights are guilty of rather worse than mere sedition." Her eyes were gleaming. "Their nephews and nephews' wives came to the Chantry today bearing these letters." She pushed the documents in front of Caitlyn. "As you can see, two were written by heretical Templars of Tantervale, and there are also unfinished drafts of the playwrights themselves, in which they praise the false pretender, the anti-divine in Tantervale! Look, Your Grace. The letters even speak of the assassin who attempted Most Holy's life, that mage Jeannot."
Caitlyn inspected the letters. Sure enough, the content was exactly as Petrice had said. The ones purportedly from the Templars were even sealed with mounds of wax imprinted with the sigil of the Orthodox Chantry.
This seems too convenient.
"Their nephews brought these letters to you, you say?" she asked.
Petrice nodded. "They are both childless, but have nephews. It is good to see that there are so many who will choose rightly even when it is this darkest and bitterest choice between honor and faith, and kin."
Nephews. Childless. They are the playwrights' next of kin.
Caitlyn covered the letters again and gazed hard at the Grand Cleric. "My husband told me that you may have had a difficult time getting heresy convictions for people who claimed that I colluded with that assassin—that the Seekers sent to oversee the Suprema would consider it sedition against me rather than heresy against the Chantry."
Petrice scowled. "Yes, we have had interference from them."
Caitlyn spoke very carefully, her heart pounding. "Do you think you could get convictions for heresy on the basis of these letters?"
"Yes," Petrice said. "The typical standard for treason or heresy is two witnesses to the offense. We have four—the nephews and their wives."
The producers of these letters would inherit their uncles' property.
Two public heresy convictions.
This is far too convenient.
Two convictions of heresy, by the Grand Cleric, of people who wrote a play against me and supposedly conspired with the schism and the assassin.
They very likely did not do those things.
They are definitely guilty of sedition, though—trying to incite insurrection against me. They are not pure innocents. And I badly need this.
"Torch them," she said harshly. "Burn them at the stake."
Varnell, Orwald, and Keili smirked in glee. Petrice exchanged a dark look with Caitlyn, and for the first time in years, Caitlyn again saw the schemer who had tried to get her killed escorting a Qunari mage to "freedom" for the sake of politics. Not the true-believing Andrastian zealot, but the deadly Game-player.
Politics is what I need, she thought, remembering her words to Anders, as she took her leave.
The Chantry trials were ugly. The men were insistent that, while they had certainly authored the seditious play, they had had no dealings with the schism, the rebel Templars, or the would-be assassin of Divine Justinia.
"They want our gold!" the one called Jean declared of the letter-bearers. "Forgers, the lot of them!"
The Seekers had not liked the convictions, but they could not stop them. As Chantry law had it, two witnesses were required—and they had them and more. Since no one was in the position of questioning the assassin or the schismatic Templars, it was the men's word against the letters. They were quickly convicted of heresy and sentenced to die the next day by burning at the stake.
Anders followed the proceedings with indignation and contempt. The night after the executions, he confronted Caitlyn in their bedroom.
He closed the door behind them tightly after she strode in, then cast a ward to muffle sound. She recognized the spell and raised her eyebrows at him.
Fury was in his eyes. Justice seemed moments away from breaking out. "We need to talk," he bit off abruptly.
Caitlyn scowled back loftily at him. "Talk, then. Spit it out."
A flash of spirit lightning passed over him. "Why, Cait?" he burst out. "You cannot think those men were actually guilty of heresy!"
Caitlyn folded her arms and raised her eyebrows back at him wordlessly.
Her silence only seemed to provoke him further. He slammed a palm against the wall, the slap echoing through the bedchamber. "Those letters were fakes! The ones who produced them were next in line to inherit, and the content of the letters—it's just too convenient! The authors of the play against you just amazingly also wrote to Tantervale Templars—but that's not enough! There's more! They even knew about the assassin!" He let out a derisive scoff.
"You're right," Caitlyn retorted coldly. "That is the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw those 'letters' at the Chantry."
His jaw dropped. "So," he snarled, "you knew, and you let her—"
She glared back at him. "What exactly is your problem, Anders? Do you think they were complete innocents? They admitted to writing the play! They wrote a play that called for me to be violently overthrown and implied that I tried to have Justinia killed. They were provable, confessed seditionists."
Anders gaped at her in dismay. "It's unjust," he exclaimed. "They should only have been punished for what they did do, not this made-up heresy charge."
"You understood the value of cracking down hard when you were Regent in Dragon 9:35," she argued. "You executed the rapist Templars publicly."
He gaped again. "I convicted and executed them for crimes that they had, in fact, actually committed," he said. "And even so, the way I did it was damaging to mage rights, provoked a riot, and created a mess for you. You realized that at the time, even though I didn't! What happened to you?"
"People in this city are riled up because they think we're mage supremacists who colluded with an assassin to try to kill Divine Justinia," she said. "It's infuriating and I don't know how to counter it believably except with a strong public act by the Chantry. Since the Grand Cleric ordered these executions, that shows we are nothing of the sort and takes away their ridiculous rationale."
"Yes," Anders agreed sarcastically, "it takes away that rationale. Instead it gives them the rationale that you're willing to have your pet priest wrongly burn people as heretics. She said they were damned to the Void! Even murderers aren't told that at their executions! Not that I think a priest actually has the power to do that to someone's soul, but... you had people condemned to die while publicly being told that... And all this on the word of greedy liars and forgers, for your own political advantage!"
"What would you have me do?" she roared. "Sit back and do nothing as people spread lies about us both? Lies that could destroy our cause? They think we tried to have Justinia killed! That stupid play that they wrote implied it too! Do you approve of their words, Anders?"
He faltered. "I never said that."
"This is Justice speaking, I bet," she continued, "but justice is an ideal and this is the real world! And there are conflicts! Your spirit has pushed you for years on mage rights, remember? Who are you going to side with, Justice? Two seditious liars or the rights of mages throughout Thedas? Those two, or your own wife and children? Which is it, Justice?"
Anders glared at her, and for a second, the light of the spirit in question flashed across his body. "Justice is not a choice between two wrongs," he replied. He stalked toward her, lightning flashing over him, his expression set in hard resolve.
Caitlyn was furious with him, furious that he kept arguing with her and being stubborn and idealistic to a damaging degree... furious that he stormed toward her like this... furious at that look on his face...
Anders reached her, breathing hard, the heat of his anger and his body reaching her in waves. She could not say just how she knew, but somehow she knew that he was feeling more than anger too. She reached for him and attacked him with angry passion.
He was startled for a moment. In that moment, the thought crossed his mind that she was trying to manipulate and distract him out of his anger. That moment passed. She has never used sex to manipulate me, he thought, letting his instinct take over as he pulled her to him fiercely. She doesn't manipulate me at all, in fact. Other people, sometimes, but not me. We have always been absolutely upfront with each other. And that means that this is what she really feels right now—anger and passion, mixed.
That was exactly the truth. Caitlyn was furious with him, but she wanted him. He isn't wrong, really, she thought as she fought with him for ferocity and supremacy in their kisses. I wouldn't have done... what I allowed done... if I hadn't thought it necessary. I take no joy in these things. I know they're not actually right. I wish his ideals were always practical. I wish we could always do what he wanted. We can't, but he isn't actually wrong.
She didn't tell him this in words, but they had known each other for over a decade and understood each other very well indeed. He guessed the general thrust of her thoughts without her having to say them. You don't want to do these things, he thought as he pulled at her clothes and continued to bite at her lips. It isn't you. You're fierce, you're direct, you're passionate—but you aren't malicious. You don't like doing dark things. You feel driven to it when you are afraid, that's all. He got her gown off and shoved her towards the bed, still fully clothed himself. She was allowing it. You want me to. You do regret "having" to do things like that and you want me to... He swallowed as he tumbled on top of her and began working at his belt and coat. He couldn't quite complete the thought—just yet. You were saying "Justice." I know why.
A flash of the spirit's light passed over his neck and shoulders as he kicked off his boots and pulled at his trousers, but the spirit then seemed to flee his mind to a private space of its own, as it usually did during intimate moments with her. Justice had left behind an imprint of his thoughts, but at this moment, Anders was the rising one. He was pinning her to the bed with one arm on each side of her head. Their breathing, the heat of their anger and passion, the suddenness of it—it was almost too much.
"I side with you," he hissed.
She smirked at him. "I thought you would."
He returned the smirk. "And do you side with me?"
She understood what he was asking. Did she respect him; did she value his ideals and opinions? Would she listen to him when something was very important to him?
"I do," she whispered.
He knew that she liked his coats, but it felt heavy and stifling to him right now. He pulled it off and tossed it, along with the rest of their clothes, to the floor in a careless heap. It was only a few seconds. He immediately replaced his hands on each side of her head. "You want 'Justice,'" he whispered. "He's in his own place, but I could still give it to you by myself. And I ought to."
She stared back fiercely. "Then do. You think I deserve it, no doubt?"
There it was, the thought he would not allow before. "Don't you?"
"Then do it," she hissed. "You want to punish me? Prove it. Make it hurt."
All of his blood seemed to rush to one place at her fierce words, but he knew that she meant exactly what she said. He also knew that she didn't really want him to hurt her—at least, not there. It would be hard right now anyway. They had had each other hundreds of times over their years together, she had pushed out two babies that were half him and half her, and she was as ready and eager at this specific moment as he had ever seen, or felt, before. He couldn't really hurt her there, he didn't want to, and she didn't want him to. But he could take her as hard as he possibly could manage—and he did.
He did grab her wrists in one hand and pin them above her head, rather roughly, as he left a trail of rather hard bites on her neck, shoulders, and breasts. That was all the pain, all the "punishment," that she needed to explode in euphoria. He followed soon after.
Anders' feelings had changed rapidly from the outrage and anger that he had felt at the beginning of their fight. She was right, he thought pleasantly in the immediate wake of their release. About doing this, anyway. We needed it. And as often happened in the wake, he felt the urge to cuddle with her gently and talk it out, as they had so often done before when they had differences of opinion about what to do.
He was just reaching out to pull her close when, instead, she shoved him off her roughly and turned away from him at once, settling herself on the opposite side of the bed, facing away from him.
The warm feelings that Anders had been feeling turned cold and sour. What was that? he thought, hurt. Then it hit him. All she wanted tonight was to take her pleasure from me. That was it.
Anders' feeling of betrayal turned to anger. She's never treated me this way before—like an object. He glowered at her resting form, not touching him at all now, not even looking at him. I hope you enjoyed that as much as you seemed to, because I'm not going to let you do it to me again.
Notes: The opening scene is lightly adapted from Asunder. I added Elissa's presence, Justinia's and Jeannot's mentions of Hawke, and Justinia's pacifism. I think she's mistaken, but I did want to be fair to her viewpoint.
I am drawing from a Reformation-era English law: the Treason Act of 1547. It codified a two-witnesses requirement for high treason (ironically for this chapter), and reestablished that (of seditious acts, not adultery with a consort or counterfeiting) only an actual plot or attempt on the sovereign's life, or siding with an enemy in war, was high treason on a first offense.
In The Masked Empire, Gaspard de Chalons commissions a satirical "history" play to ridicule Celene. I can't find any canon characters who could be the playwrights for mine, so I've lifted from real history. In 1597, a play (The Isle of Dogs) by Ben Jonson and Thomas Nashe that Queen Elizabeth I considered seditious was suppressed and the playwrights were ordered arrested. I've gone a lot darker than real history. The real playwrights weren't executed.
I feel bad about letting all this hurt Caitlyn and Anders' marriage, but that's sadly extremely common.
