Notes: I wanted to clarify something about my inspirations from the Reformation era. The fic is not an allegory. The two sides are not stand-ins for 16th- and 17th-century Protestants and Catholics. If I were doing that, it would be impossible to tell which was which, because both have commonalities with both real-world churches of that era. This truly is just an AU of Dragon Age's mage rebellion and Mage-Templar War. The Reformation-era inspirations appeal to me because of my specific AU twist of a Chantry schism, that's all.
Song: Falconer – "Under the Sword"
Chapter 73: In the Name of High Treason
Caitlyn and Anders' difficulties continued for an additional month. Anders' resolution not to indulge his wife again fell to the wayside, as was inevitable in any partner who did not wish to be unfaithful. The natural urge presented itself again, and again—and he surrendered to it. But his anger did not fall to the wayside; it just fell to a low simmer, the glowing of coals rather than a roaring inferno. He desired her, but they did not discuss the conflict again, thereby increasing his anger—perhaps hers too, he mused—with each time they engaged in intimacy without talking about their disagreement.
Justice continued to hold the mystery darkspawn at bay when Anders dreamed; the spirit got better at it with time and practice, but it was still taxing and tiring to them both—especially to Justice. Spirits didn't need to sleep, but having to fend off this unknown monster every night while, by day, seeing his host's wife continue to crack down on her subjects—and not having a victory or even a feasible plan for one in the war—put pressure on Justice.
And perhaps it was Justice's influence, but Anders became rather aggressive when he and Caitlyn were intimate. All it took was a desirous touch from her before he would flip her on her back or stomach, pin her to the mattress, and reduce her to a trembling mess with rapid strokes and charges of electricity magic.
Anders' emotions afterward were a mix of satisfaction and anger. One night about a month after their argument, he had just spent himself after an intense session of... is it even accurate to call it "lovemaking"? Anders thought as he rested, sweating, beside her. We do love each other. Anger doesn't change that. But this doesn't feel like an act of love, giving her pleasure in a rough and aggressive way because that's how she wants to feel it. She does, clearly, but there is more to it than just that. It feels like... He didn't want to admit it, but he couldn't avoid the truth. It feels like using her to take out my frustrations and unresolved anger. That makes me a hypocrite, since I objected to her doing the same thing to me.
Little did he know that as these thoughts passed through his mind, beside him, Caitlyn had come to the same realization. He is acting out his frustration with me, she thought once the waves of pleasure had subsided and she could think clearly. I enjoyed it, but that's why he did it. He still disapproves of the fact that I have to do certain things for the greater good. It's that spirit. Justice has saved all of our lives at various points—the clinic explosion several years ago when Mal was there, the time Meredith knocked me down when I was pregnant, the many times he has saved Anders' life and mine—but he is fundamentally a Spirit of Justice, not Compassion or Valor. He is driving Anders to not see why I have to do these things and then to take his unresolved anger out on me in bed. He's a representation of an ideal that has difficulty with conflicting ideas, but it's going to take more than justice to win this war and win freedom for mages.
At that thought, anger surged in her towards her husband. Anders is a person, she thought mutinously. He has free will. He does understand more complex ideas than pure justice. By all rights, he should be able to influence this spirit more than he's currently doing. Either he is choosing not to, or he himself agrees with Justice about me. Either option irritated Caitlyn. Does he think he would do a better job? Does he think our family, let alone mages as a whole, would be better off if I had never become Viscountess and instead he had driven events of the past few years? What power does he think he could have had in that circumstance, anyway?
She seethed with resentment. He used to offer me actual support, she thought. He always told me when he disagreed or worried about something I was doing, but he'd also tell me that he trusted me and hoped for the best. He listened to me and gave me the benefit of a doubt, and I could see it... and would listen to him in return and sometimes adapt to his advice. Even if we did have to agree to disagree, he understood me. I don't think he understands or trusts me now. His spirit is driving him away from me, and he's letting it. She turned her head slightly to the left, where her husband lay, and glared at him.
Anders noticed that glare, and it quickly wiped away his feelings of guilt about releasing his frustrations the way he had done. Why is she glaring at me? he thought resentfully. She does the same thing herself. She uses our intimate moments together to take out her annoyance with me, and why is she annoyed anyway? Because I tell her things that she doesn't want to hear. I tell her truths that she knows are true but doesn't want to face. She knows that she isn't really this dark, hard person who has to pervert justice and crack down on anyone who disagrees with her. That's not who she is. I don't even really think it's necessary for victory. She does it because she is afraid, and in her fear, she believes it's necessary.
We used to be able to talk. She would listen to me, and even if we ended up disagreeing after all, she understood my point of view. She understood that I wanted freedom for mages and security for our family as much as she did, and we just had a difference of opinion about how to achieve it. I don't think she understands me now, and I am not sure she believes that I care as much as she does. She is caught up in being the Viscountess and Commander, the great leader, the symbol, and it's making her think no one cares about the fight like she does because no one else will do the dark things that her fear drives her to do. Her titles are driving her away from me, and she's letting them.
They had a long history of being a very affectionate and intimate couple. In a stark break with typical custom and protocol for a ruling couple, Anders did not have a consort's bedchamber in the Keep, even an unused one. The state bedroom was theirs. Unlike most other ruling couples of Thedosian nations, for Caitlyn and Anders there were no nights of the regnant visiting the consort's bed, or the reverse, for cold procreative "marital duties" and then returning to their own to sleep alone. They fell asleep and woke up together, and not infrequently, they felt frisky in the morning.
And the morning after their seething inner monologues, Anders did. It had been a restful night for him and Justice, an increasing rarity for the spirit with the ongoing mental assaults by the unknown darkspawn. But for whatever reason, it had not been targeting him this night, allowing them both some peace. Justice's nights fighting the darkspawn provoked a simmer of tension, unease, danger awareness, and restlessness in Anders almost as soon as he woke up. He knew that it had to be contributing to his and Caitlyn's problems, but there seemed to be nothing that he could do about it. But today, Anders did not feel this low simmer of tension. He opened his eyes and immediately faced the beautiful form of his wife.
She had never pulled her nightgown back on after their intimacy the night before, instead falling asleep bundled up in thick velvet blankets. It was a very sensual look, seeing the velvet fall in textures around her nude curves, the light of the morning sun giving her skin a warm cast and the blankets a glittering shine. She was awake already, gazing ahead with a fixed look on her face, red tresses tumbling down her shoulders in waves.
I'll make tender love to her, Anders resolved at once, feeling the blood rush to his groin at the thought of it and the sight before his eyes. We'll fix it. The darkspawn has left me and Justice alone, and I will use this gift of a peaceful night's rest to fix things with her.
A smile formed on his face, and he turned on his side and tried to reach for her—when she suddenly whirled on him, anger marring her face.
"Don't paw at me," she snapped.
Anders' feelings of warmth and openness turned cold and closed. "What?" he burst out as the feelings left him, replaced with the hard wall of anger again.
"I am not your toy," Caitlyn said in frigid tones, glaring at him. "I know what you were doing last night, what you've been doing, and I know why. You do not get to use my body to slake your anger whenever you please."
Is she accusing me of taking her by force? Anders seethed with outrage. He had never done such a thing—never would do it. And he knew perfectly well who had begun it last night in the first place—she had. "I know that," he snarled, snatching his hand away. "I'll always honor your refusals. Have I ever taken you against your wishes?" he added snidely.
She glowered at him, breathing heavily with anger, but she could not deny the truth. "No," she bit off.
Anders couldn't stop himself. The injustice and ugliness of her words hurt too much, soiling their love and their marriage. "By the way," he added, "last night, you 'pawed at' me. You've used my body to slake your anger, if you want to put it that way." He knew this was unjust, that he himself had thought of it that way, and he should not try to shame her for a thought that he'd had too. But his resentment was overtaking him.
Caitlyn glared back at him. "So it's vengeance upon me? Have I got that right?" With an angry huff, she flung the blankets away, exposing her naked body, then stalked out of bed to get dressed. But before she had pulled her clothes on, she gave him one last withering glance. "As you wish, Anders. I won't touch you. And do keep in mind that there are many unused bedrooms in this Keep. You are welcome to any that you like. I'll manage. You may have been my first lover and only male one," she said, "but my hands worked fine before I met you, and they still work. Even to cast lightning spells."
With that cutting remark, Caitlyn pulled her clothes on and stormed from the room, leaving her husband half-furious and half-devastated.
Caitlyn ensconced herself in an office far from her private study that adjoined their bedroom. She ordered breakfast brought to her there, and as she wolfed down the food and beverages, she considered what to do today. She was furious with Anders after her realization last night and disinclined to let him have anything to do with her today. She also wanted to make progress on something. Kirkwall's current impotence at making an effective attack against Starkhaven or Tantervale was eating away at her, and another winter was rapidly approaching with no indication that the economic difficulties they had faced for so long would lessen either.
Between the food kitchen and the healing clinics in Hightown and the docks district, Kirkwallers are no longer dying in the streets, she thought angrily, but these stupid ingrates don't see it. They don't remember how bad it was under Dumar and Elthina. The schism and its Templars would take away all these new improvements to their lives... shut down all the clinics and lock all the mages back in the Circle, those that they didn't make Tranquil or kill outright... depose the one ruler of this damned city who actually resolved to feed its people and fight criminal gangs... and reimpose that same smarmy traitorous bitch who denied charity to bloody near everyone when she ruled the Kirkwall Chantry. Kirkwall would return to the bad old days, if not worse. They'd probably want to punish the city for allowing me to rule at all. And yet the people here resent me.
Caitlyn resolved to focus today on Harlan and the Coterie. She was due an update about the investigation into Coterie involvement in the seditious play and the riot that had ensued when she had broken up the performance.
The letters that the dead playwrights' relatives had forged did not implicate Harlan or the Coterie. Caitlyn had brooded over that for the entire month.
It was useful to have them convicted of heresy and publicly declared to have conspired with rebel Templars and Justinia's attacker, she thought—and it had been. After they had burned at the stake, most of the talk that Caitlyn and Anders had colluded with the assassin had subsided. Whether it was because her hopes were right and heresy executions by a Grand Cleric had indeed made people see reason, or whether Anders was right and the malcontents were simply quiet because they were afraid of her and Petrice after the brutal display, Caitlyn could not say. But that particular slanderous lie had indeed subsided.
In that regard, the ugly, despotic, and yes, she admitted guiltily to herself, unjust scheme worked. But at the same time, I know that they did not conspire personally with Elthina and the rebel Templars. However, the play probably was a Coterie stunt. Many of the rioters had Coterie armor.
Caitlyn did wonder how much, if any, that the Coterie's leaders worked with the schism. They certainly had a common foe... but the schismatics and rebel Templars were true believers, and Harlan and Lusine believed in nothing but gold and power. She wondered, but she kept having doubts that they were actually working together instead of merely taking advantage passively of all the damage inflicted upon her.
Nonetheless, the letters had not implicated Harlan or any known Coterie figure. Was it because the playwrights' relatives didn't want to expose their connections, given how zealous the Kirkwall Militia now was in making arrests for Coterie involvement? Or was there some other reason?
"Aveline," Caitlyn murmured, resolving on her course. The Guard-Captain owed her an update about the investigation. She did not believe in torturing prisoners, and Caitlyn had no intention of asking her—contrary to what Anders thinks, I do have limits, she thought grouchily, and besides, tortured people say what they think their captors want to hear whether it is true or not. But smart interrogation could get people to spill quite a lot. Hopefully Aveline had obtained some useful intelligence from the prisoners.
Aveline's face was lined with irritation and frustration too when she entered Caitlyn's office. It was not with her friend and Viscountess, at least.
"We've hit a dead end, I'm afraid," she admitted reluctantly, clearly blaming herself for the failure. "We've gotten several actors to admit that they themselves worked for the Coterie by day. But the play charged no admission. There are no receipts leading to the Coterie... or anywhere." She scowled at herself. "Hawke, if Harlan did commission it—and my suspicion after talking to these prisoners is that you were right about that after all—he worked directly with the playwrights and kept everyone else in the dark, no doubt to protect himself against someone revealing his own involvement."
"Because commissioning a play that calls for my violent overthrow is, in fact, criminal sedition," Caitlyn agreed tartly. "I could finally arrest him." Inwardly she cursed herself for ordering Petrice to go ahead with the fake heresy trials instead of getting every grain of intelligence from the playwrights first. Maker damn it, she thought, what a choice! The burnings did seem to work in suppressing the lie that Anders and I were involved with Justinia's attacker, but now we can't know whether these writers really were hired by Harlan. "What about the playwrights' heirs?" she finally asked Aveline. "If you haven't questioned them yet, I authorize—no, I command it."
Aveline's face turned even more sour. "Donnic and I thought of that and dispatched militiamen to their homes. They were gone. I don't think your priest's organization knows yet."
Caitlyn gaped in dismay. "Damn!" she swore. "Fled or murdered?"
"Could be either. Their gold and valuables have vanished."
"Ugh!" Caitlyn said. She heaved a sigh. If they were Coterie, she thought darkly, it's likely that Harlan ordered it, whatever happened. If he did plot with the playwrights, he might have even ordered the relatives to forge the letters after they were captured, in order to eliminate two prisoners who could expose him. Most Coterie employees are disposable to him. She considered further. But the playwrights did not accuse Harlan at their trials. If they had, it might have gotten them acquitted by the Chantry, and I... might... have offered them clemency for giving up Harlan. They might have lived if they'd done it, but they didn't do it. Therefore, it's perhaps even likelier that the relatives forged the letters themselves, not on his orders, and he had them killed for it and their wealth confiscated instead of helping them leave Kirkwall. Once this had occurred to Caitlyn, her mind instantly fixed upon it as not just possible, but probable. It made eminent sense for a crime boss.
But she could say none of this to Aveline. To do that would be to admit that she knew the heresy trials and executions were unjust. Aveline knew it too, Caitlyn could tell, but neither woman spoke of it to the other. I could tell Anders, she thought with a regretful pang, but he is in a protracted snit.
She heaved another sigh. "Keep questioning the prisoners," she said. "It's always possible that someone knows something that they just haven't spilled yet." She then recalled that her friend was annoyed and frustrated, and had been when she entered the office. "Is something else wrong, Aveline?"
"Yes," Aveline said bluntly, her lips curling. "I wasn't going to trouble you with it unless you asked. It's a problem with the City Guard."
"Well, I am asking now," Caitlyn said, forcing a weak smile.
Aveline did not smile. "I try to rotate rosters to give everyone a taste of each part of the city," she said abruptly, "but the security of the Keep is a special matter, one that demands the most trustworthy people, especially in wartime. I don't rotate that one much. Maybe I should... but," she collected herself, "my point is that the guards serving at the Keep have developed a clique from their shared duty, more so than most others. And this is a problem today because most of today's Keep guards are out sick with symptoms of food poisoning," she concluded, scowling. "The Keep is staffed. I have a roster of substitutes. But I hated having to call them up abruptly for this duty."
"Wait," Caitlyn said. "How are so many of them sick? Did they share a meal?"
"Evidently they went to the Hanged Man last night as a large group."
"Why wouldn't they go to a healing clinic? I don't know what Healers can do for food poisoning—thank the Maker, my children and I have not had it, so we haven't had to ask Anders for that kind of healing—but surely they can do something."
"The proprietor of the Hanged Man sent a message saying that they all took extremely ill last night, vomiting, and that he had to have their friends and family take them home. They're too sick and weak to walk."
Caitlyn's alarm heightened. "Maker! I'll have Healers go to them, then." The fear in her face then settled into anger. "And order someone to inspect the Hanged Man's kitchen very thoroughly. Probably fine him, too. And have Varric threaten him," she added darkly. "This shouldn't have happened."
"I'll give Anders a list of names of guards who were sickened."
The situation with the sick guards was yet another low-simmering irritation for Caitlyn, but she did not know most of the guards, so who was on duty at the Keep otherwise did not affect her. She dispatched Varric to the Hanged Man as threatened. Varric's influence with both the Merchants' Guild and as the Treasurer of Kirkwall made him a customer not to offend.
Caitlyn ensconced herself in her office again and tried to focus. But in a few hours, she was interrupted yet again, this time by the seneschal's page.
"Lady Johane Harimann has come to court today with a request to see Your Grace privately," the page told her. He lowered his voice. "She wouldn't tell me the details, but she says she has important intelligence about Starkhaven and the Vael family that could be extremely useful in the war."
Caitlyn's heart skipped a beat. Lady Harimann did have a past of alliance with the Vaels, as she herself had said. Caitlyn thought back to her meeting with the noblewoman about Grace's involvement with the mage supremacists. She was irritated at my "meddling," Caitlyn remembered. But perhaps she has thought better of it after the attack on Justinia and the seditious play against me. Perhaps she wants to restore my trust in her now. And I might as well face it, unless there is some secret vulnerability of Starkhaven, I'm at my wits' end for how to attack that city—or Tantervale. This could be the break I need.
"Admit her to my small audience chamber," Caitlyn said, "once I have made my own way there."
"Her Ladyship is in the great hall of the outer Keep with many other nobles," the page said.
It was not unusual for a smattering of nobles to gather in the great hall—more a great foyer—just beyond the entry doors. Most times, they did not even seek an audience; it was just a social activity, a way to spread gossip and catch snips of intelligence: Kirkwall's version of a royal court. Caitlyn rarely visited now that they were at war. It was tedious in the first place, and the war and the economic depression gave her an excuse to avoid it.
She entered the audience chamber outside the inner Keep and awaited her guest. In a few minutes, Lady Harimann's sharp, cultured face, silvery hair, and fine dark gown appeared at the door. The page closed the door behind her.
"Take a seat," Caitlyn invited her guest, trying to put warmth into her tone. The day had not gotten off to a great start, but this visit could turn it around.
The noblewoman sat down but did not begin speaking immediately. As she sat down, Caitlyn noticed that she had come in with a gnarled walking stick topped with a small glass globe. "I don't recall seeing your walking stick the last two times we visited," she began politely. "I regret if you have suffered an injury or condition since then."
Lady Harimann paused for a bit longer than was normal before replying. "I thank Your Grace," she said stiffly. "I am not as young as I once was."
There was another awkward pause. Caitlyn found herself quickly growing impatient. Is she having second thoughts about giving up something that could cause the downfall of the Vaels? she thought. Her impatience seeped through her words as she spoke. "I was informed that you have useful information about Starkhaven and the Vael family. We are alone, my lady. If it is secret intelligence, no one will hear it but me." She paused before adding, somewhat reluctantly, "And if you bear some residual loyalty to the Vaels that surprises even yourself, be assured that I'm not a monster. I will let the Prince of Starkhaven live if he is innocent of atrocities."
Lady Harimann snapped her head up to regard Caitlyn evenly. She was silent for several more seconds before finally beginning. "This war has been extremely detrimental to Kirkwall, Viscountess Hawke," she said in harsh tones. "Trade has decreased, perhaps permanently, since the decline began over a year ago after the Battle of Kirkwall Harbor. The Coterie is ascendant. And although we have liberated Hercinia, there is no clear path forward to take Starkhaven and Tantervale that many of us can see."
Caitlyn's hackles rose. "As you know, those cities are extremely well defended by both the river and their own walls. I don't see a direct siege of either as being likely to succeed, and it would risk annihilation of the army, given the population numbers those cities together can boast." She paused and added, her tone hard, "If you have knowledge of a weakness, speak it. But I won't sit here and be lectured over the fact that I haven't destroyed the army in some futile gesture of 'boldness.'"
Lady Harimann stared back at her, anger heating up her gaze. "You are a pioneer and a radical in some ways," she said, seemingly apropos of nothing. "There have been other mages who ruled, even in the Free Marches, but always secretly—until their exposure. You have defied centuries of custom... seized the moment that a reformer Divine is upon the Sunburst Throne... and I must acknowledge it."
Caitlyn scowled. Back to annoying sycophancy, I see, she thought. "Yes," she replied coolly, "my pioneering is why this war that you complain about is occurring. Do you have useful information, Lady Harimann?" Because if not, I'm going to kick you out of this chamber, walking stick or not.
The woman glared at Caitlyn. She gripped the walking stick that Caitlyn had just been thinking about, caressing its dark purple glass globe. "You, like Justinia, have been a pioneer, but not forceful enough," she hissed, teeth suddenly bared. "Your city is dying, Hawke, slowly starving, its gold bleeding dry. But can you care as a true Kirkwaller would? You are Fereldan."
Caitlyn was angry now. "You have one last chance to say whatever it is you claimed to know. I won't take this in my own chambers—"
"You have an army of mages who would fight and die for the cause!" Johane Harimann said more loudly. "And they include a faction that sees the truth—sees what must be done! But you target and oppress this faction, scapegoating them for your failures!" She gripped her walking stick below its purple globe and rose abruptly to her feet, brazenly defying protocol that one was not to rise until the head of state did, lifting her stick threateningly as Caitlyn leaped to her feet as well, outraged and frightened.
"Get out of my Keep!" Caitlyn snarled. She raised her voice. "Guards!"
"Your guards can't help you today, Hawke," Johane Harimann sneered. She raised her stick—no, Caitlyn realized in horror and shock, staff—and the globe began to glow with a sinister light.
Johane Harimann's spell flung her backward against the wall before she could think to react. Pain erupted as a strip of moulding bruised her back.
"If a mage can now openly rule a great city, it should be me," the noblewoman proclaimed. "My children have noble blood on all sides of the family, not a mere quarter of Kirkwaller blue blood amid rivers of common sludge—and bastardy! Your eldest child, but you as well, Hawke!" She lashed Caitlyn with another spell across her midsection. "I see allies in the Potentatists, kindred spirits, not enemies to blame when Coterie scum complain about mages! I could win this war easily!"
Caitlyn's shock had dissipated now, though, and despite the wide rip in her gown—and the bleeding gash in her abdomen—she was fighting back. Despite not having a staff with her—Maker, what was I thinking? she cursed herself—she was fighting back. There was nothing else that she could do.
But it was a nasty, difficult fight. Caitlyn was at a disadvantage against a blood mage who had a staff, and she had to be extremely clever, alert, and forceful to counter her foe's advantage. And Johane Harimann was certainly a blood mage. The gash that she opened in Caitlyn's midriff was just the beginning. Another hemorrhaging wound followed a minute into the fight on Caitlyn's left forearm. Lady Harimann bared her teeth again menacingly.
But Caitlyn had gotten in some heavy blows of her own, landing powerful lightning bolts and entropic hexes on her foe, trying to avoid anything that was likely to break the skin and give the blood mage something to enhance her own power. When Johane Harimann opened the second big wound on Caitlyn, Caitlyn reacted quickly with a force spell—the same one that she had used in Hercinia's Chantry against Red Templars, called Fist of the Maker—to pin her foe to the ground. She swiftly healed herself of the injury.
Spells' periods of effect did not last as long against magic-attuned Templars or powerful mages as they did against ordinary fighters. Caitlyn knew, when she saw Lady Harimann pinned to the floor by invisible forces, that she had limited time to finish this. Her heart was pounding in fear for what she might discover outside—her brain had focused on the immediate conflict, but she had not missed Lady Harimann's allusion to the guards—but better to get out of this tiny room where a large group of attackers could easily corner and kill her. Her panic intensified as she thought of Anders and Mal in the healing clinic.
I have to end it, she told herself, forcing herself to focus. She glared down at the woman on the floor, taking Johane Harimann's staff away from her. "Go to the Void, traitor," she snarled as she cast deadly spells in quick succession—a lightning bolt, a hex, a brutal targeted punch to her sternum that audibly cracked her enemy's ribs, another hex, a focused death drain.
Lady Harimann seemed to realize that she was beaten. "No!" she groaned. Her teeth were bloody. "I can't fail!"
Caitlyn sneered. "You did fail." She slammed her dying foe with another lightning bolt. Lady Harimann groaned and twitched. "You failed, like the fool who attacked Justinia. Maker take you—you could have thrived in the new world I'm building! But you ruined that chance, and for what? If it isn't Harlan stirring people up against mages, it's you and your fellow supremacists, doing your damnedest to validate his followers' ravings!"
"Oh, Hawke," Lady Harimann said, smiling through the blood in her mouth and on her teeth. She stared at Caitlyn spitefully, determined to have her say before she died. "Do you not know that Harlan is himself a mage?"
What? No. That cannot be. Her mind revolted against the idea. It was insane. It made no sense. "That's a lie," she spat back.
"It isn't. We... are... meant to rule. Secret mages... many high... places. Proof." Her voice had become a croak.
Caitlyn was not interested in a supremacist declaration. She was interested in Harlan. "You've seen him do magic, then? You've personally seen it?"
Lady Harimann did not reply. A wave of pain took her, and a groan escaped her lips involuntarily as her body failed.
Caitlyn cursed as her foe died without giving her any additional useful information, but it was over. Her heart pounding, she burst out of the audience chamber, still holding Lady Harimann's staff.
Her first thought was to find her family. She ran down the corridor to the grand foyer that led to such areas as the guards' rooms, the healing clinic, and small parlor-alcoves for courtiers. Sounds grew louder as she neared the great hall, shouts and clashes of metal. Caitlyn's heart thumped in panic.
She halted, briefly swaying for a moment, as she reached the outer hall. A scene of absolute chaos met her eyes.
Aveline, Donnic, and a handful of other guards and mages were fighting for their lives against fellow guards. Many had already fallen, though with the betrayal it was impossible for Caitlyn to tell how many of the dead were foes and how many were allies. The area of the Keep where nobles tended to gather was a war zone, with vases and urns knocked down, furniture overturned, splinters and shards littering the flood amid pools of blood. A scene akin to the one the night that the Arishok killed Viscount Dumar filled this part of the Keep, nobles cowering and whimpering, catatonic and terrified. Comtesse de Launcet was sitting on the dirty floor, knees bent and arms curled around her legs, whimpering. Two of her friends huddled against her. And to Caitlyn's extreme anger, three noblemen who actually carried swords were trying to hide behind a large chest rather than defending the Keep. They were fat in the belly, and probably out of shape, but they were hoarding good weapons.
"It's Hawke! Our lady failed! Kill her!"
A spell shot toward Caitlyn from the fray, but she had time to dodge it. It struck the wall behind her, blasting a smoldering crater, the shock wave nearly knocking Caitlyn down. That traitor tried to kill me with a fireball! she thought. Quickly she scanned the area from which it had come. An angry-faced mage in Arcane Guard leathers glared out, readying another spell.
Caitlyn launched a single, powerful, targeted blow of force magic that careened him backward into the stone wall. His head struck the wall with an unpleasant crunch. He slid to the ground, blood trickling from his nose and mouth, as his eyes shut.
She bounded into the great hall, looking frantically for her family. Jo, at least, would not be here. But Anders and Mal...
Aveline cut down a traitorous guard with a vicious swing of her sword. His head toppled from his shoulders, rolling on the ground, as a torrent of blood erupted from the neck. Caitlyn could not understand why they were fighting. If this was a mage supremacist coup attempt, why were non-mages part of it?
Johane Harimann must have promised them something in return for loyal service, Caitlyn thought as she dashed through the melee, defending herself with spells as needed against the handful of attackers who tried to take her down. Some of them, the Restorationists, wanted to "restore" Tevinter-type rule. But even the Imperium needs non-mages. Perhaps these traitor guards already had ties with slaver gangs, had to cut them to avoid Aveline's wrath, and Lady Harimann manipulated their loyalties for her ends.
It could be investigated and figured out later. Caitlyn had almost reached the corridor where the healing clinic was. Another mage jumped into her path, blocking her with a snarl.
He's not armored as a guard! Caitlyn realized as she fought him. His spells were not very strong, either. In fact... a horrible realization struck her as she cut him down brutally.
She reached the healing clinic and shoved the door open.
A defensive line of Healers had overturned tables to put a barricade in front of the patients, whom they were defending as well with spells—because other Healers had betrayed them, just as Caitlyn had feared when she had seen the garb of the last mage who had attacked her.
Anders, Maker bless him, was leading the attack against the traitors. Mal was behind the barricade. He gaped at his mother's sudden appearance. Anders gave her a relieved look, but there was no time for reunions. Caitlyn joined the fight and immediately discerned the battle lines.
"Traitors!" she roared, launching a ferocious fireball, far stronger than any of the Healers could cast, at the nearest cluster of traitorous Healers. It landed with a heated explosion, knocking them back, setting several on fire, and killing three outright.
For a moment, a flicker of annoyance passed over Anders' face, visible to Caitlyn. He had been leading this, and she had taken it over. But the moment passed. What mattered was defeating the attack.
With the sight of their Viscountess alive and—mostly—well, the loyal Healers rallied. Her fierce fireball and diminution of the attacking force also rallied them. It was a few more minutes of bloody, heated, dangerous magic back and forth, but the defenders were beaten. To Caitlyn's irritation, not one of them surrendered.
I need to question someone! she thought in fury as she took down the last traitorous Healer who insisted on fighting to the death. I need to know how deep this conspiracy goes!
But there were no survivors among the traitors in the clinic. At last, Caitlyn and Anders had nothing else to do but to secure the place, casting wards on the battered doors.
Anders hurried to his son's side, taking Mal into his arms protectively as he stood behind him. He angled his staff in front of Mal, his free hand on Mal's shoulder. He faced his wife. Their fight that morning was all but forgotten.
"Supremacists," he got out. "I don't know what their goal was..."
"They were fighting for Johane Harimann," Caitlyn replied flatly. She lowered her voice so that only he and Mal could hear. "She was a secret blood mage. She attacked me. It was meant to be a coup. I don't know if Aveline told you about the sickness of the main roster of guards..."
"She did," he said. His gaze hardened. "It was poison. It had to be."
Caitlyn nodded. She had reached that conclusion herself. "This was very well-planned. And I had not a whit of advance intelligence about it." Her gaze hardened. "This is an inexcusable lapse by Aveline."
Anders did not disagree. Caitlyn knew that he and Aveline had never seen eye to eye on some points.
He needed to protect the clinic and their son, so she stormed back into the great foyer herself. By this time, the fighting had subsided, with the Keep's loyalists triumphant. Aveline, Donnic, Alain, and—for some reason—Cullen were confining the miscreants and restoring order.
But the place looked like a cannibal's butcher shop after an earthquake.
Splashes of blood defiled the floor, bringing back terrible memories of the Qunari attack and the Satinalia Massacre of 9:36. A few severed hands, limbs, and heads lurked in corners. Furniture and valuables were toppled over, walls and floor tiles were chipped, and a layer of dust and ash from the attacks coated everything. The pathetic, cowardly nobles who had been in this area were still huddling together or cowering behind furniture, since loyal guards had blocked the great exit doors to prevent anyone from leaving.
The fear that Caitlyn had suppressed in the stark moment of survival asserted itself and transmuted into anger. She raised her staff—Lady Harimann's staff, now a battle trophy of surviving the assassination attempt—and shouted over the continued murmur. "Aveline! Donnic! Alain! Cullen! I want every person in this hall who didn't fight by your side arrested and held in custody! No exceptions!"
The nobles, including Comtesse de Launcet, gasped. "But Your Grace!" the whimpering lady pleaded.
Caitlyn was unmoved. "If you are not guilty of anything, you will not be harmed. But in case you don't know, one of your fellow nobles, Lady Johane Harimann, deceived her way into a private audience chamber—and then tried to assassinate me!" More gasps arose from the nobles. She hesitated for a moment about whether to reveal the woman's secret, and whether it would further harm the mages' cause, before deciding that it would be far worse to keep it and then have it come out later. "She was a blood mage and had been keeping her abilities secret for years! She was in league with seditionist mages whom I've condemned before! The Guard is obviously compromised too! So at the present moment, I don't particularly trust anyone!"
Comtesse de Launcet whimpered again as the guards approached the cluster of nobles, but neither she nor anyone else objected again. As Aveline directed the guard leaders to hustle the captives off, Caitlyn shot her a filthy look. Aveline grimaced in shame at her failure. There was not much to say.
Anders hurried Mal into the safety of the inner Keep before rejoining Caitlyn in the foyer. He stood beside her wordlessly, not taking her hands—perhaps he was still unsure after the ugly fight in the morning—but visibly shaken and supportive nonetheless. They exchanged worried, silent looks.
Aveline and Alain had led a group of guards and Arcane Guards to the Harimann estate to investigate. Donnic Hendyr was overseeing the remaining guards. Cullen looked abashed and ashamed. His trudge caught Caitlyn and Anders' attention as he approached them.
"Your Grace," he said, gaze cast down at the floor. "I failed you today."
Caitlyn was not in the mood for this. "How?" she snapped. "You aren't a City Guard."
"I was a Templar," he said. "I took vows. I resigned from active duty rather than continuing to serve under Meredith, but I never abjured my oath."
Anders spoke up cuttingly. "Once a Templar, always a Templar—just as I thought."
Cullen ignored him, addressing himself to Caitlyn. "It is the job of a Templar to protect people from dangerous mages, but I failed the Viscountess of Kirkwall when a blood mage attacked."
The fear, stress-release, and anger in Caitlyn rose to a crescendo. "Oh, is that so?" snarled. "Protect people from mages, you say! People—and mages! Separate groups! I think Anders is right: Once a Templar, always a Templar." She knew this was probably not what he meant, but she was too furious about the morning's events and Cullen's current behavior to care. "I'm a mage too, you should recall! Everyone else in Thedas remembers it!"
Cullen looked upset. "That wasn't what I meant, Your Grace... I misspoke... but I just feel that I have failed to protect you from a blood mage, and that bothers me as a Templar. Perhaps it's my... lyrium problem..."
Caitlyn had had it. Cullen was making himself an easy target for her tumult of negative emotions. "I don't want to hear about your self-inflicted problem!" she nearly shouted. "Not right now!"
Anders spoke up aggressively. "Nor do I. And I don't care about your opinions of the job of a Templar." He gazed around the foyer sarcastically. "I don't see any Templars among the defenders! Instead I see loyal guards—and mages. We held off this assault! We don't need your 'help'!"
Cullen sighed in regret but didn't argue. He turned to leave before recalling that the doors were shut, then trudged back to where he had been standing.
Aveline and Alain returned to the Keep with Varric, Merrill, and Charade in tow. They all looked grim as Caitlyn ushered them into a private, clean conference room for their report. She tried to keep her temper with Aveline.
"We have not had time to conduct a thorough search of the estate," Aveline began, "because we had to fight Lady Harimann's husband and children, who were ensorcelled. And a very powerful desire demon in the catacombs."
"Maker fuck it!" Caitlyn exploded crudely. "A secret mage who dealt with a demon!" She stared at them. "I don't want this getting out. Mages have had enough bad publicity lately after Val Royeaux."
"We understand perfectly," Varric put in seriously. "No one saw the demon except the five of us."
"I want it kept that way. Don't even talk about it among yourselves."
"Understood," Aveline said. She continued with the report. "We did find documents in Lady Harimann's room confirming her involvement with the Potentatists and Restorationists. Needless to say, she hired Grace as the Trevelyan girl's tutor deliberately, because of their shared views."
Caitlyn's heart sank. "Is Alison all right?"
Alain was grim. "She is alive and well, not starved, but we found her locked in a small room essentially as a prisoner. She had books, but there was a magic ward on her door that required the blood of a Harimann to let her out."
Caitlyn was sickened. That was the same ward her father had used for the Grey Wardens and had later adapted for their Lothering cottage.
Anders was outraged. "That two-faced blood mage did it to keep her from coming to us to tell the truth!"
"Yup," Varric agreed.
"What about Grace herself?" Caitlyn asked, relieved to know Alison Dupres-Trevelyan was safe. "I told Lady Harimann to dismiss her a while back. Was she there?"
"She was not," Alain said. His gaze hardened at the treason of his former associate from the Starkhaven Circle. "I've ordered a search."
"Go to the Gallows as soon as this conference is over and arrest every suspected mage supremacist you know of. Impound their papers and possessions, too."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Have Healers sent to the poisoned loyal guards. I assume they were in fact poisoned at the Hanged Man. And on that note, I want the kitchen staff who were working there last night arrested too," she added.
"This is a lot of arrests," Charade muttered.
Caitlyn glared at her cousin. "They're going to be questioned, that's all. If they are innocent, they'll be released, no harm done. If not..." She trailed off menacingly, then turned back to Aveline. "Speaking of that, what about the surviving Harimanns? Are they in custody?"
"They are. I think they were just ensorcelled, though."
"They were the woman's husband and children. There's no way they weren't complicit."
Aveline raised an eyebrow. "You don't know that."
Caitlyn's temper erupted. "I don't want to hear a word from you questioning my decisions!" she exploded. "You missed the mass infiltration of your own hand-picked alternate Keep roster by traitors! I'm not going too far. You're so obsessed with legal due form, you aren't going far enough! We are at war, Aveline, and have enemies without and within! Bloody well act like it!"
Varric, Alain, and Charade looked away, unable to look the furious Caitlyn or the humiliated Aveline in the eye. The awkward moment was finally broken by Aveline's own voice.
"Understood," she said in a low voice. "The surviving Harimanns were going to be questioned anyway, and the estate combed, of course."
"I should hope so," Caitlyn snapped. She heaved a sigh of exhaustion. "In the meantime, I don't trust the Guard anymore. They weren't just incompetent, nor corrupted by criminals' gold; they were compromised with treason. I want the current defenders, those who fought with us, stationed in the Keep until further notice. And I am going to call up a unit of the Kirkwall Militia and trustworthy Free Mages. They have fought loyally."
Aveline was angry that Caitlyn had humiliated her in front of others, but she could not set aside her belief that she deserved it. This breach was a failure. She didn't like the civilian guards being replaced with military, but she also could not blame her friend one bit for distrusting the Guard now.
With the Keep finally secured, Caitlyn and Anders numbly returned to the inner sanctum where their children were waiting. They made sure to reinforce the magical wards on their family quarters. Caitlyn hesitated for a moment, recalling the Harimann blood wards. If she put up some of her own, everyone in her family could get in except Anders. That would keep attackers out...
"It'll be all right. You don't have to do what I know you're thinking about."
She turned around to see his face, the expression gentle again, unlike the angry snarl he had worn in the morning. It calmed her turbulent soul. She sighed deeply sigh in relief as he embraced her. Maker, it was nice to be in Anders' arms again.
And it took an attempt on all our lives. What has happened to us?
That unwelcome thought chilled the warm encounter for her just as he broke the embrace. She suppressed a sigh and let him open the door where Mal and Jo were nervously waiting. They rushed their parents, Jo Beth frantically and Mal more hesitantly due to his age, but both enveloped them in a hug.
Afterward, she had nothing to do but process the events repeatedly in her mind. Anders gave her a pained look as she secluded herself in a private study, but he did not intrude. She was left alone with only her thoughts.
She had nearly been assassinated! Although she was a head of state, a highly controversial figure, leader of a revolution, and therefore had known deep down that she was a prime target for assassins, no one had ever gotten this close until now. The Satinalia Massacre of 9:36 had brought a violent mob to the Keep, but she had never feared for her own life. The clinic bomber of 9:35 had targeted her, but she was a target of opportunity; that assassin had intended some sort of carnage anyway. The meeting of Danarius and his fellow thugs had erupted into violence, but she didn't think they had come there intending to try to kill her. Johane Harimann had—and, worse, she had nearly succeeded. This was a well-planned, highly secretive conspiracy among the City Guard and the supremacist factions of the Free Mages, perpetrated without a hint of warning to anyone.
Just like the attempt on Divine Justinia. The schism and traitor Templars planned that one for a while too and also had no slips in advance.
The more she thought about it, the more terrifying it became. She had known she had enemies in the schism and its supporters, and she had suspected Harlan and the Coterie. But all along, another threat had been lurking in the background, a real noble who wasn't even someone Caitlyn was thinking about as a threat. An unlikable person, but not a threat. She voted for me at the moot that elected me! Caitlyn thought. I guess I see why now. The consideration that it was because she was a mage sickened her. The mage supremacists' existence dirtied the righteous cause of freedom, and Caitlyn loathed them for it.
I have enemies everywhere, she thought, brooding and fixating upon that thought. I have enemies even in places that didn't occur to me. And what good are my friends against them? Aveline sticks to "the law" to a ruinous degree. Varric has trouble seeing organized crime as a political threat because the Merchants' Guild dances on the line of being criminal too. Anders... is being manipulated by Justice. None of them understand what really has to be done. I have enemies in every rabbit warren of every district of Kirkwall, Hightown included, the Gallows included, and I am absolutely right to do all the dark things that I've been doing to fight them. The conviction filled her mind, and she focused on it, almost caressing the thought as a talisman of protection. I could have stopped this if I'd cracked down harder on the supremacists and replaced the City Guard with Militia and Free Mages in the Keep. I've deferred to Aveline and others too much. That ends now.
As Charade told me, I'm not being paranoid if this many people actually are my enemies. And today has proven beyond any doubt that they are.
Johane Harimann's dying words entered her memories again. Could Harlan be a mage? she thought. I've never heard that before. No one in the Coterie that I've ever dealt with has hinted at it. How would she know about it if the Coterie itself doesn't?
She resolved to find out whatever she could about this. When she finally arrested the Coterie lord—and she resolved that it would be "when"—she did not want to be surprised again.
That evening, Caitlyn was still too angry with Aveline about the security failure to speak to her. But she managed to corner Varric and discuss the rumor with him.
Anders was present for the meeting with Varric, and his eyes widened in shock at her account. "I certainly hope he isn't," he exclaimed. "Jeannot in Val Royeaux, Lady Harimann—mages do not need another villain!"
Caitlyn sighed, feeling the weight of the morning's shocking events falling upon her shoulders. Suddenly, she felt impossibly tired, physically and emotionally. "If he is one, he's done a very good job of keeping it secret," she said. "He couldn't have used his magic to rise in the Coterie, or else more people would know. If it isn't just something Lady Harimann invented to discomfit me, this rumor could date from Meredith's time," she added with a snarl. "And we know that she saw maleficarum everywhere." She turned to Varric. "What do you think of this? That Harlan might be a secret mage?"
"I've heard the rumor now and then," Varric said thoughtfully, "but I've never seen proof of it, nor spoken to anyone who has."
Caitlyn gaped at him, startled out of her momentary stupor with a pang of betrayal. He knew this? "You knew of this rumor and never told me?"
"I hear a lot of things, Hawke," he said. "Most of them are bullshit. I assumed this was too, just another stupid false rumor."
"You still should have told me," she said, offended and hurt.
"Would it have really mattered?" he said in a low voice.
"You counseled me to invite him and Lusine to the Keep!" she exploded. "For an audience! And you had heard this rumor! Yes, Varric, it mattered!" Varric has told me some things about the Merchants' Guild, she thought darkly. They're not much better than the Coterie in some ways. They probably do business with the Coterie. Am I being thwarted by my own friend, who has a financial interest in the Coterie remaining?
"You already had the place well-guarded simply because they were crime bosses," he said.
"The City Guard is compromised by the Coterie! And the Potentatists! If Harlan had wanted to attack me, he could have done it!" She glared at him. "Maker, can I not even count on my closest friends? Between Aveline's failure this morning and now learning this from you, is there anyone I can trust?"
He grimaced. "You've got a point. I'm sorry, Hawke. And I swear, I didn't believe this rumor."
She pushed her paranoid musings out of her mind. "Fine," she said. "But I do want to hear about it now, Varric. And everything else you hear about him."
He gave her a sincere look. "It's really only a rumor I've heard a couple of times over the years, Hawke," he said, sounding like he meant it. "It isn't even clear to me whether it originated in Meredith's paranoia or if Harlan's inner circle started it during his rise to power. Assuming it's false, of course."
Caitlyn recalled her own thought that Meredith had been the original source. "It could well have been Meredith," she said. "She saw abominations and maleficarum hiding in every corner. And if Harlan's people spread it, why isn't it better-known in the Coterie?"
Varric nodded. "And since he has built a following around opposition to the war and your army, perhaps you could use it to turn his followers against him."
She shook her head. "It wouldn't work. People enthralled by a demagogue tend to stay with their leader no matter what." She glowered. "If I called him a mage and he denied it, it wouldn't hurt him, but it would make me look foolish. And if he said that indeed he was one, that would make him look like a 'reasonable moderate' to people who think I am too radical—like his followers. He's made a point of not opposing mage rights, just the war and my battle tactics. Either way, if it sounded like I was turning on fellow mages by making the word 'mage' an attack, I'd just antagonize my supporters. Calling Harlan a mage is a losing proposition for me no matter what."
Anders agreed. "With the Potentatists and Restorationists, we know there's an element that idiotically thinks she doesn't stand up for mages enough. What they want is an ugly thing, of course, but if she did turn 'mage' into an attack... well, it would make their claims seem more plausible to the rest of the mages."
Caitlyn took his hand and squeezed it gratefully, glad of his support. His speaking up for her viewpoint also brought her comfort after the shocking events of earlier, from which she was still rattled. She exchanged a grateful, affectionate look with Anders for a moment before turning back to Varric. Maker, but it was nice to feel affectionate with him. Why did it take an attempted assassination to make us see it? she grieved again.
"Enough of Harlan," she finally said. "Lady Harimann's words shocked me, but even if they are true—and we have no actual reason to believe they are—he is not the biggest problem we have at this moment. All along, there was another threat lurking, one I didn't even think about except as a public relations problem. The Potentatists and Restorationists are far more dangerous than I knew. I've slain their leader, but there is a lieutenant still remaining." Her gaze hardened as she recalled her resolve to be harder and harsher—and her conviction that doing so would have prevented this assassination attempt. "I should have put Grace to death years ago. She's been nothing but a stupid, violent thug with no redeeming qualities. And her time comes to an end."
Notes: Sorry. I know this was not a pleasant chapter for a great many reasons. This is a crucial point in Caitlyn's trajectory, though.
Is he (Harlan) or isn't he? I admit, I'm not a fan of the (IMO) pro-Circle subtext of DA2 that has surprise mage villains lurking everywhere and every apostate as a demonic abomination, a violent blood mage, or both. Harlan may or may not be a mage, and I don't think I'm going to answer that question for this story. Honestly, it doesn't even matter (which is why I think what game canon did is overkill; can't a boss just be evil?).
Her paranoia about Varric may be understandable—he is a liar and secret-keeper, does have business dealings with the Coterie in canon, and runs a shady organization himself—but it's also a dark step for her. As you can see, under assault from all corners, she's starting to turn on everyone she cares for, minus her children. And yes, Corypheus is making it worse for Justice and Anders.
Next chapter, the repercussions of all this.
