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Fenris and Isabela finally showed at the Hanged Man, wearing more or less identical ridiculously satisfied smiles—Isabela's open, Fenris's as hidden as he could make it.
Hawke sighed, getting to her feet. "Let's go. And I'll pay you so much coin not to talk about it."
"Come on, sweet thing, we all know your case is hopeless. Why not get a good contact high by listening to a very entertaining story?"
"Thank you, but no."
"I'll tell you what—I'll write it down and you can read it in your, ahem, lonely hours."
"I'll burn it if you do."
"Bet you won't." Isabela's eyes twinkled, and Hawke frowned to hide the fact that she probably wouldn't, at that. It had been a very long time.
They made their way through the cave that had been described in the note, finding the usual things all of the caves adjacent to Kirkwall seemed to offer—giant spiders, walking corpses, random mercenaries. But at the end, once they'd reached the center of the cave, they found something, or, rather, someone, more unusual. A woman. A fairly pretty woman. She'd been sitting down when they entered, and on sight of them stood up, her face lighting.
As her eyes traveled over the four of them, her face fell. "I should have guessed he wouldn't come."
"Who?"
"Gamlen."
"Gamlen?" Hawke frowned. "Was he supposed to come?"
"Yes! And I guess he couldn't be bothered."
Hawke exchanged glances with the others, all of whom looked as confused as she felt. "I'm sorry—I was approached by an elf, who was supposed to meet me at the venadahl and got tired of waiting, spoke to my uncle Gamlen Amell about a wallop mallet, of all things, ended up in Darktown, was accosted by mercenaries who had a note for me and wanted to steal something mentioned in the note that I didn't have, and then I came here. Where in all of that was there any indication that Gamlen was supposed to come?"
The woman pinched the bridge of her nose. "All of those things were supposed to go to Gamlen."
"You chose your hirelings poorly," Fenris advised her.
"Clearly. Either way, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. Even if I had managed to get the message across satisfactorily, I imagine he would have sent you anyway, cousin."
"Cousin?" Hawke echoed.
Isabela was suddenly at her shoulder. "Why, Hawke, you've been holding out on me. I had no idea you had such a pretty cousin."
"I had no idea I had a cousin at all." Hawke raised her eyebrows questioningly at this supposed cousin. "You care to fill me in on the details?"
"Gamlen never told you?" She nodded wearily. "Of course he didn't. Why would he?"
Before anyone could get any further clarity, a man in very inadequate armor appeared from behind them, with a small and clearly untrained crew behind him. "Sorry to interrupt this touchin' family reunion, but we have unfinished business 'ere."
Hawke squinted at him. "He look familiar to you?" she asked Varric.
"By this point, Hawke? They all look alike to me."
Hawke's cousin clearly recognized him. "Veld! What are you doing here?"
"Mekel's dead. That bitch killed him." He turned what he seemed to think was a venomous look on Hawke.
She frowned. "What's a Mekel?"
"My brother!" Veld bristled at her, enraged.
"Oh, yeah. That guy in Darktown, Hawke."
"The one with the note?" She looked Veld up and down. "Yes, I suppose they do look alike. Clearly Mekel got all the brains of the family. Your brother's not dead."
"Tell me another one. Mekel would never have knuckled under to you."
"Didn't have much of a choice."
"If he's not dead, why ain't he here?"
"Maybe he was too stupid to get out of the muck of Darktown." She shrugged. "My job is to take them down, not to track them afterward."
"Wait, but Mekel was just supposed to hand over the note," Hawke's cousin protested.
"Changed his mind. We wanted the gem, see?"
"You let your brother go up against someone like Hawke just for a stupid gem?"
"You remember what our friend here said about you choosing the wrong hirelings? Yeah." Varric looked pointedly at Veld.
"Hand it over, Charade."
"Not going to happen."
"Oh, yeah?" He stepped up to her. By the time Hawke had put herself between them, Charade had her bow out, ready to send an arrow through Veld's throat.
"I like her, Hawke," Isabela said admiringly.
"I recommend you get out of here, Veld," Charade said.
"Find your brother, if either of you is bright enough to recognize each other. And get out of Kirkwall, for good."
Veld looked between Hawke and Charade, and for once in his life made an intelligent decision. He signaled to his crew and left.
Isabela sidled over to Charade. "So. You find the gem?"
"No. But I have a good lead on it."
"You want to tell me about all this now?" Hawke asked.
"My mother, Mara … she left Gamlen before I was born. He was so fixated on finding that stupid gem, I doubt if he even noticed she was gone."
"For what it's worth, I've never heard him mention the gem. To be fair, I've never heard him mention Mara, either. Is she here?"
"No." Charade shook her head sadly. "She told me about Gamlen before she died last year. I didn't even know about him."
"You set this whole thing up just so you could meet your father?"
"You could have just knocked on his door," Varric pointed out. "Must be a Hawke thing."
"Amell," Hawke and Charade corrected simultaneously.
"I just wanted to see … I don't know … how far he'd go for something he really wanted. I baited him with the one thing I thought would get his attention."
"As we've seen, you didn't bait him very well. If you didn't know about him, maybe he didn't know about you. The Amells—my mother and Gamlen—have always been big on family. He'd have mentioned it if he knew about you, at least to my mother. He's not the best person in the world, but he's got some good qualities. You might be surprised. I think you should go talk to him."
"Having family might be more worthwhile than you think," Fenris said. He and Varric exchanged glances, and Hawke's heart hurt for both of them.
"Give him a chance, cousin."
"Okay. Maybe I will. Where can I find you, cousin?"
"Hanged Man, most of the time. See you there."
"Count on it."