Five
Minrathous 9:40 Dragon
"We are grateful for your support, as always, Flavius."
Magister Arrentius pressed the pen to the parchment and scrawled his name quickly, signing over the rights to another tract of farmland, which included a small village with its own mill and a small dock that was large enough and in deep enough water to take medium-sized ships returning from Seheron loaded with commodities. The local wagon maker had become the richest Mercator in the area, with a steady demand for vehicles to ship goods further inland.
It was a prosperous little village on the northern outskirts of Flavius' holdings, one that he had been convinced to sign over to the Venatori cause.
As Flavius finished, he slid the document over to Magister Alexius, who inked his own name to the bottom then passed it off to his page, who attested to it, stamped it twice, folded it and pressed the wax seal to it before scampering out of the room to have the transfer officially recorded.
"I only wish I could do more," Flavius said as he reached for his glass of brandy, raising it in toast to Gereon. "To prosperity. To Tevinter."
"To the Elder One," Alexius added as they clinked glasses and drank.
Cassius stood behind his lord's chair, arms folded behind his back, quietly observing. As Alexius sipped his brady, he placed the glass down and shuffled aside some other documents on his desk. He had one of the larger office spaces in the halls of Magisterium, at least twice that of the space that Magister Arrentius held. The walls were thicker and the doors spaced out more the higher one went into the business side of the great capital. The most serious negotiations required the proper privacy from prying eyes and eavesdropping ears.
"Is this the mentee of yours I've heard so much about?" Alexius asked, lifting his finger up to lazily point in Cassius' direction.
Flavius turned in his chair, looking back over his shoulder. "Yes, absolutely."
"Cassius Terro, sir," he said in introduction of himself, bowing his head respectfully to the fellow magister. "An honor to meet you, Magister Alexius."
"Flavius speaks highly of you," Alexius said. "You look about my son's age. How old are you, Cassius?"
"Twenty-three, sir," he answered.
He had spent the first seven years of his life with his family, working the land at their home. Just before his eighth birthday, when his gift had manifested, his father had driven him by cart to the city. They had dressed in the finest clothes they could muster and they had scraped together what little money they could.
When they arrived at the front gates of the Circle in Carastes, they had gone inside to the entry clerk's office where his father and the mage behind the desk spoke for more than an hour, sharing information about the details of Cassius' magic, his upbringing, whether he could read and write, his general health and beyond.
His father presented the small wooden box filled with their family's fortune. The clerk informed him it was not nearly enough to cover the tuition. It was all they had, his father explained. The clerk rolled his eyes and made some comment about how he could petition the local magister to cover the shortfall. Depending on his mood, he might graciously choose to sponsor a young Praeteri from within his holding, or he might place a debt on their farm or, at worst, decline and the boy would be sent home.
By the time they had finished with all the registration it was late afternoon. When the time came, his father had knelt to one knee, given him a hug, and told him to work his hardest for the family. And, with that, he was escorted out of the Circle and Cassius was taken to his bunk in the dormitory and told briefly when and where to report the next morning.
At twelve, he was selected and sent to Minrathous to serve as a page in the Magisterium. It was there that he had been assigned to serve Magister Arrentius. His patron seemed to take a shine to him almost instantly. When the legislative term ended, he had offered for Cassius to return with him to his estate instead of being shipped back to Carastes. It was then that he had met the magister's then three daughters.
After the summer spent in Asariel on the water, Magister Arrentius had informed Cassius that he had requested and been approved to have Cassius transferred from Carastes to the Circle in Minrathous and, if he desired, that he would always have a place in Flavius' home.
He had been eleven years in Flavius' service. Not only had he taken in Cassius, he had helped support Cassius' family from afar and even graciously agreed to take his younger sister Caela into the household service.
"A little older then," Alexius said. "I should introduce you."
"Begging your pardon, sir, but I already had the pleasure of meeting Felix last year," Cassius offered. "We crossed paths when I had come to deliver some documents to you and you were away."
"I hope he was cordial," Alexius said.
"Of course, sir. It was only one meeting and only very briefly, but I was immediately impressed with him," Cassius said with another respectful bow of his head.
Alexius fidgeting in his chair, seemingly uncomfortable. He looked at Flavius, then at Cassius again, then back to Flavius. "All of this, everything we're preparing, everything we're planning, I do it all for Felix, that he might live to see Tevinter restored to its glory."
"I couldn't agree more," Flavius said, raising his glass again as he sipped his brandy, shuddering a bit as the edge of the liquor hit him. "My only hope is to once again see the Imperium as it was and not as we find it today."
Alexius nodded his head, saying nothing but only nodding in agreement and in thought. After a moment, he raised his eyes again to Cassius.
"When the time comes, the Venatori will move south, to Orlais and to Ferelden. I'll need strong, trustworthy men to accompany myself and my son on the journey," Alexius said. "If what I've been told about you by Flavius is true, I hope that you'll be willing to accompany me."
He served Magister Arrentius, but if Magister Alexius required his service, he was bound to provide it. Flavius had committed himself wholeheartedly to the cause, providing financial assistance and political support whenever it was asked of him. Everyone knew, at some point, the Venatori would require more than chattel and land and words. They would require men, men willing to carry the standard and march ahead to do the work required of them.
If the Venatori required him to serve southbound, he would serve.
"I am honored to serve, Magister Alexius, in whatever capacity I'm needed."
Asariel 9:41 Dragon
Flavius Arrentius sat in a chair, with his foot bare and atop a fluffy cushion sitting on a nearby stool, as he leafed through papers.
He looked tired, obviously having not slept well after being awoken mid-night by his daughter. Cassius tapped his knuckles on the door frame to alert the magister of his presence.
"My lord, you called for me?"
Flavius waved him in, the papers rustling as they moved with each wheeling sweep of the man's arm. "Yes, come, sit with me."
Cassius entered the room and sat in the cushioned chair across from his lord. He stifled a yawn as he sat, squinting at the beams of light coming in through the open window. His eyes felt heavy and dry. He, too, had only slept a few hours. He had awoken alone as Andria roused him. She had, at some point, slipped out of bed without waking him.
She would have let him sleep all day, had her father not requested Cassius in his study.
Flavius was in his mid-fifth decade and was more and more showing his age with each passing year. His hair was now more gray than the fading chestnut and auburn tones that were once there and now thinning more than the plume of hair he wore in his younger days.
Since he was first assigned as Flavius' page twelve years ago, the magister had double in girth, from a stocky build well-disguised by smartly tailored closed to now more of a potbellied form. The features of his face had rounded out and he had developed a sizable second chin.
His health had also been in decline in recent years which had only exacerbated the transformation the man had gone through since his fiftieth name day. He had become far less active and the lethargy brought on by his ailments had manifested at the belt line.
But while his body had changed, the rest had stayed the same. He still spoke loudly, maybe a bit louder now than before as his hearing had begun to fade, and earnestly, with a hearty laugh that he used often. His life since inheriting his seat in the Magisterium twenty-five years past had given him plenty of cause for melancholy, yet even today Flavius Five-Daughters approached each day with a genuine enthusiasm and hope for a better tomorrow.
He had never been afraid to share that infectious lust for life and optimism with his family and his generosity expanded beyond the confines of his household. Cassius was proof to that.
"How is your foot?" Cassius asked, already having a pretty good idea of the answer without his patron answering. The bulge from the joint of Flavius' big toe clearly looked painful.
"Worse than yesterday, but better than earlier this week, if you can believe that," Flavius said as he lifted his foot slightly from the cushion, then plopped his heel back down, grimaced, and quietly cursed himself for having moved it at all.
"Have you been eating eel again, my lord?"
Flavius snorted. "You sound just like Valerie. 'Father, you have to stop eating such fattening food.' Damn it, Cassius, if a man can't eat what he wants when he's hungry, what's the point of living in the first place?"
"What point is there in living if every day you are living in pain?" Cassius offered.
Flavius lowered the paper and looked at Cassius stone-faced. "I swear, the two of you…" he trailed off, waving over his shoulder. "Slave, go to the kitchens and tell them for supper this evening to fix, I don't know, whatever the hell my daughter thinks I should be eating."
The slave, who had been standing still and silent and nearly blended into the wall like the furniture, quickly strode across the study and out the door to obey his master.
"Happy?" Flavius asked.
"You have a grandchild on the way," Cassius reminded him. "I would be heartbroken if something were to happen to you before he arrived."
"I'm not going anywhere," Flavius assured him with his usual confidence. "I'll saw the damn foot off if I have to."
"Let's not be drastic," Cassius said, which made Flavius brush him away with a swipe of the paper in his hand.
"Read these reports," Flavius said, lifting a stack of papers from the nearby end table and offering them to Cassius.
As Cassius took them and glanced at the top, they appeared to be reports from the Venatori agents in the south on their latest activities. The dates on them were old, although not nearly as old as Cassius might have expected for the distance they had to travel. Most of them appeared to have dates from more than a week after Cassius had penned his own letter back to Asariel from the dungeons of Skyhold.
He quickly leafed through them.
The Venatori position in Crestwood had been routed by the Inquisition and removed from the area. The reports indicated that forces there had failed to subdue the Grey Warden Stroud and that instead Trevelyan had made contact with him and safely returned him to Skyhold.
A Venatori spy among the rebel mages recruited by the Inquisition reported that the Inquisitor was moving next toward the Dales to deal with the ongoing clashes between Celene and Gaspard's forces. Venatori forces in the area furthering the violence between the two sides should be on alert and withdraw if under threat of discovery.
Magister Erimond continued to make progress with the Wardens in the Western Approach and preparations were advancing smoothly for the next stage of his mission there. While the Inquisition was now making progress into Orlais, their forces were currently too far to the east to be of concern at this time.
Forces were now being marshalled to the Hissing Wastes in search of old dwarven relics that could potentially help with the war effort. The Venatori were calling for all supporters to send excess slaves — ones that wouldn't be missed if they happened to, or more likely when they did, perish at the work sites.
The last was a call for more assistance of all types — money, slaves, resources, weapons, manpower — and anything that their supporters could levy. Progress was being made and now was not the time to let up. The letter was sealed directly by the hand of Calpernia.
"Now that Gereon is gone, that woman has all but closed her fist around the Venatori," Flavius said as he saw Cassius leaf past the last page. "Alexius, at least, I knew. A man of respect and worthy of trust. This woman, this Calpernia, who is she? To take orders from a slave…"
Flavius scoffed. Cassius glanced at the two other slaves waiting in the room. Neither moved, not even averting their gaze. Flavius' overseer trained them almost too well.
"If she has the Elder One's trust—" Cassius started to say before being cut off halfway by his mentor.
"I know, I know," Flavius said. "I'm just frustrated. I wish I could be down on the front, not stuck here nursing these damnable maladies."
He lifted his foot again, grimacing a second time as he set it down, just as he had the first time. Flavius cursed under his breath again and grimaced a third time as he tried to reset his foot to a comfortable position.
"Tell me, what happened in Ferelden? Your letter didn't have any detail," Flavius said.
"I didn't trust that it would go out without the Inquisition's Spymaster reading it first," Cassius said.
"Smart," Flavius agreed. "Praise to Pavus for getting it sent at all. Have you informed Halward of his son's whereabouts?"
"I was going to draft the letter as soon as we're done, unless you'd rather, my lord."
"Take care of it," he said as he waved it off. "So Ferelden? What happened?"
Cassius took the time to explain his journey after leaving the Venatori camp and his journey south. For a short time he had been with Alexius and the others in Redcliffe before being dispatched east with the mission to intercept and eliminate the Herald.
The intelligence their scouts had given about the Bannorn had turned out to be not only woefully incomplete but also glaringly inaccurate at several points. His group had been less conspicuous than he would have hoped just trying to find their bearings in the bread basket of Ferelden.
They had engaged in minor skirmishes here and there with Ferelden soldiers, bandits and freeholders too aggressive for their own good, but the journey had been, more or less, uneventful.
It had become apparent, however, that his dispatch had been stretched too far from their seat of power in Ferelden. Supplies ran thin and they had been forced to pillage. That had, in retrospect, left a trail that the Inquisition scouts had followed right to them.
By the time the Inquisition ambush had fallen upon them at night, it was quickly apparently they were outnumbered at least three to one. It was possible that they could have fought their way out, but the battle would have weakened his unit to the point that he would be unable to complete their mission. Even if they did survive the battle, they were running short on supplies and the missing soldiers would likely only draw more to the area to find their lost brethren.
In the heat of the moment, surrender seemed to be the logical best course of action.
That, and he couldn't risk having Marinus killed in the fray. Had Magister Arrentius not ordered him directly to take the young lord wherever Cassius might go, he might have told the boy to stay behind. No doubt Marinus would have protested, loudly. Had Marinus not been there, it might have changed the calculus. With him there, it had made the decision easier.
"Did Pavus indicate when Marinus would be let free?" Flavius asked after taking in the story.
"Yes, once I fulfilled my side of our bargain, he said he would release Marinus home, my lord," Cassius said.
"And what exactly did he ask of you?" Flavius inquired.
"His deal came in three parts. One, that I not return to battle against the Inquisition. Two, that I accept an invitation to meet with a magister contact of his, a woman. And three," Cassius paused recalling the last and oddest of Pavus' terms, "that I do what I believe to be right."
"And what does that mean?" Flavius asked with a snort.
"I'm not sure, my lord," Cassius said. "I had asked the same thing and Pavus offered no further explanation."
Flavius chewed his lip for a moment as he thought. "You haven't gone and turned coat on me now, have you, son?"
"Of course not, my lord," Cassius said with a respectful bow of his head. "I am ever at your service."
Flavius nodded as he picked up another stack of papers and leafed through them again, shaking his head. "I don't like these reports. I don't like what I see. I don't like that Alexius is gone and I don't like this Calpernia.
"That being said, I do trust in the Elder One to lead Tevinter back to glory, through the Venatori, through us," he said. "It's about time that the power of the Dreamers be restored and for Tevinter to rise back to its rightful place. I wish we could stop fighting those damnable oxmen long enough to get our house in order."
Flavius dropped the papers into his lap and rubbed his eyes, then snapped his fingers at one of the slaves until the young woman moved from her place up against the wall and began filling him a glass. The girl delivered him a cup of water and he took it, shooing her back to her place against the wall. He gulped deeply from the cup and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
"Pavus doesn't want you to go back to the front?" Flavius said to himself. "Fine by me. I have need of you elsewhere. Go talk to the overseer and tell him to find, oh, eight slaves we can afford to lose. Take them to the market in the city tomorrow and get a good price for them. If that bastard Milo tries to cheat you, remind him I know about his 'side business' until he gives you a fair price. And go down to the land office and see what they'd give us for that tract along the inlet, about a half day off the Nocen, you know the one I'm talking about?"
"The one that floods?" Cassius asked, having a pretty good idea of the one that his lord meant.
"Precisely," Flavius said. "But don't tell them that. See what you can get for that."
"Yes, my lord," Cassius said. "And if you mind my asking, what should I do with the gold from these transactions?"
"Take half of it and put it in with the lenders, see if they can put it into a few good liens somewhere, something with value, something where we're likely to turn a quick return. Ten, fifteen percent at least," Flavius explained. "The other half, take it to Minrathous with you."
"With me, my lord?" he asked.
"Yes, the Magisterium is convening for a special short session. Decisions need to be made about the oxmen. Even were I not hobbled, I'd consider skipping," Flavius said. "I want you to go as my proxy. You won't be allowed to vote, but that's fine. Just sit in, take notes, listen. Return with a full report. As for the money, deliver it to Magister Porenni. Without Alexius, I can at least trust he'll see that it's spent wisely to support the cause."
It was not uncommon for Cassius to make the trip to the capital on his own, but this would be the first time he was being tapped to represent his patron at the Magisterium. Cassius was no stranger to the halls of the senate, as he had accompanied his lord there for many years and many sessions now. He was familiar with the politicking of Minrathous, even if he was not there to practice it himself.
Asariel was the closest major city to the capital, so travel back and forth was not as burdensome as in the farther reaches of the Imperium. Carastes, his home, was either a sometimes perilous ship ride across the Nocen depending on the weather or, almost worse, a very long, roundabout trip by land around the bay.
Because of that proximity, Magister Arrentius often traveled north, even when he wasn't feeling well. It was odd, even with a swollen foot, for him to stay home. He typically traveled by carriage now when there was any distance to be covered, so it wasn't a matter of discomfort to have to ride by horse.
"Begging your pardon, my lord," Cassius interjected, "but are you well?"
The question caused Flavius to bring a hand to his forehead, where he rubbed, wrinkling the flesh on his face. "I joined the Venatori more than three years ago. We were lying in wait for so long, gathering resources, biding time, making preparations. Everything was finally ready to go, our purpose ready to be seen to fruition. And then in a blink, more like a flash, everything went awry."
He sighed, but then tried to force a smile and continued.
"There is still time to recover. It's only that, sitting here, reading these reports, it giving me a terrible indigestion," Flavius said. "I pray daily for success, that the Elder One might succeed in his mission and return the rightful power to the Dreamers. To me. To my family."
Cassius could almost see Flavius sag into the chair. The fatigue in his face gave the subtlest hint of the stormclouds that existed behind his eyes and in the depth of his mind. There was a weight there, one that he had been carrying with him for years and that Cassius knew grew heavier and heavier by the year.
The critics in the Magisterium called the Venatori "radicals" and "cultists," an extreme fringe embracing a lunatic ideal. They claimed they followed false prophets, promising the world and offering nothing by the way of proof. Had Tevinter not suffered enough centuries ago from such folly in the pursuit of godhood?
But what those critics failed to understand was that each and every soul committed to the Venatori cause was still a man or a woman, with earthly concerns. What he had learned in the south that he had not realized at home in the north was that Magister Alexius' devotion to the cause had far less to do with the dream of restored Tevinter superiority and far, far more to do with his desperate quest to cure his son of darkspawn taint.
There were religious fanatics and Tevinter supremacists, sure. But when Cassius looked at Magister Arrentius, he didn't see zeal in an Elder One that Flavius had never met or never seen, nor did he see a real drive to engage in a worldwide war to subjugate the south and destroy the Orlesian Chantry once and for all.
No, the loss of Magister Alexius in Ferelden weighed on Flavius heavily because, Cassius knew, the two men had more in common than just their Altus bloodlines and their commitment to the Venatori.
"I understand, my lord."
