Fifteen
Asariel 9:36 Dragon
Cassius attempted to divide his eyes in five directions at once, and the effort of trying to do something so impossible was giving him a headache.
Valerie didn't need much watching as she browsed the shelves quietly and somewhat disinterested, although Cassius found it hard to take his eyes off her as she floated around the room, her fingers dragging across the wood lightly and as she stopped to pick up and examine this item or that.
Andria was old enough to look after herself, but she kept tugging at Cassius' hand to pull him to this window or that, to ask his opinion on the dresses or hats or gloves on display on the window. The dressmaker was showing her this fashion and the next and, for reasons that Cassius couldn't fully understand, she kept asking his opinion instead of that of her sisters. When he said that he thought the white dress with purple flowers might look nice, her cheeks reddened and she rushed to go try it on.
Kordelia perhaps needed the most attention, even more than her two younger siblings, as she moved items from one shelf to the next where they didn't belong or attempted to pick up and slip the odd thing into her small handbag. He had now more than once caught her in the middle of trying to pilfer some trinket, not because she even wanted it, he suspected, but more just to see if she could get away with taking it.
Servilia and her younger sister Flavia were constantly running around, chasing each other, crawling under tables, talking and laughing and shrieking loudly enough that it caused other patrons to turn their heads and give disgusted looks. Cassius quietly offered apologies to them as he tried to corral the two rambunctious youngsters, only for them to get bored standing around while their other sisters shopped and then wandering off into the next bout of mischief.
Cassius may have graduated from the Circle in Minrathous this past summer and successfully faced down a demon face to face during his final Harrowing exam, but he was ill-prepared for the role of supervising Magister Arrentius' five daughters for an all-day trip into the city. It was mid-afternoon and he was exhausted.
Flavius and Junia were hosting an important visitor at the manor today and had thought it best that their children vacate the house in the meantime. Magister Arrentius had given him a rather heavy purse and the directive to take the girls into the city and keep them occupied until dusk. He obeyed, and after breakfast they had taken the carriage into town.
He had stepped out onto the cobble streets of Asariel and looked down the lanes with the sudden realization that he didn't know exactly how he could satisfy five girls ranging from Valerie at eighteen years down to Flavia who was a month shy of her fifth birthday.
They had browsed about every shop Asariel had to offer, from bakeries to clothiers to woodworkers to the bookseller and everything in between. He was running out of real estate, however, and that was even after they stopped for a lunch at the outdoor cafe, which in itself was a small disaster as he couldn't get the younger girls to sit still at the table as well as being after Kordelia ordered wine and they actually brought it despite her being just nine years old. Valerie had taken it away from her younger sister and drank it herself. She had decided she wanted to hold Cassius' arm as they walked to the next place, citing no reason as she pursed her lips, stared forward and carefully placed one foot in front of the next in as straight a line as she could muster.
When Andria saw her older sister clinging to Cassius, she had politely asked to take his other arm, and when he agreed she pinkened as she linked to his other side. She was wearing the new silver hair clip she had purchased after he said it paired well with her blue eyes. The small decorative clip was now pinned just over her left ear, holding back a bit of her black hair and she reached up and touched it often to make sure it was precisely where she wanted it to be.
It was now late afternoon now as the five girls buzzed around the dress shop, with hours still until dusk. What else could he possibly do to keep them occupied, he wondered as she shot a hard glance at Kordelia as she shuffled toward some costume jewelry laid out on a table. When she saw that she had been seen, she turned away and slipped out of sight.
"Sisters, my lord?" asked the old woman who owned the shop as she came up next to him, having finished assisting Andria and offering a second pair of eyes to keep watch on all the girls — as well as her merchandise – from the sticky-fingered middle child.
"My lord's daughters," he answered as he took a deep breath and placed a hand over his mouth as he watched Servilia and Flavia place their hands flat on the windows and press their foreheads against the glass as they peered out at whatever was out on the street. "I apologize for the disruption."
"Nothing a damp rag can't fix," the woman said with a smile. "Reminds me of my own children."
"Daughters?" he asked.
"Three of them," she said. "And five sons, too."
"That's quite a family."
"I might have had more, had my husband not passed," she said, smiling as she watched Magister Arrentius' girls.
"I'm sorry," Cassius said politely and dipped his eyes.
"Oh, that was a long time ago," she said. "My children now have children of their own and it may not be too many more years before they have children of their own too."
As far as Cassius knew, his family tree consisted of only four. He had no grandparents. He had no aunts or uncles. He had no distant cousins that he was aware of. Just his father, mother, and his younger sister. His parents had never spoken about their parents when he was young. All he really knew was that they had died before he was born. There was little value in recounting dead kin, no great lineages to track and document when there were more pressing concerns on the farm and whether there would be enough at the end of the year to keep their immediate household alive until next spring. Growing seasons were warm and long in Tevinter, but the burden placed on tenant workers was high and left little margin for error.
In the cities, here in Asariel or in the ancient avenues of Minrathous, common folk were poor but had agency. In the country, however, the poorest serfs were hardly better off than the slaves.
"He must have been a successful man, to raise such a large family and to leave behind a shop as nice as this," Cassius said as he looked at the old woman. "I don't believe you're a mage, ma'am, but was he?"
She chuckled quietly to herself, looking at the staff he carried with him for a moment and shaking her head. "No, none of us. In his younger days he was a soldier. Then an officer. Then a general. In our sunset years when he should have been resting and thanking the Maker he was still alive, he instead took up sailing cargo ships between here and Seheron."
Cassius nodded as he watched Andria emerge from the changing room, stopping first in front of the mirror and then calling Valerie over to inspect her. "It must have been hard, for him to be away so much."
"It was," the old woman said, but smiled too. "But he did it for all of us, to secure a good future for us all. Four of my sons now have good military posts. The other is a teacher at the university in Minrathous. My daughters married good men. One even to a sweet-talking Praeteri who had more silver in his tongue than his wallet, but even they are doing well."
She sighed contentedly and crossed her arms, watching the two older girls examine the dress, smiling and chatting back and forth to one another as Andria spun and the skirt fluttered out in a ring around her.
"My husband died before he got to enjoy the fruits of all his labors, but I don't think he went to the beyond upset by it," the shopkeeper said. "He sacrificed all of himself for his family and, given the choice to do so again, I know he would once more without hesitation. What more could I have asked of him as a man?"
Andria bounced over gleefully, stopping and touching the silver pin over her left ear and adjusting her hair before she stopped and folded her hands properly in front of herself and looked up with her cool blue eyes.
"Well Cassius, what do you think?" she asked as she turned slightly left and right, showing off the dress.
Cassius smiled and dipped his head. "I think it looks lovely."
"Can we get it?" she followed up almost immediately with a bounce at the knees, fit to burst.
Cassius touched the pouch of coins Magister Arrentius had sent him into the city with. It was getting thinner and thinner with each stop. If he returned home with an empty wallet, would his lord be upset with him?
"Of course," Cassius agreed, then turned to the shopkeeper. "If you will, madam. One dress to go."
Flavius might bend his brow at the empty coin purse and wonder how it might have all disappeared, yes. But if he saw the smiles on his daughters' faces after a long day visiting the shops in Asariel, Cassius was sure that he would agree it was a worthy exchange for one sack of coin.
After all, the man would give anything for his family.
Minrathous 9:42 Dragon
The stench of warm beer hung like a fog in the air.
The mercenary captain was still half drunk and the reason the room stank so badly. Judging by the stains on his clothes, he had been beyond fully drunk the night before. Judging by the red marks on the right side of his face, he had passed out on the wooden floor of the inn and only been roused by one of his brethren upon their arrival. None of that stopped him from grabbing the half-full cup of flat beer that had no doubt been sitting out all night and gulping from it. He was missing the last two fingers on his left hand, Cassius noticed, as he tipped the cup all the way back until it was empty.
"So you want my company to fight for you?" he said much too loudly for the business at hand. Discretion would have been appreciated but apparently was not on the menu.
"Yes," said Plinius, making no indication that he was bothered by the atmosphere.
Magister Porenni was advancing their plans to move against Nevarra and had decided they would be in need of additional "bodies" for the mission. Cassius found the term to be oddly specific when the magister chose it but knew better than to ask after his exact meaning. In order to convincingly sell the narrative of a Nevarran plot, they would no doubt need to produce evidence of a fairly intense battle.
"What's the job?" the mercenary asked, rubbing his temples as he scanned for another cup. There were several lying around the room, all empty.
"Border dispute," Plinius answered.
The mercenary might have been drunk and brutish, but he didn't appear to be stupid. "What border?"
"A march along the Nevarran border," Plinius continued. "There's been some tension but no conflict, yet. Our employer is looking to bolster his numbers. A show of force, to discourage any ambition from his southern neighbor."
"The south?" the mercenary captain snorted. "Awful long way for the Black Iron to travel just to walk around a barren southern march."
"You'll be adequately compensated," Plinius flatly informed him.
"How 'adequate' are we talking," the captain asked, slurring over the word.
Cassius lifted the small case and placed it on the table and popped it open. "This is a tenth share, up front, if you're willing to take the contract," he said. "Another tenth to be received upon your arrival, and then the rest paid once per week in eight equal installments."
"Two months?" the mercenary said, rubbing his jaw. "Plus travel time to the south and back? Awful inconvenient."
"You could stay here in Minrathous," Plinius interjected. "No doubt the army would be willing to pick up your unit at half the rate for twice as long on Seheron this summer. But, your percentage of the pot does go up for every man killed by Qunari on the island.
"Or, you could revert to common banditry upon the Imperial Highway," Plinius added. "The Black Iron comes highly recommended in that field, Cerak."
That caused the man to stop in his tracks and his ears to perk up. He craned his head and looked out the open door to the hallway, then back at the two Venatori men, suddenly much more attentive and much less suspicious of their offer.
"It's Quillan," the mercenary captain said firmly in a low voice.
"Of course," agreed Plinius, shutting the lid of the chest of gold and placing the contract flat on top of it, along with ink. The captain leaned forward and affixed his name to it, and tossed the pen down in disgust. Plin picked up the pen and ink and freshly signed contract and tucked it away, nodding to Cassius before turning back to the mercenary and increasing the ice in his voice. "You better be out of Minrathous by tomorrow morning. Sober up, too."
Plinius pushed his chair back and stood and Cassius followed on their way out of the filthy portside inn. It was the type of raucous dive that Fiora loved to visit when she felt like getting in trouble. Cassius would be happy to be out before he ended up with fleas in the collar or his coat or a knife at his throat.
As they stepped back onto the walkway outside, the sunlight bright and blazing today and making the men squint after the dank and dim of the inn, Plinius pointed the way back up the lane as the two men fell into step.
"That was… interesting," Cassius said.
"A simple transaction for a simple man," Plinius said, shielding his eye as he gazed up toward the sun to try to make a guess at the time. "He'll get what he's due."
Cerak "The Terrible" had been a highway bandit of some renown in the highlands around Marothius. He knew the mountains well and his crew had harried the local roads in and out of the only city in the area for years with great success. His men had even raided the city once, making off with quite a haul before escaping into the night.
But then, one night, a younger and stupider member of his band had knifed a man who had refused to give up his horse. That man had turned out to be a magister and that magister had turned out to be from a larger family and that larger family had decided that such lawlessness would not stand. They flooded the mountains with soldiers and exterminated most of the bandits but never did manage to find Cerak himself. They put a fairly flattering-sized price on his head. It had been two years and there had been no sign of him since.
The Venatori had found him, though, which made Cassius question why a wanted man wouldn't flee the nation instead of just crossing to the other side of it. The Black Iron had a reputation as a fairly reputable mercenary band for mostly legitimate needs and uses, but fame came at a price.
Cassius tried to put the thought out of his mind that, if all went according to plan, Cerak and his mercenaries would end up as corpses at the end of Calix's fabricated coup, but in a roundabout way, that was its own form of justice for his past crimes, wasn't it?
"Who's next?" Cassius asked as they walked. Sailors and merchants and servants and slaves glanced at them as they walked down the center of the lane, two mages in clean white Venatori coats. Some kept their distance, as if the men were carrying plague, while others gave them nods of approval as they walked past.
"A group up in the market district. It's a good walk between here and there," Plinius answered without providing a specific name as he breathed deeply, taking in the smell of salt on the breeze. "I'm glad we got this assignment together today."
Cassius nodded. "I can't say I'm familiar with hiring mercenary companies. Or strong-arming them into service."
"I don't care about that," Plinius said bluntly. "I mean I'm grateful that you and I, specifically, have an opportunity to work together. When I heard you would be standing in for Magister Arrentius, I was glad."
Cassius noticed that Plin didn't call his mentor "Flavius Five-Daughters" as most people in Tevinter did. He appreciated that. "I was surprised to see you again. I didn't know what happened to most of our classmates from the Circle in Carastes after I transferred."
Magister Arrentius had successfully lobbied for him to serve out his final year at the Circle in Minrathous instead of in Carastes. He left behind all of his peers and had entered the much larger, much grander, much more affluent Circle in the capital for his final year. The enchanters there didn't pay much attention to him. By then he had mostly completed his studies and had been assigned as a tutor to the younger mages, including several Praeteri like himself.
As his final test, he had chosen to face a Harrowing. In Tevinter, such trials were technically voluntary, although almost all mages did take them on at the end of their studies. For those from noble houses, they were typically overseen within the family, by parents or siblings. For Praeteri like Cassius, they were done under the supervision of a senior mage within the Circle.
After what happened in the Fade that night, he was glad that Magister Arrentius had not been there to oversee his Harrowing.
"I read your treatise on flow casting, you know," Plinius said. "It was well thought out. Very well done."
Cassius waited for "for a Praeteri" to be tacked on somewhere, but it never came. That, too, was unusual. "Thank you. I'm sure it was probably nothing in comparison to yours."
Plinius snorted. "Mine? I wrote a half-assed piece analyzing similarities between Tranquility used in the Orlesian Chantry and the effects of qamek poisoning used by the Qunari. But as I had access to neither a Tranquil to interview nor any former mages captured and culled by the oxmen, it turned out as mostly heaps of flowery language and bold assertions with no evidence to back them to make it sound like I had done something worth doing.
"Still, I was the first son and heir of House Paverii, so that was good enough to get me through," Plinius said. "It's a wonder I learned anything considering how young, stupid and arrogant I was."
"That was a long time ago," Cassius said as a means of dismissing the notion.
"Not long enough, for my liking," Plinius said as the wind ruffled the empty sleeve of his coat. "Which is why I wanted to formally apologize for my behavior back then, for the way I tormented you and many of the other apprentices. It sickens me to see that Jax hasn't changed at all. If anything he's even worse now than before."
"That's not necessary," Cassius said again, trying to dismiss the conversation. It was a long time ago, and as he glanced over at Plinius, he knew the man had already paid a price much worse than that deserved for childish bullying.
Besides, the Paverii family was old Laetan. They owed no explanation and no apology to a Praeteri, even if the circumstances might have warranted one. It was precisely why he and Jaxxon had been able to get away with so much in the Circle at Carastes. Their family lineage provided them all the protection from consequence they would ever need.
"It is necessary," Plinius disagreed rather forcefully. "Laying on a bed in a hospital, unable to move, hanging on the edge of death for weeks, able to do nothing but stare at the ceiling and wonder how I got there, it forces a man to re-evaluate every moment of his life. And that long evaluation revealed my many flaws that I had denied were there."
His face was stoic, almost expressionless on the side that was still exposed to the world. The other was hidden behind his eye patch and shroud that covered the right side of his head, hiding the grievous wound that lay underneath.
"What happened, if you don't mind my asking?" Cassius probed.
"After graduation, I wanted the opportunity to prove myself. I volunteered to go to Seheron, to fight, convinced I would be instrumental in finally pushing the Qunari out," Plinius recounted, showing no hesitation to share his story. "My father was strongly opposed. I was his heir after all. I didn't need to prove anything. But I wouldn't hear it. I knew I would become some great hero.
"I was given command of a unit on Seheron. We skirmished with Qunari here and there. Kill a few of them. They'd kill a few of us. I quickly learned that all the power I thought I had was actually very little," Plinius said. "Have you ever hit a Qunari berserker dead on with a fireball, only to watch him run through it like nothing had happened at all? It was the soldiers – those men and women who relied on the strength of their arm, their experience and their bravery – that kept the Qunari in check. Me, I was a liability. A target for the Qunari who despise mages more than anything. My station demanded that I be protected, and many died fulfilling that duty amid my impotence to destroy the Qunari and my incompetence to command them properly."
Plinius stopped walking for a moment and glanced out over the water to the northeast, toward the island sitting there somewhere in the distance, veiled by fog, where daily battles still raged between Tevinter and the Qunari. There were men dying there right now, daily sacrifices in the back-and-forth stalemate that had persisted for years, neither side fully able to break through the other.
"I learned fear there," Plinius said darkly as he turned away from the sea and continued walking back up the lane. "Real fear. Not like the quiet threat of demons lurking in the Fade that they teach you in the Circle. True terror, every time the fog rolled in or the sun set or you heard a Qunari horn blow. I wanted nothing more than to run, to abandon my commission and return home. But I didn't want to be called a coward, or to shame my family, so I stayed.
"And then, one morning on a patrol through the jungle, the Qunari swarmed our position and broke our line. I don't even remember the warrior or the axe that got me. I was casting a spell one moment and then the worst pain imaginable and then darkness," Plinius said. "I awoke hours later to my men dragging me through the jungle, thinking they were pulling a corpse back to the shore for shipment home.
"And then, I laid in a hospital for weeks, wishing to die, but failing at that too," he said.
They walked in heavy silence for a moment after that. What could be said when such levity was dropped like shadow upon them? As the docks gave way to the residential district, as they came within the shadows of the multi-unit dwellings for the poor that stretched up three stories high on either side of the street, Cassius broke the pall.
"You're alive now, Plin, and you have the opportunity to look forward," Cassius said. "Tevinter needs men like you, who have been there and made it back and know what it's really like. Not like those who talk about the war from the comfort of the Magisterium but have never come anywhere near it."
Plinius laughed openly now. "Tevinter doesn't need me. Tevinter wishes men like me would disappear. Did you know when I finally returned home, my father and mother wept when they saw me disfigured as I am? Not even a week later, my father informed me that he would be naming my younger brother as his heir. My betrothal was broken and my father sent me to Minrathous to 'serve his interests,' a polite way to dismiss me from the house and keep me as far away as possible."
He sighed, glancing around the rundown buildings, the backdrop of his exile.
"I hear you are married now, to Magister Arrentius' daughter no less?" Plin asked.
"Yes," Cassius nodded. "His second daughter, Andria. She just gave birth to our first, my daughter, Anna."
Plin bobbed his head. He almost smiled, but as the corner of his mouth started to turn up, it quivered and then fell back to its neutral position. "Blessings on you, Cassius. I envy you, further proving to myself that amends are required. You're Praeteri, but you've grown to become more than I ever will be. A family name is hollow against a true heart and true deeds."
The rows of buildings crowding the street were nearly suffocating as the lane narrowed. This was one of the poor quarters of the city, most filled with laborers who plied trade throughout the city day to day. They weren't slaves, but they had little beyond their labors. For all the wealth that flowed through the capital, these men and women barely got a piece of it. When the magisters talked about these flophouses, they spoke more like they were discussing a stubborn infestation of rats than of people.
Streets and buildings were crumbling, but little was put back in the way of infrastructure. Crime was rampant, but city guardsmen were sparse. Sanitation was poor, but there was no desire to expand, fix or clean sewers. Like a wound left untreated, these kinds of areas festered and grew sicker and sicker.
Plinius noticed Cassius glancing around as they walked the street, many shifty eyes crossing them but none daring, at least in the daylight, to test a man with a staff across his back. Plin took a moment to look around too, his eyes sweeping the world-worn people and time-worn structures.
"So much wasted potential," Plinius said quietly as they passed one house that had no door and all broken windows. It was dark inside, smelled of mold even from the street and was half collapsed at the roofline. Still, there were signs that someone, maybe several someones, were living there. "What could they accomplish if given the chance? Instead they're left, suffering, toiling, reproducing with the hope that maybe their child will be born with the gift. What other future do we give honestly give them?"
"The Venatori," Cassius said. The movement was popular in parts of the cities like these, where the promise of defeating the Imperial establishment and restoring Tevinter to its former glory resonated. "These people place their faith in us."
That made Plinius snort again. "I don't know about Magister Arrentius, but these people are farthest from my father's mind. He's not interested in revitalizing places like this. In helping these people. The only person he's interested in empowering is himself."
The words sounded almost treasonous with the flippant ease at which Plinius spoke them. If someone like Magister Porenni overheard him, the old man might have him flogged. Not even an old Laetan name would shield against the wrath of a man like that. Why would he speak so freely? Did not he not fear that Cassius might report his dissent?
"Magister Arrentius hopes that a more…" he searched for the right word after "aggressive" popped into his head but didn't seem to fit right, "focused direction for Tevinter will spark renewed prosperity, which will benefit everyone."
"Optimistic, even in the face of centuries of evidence that would suggest otherwise," Plinius retorted. "I sometimes wonder whether a political stalemate is the eventual end state of all empires. That, over time, when the greater good is supplanted by self interest and it all boils down to zero sum. I suppose, the only way forward is then to shatter the stalemate, that lines must be drawn and the fury and fallout of battle gambled until one side emerges as victor, just like the Mage-Templar War in the south.
"Are the Venatori the spark that ignites such a revolution here in Tevinter? A forest fire that burns away the dead and dying chaff and leaves behind fertile material for new life to spring? Win or lose, is Tevinter better off at the end for one side having decisively triumphed over the other, regardless of who wins?" Plinius wondered aloud, glancing to the sky, then back at Cassius. "My apologies, Cassius. I spend too much time in my own mind nowadays, waxing philosophical for my own edification."
Perhaps he had a point, though, Cassius thought as he considered the idea. Ferelden threw off the yoke of Orlais within the last century and, despite a Blight and a weak claimant upon the throne, the dog lords appeared more united and stronger than ever. The southern Chantry had fractured, unable to resolve growing challenges to its self-imposed question of magic, but the Inquisition was ascendant and effective. Even the status quo of the Orlesian throne had been broken, but once the revolution was resolved would Celene or Gaspard not be left to enjoy a unified power that the empress did not enjoy presently?
If revolution was contagious, perhaps it was simply Tevinter's time to purge its own weakness in search of a clearer direction.
"Then why support the Venatori if you don't believe it serves Tevinter best?" Cassius asked his companion, cutting to the heart directly. "Why not oppose it, or merely abstain as others have?"
"Because my father does support it," Plin answered without hesitation. "I may have been humbled upon Seheron, but I have not fallen so far to abandon my family. Although the name and crest arguably may have done more ill than good in my development these many years, my father, my mother, my siblings, they are still my flesh and blood."
"Is it not the same with you?" Plinius turned the questions and redirected it at Cassius. "You're Praeteri. You'd likely have more to gain if the old families were overthrown rather than re-empowered. If you were not bound to Magister Arrentius and his family, could you say you would voluntarily choose this path on your own?"
They had arrived at the market in the course of their conversation and stopped in front of another tavern. Plinius checked the sign board out front and motioned to the door. They had arrived at their next destination, to hire on the next group of mercenaries to bolster their numbers as they prepared to march south to Nevarra and open the next front in their ongoing offensive.
Plinius took the door, shoving it open with his one and only arm, and held it for Cassius to enter. Cassius stepped in, the light of the midday sun vanishing as he stepped inside the common room, better and cleaner than their last stop but still spartanly appointed in comparison to what one would find in the core of the city.
Plin closed the door behind them, shutting out the outside world, as he scanned for their next captain to woo. As he stepped forward, Cassius fell in behind him, following to complete their next task for the Venatori.
Plin's question was left hanging in the air, unanswered.
