The journey to the port town of Highever, a rare harbor along the tempestuous coast, was indeed several days. The villages they passed through along the Coastlands were, however, largely untouched by either the skirmishes that were apparently raging through the Bannorn or the destruction being slowly wrought in the Hinterlands. Except, of course, for the refugees. They heard in one coastal village that Lothering had fallen, and Ten, usually never tending towards religion or sentimentality, stopped in quickly at a village Chantry to light a candle each for Heloise the Midwife, the little girl Jamie, and that kindly bartender.
They reached Highever on the eighth day. Its walls, to Ten's near astonishment, were higher than those of Denerim, and, from which she could gather, there was but one gate open at a time, and it was, apparently, tightly guarded. The refugees outside the gates told Ten why. Something about it irked her, though she really ought to have been used to the idea that the law could control the movement of the population. Still, she got into the elf's line, which was actually shorter than the other, and kept her eyes down.
They filed in, one by one.
"State your name and business."
"Nettie Kirianis," she said, keeping her eyes down, "Visiting family."
"From where?"
"Denerim."
"What family?"
"In-laws," she said.
"Are you staying with them?"
"No, I'll be leaving before nightfall."
"So, what, your brother's wife, sister's husband…?"
"No, my husband's family," she said.
"And where's your husband, love?"
"He's dead," said Ten.
"Oh! So you're single…?
Seriously? Of all the…
"Wait a second," she said, looking up and sneaking a peek at the guard. He was young, early twenties, unshaven and tousle-haired, "Is your name… oh what was it, Arnie something?"
"Arnaud DuBroy," he said, narrowing his eyes.
"I've actually got a message for you from…. Ged something. Friend of yours. Templar at the Circle Tower on Lake Calenhad."
"Kent Gedrith?"
"Yes, that's the one!"
"You know Kent the Cunt?"
"Well not by that nickname, but in passing," said Ten, "Either way, he wanted to remind you that he, and I quote, shagged your sister."
"Well he's in good company on that count," he said, "So how long are you visiting your dead husband's family? Any chance you'd want to get a drink in a few hours when my shift is over? Fuck, I love a dirty Denerim accent."
"If I say yes, will you let me in?"
"Well I couldn't very well get a drink with you if you weren't in the city, could I. Go on, Nettie. Welcome to Highever. Alienage is all the way downhill, out on that spit of land, half on stilts. Hard to miss."
"Thanks, I guess."
She put her head back down and walked through the gates. It was cleaner than Denerim, but only because the whole place seemed damp, like it was constantly in a state of being washed by the thick fog that came off the sea - or the wild surf she could see breaking a mile or two down the hill it was built on. She sat herself on the low wall that kept the river in check and watched as human family after human family were turned away. It took about half an hour for Alistair to make it through, during which time she plotted both what to say to poor Nelaros's family, and also a fitting end for Arnaud DuBroy.
"How'd you get in so fast? They were interrogating everyone!" he protested.
"I told the guard I'd have a beer with him at the end of his shift."
"What is it with you and guardsmen?"
"They get a kick out of extracting favors from the women whose lives they can mess with the most, I suppose," said Ten.
"Are you going to go?"
"Fuck no."
"Why can't guardsmen ever flirt with me…"
"I'll let them know you're interested. I could even sneak into the locker room and write your name on the wall if you'd like," said Ten.
"Aw, you'd do that for me?"
"You don't deserve me," she said.
"I probably do though," said Alistair, "Though I'm not sure which of my many sins merited you as punishment."
"Hate to say it, but it was probably the underwear prank," she said, "The Maker frowns on such things, after all. So, are you going to tell me what your business here is?"
"You're going to mock me relentlessly."
"I promise I won't."
"Well, Duncan was from here," said Alistair, looking over the town sprawled out along the coast. The harbor was only peaceful because it was situated between two peninsulas, one on the east built up with what looked like a military fort, and the other, larger, western peninsula, encircling the bay as though the land were putting its arm around it, housed the Alienage.
"Ah," Ten said, "Seeking closure. Nothing to make fun of there."
"I just sort of want to look at what he looked at. Walk the roads he walked. Not for too long. I've just been such an absolute mess, I think it might clear my head. Why, what about you?"
"My… departed husband," said Ten, turning the ring on her finger, "Wanted me to convey his last words to his father. I'd been meaning to write, but I highly doubt the post is reliable considering what's going on. So, I'm going to tell him in person."
"Oh, Ten, that's… rough. Do you want me to come?"
"What, so I can be the out of town elf bringing shem into the Alienage? You'll scare them. I do appreciate the offer, though. I know what I'd have to say to me if my son got sent off to his wedding and wound up dead that same night, not really looking forward to the names I'm about to get called."
"Surely they know it's not your fault."
"That hardly matters. All they know is they sent their boy off and the day he gets there he winds up with sword in him," she sighed, "I'd blame me."
"Are you going to cry?"
"Probably. Are you?"
"Probably."
"So no taking the piss, right?"
"Fair."
"Back here in two hours?"
"Deal."
They nodded at each other, and went off in their separate directions. DuBroy wasn't kidding. The Alienage was not at all hard to miss, its wall going from a cliff on one edge of town, across the isthmus of a peninsula, and right into the rough seas. From the high ground where she was situated, Ten could see that it was, thankfully, open. She headed downhill, willing one foot in front of the other. She wasn't really sure what kind of welcome she'd get, but… she was here and she owed them this much.
Nobody questioned her as she walked through the gate and out onto the road - more of a jetty really - which took her between crashing waves on both sides at out onto the peninsula where almost every square foot, except for the village square with the great vehnedahl - this one a windblown and gnarled old sea pine, in the center, was built up and, as stated, the houses extended into the ocean on stilts.
"Who're you?" asked an old woman who was seated on a bench near the tree.
"I'm looking for Master Kirianis. The goldsmith," said Ten.
The old woman narrowed her eyes, "Where are you from, lass? Who are your people?"
She took a breath, and recited her home and people, her four great grandfathers and their homelands, as she had been taught. "Denerim. Tabris of Minrathas. Akliedes of Minrathas. Catañó of Llotheryn. Aluráni of the Dales."
"Are you related to Danal Aluráni?"
"I had a great uncle by that name," she said.
"Good man," the old woman said, "Good day to you."
"And to you."
She followed where the old woman had pointed and found herself on a jetty which went out onto the part of the water shielded from the surf by the peninsula itself and the cliff on the other end. There was only one dwelling there, and so she held her breath, an1d knocked.
The door was answered by a teenager, spit and image of her late husband and whom Ten imagined must be his younger brother.
"Can I help you?"
"I… uh… I'm Teneira Tabris," she said, bracing herself.
The lad's eyes went wide, and he opened the door all the way, "Well come in, it's chilly out there."
She walked into the house shyly.
"I'm Hierin," he said, "I guess… I guess I am… was your brother-in-law. What are you doing here?"
"I was in the area," said Ten, "I thought I should stop in. Pay my respects and all that."
"And what exactly brings an herbalist from Denerim to Highever in the middle of civil war?"
"I see a few things may have been left out," said Ten, "Are your parents home?"
"Have a seat," said Hierin, "I'll get them."
She sat herself gingerly at the roughhewn kitchen table, running her hands over the wood worn smooth by years if not decades of use. Above the mantle in the front room was a family portrait, which must have been painted when the boy Hierin was quite young. The parents sat solemnly, while their two older children - Nelaros, in his late teens, a girl who, in the picture, was probably fourteen or fifteen stood behind them, and Hierin, nine or ten, stood by their sides.
Something bad happened to the sister. What was it he said?
She recalled that day, tried to replay the one and only conversation she'd had with the man she'd come to pay respects to.
My younger sister was taken advantage of by the man who owned the shop she swept.
She looked at the portrait again. The young girl's solemn gaze.
She drank a jug of rat poison.
Ten flinched at the memory and looked away from the painting, her eyes wandering over the rest of the room. The blankets on the sofa threadbare but with careful seams where they had been mended, over and over again. And if the deal had gone the other way? If it'd been me go to Highever? Would I be living here now? Not that I'd ever have agreed to that.
She stood as Hierin ushered a graying couple into the room. Following after them, which confused Ten a bit, was the girl from the portrait, now closer to twenty.
"I can't believe you came here," said the wife. Ten could not figure out at first whether it was a 'I can't believe you traveled this far' or 'how dare you show your face here?!' but, as the woman rushed to her and gathered her into a warm and bosomy hug, she concluded it was the former. "Casutia Kirianis. Call me Sue."
"I'm Liórel," said the man, and shook her hand, "Lio. This is our daughter, Eilanni."
"It's lovely to meet you all, though I wish the circumstances were better," said Ten, "Do… did you have another daughter?" She gestured at the painting above the fireplace.
They all looked at each other. "No," said Sue, "Why would you think that?"
Ten nodded, looking at Eilanni. She looked healthy, her pale cheeks flushed, probably from the heat of the forge, but all in all she was the most sturdy thing Ten had seen in this dim and slippery town. Well I suppose he just said she drank it. He didn't say she died. It was heavily implied, though…
"I'm sorry, I must have mistaken something he told me," she said.
Sue nodded, and fished a handkerchief out of the pocket of her apron to dab at her eyes.
"What… exactly did my father tell you? About the end?" she asked.
"That our Nelaros was murdered. By the guard," said Lio, "It was a brief letter."
"Did he tell you the circumstances under which he was murdered by the guard?" asked Ten.
"No he did not."
"Well," said Ten, "You… might want to sit down."
They sat at the table and Ten recounted the whole, well most, of the sordid tale. The kidnapping. The attempted rescue. She left out the last bit about the chopping, letting it be a tale about the heroism of a lad losing his life to save the bride he had only just met, standing up to injustice with nothing but guts and a borrowed sword.
"Were you there when he passed?" asked Sue, "He wasn't alone, was he?"
"I was with him. Liórel… he asked me to tell you something. He said 'tell my father I didn't die on my knees. That I did what was right.''"
Liórel grunted. Swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, "I… see he was finally a man. At the end."
What a strange thing to say.
"So… what happened then?" asked Hierin, "How did you escape?"
"Well…" said Ten, "I might have killed a few of them right back."
"...you what?"
"I killed a few of them," said Ten, "I was purely on adrenaline at that point, I genuinely have no idea how."
"You…. killed the Arl of Denerim's guards? How did they not hang you?" Eilanni asked.
"Well, funny story that…" said Ten, giving a much abbreviated version of the last several months.
"So, if my brother hadn't been killed, we very well might have no Grey Wardens to protect us from the Blight," said Eilanni, smiling faintly.
"How do you figure that?"
"If he'd lived," she said, "You wouldn't have killed any guards, you'd never have wound up in the dungeons, and whoever was with the Grey Wardens that night might have perished."
"I suppose they might have," said Ten, "I won't lie, I was a little afraid you would hate me for what happened."
"You?" Sue said, "Of course not. After all, you did such a kindness, agreeing to marry him in the first place."
"A kindness?" Ten asked, looking at them skeptically, "What do you mean? I was already an old maid. My father told me Nelaros was doing me a favor."
"Our Nelaros… he wasn't right in the head," said Sue, "Would wake up screaming. Go weeks without sleep, just wandering the streets. I suppose your union did not last long enough for you to discover that. But your father didn't tell you of this?"
My father was eager to be rid of me as well, if you must know.
"No," said Teneira, "My father can't read or write very well, most of his correspondence was transcribed by our town elder. Maybe some things were lost in that process." Wait, shit, did he? Did I just tune that part out? Maybe he did and it went in one ear and out the other.
"It wasn't her dad," said Lio, "Or the elder. I didn't tell him. So he couldn't have told her."
"Lio!" exclaimed Sue.
"What was I supposed to tell him, Sue?" Lio shouted, pounding the table, "That our son, my boy, lost his damn wits? Became a ghost in this house?"
Ten froze, the ice traveling up her spine and pinning her where she sat.
"Stop it, Lio," Sue said, the tears falling from her eyes, "She doesn't need to hear this."
"It doesn't matter now. It'll probably make her feel better knowing the life she avoided," Lio said, looking at Ten coldly.
She held her tongue. What a way to speak of the dead, she thought.
"He was a good boy, growing up. But as he got older, he just… he was weak," said Lio.
"No he wasn't," Hierin said, slapping the table with an open palm, "He tried to kill the man. Just like you told him to."
"And he failed," Lio countered, slapping his palm on the table in the same manner, "Just like he failed at killing himself."
Oh shit. What did I just walk into…
"Stop it," Sue commanded, putting her hands over her ears, "What is wrong with you? He's gone. He's gone. There's no point to this."
Maker's breath, I'm sorry Nelaros died, but imagine holidays with this as a father in law!
"I feel like my presence is stirring up some things that ought to stay put," said Ten, "I'm sorry."
"No, dear," said Sue, "It's not your fault."
"You still have a life to live, lass," said Lio, "There's no sense spending it mourning a man you barely knew. That's our lot, as that was the son the Maker saw fit to give us."
"I did not know him," said Ten, rising, her temper flaring, "But he gave his life saving mine, and for that I will mourn however the fuck I see fit."
"I'm sorry, dear," said Sue before her husband could open his mouth to say something else awful, "But perhaps it would be better if you left."
"I can see that it would," said Ten, "I wish you well. Be kinder to your other children." Asshole, she added in her mind. She rose, turned, and walked out the door. As she let her hand leave it, she felt it being held open and, turning, saw the boy Hierin and the girl Eilanni had followed her out.
"I'm sorry about them," Eilanni said, "You were trying to do the right thing."
"Tell me something," she said, "Did you work at a shop?"
"No," said Eilanni, "Where'd you get that idea? Actually, funny… Nelaros used to sweep the general store up the hill when he was a kid."
You know, my younger sister was taken advantage of by the man who owned the shop she swept.
"I see," said Ten, closing her eyes against the stark realization and nausea that it brought bubbling up. Of course that's not a thing a man tells his new bride. Of course he makes a story to make it acceptable, probably to himself as much as me. He didn't even know me, he had no reason to trust me not to be cruel.
"There was some unpleasantness with it… maybe a year ago. When Nelaros heard that that shopkeeper had come around asking for Hierin, see if he wanted our brother's old job… Nelaros just… he lost his shit on him," Eilanni said, "Shoved him out the door. Told him never to set foot in the Alienage again. Then, that night, he turned up at home beaten within an inch of his life. Wouldn't say what happened."
I went after him with a knife one night in a dark alley.
"Three days later, I found him. In time, thank the Maker," said Eilanni, "He hadn't taken that much of the poison. Threw most of it up. He was bedridden for a few days, but he recovered. After that he really… he just wasn't him anymore. Like Mum said."
"I think he had some unfinished business I'd like to attend to," said Ten, "So could you point the shop out to me, please?"
"I'll take you there," Hierin said quickly before Eilanni could ask any questions, "The roads are winding in this part of town, easy to get lost."
They locked eyes for a moment, and she saw that he knew exactly what she was getting at.
"Thank you," she said, "It's good to know you Eilanni. I hope you have better luck than your older brother. I'm sorry."
"Me too," she said, "I'm glad he wasn't alone at the end."
Ten nodded curtly, and turned to follow Hierin into the fog.
"He told you, didn't he," Hierin said as soon as they were out of the Alienage.
"No," said Ten, "Well, he told me something, I've just put the rest together myself."
"And you're not ashamed? You're not glad he died so you wouldn't have to be married to him?"
"Well I'm fucking horrified," she said, "But ashamed? Of what?"
"Well to hear my dad say it that he 'let that shem treat him like a damn woman then tried to die like one.'"
"You've got to be fucking kidding me, kid, he said that? Well, hear it from me first, your dad's an asshole," she said, "And a bully. And you should never, ever listen to anything he has to say. Fucking prick."
Hierin tried to stifle his laughter and failed, "I'll be sure to tell him you said that."
"See that you do," she said, "So Nelaros told you?"
"In graphic detail," he said, "There's not many ways to convince a thirteen year old boy not to take an easy part-time job paying five sovereign a week, but… that did it."
"Ah, so he saved you too."
"Yes, I suppose he did. What are you going to do when we get there?"
"Like I said, I'm going to have a word with the shopkeeper," said Ten, "What happens after that is entirely up to him."
