Gallantly, Albertine instructed another one of her boys, Alain, this one looking to be the twin of or at least have the same father as Audin, escort Ten back to the Arl of Redcliffe's estate. How does she have so damn many of them? Ten thought, Has she ever not been pregnant in the past thirty years? Or… was that her gimmick, one of the peculiarities that the nobility and grande bourgeoisie would pay extra for … oh Maker's breath that is unsavory…
"Arlessa," Alain said, nodding at her as they reached the alley with the side door.
"Thank you, Alain," she said, "And uh… good luck."
The kid chuckled and shook his head, "I certainly need it." He gave a perfunctory bow, and headed off back home, or to whatever mess his mother intended to send him into next.
Painfully, Ten mounted the stairs. The burns did not bother her overmuch simply walking, but something about the motion of climbing stairs stretched them awfully. It took her far longer than it usually did to get back to the guest wing, and by the time she did she felt as though the lightning had been striking her, again and again, the entire time. She limped into the common room and collapsed on the sofa, ignoring the stares of her companions who, in the intervening had apparently decided they rather liked cards. All except for Morrigan, who had dove face first into a stash of bodice-rippers she had not yet read and was perched on the back of an armchair, reading intently as various men, women, and others did all sorts of things to each other. Wynne, too, seemed to have found some reading material, but had fallen asleep with the book in her lap.
"And where have you been all night?" asked Lelianna brightly, raising her eyebrows at Ten, "I hope you are having difficulty walking for a pleasant reason."
Ten rolled her eyes and pulled her skirt up over her knee, displaying the burn scars, which spread out over her calf, pale pink against her skin.
"I'm guessing you didn't actually go to the theater," Morrigan said, narrowing her eyes, "Unless they're employing mages in the wings now and they have dreadful aim."
"Oh, Teneira," said Wynne, who had awoken mid-snore and was doing her best to pretend that she had not, in fact, been sleeping, "How did you get those? Did a mage do that?"
"Sure did," said Ten.
"Not one of ours, surely!"
"Nope," declared Ten, "You see, my friends, I, your humblest ax murderess, managed to really piss off a magister of the Tevinter Imperium."
"Tevinters! What were they doing here?" asked Lelianna.
Ten set the paperwork she'd taken from the ship down on the arm of the couch. The Tevinters, ever a businesslike people, had every form in triplicate, each separately signed and sealed. One copy was back in her chest of secrets in the Alienage and the third was tucked in her bodice for safekeeping. She imagined that, somewhere in the palace or Teyrn Loghain's estate, were three more identical copies, though she wasn't sure she had the energy to have those stolen as well.
Lelianna, who was seated closest to her, picked them up. Ten watched her face darken as he gathered what it meant, "What is this, Ten? Is that your father's name?"
"My dad. My cousin. My neighbors. A little girl who still sleeps with a stuffed halla," her voice broke with that last one, "Our friend in the palace was going to empty the Alienage, sell the inhabitants, pocket the profits."
At this pronouncement, Zevran laid down his own cards and rose, his face dark with rage. "Give me those." Lelianna handed them over and he read them.
"The Teyrn did this?" he asked, looking up at Ten. She nodded.
"Did the ship make it out of the harbor?" Zev asked, rising from the table, seizing Ten by both shoulders urgently, "Do we need to track it down? I have some favors I can call in…"
"Not necessary," Ten said, "Also this burn goes all the way up, so if you could let my shoulder go, that would be fantastic, it stings a bit..."
"Oh!" Zev exclaimed, loosing her, "Wait…" he looked down at her leg and followed the scars in the path they must have taken to get to her neck, "All the way up?"
"Don't make it weird," she admonished, "In any case, the ship did make it to harbor, in a manner of speaking. But it will go no further."
"So the word on the street about a flaming ship drifting downriver at midnight…" Morrigan said.
"Where did you hear the word on the street?" asked Ten.
"You'd be amazed what the good folk of this cesspit will say in front of a harmless squirrel. But a flaming ship! You just love the drama, don't you," said Morrigan, "At least I only read about it."
Zevran relaxed, "As much as I enjoy a seabound adventure, I fear it would have taken us far too long and perhaps provoked a war. So you caught them in the act?"
She nodded again. "Me and my cousin," she said, "They'd wound down for the night by the time we got there. We killed most of them in their sleep. Released the captives."
"What happened to the slaver? This… Caladrius?" Zevran asked, reading from the manifest.
"I strapped his body to the bowsprit," said Ten, "Sent his head to the palace."
"Keep going with this, Loghain's going to put together the most confusing cadaver this side of the mountains," Lelianna, "Crow hand, Tevinter head… you'll need to collect a diverse array of body parts to complete it."
"Depending whom he sends next, that might not be too heavy a lift. And he will, let me warn you all now. He seems to think this is personal," said Ten, "Apparently the whole scheme, while certainly lining his war coffers, was intended to draw me out. He didn't plan on me showing up in the middle of it."
"So he didn't know you were in town," observed Morrigan.
"Well he does now," said Ten, "But fortunately, he thinks it's just me. Nobody knows who any of you are. So the heat's off everyone but my sorry ass. As such, I will be lying low for a bit, at least until I can do stairs like a normal person."
"Do you think he will threaten them again?" asked Sten, "You won the day this time, but this has only taught him that it works."
"I really… really fucking hope not," said Ten, "But… that leads me to a very large favor I wanted to ask of you. You can say no."
"What is it?"
"I want you to go to the Alienage," she said, "After dark, and soon, no more than three days, the leaves are already falling and if you wait, it will be very obvious a man of your size is sneaking in. I'll write a note to take with you, so you don't scare them. I want you to stay there, to do for my people what you did for the militia in Redcliffe. I'm not going to be around to solve their problems forever. They need to know how to fight on their own. Most of them are fairly good at hand to hand, but we were never allowed weapons, so they'll have no idea what to do with them."
"You are trusting me with the safety of your people," said Sten, raising his eyebrows.
"I am," said Ten, "You know what it is to be separated from yours."
"I am… strangely honored," said Sten.
"My uncle, Cedrin, is a blacksmith. He obviously doesn't know how to make swords, but he's a clever man and he'll figure it out. My father, Cyrion, is a woodworker. A shield isn't a complicated thing to make, so he'll have to figure that out as well," said Ten, "I'll have to arrange for materials to be smuggled in from the river, but I've done things like that before. Mail comes in and out every fortnight from a woman named Endania's house, if it's urgent, you find my cousin Soris, or my cousin Shianni, they know I'm here and will find me. And… no preaching the Qun, if you don't mind."
"I am not a missionary," said Sten, "I will go tomorrow."
"Thank you," said Ten.
"It will give me purpose," the qunari said, nodding, "And now, all three of you, pay up."
"I'm out," said Zev, gesturing to where his cards lay facedown on the table, "I'm glad you'll be away, I cannot financially sustain losing every hand, and there is precious little else to do around here."
"Ten," Alistair, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for far too long, started, "I don't mean to overstep here, but don't you…"
"Of fucking course it's you with a problem," exclaimed Ten, throwing her hands up, "What is it this time?"
"No! Stop. Absolutely not," Lelianna interjected, slamming her cards on the table, "You two will go down the hall and shut the door if you are going to quarrel, we are all sick of listening to it."
"And leave your weapons here," Wynne added.
Acknowledging that they had a point and that the conversation was almost certainly going to end in shouting, Ten obligingly unbuckled her sword belt with Bannkiller hooked onto it and laid it on an end table. The then took off the strap on her upper thigh, the three knives there, and then her boots, placing the dagger she kept in each of them with the sword belt and the boots under the couch.
"Andraste's right tit, are you always armed like that?" asked Zevran.
"Oh, wait, missing one," said Ten. She turned and pulled a tiny vial of poisoned needles from where it stayed tucked within her bodice. She put them on the pile. "Oh! Yes. Of course." She pulled up her left sleeve and unbuckled the strap where three throwing knives were held against her left bicep. Then she reached under her kerchief and took out a delicate glass vial nestled in her hair. She had purchased it along the road for the purpose of studying and mimicking it. The alchemist who'd sold it to her said that the trick was trapping whatever noxious gas she could within and then throwing it so it would break on impact and release it into the air. She put that carefully on the pile as well.
"Do you just walk around like that all day?" asked Lelianna.
"It is a wise choice for her," Sten said, nodding approvingly, "She must play to her strengths. One of them is that she appears to be harmless."
"Until she sticks herself accidentally," Wynne clucked, shaking her head.
"Oh, I'm immune to most of this," she said, gesturing at the small arsenal on the end table, "But none of you are, so don't touch anything. And especially do not knock over that vial. I will not be held responsible for what happens if you do."
She went out the door to the suite. Outside was a fairly long hallway, with the main stairs at the end, and the servant's stairs branching out to the left. Alistair followed her out, though from his posture, he was regretting having said anything.
"So enlighten me, what is it this time?" she asked as soon as the door clicked shut behind him, "What did you want me to do, wait until we've got all our ducks in a row and just hope that the next regime doesn't pull something worse? And in the meantime, oh well, guess my family's enslaved abroad?"
"That's not what I was going to say," he said, "It was the right thing to do. But it shouldn't have been on your shoulders alone."
Well that's new. "It wasn't Warden business. It was highly illegal. I could not in good conscience ask any of you to come. And… look at the state of you! Can you even hold a sword right now?"
"Me?" Alistair exclaimed indignantly, "Look at the state of you. Half of you is one big lightning burn because you decided to go head to head with a magister with no backup."
"I had backup," she said, "And, excuse me, but I had a rather compelling reason to go head to head with the magister. You decided to start a fucking barroom brawl in a working class dive in a city where class relations are already hanging by a thread, and for what?!"
"For what?! What do you mean, for what? That man put his hands on you! He was going to-"
"But he didn't. I took care of it. Just like I did the time before that and the time before that and the time before that. People like you can't be in charge of keeping people like me safe from other people like you."
"Well I'm not talking about people like - Ten, would you please look at me - people like you or people like me. I'm talking about you and me."
She forced herself to him in the eye, yet again. He looked almost worse than he had two nights before, the bruises around his left eye going green around the edges and a broken blood vessel she hadn't even noticed having spread out and covered half of it in red. She shook her head. "It isn't personal. This is not about you."
"No, it's about you, and the fact that you just cannot handle not being in control of all things, all the damn time. The very thought makes your eye twitch, I can see it starting to go now."
"My eye is twitching because I'm tired of having to fight with you, on top of everyone else I have to fight with. When have I ever been anything but absolutely, steadfastly on your side? And yet, here you are…"
"That's never been in question, I just wish you'd let me be on yours!"
There was a noise of a throat clearing behind them. Ten turned to see the butler, Gwylan, standing awkwardly on the top step.
"Master Eilvaris, what can I do for you?" she asked, casually tucking her hair behind her ear. He approached them slowly, something in his hand. The expression on his face was… uncharacteristically gentle.
"Well, I've come up with a message that was left for Miss Tabris earlier today. But while I'm here… I heard the news out of the Alienage this morning," he said, "And I…" he paused, "I may have underestimated the depravity of the current regime. Whatever I think of your methods, I thank you for what you did."
"You're… welcome? I think?" Ten said, confused.
"He's closer kin to you, I know," Gwylan said, "But I would have grieved Soris's loss deeply."
"Wait, are you two related?" asked Alistair, "Are all of you related?"
"Her uncle is married to my first cousin," said Gwylan, "So no, she and I are not related, but six first cousins of hers are also second cousins of mine. Including the youngest, whom I dare say is even more of a delinquent than she is." His cultivated accent slipped on the last bit, to which Ten laughed inwardly.
"He comes by it honestly," said Ten.
"He comes by it because for whatever misguided reason, he looks up to you," said Gwylan, "Though I cannot truly blame you for this one."
"He's grown, Gwylan, at this point it's on him," Ten said.
Gwylan nodded sharply, and it became clear that this was all she was going to get from him. He shoved a letter into her hands, turned, and stalked off towards the stairs. He's just committed to being disgruntled, isn't he.
"Wait, who brought the letter?" she called after him.
"I don't know all the couriers of the city personally," Gwylan said, his hand pausing on the bannister at the top of the stairs.
"But surely he announced himself!" Ten insisted.
"He did not. According to the footman who took it, he was wearing a cowl, looked extremely uncomfortable, shoved it at him, and left," the butler said, "I can tell you no more. And stop eating breakfast with the staff, you're disruptive."
Ten shrugged, and opened it.
TT - heard you were looking for me. Off next Wednesday. Address below. Bring moonshine. Come in the back door. AFTER. DARK. Can't be seen with ax murderers in broad daylight. - IV
P.S. I know for a fact you snickered at 'back door.' Grow up.
P.P.S. Just kidding. Never grow up.
"Ha!" she exclaimed, "Things do just tend to fall into my hands, don't they!"
"What is it?" asked Alistair, clearly grateful something had interrupted the previous argument.
Ten handed it to him.
"I don't get it," he said.
"Remember that half-brother of yours that I've been trying to track down? Guess he heard on the wind that I was looking for him. That's an address in the Docks and the closest thing we're going to get to an engraved invitation," she declared triumphantly.
"Oh…." said Alistair, "This is the…"
"Yeah him," said Ten, "You want in? I used to beat him up when we were small and he's still scared of me. I can make him be nice."
"I suppose he can't be half as traumatizing as the last one I met."
"Well, not in the same way," said Ten, "I suggest you spend a good deal of one on one time with Zevran in the next several days. That might give you an inkling of the sorts of conversations that go on at that dinner table."
"I see."
"You don't have to come," said Ten.
"No, no, I'll be there… but could you explain the joke in this?"
"I can't," said Ten, "You're going to have to figure out that one on your own."
"Ten! Come on!"
She shook her head and left him in the hallway and opened the door to the guest wing. The letter from Ioan had reminded her of something… not particularly important, but intriguing to her personally all the same.
"Why are all of you being so quiet?" she asked, seeing all of her companions quickly look down as soon as she came in, "I thought you didn't want to hear the arguments anymore."
"We were waiting for the sound of one of you being pushed down the stairs," Zevran said, his face deadpan.
"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you on that account," she announced, "Morrigan, I need to speak with you."
"Me!" Morrigan exclaimed, "I hope it's salacious."
"So very," Ten said, "Come on."
In Ten's room, she found the letter to Maylin Rasphander. She handed it to the witch, and let her read it. Morrigan, deprived of context, read it, and looked up at Ten, "It's certainly cryptic. I can gather that the writer is a man, and that the recipient is a woman, and that that woman is pregnant. Or was."
"Very good!" Ten exclaimed, "This is a little personal to me, see, the woman is the widow of a man who wrote the little comedy that has led to me being where I am now. He is - was - a racist son of a bitch. Could not stand elves. And this letter, clearly from his wife's lover, came from the Alienage."
"Ohhhh," Morrigan said, her tone indicating that she was, in fact, intrigued, "Do you know who wrote it?"
"Presumably a man with red hair," said Ten, "Who didn't dare put his name on it. But that describes about ten percent of the population in these parts. Maylin is in her early thirties, but even if we narrow it down to men between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five, it'd be impossible for me to figure out who it is on that information alone."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Well deliver the letter, first of all," said Ten, "Seems like facilitating an illicit romance would be right up your alley, no?"
"I do enjoy such a thing," said Morrigan, "Not being involved in one, of course… eugh. But watching it play out in real time does tickle my fancy."
"Excellent," Ten said, "Bring it to her however you see fit. And by my calculations, she should be about six months at this point, if she didn't… end the pregnancy. So she'll be showing. I'd like to know if she's still with child."
"Why?"
"Because I'm fucking nosy," said Ten, "And, well, human women who get halfbreeds sometimes get rid of them after the fact, if they come out looking too elfin. And there's always the risk that she sets a lynch mob on the man rather than live with the shame. I'm trying to avoid either of those outcomes."
"For a baby you don't even know? A man you're not sure who he is?"
"I just don't like it when people die for stupid reasons," said Ten.
"Did you not just kill several men and women you've never met, in their sleep?"
"I did do that, but for a good reason! Not sure what a baby could have done to warrant getting thrown down a well."
"Except if it came out with some defect," said Morrigan, "You told me that once, outside Lothering, remember? You said it's a fuck of a thing but sometimes necessary."
"Being a halfbreed isn't a defect!" Ten protested.
"Not to you, maybe," said Morrigan, "Why, have you got one cooking in there?"
"Ew! No! Don't be weird!" Ten exclaimed.
"Is the child of a halfbreed and an elf still a halfbreed?" Morrigan mused, stroking her chin.
"I regret letting you in on any of this," Ten sighed, "If you must know, I am not. Not that it's any of your business, but the confirmation thereof only just stopped."
Morrigan laughed a little too loud for a little too long, "You too?"
"Ugh… have we synced up?" Ten asked, "That happened with me and my cousin. It was chaos. The fact we're both still alive is truly astounding."
"Well I haven't asked the nun," said Morrigan, "But given the diligence with which she's been taking down sweets in the last week, I'm going to assume that's the case."
"Well now we all know far too much about each other. Now do you want in on the juicy story, or not?" Ten asked.
"Fine. Fine! I want in," the witch sighed, "I'll deliver your little message."
"Tell Missus Rasphander - Maylin - that if she wants to send a message back to her lover, to bring it here, she can give it to the footman at the gate and tell him it's for me. I… might need to read it before it goes back to the Alienage."
"Oh, you are nosy, aren't you," Morrigan said, "Very well. I'll do it. But I don't want to hear a damned thing out of you about my choice of reading material ever again."
"Deal," said Ten.
With an eerie whisper that seemed to come from everywhere at once, and a slight greenish glow, Morrigan's head sank into her shoulders, and her shoulders into her torso, and within seconds a raven with the witch's pale eyes stood on on the floor before Ten. Ten held out the letter, and Morrigan took it in her beak. Ten walked across the room and opened the window. The raven flew to the windowsill, wiggled its tail at Ten, and took off.