Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "You're dismissed, Cade."

  "You can't be blighted serious, Milord. This here's a potential dangerous criminal. He needs interrogating, and then some," Cade jabbed a thumb at the man who looked as frail as a wren's bleached bone. Donato bore such a dignified air the few times she'd watched him flit through the halls but stripped of his titles and clothing, his skin wan and a pallor drawing down his cheeks, the man looked about to crack in half. Maker only knew what it was doing to the far less stronger Ghaleb.

  Alistair placed his candle down on the table and eyed up the Commander that looked like he could hoist the King up and throw him out the door. "I am going to talk to the prisoner."

  "You?" Cade snorted. "What about...?"

  "Don't worry about me, I've got my bodyguard with," he glanced back to Reiss who felt Cade's judgmental eyes sizing her up before he snorted. In the damp cold of the cellar dungeon it pillared out in a fog.

  "Fine, but I'll be havin' a go over him and the other bastard after your little tea ceremony, your Majesty," he cursed, shouldering past Reiss. Without waiting for the command, Cade slammed the door behind leaving Alistair and the elf alone with the broken man.

  Slowly, the King began to pace back and forth while massaging his forehead. Reiss crossed her arm and kept one within close distance of the dagger in a sheathe near her chest. On occasion, Donato would glance up, his eyes brimming in the weak candle light without any tears falling.

  It took a few more laps before Alistair spoke, "I honestly don't even know where to begin."

  "Sire, please," Donato said. His voice gargled in his throat and Reiss noticed a speck of blood dribbling down his lips. Cracked or... If there was pain, the ambassador didn't show it. "I admit full responsibility for what occurred."

  "Just for my sake, knowing how stupid I am, why don't you tell me exactly what did occur?" Alistair froze and turned a glare down at the ambassador.

  The ambassador folded his hands tightly and shut his eyes. "You must think me a cad," he said and grimaced as the pain finally reached him from no doubt a fist punching his jaw. "That I seduced your younger Spymaster as lecherous old men are known to. All for some nefarious plot to eradicate you from the throne, but..."

  Donato's head skimmed into his hands, the manacles jangling at the attempts. "By the honor of my Patron, and what little my own name carries, I swear to you that I have had nothing to do with the attacks upon your life." His voice was heartbreaking, the bottom lip quivering as he tried to shore up his heart with what little dignity remained for a man chained and broken at the darkest depths of the world. It could be an act, but every instinct inside Reiss told her it was genuine.

  Trying to appear unmoved by his plight, Alistair pinched thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose. "So you claim, but what about my Spymaster?"

  "Ghaleb?" Donato stuttered, the name flying from his lips.

  "What's to say it wasn't his plan all along and he used you to get his hands on some Crows for a little meet and greet?" Alistair resumed his pacing, no longer looking down at the man.

  "He isn't that kind of," Donato pleaded, mid-sentence switching tactics, "you know him."

  "Not as well as I thought," the King volleyed with, "not as well as you certainly do. For the love of Andraste, sleeping with another head of state? On the rather short list of stupid things for a Spymaster to do, that's right up there with selling all a nation's secrets for a couple magic beans. How long?" When Donato didn't lift his head, Alistair slammed his hands on the wall and repeated, "How long?!"

  "Five years," Donato mumbled, his eyes slipping shut.

  "Five..." Alistair staggered away to cup a hand over his mouth beyond the ambassador's sight. For a moment his eyes met Reiss' and they both shared a thought. Five years meant there would be proof found. Evidence. It also all but damned them both. A brief affair could be excused with the right amount of begging for forgiveness to the court, but this...

  "It will be impossible for me, for the crown to know what influence you've had on our Spymaster or what secrets he let slip to Antiva." Alistair folded his hand into a fist and began to pound it against the other while he thought, "That's treason, you know. High treason, not even taking into account the threat of you hiring assassins to kill me."

  "Please," Donato lashed his bound hands out and grabbed onto Alistair's poorly buttoned shirt. Reiss moved to unsheathe her dagger and shove the man back but the King gave her a slow shake of the head. She let the dagger remain where it belonged, but didn't relax her stance. "Your Highness, I beg of you, it is my fault. Let this fall upon my head. Please," his lips quivered and that patrician man who looked like every incorruptible scholar Reiss ever saw in the distance, cracked in half. Tears rained down his cheeks, pooling in his lap as he could only face the ground while pleading not for his life but the man he loved. "Please, do not hurt Ghaleb. He's..."

  "He's a grown man, who knew what he was doing was wrong, otherwise he wouldn't have kept it secret," Alistair answered back before sliding away. Donato let him go, his hands falling limp as the King tried to glower down from on high. "The fact is that you have diplomatic immunity in this matter. While any sign of you attempting to assassinate me will wipe that away in an instant, and believe me we have probable cause to go looking for it now, you will most likely be returned to Antiva when this is over."

  Donato blinked, lifting his head to stare in the weak light, "What of Ghaleb?"

  It was Alistair who turned away now, unable to face the pleading face. In a broken voice he whispered, "You know what the sentence for treason is."

  "Sire, no, please..." Donato tried to grab onto the King but he missed and plummeted to the ground, his blanket scattering off his shoulders. Reiss scrunched down to pick it up but before adding it back shot a glance up at her boss. He gritted his teeth and nodded, letting her preserve what little dignity the man had. Alistair returned to the door and knocked twice before shouting, "Cade, return him to his cell. I'd like to speak with our Spymaster next."

  "Very well, Milord," Cade shuffled in, gripping the ambassador around his thin arms and hauling him to exhausted feet.

  Alistair's hand shout out and he gripped tight to the Commander's bulging arm. "And do try to refrain from shattering his jaw in the trip there and back, please," he didn't hide a growl in his words.

  "As you say," Cade returned with a sneer, but he more carefully trucked the ambassador down the long hallway.

  Only shuffling followed in the wake, feet dragging against the ground as Reiss caught the King's stern face glaring through the air itself. He looked completely solid, as unmovable as a statue, when Donato's voice called out through the jail.

  "Ghaleb? Maker's sake, please he can't handle that. He needs, Ghaleb...I promise, it'll be okay. I'll be here, talking to you. I'll guard you. I won't leave you."

  The final vowel of that you transformed into an oof hopefully as the Commander helped him into his cell and not by punching him in the stomach. Reiss glared at the darkness of the dungeon before turning to find Alistair crumbling before her. His fingers dug tight to his cheeks, a rictus replacing what had been an easy smile. Despite everything in her brain telling her not to, Reiss reached over and cupped her palms to first one then the other of the man's hands and tugged them down. He bit onto his lower lip, watching their strange handhold before slowly nodding his head. Screwing up his eyes, the King drew forth a strength that he would need for confronting an old friend about his potential execution.

  In the distance, they both heard Cade shout out, "All right, you're next."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Trial

  Someone took the time to form a crisis management team, he didn't know who because on the whole Alistair had been completely and fully useless. Harding was scattering through piles of documents and letters amassed over the years from both the Spymaster and ambassador. On occasion, Alistair would catch the dwarf streaking past as fast as should could manage and ask if there was anything new to report
. All he'd get was a "not yet" echoing down the corridor. He'd convinced Cade to move both of them to proper cells and not whatever dilapidated dungeon there was under the barracks. The Commander argued, with his constant perfunctory splattering of Milord throughout, insisting that they had to keep this under their hats. But what did it matter?

  Either they'd find some connection putting the Spymaster and/or ambassador as the evil mustache twirlers behind the assassins or... That was the part that kept Alistair pacing at night. Nearly four days since this mess splattered in his lap and no one had any good answers. Karelle combed through protocol on the matter, but either all previous spymasters were smart enough to keep it in their pants or they hid it well. There wasn't a precedent to fall upon beyond the big ol' t begging to be branded across Ghaleb's pyre. Maker's breath, did they even give traitors pyres or were they tossed over the walls to the vultures?

  That drew a shudder to Alistair's frame and he pitched forward. "Sire?" Karelle asked.

  "It's fine," he argued, "just my stomach acting up." He seemed to be cursed with an ever expanding ulcer that birthed upon first spotting Ghaleb broken in his cell. The interrogation went about as poorly as Alistair expected, the man gibbering about orange blossoms and pointing to the north. Nothing incriminating dropped from his lips, though neither did anything to pardon him. Just orange blossoms.

  "Here, your Majesty," the mage woman stepped up from the crowd gathering beside the hearth. Eamon was there, along with the chamberlain, Cade kept himself busy barking orders from across the castle as if he needed to present a facade of law at all times. And, of course, there was his bodyguard. She glanced up from her guarding of a bookcase and tried to force a smile. Poor thing had to be exhausted, no doubt hearing her roommate shuffle back and forth each night unable to sleep, but she bore it well with no complaints.

  Alistair accepted the familiar white gloop from Linaya and sneered at the contents. She stood near to his chair, her fingers knotting together as she said, "You have to drink it all for it to work."

  "I know." Pinching his nose he tossed his head back and let the paste slide down his throat. It tasted like bronto snot blended with egg whites that were seasoned by fireplace ash and then cooked until burned. Whipping his head back and forth at the flavor, Alistair smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in the hopes it could break up some of the cloying disgust.

  After passing the bottle back to the mage, he sighed, "What exactly is that supposed to do?"

  "It calms the turbid matter in the stomach which becomes enflamed during times of great stress," she explained.

  He sat up higher and leaned nearer. In a not really whisper, he asked, "You can tell me the truth, it doesn't actually do shit, right? It's just really funny to watch me have to drink it every day?" Alistair expected a smile, wanted someone to wear one just for a minute or two, but the woman panicked.

  "No, Sire, I swear on Andraste's sword that..."

  "It's all right, child," Karelle interrupted the young woman's panic, "he's tugging on your leg." The chamberlain shot a damning look at the King and he slid back to his chair. He hadn't meant any offense.

  For her part, Linaya let her lips slide upward but it didn't feel like a smile, something off about it as she turned to the King, "Of course, a jape. They say you...enjoy them from time to time."

  "Jesting and jousting, that's me," Alistair groaned, feeling the first of the bubbles popping in his gut as the mixture did whatever it was brewed to do. Shifting on his seat to relieve the pinch, he asked aloud, "Any chance you know a spell to tell if someone's lying? That'd solve this problem right quick."

  "I'm afraid not, My Lord. That would be..."

  "Blood magic. Yeah, I know," Alistair groaned. "No, you know what would be really useful, a spell that could detect evil. Like, make people glow red or something if they're the bad guys."

  The mage tapped her fingers together as if she could cobble something impossible like that together, while Karelle groaned, "Sire, I rather doubt that would work how you want. Everyone's got a little evil in them. We'd all be glowing like Satinalia at the Grand Cathedral."

  "That's true," he admitted, running a nail across his ear.

  "I'd be most concerned with someone who didn't light up at all," Reiss spoke up from her silent vigil. She stared out through the horizon as if lost in thought. "People who never think they're wrong are dangerous."

  "That can't be true," Linaya laughed at the elf. "There are plenty of people that do good and only try to help."

  Reiss didn't answer the mage, but her eyes honed in from a million miles straight to Alistair. The battled hardened elf shared a look with the politic weary king. Good and evil were a matter of perspective and sometimes the very idea flipped based upon who held the sword or crown. Sometimes the good turned away because they had no choice, or the evil would save a person after sacrificing a town. He missed the certain morality of being a warden. Darkspawn bad, kill them.

  "I mean," the perhaps mid-twenties Linaya glanced around her elders and continued to make a point, "the Hero of Ferelden was a good woman."

  Darkspawn bad and mindless, kill them. But what if one of them talks? What if it wants to change things? Should they all be obliterated? Alistair was dead certain that yes, they cause blight what other option was there. But Lanny, she had this thought that maybe killing all the archdemons wasn't the answer the wardens assumed it was. Maybe, finding a way to live together was. It always seemed like ramblings to him, but he climbed out of that trench a long time ago while she kept returning to the deep roads. What did they say? Over time one either saw the enemy as a monster or a friend, it was up to the person to pick the path. Or something like that. Alistair tended to skip over the philosophy assigned to him while in the templars in favor of the histories - those had more sword fights.

  "Yes," he said, pinching up his nose and trying to shake off a cloak shrouding his heart, "she was a good woman."

  Alistair thought that'd be the end of it, but Linaya's hand glanced across his. He watched her soft fingers roll over his gnarled ones -- the middle bulged where it failed to set properly after a break over a decade ago. "You must have cared a great deal for her," she said. The forced intimacy drew up the hairs on the back of Alistair's neck and he stumbled to his legs, which caused him to walk partially into the mage.

  A snicker broke from Karelle and he caught the same damn knowing smile everyone had been wearing since the mage popped up. Frankly, he was getting sick and tired of it. Tugging his hand back to where it belonged -- dangling limply at his side -- Alistair groaned, "I'm going to go find Harding and see if there's anything new."

  "Didn't you just ask a few hours ago?" Karelle said.

  He wanted to snap back at her, but all the King could manage was a shrug. "Eamon's busy smoothing over the other diplomat's, and Arl's, and Teryn's feathers."

  "I'm aware," Karelle sighed, "I was the one who told you."

  "Right," he pinched his fingers to his forehead and danced his eyebrows up and down. Maker's breath, when was the last time he slept? It felt a fortnight ago. "So, I think I should check in on that or...something. I need to do something."

  "Very well, your highness," Karelle bowed slightly to him, while the mage curtsied even deeper.

  Only glancing once at both women, Alistair caught Reiss' eye and jerked his chin to guide her out into the hallway. He led her with as kingly of a gait as he could manage, with spine locked in place and shoulders tossed back down hallways that were bustling with cloudy browed servants. Not everyone cared for Ghaleb, but the spymaster was one of them, one of them all. The Chancellor was trying to keep the rumors to a minimum and information on a need to know basis but they had to wonder what put the Spymaster behind bars. Were no doubt concocting wilder and wilder stories over scrubbing pots and ovens. And somehow it all led back to the King. Did they think after 16 years he'd finally gone full tyrant and was about to start taking heads off?

  Alistair stumbled and his shoulde
r scattered into a sconce that was mercifully not lit. The candle cracked in half, plopping to the ground with a pathetic splat. Bending over to scoop it up, he groaned to himself, "I hate this."

  "Perhaps you should leave it to someone else," Reiss spoke up. She'd bent down as well, her less exhausted fingers picking the broken candle from his hands. While Alistair squatted on the ground, one hand used for ballast on the floor, she attempted to stick the bottom of the candle in the sconce and then balance the top on as if nothing happened. Unfortunately, it wasn't broken well and kept sliding off. After a few attempts, she abandoned hope, yanked off the bottom, and stuck the shorter top in place.

  "I wasn't talking about the candle," Alistair said. The long nights and worry chewing through him finally took hold and the King of Ferelden flopped onto the floor. She paced around above him, her hand upon the sword, but looked down at the man scurrying to lean his head against the wall.

  "I'd...assumed as such."

  "It would be so much easier if Harding came running through that door with proof that one of them had hired assassins, or better yet, both without the other aware. They could have realized their misstep and laughed and laughed like the mage who traded her staff in for a shield to give the templar that traded in his sword for a staff blade. And I'm babbling, which means I'm either about to pass out or throw an epic tantrum." Alistair slipped his eyes closed and tried to take a steady breath, but his lungs ached as the boiling in his gut pressed upward. Something brushed near him without touching and he glanced over to find Reiss scooting down to sit beside him.

  "Shall I fetch you some jam and crackers?" she asked, only a hint of an eyebrow lifting.

  He snickered at that and sighed, "No, though...it does sound nice. I can see why Spud loves it. Comfort food."

  "Whenever I'd come in with the 'growling eyebrows,'" Reiss made air quotes for that, "my mother would include a small rye cracker with my dinner. It's silly but it worked to lighten my mood. I search them out when I'm feeling low. What about you?"