“Details, da’len.” Felassan waved absently. “You know how I feel about details.”
“I do.” Briala took a breath. Felassan’s attitude seemed closer to a court fop than the ancient figure of wisdom she had expected … but he had taught her as much as Celene, in the years she had known him. “I’ve gotten Celene to help the elven merchants, and she’s gotten them into the universities as well. But she is also attempting to get the Chantry to deal with the tensions between the templars and the mages, which has left her vulnerable.”
“Rather foolish of her.” Felassan picked at the bark of the tree. “Why would she give up power to the religious people? Even the shemlen have to know that’s a terrible idea.”
“She hopes to keep it a quiet internal matter,” said Briala. “The Circle of Magi and the templars are also controlled by the Chantry.”
“Also a terrible idea.” Felassan plucked off a bit of bark, popped it into his mouth, and chewed.
“What are you doing?”
“The Dalish know many medicinal remedies that the humans have forgotten,” Felassan said, chewing. “Certain types of bark can be chewed to ease headaches.” He paused. “Not this kind, though. Sadly, this is just bark.”
Briala shook her head. It was pointless to engage him when he was in one of these moods. “How would you solve the problem between the mages and the templars?”
“Wait for them to get tired of killing each other.” Felassan took the chewed bark out of his mouth, squinted, and stuck it back on the tree.
“That might take too long, revered teacher.”
“It will happen eventually, da’len.” Felassan opened his eyes. “My name, among our people, means ‘slow arrow.’ It comes from a story in which the god Fen’Harel was asked by a village to kill a great beast. He came to the beast at dawn, and saw its strength, and knew it would slay him if he fought it. So instead, he shot an arrow up into the sky. The villagers asked Fen’Harel how he would save them, and he said to them, ‘When did I say that I would save you?’ And he left, and the great beast came into the village that night and killed the warriors, and the women, and the elders. It came to the children and opened its great maw, but then the arrow that Fen’Harel had loosed fell from the sky into the great beast’s mouth, and killed it. The children of the village wept for their parents and elders, but still they made an offering to Fen’Harel of thanks, for he had done what the villagers had asked. He had killed the beast, with his cunning, and a slow arrow that the beast never noticed.”
Briala thought about the story for a moment. Her teacher would disapprove if she jumped to conclusions. “Fen’Harel the trickster, never truly on anyone’s side.”
“Fen’Harel was a sneaky bastard that way, according to the old stories,” Felassan said.
“And you are the slow arrow?”
Felassan smiled. “I hope so.” He shrugged. “It may be that your empress cannot stop this war. Perhaps the mages and the templars will destroy each other, and when that foolish and inevitable war comes, the shemlen will be weak enough for the elves to retake the Dales. We will find out someday. Today, you are helping the elves who live under the rule of this empire. Let that be enough.”
“I am concerned about Celene’s champion.” Briala stood. “He has disappeared, and I cannot find him.” Briala looked around and lowered her voice. “Can you help me?”
“I know a few tricks, yes.” Felassan laughed. “Do you have something of his? Something he held or wore?”
Smiling, Briala held out a tall yellow feather.
4
Michel woke to hot-eyed pain. Blinking away tears, he coughed, tried to sit up, and groaned as his skull protested.
He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. It had been one of the first lessons the chevaliers had taught him. To master the outside world, he had to master himself. He felt the air enter his lungs, felt his heart pumping blood to muscles that ached but were still ready to obey his commands.
His arms and legs were bound. Rope, not shackles. The cut on his side—he refused to dignify something so small with the word wound—burned with pain, but was shallow enough to be nothing more than an annoyance. He flexed his muscles, testing the bindings and restoring circulation. Two more breaths, clearing the remains of the choking dust Gaspard’s bard had flung into his face.
When Michel had mastered himself, he opened his eyes.
He was in a warehouse, tied to a post and surrounded by crates that effectively formed a room. Light crept into the room through small barred windows and hung suspended in glittering dust motes. The floor was simple dirt, and the crates stank of rotting fruit and old cloth. Outside, he heard the clatter of wagon wheels and distant shouts that told him he was still in Val Royeaux. But no one in the merchant district would have let their warehouse remain in this sorry state.
He was in the slums, then.
The bard had taken his sword and daggers and stripped off his jacket, leaving him in a simple linen undershirt with a red-stained tear along the ribs. Michel had no hidden weapons—the chevaliers trained warriors, not assassins.
At the sound of footsteps, Michel straightened. The code of the chevaliers allowed for the use of surprise and tactical ambushes, contrary to the way foolish chevaliers acted in plays for the peasants. Had he some way to get free, he could have feigned sleep and then attacked without shame. But without such an option, he refused to show weakness before an enemy.
Melcendre came around the corner and into the little cave of crates. “Already awake?” She dropped to one knee, safely out of reach in case he tried to kick at her. “Impressive. The men back at the tavern are all still unconscious. Those who aren’t dead, of course.”
“What do you want?” Michel’s throat still burned from whatever had been in the pouch, but he kept his voice from breaking.
“Perhaps I just wish to get to know you.” Melcendre smiled sweetly and tossed her dark curls over her shoulder. “We didn’t have time for a proper introduction at Celene’s banquet, and you were otherwise occupied in the tavern today.” She stood and pressed a fine-fingered hand to one of the crates, then pulled it back and rubbed her fingers. “I apologize for the accommodations. We’re in the elven district, near the big tree in the market square. Even without your mask, you’re a little too well known to stay where someone might see you.” Then she looked down at him and smiled. “But you’re not really that well known, are you?”
“What do you want?” Michel asked again.
Melcendre sighed. “No space in your chevalier’s heart for simple courtesy? But then, I don’t think you came from a family where courtesy was taught.” At his silence, she smiled again. “Did you know your patron, Comte Brevin de Chalons, donated his library to the University of Orlais upon his death?”
“Comte Brevin was an avid scholar,” Michel said, and Melcendre smiled, evidently pleased that they were having a conversation.
“So he was. Now, the tricky thing is that servants can sometimes be quite sloppy with the books. It’s so easy to put a list of financial transactions in with a study on the Qunari or the healing properties of ground drake horns.” Melcendre coyly put a finger to her cheek and affected a thoughtful look. “When it came to your training, Ser Michel, he spent a great deal.”
“My family died when I was young,” Michel said, keeping his voice even, “and Comte Brevin took me in. He also paid for my induction into the Academie des Chevaliers.”
Melcendre shook her head. “There is a man in Montfort they call le Mage du Sang.” At Michel’s blank look, she cocked her head, thinking. “So you were never told. Your patron, Comte Brevin, paid the man quite a sum on your behalf.”
Michel’s jaw clenched. “A blood mage? That is a lie, bard. Comte Brevin was a good man.” Good enough to see a boy of ten fighting off three larger boys in an alley and order his coach to stop and help. Good enough to take the boy in and offer a hot meal and a chance, as the old noble had put it, to put that strength to better
use than scrabbling for scraps. “He would never trade with blood mages.”
“Ah, but this was but a name,” Melcendre said, giving him her flirtatious smile again. “You see, le Mage du Sang is actually a scribe and an expert in heraldry and legal documents. He gained his name from his ability to conjure noble blood out of thin air.”
Michel had been living for three years in Comte Brevin’s household when he was awakened by his lord, who had come into his room quietly with a piece of paper that changed everything. Brevin had said that Michel’s skill with a blade would be wasted in a position as a guard or mercenary. He had said that Michel had a rare gift, and gifts must be nurtured, for the good of the empire. And finally, he had said that if the Academie des Chevaliers only accepted those of noble blood, well, there were nobles lying dead who had no further use for their names, and their departed spirits would be honored to lend their titles to such a worthy cause.
Melcendre almost seemed sad, staring at him, and Michel realized that he had given something away in his silence. “He recorded a payment—quite a large payment, in fact. He must have believed in you quite highly.” She sighed. “And he was right. You have become Celene’s champion.”
“Yes. I am the empress’s champion,” Michel said, “and you serve Gaspard. So why do I still draw breath?”
“Because dead, you would be a martyr slain by the grand duke as an act of villainous treachery,” Melcendre said, kneeling back down beside him. “But alive, and with your false claim to nobility brought to light, you would disgrace your empress. Imagine the trial, the public execution, the scandal, Michel. That is why you are still alive.”
Yet in her victory, she did not seem happy. There was a weakness in her smile, as her eyes fled from his.
“I would sooner die,” he told her.
“I know.” She nodded and let out a slow breath. “And it seems a waste, either way. I have seen my share of tournaments, and I can say with no small certainty that you were a man born to wield a blade. Who cares whether you are truly a noble?” She shook her head bitterly. “I play the Game better than most courtiers, and I was born the bastard daughter of a milkmaid and a soldier on leave. It is a lie they tell us to keep us in our place.”
“Perhaps.” Michel shrugged, trying to seem unconcerned. “But we have still found ourselves here.”
Melcendre gave him the sad smile again. “At least you serve a mistress who cares for those not of noble blood. You have that. I heard she forced the university to let in not just a commoner, but an elf … ah, there it is.”
Then her sadness was gone, and her pleased, cat-in-the-cream smile was back, and Michel cursed himself for a fool for talking to an Orlesian bard and thinking he could play upon her sympathy. The cold, tight feeling of dread washed over him, but he kept his face impassive. “There what is?”
“I did tell you that I grew up on a farm.” Melcendre sat beside him now with easy familiarity. “Terribly dull, which is why I fled as soon as I could, and found a new life and a new name. I’m sure you can sympathize.” She elbowed him playfully. “But I do remember a few things. When you mate a white cow with a black bull, you get calves with black and white spots. When you mate a gray mare with a black stallion, you get a gray foal … although that foal might one day grow up to sire a black foal himself. It’s like a little of the black stayed in the blood. That’s how it works with cattle, and horses, and … well, with everything, really.”
She knew.
“But when a human,” Melcendre said as though discussing the weather, “mates with an elf, the offspring is always human. No elven ears, no big pretty eyes, just a human. No way to tell him from a real man.” She glanced over and added, “Unless he gives it away himself.”
Michel swallowed.
“Gaspard wanted you removed, and he asked that I hunt for information he could use against you, but he asked that I not kill you unless absolutely necessary. He’s such a gentleman.” She smirked. “He would have been pleased beyond measure when I told him that you were a commoner hiding behind a false title. When I tell him that you’re the son of some knife-eared whore, can you imagine what that will do to Celene’s little court?”
She said it coyly, with a smile that said she’d found a naughty little secret. She was pleased with herself, willing to let Michel beg for mercy or offer her a better deal. Or maybe she was toying with him again, looking to get even more information like the trained spy and manipulator that she was.
Ser Michel smashed his forehead into her face. As she fell on her side, he rolled to his back and shoved his arms down, hooked his hands under his curled feet, and then brought them up, still bound, over Melcendre’s head. He looped, twisted, and pulled the rope taut, and her cries of pain choked off into frantic gurgles.
“I am Ser Michel de Chevin,” he said as he pulled on the rope around her throat.
With the last of her strength, Melcendre slid a dagger free from a sheath at her hip. Before she could bring it to bear, Michel yanked his hands up, then slammed them down, smashing Melcendre’s head against the ground. She went limp, and he did it again. Then again.
“I am Ser Michel de Chevin.” He grabbed the dagger from her unresisting hand and sawed through the ropes that bound him. In moments, he was free, standing over her.
Her breast still moved with breath.
“I am Ser Michel de Chevin,” he said again as he knelt beside her and finished it with a clean cut.
When he came back to his feet, Gaspard’s men were there.
* * *
Briala had grown up believing in the Maker and living in accordance with the Chant of Light. Much of that belief had spilled onto the reading room floor with her parents’ blood, and though Felassan had been reluctant to teach her too much of the ways of the elven gods, she had quietly come to look to Andruil, Goddess of the Hunt, with reverence.
But for all that she thought of herself as having cast off her Chantry upbringing, watching Felassan practice magic still raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
Briala’s mentor held the feather to his forehead, closed his eyes, and passed his hand over it. The feather glittered once, as though the afternoon sun shone more brightly upon it, and Felassan nodded. “Shall we?” Without further comment, he started walking.
“What is it like?” Briala asked, walking beside him. They were heading toward the slums, an unlikely place for Celene’s champion. She nodded to an elven merchant she’d helped last year and got a surreptitious smile in return.
Felassan seemed to consider the question carefully. Finally, he glanced over at her and said, “Itchy.”
“Itchy?” Briala glared. “That is … not a very helpful answer.”
“Consider asking better questions, da’len.” Felassan grinned. “Asking a mage to describe magic is like asking you to describe a sunset to a blind dwarf.”
If his cloak slipped off and the tattoos on his face were revealed, every elf in the marketplace would either throw themselves at his feet or draw blades to fight this creature out of legend. And for all that, he didn’t bother to put on boots, and he wore clothes that would better suit a woodsman than a living myth. He told bad jokes and refused to take anything in the world of men seriously. She wondered if that was why he moved through the world untouched.
“How are the Dalish?” she asked. “You have not spoken of your people.”
Beneath his cloak, his face lit up with enthusiasm. “They have a wonderful new plan! It ends with the shemlen killing each other off, leaving the Dales free for the elves to rule.”
Briala raised an eyebrow. “How does it begin?”
“Riding around in wagons pulled by deer. They’re still working on the middle.”
“How fortunate that they have you,” Briala said, and Felassan chuckled and shook his head.
“Do you ever tire of it, Briala?” he asked then. “Walking among the fools, bending them to your will with a word here and a gesture there?”
Briala started to answ
er, then stopped at Felassan’s stare. It was intent, almost angry, his eyes glittering inside the shadows of his cloak.
She thought of the chatelaine, the captain of the palace guard. She thought of the countless nobles who ignored her or called her “rabbit.”
She thought of Celene’s soft fingers trailing down her bare arm.
“I believe I am doing good work,” she finally said.
Felassan nodded and looked away. “Yes, that lasts for a while.”
They entered the slums. There were more elves than men now, and the looks they shot Briala and Felassan were narrow-eyed and angry. Felassan could easily be one of them, with his simple clothes and his hidden face. Briala, by contrast, wore a clean dress that had never been patched and fine leather boots that still had enough sole to clap on the stones with each step. Even without a mask, every elf who laid eyes on her could see that she served the nobles.
She had turned her back on her people.
For a moment, as she always did, she wanted to try to explain. She could tell them the truth, that they had an ally in the imperial palace. They would hear about elves being accepted in the upper markets and the university, and they would …
And then, as she always did, she sighed to herself and kept walking, ignoring the angry looks.
“It’s hard to impress someone with the absence of a negative,” Felassan said without looking over. “Look, you say, did you notice how nobody came into your house and beat you to death for not bowing fast enough yesterday? You’re welcome!”
“It’s getting better.”
“Of course it is. I’m here.” As Briala chuckled, Felassan added, “And you’re doing good work. And the day when you can accept that they’ll never really understand, or appreciate it, or know just how much you did…”
“What?” Briala asked. “Is that the day it gets easier?”
“Mythal’s bosom, no!” Felassan chuckled. “Honestly, it makes your heart shrivel up and die inside you. Put it off as long as you can. Oh, your champion was in here not long ago. Gone now, though.”
Dragon Age: The Masked Empire Page 7