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9:15 Dragon
Redcliffe Castle, the Arling of Redcliffe, Ferelden
Maker, he hated state dinners. They had been tedious even when he had been a child and Rowan or his aunt and uncle had presided. Now that he was a confirmed old bachelor of nearly one-and-thirty and the sole ruler of the arling of Redcliffe, they had become intolerable. Three times each month at least, it seemed, some court butterfly or country flower came for a visit, eager to wed to advantage. There were men as well, wondering if he shared his father’s interests, or merely attempting to befriend King Maric’s brother-in-law.
Eamon preferred country dinners, out on the terrace or in the small alcove off of his kitchen. A small table with simple fare, where he could dress in the sensible wools or linens he favored and Anet, Robern, and Devon could join him for talk about the house and the fields and the village, perhaps, and Teagan if he had come over from his own estate.
At state dinners, it was silks and brocades, wrought silver candlesticks and the great table, too long for all the guests to see one another, let alone talk with any intimacy. It was glazed hams and candied fruits and fancy sauces to impress his visitors, and the talk was always of court, of politics, of the Chantry, or worst of all, of the weather. It was returning the insincere compliments of the ladies with just as insincere politeness, returning the gentlemen’s queries about the king with courtesy that promised nothing and revealed nothing of any importance.
Tonight’s visitor was Bann Aleda of Haresmeadow, but recently risen to leadership of her bannorn. Of the knights and ladies that had ridden with her, only the knight that seemed to be her chief financial advisor, a small, black-bearded man of middle years called Ser Pelwyn, seemed worth speaking to. He was soft-spoken and retiring, but the few remarks he had contributed to the conversation showed him to also be shrewd and observant, with a keen grasp of the workings of international trade. Eamon would have liked to speak further with him, but he had to pay his attentions to the lady.
Aleda was older than many other nobles who had visited Redcliffe—three years Teagan’s senior at eight-and-twenty. Her wit was sharp enough, but she was also sharp-faced, with glittering dark eyes, a jutting chin, and thin lips, and she had a reputation for bad relations with her neighbors and harsh dealings with her servants. She made for a change from a run of fairly insipid women who had come lately, but Eamon did not enjoy her company, and he believed she knew it. Her face had grown sourer through the morning and her conversation more barbed.
Teagan, across the table from Eamon, in between one of Aleda’s ladies and one Ser Tursten, was glassy-eyed with boredom. He slouched in his chair, and his arm, resting on the table, was dangerously close to the food on his plate. Eamon wondered if he should warn his brother, signal perhaps, or whisper to a servant to pass the message along. But if Teagan dirtied his tunic in the wine sauce, it would serve him right, Eamon supposed. And it would be entertaining.
The door to the hall burst open, and a joyous laugh rang out over the tedious dinner party. Tiny feet slid and pounded on the stone. Urso, who had been sitting at Eamon’s feet in the same torpor as the rest of them, rose and broke into a frenzy of barking and ran across the hall to the small, fair-haired boy that had just run in, all flashing teeth and dimples, looking back over his shoulder at his pursuit.
“Just you come back here, Master Alistair, and see what happens!” a female voice shouted, breaking off into a laughing sigh herself. It was Tess, one of the kitchen elves, running after the miscreant boy that had broken into the hall and brandishing a wooden spoon. She braced herself on her knees, still chuckling, then saw the nobles around the table staring at her.
She went white. “Beg pardon, milord,” she whispered, dipping into a curtsey and darting out of the hall again.
Alistair was completely unabashed. He grinned up at Eamon and Teagan and the others, raspberry jam smeared around his mouth and the remnants of a slice of cake still clutched in his fist. “Sorry!” he said, not looking it in the least. He bent into a bow that was lordly enough for all the crumbs on his tunic and trousers. “I forgot you had company. No, Urso!” he added to the dog, sniffing hopefully at the cake in his fist. “Hello, there!” His voice was bright and cheery.
“Sneaking sweets in the kitchens again, Alistair?” Teagan chided, unable to quite hide his own grin.
“I can rec’mend the cake,” Alistair admitted readily, stuffing the rest into his mouth and shooting the dog a look of triumph.
“You’ll break Eamon’s poor cook’s heart, swiping her lovely dessert before it’s served,” Teagan told him, trying to maintain severity.
Alistair’s hazel eyes twinkled. “She doesn’t mind, really,” he assured everyone. “Neither does Tess. Beca might, a little, but she’s just cross ‘cause of her rheum’tism. Mostly, they’re glad to share with little boys like me. They’ve said! ‘It’s nice to see a young man what enjoys his vittles,’ Dera says. And it’s not like I’ve spoiled anything. She was cutting up the cake for you anyway. I thought there was an awful lot of it.” He scratched Urso behind his head. The dog licked the crumbs off Alistair’s grubby hands but then kept licking, eyes half-closed and mouth stretched wide in an expression of canine contentment. Urso was supposed to be a mabari war hound. Whenever the boy was around, he became a half-grown idiot pup. “Should’ve remembered there were more people here,” Alistair said. “Milord, can Urso come play?”
Eamon tried to hide his own smile. The boy’s behavior was barbaric, of course. He would have to talk to Alistair about it later. But one thing he could say: Alistair was never boring.
“Go on, then,” he said indulgently. “Don’t feed him like you feed yourself, mind. He’s a war hound, not a pampered court dog. And be careful where you play in future.”
Alistair’s smile stretched across his entire face. “Yes, milord,” he promised. He bent into another unexpectedly elegant bow, considering his entrance and the fact that he was all of five years old. “My lords, my ladies. Have a nice day!”
He ran out of the hall again. Urso, understanding he was to be allowed to go, bounded after him with another bark. Teagan watched them go and sighed. Eamon glanced at his brother and felt a twinge of amusement, mixed with sadness. He knew that this afternoon, there was nowhere Teagan would rather be than in the courtyard with Urso and the boy, throwing pinecones and tugging on a ragged, dirty knotted rope or playing hide and seek in the stables. In many ways, Teagan was closer to Alistair than he was to his actual nephew in Denerim.
“What a charming child!” Lady Amity, one of Aleda’s entourage, cried, smiling at the rest of the table. “Tell me, who is the young rogue?”
“His name is Alistair,” Eamon answered. “His mother was a trusted servant. She died giving birth to the boy, leaving the boy an orphan. Since she had little family of her own, we’ve undertaken to raise him here.”
“An orphaned servant lad?” Ser Tursten chuckled. “He has some nerve. Did you see him? Not shy in the least!”
“But then, Arl Eamon is known for . . . kindness to his retainers,” Bann Aleda told Tursten. Her eyes were fixed on Eamon, and a smile played around her thin mouth. “Not for taking on charity orphans, but I suppose the boy’s mother must have been a very trusted servant. He seems articulate for his age. Certainly, I wouldn’t have taken him for a servant. He has all the address of a lordling—if not exactly a lordling’s manner. Educated?”
Her words crackled with meaning, and Eamon forced a smile. “Somewhat, my lady. We want to make sure Alistair is positioned to take up a trade that will serve him well, when he is old enough.”
“Of course,” Aleda agreed. “If you’re going to raise a charity orphan, I suppose it is best to do the thing properly.”
The conversation turned to other subjects—the children of the village first, naturally, then of course what the Redcliffe Chantry taught them on rest days, and inevitably to the Chantry itself. Teagan soon fell back into his stupor, and Eamon fell back into the routine of polite, empty nothings with visitors he wished would leave. Bann Aleda kept up her end of the old dance, but her black eyes glittered through the rest of the meal, and when the company rose to leave the hall and return to their individual pursuits for the afternoon before they came back together for supper tonight, she requested Eamon escort her back to her room.
Eamon took her arm—mere politeness—and began leading her as fast as he could politely lead her back to the lady’s quarters. Their route led them past a gallery that looked out on the courtyard. Teagan had already retreated out there, and Eamon saw his brother running beside Urso now, shouting something inaudible at Alistair, who returned an answer that, by the look on his boyish face, was probably impudent in the extreme. Teagan threw his head back and laughed, changed direction, and ran at the boy, head lowered, like a bull. Alistair shrieked in delight and bounded away toward an oak.
“Your brother spends much time with the servants, does he?” Bann Aleda murmured. Her left hand gripped Eamon’s arm like a claw.
“Teagan is fond of children,” Eamon replied. “And he is here frequently, and we have watched Alistair grow up. The boy has no one else, Bann Aleda. We found we could not leave him entirely to Anet and the servants, as capable as they are.”
Aleda hummed as they rounded the corner and started up the stairs to the guest rooms. “And there is something about this particular child, I think. Altogether charming, as Amity noted, and beautiful with it, but he also strikes me as familiar somehow.” She let out a laugh like skeleton leaves in a Wintermarch wind. “Perhaps he just has one of those faces.”
“I wouldn’t know, my lady,” Eamon lied, going cold. He did know.
They had arrived at Aleda’s door, and Eamon released her arm and bowed. She swept him a perfunctory curtsey and thanked him for walking her to her room. Eamon lied again that he looked forward to seeing her at supper, she made the obligatory polite response, and then, mercifully vanished inside.
Eamon walked away quickly. Bann Aleda was a spiteful, bitter woman. That was becoming abundantly clear. She knew Alistair was a bastard, of course, but she probably thought he was Eamon’s, or perhaps Teagan’s, and was taunting them for perceived sentimentality, on top of indiscretion. But there was always the chance!
Eamon tried to remember if he’d seen Aleda at court recently, if Teagan had mentioned her. The trouble was, he so rarely went to court himself these days.
Alistair didn’t look a thing like him. If a person squinted and wanted to believe it, they could perhaps force some resemblance to Teagan, who had inherited their father’s lighter coloring as opposed to the darker one Eamon and Rowan had received from their mother. But really, the arrangement of Alistair’s features, the dancing hazel eyes, and the golden cast to the hair were all different from Teagan as well. If Bann Aleda was not merely trying to provoke him and truly did find something familiar about Alistair, it likely was not Eamon or his brother that she was trying to recall.
The boy looked more like his true father and his half-brother every day. Acted like them. Amity spoke of Alistair’s charm, Aleda of his address; at times, Eamon could swear he saw Maric looking out of Alistair’s face, as he had been when Eamon was very young, proposing some wild scheme to Rowan or telling some awful lie to one of Queen Moira’s soldiers to get out of whatever scrape he’d gotten into that day.
Just as well Eamon did stay away from court these days. He could never take the boy there. Never.
Had Aleda really noticed anything? Impossible to tell. Even if she thought she had seen something in the boy, there was no way she could prove it. Not without a mother. If she was invested enough in the question to do any prodding at all, the trail would only lead her to the wastrel younger son of a bann. The wet nurse that had cared for Alistair prior to the death of the woman that had been meant to be his foster mother and afterward had long since been paid to retire to the Free Marches.
But eventually, someone that knew Maric or Cailan well would come. Someone perceptive with a gift for seeing beyond the obvious. And then all Maric’s plans, all Eamon’s sacrifices, would come to nothing.
LATER
Alistair bounced into Eamon’s study at the appointed hour that evening. He ran right over to Urso, who was sitting by Eamon’s desk again, and wrapped his arms around the dog, who closed his eyes with pleasure and licked the boy’s face once or twice in a lazy way. Alistair giggled, then looked up at Eamon. “You wanted to see me, milord?”
Eamon drummed his fingers on his desk. He shifted in his chair. “I did,” he admitted. He swallowed, looking into the cheerful, open countenance of the child. Eyes that were the mirror of Maric’s. “Your behavior at dinner today was unacceptable. Swiping desserts from the kitchens like a pirate, daring the maids to chase you? Barging in on me and on my guests and addressing all of us without proper introductions?”
Alistair’s eyes went wide. “I forgot they were coming today, I told you!” he protested. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d remembered! I know better than that! I thought you’d be out on the terrace with Bann Teagan, or taking dinner later like usual!”
“That excuses only the timing of your escapade, not the exploit itself, and you’re missing the point, Alistair,” Eamon said. “Your behavior was wild, coarse, and, worst of all, familiar. You forget your place.”
Alistair went pink, then white. His lower lip started to tremble. He was only a very little boy. “I’m sorry,” he said again, more quietly than he had done at dinner. “I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
Eamon sighed. He felt a very brute. Alistair was a mischievous, impudent scamp, true, but there was no real harm in him, and a great deal of good. He was also happy, bright, creative, and amusing. Better still, he was openhearted, affectionate, and generous, with a noble spirit and a gift for making others love him—men and women as well as dogs. The servants adored Alistair as much as Teagan did. Of course, this all meant that the boy drew even more unwanted attention to himself than his resemblance to his true father might warrant.
“I’m not angry so much as disappointed,” he said. “I expect better manners from a boy that has grown up in my house.”
“I’ll do better,” Alistair promised. “I swear! I’ll double check who’s in for dinner before I take anything from the kitchens next time!” He tried to catch Eamon’s eye, the corner of his mouth twitching up hopefully. When Eamon didn’t smile, Alistair hung his head. “I’ll do better,” he said, defeated. “But it would help if you told me what you meant. About ‘familiar’ and knowing my place.” A sullen note had crept into his voice. He wasn’t used to being reprimanded like this, and it showed.
“Alistair. Look at me,” Eamon said.
The boy looked up. His eyes were shining, and as Eamon watched, the boy brought an angry hand to dash rebellious tears away. He jutted his chin out, daring for Eamon to mention them. Eamon didn’t. His chest felt tight, and guilt clawed at his throat, but he spoke. “You’re a servant’s bastard, Alistair,” Eamon told the boy. “I have raised you in my house. Anet and the servants love you. So does my brother. I’m fond of you myself. It’s a pleasure to watch you learn and grow. You have no living family that can care for you, so perhaps we have indulged you somewhat. But you are not a member of this household, and you must always remember that. You cannot speak to my guests as if they are also yours.”
Alistair burst out again, weeping in earnest now. “I didn’t!” he cried. “I remembered to bow, twice, just like you showed me! I called them my lords and ladies! I was polite! I was!”
“You were cheeky,” Eamon disagreed. “You should have followed Tess’s example the moment you saw we were at table. Bowed, submitted your apologies for the interruption, and gone away until dinner was over. You chatted with the knights and ladies, without an introduction, I’ll remind you, as if you were a lordling yourself. I believe one or two of them were offended by it.”
“I didn’t mean it,” Alistair cried. “I said I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” His fists clenched by his sides, and Urso whined in distress and licked his hot little face again, this time to wash the tears off. The mabari looked at Eamon reproachfully.
Eamon stood. He walked the two steps over to the boy, fished a handkerchief out of his sleeve, and handed it to Alistair. “There now. No need for that. They weren’t angry, Alistair. You’re a boy, and we all make allowances for that.”
Alistair scrubbed at his face with the handkerchief, and Eamon walked over to an alcove where Robern kept a pitcher of water and glasses. Eamon poured one for Alistair, walked back, and handed it to him. The boy sipped it, hiccupping slightly, and hugging Urso around the neck with his free arm. “Do I need to wash up in the kitchen again, or help Tess with the fireplaces?” he asked after he’d stopped crying. “Or Varrel in the stables? Or m’I writing out how I’ve been bad twenty times with Master Arnel? My spelling’s got better, he says.”
Certainly he had indulged the boy, Eamon thought. How many common bastards knew how to read and write, and at five years old? But lessons with the Guerrins’ old tutor were practically the only times in the day the boy sat still, and Arnel had been so happy to have someone to teach again, let alone a pupil as bright and eager as Alistair.
Eamon put his hand on the child’s narrow shoulder and squeezed, once. “Just remember,” he said finally. “Introduce yourself to others before speaking, and only if they address you first. You are not the equal of these people. The sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be. When you’re a little older, forgetting could do worse than embarrass me, or Teagan. It could get you punished by whichever master you go to, or impair you in your trade. Our world doesn’t look kindly on the insolent or presumptuous, and I know you’re not either, when you think of it.”
Alistair pressed his lips together, then looked up. “Is ‘insolent’ and ‘presumptuous’ the same as ‘familiar’ and forgetting my place?” he asked, uncertain.
It was an honest question. Eamon sighed. “Something of the same kind, yes. Good. You’ll remember?”
Alistair nodded. “I’ll remember.” He had calmed now, and he gripped Eamon’s hand with the same trusting affection as always, but as Eamon looked down into the child’s face, he saw a new, sad confusion there, some dampening of the boy’s vibrant spirit. Eamon’s heart ached to see it, and Urso huffed softly, blowing doggy breath into the boy’s face.
“Then go,” Eamon said, releasing Alistair’s shoulder and disentangling his hand from the boy’s. “It’s late, and Riala will be after me for keeping you up past your bedtime.”
Alistair nodded again. “Good night, milord,” he said. He bowed, and walking softly toward the door in a step that held none of its prior bounce, he was gone.
Urso huffed again as he watched the boy go. He looked at Eamon and let out another anxious whine. Eamon glared at his dog. “Don’t give me that, Urso. It’s for his own good, and if you don’t know it, you aren’t as clever as your breed is meant to be. Maric charged me with his son’s protection. I can’t protect him if he’s flashing in front of every guest like a bolt of lightning. He has to blend in. He has to know his place. Anyway, he is a bastard.”
Urso barked, once. Eamon sank back into his chair and rubbed his temples with his hand. “I know,” he told the dog.