Chapter Text
“Does it look alright?”
Varric tugged at the cuffs of his sleeves, adjusted his collar, and generally tried to act the part of someone who was anxious about his appearance, and anxious in general. In fact, the uniform jacket he had just finished buttoning up wasn’t as bad as it could have been; it was very dark blue, with silver buttons, and although not as flashy as he preferred his clothing to be, it fitted him just fine. He had far more important things to worry about in reality than his clothing, but it didn’t hurt to make a show of vulnerability to his small audience.
He was standing in the large kitchen of an even larger house – a fortress in all but name, really – perched in the middle of a very large estate indeed, deep in the countryside of southern Tevinter. The estate was that of Magister Aurelius Gallius, and the reason Varric was here, nervously adjusting the footman’s livery he had just been outfitted with, was a long story.
A story that he sincerely hoped none of the other people in the room ever found out about, which meant that at least part of his nervousness was not entirely acting.
“You look very smart,” said the maid sitting at the kitchen table. She was an elven girl with hair the colour of straw who couldn’t have been more than about fifteen or sixteen years old, and had introduced herself shyly as Prima.
“You’re sure?” said Varric. “It feels a little loose around the shoulders, I wouldn’t want to make a bad impression on my first day.”
“I can take it in a little later, if you like,” said Prima, with a self-conscious smile. “I’m good with a needle.”
“You’re taking up a tray, not serving dinner to the Archon,” snapped the butler. His name was Marchand, a sour, bony-faced man whose Orlesian accent was so thick it surely must have been put on. He was leaning by the door, surveying the kitchen with the imperious air of butlers everywhere. “Get on with it, Gavorn. The whole thing will likely end up on the floor anyway.”
A bell rang on the kitchen wall that had a plaque labelled ‘Dining Room’ beside it, and Marchand stalked off out of the room, picking up a silver platter with a freshly uncorked wine bottle and a glass on it as he went.
“Last time he took the tray up, she threw it at his head,” whispered Prima, as soon as the butler was out of earshot. “It’s why he’s making you go.”
“I like this woman already,” muttered Varric, and Prima giggled. “Who is she, exactly?”
“We don’t know, exactly,” said the cook, from over the other side of the room. She was a brisk, sturdy woman of indeterminate middle age and apparently very sharp hearing, whose only name appeared to be ‘Cook’ as far as Varric could tell. “She’s a guest of the Magister, a childhood friend, so I hear.”
“Mr Marchand said she’s been very ill and it’s made her confused in the head, and the master has dropped everything to take care of her until she’s better,” said Prima. She sighed. “It’s very romantic.”
“Prima! Enough gossip,” said Cook. “Come and help me with this lemon tart. And you, Master Gavorn, should heed Mr Marchand’s words and get to your work. You shouldn’t keep our guest waiting.”
“Call me Dougal,” said Varric, with his most charming smile.
“Call me anything you like, but get out of my kitchen sharpish if you want any supper of your own,” said Cook, flapping her hands. Varric picked up the tray of food with exaggerated care, and headed out into the servants’ hall, and up the stairs into the house.
In any new job the hardest part was generally remembering everyone’s names, but in this case, Varric didn’t think he’d have much trouble. Although the country estate was huge, he had learned that Magister Gallius kept only a small staff. Aside from Marchand, Cook and Prima, whose jobs were to serve the Magister, make his food, and keep the house clean respectively, there was also apparently a groundskeeper, and someone with the grand title of ‘Master of the Hunt’, whose job it was to look after the Magister’s horses, dogs and hawks. Neither of those people he had met yet, though he expected to, since it had been explained to Varric in no uncertain terms by Marchand that his job here meant helping out anyone who needed it, and if that included shovelling horse shit, then horse shit he would shovel.
Marchand was a bit of a prick, although he could have just been very Orlesian.
Travelling from the servants’ domain below stairs to the main house above was a disorienting experience, the practical, gritty warmth of the kitchens replaced by an opulent finery that was almost like walking into a whole different world. Here, the rough-hewn stone was smoothed by plaster and paint, hung with oil paintings, and the air smelt of books and dead flowers, rich and faintly musty. Varric walked along corridors lined with leaded glass windows that let in the evening sun in golden shafts, light falling in diamond patterns on hardwood floors polished to a shine, past half open doors that allowed tantalising glimpses into a library, a formal sitting room, a gallery lined with portraits. Though he had been instructed in no uncertain terms to use the servants’ stairs at the back, his route did take him along a balcony overlooking the entrance hall, where a grand staircase swept down to a floor picked out in alternating squares of black and white marble, under a vast chandelier.
Varric had been in a few castles in his time, but this was no sturdy Fereldan fortress, all arrow slits and draughty corridors. The servants might simply refer to it as a ‘house’ but it was a palace in all but name, every inch meant to impress upon visitors the owner’s wealth. But it felt empty, silent as a mausoleum, and through the windows Varric could still see what he’d noted on the way in – the high stone walls that surrounded the whole estate, patrolled by smartly turned out household guards. The solid, iron banded front gates, the portcullis. Though draped in finery, this was a house that was far from defenceless, more than capable of keeping out visitors.
Or keeping them in.
He followed the curt directions Marchand had given him earlier, and the more helpful map that Prima had scribbled on the back of a napkin when the butler wasn’t looking, and presently Varric reached the guest wing of the house. It was obvious which room was the right one, because there was a guard standing outside the door. The man was young, freckled, and built like a brick shithouse, wearing the same household livery as Varric, but a with a shortsword hanging at his belt. He looked extremely bored, but shuffled into something resembling attention when Varric approached.
“State your business,” he said, eyeing Varric suspiciously, and Varric gestured vaguely with the tray of food by way of answer.
“Dougal Gavorn,” he said. “I’m the new footman?”
“Good luck,” muttered the guard under his breath, and stepped aside to unlock the door and admit him to the room. “Knock when you’re done,” he said, already looking bored again.
As he stepped inside, Varric got the brief impression of an opulently furnished room, larger than some houses he’d seen in Kirkwall, with plush rugs, a vast fireplace and a grand four-poster bed in the corner. The walls were lined with gold damask wallpaper, the crimson velvet curtains on the windows tied back with thick gold braid, and the whole effect was one of eye-watering expense.
But all of this he hadn’t much time to take in, because the moment the door closed behind him, he was hit in the side of the head with a small end table.
A long and eventful life thus far unfortunately meant that this was not the first time Varric had ever been hit with a table, although this particular one was probably worth a lot more than any previous blunt-instrument tables put together. That was his saving grace, as the spindly, intricately carved wooden legs broke against his head, rather than the other way around. He dropped the tray and staggered back as tureens of food went flying, and before he had time to recover he was shoved bodily to the floor by his attacker. On instinct, he tried to roll with the fall to spring back to his feet, but instead he found himself very quickly and efficiently pinned, his assailant on top of him, holding something that felt extremely sharp against his throat. He froze.
The woman who had taken him down was wearing an expensive looking gown of dark blue velvet with gold embroidery, and an expression like a thunderstorm. But as Varric looked up at her all-too familiar face, her eyes widened, and the sharp edge she’d been holding to his throat withdrew abruptly.
Cassandra Pentaghast stared down at him, her expression now a mask of utter astonishment. “Varric?” she said, incredulously.
“Hey Seeker,” Varric said. “Nice dress.”
She had allowed him to stand, which was a relief, and Varric noted as he brushed off his uniform and gathered what remained of his dignity that Cassandra had dropped a shard of mirror on the floor – presumably what she’d been recently pressing to his jugular. As a makeshift weapon he had to admit it wasn’t a bad choice, though he didn’t bother asking what she had planned to do next exactly, being willing to bet she hadn’t thought the plan any further through than that.
“What are you doing here?” Cassandra asked. “How did you even find me?”
“Sera,” said Varric simply. “There’s a friend of Red Jenny somewhere in this household, and don’t ask me who, because I don’t know.”
“So, the Inquisition knows where I am,” said Cassandra. He actually saw her shoulders sink slightly as some of the wound-up tension left her. “Thank the Maker.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but unfortunately, knowing where you are didn’t actually help,” said Varric. He moved away from the door a little, though if the guard hadn’t been alerted by the sound of him being violently wrestled to the floor, he doubted their conversation would carry through the thick wood. “You’re a prisoner in the house of Magister Aurelius Gallius, but as far as we can tell he’s acting under no authority but his own, and no-one else knows about any of this. If the Inquisition marches into Tevinter and storms this place, there’s nothing to stop the Magister from slitting your throat, burning the body and claiming you were never here. You’d be dead, and we’d be at war with the Imperium.”
“So they sent you instead?” said Cassandra, raising her eyebows.
“It’s the latest fashion in Minrathous to have dwarven footmen, apparently.” Varric shrugged. “It was as good a way in as any.” He gave a little bow. “Dougal Gavorn,” he said. “Pleased to meet you. I’ve been here since yesterday, but I haven’t met the master of the house yet. What do you know about him?”
“Too much,” said Cassandra. “Magister Gallius may be lacking in morals, but he is a mage of significant power.”
“Hence you still being here and him not being a pulpy mess on the floor that you raise your skirts to step over on your way out?”
“Indeed.” Cassandra frowned. “Even unarmed, I believe that with my Seeker abilities I could kill him – although I have never tested my power to that point – but not before he killed me. Even if I succeeded, I would likely be injured in the attempt and I could not fight my way out of here without a weapon or armour.”
One of the few things Varric genuinely appreciated about Cassandra was that although she had a rock-solid sense of pride, it rarely slipped into ego, and she was not ashamed to admit when there was a fight she couldn’t win. Still, none of this was exactly good news.
“Speaking of armour,” he said, “what’s with the dress?”
“It is the least awful of the ones I was left to wear,” said Cassandra stiffly. “It was this or go naked.”
A brief image of being attacked and straddled by a totally naked Cassandra Pentaghast flashed through Varric’s mind, and he filed it firmly under ‘things to never think about ever again’.
“Okay, so the lead about the missing Seeker you received a few weeks back was obviously a trap,” he said, getting back to the topic at hand. “The Magister and his goons ambush you, incapacitate you and drag you back here before anyone can figure out what happened. He locks you in here, makes sure you’ve got no way of contacting the outside world for help, and spins some story about you being crazy to the household staff, so even if they could help you, they wouldn’t be tempted to try.”
“Correct,” said Cassandra.
“What we haven’t been able to figure out is why,” said Varric. “Why you, why now? Magister Gallius hasn’t made any ransom demands, to the Inquisition or to your family, but he hasn’t just killed you either. As far as Leliana can tell, he’s got no links to the Venatori at all. Do you have any idea why he did this? What he wants?”
For the first time, Cassandra hesitated. The light of the setting sun falling through the window behind her glinted off the gold embroidery on her dress, casting deep shadows on a face that was suddenly difficult to read. She looked…anxious, he realised. And tired.
“I know exactly what he wants,” she said. “He wants to marry me.”