Chapter 19: Ruling Together
Kerr Cousland discovered that ruling a country, in the long stretches between assassinations and Blights, was largely an exercise in not falling asleep in your soup.
The war room’s oppressive dread had been traded for the sun-drenched, dust-moted chaos of the royal library. Parchments, not blades, covered the great oak table now. Maps of trade routes overlapped with ledgers, architectural plans for surface dwarven workshops unfurled beside botanical diagrams of rare elfroot strains.
He was listening to a Master Smith from Orzammar named Borin, a dwarf with forearms like granite and a beard intricately braided with copper wire, explain the tensile strengths of various alloys. Again.
“...and the carbon content, you see, Your Majesty, is what makes it hold an edge without becoming brittle. We can teach the surface castes, sure. But the Casteless…” Borin shrugged, a gesture that spoke of centuries of ingrained prejudice. “They’ve the hands for it, no doubt. They work the forges in the lower quarters. But the Assembly…”
Kerr leaned back in his chair, the old wood creaking under his weight. He’d learned that his physical presence—the sheer, mountainous fact of him—could be as persuasive as any royal decree. “The Assembly doesn’t get a vote on the surface, Master Borin. My crown, my rules. You want the exclusive contracts to supply Ferelden’s standing army with golem-grade reinforcement plating for our new keeps?” He gestured to the blueprints for fortified watchtowers along the Orlesian border. “Then you open your smithing techniques to anyone from Orzammar who can make the journey and swear an oath to the crown. Casteless, Warrior Caste, even a Shaper if he’s handy with a hammer. I’m buying skill, not lineage.”
Borin’s eyes, sharp and flinty, assessed him. He saw no bluff. Just a young king with a military build and a merchant’s pragmatism. After a long moment, the dwarf grunted, a sound of concession. “Aye. Skill, then. We’ll draft the accord.”
“Good man.” Kerr stood, unfolding to his full, intimidating height, and clapped Borin on the shoulder—a gentle tap that still sent a shudder through the dwarf’s frame. “My stewards will handle the details. I’ve got an appointment with a talking tree.”
The talking tree, in this case, was Keeper Ilanlas of the Lavellan clan, a proud Dalish elder with vallaslin that curled like ivy across a face of worn leather. Their meeting took place not in a stuffy chamber, but in the palace gardens, amidst the budding medicinal herbs Aenerin had planted. The elven mage was there, his movements quiet and precise as he pruned a stem of deadly prophet’s laurel. Nearby, Greta, the human midwife from Redcliffe, was arguing good-naturedly with him about the proper poultice for spring fever.
“The shemlen queen’s soldiers,” Ilanlas was saying, his voice a dry rustle, “they patrol too close to the wilds. Their latrines upstream, their refuse… it taints the glades where we gather heartbloom.”
Kerr poured two cups of pale, honeyed wine, handing one to the Keeper. “Then let’s formalize the borders. You give me a map. Sacred Dalish land, marked and sworn to by my seal. Any shem—logger, miner, farmer—who crosses that line to dump shit or strip timber faces royal justice. My justice.” He took a sip. “In return, your healers—your Keepers and your apprentices—teach their herb-lore to ours. We set up clinics in the alienages, in the frontier villages. Your people get paid in silver and protection. Ours get medicines that don’t cost a limb.”
Ilanlas watched Greta laugh at something Aenerin said, the elf’s stern face softening for a fraction of a second. “The old one, Wynne, spoke true of you. You see a resource, not a rumor.” He sipped the wine, a faint surprise lifting his brows at the quality. “We will draw the map.”
Progress was measured in treaties signed, in routes secured. Kerr’s men, veterans of the Blight who now wore the royal crest, became a common sight on the highways. Their primary mandate: intercept lyrium shipments lacking the intricate dual seals of the Circle of Magi and the Ferelden Crown. Several smuggler caravans, flying neutral merchant flags, were relieved of their glittering blue cargo. The leaders were hanged at the nearest crossroads as examples; the rank and file were offered the choice between the gallows and military service in the Deep Roads. Most chose the Roads.
Maleficars, those blood mages and abomination-summoners who preyed on the post-war chaos, found Ferelden suddenly, violently inhospitable. Kerr’s approach was blunt, born of his time as a sell-sword: locate, surround, eliminate. No grand trials, no Chantry debates. A report of a missing child, a farmstead gone silent with twisted magic on the air, and a unit of his griffon-emblazoned guards would arrive. They went in hard, with cleansing fire and cold steel. The efficiency was, as the whispered reports to Val Royeaux and Kirkwall noted, alarming.
Through it all, Anora was the steady, calculating center. While Kerr was the imposing, mobile instrument of change, she was the architect. She called the Bannorn to assembly, not to request, but to recite. She had the scribes produce ledgers dating back three generations, outlining every privilege each noble house enjoyed—tax exemptions, mining rights, judicial authority over their lands—alongside their long-neglected responsibilities: road maintenance, militia levies, grain reserves for famine.
“The Crown has been lenient,” she said, her voice cool and carrying in the echoing hall. She wore a gown of deep Ferelden red, her crown of intertwined rose and laurel resting perfectly on her brow. “Lenient to the point of folly. Your power is not a toy. It is a tool, lent to you by the people you are sworn to shield. Starting this season, we will audit. Shortfalls in your duties will result in proportionate fines. Chronic neglect will result in the revocation of titles. The age of sleeping at your posts is over.”
There were grumblings, of course. Muttered threats, opaque stares from older lords used to the old, complacent ways. But they looked at the empty seat where Bann Hadley usually held forth—a man who had, according to confused rumors, suffered a sudden and severe mental collapse, babbling about days lost in the dark—and they looked at the massive, silent figure of King Kerr leaning against the throne dais, his arms crossed, his expression one of bored readiness. The grumblings died unspoken.
In the evenings, they would often meet on the balcony overlooking the city, a moment of quiet between storms.
“Hewitt’s farm is yielding double,” Kerr said, leaning on the stone balustrade. “The workers built those cottages with their own hands. They’ve planted orchards.”
“Stability bears fruit,” Anora replied, sipping a glass of wine. She looked out at the glittering lights of Denerim. “Literally, in this case.” She was quiet for a moment. “We’ve built something real here, Kerr. In just a few months. A foundation.”
He heard the hesitation. “But?”
“But foundations attract termites.” She turned to him, the wind catching loose strands of her hair. “The Comte in Val Royeaux. He hasn’t reacted to the… disappearance of his assets. That worries me. A smart enemy who has been struck will either recoil or strike back harder. Silence is a tactic.”
“And Kirkwall?” Kerr asked, referring to the persistent, troubling reports from the Free Marches city-state: tales of a crumbling Chantry, of a militant Knight-Commander, of an underground thrum of mage rebellion.
“A slow-burning fuse,” Anora murmured. “But it’s not our fuse to snuff. Not yet.” She finished her wine and set the glass down with a definitive click. “Our response to Orlais, however, is our responsibility. It must be delivered. Personally.”
Kerr straightened up, a familiar, dangerous glint returning to his eyes. The administrative king receded; the warrior prince stepped forward. “A diplomatic visit?”
“Of a sort,” Anora said, a thin, razor-sharp smile touching her lips. “We can’t very well let them think poisoning a Ferelden king is a cost-free enterprise. It would set a dreadful precedent.”
Below them, the city slept, peaceful and unaware. Above, the stars were sharp and cold. The work of building was done, for now. The work of answering an insult, however, was just beginning.