Chapter 11: Blades in the Dark
The Armory was cold, a deep, stone-chilled cold that seeped through Kerr’s linen shirt and bit at his skin. He ran a cloth along the edge of a greatsword, the rhythmic shink-shink echoing in the vast, shadowed hall. Racks of weapons stood like a silent, metallic forest around him, spears and halberds reaching for the vaulted ceiling. The air smelled of old iron, linseed oil, and the faint, ever-present damp of Highever’s foundation.
“You’ll wear that edge down to a letter-opener,” a voice said from the doorway.
Martyn leaned against the stone frame, arms crossed. The captain of the guard had a face like weathered oak, but his eyes were sharp. Kerr didn’t stop his motion.
“Better than letting my thoughts wear a hole in my own skull,” Kerr said. He placed the greatsword back on its rack, the muscles in his back protesting the careful movement. “Are they in position?”
“At every weak point you marked on the parchment. The postern gate by the old kitchens, the drainage culvert, the loose section of the eastern curtain wall. My lads are tucked away in shadow, looking like part of the masonry.” Martyn pushed off the doorframe and walked in, his boots clicking softly on the flagstones. “They’re good lads. Quiet. But staring at a hole in a wall for hours on end is a special kind of madness. How long do we wait?”
Kerr turned, his height making him loom even in the spacious armory. “Howe’s men are settled, but they’re not settled in. They’re watching us. I can feel it. They’ll move at the darkest hour, when the watch changes, when the castle’s breath is at its shallowest.”
“So we catch them in the act. Good.”
“No,” Kerr said, a flicker of his customary mischief lighting his eyes. “Catching them with a dagger in hand proves nothing but their intent. I want their orders. I want the parchment from Howe’s own desk that condemns him. I want to know who else is involved. For that, we need them to get inside. To think they’ve succeeded.”
Martyn’s brow furrowed. “That’s a dangerous game, my lord. Letting wolves in the fold.”
“We’ll shepherd them. Into a pen of our choosing.” Kerr moved to a worktable, scattering a few loose gauntlets to clear a space. “We need to spook them. Make them move before they’re ready, force their hand. Panic makes mistakes.”
“And how do we do that?”
Kerr leaned forward, the torchlight carving the planes of his face into stark relief. “A whisper. Delivered at the right volume, to the right ears. We’re going to give them a reason to strike tonight.”
He outlined it quickly, the plan forming as he spoke, each word a piece of a trap being set. Martyn listened, his expression moving from skepticism to grim understanding, and finally to a tight, approving nod.
Martyn listened, his expression moving from skepticism to grim understanding, and finally to a tight, approving nod. “A whisper in the right ear,” he echoed. “I’ll see it’s done before the feast begins. They’ll be twitchy as cats by moonrise.”
He left Kerr alone in the metallic silence of the armory. A plan was one thing, but the execution felt like balancing a lance on the tip of one finger. He closed his eyes, seeing the banquet hall in his mind, the faces, the lies he’d have to wear as comfortably as his own skin. Tonight, he’d become a player on a stage he never asked for.
The Great Hall of Highever blazed with light, a roaring fire in the massive hearth battling the evening chill. Tapestries depicting past battles glowed with deep colors, and the long trestle tables groaned under platters of roast venison, steaming loaves, and flagons of dark ale. Laughter and conversation swirled around the vaulted ceiling, a warm, deafening hum that smelled of woodsmoke, rosemary, and human company.
Kerr took his seat at the high table, the lord’s chair feeling oversized and awkward in his father’s absence. He wore a fine blue tunic, the Cousland laurels picked out in silver thread across his chest, and had forced a relaxed ease into his posture. To his right, his mother Eleanor sat with the perfect, unmoving grace of a statue, her eyes missing nothing.
To his left, Arl Rendon Howe was holding court. The man was a bull of a figure, his generous frame wrapped in velvet the color of dried blood, a silver chain straining across his middle. “...and I told the merchant, ‘If your silks cannot survive a little Fereldan mud, perhaps you should trade in Orlais!’” His laughter was a booming, performative sound that dragged forced chuckles from his own men seated nearby.
His son, Thomas, a leaner version of his father with nervy eyes, offered Kerr a thin, diplomatic smile. “The hospitality of Highever is as renowned as they say, Cousland. Your father would be proud.”
“Let’s hope he’s too busy at Ostagar to hear about how I’m pilfering his best vintage,” Kerr said, raising his goblet with a wink. The wine was rich and spiced, but it tasted like nothing on his tongue. His attention was a scalpel, dissecting every glance from the Howe men at the lower tables, every too-casual hand resting near a belt.
Eleanor leaned over, her voice a low murmur beneath the din. “You’re playing with fire, my son.”
“Just warming my hands, mother,” he whispered back. “Winter’s coming.”
The feast flowed on, a river of food and forced merriment. Servants wove between benches, refilling cups. Bards played a lively reel in the corner, the music struggling against the cacophony. Kerr told an absurd story about his brother Fergus and a runaway mabari pup, using the laughter it generated to scan the hall again. Martyn stood by the main doors, a silent, stoic shadow. Their eyes met for a fractured second. A nearly imperceptible nod. The whisper had been placed.
It was during a lull, as a course was being cleared, that a mud-spattered courier in Cousland livery pushed through the main doors. The man’s urgency was a cold splash of water on the room’s warmth. He made straight for the high table, bowing stiffly before handing Kerr a sealed parchment.
A quiet fell, rippling out from the high table. All eyes were on him, on the dirt-stained letter. Kerr took it, his heart a sudden, violent drum against his ribs. He broke the seal—his father’s seal—and unfolded the paper. He let his eyes dart across the lines he himself had dictated hours before, feeling the weight of the hall’s attention press down on him.
His face paled. The blood seemed to drain from his limbs, leaving him cold. His brows drew together, and his free hand clenched slowly on the tablecloth, the knuckles whitening. He looked, for all the world, like a man receiving grievous news.
“Kerr?” Eleanor’s voice held real concern, a perfect thread of motherly alarm. “What is it?”
Arl Howe leaned in, his jovial mask slipping into something keen and hungry. “Trouble from the front, lad? Bad news has a way of finding feasts, it seems.”
Kerr blinked, as if pulling himself from a deep well. He forced a brittle, unconvincing smile. “No, no. Not trouble. The opposite, in fact.” He held up the letter, his hand giving a little shake for effect. “It’s from Denerim. Fergus and my father… their business is concluding sooner than expected. They could be on the road back within the fortnight.”
A murmur of pleasant surprise ran through the hall. Howe’s smile returned, but it was slower, more calculated. “That is swift news. King Cailan must be eager to have his generals return.”
“It seems,” Kerr said, taking a deliberate, long pull from his goblet to steady his visibly trembling hand, “an inside source within the royal court whispered something in the king’s ear. Put him wise to some… potential conspiracy to usurp the throne. Cailan’s cleaning house, apparently. Wants his trusted men close.”
The temperature in the hall dropped several degrees. The music from the bards sounded suddenly tinny and distant. Howe’s face was a study in controlled stillness; only a faint tic below his left eye betrayed him. “A conspiracy? In Denerim? That’s… grave.”
Kerr shrugged, feigning a political novice’s casual detachment. He swirled the wine in his cup, watching the firelight catch the liquid. “Politics. Always a bet going somewhere. If I were a gambling man,” he said, then took another drink and leaned toward Howe with a conspiratorial grin, “my money would be on Loghain. Whole thing reeks of his style.”
He let the name hang, then blinked, as if a thought had just occurred to him. His voice lifted, purposely naive. “Isn’t his daughter the Queen?”
A beat of absolute silence was followed by a burst of forced laughter from Howe, too loud and too sharp. “You’ve been at the vintage indeed, my boy! Speculating on the motives of the Hero of River Dane? Dangerous pastime.” He raised his own cup, but his eyes were dark chips of flint, fixed on Kerr. “To the safe return of the Teyrn, then. May the roads be clear.”
Kerr met the toast, his own smile not reaching his eyes. He had thrown a stone into a still pond. Now he had to watch the ripples, and pray he hadn’t just awakened something with teeth from the deep. Across the hall, Martyn gave another slight nod. The trap was not just set; it was now armed.