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“You could retire, you know.” Krem had looked at the company finances three weeks ago when the Chargers had been in Val Royeaux. Bull should have known escorting Josie to see Leliana would come back to bite him in the ass somehow. He’d just expected to have to turn down another offer to join the Divine’s personal guard or something. Not this.
“You’re not inheriting the company that easily, Krempuff.” He sets to work sharpening his ax, doing his best to ignore Krem, who is doing his best to make that impossible.
“I’m just saying. You could buy a nice house in the countryside, hire people to do all the cleaning, and stop whining about how Pavus doesn’t want to live in a tent with you.”
“I don’t whine,” Bull says.
“You do,” Skinner calls across the cookfire.
They’re camped out by the side of the road, a few day’s hike from inns in either direction. Bull doesn’t blame Dorian for having split off from the group in Churneau. He was heading east and then north, the Chargers are going west and then south, and Dorian had struck up a correspondence with the newest Duchess Saverne, a young friend of Vivienne’s. He’ll rough it for a few weeks at a time for Bull, but a wine cellar and feather beds are too strong a pull for him to ignore.
There are new Dukes and Ladies and Barons everywhere these days, it seems. The old guard-- the nobles Bull worked for before the Inquisition, and some of those he’d met during-- are all dying out or stepping down. Most of the upheaval caused by the Rift and various subsequent disasters have calmed down in the past decade or so, but Bull wagers the effects will be felt for generations.
For one thing, young cousins from minor family branches are inheriting the powerful titles, since most of the older and more important cousins were involved in the disasters, which tended to be pretty fatal. He keeps being surprised when he goes to talk to an old employer, and meeting a well-dressed kid instead. Come to think of it, not one of their last five contracts were handled by anyone over thirty-five.
Krem pokes the fire, face neutral. Bull’s not going to like whatever he says next. “We’re not young anymore, Chief. This isn’t the sort of job you can do forever.”
Bull grunts. He knows that, of course. He’s felt himself slowing down on the battlefield the past couple of years, but he won’t admit that out loud. He’d never really expected to reach the point where he could make the decision that’s staring him in the face. Should he retire? Or should he keep at it until the job reaches its logical conclusion?
He sighs and leans his head against the tree behind him. “Fine, Krem. When we get to Val Royeaux I’ll talk to that banker of yours and see what they think.”
Krems sighs. “He’s your banker, Chief.” But even so, he looks pleased.
His banker is happy to see him, when he finally gets there a few months later. They got sidetracked by a runaway countess and her apostate lover, who had decided to stage a kidnapping so that they could elope. He’s looking forward to telling Dorian about it, really.
But here they are again in Val Royeaux, and he’s feeling uncomfortably closed in by the heavy iron doors that are supposed to make him feel like his money is protected. He’s not even going to try to sit in the spindly little chair. The fashions here keep getting worse and worse.
The chipper little man who met him at the door pulls a massive book off a shelf and sets it on his desk-- a good, sturdy desk, the Bull notes, well-polished and tidy but clearly used-- with an impressive thunk. He flips purposefully through the pages, then spins it with a flourish to face the Bull.
“Here we are,” he declares with a satisfied smile. “I can also take you to your vault, but there is some paperwork to go over as well. Your timing is fortuitous, Monsieur le Bull. An extremely unusual event has occurred, which requires your personal attention.”
Bull winces. “Is it rice? I won’t take payment in rice.”
“No,” the banker says slowly, looking for a joke. Bull is not joking. “Although, there may be some in the-- well, do you recall being employed by one Marquis du Faroe?”
He does. “Very well. Nice guy, his grace. I was sorry to hear of his passing.”
“Indeed. May Andraste give him rest.” There’s a peculiar nervousness in the way his banker opens a drawer in the desk. “May I ask, at the risk of sounding impertinent, Monsieur le Bull, were the two of you… very close?”
“I liked him better than most of your nobility,” he tells the banker, since he is Bull's banker, and if he can’t handle a bit of honesty he really shouldn’t be working for the Chargers at all. “He told me I reminded him of his daughter, once.”
“Hm.” His banker places a lacquered, rectangular box on the desk between them, beside a piece of vellum with so much golden ink Bull’s afraid it might tear. “Well, the resemblance must have been uncanny indeed, because in lieu of passing a certain piece of ancestral property to his wife’s mother’s cousin, as would be expected and as he did with the majority of his other holdings, he left it to you.”
They stare at each other over the sturdy desk.
One time Dalish caught him in the back of the horn with an arrow-- an actual one. She’d gone back to just magic after. It hadn’t hurt, but the impact had knocked him forward for an instant, as unexpected a sensation as he’d ever experienced.
“I don’t think I heard you right.”
Orlesians value history. Not as much as the Imperium, sure, but when your entire social order is based on the relative political power of different lines of familial inheritance… proper attribution of those inheritances is a big deal. Pretty much the biggest deal they’ve got in Orlais.
“Perhaps not, monsieur.” The banker clears his throat and lifts the shiny, heavy vellum gingerly off the table. “The Barony Val Henar, consisting of titles, signet, mansion, and lands, are hereby, under the benevolent eyes of Emperor Gaspard and Most Holy Divine Victoria, bestowed upon one The Iron Bull, Champion of the Inquisition, Commander of the Bull’s Chargers.”
Bull drops onto the spindly little chair. It holds him. “Huh.”
His banker seems gratified by Bull’s dumbstruck stare. He was probably worried Bull wouldn’t totally understand the serious shit that’s just been put in front of him. He continues, “it is unconventional to be sure, but as you have been enobled in Ferelden since 9:51, it is not illegal.”
As Bull watches, and tries to process this, the banker opens the box. The signet ring inside is golden, inlaid with rubies.
“This is the signet.” Bull finally says, for the sake of saying something.
His banker nods.
“And this has been signed off on at the Imperial level? Owning this land and,” he gestures at the box, “this signet ring would make me a member of the Orleaisan nobility, technically.”
“More than technically.” For someone who’s facilitating the upheaval of every custom of his culture, this little banker is very calm. “His Radiance Emperor Gaspard personally approved this inheritance, and her Holyness Divine Victoria as well.”
“Well that’s kind of them,” Bull mutters. Leliana had probably taken far too much joy in the act.
The golden ink on the vellum glitters in the late-afternoon sunlight. He picks up the quill pen the banker holds out, and before he can change his mind, sets his name on the deed. “I guess I need to start looking out for assassins again, don’t I.”
“Very good, my lord,” says the banker, and hands him his signet ring. It fits on his pinky finger, just barely, the metal heavy and warm.
The Chargers think it’s all a grand joke, of course.
“Did you know about this?” he asks Krem as they drink to the health of Lord Bullshit. The owners of the tavern they’re in haven’t quite caught on to what exactly is being celebrated. Bull wonders if they’d be more or less forgiving of the broken chair if they did.
“Not the particulars.” Krem’s got that shit-eating grin of his. “I remember the place. It’s nice.”
“You mean you remember the girl at the baker’s stall in the town,” Bull grumbles.
“Think she’ll like me better as a lord’s chamberlain than as a mercenary’s lieutenant?”
“Is that what you’ll be?” Bull asks him. “That’s fine, then. I can leave Grim in charge of these louts if you want to come with me to balance my household’s accounting books and help me pick out waist jackets.”
He laughs at Krem’s offended scowl. Maybe there’s some value to be found in this after all.
“Hey Boss-- I mean, my Lord.”
Not enough value, though. He points at Dalish with his tankard. “Don’t.”
“Boss,” she agrees and shoves Krem almost-gently down the bench to make room for herself. “I was going to ask you this morning but Skinner and I got distracted.”
“Sure you did.” Krem smirks. She shoves him again.
“We got a tip on a job over near Nevarra, and usually that’s where I’d say we head next--”
Bull sighs heavily. Yesterday, he would have packed them all up at the hint of anything “over near Nevarra,” which is their code for “that little bit of Nevarra that’s right next to that little bit of Tevinter.” Yesterday, he would have tapped three times on the sending crystal nestled in a special pocket on his belt and started setting up a meeting with Dorian as soon as Dalish started talking.
But today, he hasn’t said more than a quick “good morning” while he braced himself for hours of work in Val Royeaux.
And then he’d gone to the banker, and then straight to this tavern, and he’s not thrilled by the idea of getting up off this bench any time soon. He looks at the band of gold on his smallest finger. On a human hand it would look imposing. On his it just looks puny and faintly ridiculous.
He’s a Baron. He’s likely to feel a bit ridiculous quite often from now on.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Krem nudge Dalish.
“So should I… get the boys ready?” she asks.
“No,” Bull forces himself to say. “No, we should go check out this place. Val Henar.”
“Do we even know how to get there?” Krem asks Dalish, letting Bull go back to contemplating the ring.
“No, but I remember the house,” Dalish says. Bull does too.
Old stone walls around a blue house, big gardens, small town nearby. Some old stables and maybe a chapel? Mostly he remembers the hills west of the place: a lake and a pretty glen that a territorial wyvern had set up in. It had gotten in a nasty hit on Grim before they took it down, and the lord who’d hired them-- the Marquis had really been a decent type. He’d insisted on having his own doctor look after Grim’s wound, and had fed and housed the boys while Grim convalesced.
The sending crystal buzzes three times-- Dorian wants to talk.
Bull heaves himself to his feet. “Right, you lot. I’m off for the night. Don’t break any more shit, and don’t knock unless one of you is actually dying, Rocky.”
They bow mockingly and wish him good rest genuinely, and Dorian too. Bull leaves the room just in time to hear Stitches say to the barkeep, “he’s a Baron, you know.”
Dorian sounds tired but good when he finally lifts the crystal to talk. Sounds of the city filter faintly in behind his voice, people passing by on the street below his window.
“How’s the Magisterium treating you, Kadan?” he asks as he sits on the bed to take his brace off. “Anything interesting?”
“More of the same, I’m afraid. Soirees to sway allies to Mae’s side, an attempted poisoning of a Lucerni-- she’s fine, of course-- Polinous challenged me to a duel the other day. It’s all quite boring without you.”
Bull chuckles. “Sounds terribly dull.”
“Unspeakably,” Dorian agrees. “This morning I was entirely tied up in meetings over what colors the Lucerni should wear to show cohesion-- gold and white or blue and gold?”
“Let me know what you choose, I’ll make sure you get tied up in a totally different way next time I see you.”
He imagines Dorian reclining among all his pillows on that big, empty bed in his Magisterial apartments. “And when will that be, Amatus?”
He imagines Dorian wearing nothing but a sky blue robe and a smile, arms wrapped in golden rope.
“Amatus? Don’t tell me you’ll have to put off our meeting again.”
Bull drags himself back to the present. “No, actually, I was wondering… do you think you might be able to get away sooner than Cloudreach?”
“Perhaps.” The noises of Dorian moving about in Minrathous stop, like he’s closed a window or door. “Is everything all right, Bull? Are your boys all right? Did someone die?”
“Yeah, kind of. Not one of us, though. The boys are fine, I’m fine.”
Dorian makes an indignant sound. “Don’t scare me like that! Wait-- was it that poor fennec Dalish was calling your mascot?”
“No, Bisel is fine, and happy. It’s kind of complicated.”
Dorian waits patiently for Bull to say more.
“Shall I guess?” he finally offers. “I will propose outlandish conundrums and you will tell me if I’m right.”
Bull misses him.
“You were hired to deal with some upstart bandits but they ate rashvine and shat themselves to death before you even got there and you don’t know if you can still collect payment.” Dorian waits. “No? Did you set up camp in the wrong spot and wake to find yourselves accosted by vengeful spirits in the middle of the night?”
Bull takes a deep breath and plunges forward like he’s charging into the icy lake at the base of the mountains below Skyhold. “An old employer died and I was in his will. I’ve inherited a property and now I’m an Orlesian Baron.”
Dorian seems to be waiting for the punchline. So is Bull. When it never comes, Bull hears a long exhale of breath. “That wasn’t what I was going to guess.”
“Red approved it specially,” Bull says. His voice sounds a little plaintive even to himself. “Do you think I could get her to undo it?”
“Oh Amatus,” Dorian chuckles. “I think that would be impossible.”
“I’m a member of the nobility now, Magister Pavus. You should address me by my proper title.” Dorian’s laughter is as infectious as it always is. “That’s my Lord the Right Honorable Amatus to you.”
“I think you’re combining Fereldan and Orlesian titles there. And you should start caring about that sort of thing.”
“I’m not going to have to actually do anything, am I?” The thought of attending the Imperial Court, spending hours surrounded by twittering little nobles, kills all his humor.
Dorian hums thoughtfully. “Unfortunately, I could see it going either way. You won’t be able to escape an official introduction to the Court, and you’ll have to see to your tenants, of course, but it’s possible that you could avoid all but the most important of Court events.”
“Ugh.” Bull drops backward onto the straw mattress of the inn’s best bed. “Tenants. I hadn’t even thought of that.”
“Do you really want me to come south?” Dorian asks. “I’m sure Mae would understand, and we can cook up an explanation as soon as we need.”
Bull imagines it. “Yeah, Kadan. That would be great.”
The Chargers arrive at Val Henar just over a week later. The first they see of the village is the blooming pink rows of the apple orchard. A small stone chantry is tucked against the trees, and in front of that a small circle of grass ringed by the other public buildings serves as the village green.
Smoke drifts lazily from the chimney of the inn, the windows already shining in the late-afternoon dimness after the spring shower they’d ridden through. The sounds of hammers falling ring out from the blacksmith’s shop, and Bull can see people moving about the village. It’s as peaceful a place as he’s ever seen in Orlais.
They make no effort to sneak up on the village. As they follow the winding road down the hill, Bull wishes he’d had some way to write ahead. The looks they get from the few farmers they pass tell him that mercenary troops are not a common sight in these parts.
They’re dusty from travel, and still wearing their travel armor-- light but intimidating-- when they reach the village green. A small party of villagers have gathered there, perhaps twenty people, and three elderly humans and an elf step forward when Bull pulls his horse up, his Chargers arrayed behind him.
His shoulders tense with every passing second, meeting the eyes of each silent villager in turn.
“I’m the Iron Bull,” he says, when it passes the point where any of them might start talking.
A murmur passed through the larger group of villagers behind the main four.
“These are my Chargers, and we’re a mercenary troop. We’ve worked for the Inquisition, and once for Marquis du Faroe.” Krem coughs into his hand. “Uh, may Andraste welcome him.”
“And may the Maker smile on his rest,” one of the humans replied. She had a heavy silver chain around her shoulders that reminded him of the livery collar that Josie had worn as the Inquisition’s Ambasador. Perhaps she’s in charge. Regardless, she doesn’t offer any further conversation.
Bull steels himself. “We’re actually on our way to the manor now.”
More murmurs from the crowd.
“It’s true then,” says the elf. “You’re the new lord of Val Henar.”
Bull looks at the people of this village, the houses that have stood for longer than he has, the people he worked to save with the Inquisition, the little ones peeking from behind their mothers’ skirts who have been born since then-- and he feels like an intruder. For once in his life he wishes he’d grown up with Dorian’s education in land management and noble graces.
“I’m not here to change the way you live,” he tells them, and he knows that he means it. The crowd watches, quiet.
After another minute, the Chargers ride on.
“Cheerful lot,” Stitches says as they follow the narrow path from the village to the manor. Bull remembers it in full summer bloom, greener and lusher than it is now.
“It’s not their fault,” Bull mutters. They’re his villagers now, according to Orlesian law. “I probably have to collect taxes from them or some shit like that.”
“We’ll win them over, Chief. Don’t worry,” Dalish insists, ever the optimist. “Well, I can win the elves over. You’re on your own with the Shems.”
“Thanks, Dalish.”
They round the final bend, and the manor grounds spread out in front of them. Understated for a house of Orlesian nobility, the subdued garden and solid stone walls speak either to the age of the holding or its unimportance.
There is movement in the yards and house, and the bleat of a sheep in the distance. Like the village, the manor is beautiful, bordering on picturesque, and it fills Bull with a discomfiting sense of imbalance, like riding a horse across a rope bridge in the dark. He feels sure that one wrong step could send him tumbling, but he has no way to know which step it could be.
His boys, if they have such worries, show none of the same apprehension. They surround him, part honor guard, part barrier to his escape, and approach the gate. It’s humble, in keeping with the rest of the place, iron with blue vitriol caps on the curling ends that match the walls of the house.
They dismount in the courtyard, and Skinner closes the gate behind them with a cautious glance back down the road.
Bull leads the Chargers up to the front entrance. The heavy wooden doors are a bit incongruous with the fashionable front porch. The cascading marble of the front steps wouldn’t look out of place on a small side entrance at Halamshiral, but the heavily fortified windows clash like a square Ander bridge over a curving Rivani canal.
One thing Bull does like-- the door knocker is shaped like a dragon in flight, its tail curved back to give him a place to grasp. He knocks.
The door opens at once, gliding smoothly. The woman behind it is older than the last time Bull saw her, but familiar. She smiles at him, and the relief is like a stone lifting off his chest.
“Anabelle,” he says. “It’s good to see you.”
She curtsies, but the sharpness hasn’t left her smile. “And you, my lord. Cremesius, Chargers.” She nods at the rest of his boys, with the same take-no-shit friendliness she’d shown when they were guests of the Marquis.
“I don’t think it’s a huge secret that I’ve never been the lord of a manor before,” Bull told her, and all the servants and under-butlers and gardeners who were probably listening behind the doors. “You’re the expert. Where do we start?”
Bull’s never had a butler before, but Anabelle has had plenty of bosses. She sends Krem to the stables with her son to house the horses, sets her crew to work converting the big parlor into billets for the boys, and gives Bull himself a whirlwind tour of the holdings.
His manor, she tells him, has a staff of twenty to cook and clean it. His lands stretch west to the river, and all animals, crops, or valuable ores on it belong to him. The villagers tithe him a portion of their income, and he is responsible for rendering a similar tax to the imperial crown. It is his responsibility to host all nobility requiring rest when passing through his lands, and his job to protect the people of the villagers in times of danger, and on and on and on.
Night falls while they sit in the study, dust from the road sticky on Bull’s skin-- though his boots have been whisked away somewhere for cleaning and he’s sure his cuirass and trousers will follow as soon as he lets them-- as they run over the most skeletal and essential knowledge of owning Val Henar.
Krem’s the one who finally interrupts them.
“Simon in the kitchens wants to know where you’ll be taking your meal, Chief?”
Bull stretches, and his back and shoulders pop. He’s been sitting still for too long.
“A smaller dining room?” he asks Anabelle. She nods. “And you’re welcome to join me, you know.”
He waits while she weighs propriety and tradition against the rumble in her stomach he’d heard twenty minutes ago.
The longer she thinks, the more torn she appears. He dredges up his best formal manners. “Madame Anabell Ferrier, please do me the honor of joining me for a toast in honor of my predecessor, the honored Marquis, and a second toast in honor of our partnership as we forge new paths into the unknown, where I trust your guidance will be freely given, and you may trust it will always be equally weighed.”
She folds with a smile. “You honor me, my lord. How can I refuse?”
He holds the door open for her as they join Krem in the hallway. “You can’t, that’s the point.”
Over the next weeks, Bull does a lot of work, and a lot of learning.
He changes the things about the manor that Anabelle lets him change, trying to strike the right balance between tradition and a place he can one day call home. He hires carpenters from the village to renovate a wing into space for the Chargers-- as many individual rooms as they can fit, because as much as his boys have gotten used to sharing tents and bathwater, everyone needs a bit of personal space. He writes to Varric in Kirkwall for contacts on experts who could update some of the enchanted dwarven plumbing. None of the previous owners since whoever installed the pipes seemed to think that water pressure was an important commodity, but Bull knows Dorian will.
He talks to Dorian nearly every night.
“I’ll be able to get away as soon as this vote is over,” Dorian promises. “There’s been agitation in the west, and Cesere’s recovery just keeps dragging on…”
“Of course, Kadan.” He tries to keep the disappointment out of his voice. Dorian knows Bull would rather be together, he doesn’t need the added guilt of the lonely little voice that’s louder every time he wakes up alone in this big house. He’s never had a house to wake up alone in before. He doesn’t like it.
“Have you made a decision about those rugs you were talking about?”
“I wrote to Josie, and she thinks she might know someone who could fix them up a bit.” They’re nice rugs, but Bull knows his heart just isn’t in it tonight. “I’m hoping they might be willing to do some updates, maybe replace the faded bits entirely.”
“I can’t wait to see it,” Dorian says, sincere. “All of it.”
“The gardens are pretty amazing,” he says. “Seems like there’s new flowers every day. The library has a balcony that looks out over the grounds. I’ve been sleeping there because the view is so nice in the morning.”
And because being surrounded by books feels almost like being in the Skyhold library, with Dorian.
It’s because he’s not on a job. He can’t focus on completing something straightforward and normal, so his mind keeps drifting away. Balancing the household’s expense books and redecorating the house (as much as Anabelle will let him) seems pointless unless he thinks about doing it for someone.
For Dorian.
Krem says he’s nesting. Dalish says he’s a pain in the ass. What he feels is old.
Anabelle has grandchildren big enough to be learning their letters and the village baker, recently widowed when they first passed through here, has taken a shine to Grim. Bull sees the future everywhere.
“They’ve got a lot of books here,” he continues. “But I’m sure that you could improve the collection.”
“Naturally.” He can hear the smile in Dorian’s voice, and the tiredness as well. At the edges of the stone’s magic, he can hear what sounds like the faint crackle of a fire.
“Cold night?” he asks.
“Oh, just a little chill, that’s all,” Dorian says quickly. “You know me, northern hothouse flower and all that.”
“You’d better not be getting sick,” he warns. “If you catch a cold, I'll have to come to Minrathous and mother hen you in person.”
“Maker forfend,” Dorian says. “Tell me more about the village.”
Bull does.
He wakes to birdsong and the smell of Krem’s coffee (excellent) and baking (improving) on the breeze. Summer in the green heart of Orlais is a time of heavy rain and lush foliage, when life seems slow and the daylight lingers for hours after sunset. It’s made waking up early harder, since the day goes on for so long, and there’s so much to do.
One reason, maybe the only reason, he’s glad he has time before Dorian gets there is that he’s been sleeping in the library and not in any of the official bedrooms. It vexes Anabelle to no end. The campaign cot he’s set up under the widest window fits him just well enough, and it’s easier to get up out of than the massive feather-down mattresses she wants him to use.
He knows that Dorian will agree with her about the importance of actual beds, just like he knows Dorian will be the one to finally coax him into one. Until then, he camps out in the library, sending stone close at hand.
Bull feels every mile between him and Minrathous as keenly as the wooden slats under the thin mattress of the cot. He traces the now-familiar route backwards in his mind. A week’s hard riding to Val Royeaux, four and a half from there to the border, three days for Dorian to cross in secret, and either a slow and showy or fast and subtle trip from the city. Either way, he hasn’t even started it yet.
It’s a special kind of torture, to have a place he wants to make perfect for someone who might not be there for months. When will he be able to show Dorian the gardens in perfect bloom, or the summer constellations from his favorite clearing in the woods?
Krem and Anabelle are the only ones who don’t scramble to stand when he gets to the kitchen. There’s a smattering of house staff and villagers there, and he counts it as a victory that today no one looks like they’re about to faint from shock.
He can’t stop them from bowing and curtsying if they want to, but he can greet them all by name and ask Caspar how his grandmother’s garden is faring. She’d been the first to speak with him in the village and he was determined to win her friendship.
“Chief,” Krem says, about five minutes after Bull wishes he had, “come try this sweetbread I made. I think I’m really getting it.”
Gratefully, Bull extricates himself from the conversation about wheat prices in Val Royeaux-- important, but not the first thing he wants to think about on any given morning.
The sweetbread is good. Maybe a little sweeter than it needs to be, but Bull likes that. Anabelle swipes the coffee pot from an enterprising young woman and pours Bull’s coffee herself, as she does every time he can’t beat her to it.
He sits in the only open seat, at the narrow end of the table, and doesn’t try to stop them all from arranging a plate of breakfast for him.
He picks up on an edge of nervous energy from them, a sort of anticipation, but he can’t remember any holidays or events coming up. While he eats, he tracks subtle glances across the table, a nudge here and a stifled smile there. The looks pass mostly among the house staff, with the occasional whisper that he can’t hear without clearly eavesdropping.
Stitches comes in through the door to the garden and whispers something to Anabelle, who gives Krem a significant nod.
“I know staff always have secrets from the nobles, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be this obnoxious about it,” he tells Krem.
“We have to,” Stitches interjects. “Keeps you from getting too high and mighty. These Orlesians-- no offense, friends-- are too ready to give you free run of the place.”
A few good-natured jeers for the resident Fereldan ripple through the room and Bull makes sure to laugh along with them. The secret remains though.
It goes on for another day after. His Chargers won’t answer his questions, Anabelle looks smug and stays quiet, and the staff all hide behind words and curtsies far more formal and polite than they have used in weeks.
He finally gets fed up with being treated like an actual noble, isolated from everyone around him, and takes his horse out into the western woods. He doesn’t plan to be back before sundown.
Half an hour of hard riding on the old paths brings him to the remains of a bridge over a softly flowing stream. The path itself veers to his left and fords the stream in a wide, shallow spot, the bridge itself long since fallen. He stops to let his horse drink and watches the curling eddies of water spin past the square stones that once held the bridge up.
Like the waves he watched on the shores of Seheron, names and lifetimes ago, he watches the water’s rhythms and breathes slowly with it until he’s calmer. Anger isn’t good for much off the battlefield, he’s found, and it tires him out a bit lately.
Once he and his horse are no longer crashing through the forest, the animals around him resume their normal lives. A family of nugs meanders along the far bank, rooting for food in the rushes. The birdcalls change from alarms to conversation, and as he sits very still, a young fennec emerges to sniff at his foot before vanishing into the underbrush across the riding trail.
At least he knows no one will take issue with him sitting here, in woods that he owns. He can hire people to rebuild this bridge and clear this path into a road, or he can let it crumble further and further into dust and mud as the stream wears the stone away, and let the forest take it back. It’s his, and he can do whatever he wants with it.
His sending stone hums.
“Kadan.”
“Amatus,” there’s noise behind Dorian’s voice, closer but quieter than a city street through a window. A horse walking by, distant laughter. It envelops him in a sense of home. “Where are-- do you have time to talk?”
“I always have time for you,” he says.
“That’s lovely,” Dorian tells him. “Where are you?”
He stretches his legs out toward the water and leans back on his hands. “Went for a ride. Krem and Belle are acting like they’ve got another mask they want me to try on. It’ll probably make me look like an even bigger ass than the last time.”
“A ride?” Dorian’s voice seems to be pitched a little oddly. “Where did you ride to?”
“A stream. It’s west of the house.”
“That sounds lovely,” Dorian says again. “Do you plan to stay there all day?”
“Not in the same spot,” Bull says. “But away from those bastards for a bit. I love them but they’re planning something and it makes me feel like a wyvern on a wasps nest.”
Dorian hums sympathetically.
The last time he heard that sound in person, he had been moving reluctantly around a room in a quiet corner of a small Nevaaran city on the coast, gathering his boots from the floor after an energetic but short-lived reunion. He had stubbed his toe on something, the bedpost maybe, and flopped onto the bed, playing the pain up for sympathy and to have Dorian’s hands on him again, just for a little longer.
That’s been the theme of their meetings for years now-- just a little longer. If there’s one thing he hopes this manor and all the attached quabala shit can get him, it’s a place for him and Dorian to stay, just the two of them, for as long as they want.
“I’m sure they’ll have something to say about me disappearing when I get back.”
“This evening?” Dorian asks.
“Or sooner,” Bull admits. The calm of the forest is washing over him, smoothing the roughness out of his mood.
“You shouldn’t have to hurry back,” Dorian says. “This is the first time you’ve taken for yourself since you got to Val Henar, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” Bull mutters.
“Then stay in the woods as long as you need. This is a change for everyone, Amatus. They need time to learn what you need from them as much as you need time to learn what they need from you.”
“Sounds like Mae’s speeches about leadership are starting to pay off,” Bull teases.
“Maybe,” Dorian echoes. “Maybe I just know you.”
Bull sighs and lies down on the grass and leaves. The sun and wind make the branches of the trees above him move like waves. “I wish you were here with me, Kadan.”
“Soon,” Dorian promises, like he has a dozen times before.
The sun is working on its long, slow descent towards the horizon as Bull finally rides back towards the manor. The green of everything around him seems to glow from within as the sunlight cuts at a low angle across the hills. It’s beautiful.
The manor is quiet when he gets there. It’s unusual, but not worrisome. What concerns him is the unfamiliar horse he finds in the stable after he walks his mount around the yard to cool her down.
It flicks an ear as he latches his mount’s stall behind her, and lifts its head to regard him with sleepy interest. It’s nothing special, probably a hired mount from a posting station. The tack over the stall door is likewise unremarkable, brown leather stamped with a Nevarran symbol. He turns the bridle over thoughtfully. He hadn’t been expecting any guests.
He looks around for Jask, who runs the stables, but he doesn’t seem to be nearby and Bull won’t refuse a few more minutes of quiet. He circles the house and wanders out into the gardens.
He’s got plans for these as well. He wants to reduce the parts that aren’t good for anything-- the hedge maze that’s almost two thirds the size of the manor, the carefully manicured stone paths that wind through tended “wilderness” and around fake Avaar ruins-- and replace them with something more valuable-- vegetables, herbs, a sparring ring.
The ring will be here, he decides, standing on a small rise on the western edge of an artificial pond built from an existing spring. The pond can stay, and he’ll find someone familiar with Qunari construction to build a drinking pump out from the far side of the spring.
He turns and surveys the house itself. It’s got plenty of space for anything he needs, but the back of the building could do with a fresh coat of paint in a few places… and he might need to replace the lock on the library’s balcony door, because it’s standing wide open.
There’s movement in the room as well, near where his cot is set up. He can’t see the red tunic Krem had been wearing at breakfast or Belle’s favorite yellow headscarf. The only real feature he can make out at this distance is black hair, either very short or long and pulled back, and there’s no one who should be in that room who fits that description in the least.
They peek around the glass door, and he can tell the moment they see him, because they vanish behind the curtain-- which he’d left open. They’re clumsy for an assassin, but it could be a ruse.
He moves cautiously forward, ducking behind the tall shrubs of the labyrinth as soon as he can. Maybe they are good for something, after all.
Of course, at that moment, his sending crystal vibrates again.
“Dorian?” he whispers. “This isn’t a good time, Kadan. Think I’ve got my first genuine assassin in my room.”
“Oh goodness,” Dorian whispers back. Bull watches the curtains twitch again. “Who do you think sent them?”
Bull edges closer around the hedges, and takes a risk to cross the yard to where Grim and Stitches had left the company’s weapons. He’s too far out for spells, and he hasn’t seen any signs of a bow.
“Probably someone Orlesian,” he murmurs. He grabs Krem’s maul, since it’s intimidating and close at hand. “They’re not very subtle, so it could be a bard, though this isn’t exactly their style either. Definitely an amateur.”
Dorian huffs. “Or they’re not trying to hide.”
Bull stalks around the edge of the courtyard. “Maybe.”
“Maybe,” Dorian says, “they’re just trying to make a dramatic entrance.”
He’s standing on the balcony above Bull, leaning on the railing without a stitch of clothing. Bull doesn’t drop his maul, but it’s a near thing.
“When did you get here?” he asks.
“Right after you left to sulk in the woods, apparently.”
Bull can feel the grin spreading across his face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’ve been riding for days, Amatus. I needed a bath.”
“Like that couldn’t have waited,” he mutters, his heart not really in it. Dorian’s here, right in front of him. He puts a hand on Dorian’s foot, since that’s the closest part of him he can touch. “How long can you stay?”
“At least a month,” Dorian says. He kneels down to take Bull’s hand in his own, lifting it to lips. “It’s beautiful here.”
“It’s not bad.” He runs his thumb along the curve of Dorian’s lower lip, relishing the chance to simply touch him. His bare skin shines, still a little wet from his bath. “You, on the other hand, look spectacular.”
“I might have sent everyone down to the village pub with a sack of gold or two,” Dorian says, “In case you’d like to do more than just tell me how nice I look.”
“You’re a genius, Kadan.” Up close, he can see the wrinkles that have been growing around Dorian’s eyes for the past few years, and how they deepen when he smiles.
Dorian leans close to the balustrades and reaches over the railing to lift Bull’s chin up. “New scar?” he asks, tracing the line a wyvern’s stinger had left along the side of his neck.
“Just a lucky hit,” Bull says.
Dorian rolls his eyes. “I’ll be the judge of that, thank you.” His fingers ghost over Bull’s left shoulder, then back up along his jaw. He guides Bull forward, till his chest is pressed against the stone wall, and kisses him.
Something knotted and lonely inside Bull releases. He leans up into the kiss, holding Dorian’s other hand through the railing, feeling the movement of Dorian’s breath on his lips and Dorian’s pulse under his fingers.
The first kiss back always seems like the sweetest yet.
Dorian meets him at the door that leads from the fanciest dining room to the back gardens, wearing hardly any more than he had been before. Bull sweeps him into a hug, burying his face in Dorian’s shoulder and crushing him close.
The scent of Bull’s favorite floral soaps cling lightly to him, and he’s wearing a silken sheet Bull recognizes from the eastern guest room as an improvised tunic. Bull slides his hands under it, tracing the lines of Dorian’s spine and shoulder blades by memory as Dorian wraps his own arms around Bull’s neck.
There’s an old, old poem he knows, the first writing that uses the word Kadan as more than just a literal term for the muscle and meat of the chest. It had always been taught to him as a work about loyalty and love for the Qun itself, how devotion to an individual is a path and doorway to devotion to the whole. Whether his teachers had not seen the other side of the words or if they simply chose not to is a question he’s pondered since it first occurred to him.
Qunlat doesn’t have a word for indulgence that doesn’t carry a connotation of shirked responsibility, but it does have plenty of words that fit how he feels now, holding Dorian, breathing against his skin. Across all of the languages he knows, there are words to describe every emotion and sensation that exists, and he doesn’t care about any of them.
What matters is how Dorian takes his face and both hands and looks him carefully over, turning his head to inspect the scar and kissing it gently. What matters is the sunlight turning the gray streaks Dorian has allowed into his hair to silverite. What matters is how Dorian has slipped perfectly into the empty space here that Bull has been holding, like the key to a locked door.
The future stretches out before him all at once. Dorian here, with him. Dorian in this home-- not just his, but theirs. He holds Dorian closer. Someday.
Late in the morning, when he wakes and feels Dorian tucked tight against his side, it’s all new again. The sunlight that lands on his face make Dorian mutter and burrow deeper against Bull, trying to block out the light.
Bull pulls him closer, running a slow hand across his shoulders and back. He fells Dorian’s smile against his skin, a clear indication that he is awake but not planning on moving any time soon.
Bull is happy to oblige him. He gathers Dorian a little close and tucks his nose into his hair, breathing in the fading scent of flowers and the warm, electric feeling Dorian always seems to carry with him. Heart full, he lies there and listens to Dorian breathe.
“I’ve missed you,” Dorian says softly. Then he chuckles. “My lord.”
“Don’t you start too,” Bull groans.
“You teased me for months after I took my father’s seat in the Magisterium.” Dorian pokes at the ticklish spot under Bull’s ribs. “And even worse when Mae appointed me to her cabinet.”
He pins Dorian’s wrist lightly against the mattress, his thumb against his favorite place to tie the knot. “That’s because you like being teased,” he murmurs.
Dorian laughs. His voice stays steady and soft, though Bull can feel his pulse jump under his fingertips. “I believe you do as well, Amatus. In certain situations.” He slides his free arm across Bull’s stomach, leaning up to kiss the corner of his jaw.
“Maybe so.” Bull turns onto his side, looming a little over Dorian. The windows are open letting the cool dawn air in. Dorian seems either most or least changed from this angle, depending on if Bull focuses on the weathering of his unadorned face and longer curling hair or just on the expression in his eyes. “But I have an image to maintain now.”
“As an old curmudgeon?” Dorian asks, sickly sweetly.
Bull shuts him up with a kiss. Like any early morning kiss, it’s imperfect. But he’s not going to let a bit of crust on his eye or the remnants of last night’s wine stop him for savoring every sound Dorian makes under him.
He revisits the path he’d taken the night before: the side of Dorian’s neck, below his left clavicle, across his chest and above his heart, tracing the faint bruises beginning to blossom. Dorian guides him with a hand on his horn, happy to sigh and lay back, letting Bull map him out again.
The line of his hip, with a scar low on his stomach. The way he curves, body softened by years of good living, though the firm muscles he trained chasing the Inquisitor across Thedas lie underneath, tensing when Bull strokes too lightly and leaning into his touch. The arch of a foot, the soft hair on his legs and chest, every inch of him that has been too far away to touch.
“Is this better than a tent?” he asks, just to watch the laughter travel from Dorian’s stomach to his lips.
“Miles better,” Dorian says. He runs his hands along the line of Bull’s horns and uneven brow. “And you don’t even smell of horseleather and sweat. This might as well be the Maker’s golden City, for how impossibly perfect it seems.”
It does seem a little bit impossible. Bull puts his lips on Dorian’s skin to stop from saying anything. He breathes in the silence as they lie there.
“I was very nervous yesterday,” Dorian says. It sounds like a confession. He pulls a pillow to his chest, blocking Bull’s view of his face. “When I saw you coming across the courtyard, hearing your voice through the crystal but also seeing you. I thought-- what if you weren’t happy to see me. What if something had changed--in you, or in me, or between us... and what I had thought would be a happy surprise was just a mean trick?”
He pulls the pillow gently to the side. Dorian lets him, but turns away his face away. Bull sits up. “I can’t imagine a world where I wouldn’t be happy to see you, Kadan. Things are changing, that’s just what they do, but not that.”
Dorian meets his gaze ruefully. “When you say it like that, of course I believe you. I suppose it’s just my mother’s voice in the back of my head, scolding me for showing up unannounced in someone else’s home.”
“That’s an easy problem to fix,” Bull says. “We just make this your home too.”
The pillow hits him on the shoulder. “Now who’s teasing?”
Bull pulls Dorian partially upright. He resists, bringing the blankets with him. “I’m serious,” he says. “Any room in this place. Say the word and it’s yours forever.”
“Dangerous words, Amatus.” Dorian shuffles over to drape the blankets over Bull’s shoulders as well. “I might very well never leave.”