“You are to be my man,” Berúthiel corrected him, gently but without hesitation. “Nominally, Leliana remains in charge of the spy net, yes. She is known as my advisor… but that is precisely the problem. She is known. It limits her effectiveness.” She smiled at the elf. “Only a little, I admit; she is very resourceful. But you are not a known quantity the same way. So, yes, you will work with Leliana, to leverage her resources. To outer appearances, you will be merely visiting an old friend.” Her eyes were on his, carefully. “But you will report to me, directly.”
Into the pause which followed, a tiny meow was placed. Berúthiel looked down to the cat upon her lap and laughed. “Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” The cat meowed again and stood, turning a sinuous circle around her own tail as she stretched, then fixed blue eyes on Zevran. Berúthiel looked to the elf and said, in slightly ironic tones, “My cat says you look like you would give good belly rubs.” Tiriel meowed again and Berúthiel made a little shooing gesture with one hand. “Well, go on then, don’t pretend you’re shy suddenly!” With a trilling sound, the small white cat leapt across the intervening space, landing neatly on Zevran’s black-clad leg.
“I have my own concerns with Leliana’s methods at times,” she said then, raising one hand palm-outwards.. “This is no secret, mind you; we have discussed this together more than once. She is, at times….” She paused, clearly searching for the right word. “Too hardened. A spymaster must of course be ruthless betimes, but there are paths other than the blade, and sometimes they are the better ones. One must never do what one cannot undo until one has considered well what one cannot do once one has done it.”
She had smiled to herself to see him take the pouch of coin and tuck it away; it was not a yes, but it was a beginning, perhaps. “You may keep the coin,” she said now, “even should you decide not to join us. Consider it a bonus for the work you did for me so adroitly in Antiva; I certainly appreciate having kept my own skin.” She laughed, and then sat back in her chair, head tilted so she might peer upwards through the center of the tower, to the caged ravens above. Their harsh cries were audible from here, mingling comfortably with the murmurings of the researchers moving through the stacks.
“But should you choose to join us,” she said, fixing him with her gaze once more, “I assure you that your concerns will be given due weight, and your advice will be considered with care.” She smiled. “I might not always take it, but I will never disregard it. That much, you can take as Chantry gospel. But you mustn’t rush to a decision, of course. While you consider, the freedom and hospitality of my keep is yours. Dorian has depleted my wine cellar considerably – he hoards the stuff, he doesn’t even drink it, I don’t think – but I did save a few select bottles for myself, should you desire for something better than the swill Cabot serves in the Rest.”
“To be your man, am I?” The choice of phrasing did not go unnoticed by Zevran, and he gave her a look that was equal parts amused and handsome. “Well then, dear Inquisitor. If this was to be that sort of a business transaction, I would have worn much finer underpants to this meeting.”
His origins might have been in the art of seduction, and he might have fallen into bed with as many employers as he had targets in the past, but this was not anything like that—this was simply teasing, a moment of lighthearted amusement, and he threw his head back and laughed, quite taken by his own joke. “Do not fear, Inquisitor; I know well to report to where the power lies. That the power is a strikingly beautiful woman is simply a perk for me to enjoy.”
His amusement was interrupted by the tiny chirrup of the creature in Beruthiel’s lap, and he glanced mirthfully across to the feline. When he had first arrived to find the Inquisitor surrounded by cats, Zevran had allowed her her quirks. He liked cats himself, although perhaps not to her extent, but to find the leader of the Inquisition so enamoured with feline company had made his lips twitch with amusement. To hear her speak to the creature in her lap, however, and pretend that she heard it speak back... For a moment he was ready to overlook it as an eccentricity, until the creature genuinely seemed to understand her and relocated itself to his thigh, slim claws gripping his leg for balance.
It was not entirely unheard of, for a mage to be able to commune with animals, but it was a rare thing indeed, and as he began to make a gentle fuss of the creature’s ears he started reassessing his initial judgement of her. A mage was no remarkable creature in this world, but one with such a skill had to be something special. At once, he felt as though he understood a little more how the Inquisition had grown so swiftly to what it was now, if it had a woman like her at its head.
“Antiva was work as much for myself as it was for you,” he reminded her gently. He had been killing Crows long before she had come along to pay him to do the same; but her funds and resources had gone a long way to speeding up the process.
Her offer of the keep’s open hospitality was a generous one, just as it had been in Antiva, just as it had been since he had arrived here a day before. Either she was the giving kind, or she genuinely saw something worthy in him; Zevran knew that what she saw was little more than his skill with poison or a blade, but he let himself wonder—just for a moment, as he always did—if maybe she saw some other part of him that was actually worth something. “And who would I be to turn down the offer of fine wine?” he answered easily, leaning on the palm of one hand as he made an idle fuss of the cat in his lap with the other. “I would be charmed to accept, Inquisitor.”
