The sun was just starting to set, and Tiberius sat in the poison garden watching the sky change colors and sipping from a glass of dry blue wine. Here by Grandfather’s tower was the most peaceful part of the estate, where the walls gave way to impassable cliffside. Not so long ago, the thought of this view would have broken his heart.
It still might, if he thought too hard about it. For now, he was only burning time. Everything was in readiness – he just needed Enzo. He’d always been better than Tiberius at translation, coded messages, all that and the like. And why not? Grandfather would not have wanted his legacy read and understood by anyone else, much less disseminated among the Magisterium like any good thesis.
So of course he had not taught his heir this. Tiberius held the first volume open in his lap, one of many. Lukios had been, oh, perhaps the age his grandson was now when he’d begun this record. Feeling his years but not yet suffering from them. That meant there were over 50 journals in all, identical leather volumes of 120 pages each.
This could take days. All the more an excuse to invite Pavus to stay here, day and night, until they were done with all of the diaries. It was, of course, a bad idea.
Lyric had spoken to him once on the road – about how she could and would continue to hold multiple loves in her heart. TIberius wasn’t quite sure he was capable of the same. He’d never tried, of course. It had always been Enzo until he and the whole of Tevinter were lost to him. No matter how inconvenient that had made certain aspects of their lives.
And part of him – even now – suspected it would always be Enzo. Wondered if Orlais and Mel had only been a twinned and temporary madness. That, however, was to do a disservice to everyone. Looking down at his Grandfather’s tidy handwriting, Tiberius tested the edges of his grief and found it still ready to bleed at the slightest touch.
No. It was a little better than that. He could look at Lyric without wanting to weep – he could see her as something other than the ghost of her dead sister. Unforgivable, to dismiss that progress.
"My Lord Umbra, your guest has arrived.”
Tiberius glanced up, eyes skimming over his armswoman as if he’d forgotten her existence. He cleared his throat and stood, refilling his own glass from the bottle. Another waited, set a little bit apart.
"My Lord will receive you in the poison garden. This way...
Enzo gave the servant a nod as he shrugged his coat into the hands of another. He followed the first from the courtyard into House Umbra's entryway, craning his neck as he was led immediately to a side hallway that brought him outside once again. He'd never really had the opportunity to see the house proper. Old Man Umbra hadn't approved much of Enzo, so far as he could guess. As an Altus, he was never turned away from House Umbra, but it just seemed better to meet Tiberius away from their homes. Or for Tiberius to just sneak over. It would have been a shame to let all that talent go to waste.
"Lord Umbra," the servant said as they approached Tiberius, "the young Lord Pavus." The servant bowed and was quickly away. Enzo, holding back a laugh, gave Tiberius an elaborate bow.
"Lord Umbra." he said, holding the bow just a touch too long before straightening up and stepping in close to throw an arm around his friend. "Did you hear that?" he asked, lowering his voice to just above a whisper. Young Lord." He smoothed back his hair. "This for me?"
Enzo didn't wait for an answer as he scooped up the the glass of wine, bringing it to eye level as he gave it a slight swirl. In truth, he knew nothing about wine, he just liked the way some wines held to the glass more than others. It did seem to impress other wine illiterate nobles like himself, though, so he never admitted to it being meaningless.
"And that?" he asked, pointing to the book in Tiberius' hand. "I expect a challenge, you know. May I?"
He stepped forward, holding his hand out as he took a drink of the wine and then set the glass back down on the table. As the weight of the journal settled into his hand, Enzo turned to a page at random. Immediately, he was able to rule out most simple ciphers from the neat script. Lukios would not have been so lazy.
"Do you have any of his writings that are not coded?" An understanding of the late Lord Umbra's writing style would help them to spot patterns within the ciphered volume.
Tiberius stood to welcome his friend. It was nice to have him here, in his home. He wanted to give a proper tour – to see Pavus in all these familiar and beloved places. Although, some of those places were less proper than others. The baths. His bed. Maker, he didn’t even know if Enzo still felt— He’d been silent too long, beyond just having the air squeezed from his lungs. He laughed a beat too late.
“Well. They wouldn’t want me to mistake you for your father. I could have gone blind in the last fifteen minutes.” Tiberius handed the diary over, trying to imagine Grandfather as he lived in his memory, and not as the thing in the tower cell. Lukios would be furious: dissolute grandson and unsuitable lover – the only reason Tiberius hadn’t secured the family legacy decades ago – picking through the old man’s secrets.
It was a bittersweet sort of pleasure.
“Oh, don’t you worry. There’s loads.” Tiberius gestured toward the tower, collecting the wine bottle and his glass. He led the way down a winding path, past a water feature, and through the heavy doors. Not much had changed within since he’d been here with Tacitus some weeks ago.
Somewhat less dust, perhaps. He lifted his glass and balls of silver light flew from the top to the great chandelier above and sconces along the walls. Grandfather’s desk still dominated the room, mazes of bookshelves and stairs casting thick shadows and lending the tower interior a claustrophobic feel.
The rest of the coded journals were on the desk, five to a stack. Wax tablets, styluses, paper and charcoal all waited for their use. Enzo’s, mostly.
“What would be most useful? Correspondence? Speeches he gave before the Magisterium?” Tiberius browsed the shelves. There was more. Dry texts on genealogy that spared no one — House Umbra proper, client families, slave lines. Accounts of their outer holdings and how they were managed. Many grimoires on the finer points of umbramancy.
He came back to Enzo with his arms full of selected works, and found places to put it all down. Grandfather’s chair – he motioned Enzo to sit there and savored that for just a moment before lugging over another seat for himself.
“Explain it all to me like I’m stupid. Then maybe I’ll be able to help.”
Enzo closed the journal, scooped up his glass, and followed in Tiberius' wake toward the tower. More so than any other part of the Umbra estate, this place had been forbidden to him for as long and Enzo could remember. So certain was that fact that, even now, he hesitated at the doorway. Stopped there, he watched Tiberius enter and produce the light they'd need to work in the dark space.
It was a wonder to see him; a thrill to watch the world around him be altered by his presence. Books moved, dust disturbed, wine bottles emptying... all because Tiberius was here. Six years wasn't so long. Indeed, he had many friends he'd not seen for longer spells of time. Their visits to Minrathaus didn't alter reality in the same way. Enzo walked slowly into the tower, his eyes following as Tiberius moved about, collecting books and scrolls.
No, it wasn't the years. It was that, during those years, a not insignificant portion of his heart had been lost to him. He'd grieved for this man whose hands now shuffled journals aside to make room for another tome. He'd lost hope in ever seeing those hands again. He took three steps forward, prepared to wrap an arm around Tiberius' waist, to pull him against his own chest. To feel him breathing. But he stopped, swallowing the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat with a bit of the wine. Tiberius was engaged now.
Stepping around the desk, Enzo covered his near faux pas with a smile. Lowering himself dramatically down into the chair, he moved left and right a bit, ran his hands over the armrest as if appraising it and finding it satisfactory.
"Correspondences, and personal notes would be best. We need references for his patterns of speech. Once we determine the ciphers he's used, these patterns will help us pick out words or phrases. I assume he was well versed in more than a few languages as well. Whatever he might use for more studious work will likely feature." Leaving the journals to the side for the time being, He took a bit of parchment and a quill. Quickly, Enzo jotted down a number of ciphers, listing the most simple substitutions first. While he did not expect these to be used in any of the main writings, Enzo didn't dismiss the idea that they might be used in the code keys to further obscure the collected works. Such a strategy had been the bade of his unit's existence back before he'd left the military. It could make even a short message take ages to decipher.
"Simple substitutions are, well... too simple. But an algorithmic cipher seems like a good place to start." He scribbled a formula for one he knew well down onto the paper then held it up to show across the desk. But the gap was too wide, and they'd be doing examples as they continued. Enzo stood, a flick of his wrist lifting the heavy chair and skating it just over the ground until it plopped down next to where Tiberius sat.
"So here, x stands for the numeric value of the original letter..." he began as he settled back down into the chair.
Tiberius settled in to watch Enzo work, a twinge of warmth overwriting the melancholy he felt. This was — maybe not exactly what he wanted — but it was good, too. Hearing others talk about their talents and special interests was always lovely, and this all the more so because it was Enzo.
And, besides, this was a side of Pavus that few people got to see, the endlessly amusing socialite left out in the gardens. Tiberius felt privileged and more than a little smug about it.
“From losing your boots in the mud to this. Who would have thought there’d be any transferable skills?” He picked up a stylus and began copying the formula onto the top of his wax tablet, anticipating that he’d need to write and rewrite this many times before he fully understood what Enzo was trying to teach him.
“Hmm. Grandfather was certainly fond of Old Tevene.” It had fallen out of favor long ago, with most people using the Dwarven trade language day to day all across the continent. Still, academics and nobles liked to sprinkle it into their speech – a point of distinction, like a painted on beauty mark. “I believe he could speak Qunlat as well.”
Tiberius had about as much of a grasp on old Tevene as any of their well educated peers might. Qunlat was another matter, entirely foreign to him. He grinned up at Enzo as he brought the chair closer – and if Tiberius leaned into the armrest a little bit, of course it was only to better see what Enzo had written.
“Okay. So the idea is to do that for every letter, and then we have a key at the end? … Do you think he stuck to the same system for half a century? I sure hope so.”
Tiberius got a quiet snort as reward for his quip. Were he not so entirely excited about deciphering Old Man Umbra's works, he might have shot something back. Instead, he added a shrug and conceded the point to his friend. That would matter more if Tiberius had been the sort that Enzo kept score with, but they never had. It was so refreshing to have that again, it made his heart ache. He took another drink of his wine.
"Qunlat, really?" It was not uncommon for many in Tevinter to know a handful of Qunlat words or phrases -it helped to know what your enemy might be shouting in the midst of battle- but to hold onto it, let alone enough to say one could speak it was rare indeed. "Let's hope he wasn't that cruel." he said with a chuckle.
"Exactly. We'll use the equation to determine the shift. For example, if the result is 5, then each letter will be shifted five spaces either left or right in the alphabet. Then it's just tedium after that. The challenge is... what alphabet? What language?""
Enzo couldn't stop smiling. He couldn't blame the wine, not yet. It was the challenge, yes. He rarely had the opportunity to exercise these skills anymore. The Eyes were content to just have him spy during social events. They apparently did not trust him enough to let him work on anything of true consequence. Perhaps it was that they were away from society. Here, he could pretend the wold was small; it could just be the two of them and this task. No Altus hypocrites glaring down their noses at him. Perhaps it was just the nearness of him...
They settled into a companionable silence, each scribbling away as they tried and retried the equation.
d1 - fail
d2-d5 - fail
d6-d10 - you are able to translate some of it; maybe 2-3 words
d11-d15 - you can translate some of it; half of it
d16-d19 - you can translate all but 2-3 words
d20 - you can translate it successfully in completion.
“What can I say? He loved telling these cloak and dagger stories about Seheron. Turning assets, not just fighting in the jungle.” Tiberius shrugged. He’d never had much personal interest in Grandfather’s war stories. It was partially the resentment of his younger self, forever pissed off that he’d been kept home and close to hand while Enzo and Malachai made their careers.
Ah, well. He had other things to show for the time. A mastery of every branch of magic he’d ever turned his hand to, for one. Greater flexibility within the Magisterium.
Then this frustrating inheritance. For all that Enzo still seemed in a splendid mood, Tiberius was not getting it. He worked on the tablet until he’d filled its surface with useless chicken scratch – then melted it back into a blank with the heat of an electric arc cupped between his hands.
“Shall we take a break?” He got up and stretched, taking up the empty wine bottle. Two glasses over so long a time … Tiberius felt warm but far from drunk. That could be corrected.
And he didn’t feel that he’d begun to try Enzo’s patience with this task, not yet. If it took a few days, that changed nothing at all except that he got to keep Pavus close by for longer – propriety be fucked. He led the way to the cellars, careful not to bother anyone else. The sun was long down, the estate beginning to settle down for the night. It occurred to him that they ought to make a small detour for something to eat.
“Well.” Puttering about the semi-dark kitchens, Tiberius began to assemble a platter. Fruit and preserves, nuts, cheeses, toasts of day old bread. “You might as well ask about her.” He’d hoped Lyric and Enzo would be able to speak at the Archon’s ball. Alas, the evening had taken several strange turns instead.
“I’ll go absolutely mad if we keep putting it off.” He stuffed several grapes into his mouth and chewed.
For the first time in perhaps a decade, Enzo lost himself into his task. Time, discomfort, even the occasional brush of Tiberius' arm as they shifted about, reaching for a scroll or journal, none of these things interrupted the flow. Phrases and equations were practically tangible in the air around him as he tried and retried the equations. He'd had to shift his work between a few different wax tablets, he was heating them to unhelpful softness from use.
"Hmm?" Enzo turned his head toward the sound of Tiberius' voice. He was standing, stretching. Another moment and his understanding of what had been said registered. "Oh..." Enzo looked back down to his hands. One held a wax tablet, the other a stylus. Around him, on the floor, he'd arranged several texts. He was squatting, he suddenly realized. How'd he get over here? And why?
Enzo stood as well, his knees raging at him for forcing them to hold such a position for so long. His back echoed their complaints. When had he gotten so old? Setting the tablet down on the desk, Enzo nodded and followed Tibs out of the tower. He was somewhat surprised to see the world so dark as they moved through the gardens to the main house. He prepared himself for Tiberius to amend his suggestion of a break, to suggest they meet again tomorrow or some later day. But those words did not come.
He was relieved. Partially because it was always difficult to return to this sort of work if one stepped away for too long, sure, but also because Tiberius was not sending him away. He followed his friend as he used to, keeping close. As if he might be reprimanded or banished if some servant found him on the grounds unescorted. As if he were still unwelcome here.
"Well. You might as well ask about her."
Ice poured along his spine and he froze, hand hovering over a slice of cheese. It was probably only a second, but it felt much longer. Finally, whatever gripped him relented and he lifted the piece of cheese to his mouth and chewed. He let that occupy him for a moment, an excuse not to look up as he busied his hands with collecting a few nuts. When there was nothing left to chew, he swallowed and leaned himself back against a counter. Only then did he allow himself to look up at Tiberius.
The man's cheeks bulged slightly as he chewed and Enzo couldn't stop the smile from catching the corners of his own lips. Was he really so casual about it? Was his heart not racing? Were they not on some precipice here? He wanted to reach out, to feel for the thoughts Tiberius was so good at keeping from his face. But he wouldn't do that. He couldn't do that. Not to Tiberius. Never to him.
With a huff, Enzo's smile widened slightly as his eyes lowered back down to the table. "What should I ask, then?" he said, pouring the handful of nuts from one hand into the other, like so many grains of sand. "She's a mage, of course. Any good? Is she..." he shrugged, looking back up to Tiberius' eyes, "...intelligent?" he chuckled slightly at how ridiculous that sounded.
Then, as Tiberius seemed about to speak, he couldn't stop himself. "Do you love her?"
Was Lyric intelligent? Of course – though a cynical man might not see it at first. He had not, that first day. She was clumsy and overly kind, and so likely to simply blurt out the first thought in her head. Tiberius started to laugh, glancing around the shadowed kitchens. He didn’t think she’d quite managed to charm the servants out from under him yet, and still the question felt like a trap. One way or the other, it was bad manners to praise or denigrate one lover to another. Not that she was quite that yet, either …
And the question that followed, oh, it was more like a blow. He’d asked for this, though. Left to his own devices, Enzo might have kept on playing the polite game of avoidance for at least a few more hours.
“I worry incessantly that she might be too soft hearted for the north.” Tiberius stepped away from the platter of food and proceeded down into the cellar. Wall sconces came on as he passed, filling the stairwell with moody silver luminescence. He didn’t want to be overheard, as he endeavored to find a real answer for Enzo.
“I loved her sister, Melodie Nicollier. We met a few years ago, long after I’d begun to believe the barrier was permanent. Me and you, well, we’d …” Ended things, just before Tiberius had left. For supposedly forever – for the second time in their lives. Sighing, he pulled two dusty bottles at random off the honeycomb shelves.
“She died, though.” At some point, he’d lost count of the days – it had to be near to a year ago by now? That still felt a little bit like betrayal. “The parents were in some sort of financial trouble, I gather. They whisked Lyric away from her life in Starkhaven and … Foisted her on me. I had no particular reason to refuse at the time.” He passed Enzo the bottles and grabbed a couple more to save themselves making this trip again tomorrow.
“I’ve … I’d say I’m fond of Lyric. And I want to do the right thing.” Which was, coincidentally, difficult to see from here. He needed to talk to her about Enzo almost as badly as he needed to talk to Enzo about her.
“Her partner’s in town. I gather he followed her all the way across the continent. Twice. Apparently they have a daughter.”
He'd almost laughed. They'd almost been able to go back to pretending. But the hesitation was so much louder than the non-answer. This... whatever this was, it wasn't going back into the tidy little box Enzo had been keeping it in. It coated everything around them now. Enzo dropped the handful of nuts back onto the platter. The thought of eating them now made his mouth feel dry. He followed Tiberius, anticipation of further explanation pulling him as much as his need to be close, sure footed until Tiberius spoke again.
Enzo's heel caught the edge of the last step, causing his foot to land heavier on the dark cellar floor, his view of the shelves to skew just slightly until he regained his balance. Opening his mouth, Enzo stood silent. No words came to his aid. What had he expected? When they'd parted those years ago, Enzo knew that the next time he'd see Tiberius, it would be with a fiance in tow. The only thing the barrier had changed was that he'd thought he'd never see Tiberius again. But love?
Bile and bitterness rose in his throat; Envy's heralds. The demon, usually so placid and content to let Enzo feed it of his own accord, stirred with eager interest. This was a delicacy it had not yet tasted. Envy even delighted at the news that this love had passed. Enzo clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring at the sting in his eyes. She'd taken that love with her forever.
The weight of the wine bottles settled in his hands and Enzo held them, dumbly. The reveal of how Tiberius felt toward Lyric was a small balm to the burn. It was what Enzo had expected. A duty, borne lightly and well, but the damage had been done and it was all he could do to wrestle the contemptible beast back down into silence. It went, gleefully. Enzo must needs sleep eventually. Envy would enjoy his dreams indeed.
"What?" he said suddenly, nearly dropping one of the bottles. "A... a what?" Enzo instinctively glanced over his shoulder, back up the stairs. A partner... a daughter. Tevinter was no stranger to the occasional messy spousal arrangement. Adoptions of children fathered by former spouses was not unheard of. But the former spouses usually didn't tag along. They typically had the decency to be dead.
"Then you'll be withdrawing from the engagement?" Enzo let out a sigh, relieved. And a bit ashamed for it, but relieved all the same. He moved closer, shifting both bottles into one arm, freeing a hand to grasp Tiberius gently by the neck so that they faced each other. His brows pulled together, arching up in tender concern as he gazed up at Tiberius. "You've discovered her treachery, you'll be blameless."
Tiberius typically tried to ignore the spiritual passengers of those closest to him. It seemed the most polite thing. Yet something now made Enzo’s visitor stir, a blood-shadow blur like squeezing your eyes too tight. He leaned into the hand on his neck, seeking balance if nothing else.
“I– No, I’m not.” By all rights, he probably should. Enzo wasn’t wrong about that. If this news got out, it would be terrible for his reputation. For the House too by association. Tiberius tilted his head, finding it hard to meet Enzo’s gaze. He focused on his lips instead.
“She thinks her parents will hurt the child if I try to recover the bride price. And yes, I know that sounds like she’s playing me for a fool.” He shrugged and reluctantly slipped the hand on his neck. Made a muffled, frustrated noise because there was nowhere else to go except up the stairs where they would be overheard.
“I believe that she believes it. Unless she’s a world class liar and I’ve not picked up on it, she doesn’t have anything like treachery in her.” Whatever his private thoughts on the Nicolliers, who was he to tell a mother what was and was not a danger to her young daughter? “But most of all, Enzo, I just don’t want to start over again. Especially not at a six year disadvantage. The House doesn’t have the time to wait, and I don’t have the fortitude for it.
“Anyway, we have an agreement. If she breaks it by popping out a blonde-haired, pointy-eared bastard? I will send her away then, yes.” He trudged up the stairs to put a momentary pause on the conversation. He found a basket to hold the bottles and gestured for Enzo to help him with the food.
“We should get back to work on the journals.” No one would hear them in the tower.
Tiberius leaned in and Enzo shifted closer. His breath hitched in his throat as he tilted his head upward. As his mind hearkened back to a cool spring night -the sweet scent of holly blossoms in the hedges all around them, concealing them- Enzo's eyes closed. Crashing waves, their roar drowning out any thought of the world beyond that coastal cottage, echoed in his mind. Salt and sweet wine on his lips... Memories he'd surrendered to time flooded back and Enzo's hand tightened at Tiberius' neck.
“I– No, I’m not.”
His eyes fluttered open. As Tiberius continued, shrugging away from his hand, Enzo's weight shifted back with a shuffled step. His rejected hand went to his own face, wiping downward over the stubble of his jaw before his arm dropped feebly to his side. Envy tumbled joyously inside of him, luxuriating in his failure. Enzo turned away, fearful that Tiberius might see the venom in his face, shamed by his futile anger.
“But most of all, Enzo..." He could hear the sincerity in Tiberius' voice. Again, the temptation to reach into his mind pulled at Enzo. He could know for sure. He could see what Tiberius had seen. He could blot it all out entirely... Enzo pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, biting down hard.
Taking several deep breaths, Enzo followed Tiberius up the stairs. Both annoyed and thankful at the forced end of the conversation, he mutely set the bottles into the basket and helped to gather up the food. His silence continued as they made their way back to the tower. Inwardly, he raged at Tiberius' perceived naivety, at his own carelessness. Back in the tower, he uncorked one of the bottles and filled their two glasses. He drank, sour as it tasted in his mouth, and picked up one of the wax tablets.
"I think-" he cleared his throat. "Let's try this." he said, scratching out a different equation into the wax.
We rolled a 10 (for Tibs +5 for All Seeing Eye) = 15
We rolled a 16 for Enzo +2 for having the skill +5 for All Seeing Eye = 23
d1 - fail
d2-d5 - fail
d6-d10 - you are able to translate some of it; maybe 2-3 words
d11-d15 - you can translate some of it; half of it
d16-d19 - you can translate all but 2-3 words
d20 - you can translate it successfully in completion.
It was a full hour and a bottle of wine before they found anything that started to work. Then it was downhill from there, somewhat. They had the basis for a key – he laboriously penned a few copies onto good parchment, stealing glances at Enzo as the other man worked on translating the first entry of the first journal.
Tiberius knew he had hurt him back in the cellar stairwell. He also knew it had been inevitable and that there was no easy remedy— And did he even want it remedied right away? Enzo had been so quick to hope the engagement was over with Akibrus Blaine’s indiscretion. It had been so long since that unfortunate situation with Sabina, that Tiberius couldn’t recall if he had acted with more grace. Most likely not, they’d been much younger men.
Demon-haunted abomination or no, Tiberius certainly felt he had mellowed with age.
Ah, but he was openly studying Pavus now, quill and wineglass both abandoned. Tiberius climbed to his feet and stretched theatrically, surveying the mess they had made. Lukios would have loathed it. Maybe the feeble shade in soundproof, air tight cell above their heads still did.
“I think the rest will keep till morning.” And much further beyond, if he was being honest. It would take him weeks to get through all the diaries alone – Enzo was the only one with both the trust and know-how to assist here. Oh, well. They had time. Unless the barrier falling meant a return to campaigning? Surely not as the heir of House Pavus.
“Let me show you a guest room.” Tiberius led the way back out of the tower, through the garden, and into the wing where most of the family was housed. He’d moved fully into the long-disused master bedroom upon returning and most of the adjacent chambers were empty. He was of a mind to put Enzo across the hall, opening the door and peering in. The room was clean and spacious but dark.
It had been his before that disastrous trip to Orlais. Now, no visible traces of his younger self remained.
