[A show of repudiation. That says more than anything else does. It triggers some cold flash of relief - he knows nothing -, which passes hand in hand with a rigid stab of dread: What Byerly suspects could be more dangerous. Who will he tell? What will they do? There are plans in motion; whose scrutiny can they survive?]
What I think is that you're concerned, that you have no idea what you're doing, and that you're jumping to conclusions in an effort to make this arrangement manageable. Maybe if you tell me what exactly you think you know, I might begin to help you make sense of it. [Teeth flashing again:] As a show of friendship.
[ A corner of his lip curls up in droll amusement. The temptation is bloody strong to let Flint know exactly who he's dealing with. The way he phrases that, you'd think Byerly were a mage-boy, stumbling upon his powers, trembling on the edge of becoming an abomination. Or a fussing, clucking fool like the Seneschal. But the temptation has always been strong with men like Flint - these warriors, brusque and haughty, who treated By like a mincing fool - to stand up and shout, I am dangerous, I am more dangerous than you, I am more dangerous than you could ever be, and you need to see that. But By had resisted the urge in Ferelden; he can resist it here. ]
Maker, Captain, you know I'm a card player. You think that you can bat your lovely ginger lashes at me and have me show you my whole hand? I'll have you know that it is a point of pride for me that I routinely destroy my friends when we all come to play.
In that case, lets assume for a moment that your suspicions are correct. Let us pretend that ten years ago, Tevinter - a place where one's reputation is everything - sent a man to Nascere to pose as a pirate. There he set to burning his way up and down the coast, ransacking any number of merchant ships plying their trade in the Nocen Sea, and putting a series of the Imperium's own magistrates to the sword - to what end, I truly cannot guess.
Then, preceding the coup in Minrathous and without having accomplished the task Tevinter had poured a decade away and a fortune into, they sent that man to Kirkwall where for a year he has acted under suspicion of the city guard and every ship's crew in Kirkwall harbor, to say nothing of the Inquisition's command. When Kirkwall split from the Inquisition proper and Ser Coupe retired from her position, that man simply stepped into the vacancy.
Is there anything you would like to add before I go on, or do I have the gist of it?
[So he does, strangely even. Not blunted, just sure - a saw's teeth tearing first in one direction and then the other.]
Now then, this man we're discussing - he has spent nearly a quarter of his life in pursuit of a goal which must, I assume, be something along the lines of re-invigorating Tevinter's power and it's desire to expand. If not North into Seheron, then the South will do. This man, who has given up his place in Tevinter, who has surrounded himself with people working counter to it and presumably has breathed no word of his true motives, who has sacrificed his pride and ambition and name, is the one you've invited to sit alone in this room with you.
[Bodily threats are easy. They are also not the point.]
In which case, I find myself wondering what you think you can get out of that man. And I think, as a friend, that we had all better hope you're wrong. Otherwise, that man is very dangerous and Tevinter itself is far more rotted and more clever than I or anyone else has been crediting it with.
Men have sacrificed far more than pride, ambition, and name for love of country, dear man.
[ How well he knows it. But - All of these are, of course, decent points. But at the moment, he's not yet ready to turn to the question of what he wants (because at the moment, he's not certain what it is), and at the moment he's not ready to respond to the threats (they'd just be a distraction). Instead, he muses aloud, gaze carefully watching Flint: ]
He raged against the Imperium - but how much damage did he truly do? So many years on the island, and no real progress made. And now his boats sit in harbor. And Tevinter says, On the island lives a monster; be afraid. And they say, See how the Southerners harbor that monster who burned our countryside and destroyed our lives.
[A month ago, his argument had been with Charles Vane - stay here, stay put, we are making more progress than you know -, and now that man is gone and here comes Rutyer having tripped over and picked up the same knife to undercut him with. You've been here this long, and what have you accomplished? A narrowness overcomes Flint's face where he sits across the table. It's as donning a mask - one of cold fury, but a mask all the same. His free hand, draped over the chair's arm and once flexing its grip there, has at some point gone very still.
At length:]
Have you shared this paranoid delusion with anyone?
Come now, Captain, I've watched as many melodramas as you. The masked traitor asks, Does anyone know? Our hero replies, I've not told a soul. And then a knife across the throat.
[ His long, long eyelashes lower, and he murmurs: ]
I assume, of course, that you do not consider yourself the hero of this tale.
[ Then: ]
Here's another. Tale, I mean. Delusion, if you prefer. Perhaps your hatred of Tevinter is true. And perhaps you see, quite rightly, that Corypheus will be its destruction. No true love for the land, no true love for anything, just a desire to see it burn.
[There is a naked sense of satisfaction in the other man's face and in the easy slump of his shoulders against the chair back. And Byerly has, he is certain beyond measure, no idea what he's talking about.
But this particular story is a hot coal he'd long carried in his clenched fist, and it seems that somewhere - before Kirkwall, before coming South for reinforcements, before the rebellion on Nascere had stuttered to suspension, but maybe in a torchlit room before a maroon queen - he'd found some method of putting it down.
No true love for anything, said so casually, burns the hand these days.
[ And it shouldn't shake Byerly. It shouldn't. Flint is just a man, and Nadine is living a quiet life a continent away - far from the war, far from the reach of any damned pirates. The very words are absurd. He ought to laugh right in the man's face.
And yet. And yet, for just a moment, a frisson runs down his spine, and his lips twitch, and he blinks.
And then the smile is back again, easy and casual. He gestures broadly with his glass, and replies - ]
It's the most singular advantage of being a man like me. I love nothing, and nothing loves me. It's honestly what makes me so spectacularly suited to this job, wouldn't you agree?
[ Then a sip. And he wishes he had the nerve to end it there, to let Flint walk out and try fruitlessly to find some path to revenge. But something foolish in him makes him continue: ]
I want only what I said from the very start. Friendship between us. Shall I define friendship for you?
The simplest of things. Just this: to not scheme against me.
[ Is that really it? Well, no, not quite. He also wanted to see Flint suffer and squirm, and to know that the fool Byerly Ruter was responsible. But it seems that that has been accomplished, despite that sole return jab from the man. And that is satisfying. And aside from that...Yes; Byerly fancies that that really is all he desires. The freedom to do this bloody job. ]
[There - some snapping tension. He laughs, a low frustrated sound, and takes another drink.]
You've put an extraordinary amount of faith in my ability to simply divine your intentions out of all the nothing in one hand and some ambiguous threat in the other.
Trust. [So flat and humorless as to be almost barking. Some ember of anger flashes briefly in his face, white hot, before being rearranged - not hidden, just not there at the forefront in the set of his jaw or the fixed point of his attention.]
I'm sorry. I must have misplaced it somewhere between you having no opinion on any topic whatsoever and the implication that I'm a Tevinter agent. What am I meant to be trusting you to do?
[ A spare, elegant shrug. Honestly, this oughtn't be so hard to understand. And it's not as though he hasn't incentivized the man quite thoroughly. Trust Byerly, or ruin of his reputation and prospects and likely control of his crew would follow. How is that difficult? ]
Your job, as I understand it and as is the case with every Division Head, is to support and guide our efforts here to help win this war. So long as that holds true, and allowing that your work doesn't begin and end with providing worthless commentary from the center of the room, then I see no reason why we shouldn't be happy partners.
[It's good brandy spoiled utterly, so he doesn't feel any guilt for simply throwing the rest of it back. Afterward, the empty glass is set aside - closer to him than to the bottle - and he once more moves to rise from the chair.]
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no subject
What I think is that you're concerned, that you have no idea what you're doing, and that you're jumping to conclusions in an effort to make this arrangement manageable. Maybe if you tell me what exactly you think you know, I might begin to help you make sense of it. [Teeth flashing again:] As a show of friendship.
no subject
[ A corner of his lip curls up in droll amusement. The temptation is bloody strong to let Flint know exactly who he's dealing with. The way he phrases that, you'd think Byerly were a mage-boy, stumbling upon his powers, trembling on the edge of becoming an abomination. Or a fussing, clucking fool like the Seneschal. But the temptation has always been strong with men like Flint - these warriors, brusque and haughty, who treated By like a mincing fool - to stand up and shout, I am dangerous, I am more dangerous than you, I am more dangerous than you could ever be, and you need to see that. But By had resisted the urge in Ferelden; he can resist it here. ]
Maker, Captain, you know I'm a card player. You think that you can bat your lovely ginger lashes at me and have me show you my whole hand? I'll have you know that it is a point of pride for me that I routinely destroy my friends when we all come to play.
no subject
In that case, lets assume for a moment that your suspicions are correct. Let us pretend that ten years ago, Tevinter - a place where one's reputation is everything - sent a man to Nascere to pose as a pirate. There he set to burning his way up and down the coast, ransacking any number of merchant ships plying their trade in the Nocen Sea, and putting a series of the Imperium's own magistrates to the sword - to what end, I truly cannot guess.
Then, preceding the coup in Minrathous and without having accomplished the task Tevinter had poured a decade away and a fortune into, they sent that man to Kirkwall where for a year he has acted under suspicion of the city guard and every ship's crew in Kirkwall harbor, to say nothing of the Inquisition's command. When Kirkwall split from the Inquisition proper and Ser Coupe retired from her position, that man simply stepped into the vacancy.
Is there anything you would like to add before I go on, or do I have the gist of it?
no subject
That is one of the possibilities currently under consideration. But - please, good man, go on.
no subject
Now then, this man we're discussing - he has spent nearly a quarter of his life in pursuit of a goal which must, I assume, be something along the lines of re-invigorating Tevinter's power and it's desire to expand. If not North into Seheron, then the South will do. This man, who has given up his place in Tevinter, who has surrounded himself with people working counter to it and presumably has breathed no word of his true motives, who has sacrificed his pride and ambition and name, is the one you've invited to sit alone in this room with you.
[Bodily threats are easy. They are also not the point.]
In which case, I find myself wondering what you think you can get out of that man. And I think, as a friend, that we had all better hope you're wrong. Otherwise, that man is very dangerous and Tevinter itself is far more rotted and more clever than I or anyone else has been crediting it with.
no subject
[ How well he knows it. But - All of these are, of course, decent points. But at the moment, he's not yet ready to turn to the question of what he wants (because at the moment, he's not certain what it is), and at the moment he's not ready to respond to the threats (they'd just be a distraction). Instead, he muses aloud, gaze carefully watching Flint: ]
He raged against the Imperium - but how much damage did he truly do? So many years on the island, and no real progress made. And now his boats sit in harbor. And Tevinter says, On the island lives a monster; be afraid. And they say, See how the Southerners harbor that monster who burned our countryside and destroyed our lives.
[ He tilts his head to the side. ]
Now, that would be quite rotted and quite clever.
no subject
At length:]
Have you shared this paranoid delusion with anyone?
no subject
[ His long, long eyelashes lower, and he murmurs: ]
I assume, of course, that you do not consider yourself the hero of this tale.
[ Then: ]
Here's another. Tale, I mean. Delusion, if you prefer. Perhaps your hatred of Tevinter is true. And perhaps you see, quite rightly, that Corypheus will be its destruction. No true love for the land, no true love for anything, just a desire to see it burn.
no subject
But this particular story is a hot coal he'd long carried in his clenched fist, and it seems that somewhere - before Kirkwall, before coming South for reinforcements, before the rebellion on Nascere had stuttered to suspension, but maybe in a torchlit room before a maroon queen - he'd found some method of putting it down.
No true love for anything, said so casually, burns the hand these days.
He looks Byerly in the eye, breathing sharp.]
I recommend you arrive at your point.
no subject
[ The question is simple, and asked with a smile. And he waits; it's not rhetorical. ]
no subject
[It's an easy threat and a year of quiet spent in the Gallows should make it seem toothless and hollow. It somehow doesn't.]
no subject
And yet. And yet, for just a moment, a frisson runs down his spine, and his lips twitch, and he blinks.
And then the smile is back again, easy and casual. He gestures broadly with his glass, and replies - ]
It's the most singular advantage of being a man like me. I love nothing, and nothing loves me. It's honestly what makes me so spectacularly suited to this job, wouldn't you agree?
[ Then a sip. And he wishes he had the nerve to end it there, to let Flint walk out and try fruitlessly to find some path to revenge. But something foolish in him makes him continue: ]
I want only what I said from the very start. Friendship between us. Shall I define friendship for you?
no subject
Please. Go on.
no subject
[ Is that really it? Well, no, not quite. He also wanted to see Flint suffer and squirm, and to know that the fool Byerly Ruter was responsible. But it seems that that has been accomplished, despite that sole return jab from the man. And that is satisfying. And aside from that...Yes; Byerly fancies that that really is all he desires. The freedom to do this bloody job. ]
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I can't imagine what good that would do.
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To be given the leeway to actually be the head of diplomacy, instead of fighting you every step of the way? Yes, a mystery.
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Like I said, [he takes a sip of brandy] I can't imagine what working against you would achieve.
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[ A shrug. ]
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[There - some snapping tension. He laughs, a low frustrated sound, and takes another drink.]
You've put an extraordinary amount of faith in my ability to simply divine your intentions out of all the nothing in one hand and some ambiguous threat in the other.
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Is there anything else you'd prefer we discuss or is this as far as we get for today?
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I am asking for trust. Trust does not require understanding another's intentions.
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I'm sorry. I must have misplaced it somewhere between you having no opinion on any topic whatsoever and the implication that I'm a Tevinter agent. What am I meant to be trusting you to do?
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[ A spare, elegant shrug. Honestly, this oughtn't be so hard to understand. And it's not as though he hasn't incentivized the man quite thoroughly. Trust Byerly, or ruin of his reputation and prospects and likely control of his crew would follow. How is that difficult? ]
I didn't volunteer for it for my health.
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[It's good brandy spoiled utterly, so he doesn't feel any guilt for simply throwing the rest of it back. Afterward, the empty glass is set aside - closer to him than to the bottle - and he once more moves to rise from the chair.]
Now, if you'll forgive me, I have work to do.
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