2Chapter 1: Desperate Economies
Myrick watched as the veritable armada of ships approached Kirkwalls' harbor. His father had ordered the refugee ships to stay anchored out at sea until given permission to dock and unburden themselves of the desperate souls aboard.
He knew his father though, and Myrick could already see the tragedy about to play out. Viscount Dumar would do the absolute minimum that he could get away with. Which in this case meant taking on a thousand or so refugees, as slowly as possible to make it look like more was being done, and sending the rest of them back to Ferelden.
It was wrong. Not just morally either, the sheer loss of potential that was just sailing into their hands was a disaster he wasn't willing to allow quietly.
Walking from the castle window Myrick was nearly bowled over by an official running to see something or another handled. News of the blight beat the refugees to Kirkwall, even if only just. If word was to be believed the darkspawn were already massing in the Korcari Wilds, and he dearly hoped King Cailan could smother it before the blight seeped into the rest of Thedas.
Rounding the last corner brought him to the main hall, seeing the Throne of Kirkwall empty, he continued on to the office where his father nominally conducted the more tedious aspects of governing. Bran was there, a barrier against the still-growing throng of nobles seeking to make their opinions known.
"Lord Myrick!" Lord Reed's rather loud announcement of his presence drew the eyes of the line, "Please, my Lord. Surely you mean to talk to your father, these Fereldens have nowhere else to go. To send refugees back into the middle of a blight is monstrous!"
"Bah!" Lady Yorin waved a hand in dismissal as if to swat away a pest. He knew her better than he had Lord Reed. The woman had a tendency towards the theatric, but also a mind for politics that never failed to see her family where they needed to be when an opportunity presented itself.
"Please, everyone." Myrick held his hand high to draw the attention of the assorted peerage and passersby alike. "I assure you that the situation is in hand. The Viscount knows that this is a delicate time and that many of you may be nervous about the prospect of foreign refugees in the city."
By this point even the guards and the servants had stopped to listen to his impromptu speech, though some of the nobles regarded him wearily, he understood their concerns. It really shouldn't be his place to address this, but needs must.
"I would ask everyone to remember that no nation ever plans to be the victim of a blight and that Ferelden surely didn't mean to place any of us in this position." Even if the nobles didn't seem particularly taken in by his words, the common people present were nodding along.
"It's Ferelden this time, as it was Tevinter and the Anderfels before them. Next time a blight comes about, it may be Kirkwall and the Free Marches that suffer. Our people that need shelter and aid as refugees on a foreign shore."
He walked to Bran, the man's expression the same apathetic disinterest that was always present in the public view, staring him down. "So please, go home for today. If you wish to offer aid and help with the refugees then please come back tomorrow when the Viscount has had time to settle where that aid may best be spent."
Myrick stood there with sweat beginning to grow at the base of his neck. The silence carried on as several long seconds ticked by before, with a grumbled pardon, the first nobles at the back of the line broke away and made for the stairs back down towards high town.
He took the chance to enforce the dismissal as he passed Bran and quickly escaped into the office proper. Once the heavy stone door clinked shut behind him Myrick took in the state of its occupants.
Let it be said that Viscount Marlowe Dumar does not handle sudden changes or crises in general with an overabundance of grace. He loved his father, truly he did, but that doesn't lessen the shame he felt to witness the man with an amber-shaded drink in one hand and his head in the other.
His brother was little better. Saemus, his elder by three years and the rightful heir of Kirkwall. The man who was currently reading another of his damn philosophy books shipped in at expense from one of the four corners of Thedas. It should have been him outside corralling the nobles and calming the people.
He knew given the way information flowed through Kirkwall his words will no doubt have reached even low town before the gossip of the day had finished.
Myrick knew his brother required a gentle touch to motivate, but right now his priorities shouldn't need a reminder.
"Father" the Viscount of Kirkwall placed his diminished glass down before joining the free hand with the other in trying to massage the no-doubt growing migraine away.
"This is a disaster" his father's voice was scratchy with wear and heavy with exhaustion. "A blight in Ferelden was bad enough, and of course, they wouldn't consider taking the land route into Orlais. No, instead a fleet of beggars has decided to darken our shores instead."
"Then send them back." Saemus chimed in, never bothering to look up from his book as he turned over the pages in a quiet rustle of fine-grain paper smoothing across one another. "Do we even have proof there's a real blight? For all we know it's just a large gathering of darkspawn or some unruly lords covering for themselves."
"I'm not sure it matters, they're here now and our problem to deal with." His father cut in as Saemus dropped back into his studies, Myrick fought the urge to chastise them both. Yes, they couldn't know for sure that it was a true blight until more news came in, but that didn't change the opportunity they'd been handed.
"I can't say whether it's a real blight or not, we might consider sending an emissary to Ferelden to get a better picture of what's going on firsthand." Myrick took the seat before his father's desk.
It placed him in the supplicant position, but it was, unfortunately, fitting for what he'd come to suggest. "I've already taken care of it, Lord Trier will depart on the morrow for Denerim."
"What were you thinking for the refugees?"
"What else can be done? We let them in, slowly, and when the city starts to grow restless we send them off. Either back to Ferelden or onto Ostwick." He took up the glass and emptied it in a long draw, sighing contently from its warmth.
"We can't" his father watched him, the tick in his brow allowing me to gauge his mood. "Please, can't you see what an opportunity this is? There are going to be thousands of them, all probably having lost what homes they had to darkspawn. They won't have somewhere to go back to, if we settle them here they'll stay." Myrick was leaning forward in the large seat, his hands gripping onto his knees. His tutors has warned him away from his compulsion to gesticulate when he talked, it wasn't easy when his excitement ran high.
"You can't be serious?" To his shock, it was Saemus that chimed in rather than his father. "What benefit is there in housing thousands of people with nothing? Father would have to give them food and supplies; that's not even starting on how the people of the city are going to react to a bunch of Fereldens suddenly running around."
"Yes, Saemus. I am serious. Sure there's going to be some expenses up front. Food will probably have to be brought in from Ansburg anyway; Ferelden isn't going to be shipping nearly as much food to us if there really is a blight rampaging through its countryside. There's already a million people in this city, I doubt we're going to notice having to feed even ten thousand more mouths if it comes to it."
"That's different" his father decided to enter the conversation with a huff. All the better sense Saemus, apparently done with his quota of political responsibility for the day, went back to his reading. "That food will be paid for out of the pockets of workers, not out of our coffers. The expense to pay for settling in thousands shouldn't be underestimated, not to mention the nightmare if the city riots in the lower districts."
"You know as well as I do that the treasury is overflowing at this point, you've barely spent any of the extra in years. Don't think of this as throwing away sovereigns, instead, it's an investment. We'll make the coin back and extra in just a few years." With that I finally have his attention, what his father lacked in political ambitions he made up for in a love of profit. Much of Kirkwall's treasury had been filled from trading ventures he spearheaded with a newly independent Ferelden.
"How many mining operations have been stalled or failed to produce enough results because there is just not enough labor? We have the entire Planasene forest in our borders and still, we buy most of our medical and alchemical herbs from Orlais or Tantervale. Expand the villages bordering the forest and let them harvest the herbs and lumber to save us having to import it all."
Myrick sprang up and started to pace as the ideas rushed through his mind and into the world as his father stared on. "We could enlarge fishing towns that dot the coasts, draw people with experience and no criminal connections in the city into the guard, and that doesn't even include all of the children they'll add to the Viscounty in the next generation."
He could see his father struggling with the vision, the idea of the massive undertaking no doubt a daunting prospect. The possibility was there, however, and with one more push, he was confident the Viscount of Kirkwall would lean into the desire.
"I understand what I'm proposing would be a large project, and I know that you've already a hundred different things that need your attention at any moment. So please, let me do it." Myrick could tell the moment it clicked into place, for his father.
"Very well, but I expect constant reports on your progress. If they start causing more problems than they're worth, however, know that I will begin turning back new arrival." He drew out a fine page of paper, and with a few quick sentences and the heated wax was ready to poor. "Am I understood?"
The condition took much of the joy out of the moment as a weight fell heavy onto him. He nodded back but had to fight off the sensation to shiver. If he couldn't get them settled, and quickly at that, they'd all be shipped off. Considering the rather vast fleet already waiting in Waking Sea, he'd have to get everything moving quickly.
Messing this up wouldn't be just his own embarrassment, there's a good chance anyone turned back may end up in the path of the blight. What are the odds they'd survive being forced back, with nothing to their names and a kingdom already pushed to the brink against a mindless wave of carnage like the darkspawn?
Every soul they were forced to turn back would be another life he condemned to die through his own incompetence.
His father pressed the seal of Kirkwall onto the writ giving him permission to act in his name. "Best of luck son, it's no easy task, but I'll pray to the Maker for your success."
Chapter Notes:
The story will feature different POVs from time to time, though largely it'll be either Myrick or Evelyn (Female Hawk). Chapters will always be completed in the POV they begin in to avoid that choppy feeling of bouncing back and forth.
The story is an AU, so expect changes to begin taking place relatively quickly. Some events will remain as they were in the games but expect the lead-up and results from them to be altered to account for what has happened.
Population for Kirkwall was taken from the actual "codex" of the games, where it was said that the Tevinter population when they held the city housed 1 million slaves alone. When accounting for the reality of there having to also be hundreds of thousands of free people occupying the city as well; I'm sure you get where I'm going. I settled on trying to keep the game's stated population size, so expect that to affect the story. Kirkwall is no longer just the keep with a few city blocks and a port that feels like its population was a few thousand. This is a Kirkwall proper, the once-upon-a-time jewel of the southern reaches of the Tevinter Imperium, and I mean to represent that.
If you have any questions, please, feel free to ask them in the comments. Thanks and I hope you enjoy the story going forward.