12Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks. Hi team, it's good to be posing again. Happy Valentine's Day or Singles Awareness Day, depending on how much you like your current status. Thank you all for each and every view, favorite, and follow. But thanks in particular to Naruto, Chris, Kai, Meyer, and BassTheatre for their regular/insightful feedback.
Among the first things I did upon being released from Imperial service was accept Jarl Free-Winter's offer of rank and title. My acceptance came with a large, ugly mansion named Hjerim and a large, ugly housecarl named Calder. He in turn sported a pair of large, ugly mutton chops hanging from his jaws.
Unnatural as it might seem, there were a number of advantages to becoming a Thane of Eastmarch. First and foremost was Hjerim itself. The manor house on the west side of Windhelm was large enough to shelter the cadre of warriors that joined me in the recent battle. I was grateful to have the Circle and my housecarls with me too. I wasn't exactly popular with the locals.
Not that I could blame them. The resentment and desire for revenge was profound in the city I helped tear apart. The city blocks below the walls were fire-blackened ruins. Hundreds of families were destitute in the wake of the siege. People packed into the houses of friends and strangers, stores, inns, and temples; wherever they could find a place to spread a cloak on the floor. The elves of the Gray Quarter were unwilling at first to house refugees, but a delegation of elven soldiers and officers from the Legion were able to 'convince' most of the residents there to open their doors.
Almost as bad, the details of my reply to Ulfric's last request spread somehow. The charismatic rebel Jarl had developed a folk-hero status in the streets of his fiercely separatist city. For most of the locals, my refusal of his last request was just one crime of many I had yet to pay for. Until the Legion lifted the lockdown on travel, I was glad to sleep behind a thick oak door and a rotation of proven friends.
There were times I was obliged to leave my house in the days after the battle. First and foremost, I was one of the few witnesses at Ulfric's funeral. A scant handful of people were permitted to attend the Jarl's last rites and three cohorts were stationed to keep the public a long way from the Hall of the Dead where the ceremony took place. His personal banner was folded to join several other tokens of the Legion's victory on a tour of the remaining cities of the Empire, afterward it would be hung from the rafters of the throne room in the White-Gold Tower.
A day later Tullius decreed that all citizens of the Empire in Eastmarch should witness the disarming of the Stormcloak army. Tullius started with Ulfric's remaining general, Frorkmar Banner-Torn and Jarl Skald of Dawnstar. After presiding over the destruction two legions in the Pale, they brought their forces into Windhelm before Tullius could cordon the city. With Galmar Stone-Fist they orchestrated the defense of Ulfric's capital. Now they were the highest ranking rebels in Imperial custody. The two men were brave and struggled mightily. In the end, each required a dozen men to hold their chains and drag them to the headsman's platform just outside of the city where everyone was assembled to watch. Their roars echoed off Windhelm's distant walls as the executioner's axe came down to extract the Empire's price for rebellion. The blows rained down until their sword arms were severed just below the shoulder, never to be raised against the Empire again.
The rest of the Stormcloak army was disarmed in a less brutal, yet subtly crueler fashion. Every banner or device, down to the simple pennants used to signify the location of a company, was cut from its pole and laid on the great funeral pyre being assembled on the grounds of the Legion's artillery park. As the rebel soldiers were marched home beneath their bare poles, they were obliged to throw their weapons to the side of the road and pave the intersections with their shields. For years hence, one could cheaply buy pitted steel or tarnished moonstone recovered by scavengers. As the shields rotted wayfarers would pile the hoops and scraps to the sides of the intersections. No traveler in Skyrim could be ignorant of whose weapons they were or how they came to be there. Everyone knew someone who was obliged march home empty handed.
I suppose the captured Stormcloaks could count themselves fortunate. Those holdouts caught in the wilds were simply put to steel; their bodies left to rot under the indifferent sky; their loved ones never to know their fate.
I also had the strange experience of actually seeing my sins in the act of finding me out. Though in hindsight, I wonder if I had it coming. At the time, I was observing Tullius handle a Thalmor Justiciar.
"There is no Temple of Talos in Windhelm," Tullius deadpanned to Nuala. Ambassador Elenwen had sent this knife-eared demon and her bodyguards all the way from the embassy in Haafingar to nag us about that humiliating treaty. Tullius remained relaxed and lied to the Thalmor Justiciar as if she actually believed the words coming out of his mouth.
"All that remains," General Tullius was saying, "Is a small memorial to Tiber Septim, who you could agree is Skyrim's favorite son. The building's keepers comply with every law."
I stood silent, fuming with anger. If all were right and just in the world, this shouldn't have required deceit. The vast majority of humans in the Legions worship Talos. I worship Talos. We pray to him as willingly and sincerely as the Dunmer to Azura or the Aragonians to the Hist.
It took all my self-discipline not to sneer or grumble while watching the exchange.
"Forgive me for sounding impatient when I beg you to hurry your departure Justiciar," Tullius continued, "Windhelm is still an unstable place, and if some rebel hothead should see your robes, he or she might try to start another war."
"Madam Ambassador will be glad to hear of your concern for my safety, General. But my duties to the Dominion require me to remain in Windhelm for the next several days. At least until a permanent justiciar can be assigned. Until then I shall require a room here in the palace," Nuala replied.
Tullius nodded. "I'm sure Jarl Free-Winter will be glad to find suitable accommodations for you," He said before the Jarl could refuse.
"Send a messenger to Candlehearth Hall when the room is ready," Nuala commanded before turning and leaving.
Tullius remained silent and held a stiff posture long after the Altmer and her bodyguards departed. "Gods help us if Skyrim isn't ready when the past catches up with the Empire," he mumbled to Legate Rikke and Jarl Free-Winter.
I thought it an apt, if strange choice of words.
I should have anticipated that Nuala's would never be content to wait in her room at Candlehearth Hall. I should have been vigilant. I'd been complacent in the security brought by the Thalmor thinking Ieago of Kvatch was dead at Helgen. But the Altmer inquisitors had a new enemy: Ieago the Dragonborn, Thane of the Holds. Distracted as I was by Alduin and then by the Civil War, I'd thought the Thalmor would content themselves with easier prey than a man who could slay dragons and break cities. After my stunt at the Embassy, I thought Ambassador Elenwen would have the sense to leave me alone. I don't know why I thought that way. The truth is I wasn't so much a priority as I was a target of opportunity. The Dominion had bigger fish to catch in Skyrim. I was vain. I was stupid. I was a poor master. Gods forgive me I was a poor husband.
On the night of the attack Aela and I were sitting by the fire with Lydia. It was Calder's turn to guard the house that night, so the rest of us were scattered and unarmed. A few days had passed since Hijerim was vandalized or the word 'traitor' flung at me in the streets; so Calder thought little of opening the door to the person knocking that evening. A city guard stood there with a sword in hand. Even as the rest of us stood to face the new threat Calder fell to the floor with a hole in his throat.
Without a declaration or challenge the man of Windhelm's militia advanced, fixing me with strangely blank eyes behind his helmet's mask. I was about to draw Revenant when a grey blur roared in at the intruder, snatched his mask, and used that grip to fling the attacker to the ground. A black smoke grew from the guard's body as Farkas readied his free fist for a fight-ending blow. We looked up to see a towering woman clad in the black robes of the Thalmor Justiciars. Beneath her hood was a metal mask almost identical to the one I recovered from Rhagot and the one Nahkriin wore atop Skuldafn.
The masked justiciar glanced over my shoulder and turned to wisps of black smoke before I could call out or Farkas could attack. I turned around to see Lydia clutching her head and screaming in agony. The noise cut off like a hand was clapped over her mouth and Lydia straitened like a puppet whose strings were being pulled. Before any of us understood what was happening she shoved her shoulder into Aela, slamming my wife into the cobblestones of the fireplace. Lydia's hand wrapped around Aela's face and drove her head into the stones. There was a sickening crack as skull gave way to masonry.
I waded into the fight; wondering if I had it in me to see Aela and yet another friend dead even as I ducked the first punch and sent a fist into Lydia's iron-hard abdomen. The fight went on for a few more seconds. Lydia's puppet master might have been able to use Lydia's graceful strength and dexterity, but she could not tap into Lydia's lifetime of expertise. I backed off my attacks, changing from the kicks and punches I use to end a threat to the parries and grabs I employ to subdue.
By the time the assassin realized she wasn't going to win; Argis, the brothers, Iona, and Jordis were arrayed behind me with swords and axes in hand.
"Submit, Justiciar," I commanded in a threatening growl.
But if she was willing to concede defeat, she was equally unwilling to be slain by her quarry and his henchmen. The smoke came from every pore of Lydia's body as the Thalmor killer abandoned her host, allowing Lydia to wilt to the floor. The masked agent's hands flew forward and I found myself battered aside by a ferocious telekinetic punch. Her robed form flew between us and out the door. I snatched Revenant from Jordis's hand and ran after the robed figure with Vilkas and Argis on my heels.
We barreled down the avenue after the robed woman. We were catching up when her black form converted to that baleful mist and flew toward another guard who was openly staring at the spectacle. His possessed body began running and shouting, raising a hue and cry against me. I was growling like I was still a werewolf when I caught up to the assassin near the market district. I leapt ahead, tackling her host. The Thalmor's ankles appeared before me as the guard and I hit the ground. The Altmer was running as hard as she could for the early-evening crowds in the market area. She disappeared into another host and slipped into the milling crowd as Argis gave me a hand up. I began running like the wind for Hjerim.
"She is not dead," the middle-aged cleric said after a long time. "None of her injuries are serious and have been well treated. But possession and exorcism are traumatic in the best of circumstances. Her body and mind simply have decided that she needs a rest," He peeled back one of Lydia's eyelids to look into her unseeing pupil. "She'll wake up on her own. Later rather than sooner I daresay. Until then, keep her warm. She is to have a light meal once a day. Grind it to a thin paste, she'll swallow on reflex. Give her at least four cups of water over the course of the day, enough to keep her tongue from swelling. If she should thrash in her dreams, keep her from falling off the bed, but do not otherwise hinder her.
Farkas hung on Lortheim's every word, eager for the least encouragement that Lydia would be well. "Don't worry my son," Lortheim said gently. "I can't tell how long it will take, but she will wake up in time. Be sure there is a familiar face when she does. Even if she should wake tomorrow, she will be confused; and very weak."
Farkas and Vilkas nodded their understanding while I carried a pot of boiling water to the surgeon and his assistant. They'd brought Aela up to a table as soon as they arrived behind Jordis. After cleaning their tools, the assistant began sharpening knives against a strip of hard leather like the barber he probably was. Meanwhile the surgeon was carefully probing Aela's head injury, seeking for the softest, darkest spot on her scalp.
"Fractured skull," the Breton surgeon pronounced as he took a razor from his assistant and began to carefully shave a patch of hair away from Aela's left temple. The whole side of her face was dark red except for a patch just forward of and above her ear. There her face was so deep a purple it was almost black. The bone surrounding her temple was swollen and soft to the touch. "Your healing spell likely stopped the internal bleeding, but blood will still linger on her brain. She must be drained if we are to prevent lasting damage." Fear gripped my chest with the knowledge that I was about to see the love of my life go under the knife again. I ran to the kitchen to vomit in a bucket at the sight of the assistant testing the mechanism of his trephine before rinsing it off again in the steaming pot of water.
"Shit," I gasped after wiping my mouth. My arm shook as I tapped the spot on my right arm where my badge usually rested. I wiped a cold sweat from my face. I walked back into the mansion's main room at the sound of boots clomping though the door. There was almost a dozen of Windhelm's guards in my living room. Their shields were high and swords were pointed at me as they made a semi-circle. A legionary battle mage was behind them, subtle flames rising from his poised hands.
"You're under arrest Thane," the leader of the soldiers said, "For assaulting men-at-arms of Windhelm's militia and disturbing the peace."
"Shit," I said again as I dropped Revenant to the floor and kicked her behind me into the kitchen.
I admit that I find it counter-message to depict violence against women on Valentine's day. I hope you all will forgive me my indulgence. In equal measure, I hope my writing has sold you on how deeply Ieago cares for the people in his life.