Foreword:
Seventy one years after the Oblivion Crisis and nearly thirty years since the events of the Infernal City. For the first time in a decade, at the urging of Emperor Attrebus, Daggerfall hosts a summit to negotiate trade interests in the western provinces. The spirit of cooperation is not always the greatest motivation of the powers of Iliac Bay. Both blood and wine may spill.
Authors note: With some artistic license, all reasonable effort made to maintain general parity with existing canon established in Oblivion, The Infernal City/Lord of Souls, and Skyrim. That is, where absence of detail leads me to be plausibly creative, I try to at least avoid 'contradicting' known lore.
Rated M for mild adult content.
Although it should go without needing to be stated, let it be said: Bethesda owns The Elder Scrolls and all related materials. I am merely contributing my own interpretations in a public forum and no profit is derived or intended from my work.
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Additional note: This story follows on rather loosely from my previous tales. Even so, some effort has been made to allow this story to function as fully stand-alone.
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Winter of Intent: An Elder Scrolls Tale
Greg J Miller
~O~
Chapter 1
Middas the 30th of Sun's Dusk 4E71 Morning
Edwyn Northwind fussed with the documents he was sorting, before again putting them back into his satchel. He really had no need to doubt that he already had everything that he thought he needed to take with him. Even so, he still felt the want to properly check through it all again.
Closing up the satchel again, he brushed a lock of light brown hair behind his subtly pointed ear, then looked about the bedroom with a somewhat vacant stare. He felt almost certain that he was forgetting something, but he couldn't quite place precisely what it might be.
"Edwyn, haven't you finished packing yet?"
He turned toward the doorway, observing his wife standing there with an expression of annoyance upon her face. He knew that he needed to be down at the Portside District of Wayrest in about three hours. Even so, he thought that he still had plenty of time to make sure that he was fully prepared before setting off.
Francine released a huffy sigh as she headed for the open trunk.
"I was just about to finish with that." Maintaining a conciliatory tone, Edwyn tried not to further provoke his wife's ire.
His Breton wife huffed again as she examined the content of the trunk. After a few moments of checking through what was packed, she also took note of what he was currently wearing. "Surely, you're not wearing that to the Daggerfall Court?"
Edwyn raised his eyebrows. "This is what I always wear on the job." He was wearing his usual outfit. Though far from shabby, it was not notably expensive in appearance. His attire tended to declare that though his station was far from poverty, he was not of nobility, nor of those pursuing aspirations of that kind.
Francine strutted over toward the appropriate wardrobe to look inside. "You should be wearing your blue coat, at least within the Daggerfall Court." She withdrew the expensive looking long blue coat with the golden yellow trimming and ornate metal buttons, holding it out at arm's length.
Edwyn stepped nearer to his wife to accept the coat.
Shaking her head, Francine huffed again. "You need to take the trousers that go with your blue coat… and the right shirts… and the velvet-lined shoes."
Edwyn remained silent. He knew better than to offer any protest or argument.
Francine continued to select the items that she was talking about, making a point to also remove specific items from the trunk that she didn't want him taking along at all. "If you're supposed to be representing Queen Carolyna's position during this trade thing, then you should look the proper part."
Taking a slightly different tack, Edwyn tried to maintain a conciliatory tone. "During recent times, there's been far less hostility… or tension… between Wayrest and Daggerfall. Not like it was back when Queen Elysana was dealing with King Gothryd. I'm quite sure that things will remain perfectly civil."
Francine released a short sharp sigh. "Maybe. I suppose… I suppose that it did improve with Daggerfall, after Camaron took over from Gothryd."
"Things improved even further once Queen Carolyna took her mother's place. Neither of those two have ever needed to hold greatly differing positions during any conflict."
"Not yet." There was a tone of warning in her voice. "The Queen will want things to stay that way… and there's no way to know if Prince Gothryd will feel the same… once he becomes King Gothryd II. Daggerfall has always looked to the prosperity of Wayrest with… with contempt… of some sort. It's never been enough to just be the ruling city of the Province... in the eyes of the Empire."
"I hardly think that anything that I might… that I might, er…" Edwyn was interrupted by the muffled sound of someone knocking at the front door of their North Riverside home. He looked toward the doorway leading from their bedroom.
"Ignore that. I'll go see what it's about." Heading for the open doorway out of the upstairs room, Francine pointed back toward the trunk. "You need to finish that… and don't you go putting those ratty grey shirts back into the trunk. Take those other ones I laid out."
With a quiet sigh, Edwyn returned to the task. His thoughts drifted a little as he started folding those items Francine had selected and returning the others to the wardrobe and cupboards.
He started casually thinking about how far he'd come since he'd first started working at his parents' trade operation with his older sisters, over in the Eastmarket District of Wayrest. Of course, it was really more about how far his fortunes had shifted, than how far he'd travelled.
He had travelled just a little, but only as far as his work required. Wayrest had always been home. When he was still very young, the Northwind family all lived above the shop. He only barely remembered something of that time. A little later during his childhood, the family moved over to the house in the Riverside District. Though it seemed far too large for her on her own, his mother still live there.
It was only after he'd married Francine that Edwyn moved to the North Riverside home where they still lived. Much like his mother's house, that place had also come to seem a great deal larger and quieter since Nikulas and Guilbert had moved out. Even so, they still saw their sons fairly often, along with their young grandchildren.
Unlike his parents or siblings, Edwyn had lived all his life in Wayrest, having been born there sixty-one years before. It was fair to note that both Monika and Erika also passed most of their formative years in Wayrest. Still, both his sisters had been born before their parents finally came to Wayrest.
Since she was only about two when they shifted from Solitude to Wayrest, Erika held no real memory of anything before they'd come to the 'Jewel of the Bay'. Since marrying Roberto and starting her own family, she'd always seemed perfectly content to continue running Northwind Traders.
By notable contrast, Monika remembered moving about quite a bit when she was very young. She'd been far too young to recall anything of the Imperial City, but she did remember something of that trading port on Solstheim, as well as the Nord's capital city in Skyrim. She would have been nearly nine by the time that they finally settled in Wayrest.
He supposed that to be just part of why she'd travelled so far and eventually settled in the Imperial Province. He also acknowledged that her poor choice of first husband certainly played some notable part in her leaving Wayrest behind. By Edwyn's reckoning, Monika's second husband seemed a far better man. Though he'd read some of the letters his mother had received, it had been some time since he'd seen either of them.
Catching his reflection in the mirror, Edwyn recalled that his father seemed much older by the time that he'd reached his sixties, but then his father had been Nord. His mother's Altmer blood meant that Edwyn appeared perhaps no older than a Breton in his mid-to-late forties. He imagined that he'd quite likely live to an age of far more years than his father had. Francine was nearly ten years his junior, but they now both looked near to the same age. He truly hoped that she would live near as long, but he knew well enough that the length of Breton lives varied quite a bit. It could easily go either way.
Shifting his thoughts from such things, Edwyn's mind returned to the matters of his work and what lay ahead. By now, he'd been with Wayrest's Guild's Board of Associates for more than twenty years. He'd started off in a relatively junior position, before quickly rising to fully represent the Eastmarket Traders on the Board. After many years, he'd finally risen to the position of Chief of the Wayrest Merchants Guild. That meant that he oversaw interests of the merchants of Eastmarket, Westmarket, Cumberland Square and the rest of the city. Given his relatively humble background, that was a notable achievement.
Unlike many of those who had held that position before him, he wasn't from one of the noble families of Wayrest. He wasn't even distantly related to the Gardners, Cumberlands, Horleys or even the Gaeringtons. Nor was his wife, not directly anyway. Edwyn had earned the position through hard work, upon merit alone. The same could not be so firmly claimed by many others of similar standing, whether with the Merchants Guild or any of the other related specialty guilds. It was certainly common knowledge that nobody in any position of influence within the Bankers Guild of Wayrest arrived there without being born into nobility or marrying into it.
It had been ten years since the last time there'd been a trade summit like that in the western provinces of Tamriel. The previous time, it had been hosted in the ruling city of Hammerfell. It had been Edwyn's predecessor who represented the Wayrest Merchants Guild when it had been held in Sentinel.
Edwyn didn't view the task ahead as any opportunity to elevate his own status. For him, it was just part of his job to represent Wayrest's trade interests, as well as those of the Queen, and to see to it that the task provided for favourable outcomes.
Of course, it was actually Emperor Attrebus who had called for the trade summit in Daggerfall. The continuing flow of valued goods into the Imperial Province of Cyrodiil was only part of the reason for the summit. Naturally, the Emperor's interests were motivated toward seeing strengthened trade ties between the remaining provinces of the Empire.
Strong trade served to breed peaceful relations between the outer provinces, and in turn, that also served to bind the fabric of the Empire more firmly. Undoubtedly, Edwyn would only be dealing with the Emperor's Trade Ministers and other representatives. Nonetheless, several of them likely held the Emperor's ear, if not in political matters, then at least in matters directly relating to their respective responsibilities.
In any case, none of that was really any of Edwyn's primary concern. He just needed to look to properly serving the trade interests of Wayrest Merchants Guild and the rest would see to itself. Anything of a purely political nature was well outside of his proper purview.
Francine suddenly appeared in the doorway again, drawing his attention. She looked annoyed. Edwyn was just standing there with a folded shirt in his hands and a vacant look upon face. Lost in daydream, he still hadn't finished packing his things.
"There's an Orc down at the front door."
"An Orc?" Edwyn returned a dumbfounded expression.
"She says she's contracted to serve as your bodyguard."
Edwyn frowned. "Bodyguard?"
"That's what I said." Francine sighed with annoyance. "You better go see her. I'll finish this." She pushed him aside to see to finishing with packing his things.
"I'd said… I said that I didn't need a bodyguard in Daggerfall. I'll be in the Royal grounds most of the time that I'm there."
"The Orc is waiting down by the front door." Francine pointed to the doorway with agitated wave of her hand, urging him to leave and go attend to the door.
Edwyn remained silent and hurriedly headed off. Descending the stairs, he made his way directly for the front door. Francine had left it wide open. The female Orc stood just outside, looking very much like an armoured guard watching over the entrance of the house. She seemed of relatively slender frame, but still notably muscular. She wore her dark hair cropped short on top, with several beaded braids down either side of her pointed ears. At a glance, she looked to be in her late twenties or perhaps early thirties. It was hard to tell with Orcs. Some aged quite rapidly and others more slowly. Many sought out lives that ensured that old age would never be a concern.
Removing her hand from the hilt of a dagger upon her hip, the Orc affected a forced grin that didn't quite reach her dark eyes. Her expression made her lower canines protrude from her lips in a somewhat menacing fashion. "Edwyn Northwind?"
"Well, yes."
"Yurma gra-Sharma. Fighters Guild. I'm to be your bodyguard." The Orc spoke much like a soldier reporting to a superior for duty.
Edwyn shook his head slightly. "I didn't call for any…"
"Guildhead Wickfield sent me."
Of course, Edwyn knew Madena Wickfield, the somewhat older Breton woman still in charge of Wayrest's Fighters Guild. She'd been the local Guildhead for more than three decades. He shook his head again. "I'd told my people that I wouldn't be needing a bodyguard in Daggerfall."
The Orc appeared unmoved by his response. "I'm told the Merchants Guild made the contract. Guildhead Wickfield would've sent Garish gro-Yargol, but he's not come back. As a personal favour, she sent me in his place."
"Personal favour?"
"My father is Uzgark gro-Baroth of Ripwold. My uncle asked her to send an Orc."
Edwyn realised exactly who she was referring to. Karl gro-Baroth had been the Guild Master of Chorrol's Fighters Guild up until he'd retired to go live with his brother's family in Ripwold. Some decades back, he'd served alongside Edwyn's older sister Monika, when she was still with the Fighters Guild in the Imperial Province. Evidently, the old Orc viewed it some sort of matter of honour to see to it that Northwinds received special attention, even though Edwyn certainly thought it unnecessary.
Edwyn wearily shook his head, accepting that he clearly wasn't going to have any say in the matter. "Very well. You'd best come in, then."
Yurma tilted her head in a questioning fashion. "I was told that you had to be down at the Portside District well before noon, to board the vessel." She tried to look up to see the position of the sun, but the roof of the house was in the way.
Edywn nodded. "That's right. On the Glenumbra Heron. Plenty of time… I think."
The Orc reflected his nod and stepped inside the doorway and then off to one side as Edwyn closed the door.
Yurma didn't appear comfortable with proceeding any further inside. "I should wait right here, until you're ready to go.
Edwyn opened to his mouth to suggest differently then changed his mind, deciding that there was no point in trying to persuade her to go take a seat. "Very well. I need to go finish packing before we can be on our way."
The Orc merely returned a nod of understanding, showing no sign of intent to shift from where she was standing.
Edwyn frowned. "Do you have er… bags… or a travelling pack?"
Yurma shrugged awkwardly. "I have everything I need." Without moving from her position, she turned slightly to one side.
Edwyn observed what she was indicating. He noticed a small pack tucked beneath the heavy shield on her back. He imagined that it could've held nothing more than perhaps a coin-purse and some very basic supplies.
Wasting no further time, Edwyn left the Orc to stand vigil in the entryway as he headed back upstairs to Francine, to see to finishing his final preparations to depart.
~O~