With A Black Nightingale
This had two inspirations - one was the fascinating series of Thieves Guild quests in Skyrim which I ran through with a Redguard stealth archer. The other was the Bob Dylan song Changing of the Guard which had so many parallels in the quests that I started to wonder whether the dev who wrote that quest line was a Dylan fan too. Three verses are quoted below but the rest of the song is worth reading - or indeed listening to - in its own right.
"Fortune calls.
I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace,
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down.
She's smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born,
On midsummer's eve, near the tower.
The cold-blooded moon.
The captain waits above the celebration
Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid
Whose ebony face is beyond communication.
The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid.
They shaved her head.
She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo.
A messenger arrived with a black nightingale.
I seen her on the stairs and I couldn't help but follow,
Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil."
"Changing of the Guard - Bob Dylan"
"So you're bringing in yet another stray, Bryn?" Vex was leaning against the wall of the Flagon, paring her nails with a stiletto. Her eyes were amused. "I know we're short of recruits these days, but surely this is scraping the bottom of the barrel. A Redguard doesn't exactly blend in round here, you know. She'd better be something special."
The big Nord chuckled into his mead. "Aye, lass. She is that."
There was a snort from Delvin. "Brynjolf's fallen for a pretty face again."
Brynjolf refused to be ruffled. "Listen, the lass took a ring and planted it on that piece of crap Brand-Shei - and not only did no-one in the market see her do it, I didn't see her do it either. And I was watching her. So instead of asking awkward questions tonight, that Dark Elf troublemaker is cooling his heels in Riften Jail and trying to convince people he was framed. Don't you think that made her worth a look? And no - the lass is not pretty. Even with the blonde hair."
Delvin laughed. "A blonde Redguard? Now we know she won't blend in. I take it her mother liked a bit of Northern seasoning to her Southern stew?"
Brynjolf yawned. "Del, can you ever manage three sentences without being offensive? Divines only know what her parents were, it's none of our concern. And the lass is quick with her daggers as well as a bow, so I'd resist the temptation to try for a quick tumble there if I were you."
Delvin snorted and openly scratched his crotch. "Won't be trying for a tumble anywhere till I see the apothecary. The last whore had lice. Been scratching myself raw for three days."
Vex looked revolted. "Too much information. Delvin, you're disgusting."
"Only just worked that out, have you?" The bald man laughed openly at her and walked back to the bar.
Brynjolf looked towards the door that led to the Ratway. "Anyway, if she was going to show, she would have done it by now. Either she's cried off, or she fell foul of someone out there. Pity."
"My apologies. I would have been half an hour earlier if I hadn't met with some company."
The three thieves spun round. The Redguard girl was walking silently out of the back passageway that led to the Ratway Vaults...no, girl was the wrong word. Vex guessed her as a woman in her mid twenties, and no, she wouldn't have been called pretty by anyone. Honey blonde hair which would probably have been in tight frizzy curls if it hadn't been braided tight to her head, dark copper skin that was fairer than most Redguards but still many shades darker than the hair. Broad cheekbones, a snub nose and a wide, generous mouth that looked like it would smile easily. Healing burn scars all down the right side of the face, trailing down the neck and disappearing under the...Stormcloak cuirass she wore?
"You're a Stormcloak, lass?" Brynjolf seemed truly surprised.
"No. But my first experience in Skyrim was riding to my execution in a cart, bound and gagged, and sitting beside Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak, after the Imperials picked me up on the docks and didn't want to listen to explanations about where I'd come from. When a dragon disrupted the executions, I sought out the Jarl and offered him my services. Told him he at least knew why I hated the Empire. He laughed. But he wouldn't take me on. Gave me the cuirass and told me to come back when I had some muscles on my sword arm."
"The man's a fool then, lass. You may not be a brawny Nord berserker, but I saw the archer's callouses on your fingers. And the daggers you carry. Too many Nords think anything other than a battle axe is useless."
She nodded, and sat down on a stool by the bar. "Your guard dogs in the tunnel thought that too. I assumed you didn't want either man killed, but I left them a few good scars to remember me by."
Vex raised an eyebrow. "You bested both of them?"
"Well, one of them thought I was a different sort of woman. While he was trying to catch a feel, I kicked him in the balls and then pinned his friend to a wall with his own dagger while the first one was writhing on the floor. I wasn't going to waste an arrow on him...for all I knew, you might have had a need for the man later."
From anyone else this might have sounded like bravado, but it was delivered in flat tones that came across purely as a statement of fact. The Hammerfel accent was not as noticible as it might be, only a broadening of some vowels gave away that she was not brought up in Skyrim. Brynjolf cast a glance at Delvin who grinned. "Message understood, Bryn, I'll keep my hands to myself. Welcome, Redguard. Why do you have the blonde hair anyway?"
Brynjolf sighed. "Lass, this is Delvin. Third in command round here, joint with Vex. Foul sense of humour, fouler mouth. Ignore him. Most of us round here do."
The woman seemed amused. "It's a fair question. My mother was Redguard, my father was Nord. I never knew my father. Mother just said that things happen in war. Been answering the question all my life." She tweaked a loose strand of her wiry hair. "Tried dying it a few times but it usually looks worse when I do."
Vex laughed. "Do you have a name?"
"Philomena. Most people call me Mena"
"Just Mena?"
"I have no last name. Not until I earn one for myself."
That silenced all three of the thieves. Brynjolf took charge. "Well then lass, welcome to the Thieves Guild. We'll put you up with the other recruits for now..."
"Such as they are," Vex said. "We aren't exactly bursting at the seams these days."
"Aye, lass, our numbers are down at present. We'll find you something to wear that's a little less obvious than that Stormcloak garb, there's towns in Skyrim where you wouldn't want to walk through the gate wearing that. There's a few small jobs round here that you can do for us to earn your keep. I take it you're short of coin or you wouldn't have come here anyway."
Mena nodded. "I've a few septims, but it wouldn't have carried me further than a bed for a week in a dosshouse somewhere. And despite what you said to me in the marketplace, I've done no thievery in Skyrim. Yet. Wanted to see whose toes I'd be treading on first."
"Sensible lass. But you showed me that you were no novice in the market."
She grinned, a feral expression on her otherwise calm face, and turned the scarred side of her face to the light, laying a finger on her cheekbone. "I think you can say I'm no novice, yes."
The other three peered in the dim light and suddenly Brynjolf made a startled noise. "I see. Well, lass, Vex will find you a bed, take food from any of the shelves in the Cistern if you're hungry. I'll talk to you in the morning."
As the two women left, Delvin turned to Brynjolf. "I saw the brand by her eye ...what was it? That's no penal brand I know of."
Brynjolf was looking thoughtful. "No, that's no penal brand. That's the Black Talon. She's survived the Thieves Guild training in Hegathe and been marked for advancement. They give that brand to maybe one recruit in a year, if that. Most of them end up as Masters. So what is a Hammerfel Talon doing in Skyrim in the first place?"
"You could just ask her, you know."
"And you think the lass would tell me?"
"All right, maybe you have a point."
