The Listener Tumsa Dareleth paused in front of the door and listened. The rest of the room behind her was dark and cold. Only a flickering light shone from under the door. No voices sounded, but she heard the rustle of turning pages and the occasional light cough from the room beyond.
Some grumpy old cat-woman had ordered the contract. She was clearly crazy, but there had been a box full of shining gold beneath her chair. And no assassin refused a contract if there was plenty of gold involved. The only thing holding her back from the assassination was the target itself. It was only a child. Not yet sixteen years of age. A boy, who insisted he was a man. Tumsa had as always bothered to learn the story behind this contract. Sometimes she regretted this urge.
There had apparently been an accident. Two boys sparring with their first real swords. One of the boys had been the unfortunate winner and the other had been the grandson of a lady who had more gold than sanity left.
The worst thing was - Tumsa sympathized. She knew what it was like to lose family. It was like a betrayal in itself.
She stood outside the splintered wooden door, debating with herself, whether to appease the vengeance of an old woman, or to spare a child's life. Her reveries were interrupted by the outside door banging open, letting in the cold winter air in a whoosh that fluttered the edges of her cloak and set her teeth chattering. Dunmer were certainly not immune to cold. But she had no time to stand around trembling - soon the intruder would look up from banging the last of the snow from his boots and discover an assassin in plain sight, hovering just before the room where his son and pregnant wife were resting.
Tumsa cast a spell of Muffle as quietly as she could and rolled to the side where a table and chairs would block the man's view of her. The only window in the room was unfortunately too narrow for Tumsa to push her wide hips through, so the only way out remained the same she had come in - the door.
The night outside was dark and cloudy, with a light sprinkling of snow falling as it had the last few days. A guard passed lighting the empty street with his torch momentarily, outlining the figure standing in the doorway, and then the front door was shut abruptly. The man sighed and moved clumsily, tripping on a rug and cursing under his breath. Tumsa moved carefully around the table so to out of the man's line of sight. All the while she mused as she had innumerable times previously on how people wouldn't hear anything if they didn't expect to hear anything.
The killing would have to wait until the next night. If Tumsa could do it at all. In the other room the man's wife and son happily greeted the him. Like a family.
She finally snuck to the front door, cracked it open and peeked through to see if the street was empty. No pools of torchlight glittered in the near snow, so she slipped out, in the process swiftly taking off her cloak, turning it around and fastening it around her neck again. The side that was now under was plain and a bit worn-looking black, but the side up was a crimson red, sparkling with elaborate dragons embroidered in gold thread on it. Tumsa pulled down the facemask to her neck, where it hung like a loose scarf. No one could possibly mistake this flashy figure for a suspicious lurker stalking in the dark.
The streets of Solitude were snow-filled and dark. Lanterns extinguished quickly in the sharp, cold winter wind, and no one had the time to re-light them every night. The occasional guard passed, but no citizens wandered the streets. Tumsa made her way to the inn, where she had hired a room the day before. A drunken crowd of youths spilled out of the inn's front door, laughing and pushing at each other. New Life Festival was always a loud affair. Tumsa didn't even harbor the illusion that she could be able to fall asleep in the clamorous inn.
The inn was full of humid smoke and noise and heat and people. Some more youths played an apparently hilarious game involving a spinning bottle. A couple of bards played drums in a corner, but hardly anyone paid any attention to them. Serving girls darted between the tables, carrying bottles and platters of food, occasionally squealing when passing a table of particularly drunken men. Tumsa made her way through the main hall, weaving between the crowds, and up to her room. Upstairs she could still hear the noise, but here it wasn't deafening, especially when she shut the door. She could read a book or something; or she could ponder what to do next.
The streets were even more empty than usual. Everyone was either home sleeping or trying to drink away the hangover. The manor Tumsa was looking for was a way out of the city, behind high gates and a garden full of even higher trees. Their snow-covered branches stood out starkly against the cold blue morning sky. No servants were in the manor and no guards.
Tumsa open the front door hesitantly. Of course there wasn't anything to worry about, but one could never be too careful. The entry hall was as chilly as it had been two days ago, when Tumsa first set foot in the house. She cast a spell of Detect Life, and immediately located the lone pulse of life that could be sensed in the house. It was in the next room, right where she had met the old lady for the first time.
When Tumsa left there was no life in the manor.
Nazir had been furious. He'd never liked Tumsa's methods, and this time his rant had been one of the worst. But Mother had assured Tumsa that the contract had been sealed with blood, and that it was technically the wrong blood was only a little detail that could easily be overlooked.
