The Bard's Tale
Even though there is more traffic every year, traveling in northern Skyrim can still be a lonely affair. Much less dangerous than in the Dragonborn's time, to be sure, with the sharp reduction in the number of predators along the way, both animal and human. But the road still gives you plenty of time for thought, and plenty to think about, if you're a person that way inclined by nature.
I left Dawnstar that morning on a wagon bound for Windhelm, going the slow way to keep company with my books and papers – typical scholar's paranoia, I suppose. The clear, sunny weather when we set out lasted about a third of the way, until we turned west – "longer than I would have laid a bet on," the wagon-driver remarked. It was followed first by a dank fog, and then by wind that blew the fog away, replacing it with bitter little gusts of dry, icy snow that stung and reddened our cheeks.
We saw no one else for most of the first half of the trip, except when passing old Fort Kastav, now Kastav Village, a mining and smelting community established after the Dragonborn's time around the ruins of the old fortification. It seemed a prosperous enough place, with smoking chimneys and a number of people scurrying purposefully here and there. I noticed that most of the defensive stonework had been torn down to provide materials for the houses and shops of peace. Before and after the village, though, the road seemed empty.
But it turned out that we weren't the only ones traveling that day. Just after we reached the end of the road south from Kastav Village and turned left to Anga's Mill and Windhelm, the driver suddenly reined the horses to a stop and pointed ahead. At first I could notice nothing, but when the wind slackened for a moment, two dark forms emerged out of the snow-cloud by the side of the road. One was a man; the other, as far as could be seen, was a horse. The man was dancing about in a rage; the horse was stretched ominously on its side, unresponsive to the various pokes and prods the man was administering to encourage it to rise to its feet again.
My driver reached behind his seat and extracted a light crossbow, loading and cocking it before placing it carefully on the seat beside him. He gave me a significant look.
"Better safe than sorry," he began. "In the old days, something like this would more than likely have been a trap. Today... perhaps not... but I'm not betting my life that it isn't." He peered down the road again. "What's the damn fool doing, anyway? If that horse were going to get up, it would have gotten up by now, and probably kicked his head off as well."
"Maybe it dropped dead under him," I suggested. "He's furious. Look, he doesn't even seem to have noticed us yet."
"Shall we get a bit closer, then? If his horse is dead, he'll be wanting a ride. Long cold walk to Anga's Mill or back to Kastav Village, let alone Windhelm." The driver began to smile. "And if it were a bandit trap, they'd have a widow and a few children out there wailing, not Sheogorath's younger brother makin' a fool of himself for all to see. I judge it's safe."
"As you will, driver," I replied. "You're probably right. We'll know soon enough."
He grunted, and set the horses in motion again, keeping his eyes on the figure ahead, his left hand holding the reins and his right hand never far from the crossbow.
-o-o-
With a few words and a bit of gold, the matter was settled, the crossbow uncocked, and I had company for the remainder of the trip to Windhelm. The stranded traveler turned out to be a bard named Aevar Goldentongue, a Nord resident of Solitude traveling to Windhelm to perform, "by request," as he made sure to tell us. Whether the request was to come to Windhelm or to depart from Solitude, he left unclear, and we were careful not to inquire.
It took the driver only a short examination to realize what had happened to Aevar's horse. When Aevar was stripping the packs off the dead animal, and thus for a moment occupied and out of earshot, the driver came back to the wagon, leaned over to me, and whispered, "Bloody fool."
"How so?" I softly inquired.
"That damned horse was so old the Dragonborn herself could have ridden it," he replied, and snorted. "Drugged, I reckon. The drugs wore off and... that was that. Someone saw the man clear for what he is, and so made some easy coin. And no need for them to butcher or bury that sorry bundle of dead meat either, since he did them the service of riding it away in its last few hours of life. I could'na have struck a sweeter deal myself."
I slipped him a few extra septims and said, "Take it as slow as you can into Windhelm. I want to ask him a few questions, and I'm not sure I want to be seen with him after we arrive. There's something dodgy about him, and I don't want to be stuck with a tavern bill. Or worse."
Our conversation was cut short at this point by Aevar staggering up, sweating under the weight of his saddlebags. He was clearly even more alien to a life of physical toil than I was. He dropped his load into the back of the wagon with a thump, and stood with his head down for a few moments, catching his breath, before he spoke to us again.
"Priceless manuscripts," he wheezed. "My life's work. Songs for every audience, every occasion. Giving words to what they already feel, that's my stock in trade. Not as easy as it sounds, you know. Misjudgments inevitable. Then, a quick change of residence till the storm blows over. Takes a while, sometimes. Professional hazard."
"And you be the victim of such a misjudgment now?" There was just a trace of sarcasm in the driver's voice, too little for the agitated Aevar to notice.
"A careless error. My fault entirely, I admit. I went to the wrong inn, can you believe it? I thought I was singing for a gathering of Nord loyalists, but it was a group of retired imperial officers instead. They still carry their weapons, you know. Noticed things weren't going to plan half-way through the first song, and suddenly remembered an urgent commitment in Windhelm."
He paused for a moment, and then continued.
"At least instinct warned me to start easy, with something ambiguous. If I'd praised up the Stormcloaks or called the Dragonborn a whore of the Daedra in the first song, I doubt I'd have left the room alive."
The driver snorted in derision.
"Let's get along now, shall we? I'd just as soon not be on the road after dark."
We climbed aboard and the wagon began to move down the road in the direction of Windhelm, at a very deliberate pace, I noted with satisfaction.
-o-o-
The wind had died down by this point, and the late afternoon journey was almost pleasant. We rode in silence for a while, until the trees and snow and the slow swaying of the cart became too dull, and Aevar began to speak again. I'd decided to let him lead, since he clearly loved to blow his own horn. He'd already mentioned the Dragonborn, and I was sure he'd tell me most of what I wanted to know without the trouble of direct questioning.
He didn't disappoint. First came a long self-promotion that I can hardly remember, probably because I wasn't bothering to listen very carefully. From what I did catch, I gathered that for all the skill he proclaimed, it wasn't the first time he had found himself in such a situation, and that the trigger was often something to do with the Dragonborn. I pointed this out, and he nodded.
"It's been quite a while, but she's still a sensitive topic. A sort of bellwether," he remarked. "And I think opinions are getting sharper as time passes. At least among those who care the most about it. We have to keep our eye on it for the market. Customer's always right, you know."
"What sort of things do they want?" This was a stroke of luck. I'd always been aware of this undercurrent of feeling among the sort of families that had a copy or two of Nords Arise! tucked away in a chest in the storeroom, but the closest I'd managed to get to them was that crusty old lady on her farm outside Dawnstar, where I had had the excuse of her uncle's story. "If you'd gone to the right inn that day in Solitude, what would they have expected to hear?"
He brightened noticeably, and I realized I was in line for a performance sooner or later, probably sooner.
"All my own compositions," he beamed. "None of that 'The Dragonborn comes' stale stuff with me. But what's your interest in the matter?"
"Purely academic," I reassured him.
I was amused. It was the first time in our conversation that he'd realized he'd done all the talking up to that point. No doubt he was wondering what he could sing without me throwing him off the wagon.
"I don't have a definite opinion on the Dragonborn," I continued. "I had one when I started to study her history, but it's gone this way and that since. Sometimes she looks better, sometimes worse. If you can tell me what those old Nord loyalists want to hear about her, it will be one more piece of the puzzle. A small piece, but an interesting one, perhaps. They certainly won't talk straight to an Imperial from Cyrodiil like me."
He frowned. "Well, Nords? Most of them don't like her, that's for sure. And that's the market we have to take into account. We're not historians. Just servants."
"I thought that the College of Bards saw itself as presenting history in verse. Isn't that how the Dragonborn got that festival, the burning of King Olaf, restored? By bringing the Jarl a verse about Solitude's history?"
He smiled. "Yes, but what you perhaps didn't know is that the verse was bogus. At least half made up on the spot. That's common knowledge in the College. Though we do try to avoid talking about it in front of outsiders. The manuscript the Dragonborn brought back was in bits and pieces, damaged, and there was no other source to use to patch the gaps. So she just wrote in what would sound good. Got the Festival reinstated, as well as quite a bit of gold for herself. A shining example to all in our line of work. That's the real spirit of the College of Bards, I'm afraid. Has to be. Our livelihood depends on pleasing others. As is the case with nearly everyone."
"As is the case with nearly everyone," I repeated, and thought, Not excluding me, I suppose. The final account of the Dragonborn will be positive and heroic, because that's what the Synod expects. My control is limited to nuance, detail. The main theme was set by others before the project began.
Aevar looked around the wagon as if he had lost something. "No lute," he muttered.
"I'm looking for content, not artistry," I reassured him. "If you just recite the lyrics, then I can cut in with questions if I have to."
"Oh well..." he said in a rather sulky voice. I should have known better than to ask an artist for a prosaic presentation. But he recovered quickly, and began to lecture me. If he couldn't be an artist, it seemed, professor would be the next best thing.
"You must understand," he began, "that the negative feelings about the Dragonborn take different forms. The milder ones usually express incredulity that she would support the Imperials, but avoid personal blame. The harsher go after her personally. Or after her relationships. And they are quite harsh. I apologize in advance."
"No need," I replied. "As you say, it's just business."
"Well then. The first one is usually called, 'The Carts of the Headsman.' Pretty mild as the genre goes. But it still got me run out of Solitude."
He began, half-singing and half-chanting, falling into the slow rhythm of the plodding of the carthorses as they inched us towards Windhelm.
The carts of the headsman
Are open and free
To the lord who has fallen
And the pettiest of thieves
One takes a kingdom
One steals a horse
And no one could dream
Whose end would be worse.
The headsman lifts up
His death-dealing axe
But ere he can strike
A dragon attacks
Freeing a Jarl
And a young Breton maid
Who would meet in the future
Over a blade.
Jarl Ulrich was mighty
But nothing availed
His armies were broken
His strategies failed,
The dragon that saved him
Had no better end
Raising a host
That were all killed again.
Aevar paused for a moment to comment.
"That lot in Solitude didn't appreciate my singing that Jarl Ulrich was mighty. Even if I called him a failure a line or two after. Touchy folk, but both sides are. As you can see, though, up to this point I was mainly stressing the irony of Alduin, Ulrich, and the Dragonborn all coming together at the same place and point in time, none of them yet knowing what would become of them later."
The slender pale form
Of the young Breton maid,
Who seemed lost and lonely
Confused and afraid,
Alduin ignores her
Jarl Ulrich forgets
Neither could dream
She would soon have their heads.
After they met
At Helgen that day
The mortals to die
The dragon to save,
She struck down the dragon
On Sovngarde's slopes
And in front of his throne
Cut Jarl Ulrich's throat.
Aevar paused again, "A bit blunt there about the sequence of events, but still not critical, I think. Imperials tend to prefer 'brought to justice' rather than 'cut his throat,' but it comes to the same thing in the end, doesn't it?"
It's the gods who decide
Who dies and who lives
Who prospers, who fades
Who takes and who gives,
The Dragonborn fate
Lies in their hands
Their reasons for gifting
No man understands.
Need the World-Eater's end
Have meant Ulrich's fall?
Are the gods for the Empire?
Do the gods care at all?
Was the ruin of the Stormcloaks
The Dragonborn's fate?
To take up the sword
For those she should hate?
"Sounds more like the song is blaming fate or the gods," I said after he had finished the last verse. "Or saying the gods don't care a bit about the whole thing. It's more impious than blaming the Dragonborn."
Aevar thought for a moment. "It does present the whole affair as destiny rather than human choice. Gives Ulrich the air of a tragic hero, fated. But still, 'those she should hate.' That's judgmental."
I shrugged. "It still seems ambiguous. I suppose there are plenty of songs that make more direct criticisms."
Aevar nodded. "Indeed. Usually centering on some feature that outrages Nords. Such as Daedra worship. The Dragonborn had rather a lot to do with the Daedra, and the more conservative Nords don't like that at all. It's a favorite topic of those who simply can't stand her. They won't let it go. As in the song 'The Mace of Molag Bal,' one of the all-time favorites from my pen." He beamed at me, and began to chant once more,
How can one who fought with a mace
Given to her by Molag Bal
And carried the shield of dread Peyrite
Have cared about Nords at all?
The Dragonborn was of dragon blood
That symbol of Imperial pride
Even if nearly beheaded by them
No wonder she took the Imperial side
The hero of the Imperial line
Deserves no love from Nords at all
Jarl Ulrich's cause was a different one
He fought to be free, for the Empire's fall.
The Dragonborn cut Jarl Ulrich's throat
With the dagger of Mehrunes Dagon
She fought to keep the Nords enslaved
So Imperial rule would go on.
A servant of the Daedra lords
Loves servitude, not freedom
Not proud brave men who serve a cause
But cattle she can feed on.
So Nords, think twice before you praise
This whore of the Daedra, the Emperor's pride
Imperials claim she fought for us
But a true Nord knows they lied.
I think Aevar was still a little bit nervous that I would react poorly to the Dragonborn being insulted so bluntly, since after he sang the last line he fell silent, waiting for me to respond. But there wasn't a lot to say. Getting at the Dragonborn through her Daedric connections had been done long ago, even during her lifetime. And it obviously gave the audience the consolation they were seeking, that the Stormcloaks had been defeated by vast otherworldly forces, or their puppets, forces that no mortal man could have hoped to contend with. Finally, I nodded.
"A weak, wicked tool, then, deriving her powers and abilities from other entities. Do all of the critical songs take this approach?"
Aevar shook his head.
"Some of them are even more insulting. Insisting that she was at the mercy of earthly, mortal forces, not the Daedra. The Daedra have at least a certain grandeur. Not so if you were being manipulated by your spouse, for instance." And he began chanting again,
An Orc is a fearsomely ugly thing, with a god shaped out of shit,
Redguards are bold and devilish proud, but they lie till you have a fit,
Altmer are cursed with such conceit that they must be frequently hit,
Khajiit will usually rob you blind, at night with no candle lit.
Afraid of freedom like sheep in a pen, Imperials long for a master,
Sneaky Dark Elves, Azura's spawn, behave like perfect bastards,
Bretons are weak and quarrelsome fools, good only as spell casters,
Trust in a Wood Elf, he'll run away, and you're headed for disaster.
Aevar paused to comment, and perhaps to judge my reaction as well.
"There's eight of the Ten Races held up to ridicule. One a line. This song is strictly for private parties, Nord guests only. Gods alone know what a orc would do if he or she heard the origins of his god-hero Malacath described the way I do it here. Probably rip out my tongue and stuff it up my fundament."
"Or the other way round," I replied, with a chuckle. Aevar winced, but went on to chant the next verse.
Only a Nord is a genuine man, only a Nord can stand tall,
In life he battles honest and true, in death goes to Sovngarde's hall,
When the banner of freedom is raised in the world, he's the first to answer the call,
Rich or poor, humble or high, he goes forth to fight for all.
"The audience starts to, well, preen when I deliver this stanza," Aevar remarked. "The Nord as the Nord conceives of him. The name of the song is 'The Nord is Best of All,' by the way. Not very humble. Bit different from the real product. I should know, I'm one of them. They like to hear it, though. And we're not quite over yet. One more race to go."
At the other end of the character scale are the denizens of Black Marsh,
Slippery and slimy with slithering tails, they're vulgar and they're harsh,
No freeborn man would have one as a friend, they're born for the slaver's lash,
A major mistake they were ever set free; they should be bought for cash.
When weakness and cunning share the same bed, evil is no surprise,
When the Dragonborn chose a scaly mate, it should have opened our eyes,
No wonder she hated our fight to be free and believed the Imperial lies.
The Dragonborn snared by a wicked love, from a race that Nords despise.
Aevar shook his head when he finished. "The right audience loves it, and will pay a very nice pile of gold to hear it. But the right audience is one that's exclusively Nord men. Even a few women in the crowd can spoil the effect if they feel it hints at criticism of same-sex relationships. I don't see it, but some do find it there. Probably comments in the crowd, not the lyrics themselves. Nord men keep that sort of prejudice to themselves. They're afraid of a beating from their women if they're overheard."
A shadow fell over the cart, and I looked up. The rocky spur on the right side of the road, the one with a Talos shrine at its peak, had stretched its long afternoon shadow over our path. We were near Windhelm now; turn to the right, go over the bridge, and we would be at Windhelm Stables, just outside the gates.
As we crossed the bridge in the setting sun, I asked Aevar one final question,
"What do you think of her? You're a Nord, but you seem to be a bit more independent-minded than some. Hero or tool? Curse or blessing? Or a bit of both?"
Aevar had gone quiet, almost dozing, after he had finished the last recitation, and the question seemed to startle him. His brow furrowed in thought for a moment.
"Well... nothing at all, really. She's business. A hot topic. One to be approached with care, to be sure. But about her as she was in reality? No feeling at all. I can't afford them. The songs change with the audience. No other way, if I want to remain solvent, and unharmed. She might as well have been a figment of someone's imagination. Just care about the business aspect, really."
I smiled, a bit ruefully. Was he really any different from anyone else? Or just franker?
"Perhaps you're a better historian than you think. Or a more typical one. They sing for their audiences as well, thought they don't like to admit it."
Aevar stretched and shook his head.
"I wouldn't know. Just a humble businessman, as I said. In the realm of popular entertainment."
We stopped at the stable, and the driver dismounted to arrange for my books and other goods to be transferred to hand carts and taken to the inn where I would be lodging. Aevar got down as well and shouldered the saddlebags from his late horse, glancing toward the city gate.
"Must be off. It's not often I get to talk through what I sing. Interesting experience."
"Try not to get yourself hurt," I said as he turned toward the gates.
"Oh, no problem," he said over his shoulder, staggering a bit under his unaccustomed load. "A very Nord town. Perhaps I'll work on my nuances. Something between the first song I recited for you, and the second and third. We'll see. The audience decides."
"Indeed," I replied, as he began to trudge towards Windhelm gate. Then I sat in the rays of the setting sun, watching my driver bargain with a pair of the much-insulted Argonians over my baggage, and wondering how different I really was from the Aevars of the world. Not as much as I would prefer to believe, that was uncomfortably certain.