Special thanks to 16DarkMidnight80 for going over this!
-J-
Having traveled hard and pushed the horses, Mjoll and I were able to make it to Whiterun to stay the night before continuing on to Falkreath. As I was in Whiterun and knew who Ulfric had lined up to take over from Balgruuf, I decided it was best to see him for myself. So I left Mjoll contentedly drinking mead in the Bannered Mare. Being unused to horses or long travel—having been stationary in Riften for so long—she didn't argue babysitting me while I made my personal calls.
A housecarl is a defender, but a wise one knows the difference between defense and a stranglehold. And Mjoll knows or surmises that I can take care of myself for the most part in a town or city. I'm not so well-known outside Windhelm that I need to worry about assassins just yet.
I studied Vignar Grey-Mane, who studied me right back. He wasn't as old as Eorlund—or didn't look it—but was a bit thicker around the midsection than an active man would be. He dressed with more attention and richness than his relatives which suggested he enjoyed a certain degree of leisure. I thought him a bit… well. I can't say I took a violent liking to him at first sight. I won't call him a flimsy character but I do think he might be flimsy compared to me when it comes to doing what is necessary.
I won't overburden him with definite information.
Since Vignar knew he was up for the throne, it was best he knew me as one of 'Ulfric's people.' As I was a friend of House Grey-Mane, no one would question my visit to Fralia and Eorlund's. And as long as I visited Ysolda (whom I'd seen at the gate, chatting with the Khajiiti caravan) no one would question my business in Whiterun.
"My lord Ulfric sends his regards, Master Grey-Mane," I finally announced.
"That's good to hear," Vignar agreed. "Though I don't believe we've met." His glance at Fralia indicated the only reason he believed me was because Fralia did.
"Leandra Grey," I answered. "Thane of Windhelm."
Vignar's eyebrows rose. "Then I am in illustrious company."
"Not so very. I merely wished to make your acquaintance. His lordship speaks highly of you."
Vignar's expression took on shades of self-satisfaction. "I hope there's other kinds of speaking going on."
"Of course, and I believe those things will bear fruit soon. But I need a few things from you, answers to a few questions I have."
"Oh?"
I'd been considering plans for Whiterun, but had come up against a few obstacles. "I need to remove something from Whiterun discreetly. Not now, not so very soon, but soon enough."
"I'll think on it."
"I'll need people inside the palace supportive of the Stormcloak cause—and supportive of the Jarl's family."
Vignar looked at me curiously. "I'll make some inquiries, of course."
"When I said dedicated, I mean it. One hesitation or deviation from plan on their part puts innocent blood on their souls."
"…ah. That kind of dedicated." Vignar studied me, not liking whatever my patchwork of ideas introduced into his mind. "I'll make inquiries," he said softly.
I'd decided that the best way to Balgruuf was to grab him by the heart and squeeze. That meant using his children. So I need something to keep the children quiet; I don't need them screaming and fighting and carrying on. Someone might get hurt and if they happen to be that 'someone' my plan goes out the window.
I need a drug or something and time to work out dosage. It's easy to overdose someone, but otherwise…
"Anything else?" Vignar asked cordially. Clearly he felt involving 'innocent blood' on the hands of those not sufficiently dedicated to the cause unsettled him… and colored his opinion of me in no good way.
"If you can keep your people out of bowshot when the siege comes, that would help. I might need two or three to act as guards for the thing I'm removing—until my lads can take over."
"Your lads?"
"I can't very well secret myself and them in Whiterun during a siege," I frowned at him.
Fralia said nothing, she hadn't liked the ideas 'innocent blood' suggested either, but in the vein of a mother reckoning on a fellow woman I think she was willing to believe I was acting in the children's interests rather than against them.
"You'll be here?"
"In person, sir. It's my plan, after all. I can't very well trust it to anyone else—that would be irresponsible." It's something I don't intend to tell anyone except Ulfric and Galmar.
"Indeed," Vignar agreed, sounding hearty… but in the way that covers unease. "Is that all?"
I decided not to mention the narcotic I needed in front of Fralia and Vignar at risk of alienating the former and finding the latter losing his nerve. Strange how people prefer the drawn-out bloodshed of a battle to something quick, clean, and effective.
After all, I'll be there to superintend. A well-laid plan might go wrong, true, but I'll have precaution after precaution, alternative after alternative, and I'll be there to decide how best to deal with people's interferences with my plans.
It warmed my heart a little to know I wasn't being cavalier with young lives. I'm not quite that much of a monster.
-L-
"I'm sorry," I shook myself out of my brooding to study a disapproving Ysolda. A spark of inspiration hit me like a blow to the head. "…there's a town in the Pale having trouble sleeping—bad dreams, people are talking about bad omens and hoping for a competent set of hands."
"Why hasn't anyone contacted the Vigilants?"
"I don't know." Truth is, I don't know if that issue has been resolved or not—it could well have been and news of a problem fixed doesn't travel as quickly as news of a problem. "But I was thinking, there could be a market for sleep aids until a professional problem solver moves themselves to intervene."
Ysolda frowned, then a faintly sneaky gleam came into her eyes.
"I know that look," I chuckled.
She turned pink in the cheeks, as if I'd accused her of something not quite awful but not at all proper. "It's not as bad as you think—and I won't profiteer on those poor people's sufferings," she answered, as if to counteract the sneakiness I'd observed.
"No more would I," I added hastily. But that's the market and however sweet a girl she is she understands that as well as I do. It's the sweetness that keeps her from taking advantage of her clients and completely fleecing them by being the only option for a product.
Ysolda shrugged. "Well… I did hire someone out to take care of this but he's not come back."
I disappeared behind my tea. "Spill."
"Well, there's a tree in the Hold—I've seen it, so I know it's there," she began excitedly. "I mean, I only found out about it a few months ago through a traveler's tale. It's called Sleeping Sap Tree for obvious reasons: its sap makes you healthy as a cave troll but slow as a drunk horker."
"Really?" And that's just its raw form. Imagine what a skilled alchemist like Nurelion could do with it. If I were superstitious I'd say the Divines had just smiled on me. I reached into my satchel and produced my canister of maps, which I unrolled and rifled through until I found Whiterun's. "Do you know where it is?"
Ysolda considered the place, then set her finger down. "Somewhere in here," she pointed to the western half of the province. "This is as close as I can place it, but it had giants camping nearby. That's why I hired a fellow."
I'm not worried about giants. I don't want to just go careening after the stuff, either. It would make me seem overeager. And yet…
No, I'll get started in Falkreath. But stomping around in the wilderness needs planning and preparation and I've done neither.
But I would like to see if Nurelion couldn't refine something like this sap into a true sedative.
"Tell me about this tree. I don't think I've ever heard of it."
"Of course not, it's supposedly a secret—and only a few people listen to the Caravans," she answered smugly, disappearing behind her tea. "The tree glows purple, and the pond it grows out of gives off a strange sort of mist. Some say that when Vvardenfell erupted, a piece was blown to the middle of Skyrim and from the crater grew the tree." Ysolda suddenly chuckled, shaking her head. "But I've also heard that it was a spore that fell from an island floating in the sky. That just sounds like nonsense."
"It does." But however it came to be there, it is there and can be harvested.
"You seem to know everyone and their dog. If you know anyone who enjoys tempting fate in his spare time, you'll let him—or her, I suppose—know I'm looking for sap? I pay out a hundred and fifty septims for each vial of this size," she indicated with her hand a vial about as long as her middle finger and as round as the circle made by her forefinger and the first bend in her thumb.
"I'll put the word around and see if I can find any takers. No promises, though—not with dragons and poisoners and partisans in the war creeping around."
Ysolda's mouth dropped open and she shook herself. "Could you imagine what armies would do with something like that if they found out about it?" The idea clearly displeased and worried her.
"I can. I'll be careful who I tell," I agreed somberly, appreciating the irony. The sap would lose its value to me if it became a widely-known thing. Someone would cook up something to counteract it.
-L-
I debated whether to stop in Riverwood at all. It struck me as odd, wanting to avoid meeting Gerdur, though I couldn't quite explain to myself why I felt that way. But just as I always updated Fralia about her sons, even when I didn't have letters from them, I felt it my duty to let Gerdur know her brother was still alive and well.
So I compromised with myself: I would ride through Riverwood and if I saw Gerdur or Frodnar I'd stop and pass the time—but be clear that I did need to reach Falkreath before nightfall. If I didn't see them, I'd continue on.
To my relief, the adults seemed at their work and Frodnar at his play, so I passed through without being remarked.
"My thane?" Mjoll reached over and touched my arm, her expression etched with concern. "Are you alright?"
I found my expression had fallen into deeply unhappy lines. "I'm sorry," I forced my features back into pleasant neutrality. "I didn't sleep well last night. My dreams troubled me and I fell into brooding."
More like brooding over the future. I shouldn't, since it hasn't come yet, but…
"That's something I understand," she said sympathetically. "But brooding encourages them to come back."
"It does," I agreed. "You looked like you were having a pleasant time at the Mare."
Mjoll grinned. "Had a few lively sorts in there." And, in a kind effort to keep me from brooding, she proceeded to tell me about it in detail.
-L-
Valga Vinicia was a charming woman who was born to be an innkeeper. Plump and chatty, she had a way of getting people to open up to her. Maybe it was the sparkle in her eye, maybe it was the rowdy and boisterous—but never too boisterous—atmosphere the Dead Man's Drink maintained. I always enjoyed the irony of the name versus the atmosphere of the establishment.
"Narri!" a voice boomed. In any other establishment the maid would have flinched, but Narri simply turned as she set someone's tankard down (and with a smirk avoided the attempt of the patron to catch her hand along with the mug). "This mead takes like water and the meat has gone off!" In this case, the patron didn't sound like he was joking.
I stood on tiptoe, leaning on the bar to support my weight to see Dengeir seated in a corner.
Dengeir was Jarl before his nephew somehow got in. I don't know the whole story and it doesn't really matter: one's quite as bad as the other, to hear the citizenry. Dengeir was going crazy with paranoia and his snot of a nephew would fit right in in Riften among the classless and corrupt.
Unfortunately for me and probably Falkreath, Dengeir was Ulfric's pick, the plan being to reinstate him as Jarl. In my opinion this is a mistake.
"The mead is the same as it ever was," Narri said in a chipper tone that didn't match the way her mouth pursed between sentences. "And the meat is fresh. Maybe your sense of taste has 'gone off.'"
The end of this sentence 'along with your mind,' was unspoken, but everyone who could read between the lines laughed heartily. It wasn't kind, but from Narri's tone the accusation of tampering was old and ceased long ago to be amusing. That she could smile cheerfully while sounding pleasant as she answered back said something about her character.
Dengeir huffed irritably. "The impertinence! If I were still Jarl—"
"Dengeir," Narri's smile was all syrup, plunking the fresh tankard Valga had slipped to her, "we had this argument every week even when you were jarl. Why should that change, hm?"
Dengeir huffed bit, but looked mildly mollified.
If Narri hadn't been in public, I think she'd have rolled her eyes. After all, why should such a paranoid man come to a tavern where anyone could put anything into his food or drink?
"At some point we should hire Tekla on, here. If she could just spend less time serving Dengeir…" Narri mumbled to Valga with an appealing look.
Valga sighed. If it wasn't an old thing, she'd have been offended at Dengeir's comments about mead like water and meat gone off. But he's a good patron and she won't alienate him, even if she'd let tongues wag freely in his direction as long as it's done playfully enough for the atmosphere to allow.
Narri is someone else people talk to. She can ensure that a barbed comment doesn't offend the one she sinks it into with a scrunching of her nose—and because she's not scrunching her cute little nose at them, no one else misses the barb so everyone laughs at someone else's obliviousness.
"I wish I could afford to pay you and Tekla, Narri," Valga said, shaking her head.
"Is the inn doing badly?" I asked, rejoining the conversation.
"I can't match whatever Dengeir pays her to put up with his nonsense and taxes…" Valga shook her head, but bared her teeth in the way she does when she's biting back a malediction against someone.
"Do you know what he did the other day?" Narri asked me, glowering.
"Hey, Narri!"
Narri sighed, then pasted her smile into place. "Duty calls," she said in a singsong tone.
"I do at that," Valga grunted. "If it weren't for Thadgeir…" She shook her head.
Thadgeir spends a lot of time trying to keep the peace between his brother and everyone else. He's a good man, but I don't envy his position.
"I keep waiting for him to toss her out; I won't feel so bad about not being able to pay as well, but he doesn't. And he won't. I don't think there's anyone else who would put up with him—that girl is a saint."
"Is Siddgeir being clever?" I asked sympathetically, paying for another round and directing Narri to take it over to Mjoll who was sitting by the fire and watching the rest of the room.
Valga's nostrils flared. "Clever. See that hefty lad in the corner there, with the squint? If I could lay him off I could hire Tekla and give poor Narri a raise. Know why he's there? Siddgeir—and pretending he doesn't know a thing about it, the wretch—paid a fellow to shake me down. When that fellow was turned out on his ear, he came back with friends." Valga frowned. "After hours. Smashed a few things up before the guard caught up with them. Got off with barely a slap to the wrists. Now, I don't know why they haven't come back, but I pay the lad and give him room and board. But the day after those louds were released, Siddgeir makes adjustment to the taxes claiming it's an Empire-wide change."
I could see the malediction she was biting back as if it was etched in the air above her head. "What's Siddgeir's problem?"
"If I had to guess," Narri hissed softly as she returned, "inadequacy. If you know what I mean." She winked at me and I had to chuckle.
"As long as you don't actually know," I answered.
"She can certainly do better than that," Valga muttered.
"Not difficult, Valga," Narri laughed loudly at this. "Explains why he is the way he is, though. Single Jarl without even a fortune-hunting would-be mistress chasing after him? Maybe word got around."
"Speaking of word getting around," Valga grinned wolfishly at me and poured me a glass of wine. "You've always got the juiciest gossip and I never see you anymore."
"Yes, I've been conducting business on the east side of the Province. But surely you've seen my friend Ysolda handling business on the west side?"
"She had mentioned that," Valga agreed, pushing the goblet towards me.
"You know me so well," I paid the sum for the wine, which is unusual in Skyrim but my favorite anywhere. "Well, there's a mage angling to make a name for himself in Riften."
"Good luck with that," Valga said, and it was hard to tell if she meant it honestly or sarcastically.
The thing about Valga is that she doesn't care Empire or Stormcloak—each is as good and bad as the other. She cares about Falkreath, which Siddgeir understandably would find threatening—because he's not Falkreath and is only pro-Empire because it's more profitable at the moment.
"The Butcher in Windhelm was found and killed."
"Thank goodness for that. Who got him?"
"A band of concerned citizens. Turns out it was some funny little man running a museum—a necromancer of all things!"
"See? This is why we in Skyrim don't like having to do with magic!" She almost snarled. "Too many freaks in the lot." Then, as if she didn't much care, "What was this one up to, then?"
"Well, it was thought he was trying to resurrect a lover… but the girl turned out to be his sister. I'll admit, I was a bit disturbed when I heard about that." A lot of people in the know were disturbed about that. It still gives me the creeps and makes me glad I'm not a mage.
"Like I said, too many freaks in the lot," Valga huffed.
"There was a business with bad dreams up in the Pale."
"We'd heard—but that's been put to rest, so to speak. Couple of Companions must've gotten bored and hauled themselves up there. Some Daedra or other got its smallclothes in a knot. You know how they are." She gave me one of those speaking looks of her, which made me smile.
"I do." And it makes perfect sense. "Valga… why do you think Siddgeir is being such a little snot?"
"Because he can't help it," she answered flatly, but not repressively. She sighed. "It got back to him that more than one person at more than one time joked I'd make a better Jarl than he would. Joke that it was, the support of it must've worried him. Bit of his uncle showing itself, I expect."
I considered this as I sipped my wine. I have two glaring problems with regards to Whiterun that I don't think Vignar can help with. I need a safe place to move Balgruuf's children and keep them—somewhere other than where their father is, and somewhere I don't need to tell Ulfric about. I don't trust him not to get ideas in a fit of pique or vindictiveness when he feels he's been provoked and try to use the club I'll be holding over Balgruuf's head beyond what I intend. So they need to be somewhere else, somewhere safe and quiet. I'm almost certain I can convince Balgruuf to tell them a little lie: that this is his doing to keep them safe and they should be the obedient and good children he knows them to be.
That shows what he knows, but his word will keep the experience of being kidnapped and held by outside powers less traumatic.
I also need someone to look after them, someone trustworthy. I don't think I'd like to ask any of House Grey-Mane. They're too partisan… but wait. There's an idea… there's an ongoing saga between two young people in Whiterun, one from House Battle-Born and one from House Grey-Mane. I expect they'd be married by now and possibly expecting their first if they weren't on opposite sides of a feuding family… or if they had a way around that stumbling block. Because to leave Whiterun where they'd be safe would require a plan of some kind—you can't just wander about Skyrim living off love and kisses.
This bears thinking about. The question remains, as it often does, how to make it happen. A safe place and patronage… in return for managing a household for me and looking after 'my little brothers and sister' (though, eventually, the truth will come out). With it being put about Whiterun that they'd run away together, they'd keep their distance until they had reason to believe tempers in both families had cooled off. They're not partisan, these two lovers; they may even be like Valga, interested in what's good for their Hold rather than respecting current status quo or 'the way it's always been.'
I'll have to meet them, talk to them, and see what I think once I've done so. Otherwise I'll need to find some other appropriate person. Someone I can trust.
"Leandra?" Valga, almost laughing, thumped the bar several times. "You've got the dreamiest expression I've ever seen on that stern little face of yours. Met some lad have you?"
I looked up, wondering that my expression should have gone 'dreamy' while considering what I'd been considering. Better than blankly staring at the bar, I suppose. "Yes." And at risk of brooding, which is bad for planning, I tried not to think too hard about the matter. Four weeks in the field is ample time to change one's mind or come to correct realizations.
Valga choked a little. I've been accused of being far too picky. "Well," she responded, a little off-balance by the unexpected answer to her teasing. "…if you come up with any ideas about my problems, I'd love to hear them. Goodness knows I've looked them over front, back, and sideways."
"I'll see what I can do, Valga. I couldn't do less for such a good friend." Maybe I should send some muscle… but I can't just leave even one of the lads—or their lads—twiddling his thumbs here. That would be wasteful.