Chapter 17 – The Jarl's Desire
Kjartan awoke, as he had many times before, with a distinct impression that there was someone in the room with him. This time, however, he had the distinct impression that the unexpected visitor was someone pleasant, perhaps even desirable.
"It's about time you woke up."
Serana was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him with a bemused expression. "I was having a good dream for once," he mumbled, his mind still half asleep. Suddenly, he realised that something was wrong with this situation. "Wait, what are you doing in my room?" he said.
She laughed. "You've forgotten already? The inn had only one room available."
Something still didn't seem right about this. "I'm still dreaming, aren't I?"
Kjartan cringed when it became apparent that he was not dreaming, and he had just revealed far too much about his innermost thoughts.
"What makes you say that?" she said, grinning. "In your dreams, am I often in bed with you?"
You really stupid, do you know that? Might as well tell her about all the times you stole candy from the cupboard as child. "I really am like an open book," he said with a sigh.
Serana leaned closer. "So all I have to do is run my fingers down your spine and you'll open right up?"
She was only teasing him, he knew, and there was no true desire behind her words. Few things were worse than getting one's hopes up only to have them cruelly dashed against the rocks of reality.
"Can you ask something?" she said, her voice going quiet all of a sudden. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but who is Marasa?"
Her question was like a knife to the gut, and whatever mirth was in the room instantly evaporated. "What? How…how do you know that name?"
"You said it in your sleep."
Kjartan buried his face in his hands. "Oh gods, I can't believe this..." He let out a sigh. "When I said that my family sent me to Skyrim to get married, that was only half of the tale."
"And the other half?"
"I told you that my family takes matters of bloodlines and lineage rather seriously, hence all that nonsense about finding a woman of 'good breeding.' But I didn't give a toss about any of that. My mother and father married according to the dictates of propriety, and what did it get them but twenty years' worth of misery? I wanted someone who made me happy, bloodline be damned.
"Marasa, she…she was a Dunmer woman, a member of House Redoran. I don't want to bore you with some maudlin tale of lost love, but when we were together, it was the first time in my life that I felt genuinely wanted and desired, and she made me realise that my life could be something other than an endless wasteland of loneliness and despair. But of course it couldn't last." He took a deep breath, trying to quell the growing bitterness in his heart. "My family was furious when they found out what we were up to. A Nord, carrying on a Dunmer? A respectable individual would never befoul his bloodline in such a manner. So they sent me off to Skyrim and told me never to come back until I had found a proper wife."
Serana looked down. "Did you ever find out what happened to her?"
"No, and that's what hurts me the most. Since I came here, I haven't gotten so much as a single letter from her. I told myself that it's because there's no way to find me in Skyrim, but other people have gotten letters to me without any trouble. Whatever the reason, something tells me I'm not in her thoughts anymore." He stood up. "I shouldn't go on like this. Self-pity is a terribly indecent thing to peddle."
Indeed, it was addictive as a bottle of skooma, and just as pleasurable. And to his great misfortune, he had an exceedingly large stash of it.
"It's not self-pity to speak of your sorrows, Kjartan. You don't have to be a typical Nord glacier."
He changed the subjected, eager to talk about anything else. "Speaking of glaciers, I hope you don't mind travelling across one. Are you sure you don't mind the cold? Those clothes of yours don't look particularly warm."
"My clothes won't be a problem. They do come off, you know."
The Wayward Pass stood before them, a narrowly cloven path that was dim and silent. The high walls on either side sheltered them from the wind, but the air was bitterly cold and Kjartan found himself shivering uncontrollably. He was chilled to the bone, and his thoughts were occupied by images of a hot bath and crouching by a warm fire.
Without saying anything, Serana reached over and took his hand. "There's no one else around," he said, puzzled. "No one's going to be shocked."
"Maybe I'm not trying to shock anyone. Maybe I just like holding your hand."
Again with the teasing, he thought. He couldn't blame her. The stifling and puritanical attitudes that dominated Skyrim could drive even the most loyal souls to rebellion. Maybe Ulfric would never have started this whole senseless rebellion if he had just gotten someone into his bed now and then.
"I'm curious about something, Kjartan. The Nords of this era…do they know where children come from?"
He laughed. "I think most figure it out eventually, if only be accident. But I imagine some go their entire lives without learning the truth. You know, I once heard this story. I don't know if there's any truth to it, but there was once a jarl of Dawnstar who died heirless because he never figured out how to sire a child with his wife. He just assumed that children came into the world merely as a consequence of being married."
"But you know where they come from, right?"
"I may have had a sheltered upbringing, Serana, but not that sheltered. When I came of my age my father hired a, um, lady of negotiable virtue to teach me what it meant to be man."
She frowned. "'Lady of negotiable virtue'? You mean a prostitute."
"If you want to call her that, then yes. I didn't sleep with her, of course. Instead I just started ranting and raving about how much I hated my family, and she was surprisingly sympathetic. I'll never forget how, right before I left her room, she said that I was 'the most beautiful man she had ever seen.' I guess she just wanted to lift my spirits."
"Or maybe she was just telling you the truth."
He stopped. "What? No, that can't be right. When the Imperials confiscated my amulet of Mara, they said that someone as ugly I am shouldn't be allowed to wear something like that, lest I scare the women and children."
Serana was clearly puzzled by all this. "They called you ugly? Should they call a duck a pig as well?"
Kjartan shrugged. "As far as I can tell, most women in Skyrim want a man who's a bit rough, someone who likes he might die with a blade in his hand instead of in his sleep. It wasn't always like this, however. What's fair and foul changes with the years, and maybe things would be different if I'd lived a few centuries back."
She tightened her grip on his hand, and Kjartan felt his face flush. "One more thing. When you parents told you to find a 'good woman,' what did they mean by that?"
"Well, she had to be someone from a noble family, naturally. It was expected that I would marry someone from a family with wealth, land, and most importantly, political connections." He stopped and looked at her. "I don't wish to pry, but I'm certain your family placed similar expectations on you."
"They did, once. But that was before we embraced our gifts. A vampire, even a pure-blood one, isn't exactly what most noblemen are looking for in a wife." She said nothing for a while, and then added, "Kjartan, can you keep a secret?"
"From whom, exactly? I don't exactly have a lot of people I could reveal secrets to, you know."
Serana looked away. "This is embarrassing, but…I know I said I didn't like love stories, but a part of me has always longed for the storybook romance. Candles, flowers, poetry, making love on a bed of roses, that sort of thing. Stupid, stupid thing to want, I know."
For a while Kjartan did not know what to say to her. "You wanted a knight in shining armour?"
"A knight? No, I'm not interested in warrior types. Too many of those in Skyrim. I want someone of a more intellectual inclination."
The heat in his face was almost enough to banish the cold. "I'm sorry to say that those sort of folk are rather rare in Skyrim."
"In that case, if I find one, I'd better hold on to him. And I'll make damn sure no one else gets her hands on him, either."
An amusing recollecting sprang to mind, and it was enough to make him grin. "All this talk of marriage is making me a bit nauseous. You should consider yourself fortunate that vampires cannot get married in Skyrim."
Serana cocked her head to the side. "What?"
"Oh yes. About fifty years ago High King Hrolder the Mad claimed that a coven of vampires was seducing the young women of Solitude, including his wife. For whatever reason he thought that he could put a stop to this by outlawing marriage between the people of Skyrim and anyone of the vampiric persuasion. Of course, since Hrolder wasn't exactly of sound mind, the 'vampire coven' was entirely imaginary. As was his wife."
She took in his words, looking as if she were trying to determine whether there was any truth in them. "You just made that up, didn't you? I've gotten wise to your tricks, Kjartan."
"It's true, I swear!" he said, fighting back laughter. "That's the thing about Skyrim, see. I could think up something completely ridiculous, and it wouldn't be half as strange as the things I've seen in this land."
"You'll have to tell me all about it sometime. Preferably somewhere warm, of course. Like in a tavern. Or by the fireplace. Or in bed…"
Having been raised among the nobility, Kjartan had learned the etiquette of the court from a young age. Any gentlemen worth his title rarely spoke of desires openly, but instead couched them in subtle hints and allusions, and something was telling him that Serana wanted to convey a certain desire to him in a very direct manner. Yet it seemed as though the rivers and channels of mind responsible for understanding such things had gotten stopped up, preventing him from reaching what should have been a very obvious conclusion.
"So I'm curious about something, Kjartan. Did your 'friends' in the Dawnguard ever tell you anything about the breadth and depth of vampiric capabilities?"
Kjartan thought about the question, and then frowned in dismay. "No, they didn't."
"Have you ever fought a vampire before?"
"If you don't count the ones who attacked me in Windhelm, then it wasn't until I went to Dimhollow Crypt, and I strongly suspect the ones in there weren't exactly the most astute."
She stopped. "So they sent you alone into crypt filled with vampires, without telling you anything about how to fight them? Are you sure they weren't trying to get you killed?"
Kjartan shrugged. "Never attribute to malice what can be better explained by stupidity."
"Whatever their reason, I think you should know how to fight our kind, given what sort of errand we're on. First of all, forget whatever folklore you've heard. Garlic? Worthless. Running water? Well, you've seen me bathing."
He smiled. "Actually, I believe I was sitting out of sight behind a tree trunk."
For some reason, she looked disappointed upon hearing this. "Now, a mace to the face, that's trouble. Fire? That's real trouble. There's a reason you won't ever see me using fire spells."
"That's good to know, but as I told you, I've no ability at all with Destruction magic. Like you keep saying, I'm not a very good vampire hunter. It's either a miracle or divine intervention that I haven't gotten myself slain yet."
"That won't happen, I think. You're too pretty to die."
"I might say the same thing about you," he replied, and immediately regretted his words.
Serana cocked her head to the side. "Kjartan, are you trying to court me?"
"Would you hold it against me if I were?" he said, and once again he regretted his words. It was as though someone else were speaking through him.
"I think I'd rather hold you against me."
He let out a long breath. "All right, I walked right into that one."
When thought on the matter, he realised that Serana suffered from that same problem as he did. While no one would ever call her ugly, hers was a beauty that was at least several centuries behind the times. Her black hair and pale, unblemished skin suggested someone who frequently engaged in the very un-Nord-like activity of staying indoors and reading books instead of dying honourably in battle. Her clothes, being dark in colour and emphasising her substantial bosom, would have scandalised the more uptight members of Nord society (which was all of them). And on top of all that she fought with magic and not a blade, which was truly the most dishonourable way of defeating one's foes. With all that considered, being a vampire was likely the least objectionable thing about her.
"So, what it's like being the Dragonborn?" she said, jarring him from his momentary introspection.
The question was far too vague to even begin answering it. "Since I've never been anyone else, I can't really say. Other than having an intuitive understanding of the draconic tongue and ability to devour dragons' souls, I don't think I'm much different from any other mortal."
"Are there any other Dragonborn out there?"
"Perhaps, but I've never heard of any. The prophecies call me the 'last' Dragonborn, so perhaps there will be no more after I am gone. Or perhaps I am simply the latest in a long line. Either way, I've never met another Dragonborn, and I'm not sure that I want to. I can't really say why, but something tells me they wouldn't like me very much."
The journey through the mountain pass seemed longer than the last time he had walked this road, but Kjartan did not mind the slow pace of their travels. Serana would not be around forever, a fact he repeated to himself as a hedge against inevitable disappointment. He would miss her when she was gone, and the question of what he would do afterwards terrified him. Where was there for him to go, assuming this mad quest of theirs did not end with his gruesome demise? Perhaps he might spend the remainder of his life in quiet contemplation atop the Throat of the World, but the thought of staying in one for place was intolerable to him. He could marry Elisif, but he had little desire to see his existence become nothing more than him endlessly screaming on the inside.
His palms began to itch, and he slowed his pace. The path had become quite narrow the further they went into the pass, and it struck him as the ideal location for an ambush.
Instinctively, he reached for his sword, and then there was a shout.
Two Nords darted out from behind a large outcropping of rock and began bellowing war cries, mixed with various obscenities. One was a shirtless man carrying an axe, wearing a wolf jaw on his head, the other was a woman with a dagger in each hand, and both looked intent on doing some serious damage to their persons.
Everything happened both very slowly and all at once. Serana reached out her hand, there was a brilliant flash of light, and the woman was left standing with a smouldering hole in her chest. She looked down and then back up again, confusion flashing across her face before she fell to the ground, dead.
Kjartan drew his sword, but the man with the axe was closing the distance far too quickly. His body was covered in scars, a veritable tapestry of violence, and his mouth was missing most of its teeth. But at the moment, Kjartan was most concerned with avoiding the blade of his axe that looked ideal for slashing the fabric of his robes and the delicate flesh beneath.
He leapt back, barely avoiding a downward stroke of his foe's blade, and then retaliated with a quick slash at his arms. The edge bit into flesh, striking bone and drawing blood, but the Nord did not so much as flinch or cry out. With astonishing speed he brought his axe around and slammed the haft into Kjartan's head. His vision went white with pain, and he fell backwards onto the snow.
Everything slowed down. The hulking Nord raised his axe above his head and bellowed a cry to Talos, preparing to split Kjartan's head open like a ripe melon.
They always say that, in the moments before death, one's life flashed before one's eyes. But now, mere seconds from his gruesome demise, that did not happen. Instead, all Kjartan felt was a terrible sense of inevitability, that he had cheated death far too many times in the past, and now his luck had finally departed.
There was only thing he could do. Though his efforts to cast Destruction magic had never once succeeded, perhaps now, in this desperate hour, he might finally achieve what he had long desired. Kjartan stretched out his hand, summoned every ounce of magicka within him, and filled his mind with images of fire, lightning, and blizzards ravaging the land. Calling upon the eldritch energies of Aetherius, he channelled them into a torrential wave of magical energy that writhed within the core of his very being, a veritable explosion of power that was begging to be released.
But nothing happened.
Even now, in this terrible moment, his shortcomings proved impossible to overcome, and death was all but assured.
Suddenly, Serana appeared behind his attacker, but her visage was not that of the beautiful woman he had been travelling with, but that of a terrifying, bloodthirsty predator. She bared her fangs and then bit into the Nord's neck, eliciting a horrifying screaming of agony. He tried in vain to free himself from her grasp, but despite his struggles she held fast.
Groaning in pain, Kjartan got back to his feet. The blow of the axe haft had knocked the wind out of him, and whatever feeble strength his sword arm possessed was now gone.
He needn't have worried. Serana pushed the bandit away, and then, in the blink of eye, her hand was around his throat. To his utter astonishment, she lifted him off the ground, and with a mere flick of her wrist she snapped his neck. The Nord's body went limp, and then she tossed it aside like so much rubbish.
It was so easy to forget what she was, Kjartan thought. Had she wanted to kill him back in Dimhollow Crypt, there would have been nothing he could have done to stop her.
"Are you hurt?" she said, wiping the blood from her chin.
The blow he had taken to the chest still smarted. "I don't think anything's broken." Try as he might, he could not look away from the gruesome remains of their enemies. "Bloody fools. You go looking for trouble, and you'll find more than you bargained for."
"Are you…sure…this is the Dragonborn?"
Elisif looked down at the greasy, red-haired Nord kneeling before the throne. Even at a distance she could smell the stench of ale on his breath, mixed in with a heady mixture of sweat and other unidentifiable odours.
She had first met the Dragonborn during the meeting at the High Hrothgar, and though they had scarcely exchanged more than a dozen words he had remained in her thoughts ever since that fateful day. Recalling his appearance had proven exceedingly difficult, like trying to remember the contents of a dream. His face was a shifting blur that never came into focus, but one thing she could not forget was his eyes.
Those eyes! They had been so deep and soulful, filled with a terrible sadness that made her long to hold him in her arms and tell him that everything would be all right.
The man before her did not have those eyes.
"I swear to you on my honor, jarl, that I am the one they call 'Dragonborn.' I have learned the Voice from the tongues of the Greybeards, and stood against the World Eater in Sovngarde."
Sybille spoke before Elisif could. "If you truly are the Dragonborn, then prove it by uttering one of your Shouts. Surely a simple demonstration is not beyond you."
He stood up and looked nervously about the throne room. "Ah, about that. You see, one of the things the Greybeards taught me was never to Shout except in true need. So as much I'd like to show off the power of the Thu'um, I'm afraid I cannot disobey my teachers."
"You wish to marry the future High Queen of Skyrim," Sybille said, her voice positively venomous. "I believe that qualifies as 'true need.' But I suspect you know nothing of the Thu'um and even less of the Greybeards. As a matter of fact, you bear a striking resemblance to a prisoner who once spent three days in my dungeon for public drunkenness."
The man's shoulders fell. "All right, I admit it! I'm not the Dragonborn! I just told people that to get free drinks in taverns. Plenty more people like me out there. Truth is, no one who the Dragonborn is or where he's gone, and no one's ever going to."
Elisif felt her face go hot with anger. "Get out of my sight!" she hissed. It was not like her to get angry, she knew, but to raise her hopes like this only to have them cruelly dashed was beyond the pale. Someone out there was the Dragonborn, her Dragonborn, and she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was cold and lonely and longing for a woman's touch.
Yes, it was scandalous. A true Nord kept their heart under lock and key. They did not long for their beloved, but like Fjori and Holgeir they hated and despised each other with an intensity that rivalled a dragon's breath, their love revealed only on the brink of the death.
But Elisif could not bring herself to hate the Dragonborn. She would love him as no woman had ever loved him before, and they would be together for as many years as the Divines saw fit to grant them.
She cursed the name of this "Lady Serana" who had mocked her with her letter. The fiendish vampire had seduced and enthralled him, and even now, at this very moment, she was probably in bed with him, naked, covered in sweat, writhing with pleasure while screaming his name in the middle of the night. The image in her mind was so terrifying that it was all Elisif could do not to cry out in horror.
"I can only hope my steward returns with some information on the Volkihar clan," she said to no one in particular.
Sybille could not hide her annoyance. "My jarl, as I told you earlier, this vampire clan is almost certainly no longer in existence, and the letter you received was most likely someone having a cheap laugh at your expense."
"Why can't it be both?" she said, putting on a pouting expression. Her court wizard could be so rude sometimes. "What if it's from a Volkihar vampire who's also having a cheap laugh at my expense?"
"That is highly improbable."
Emperor Titus Mede the Second sat with his head clutched in his hands, desperately praying that the throbbing ache within his skull would go away. His hands and legs wouldn't stop shaking, and the back of his throat felt as though something vile had crawled inside and died. Every time he tried to stand up he would be overcome with nausea, and given that it would be rather undignified for an Imperial sovereign to void his stomach contents onto the floor he could nothing except try to remain very, very still.
The constant rocking and pitching of the Katariah did not help matters in the slightest.
It always the same. He'd finish a bottle of wine, and ask himself why he shouldn't have a second, and then a third and a fourth. And though he knew he would pay for that decision in the morning, Titus simply couldn't help himself. Though he would never admit it to anyone, he thought little of this country or its people. Skyrim was a land of terrible weather, terrible food, and terrible conversation, and the Stormcloak rebellion had done nothing but further diminish his opinion of it. What else was there to do but drink all day long, and for most of the night as well?
The best part of Skyrim, he reckoned, was the road that led somewhere else. Fortunately for him, the Katariah would soon depart, and he could put this whole miserable excursion behind him.
The door to his cabin swung open, and Titus did not have to look up to know that it was seneschal Varus. Good old Varus, he thought. The man had, without protest or complaint, assumed the emperor's duties when Titus was incapacitated by drink (which was most of the time), and he made a mental reminder to ensure that Varus was rewarded for his efforts when they returned to the Imperial City.
"Good news, sire," Varus said, bowing before his sovereign. "We've received word that General Tullius has cornered Ulfric Stormcloak in his capital. The gods willing, we will see an end to the rebellion within the next few days."
Titus let out a low moan. "Good, good."
Time and again, Tullius had proven himself a military genius beyond compare. The man could be given few dozen dirty, unwashed peasants and in a week or so he'd have transformed them into the finest soldiers in Tamriel. It was hardly any wonder, then, that he had so quickly subdued the Stormcloaks. And knowing the man, he would even find some way to capture Ulfric alive.
"I'm afraid I also have some less than pleasant news, your highness," Varus continued. "It would seem our attempts to kill the Dragonborn have thus far failed to bear fruit."
Titus raised his head, and the pain inside his skull instantly reasserted itself. "Wait, what? I never said I wanted the Dragonborn dead!"
Varus shifted a bit from foot to foot. "My apologies for any offence I might give, sire, but you were quite inebriated at the time. You said that the best way for an emperor to make decisions was to do so while drunk, and if these decisions still seemed sound the next morning when you were sober, then you would see them carried out."
He tried to think back to when he made that statement, but the last few weeks all blurred together into a dull, alcoholic haze. It certainly sounded like something he'd say while drunk. "My dear Varus, I'm afraid I must confess that I haven't been sober since the Katariah left port. What exactly did I say when I told you I wanted to kill the Dragonborn?"
"You only said that you 'wished someone would kill that arrogant Altmer bastard,' your highness."
The pounding in his head was becoming intolerable, and he wished his court mage were here to provide some potion or another to make it go away. "Well, that doesn't make any sense at all! The Dragonborn isn't an Altmer, and besides, he saved the entire world from annihilation! What reason would I have to kill him? We must end this foolish scheme at once and give the man a formal apology. By the Divines, if word of this gets out…"
Just for a second, Varus' eyes began darting about, a sign that he was about to say something Titus didn't wanted to hear. "I'm afraid that might not be easy as it sounds, sire."
"What? Why not?"
"You specifically requested that the Dark Brotherhood be the ones to carry out your will, and I'm afraid that once they have accepted a contract on someone, it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to have it rescinded."
Titus clutched his head in his hands and let out a groan. He wished there were someone he could blame for this, and for a moment he was about to chastise Varus for treating his drunken ramblings as the will of the emperor. But he couldn't really blame the man, as most people had it pounded into them that the emperor's word was law, no matter how intoxicated he was.
"Where is the Dragonborn now?"
"I'm afraid we don't know that, sire. According to some members of the Imperial Legion, the Dragonborn possesses a most peculiar quality. It would seem that he is extraordinarily resistant to being remembered."
Titus frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I can only relay what others have said, your highness, but those who have met him say that they cannot remember a single thing about him, even his name. Now, it is beyond my area of expertise to speculate on the reasons for this, but some are suggesting that it is a form of divine protection, keeping the Dragonborn safe from harm."
"If the Dark Brotherhood is after him, then he's going to need it," Titus muttered.
"There is one more thing, sire. Jarl Elisif of Solitude, who will likely become the High Queen of Skyrim, has made it known that she wishes to take the Dragonborn as her husband."
"A sound political move." Somewhere in the emperor's quarters, a fly was buzzing, and it was entirely too loud for Titus' liking.
Varus did not say anything for a few seconds, but neither did he take his leave which meant that he was about to deliver some terrible news and was struggling to put in the most delicate terms possible. "I'm afraid that is not all, sire. You see, the jarl, she is young, inexperienced, and shall we say, somewhat indiscreet. There are rumours coming out of the Blue Palace that Elisif has gotten it into head that the Dragonborn has been abducted by vampires."
Titus winced as another wave of pain and nausea came over him. He pondered uncorking another bottle of wine, but the thought of drinking was strangely sickening now. "Vampires."
"Yes, your highness. While such a thing is indeed possible, it is far more likely that the jarl is indulging in a rather absurd flight of fancy."
Titus sat up, and the room started tilting and spinning around him. "Still, a marriage between the Dragonborn and the High Queen of Skyrim would go a long ways towards healing the rift left by the civil war. Has there been any word, anything at all, about the Dragonborn's location?"
Varus stiffened his back. "Sire, I am not sure how to put this delicately, but the people of Skyrim, they…they are often given to rumour-mongering and confabulation—"
He slammed the palm of his hand on the desk. "You don't have to 'put it delicately,' Varus! They're morons! Great warriors, yes! But great thinkers? Ha! Most Nords would rather drink than think. No, we will not rely on the drunken tales of tavern-goers. I want the Pentius Oculatus to track down the Dragonborn, protect him from any attempts on his life, and offer him an official apology on my behalf for this whole business with the Dark Brotherhood. Then, I want a marriage between him and Elisif to be arranged forthwith."
An expression of doubt flashed across Varus face, then vanished. "Sire, if I may be so bold, do you think that the Dragonborn might be somewhat disinclined to accommodate your desires after we inform him that you put out a contract on his life?"
Titus stared ahead, unblinking. "You're right, Varus. Which means we'll need to convince him that marrying Elisif is in his best interests, and we must do so in such a way that he does not see the hand of the Empire behind it."
"And how do you propose we do that, sire?"
"I have no bloody idea."