Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks. I get nervous when I receive reviews lately. Describing a complicated, strained relationship is not something I've done before. Thanks as always for your input Chris. Guest, I hope to God I haven't led you on an eight-day snipe hunt. I wrote in an extra Talos shrine because it didn't make sense to me to have Ieago hike halfway across the Kingdom at that point in the story. As for him being smooth when he talks to women, I think the jury's out. It might be more accurate to say that he knows how to talk to Aela. It's a significant proportion of why she puts up with him. As for the whole alcohol issue in Skyrim, that's one of the few historically accurate themes in the game. Wine, beer, and mead were huge parts of ancient and medieval diets and were also used when local water was unsafe to drink! Some English sources mention rations of up to a gallon of beer a day for every man, woman, and child!
Before I go, I'm grateful for the handful favorites and follows that have cropped up around this story and my older two. I'm glad Companion and Dragonborn still get regular hits.
A finger jabbed into my neck just before I began to nod off on my feet. Morning court at the Blue Palace that day was mundane in the extreme. Petitioners from all over the Hold had come to plead their cases before Jarl Elisif and her steward. It was all property disputes generations old, pleas for guards to investigate suspicious caves, taxes to be raised, and fines to be assessed. I never dreamed that the Nords could be such a litigious people.
At last Falk Firebeard called a halt for the afternoon meal. I turned to my new housecarl and catalyst for my most recent fight with Aela, "My first day as a courtier and I'm already beginning to fade," I complained to her. My attempt to break the ice was as miserable as she must have felt last night. I'm positive Jordis heard everything.
"This was an easy morning Thane. Stick around this afternoon when Thane Erikur tries to convince Jarl Elisif to reinstate the tax breaks he got from King Torygg," Jordis replied stiffly.
She was about Lydia's age or slightly younger and equally beautiful. That was where the similarities ended. Lydia had dark hair, lips, and eyes. Jordis was the 'classical' fair Nord with blonde hair and blue eyes. Where Lydia could be sarcastic at times, I got the impression that Jordis would avoid that attitude; instead she held herself as a young woman trying to sustain the maturity of a person ten years older. It was not a habit I was wild about. If my life was any indication, in her line of work that decade between twenty and thirty would do plenty to beat the shit out of her without needing any help. How people as old as Vignar or Kodlak must look on people as old as Vilkas or me would be a deep insight indeed.
"What should I know about Thane Erikur?" I whispered.
"That he's right behind you," Jordis replied.
I spun around and fixed a smile on my face at the tall, middle-aged man in a blue outfit with gold trim.
"So you're the newest Thane of Haafingar. I suppose Elisif is handing the title out to anyone these days," he said.
"Were you recently thaned too?" I asked with false innocence.
The corner of Erikur's mouth twitched before he spoke again. "A few words of advice from a person of importance to a newcomer here in Solitude: Keep your wits about you. And if you want to know something, don't get caught asking questions."
I gave Thane Erikur a stiff and shallow bow. "You're too kind Thane. I'll be sure to keep your precepts in mind."
We went our separate ways. "Let me rephrase: Tell me what I need to know about Erikur," I said to Jordis as soon as she and I were across the room from the man. He was speaking with two other well-dressed strangers; evidently with some authority. They clung to his every word.
"He's Supercargo of Solitude Harbor for the East Empire Company," Jordis explained.
That gave me a real pause. The EEC was one of the two largest shipping concerns in the known world. The Company (and in Tamriel there was only one The Company) was chartered by the Emperor himself. It held transport and distribution monopolies on some of the most valuable commodities on Tamriel: Unworked ebony, raw malachite, certain narcotics, silk, and black pepper among them. If you bought those things legally, you did so with the blessing of the EEC. As the overlord of The Company's huge facility at the harbor below, Erikur was a man of real earthly power and access to the Imperial treasury. No wonder he had been throwing his weight around when he came over to bully me. He carried real weight.
"Tell me about his enemies," I said next.
"It's more discrete if you don't stare at him Thane," Jordis admonished me gently.
I walked over to the balcony at the top of the stairs to look down at the people milling below the throne room.
"Jarl Elisif is at the top of his list," Jordis continued. "Dead King Torygg gave Erikur many concessions and tax breaks. One of Elisif's first actions was to reverse her husband's favoritism. He's been pressing her to get the tax breaks back."
"And she's refusing, which is a stab at his wealth and ego," I finished with a hand over my mouth.
Jordis nodded, "I take it you've already seen how he handles rejection."
"When we get back to Proudspire, the three of us have some planning to do," I told her as we followed the crowd into the dining hall.
Late that same evening, Aela and I made our way into the East Empire Company's warehouse. The company purser's office was located at the very back of a huge cavern beneath the mountain Solitude was built upon. The small wooden office was a mundane affair furnished only by a few desks and filing cabinets, but the view of the EEC's Solitude base was breathtaking. The storage areas below the office wrapped around quays large enough to serve three galleons at a time. Cranes set high in the walls could shift tons of cargo to any of the shelves cut in terraces up the walls of the giant room. The largest door in Skyrim protected the shallow waters of the cave from the elements outside.
Aela and I discovered one of the purser's secretaries taking advantage of the quiet night to get ahead of his work. He was propped in a corner now and would wake up around dawn with a nasty headache and a concussion. Alea was outside in the dark while I poured over the ledgers for anything remotely connected to moonstone or weapons imports. While the number and variety of weapons leaving Skyrim was staggering, there was nothing to suggest that the moonstone arms in Stormcloak hands were arriving through The Company's Solitude base.
I replaced the last ledger on its shelf and shut the door behind me. Aela materialized from the shadows and led me back to the exterior docks.
There were several more hours until sunrise, so I decided to push my luck and investigate Erikur's personal office. The self-styled Baron of Solitude's home was of a modest size for his station in life, but within a stone's throw of the Blue Palace. I popped the lock on the servants' door and let myself in.
The interior of Erikur's corner house was a monument to taste and wealth. The servants' quarters were austere, but immaculate. Each bunk had a heating iron at its foot for the sleeping occupant. A woven carpet kept the cold of the slate floor in check. The hallway outside was lined with darkened candelabra hanging from the far wall. A luxurious, footstep-deadening carpet led from the front room to a rare mechanical clock at the rear of the house.
I passed a store room and came to an office space at the end of the long hall. A lantern was unmasked as I stepped around the corner. Yellow light illuminated Thane Erikur. He was sitting in an overstuffed leather chair, wide awake and unsurprised to see me.
"What did I tell you about getting caught?" Erikur scolded me quietly. His steepled fingertips taped lightly together below his chin. A door behind me opened and I heard iron scraping on leather. I opened my mouth to reply but he cut me off, "No, you're not supposed to reply. A third piece of advice: learn when to keep your mouth shut." He looked behind me, "Show him out," he commanded.
I landed face-first on the cobblestones at the foot of Erikur's front steps. Picking myself up, I saw the man smirking at me from behind his housecarls. "See you in the morning Thane," he mocked before turning back into his house.
Soundly beaten, I slunk back to Proudspire Manor. I cleaned my handful of scrapes in the kitchen, disrobed and crept into bed next to Aela's sleeping form. She sighed to acknowledge my presence and pressed herself back into me. I wrapped my arm around her waist and nodded off, feeling some of the sting come out of Erikur's rebuke.