Another Orc, another inn. Life had a funny sense of humour. Or was that Sheogorath, messing with her?
Athene had tracked down The Gourmet to The Nightgate Inn, a warm building in one of the coldest stretches of roads she'd travelled. Some way between Whiterun and Windhelm, it boasted a lakeside dock and no boats. Even high summer in Skyrim wouldn't raise the temperature enough to entice her to swim. But it was a pretty place all the same. And the Orc, undercover as a writer of some kind, couldn't stop talking about his recipes.
"See, it's all about the seasoning." He waved his arms around with excitement and nearly upset Athene's mead. "Texture is important, and it's nice to feel full, but if your aftertaste lingers it had better be good."
She'd spent days searching the marshes around Morthal for signs of Babette or Falion, or Agni, and found nothing. She'd even camped out in the abandoned shack where Astrid had kidnapped her, in case she could see or hear something through the cracks in its walls—a traveller keeping clear of town, such as a small vampire or a runaway mage. Nothing. Finally she'd had to content herself that Babette knew what she was doing, and carried on with the job.
"What about the Potage de Magnifique? Its aftertaste is divine." Athene sighed as if remembering stews long past. The Orc, whose unlikely name was actually Balagog gro-Nolog, hadn't realized she knew who he was. He took every comment she made about his food like she was mentioning it because they were both fans of The Gourmet.
"Ahh, the best of the best," he said.
"Why is that?" she prompted.
He leaned closer, blowing fragrant breath into her face that revealed he'd been experimenting with garlic that evening. "I believe a Septim is added, right at the end of cooking."
Athene grinned at him. Either he was the best liar she'd met, or incredibly lucky for keeping his secrets so long. She would have believed both. It didn't much matter. Skill or luck, it was about to abandon him.
Suddenly the Orc was leaning closer still.
"You have excellent taste," he said. "I can tell."
"Absolutely." She tried to stop herself from breathing in but finally gasped and suffered further garlic treatment.
He was bent over the table now, coming out of his chair.
"I have some recipe books downstairs, in my... room."
"Ah," said Athene.
"I could show them to you."
She supposed it would have been quicker and less messy just to wait in his room and slit his throat in his sleep. But Athene had been curious about The Gourmet, what he was really like, and what she'd learned in the last few hours had been highly entertaining. It occurred to her suddenly that most of her mistakes happened after she succumbed to her intense curiosity. Oh well.
"I'd like to see them." She simpered and shrugged and let Balagog take her hand. The innkeeper, Hadring, had been occupied with a group of Imperial soldiers for most of the evening and didn't see them pass the counter. Perfect.
She pretended to stumble on the stairs and held his shoulder. The light was suitable in the basement, all shadows and corners. He got her to his room and to her surprise began pulling out books and flipping through pages. She'd thought it was a ruse, but he was stabbing at recipes and explaining how this one had the preparation down but that one revealed just the perfect way to brown the top of the pheasant.
"You really love it, don't you?" she said.
"Oh, yes!"
"And you're going to love cooking for the Emperor."
"Oh—no. I have no idea what you mean."
"It's okay. You don't have to admit it because I already know, Gourmet."
"Aww..." He squirmed and began shoving the books back onto shelves and into drawers. "I really don't know what you're talking about."
"You really are a great chef," Athene said, feeling guilty as suddenly as she'd felt curious before. She shouldn't have gotten to know this one. Another mistake. Oh well.
She reminded herself why she was doing this. She was going to murder the Emperor. She was going to make history with her blade.
Images of Agni and Cicero came to mind. Farkas, and the cellar in Falion's house.
"Do you have a recipe for the Potage de Magnifique?" she said.
"Of course I don't. The Gourmet doesn't write that one down."
"Do you have... a few other recipes, that maybe The Gourmet used to put it together? Something that might have given him the idea for the Septim?"
Wariness warred with his previous enthusiasm. But enthusiasm won out, as she knew it would, and Balagog turned to hunt through his books again.
"Somewhere here," he muttered.
Maybe she was feeling torn because she saw that he was an artist, and in her silliest daydreams that what she thought of herself, too. She was a killer, but she was careful. Her mark never knew what was going to happen. There was no fear, no pain, just the moment of ending. She counted herself better than all the soldiers the Empire commanded, because if they'd stop bludgeoning people with blunt swords and let her do the job there would be much less fear and the job would be done already.
The job. Yes, of course.
"Aha!" Balagog said. "Here's one. Where I... Where The Gourmet first realized that the combination of Nirnroot and carrots gave such a unique flavour to Slaughterfish sauce—"
It was the last cooking advice he'd ever give. The last bit of brilliance he was allowed. Athene stepped behind him and drew her dagger back from his jaw, feeling a jerk at her wrist as his flesh caught the blade, seeing no immediate change except a spray of red across the recipe he'd held up for her to see.
She caught the book before it dropped from his hand, and shoved it in her backpack before she shoved his body into the basement's shadows.