Day Twenty-two
I thought I would be hungrier after escaping the Thalmors and the long trek to Solitude, but after my stomach issues yesterday I decided to keep my breakfast simple at the Winking Skeever. I ate a couple of apples and a cheese sandwich, washed down with a bottle of Black-Briar. Lydia chowed down her usual three course meal. I did not know how she could eat so much and still fit in that armor. Of course I like my women with a little bounce to their flounce so I was not going to complain.
On our way out we passed by a tall, lovely woman talking to her friend. "Some day a gallant knight with a sword will come and whisk me away," she said. She saw me and asked, partly joking, "Are you that gallant knight?"
"Would you settle for a randy Dragonborn with a well-used two-hander?"
A chorus of, "Pig," was the answer from all three women.
The women huffed away, leaving only Lydia.
"Don't you women know any other animals?" I asked.
"Don't you ever think with anything else?"
"She asked me. I'm the Dragonborn and I'm nobody's gallant knight."
"Maybe you should give it a try. There are worse things."
"When I'm Emperor I'll hire nothing but gallant knights to roam the countryside doing good deeds. But Draugr and dragons don't care if you're gallant. They only respond to this," I brandish my sword.
"As Emperor, you'll have much more to fight than creatures in dungeons. You might want to start making allies, or at least a few friends."
"I've got friends," I said defensively.
Lydia raised an eyebrow then turned towards the city gate.
"You're my friend at least, right? Lydia?"
I took Lydia's silence as an awkward acknowledgment. Some people just did not know how to say they cared. I understood. We stopped at the stables at the bottom of the hill to get a ride back to Riverwood. The driver was nowhere to be found but his carriage was leaning with only one wheel. That figured.
After another pleasant swim through near frozen water, we checked our map and started towards Riverwood. I ran across a camp near Folgunthur I must have missed the last time through. In a tent I found a book titled, 'Purloined Shadows'. From it I learned a neat trick on emptying someone's pocket from the side. Might come in useful.
We stopped for a short time to decide which way to go. Neither of us really wanted to go over the mountains again so we settled on going around them to the East after skirting Morthal. We passed a quiet ruin named Kjenstag and marked it down for later plundering. The way was much easier, though longer and more boring. That was until we ran into two bandits trying to rob a mage. Either they lured him with a plea for help with their broken carriage or they ambushed him and smashed his ride to keep him from fleeing. I had no love for bandits or mages but I doubted the mage would have taken on more than he could manage, being cowards at heart. So I decided to help him against the bandits. After the three of us killed the criminal pair, the wizard repaid our kindness by attacking us. Luckily, the bandits did not do much damage to us so I cut the mage down in moments without much trouble. I took a closer look at his robes and spat. Necromancer, the worst of them.
The bandits did not have much and neither did the mage. On the ground near the carriage I found a book, 'A Dance In Fire Chapter 6'. It told how to negotiate with a hostile customer. Obviously the mage had yet to read it. In the broken carriage, I found the body of another necromancer. The body was already cold so he was not part of the fight. I did not want to think why or where he was being taken. Hopefully this would have spared him further desecration.
A little further and the landscape started going uphill again. I was hoping to avoid the cold and snow. In the middle of nowhere we found a barred chamber with a lever in the center of the floor. It looked Dwemer-built but I had no idea how to open it. Those crazy miners and their machinations.
We continued East then turned South following a narrow mountain pass. It lead us right to another Dwemer portal but this one had an empty camp outside of it. Not much left behind except some chicken breasts in a pot that were still good, probably from the cold temperature. They made a good lunch along with some Alto wine I found inside a tent. It was tempting to take a nap but the wind was rising and I thought we should get going before we got caught in a snowstorm.
Nearby I saw a roaring bonfire from a giant camp. The last giant had some decent loot and I was itching to get hold of some new shiny objects that needed my protection and appreciation. Lumbering oafs like these giants could not possibly enjoy gems and jewelry on the same level as me. It was my duty to take them with me. I said as much to Lydia.
Lydia rolled her eyes, "Whatever, Ralos. I'm starting to wonder if leaving you on skooma would have been cheaper and less dangerous. Do you even remember what you were striving so adamantly towards when I met you?"
"I course I do," I said, insulted, "to conquer this land and use it to strike back at my silver, eh..sister. To do that, I need not only an army but the wealth to feed and arm them. It's all part of my grand diamond, eh..design. I know what I'm doing. If you don't want to take their stuff then just sit here and I'll be back."
Lydia sat down and started sharpening her axe, again. Fine, she would just slow me down anyway.
I spotted the treasure chest behind the big grey goof. I thought I can get behind him if I crawled over the rocks and slid down. I would have to make a mad dash afterwards though since going back up would be impossible. I headed back to where I thought the chest was and it happened to be where I left Lydia.
"Change of heart?" she asked.
"Hardly. Just getting the jump on them. Continue with your not following."
Apparently sarcasm was too over her head because she went right back to sharpening. I started climbing the rocks and I was almost directly over the chest. A small adjustment and I dropped down to the ground. Just as I opened the chest I could hear, and feel, the giant take a step towards me. I threw back the top and scooped out the contents. Cradling the loot, I made a mad dash for the only way out. My brave yell of victory must have impressed him because he did not follow me. Then I saw the other giant and this one was blocking the exit and waving that stupid bone club in the air.
I was trapped. With each threatening step, however, he moved further and further from the exit. As long as I did not enrage him, I thought I could run past him. Fortunately, they were as slow as they were big. I managed to whisk past his leg and out into the surrounding fields. I made a wide circle back to Lydia.
I sat down next to her and dropped all the stuff I had carried out.
"Was there a woman down there with you?" Lydia asked.
"No. Why?"
"I could have sworn I heard a woman shriek a few moments ago."
"I heard nothing of the kind. Perhaps one of them stepped on a rock or stubbed a toe."
We went through the loot which turned out to be mostly Dwemer items including an axe similar to Lydia's but with a bluish glow to it. It was duller than her's so Lydia just packed it away with the other items. A smallish garnet and an amethyst I pocketed for safe keeping.
It turned out we were closer to Whiterun than I thought. We stopped in at Belethor's and sold some of our extra items then I stashed all of my new gems and trinkets at Breezehome. We had a lunch of pheasant and cabbage apple soup. While we ate I debated with myself about telling Lydia to stay put here for a while. I had seen a couple of mercenaries around town that I could hire to go with me if she insisted I have a bodyguard. But they were not free, and none were as tolerable to look at all day, though perhaps some may have had better attitudes. In the end, I decided to hold off on deciding, at least until I talked with Delphine.
"What would you say to me staying here?" Lydia said as we finished dinner.
"What? Why do you ask?"
"Well, you mentioned it before and you seem a bit more...capable than you were when you first arrived. Perhaps you don't need me along."
Her change of heart was odd. My thoughts turned suspicious. "Then maybe you could stay here and, oh I don't know, look after Breezehome and all its valuables and prized belongings."
"Partly," she admitted, "I could use a bit of rest. My back is a little sore from carrying all that stuff across half of Tamriel."
"Uh huh. Well suck it up, Housecarl. No one said this would be all sunshine and sweetrolls. You're following me, to the Planes of the Nines, if need be. Got it?"
Lydia sighed, "As you wish, My Thane."
She seemed deflated by my insistence, but sometimes a leader had to be tough as Dragon scales sometimes. She was smiling to try to hide her disappointment but I was no fool. I was a master at reading people.
Fed and rested, we made the short trek to Riverwood. At the Sleeping Giant Inn I found Delphine sitting at a table surrounded by a group of locals. She was arm wrestling Sven. The blonde Nord, who already had several bruises on his face and a scar on his forehead, was sweating with the effort. Delphine appeared to be having a hard time but in her case it was in trying not to laugh. She heard the door and was startled to see us standing there. Sven redoubled his efforts but the crowd cheered and laughed when Delphine smacked his knuckles onto the table, bending his arm unnaturally. She left the battered bard to his misery and greeted us by the door.
"I'm relieved to see you safe," she said to me.
"Your ability to disguise your concern is admirable," I told her, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say it took you a moment to remember who I even was."
"Don't be so obtuse. I'm responsible for too many lives to risk being found out on a hunch. But we shouldn't talk here. Follow me."
She lead us back down into the cellar and sealed it behind us. We sat around the table, sampling some Alto wine I grabbed on the way down. This wine was not as fruity as the stuff back home. I could learn to like it.
"So what did you find out?" she asked.
I tossed the folders I had found down onto the table in front of her. "See for yourself. The Thalmor have nothing to do with the dragons. If anything they think we are responsible for them. There's a man they are especially looking for because of this. An old man named Esbern."
"Esbern? Are you sure?"
"Sure as I can be without torturing one of the elves myself. They were interrogating a man that I was able to set free. He said they wanted to know where Esbern was. All he could tell them was that he thought he was in Riften."
"That makes sense for him to hide there. The Thalmor could not just walk in without alerting everyone," Delphine hesitated but then took a long drink of the wine. "If they want him that means they are interested in the dragons. Esbern is a fellow Blade and knows more about the dragons than anyone. I need you to go to Riften and bring him back here."
"Us?" Lydia asked. "We just returned while you've been here drinking and humiliating the local oafs. You go get him."
"I would, housecarl, but I would not get far into the town before the Black-Briars would have ten knives in my back. That bitch Maven never forgave me for her lover stepping out with me."
"Lover, huh?" I said, "What was her name?"
"What? Do you have troll fat in your ears?"
"Nevermind him," Lydia said, "If we bring him here, then what?"
"If Esbern thinks he needs to come out of hiding, then it must be important. I will do whatever he says and go wherever he goes, secrecy be damned."
"How is he supposed to know you sent us for him?" I asked, "As far as he knows I'm just another dashing young man seeking to solve a mystery."
Delphine rolled here eyes, "Ask him where he was on the 30th of Frostfall. He'll know what it means. When you get to Riften, meet my contact, Brynjolf. He may ask you to do something to prove yourself, but just go along with it. He's always on the lookout for new talent."
We bid Delphine farewell and headed back to Breezehome. Lydia went on about how she did not trust Delphine much. I could not stop wondering what Maven and this two-timing lover looked like.