Chapter 5: Three Seasons in Windhelm

After the assassin left me, I spent the next several days cleaning. I realized that I had let my mask slip, let my appearance become sloppy and unkempt again. More than that, I realized how filthy my house had become. In my obsession with drawing the attention of the Dark Brotherhood, I had stopped cleaning up after myself. Dirty dishes piled up in basins, the floors were tracked with dirt, and crawling things skittered in the corners. Divines save me, I wouldn't have been surprised to find a skeever under my bed.

The first thing that had to go was my mother's remains. They had served their purpose with the Black Sacrament and held no more power over me. My mother was gone; her body was just a shell, and without the necessity of the sacrament, it was a shell with no further purpose. I gathered the bones, rotten flesh, and wilted flowers together, bundled them up with heavy stones, and sank the whole lot into the bay at night.

As the bundle sank beneath the water on that moonless night, I felt a brief moment of melancholy. It wasn't the sharp sting of loss or the horrible despair of loneliness that I had gotten so used to over the last year. The feeling was mellower and sweeter than that. While I still missed my mother, the pain of losing her had started to fade with the realities of daily living long before. Standing there, watching the last bubbles break the surface, all I could feel was her love for me reaching out to me from beyond the grave, and the distant ache of losing something long ago. It may sound callous, but the truth is that it had been a year already—and a year is a long time to a child.

Honestly, since I could do little more than count the days until my assassin returned with the good news of Grelod's death and keep busy with the minutia of life in Windhelm, every day seemed long in its own way. Other children had begun to avoid me ever since the incident with Grimvar so I was alone even more than before. It was peaceful in its own way, though it made the time pass slowly.

Cleaning the house gave me a chance to really think about the future for the first time. While I spent some of the time fantasizing about the various ways that the Dark Brotherhood might kill Grelod, I was mostly content to know that it was taken care of. On the other hand, the reality of living under the nose of the very people who had sent me away to Honorhall in the first place was worrisome. According to the letter the jarl's steward had written, I was supposed to stay at Honorhall for six years, and it had been one already. Still, how could they know how old I really was? Worse come to worst, I could wait out the next five years somehow, but I was already beginning to contemplate only waiting one or two more before going up to the Palace of Kings and telling a bald-faced lie.

More and more, I was beginning to realize how haphazard Jarl Ulfric's rule over his capital really was, which gave me the confidence to believe I could get away with something like that. There were hardly any guards in the streets since everyone had been sent to Stormcloak training camps or to garrison captured forts. When I was down on the docks fishing, it was a common sight for me to see captains and merchants arguing with dockmasters about fees and tariffs since no paperwork had been filed. Everywhere were signs of Ulfric spreading himself too thin with his campaign against the Empire.

As the house cleaning progressed and I began to return to something like cleanliness, I started to wonder what Windhelm would be like by the time I was ready to confront the jarl for my property. Would he be High King Ulfric Stormcloak by then? And if so, what would become of me? As an Imperial, I had already suffered at the hands and taunts of bullies more than once; if the Empire were defeated, would I have any place in Skyrim anymore? It was strange to think of something as abstract as my race determining my future. I had been born in Skyrim, after all; as far as I knew, so had my mother. We were Imperials only by heritage and not by politics, but Ulfric's pro-Nord policies had made us foreigners in our own homeland.

Still, it could have been worse. Living so close to the Gray Quarter, I had a window-box view of how the city's Dunmer were treated. Most of them were refugees from their homeland. I remembered hearing that a mountain had exploded there, and that they were running from that. I couldn't imagine something as big and solid as a mountain exploding, so I didn't really understand it at the time; all I really knew was that something bad had happened to their home and that Skyrim was the closest, safest place for them to settle. Because I had grown up so close to their neighborhoods the Dunmer didn't bother me at all. I had even known a few dark elf children before my mother died, though obviously I had lost touch with them when I was sent to Honorhall.

Not a week went by, though, that I didn't catch sight of a dark elf being harassed on his way in or out of the district. Usually, it was just jeers and shouting, but I saw some poor bastard take a piece of masonry in the forehead when a gang of kids started throwing rocks at him. He went scrambling down into the district as fast as he could manage with blood in his eyes, their shouts and stones following behind him. There weren't enough guards to catch people doing things like that, not that guards would have been likely to stop it even if they had been there. Ulfric had made it clear how he felt about elves on more than one occasion with his public speeches, so the people on Windhelm had realized they could get away with just about anything as far as the mer were concerned. That attitude was really driven home for me by something I saw a few weeks after the assassin left.

One day while I was out at market refilling supplies I couldn't get by fishing, I happened to see Angrenor Once-Honored. He and another local Nord by the name of Rolff were just standing around together near the Gray Quarter just off the main gates of the city. I thought maybe Angrenor had somehow figured out that I was back in Windhelm and had come to take me back to Honorhall. I quickly ducked behind a stone column and put my basket of groceries on the ground at my feet. If he came toward me, I was willing to sacrifice the few septims' worth of food to keep my freedom.

As I peered around the column toward him, I saw that he wasn't looking for me at all. He was too far from my house to be waiting for me, and he was reeling a bit on his feet. With some distaste, I realized that he had to be drunk. Rolff Stone-Fist was a notorious drunkard and brawler, which he could get away with because his brother Galmar was an old war buddy of the jarl—as well as his current field general in the Stormcloak Rebellion. Rolff was no soldier, but he expected to be treated like one because of his illustrious older brother. I knew that Angrenor had been a Stormcloak for a while, but seeing the two of them together leaning on each other and laughing like morons made my heart sink a little. For some reason, I had thought that Angrenor was better than that.

While I stood there, a Dunmer woman came through the gates into the Stone Quarter carrying a basket. She saw the two Nords and immediately tried to make a right turn for the Gray Quarter, but the two of them were in her way in a flash. They smiled like wolves and her face became painful and drawn.

"What have we got here?" asked Rolff with a drunken slur. He reached out and flipped up the wicker lid of the basket to look inside. "Smuggling Imperial secrets into the city, are we?"

"I'm no more an Imperial than you are," the Dunmer woman pleaded. "It's just spices from the Khajit caravan."

"Spices? Skooma more likely!" shouted Rolff with drunken glee.

"If you're no Imperial," demanded Angrenor, "then why haven't you damned dark elves sworn for Jarl Ulfric? Think you're too good for us Nords, do you?"

"No," she said, seeming genuinely distressed now, "it's not that. We haven't taken a side because it's just not our fight!"

"You gray-skins come here where you're not wanted, eat our food, pollute our city with your stink!" Rolff almost screamed into her face, finally slapping the basket out of her hands. "And you refuse to help the Stormcloaks!"

The woman gasped sharply and took an involuntary step away from them. I looked desperately around the plaza for someone who might help. There was at least one guard who had clear line of sight to the whole thing, but he was already turning to walk away. I didn't dare break hiding; if Angrenor saw me, it would be all over for me.

"Please…" she begged, tears welling up in her red eyes.

"Maybe the reason they haven't picked a side is because they're Imperial spies," ventured Angrenor with a sneer. I had always thought his face had a stern handsomeness to it but he looked like a leering troll now, twisted and horrible from hate. Angrenor nudged her spilled basket with a toe, cocking his head to one side as though he were looking for hidden Imperial missives.

"You can't be serious!" she snapped, finally seeming to get some strength in her voice.

"Maybe we'll pay you a visit tonight, little spy," Rolff snickered. He walked toward her, backing her up against the stone walls of the city. With one meaty hand, he reached up and grabbed her by the chin. Even though they were more than fifty feet from me, I could hear every word as though they were standing next to me. "We have ways of finding out what you really are…"

The dark elf woman could keep his gaze no longer and flinched away. He let go of her chin and walked off laughing to himself. As he passed her dropped basket he gave it one last vindictive kick, scattering the contents around the plaza. Angrenor's face twisted down into a frown; perhaps he thought they had gone too far. Still, when Rolff got too far ahead, he jogged quickly to keep up and started laughing right along with him.

I watched the woman stoop down onto the cold cobblestones of the Stone Quarter and try to gather up as much of her spilled spices as she could. She was shaking with rage and fear as she scooped up burst packages and scattered leaves.

And no one helped her.

As I slunk out of the plaza back toward my home, I found myself shaking too. I was angry at what Angrenor and Rolff had done, but I was also ashamed that I hadn't done anything to help. The Nords of the city might have a free hand to treat the rest of us badly, but they could get away with it because no one would stand up to them. While I wallowed in guilt at home, I suddenly wondered: What would the Dark Brotherhood do in a situation like this?

I thought about that question a lot that winter. Part of me longed to be like them, so brave and powerful. The assassin had helped me so much that I could only imagine how much they helped other people too. It had to be a great feeling, ending the lives of the wicked and helping the innocent get the justice they deserved. Most nights, I dreamed about being an assassin, jumping from rooftop to rooftop in the moonlight and serving vengeance at the end of a gleaming blade. The night after I saw what Rolff and Angrenor had done, all I dreamed of was darkness—an empty void, and me falling through it forever.

The next several days saw me wrestling with myself over my inaction. The Brotherhood wouldn't have stood for bullies like Rolff and Angrenor treating an innocent woman like that, I was sure of it. They would have done… something! Something more than just stand there scared witless. Maybe not right away, maybe not openly—but something.

While the winter storms raged outside my door, I stayed warm inside my home and thought deep, dark thoughts. With Grelod surely dead by now, I had to stop thinking about death—hers and my mother's—and start thinking about living. In the worst case scenario, I had five years before I could legally claim my home. If I spent every day hiding from trouble and feeling like I did afterwards, I really wasn't sure I could live with myself that long. It had been hard enough to keep my head down while I was waiting for the Dark Brotherhood to contact me; there was no way I could turn it into a lifestyle.

Still, thinking about it reasonably made me realize that there was probably nothing I could have done. By the time I had realized what was happening, Rolff and Angrenor had already worked themselves up into a righteous froth. If I had tried to intervene, it would have just resulted in my going back to Honorhall and wouldn't have spared the woman from any of her humiliation. No, I couldn't have done anything—probably. It was the "probably" that was killing me. If there was a chance I could have helped, shouldn't I have stepped in?

Thinking about the Dark Brotherhood once again comforted me. They hadn't saved me from my treatment at Honorhall, but they had stepped in at my request to keep Grelod from hurting anyone else. That guided me on the way I thought about what I had seen. I couldn't have stopped those two men from harassing the woman, but I could be on the watch for things like that in the future. As I got older, I could learn ways to help people who needed help. I wouldn't be the sort of person who just stood around and watched others suffer helplessly.

I wasn't sure yet what I was going to do with my life but I knew two things for sure: I wasn't about to let other people dictate how I could live my life, and I wanted to be the sort of person who helped others. In short, I wanted to be an assassin. I just had no idea how to go about that, but I figured it had to be like the Black Sacrament—keep praying and be patient.

So I kept the faith. And I waited.

It was about halfway through the month of Morning Star when I ran into my assassin again—almost literally.

I had made an early-morning run to the market because the winter storms had left the bay hopelessly frozen over and the snow had kept me locked up in my house for almost two days straight. Because of that, I hadn't been able to fish in a week or more, and my cupboards were nearly bare. After filling up a backpack with near-frozen vegetables and cuts of meat from Hillevi Cruel-Sea's stall at the market, I picked up a fresh loaf of bread and a wheel of cheese at Candlehearth Hall.

I had meant to wait until I got home to eat but the rumblings in my stomach were just too much to ignore, and I would up juggling the bread and cheese as I snacked off both of them on the way out. As the door opened, I wound up running right into someone and nearly dropped my food. I quickly backed away and looked up to apologize, only to look into the blue eyes of my savior.

"You came back! I knew you would!" I squealed before I could stop myself. I slapped the loaf of bread over myself to stifle my laugh of joy, and the assassin dropped a hand onto my shoulder. She looked at me with concern and I quickly made my face still and sober as she led me away from the inn. "Don't worry, I haven't told anyone."

"I'm glad to see you look better," she said pleasantly. "I was… worried."

"Please come to my house," I blurted out. She looked at me sharply and I continued, "I have your payment." She looked torn for a moment but finally nodded. In both of our brief meetings I had noticed that she didn't speak much, and when she did it was barely above a whisper. I wondered if that was just something you learned to do when you were an assassin—if being quiet and unobserved was just such a part of you that you did it all the time.

Once we were back at the house, I left her in the entryway while I fished out the family heirloom. While I had some septims now, the plate would be harder to convert to coin for me than for her. If it meant that I wound up overpaying her, so be it.

"Here, take this," I said as I pushed the plate into her hands. "It's been in my family for a long time. You could probably get a lot for it." She took the silver plate and looked at it critically, finally tucking it to her side before dropping to one knee in front of me.

"I'll keep it to remember you by," she said softly before leaning in to wrap one arm around my shoulders. I went stiff and froze for a moment. In the last year, being touched had become a rarity—even rarer when it was someone touching me without meaning me harm. I really wasn't sure what to do, so I awkwardly returned the hug. Were all assassins so kind?

"But you have to promise me something," she said as she broke the embrace. She looked me soberly in the eyes and breathed deeply. "You have to return to Honorhall." Something in my face must have given away the raw terror I felt at that proposition, so she squeezed my shoulder tightly to get my attention. "Don't worry. Grelod is gone. Constance is a lovely woman, and she'll take care of you—and your friends. She can find you a new family, Aventus."

I thought about what my assassin said. On the one hand, I did miss my friends at Honorhall. I hadn't connected with any of the kids in Windhelm except for Grimvar, and Idesa would never let me see him again if it was up to her. While the idea of having a mother again appealed to part of me, I couldn't imagine what having a father was like. And truthfully, I had started to enjoy taking care of myself. The nagging worry of spending the next five years dodging the authorities had started to seem like a game instead of a burden.

She was right about one thing at least—Constance was a good person. I could rest easy knowing that Grelod was dead and that Constance would be taking care of the others now. Honorhall had held very little for me but terror, even with Runa and Constance being there. My assassin continued to look at me expectantly, waiting for my answer.

"I'll… think about it," I ventured, expecting her to scowl at me and chastise my decision. I was genuinely shocked when she merely nodded and smiled. Adults always seemed to want to force kids into doing what they wanted us to do, so having one accept my indecision without complaint was a novel experience, to say the least. She stood and put the silver plate in her satchel before saying that she had business to attend to and that she would try to check on me again if she came back through Windhelm.

I wanted to ask her to hug me again but I didn't have the words, so I just smiled and thanked her again before she left.

As the spring thaw came and the ice floes in the bay broke up, I spent a lot of my time down on the docks, fishing and chatting amiably with the Argonian workers who came through. The lizard-men had scared me when I was younger, but spending every day in close contact with them as I fished for my dinner and they labored for theirs reassured me that they weren't really all that different. I would even chat with them occasionally and giggle whenever they called me "land-strider." If they only knew!

While I had no steady income, I found that I could earn a few stray septims by carrying messages for the merchants and captains who needed someone willing to run up and down the stone steps connecting the docks to the city proper. It wasn't much money, but I didn't have many expenses. Most of my day was spent fishing for the day's food and waiting for someone to yell for me. It wasn't by name, of course. "Messenger!" the cry would come from somewhere, and I would quickly tie off my line before scanning around to see who it was.

By that spring, the local captains had gotten to know me pretty well and my fear of being discovered had almost completely vanished. Knowing that the worst that could happen was being sent back to Honorhall seemed a lot less terrible now that Grelod was gone. I would prefer to stay independent if possible, but to make a living I was going to have to take some risks. Adults had all the money, after all.

On one particular day in early Rain's Hand, the call went out and I ran to answer it. The man that I saw was an older Nord, balding but with a full brown beard. I was shocked to see that I recognized him as the man from the Hall of the Dead. I must have gawped a few seconds too long because he scowled at me. I quickly recovered myself and asked what he needed.

"Actually," he said, "I was hoping that I could speak to your parents." My blood ran cold. Had I been found out?

"Have I done something wrong, sir?" I asked, dithering around the request to the best of my ability.

"No, boy! No!" he laughed. "Quite the opposite!" He sat down on a nearby crate and I allowed myself to relax an inch. I kept one eye on the stairs to the city and continued standing just in case it was a trick.

"My name is Torbjorn Shatter-Shield," he explained, "and I own a shipping company here in Windhelm. Now, I've been down to the docks at least twice a week since the bay opened up enough to let in ships, and every time I've been here, you've been here. Come rain or shine, I see you sitting on the dock with your line or running back and forth with messages.

"Well, I got curious about you and I asked some of the scalies about you." He nodded toward the Argonians who were busy unloading the nearby ship. "They said that you spent every day down at the docks looking for work. That even on days it was too bad for them to be out and about, they could see you from the windows of the assemblage, just holding on to your line and waiting for someone to call out. Is that true? Are you out here every day?"

"Not every day, sir," I said as politely as I could manage. Some days, it's just too cold or wet." And the rain scares off the fish, I didn't say. He nodded and smiled, slapping his knee like it was something funny.

"Boy, you work harder than half the grown men I have on my payroll," he said amiably. "I was hoping that I could ask your parents to let you serve as a ship's boy on one of my trading vessels. It wouldn't be much pay, but it would be more than a messenger boy makes. And…" he continued on, but I wasn't listening anymore. My mind raced as he talked on about the many benefits of setting to sea at a young age.

All I could think of, all that kept running through my head, was that someone wanted me. This man didn't know me except through his employees, but he wanted me. It was staggering to think about. I didn't know what to think. Finally, he stopped speaking and I was able to recognize that he was waiting for some kind of response.

"It sounds…" I suddenly realized that I didn't know anything he had said in the last several minutes. "…really good," I finished lamely.

"Of course it does," he said sagely. "All I need to do is ask your parents, and… How old are you, boy?" he scowled suddenly.

"Twelve," I lied, and quickly added, "sir."

"Hmmm," he rumbled. "That's a problem. I thought you were older than that." My heart sank slightly. "Still, that's just a bigger point in your favor, to be working so hard at such a young age." He nodded to himself before standing and patting me on the shoulder. "No hurry, right? Just let your parents know that I'm wanting you for my crew as soon as you turn thirteen. I figure that your birthday must be coming up soon," he drawled. And then he winked at me.

I was shocked! Was he implying that he wanted me to work for him badly enough that he didn't care I was a year too young? I assured him that I'd let them know. He tossed me a small coin purse as he left, and I was amazed to find it held a dozen septims. He had given me money just to listen to him talk about the ocean! Of course, it was moot since I didn't have parents, but it had been very nice of him to make the offer at all.

Almost two months later, as I was dozing half-asleep in my bed and listening to the rain fall outside, I sat bolt upright in sudden revelation. I could forge my mother's signature! Torbjorn never even had to meet her! As I exulted in my clever plan, I just as quickly turned to worry. Would his offer still be open two months later? And what was wrong with me that it had taken me two months to realize I could just lie?

The next morning, I went straight to Clan Shatter-Shield's offices next to the Argonian assemblage at the Windhelm docks. I had a forged letter of acceptance tucked into my pocket. I wasn't really sure that I wanted to be a sailor for the rest of my life, but the old man had done me the kindness of offering me a real job. I wanted to repay that kindness if possible.

More than that, going to sea for Clan Shatter-Shield could give me a purpose greater than just counting down the days until I was old enough to take back my home legally. It struck me as funny that I had come all this way to get back to my house, just to leave again so I could afford to keep it. Still, who knew? I might learn something valuable as a member of a ship's crew. And I would get to see the world. I might even be able to visit Cyrodiil, the heart of the Empire and the place where my ancestors had come from.

At the Clan Shatter-Shield offices, I was again momentarily caught off-guard by seeing a familiar face. The blue-skinned woman behind the entry counter was the same Dunmer I had seen being bullied by Rolff Stone-Fist and Angrenor Once-Honored. Rather than stare and risk being taken as rude, I quickly said hello and told her that Torbjorn Shatter-Shield had asked for me. She told me that he was out of the city on business, but that she would be happy to help me if she could. I passed over my forged letter and hoped that she wouldn't see through my cunning deception. The nameplate on her desk listed her as Suvaris Atheron. I genuinely hoped that I wouldn't have to say her name; I might not have disliked elves as the Nords did, but saying their names always made my tongue feel strange.

"You want to be a sailor?" she asked in a lilting voice. I nodded and she continued to scan the letter. "It says here that your mother has given permission for you to work for the clan, and that you just turned thirteen. Is that right?" I nodded again. She reached into the desk, pulled out some sort of stamp, and stamped the letter. Then she put it into an envelope, sealed it shut with wax, and put it into the same drawer the stamp had come out of. I waited expectantly.

"You won't be getting your sign-on pay until Lord Shatter-Shield gets back into Windhelm and confirms the letter," she said sternly. I got the impression she had been required to tell people this very thing before.

"When will I be getting on a ship?" I asked, nervous. I was worried that the longer this took, the more chances there were for my lie to be found out. There was no way it was this simple.

"When Lord Shatter-Shield says you do," she snapped. Her face softened slightly, and she continued. "Because of the recent pirate problems and the civil war, things are a little shaky right now. If Lord Shatter-Shield said he wants you on his crew, he meant it. But he won't be back in Windhelm until his business is taken care of, which might not be until Frostfall. After that, he could put you on a boat within a week—or it could be longer. It would have to be either before the bay ices over or after it thaws next year."

I nodded my understanding and left. It could be as soon as Frostfall or as late as next spring. I supposed that, all things considered, it was the mildest way that things could have gone wrong. It was a little disappointing to have gotten myself all worked up to go only to find out that it could be another six or nine months. Still, "A Kiss, Sweet Mother" had said that the Dread Lord Sithis rewards patience, so I had learned how to be patient. It had worked out pretty well for me since coming back to Windhelm. Patience it was, then.

Pulling myself into bed that night, I still dreamed of being an assassin and not a sailor, but I knew now that it was best to take the opportunities that life presented to you. Being a dispenser of the Night Mother's justice was a beautiful dream—but a dream was all it would ever be. Lord Shatter-Shield's job offer was real, and it was here. I didn't know if being a sailor would make me happy or not, but for the first time ever I felt the real thrill that came from having prospects—from having a future.

For the next several months, I kept up my work as a dockhand and earned a small but regular living. If things had gone differently, I might even have made a good sailor. But it was not meant to be. By the time Frostfall came my life's path would indeed be chosen, for good or ill—but it did not involve the sea…

…to be continued…