Chapter 4
Julia entered the small library at Heljarchen and hovered in the doorway. Her mother and father were in the middle of a heated discussion.
"Then what have we been promising him all these years, if not to honor our promise now," Tamsyn scowled. "He's not getting any younger, you know, and we've asked him to wait long enough."
"Darling, I know you have a vested interest in this," Marcus soothed, "but the rest of the Jarls still think it's too soon—"
"Too soon?" Tamsyn stormed. "Too soon? Marcus, it's been almost fifteen years since the end of the War. Give the man his land back!"
"It's not up to me—" Marcus began, then noticed Julia waiting at the door. He blew out a sigh. "What is it, sweetheart? Can it wait?"
Julia gulped. "No, Dad, it can't," she murmured. "Jarl Balgruuf is here."
"Balgruuf?" Marcus blinked. "I didn't send for him—" He broke off again and glared at Tamsyn. "Did you-?"
Tamsyn huffed indignantly. "I did not," she fumed. "But for his sake, let's table this discussion and put on a good face."
Both took deep breaths to compose themselves and nodded to Julia. "Bring him in here," her father said.
Julia nodded and went back to the entrance hall to the Jarl of Whiterun.
"Please follow me, my lord," she invited, and led him back to the library.
"My lord," Tamsyn smiled serenely. "It's a pleasure to see you as always!"
Julia marveled that no one would have guessed her mother had been in a tirade just moments before.
"Good to see you again, my Jarl," Marcus smiled, clasping wrists with Whiterun's lord.
Dad's no slouch at masquerade, either, Julia reflected sourly.
"Well, I hope you'll be as happy to see me when you hear what I've come to say," Balgruuf frowned.
Julia bowed and made to leave, but Balgruuf stopped her.
"No, child, stay," he invited. "You're a grown woman now, and part of the future of Skyrim. You'll be one of the next generation taking over from us in a few years, so you may as well get a head start. Uh…" he added belatedly, looking at Marcus and Tamsyn, "…with your permission, that is."
The two looked at each other and back to Balgruuf before nodding their agreement, and Julia blinked in amazement before closing the door and happily scooting further into the room, standing next to her mother.
"Sit down, all of you," Balgruuf insisted. "This is your home, after all, and this is an informal visit. What I have to say, however, should not go beyond that door – not just yet, anyway."
Tamsyn nodded, and gestured towards the door, sealing it with a Muffle spell, and locking it from inside. Lydia and the rest of the household knew not to disturb anyone while the spells were in effect.
"Tell us what you've come to say, Balgruuf," Marcus invited. He only ever called the Jarl by his name, omitting the title, when they were in private conversations together.
"I've received word from Madanach," Balgruuf said, and Tamsyn's eyes widened in alarm. Marcus stiffened. "He said he's been patient long enough. He wants his lands turned over to him. The emperor has approved of the ceding of the land; the only hold-out is High King Ulfric."
"Excuse me," Julia said in a timid voice. "I don't understand. I thought the Reach had already been turned over to King Madanach?"
Jarl Balgruuf shook his head. "No," he replied. "The treaty was entered into before the War, that the Reachfolk would help the Alliance defeat the Aldmeri Dominion, which they did. Their efforts, their guerilla tactics, as your father would call them, were invaluable in decimating the numbers of Aldmeri set against us. In return, they were to have the entirety of the Reach turned over to their rule as an independent Province."
"The difficulty with that," Marcus continued the story, "was that the Reach was filled with many people, many races, who were not indigenous to the area, but who nevertheless felt that the Reach was their home, too. They didn't want to move."
"Why would they have to move?" Julia asked.
"Because many people still mistrust the Reachfolk, dear," her mother replied. "Their laws are not the laws of Skyrim, and their gods are not the same. This I know very well."
"Many people feel that if they were to continue to live under Reachfolk rule," Balgruuf explained, "that they would find themselves inadvertently on the wrong side of that law through no other reason than ignorance."
Julia nodded. "Is that why High King Ulfric refused to turn the land over to them?" she asked.
The three older people exchanged looks.
"Not exactly," her father replied, shaking his head.
"There's a bitterness and resentment between King Madanach and High King Ulfric that goes back a long way," her mother replied. "They neither like nor trust each other."
Julia snorted. "Not keeping a promise isn't going to make King Madanach like High King Ulfric any better," she observed.
Balgruuf laughed. "I can tell she's your daughter, you two," he chuckled. "But you're right, young Julia. Madanach feels that Ulfric is reneging on his promise, and Ulfric is reluctant to split Skyrim up into smaller pieces. He's justifiably concerned that if the Reach breaks free, which Hold will go next?"
Julia nodded, understanding. "And this is what you two were arguing about when I came in?" she asked her parents directly. Both squirmed in embarrassment.
"We weren't arguing, exactly," Tamsyn demurred.
"We were merely discussing the situation," Marcus clarified. His daughter nodded.
"Discussing it with raised voices," she put in mischievously, allowing a small smile.
Balgruuf blinked. "So, you two already know about this?" he demanded. "I made a trip up here for nothing?"
"Not for nothing," Marcus soothed. "You know we value your input, Balgruuf."
"And this isn't something that could be trusted to the ear buds," Tamsyn went on. She gave a slight, "Oh!" and rose, crossing to the mantle above the fireplace. "That reminds me. Julia, I have one here for you. I meant to give it to you earlier."
"I get my own?" Julia grinned, excitedly.
"Of course!" her mother smiled. "You're a grown woman, and as Balgruuf pointed out, you're the next generation of leadership in Skyrim."
"Whether you like it or not," Marcus drawled indulgently.
With fingers trembling in excitement, Julia quickly removed one of her pearl earrings from her ear and put the small silver stud where it had been. She could feel the magic radiating from it, though she knew that was only because of her Aedric heritage. The non-detection spell her mother had placed on every one she made would have defied an outsider from determining that the ear bud was anything other than an unremarkable silver earring.
"I know you won't abuse this," her father said, "and I feel it's going to be more and more important to keep you in the loop, as it were."
"Congratulations, Julia," Balgruuf smiled. But it faded and he returned to the topic at hand. "So, how are we going to convince Ulfric to keep his promise to Madanach without offending the High King?"
"I'm inclined to say 'stuff his sensibilities,'" Marcus snorted.
"That's guaranteed to make him dig his heels in," Tamsyn warned.
"We have to find a way to appeal to his sense of honor," Balgruuf insisted. "I don't want Whiterun to suffer his displeasure if I personally do anything to affront him."
"That's why it might be better to come from Tamsyn or myself," Marcus reasoned. "We're not leaders of any Hold—"
"But I'm essentially the leader of the College," Tamsyn reminded him. "It wouldn't be good for the College if I upset him."
"Are you all in agreement, then that the fault lies with Ulfric?" Julia asked.
Three heads turned towards her.
"Well, of course, dear," her mother said. "Ulfric made a promise before the war to give the land back to the Reachfolk if they assisted us."
"Why didn't it happen right after the war?" Julia asked.
"Because the High King needed approval from the emperor to do so," Marcus replied. "Right after the war ended, the emperor was very busy with the reconstruction effort in Cyrodiil. Anything that happened outside his immediate Province had to take a back seat, as it were."
"Getting Cyrodiil stabilized was critically important," Tamsyn went on. "It took almost eight years to make that happen, so that there was relative peace in the Empire."
"But it's been almost fifteen years, you said," Julia reminded them. "High King Ulfric has had plenty of opportunity to honor his promise once the emperor gave permission to cede the land. What excuses has he given for the last seven years?"
Balgruuf gave a rumble of approval. "'Excuses' is the right word," he said. "At first, he insisted on having a survey of the Hold boundaries done, to ensure that not one square hectare of land was ceded in error. That survey had to include all the Holds of Skyrim, in order to be considered valid. Otherwise, it might have looked as though Ulfric was favoring one Hold – say, Haafingar, for example – over another, like Falkreath."
"The survey took almost four years," Marcus explained, "and another full year to get approval from the Moot, the collection of all the Jarls in Skyrim, since these were their Holds we were setting boundaries for."
"I see," Julia nodded. "And in the last two years?"
"For the last two years," Balgruuf snorted, "Ulfric has insisted on polling every man, woman and child who calls the Reach home, to get their opinion on whether they will stay or whether they are willing to move. Most don't want to move, but they're concerned about the change in leadership, and who they owe their fealty to."
"Madanach insists they are free to leave," Tamsyn put in. "He doesn't want anyone living in the Reach who refuses to abide by their laws. But people are stubborn," she finished, sighing.
Julia listened carefully, turning it over in her mind, while her parents continued to discuss their options with Jarl Balgruuf.
"I still think I can talk some sense into him," Marcus insisted. "The two of you might have connections to Holds and institutions, but I'm independent, as well as being very persuasive."
"You're also Dragonborn," Balgruuf nodded. "You're a hero to all of Skyrim, as well as the rest of Tamriel. If you tell him to do something, he might just do it."
"Well, I wouldn't bet the farm on that," Marcus demurred, "but I'm pretty confident he's not going to haul me off to Castle Dour and have Ahtar lop my head off for speaking plainly."
His tone was light, but Julia knew the extent to which her father still had nightmares, sometimes, about Helgen, a city that still lay in ruins some twenty years later.
"What about Solstheim?" she asked.
Three pairs of eyes turned towards her.
"What about it honey?" Marcus asked. "We aren't talking about Solstheim right now."
"No," Julia agreed. "I mean, what about when Skyrim gave Solstheim to the Dunmer, after the explosion of Red Mountain. How was that done?"
It took a moment, but three faces broke into smiles.
"Of course," Jarl Balgruuf said slowly. "Let's see if I can remember the writ. That was before my time."
"Untithed to any thane or hold," Tamsyn quoted, "and self-governed, with free worship…"
"…with no compensation to Skyrim or the Empire," Balgruuf continued, "except as writ in the Armistice of old wheresoever those might still apply, and henceforth let no Man or Mer say that the Sons and Daughters of Kyne are without mercy or honor."
"There's a monument on the road east of Windhelm," Julia said. "That's where I read that inscription."
"When were you that far east of Windhelm?" her mother blinked, surprised.
"Oh," Julia gulped. Her mother didn't know about that escapade. "It was a couple of years ago. Aethir and I were exploring that part of the coast, near Yngol Barrow. We saw something on our map called 'Refugees Rest', and went to have a look." She decided to say nothing about the frost trolls that had taken up residence in the tumbled-down ruin of the tower near the monument marker. The least said about that, the better. But her mother gave her a searching look, and she knew at some point she was probably going to have to explain herself.
"That's an angle we might try on Ulfric," Marcus nodded now. "If we appeal to his sense of honor, and point out historical reference in support of our argument, we can make him look like the good guy in all of this, and that might go a long way towards assuaging his pride."
"It's not just his pride we have to think about," Tamsyn warned. "We also have to reassure him that he's not losing his Province, piece by piece. We'll need to get pledges of fealty from all the other Jarls, that they are in agreement with this, and that it's the right thing to do."
"I know we can count on Jarl Thaddgeir, in Falkreath," Balgruuf said confidently. "He might be older than me, but he's no doddering fool. He's loyal to Skyrim. And I believe I can talk Saerlund around, if he's having doubts," Whiterun's lord said, referring to his son-in-law who was the Jarl of Riften.
"I'll talk with Jarl Kraldar in Winterhold," Tamsyn volunteered. "I'm sure he'll see the need for this." Kraldar had replaced Korir, when the former Jarl and his family succumbed to a virulent sickness a decade ago. Tamsyn had tried her hardest to save them, in spite of their mistrust of mages, but to no avail. Kraldar had no family and no kin, so he had adopted a young girl out of the Riften orphanage, and was schooling her to be the next Jarl.
They spoke a while longer, ensuring they all understood what each person needed to do. Julia was given the task of speaking to Jarl Brina Merelis of the Pale.
"She should be open to the idea," Marcus told his daughter. "Just let her know that a reaffirmation of fealty to the High King will be necessary to confirm each Hold's loyalty to the High King."
Julia nodded. "I'll remember, Dad."
Balgruuf declined an invitation to stay for supper, stating he needed to return to his city.
"Frothar is a good lad," he beamed proudly, "and he runs the Hold nearly as well as I do now."
"But?" Tamsyn prompted with a quirk of her lips.
"But I don't want him getting too used to running things without me," Balgruuf winked. He climbed into his carriage and the Dragonborn and his family waved as it trundled away to the south, out of sight.
Getting an audience with Jarl Brina was not nearly as difficult as Julia had feared. She wondered if it had anything to do with her famous parentage. Her mother and father were well-known at the White Hall.
Explaining the reasons for her visit, however, were met with less than enthusiastic responses from both the Jarl and her court mage, Madena.
"I've already sworn fealty to the High King and the High Queen," Jarl Brina frowned. "I was there at the Moot, all those years ago. I voted for the two of them to rule together! Why is this now an issue?"
"There's been some concern that his Majesty might feel that he could lose Skyrim piece by piece," Julia explained, "by keeping his promise to King Madanach to give up the Reach to him."
Madena snorted. "Ulfric thinks far too much of his own importance," she muttered scathingly, and Jarl Brina did not admonish her.
"I see," the older Nord woman replied. "Knowing what I know of Ulfric, I'm not surprised he would feel that way. And while that would never be a problem with the Pale – we are loyal to Skyrim, after all – I can see where he might have some concerns with other Holds."
She didn't mention anything specifically, but Julia had an idea to whom she might be referring. She said nothing, however, but merely asked, "So, you'll send an emissary to Solitude to reaffirm this?"
Brina Merelis sighed. "Yes, yes," she waved tiredly. "I'll send him the damned letter. I think it's unnecessary, but if it means honoring a promise made, and it makes him feel better, I'll do it."
"I'll fetch you some paper and ink," her Housecarl, Horik offered, and he left the main hall to retrieve the writing implements.
"Let me ask you this, young Dovahkiir," Brina said, turning a keen eye on Julia, "how are you going to present this information to the High King?"
Julia blinked. "I…I wasn't, my Jarl," she replied truthfully. "My father felt sure you would understand, which was why he sent me here to speak with you. My mother is going to talk to Jarl Kraldar in Winterhold, and Jarl Balgruuf is speaking with Jarls Saerlund and Thaddgeir in their Holds."
"I see," said Jarl Brina. "What of Morthal?"
"My father is well-known there, my Jarl," Julia smiled. "He will be speaking with Jarl Idgrod the Younger."
"And Windhelm?" the Jarl asked, watching her closely.
Julia opened her mouth, but stopped and closed it again. Neither her parents nor Jarl Balgruuf had considered Windhelm, High King Ulfric's former Hold. There was a new person in charge there, since young Princess Eila was destined to become High Queen after her parents, and her twin brother Eifid had joined Skyrim's standing army, with no desire to rule, as he had heatedly and repeatedly told his parents. The Jarl of Windhelm was a Nord by the name of Havoc the Vast, a huge mountain of a man with a canny way of getting people to agree with him. Julia had never met him.
"I…think we just assumed that Jarl Havoc would follow the High King and Queen," Julia said lamely. It never occurred to her, at least, that the Jarl put into place by the High King himself, would not be loyal to the man who had given him his power.
Brina nodded sagely. "And you know what happens when you assume," was all she said.
Her words troubled Julia all the way back to Heljarchen.
She wrestled with her conscience for some time, debating whether she should mention the Jarl's concerns to her parents. Her father had not yet returned from Morthal, having left for that town the same day Julia left for Dawnstar. Her mother had not yet left for Winterhold, and Julia decided that forewarned was forearmed.
"Mom? Do you have a moment?"
Tamsyn was packing a small carpetbag with the few things she might need in Winterhold that wouldn't be at her quarters in the College.
"Of course, dear," she replied, sitting down on the edge of the bed and patting the ticking next to her. Julia sat down. "What's the problem?" Tamsyn asked. "How did Jarl Brina react to your request?"
"She's going to send an official letter to the High King," Julia reported. "She's not happy about it. She thinks it's unnecessary, and that the High King is being foolish, but she'll send it."
"Good," Tamsyn sighed. "Personally, I agree with her," she continued, "but Ulfric is the High King, so we all have to walk on eggshells around him. If it was just the High Queen, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because Elisif would have just barreled ahead and done the transfer, then dealt with the fallout from the other Jarls as it came up."
"That's not what I wanted to talk to you about, though," Julia ventured.
"Oh?" Tamsyn queried. "What else?"
Julia told her mother what Dawnstar's Jarl had mentioned about the Jarl of Windhelm. When she finished, she asked, "Could she be right, Mom? Would Jarl Havoc have any reason to want to make Eastmarch a separate Province from Skyrim?"
"I don't know," Tamsyn said thoughtfully. "But it does put some of the High King's fears into a new light, doesn't it? Especially if he's already suspected Jarl Havoc's loyalty to him."
"What are we going to do?" Julia asked.
"For now, nothing," her mother replied. "But I want you to contact your father and explain to him exactly what you just told me."
Julia nodded, relieved to be able to pass the information along to someone with more experience in what her father often referred to as 'troubleshooting.' She was also thrilled to be able to use the ear bud officially for the first time.
Her father responded immediately when she contacted him, and listened quietly while she gave her report.
"I see," was all he said. "Thank you for letting me know, sweetheart," he continued. "I'll look into it when I'm done here in Morthal. Tell your mother I won't be coming back to Heljarchen just yet."
"I'll tell her," Julia replied. "But Dad—" She rushed to say before he could end the connection.
"What is it, hun?"
"Could I come with you?" she asked. "To Windhelm, I mean? We could learn a lot more with two of us than just you alone."
She fully expected him to say 'no', so it came as a surprise when he answered, "I think that's a good idea, honey. I'll talk to your mother instead, in that case," he added. "It will head off any objections on her part." He chuckled before signing off.
Tamsyn wasn't happy about letting Julia go to Windhelm, even in her father's company.
"It might not be safe," she frowned.
"And it might be perfectly fine, Mom," Julia insisted. "We won't know until we get there. Dad will talk to the Jarl, and I'll talk to the people, and we can find out if there's anything happening that we need to worry about."
"I still don't like it," Tamsyn replied, shaking her head before sighing. "But I can't fight both you and your father. The two of you are two of the most stubborn people I've ever known!"
Julia grinned, knowing she'd gotten her way. "I could say that about you, too, Mom!" she giggled.
Julia had only been to Windhelm a handful of times in her life, and then, only to Hjerim, the house her parents owned there. She'd been too young to roam about the town freely, and there were, at the time – and still, if the truth be told – areas of the city where it was not safe for a young girl to wander on her own. Even her father admitted it had been a while since he'd visited.
"Your mother has been here more recently, checking over the house and going over the accounts with Calder," he explained. Calder was their Housecarl, whose job it was to be a presence at Hjerim when they weren't there. "I haven't met the new Jarl, yet, either," he told Julia, "so I'm not sure what to expect. I think it might be better if I see him alone, for the first time."
"That's alright, Dad," Julia assured him. "I'll visit the shops in the Stone Quarter and see what I can learn by talking to people."
"That sounds like a plan," he nodded. "You should be fine. Just be careful if you venture into the Grey Quarter. There's a shop there – Sadri's Used Wares. Revyn Sadri is a good mer, and he keeps his finger on the pulse of Windhelm fairly well. Just don't go down by the docks, understand? It can get rough down there."
"I'll remember," she nodded.
Calder was delighted to see them. "I knew who you were, right away when I opened the door," he informed them. "My Lady Tamsyn made a sketch of all of you, and had it framed. I put it up over there, in case any of you showed up." He nodded towards a charcoal drawing hanging on the wall near the door, and Julia was impressed at the likenesses.
The sketch had been done a few years ago, clearly, as she and Tavian were still very young in the image, but there could be no doubt who the rest were. Sofie's serene face smiled out at them, with Erik by her side. Her niece and nephew weren't there, indicating they hadn't been born yet. Blaise's rock-steady features stared back at her. Alesan's face had just the right cockiness in it. And Lucia was clearly laughing at all of them. In the middle were her mother and father, love and pride glowing in every line and shadow.
"Have any of the others come by lately?" Marcus asked as he headed upstairs to stow his gear.
"Lucia was here last month," Calder's voice replied. "She had a private performance for the Jarl she was assigned to give, but she didn't stay long…"
Their voices faded and Julia turned to the 'child's room' just outside the enchanting and alchemy lab. It had been refitted with an adult-sized bed, replacing the two child beds that had been there before, but it was still a small, cramped room.
It would be more fun to take out the workshop, and put the bedroom in there, she thought. Nobody uses it anymore.
She gave a mental shrug. It wasn't her decision to make. She quickly changed out of her traveling clothes and into something more suitable for roaming around town. Leather pants went under a woolen tunic – Windhelm was always cold! – and she covered it over with a thick, hooded woolen cloak.
"I'm going out, Dad!" she called up the stairs.
"Be careful!" he called back, and she left Hjerim to see what had changed about the city since her last visit.
Her first stop was the alchemy shop, the White Phial. Years ago, her father had found the namesake artifact for the shop's previous owner, an old elf named Nurelion. She had heard the story, many times. Sadly, the old mer passed away soon after he'd been given the treasure he had searched his whole life for, and the new owner, an Imperial named Quintus Navale, had insisted her father keep the Phial. "I fear keeping the Phial would just remind me of Nurelion's obsession, and how it consumed him," he had asserted. "For myself, I've always been content to be simply an alchemist."
As she entered the White Phial she was immediately assailed with the scents of dozens of exotic herbs and spices, as well as the pungent aromas of other alchemical ingredients that did not come from plants.
"May I help you?" a middle-aged Imperial asked. Quintus had aged well, Julia thought. He didn't look much older than the last time she'd been here, in the company of her mother. "Ah! Miss Julia, isn't it?" he smiled, delighted to recognize her. "It's been quite a while since I've seen you. How is your mother these days?"
They spent several minutes catching up, before Julia finally got up the nerve to ask, "And how is everything in Windhelm, Master Navale?"
"Oh, fine, just fine," the alchemist replied, a bit too blithely. "The East Empire Company keeps raising the tariffs on my imports, of course, but that's to be expected. Nothing stays the same, you know. It simply means I've had to raise my prices a bit to compensate."
"Have you had any trouble with the EEC?" she asked, curious.
"Oh, no, no, nothing like that," he answered, though her intuition told her he wasn't being entirely truthful with her. It was something she could only attribute to her Aedric blood. She knew instinctively when someone was attempting to hide something from her. She raised an eyebrow, ever so slightly, to imply she doubted him, and he blew out a sigh and relented. Leaning in closer, he murmured, "You didn't hear this from me, but word on the street is that the EEC and the Jarl may be negotiating to move the EEC's headquarters in Skyrim to Windhelm."
Julia blinked. "Why would they do that?" she asked.
Quintus spread his hands. "It's business," he replied. "Everything that gets shipped into Skyrim has to come through one of three ports – four, once Winterhold rebuilds theirs; but they're still a few years away from being operable."
"I understand that part," Julia nodded. "Why would it make a difference where the headquarters are?"
"Because the host city gets a larger cut of the profits," Quintus answered, surprised she would ask. "If Windhelm succeeds in getting the EEC to relocate here, that cuts Solitude out of the major portion of the money that flows into Skyrim through the East Empire Company. Solitude would then get no more than Dawnstar does for the shipping that passes through the city."
"And money equals power," Julia mused.
"Exactly!" Quintus nodded. "Jarl Havoc feels that Solitude has had more than enough of the EEC's money, and he'd like to have that for Windhelm…so he says. There are some who think he wants the money for himself."
"What do you think?" Julia asked.
But Quintus had clearly felt he'd said enough. "I try not to," he said, brusquely. "Now, as nice as it's been talking to you, I have work to do." He retreated to the back room, and Julia knew she'd get nothing further from him.
The blacksmith wouldn't talk to her at all about anything but business.
"If you're here to buy, let me know," the surly Nord told her. "Otherwise, just keep out of my way. I'm a busy man."
The butcher and green-grocer were similar of temperament. The Altmer who used to run the stall in the corner of the Stone Quarter wasn't there, and the stall was empty of wares.
"Gone," the green-grocer told her. "And good riddance, too, filthy elf!"
Julia was shocked. The Last Great War was over, and had been for many years. Was there still so much hatred and vitriol against Altmer that the vendor had felt the need to leave? Curious, she turned her steps towards the Grey Quarter, to the seek out the shop her father had mentioned.
Sadri's Used Wares, the faded sign read, when she finally found it. Entering, she blinked to allow her eyes to adjust to the dimness in here, after the brightness of sunlight-on-snow from outside.
"Welcome! Welcome!" a smooth voice intoned. "Have a look around! I buy and sell just about everything."
Revyn Sadri was a thin, elderly Dunmer with a shock of thick, brown hair combed straight back from his face. Despite his apparent age, there were only a few sprinkles of grey that glittered in the lantern-light. His blue tunic was worn and faded, and neatly patched in only a few places, but his red eyes were warm and inviting, and he smiled as she made her way over to the counter. "Are you looking for anything in particular?" he asked. "Please let me know. I might have it stored away."
I'm looking for information, she thought privately, but I doubt you'll confide in a total stranger. However…
"I actually just wanted to look around," she gushed in a girlish giggle. "My father has told me so much about this place that I had to come see it!"
"Your father?" Revyn asked. "Do I know him?"
"I think so," Julia bubbled. "He's Marcus of Whiterun, and he—"
"Marcus?" Revyn started, a grin splitting his face. "Marcus Dragonborn? Of course, I know him! I haven't seen him in a long time, but yes! I know him very well – or at least, I know about him. And he has come here on more than one occasion. Is he in town? Do ask him to stop by, if you would."
"I'll do that," Julia promised. She was only slightly regretful at pulling the Famous Connection Card, but consoled herself with, Needs must.
"So, you're Marcus' daughter, eh?" Revyn smiled again. "I don't believe I know your name.
"Julia," she supplied. "Julia Dovahkiir."
"I'm delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Julia," Revyn said sincerely, taking her hand and shaking it. "Tell me, what can I do for you?"
"Well," she hesitated. "I was wondering if you could tell me what happened to Jarl Brunwulf," she began. Let's start there, she thought. "I seem to remember he was the Jarl of Windhelm after the Last Great War, but then the next thing I heard was that High King Ulfric appointed a man named Havoc the Vast to be Jarl. What do you know about it?"
"Why do you want to know?" Revyn countered, suddenly suspicious.
Julia dropped her naïve façade. "I'm sorry," she said, contrite. "My father wanted to know, and I said I'd try to find out."
"I see," the Dunmer frowned. "Well, if your father wanted to know, he should have come to see me himself, and not have sent his daughter to poke around in dangerous territory."
"I'm really sorry," Julia insisted. "I didn't mean to offend—"
"You haven't," Revyn said stiffly. "But I think you should leave, now."
"My father didn't send me," she tried again to explain. "But he still wanted to know—"
"Then perhaps think next time before you get yourself into trouble that you can't get yourself out of," Revyn warned. "Please go."
Miserably, Julia left the shop, and heard a distinctive snick of the lock being turned behind her.
You blew it, she berated herself. He'll never talk now. And now I have to explain that to Dad.