VIII. Something Rotten
I was on my way to Riften, the closest place to Faldur’s Tooth with a friendly bed. I needed to do some planning on just how I was going to steal the Silver Hand stratagems Aela had sent me to fetch. And a good meal wouldn't hurt either. I knew nothing about Riften, and I was in for a surprise. Again.
To begin with, the guards at the city gate tried to shake me down for an entry "tax." Unsuccessfully. Not a good first impression for the place.
What struck me immediately, once I made it inside the city walls, was how very drab Riften seemed. The landscape here in southern Skyrim had turned more and more beautiful as I walked through autumn-clad aspens and past the glassy lake where Riften hugs the easternmost bank. Blue and yellow butterflies had danced in the air around me, and glow of a light mist made everything seem both mysterious and inviting. I suppose I had expected the city to reflect the beauty of its surroundings.
Most of the citizens I met seemed nice enough, though a bit on edge. After a few conversations, I began to see why. They were worried about a so-called guild of thieves--especially the business owners. The story I heard was that this motley collection of pickpockets and petty thugs were the remnants of a once fearsome crime organization headquartered in Riften. For some reason, they'd lost most of their power to bite, but they could still bark enough to be very, very annoying. It amounted mostly to petty larceny and the occasional small-time extortion of local merchants. But everyone from the Argonian innkeepers to the sharp-tongued armor vendor in the market stalls complained at length about this blight on their city and their lives. Nobody seemed much inclined to do anything but grumble about it though.
Except for one, Mjoll the Lioness—a proud name for a woman of unyielding moral strength. I have to say, I was quite impressed with her. She stood tall. An adventuring warrior before she’d nearly gotten herself killed exploring some long-forgotten Dwemer ruin, Mjoll had settled down in Riften and become its unofficial champion. In her gentle Nord lilt, she told me about her one-woman crusade against the abuses of the Guild, and about her dismay that the citizenry seemed resigned to living with corruption and deceit. The most infamous object of Mjoll's disgust was the wealthy matriarch of the Black-Briar mead brewing clan. As a sideline to her very profitable meadery, Maven Black-Briar had made herself the foremost silent partner behind what was left of the Thieves Guild. She's everything that's wrong with this city, Mjoll said. Money and power will do that, I thought. I soon learned that in Riften, you heard about Maven Black-Briar's influence everywhere you went.
They're trying to recruit people to their so-called Guild, Mjoll warned me as we parted. So watch yourself.
**************************
Faldur's Tooth and the Silver Hand were waiting for me, but after what I saw that evening in Riften, I decided to delay that mission just a little longer. The Companions most cherished value is honor, and to me, that means helping people who need it. And this town needed help.
Not too long after my conversation with Mjoll, I got a first-hand view of the Thieves Guild at work.
An imposing Nord muscle-head calling himself Maul stopped me in the street to ask me if I was looking for trouble. His glare told me that he thought he could show me plenty if I gave him the chance. I know this kind of overconfident oaf....and their weaknesses. I smooth-talked him into telling me very likely everything he knew about Maven and the Thieves Guild, including that his brother was a member. Maven, Maul said reverently, had ties not only to the Thieves Guild, but to the Dark Brotherhood of assassins as well. The local Guild contact, if I was interested, was someone named Brynjolf.
It was almost dark by this time, so I made my way to the Bee and Barb Inn to rent a room for the night, when I overheard a tense conversation between a young Redguard man and a hard-looking woman wearing armor that seemed designed for stealth more than protection.
Pay up or else, she said through clenched jaws.
I have no way to pay, he said, his voice nearly breaking. My shipment of supplies was robbed, and I have nothing now.
You should have kept your mouth shut about it, the woman hissed. Like I said, pay up or else.
Once she'd gone, Shadr the stable hand was more than willing to spill the details of his predicament. He'd borrowed money from this Sapphire and now he realized that she'd set him up from the outset. She and her Thieves Guild goons had robbed his shipment themselves, and now she was demanding payment for the loan. After this, I'll never be able to open my own stable, he said in despair. She might even kill me!
I don't know just how I’ll do it, but I told Shadr I'd try to get things straightened out for him.
At the inn, I was truly ready for a peaceful meal and some rest (a good night's sleep seems out of the question lately). Instead, I got Brynjolf.
He walked up to me in the tavern area liked he owned the place and said I looked like I knew how to get by, in fact, like I'd never done an honest day’s work in my life for all the coin I was carrying. He could tell these things from the way I'd sniffed out his little shakedown operation at the city gates. I believe he meant all this as some kind of compliment, so I let him keep going. I wanted to dig a little deeper into this Thieves Guild that was causing the honest people of Riften so much trouble. To be sure, Brynjolf had a slick act--dressed in fine clothes, not smelling like a horse after a three-day ride, and with an embarrassingly attractive accent to boot.
Eventually he got around to what he really wanted to say: You look like you wouldn't mind some more gold in your pocket, and I've got an errand that I need a pair of extra hands for. It pays well, if you're interested.
I’m listening.
Brynjolf laid it all out for me. He wanted me to swipe a ring from the Argonian jewelry vendor in the marketplace and plant it on another vendor, a Dunmer named Brand-Shei. Brynjolf would cover me with his own crowd-pleasing performance at another stall. He'd be there all day, so just give him the signal when I was ready.
Why are we doing this, I asked.
Someone wants to teach this guy a lesson, and that's all you need to know. He'll only spend a few days in the local jail. We're not the Dark Brotherhood, after all. With that, Brynjolf casually walked away as if he'd been doing nothing more than chatting with an old friend he hadn't seen for a while.
Well, that's a nasty piece of work--framing this Brand-Shei to order. This was the Thieves Guild recruitment scheme Mjoll had warned me about.
***************************
I could have simply left for Faldur's Tooth the next morning. Maybe I should have. But after a restless night spent mulling over all the energy my shield-siblings and I were directing toward eliminating the Silver Hand, I wasn't so sure. Yes, they'd killed Skjor, and that was unforgivable. But perhaps it was predictable as well. We had struck first at Dustman's Cairn. And now I would be hitting them again tomorrow. What would their next move be? Maybe the stratagem would tell us, but if I were in their shoes, I wouldn't write that down; I'd just do it. I'm pretty sure it would be the same for Aela, Vilkas, and Farkas.
And I kept thinking of Mjoll, alone in her fight for Riften's honor against the Thieves Guild. With what I had heard about Maven Black-Briar and her powerful support of the Guild, it seemed plain that resisting them from the outside as Mjoll was trying to do would never be successful. Perhaps there was another way to undermine their business.
I made up my mind to accept Brynjolf's offer. If I gained his trust, maybe I could do from the inside what Mjoll could not from the outside. It would be distasteful, but no one would be killed. If I was right, the results for Riften would make my efforts worthwhile. I slept on it for what was left of the night.
The next morning I spotted Brynjolf at his market stall, just as he'd promised.
I am not a thief. I did not want to do this. But it was the only way in.
While Brynjolf kept the crowd in the marketplace entertained with a snake-oil spiel for some cure-all elixir he was hawking, I picked open Madesi-the-Argonian's strongbox and found the ring. That was the easy part. Planting the ring on the elf took everything I had. The unsuspecting Brand-Shei sat casually watching Brynjolf's show from a stack of crates beside his stall. What if this went wrong? How would I explain myself? No matter what I said, it would not bring honor to the Companions. I managed to find an approach from behind that allowed me to slip my hand between the two boxes he had leaned against and drop the ring undetected into his pocket.
When the thing was done, I put on the air of indifference I'd seen in Brynjolf and walked away. My insides, on the other hand, were far from placid. The same dread rumbled in my gut as when I'd fought the Skinner....and something unexpected, too. I hate to admit that there was a noticeable sense of accomplishment for having pulled it off without getting caught…a little thrill or something like it.
Meanwhile, Brynjolf wrapped up his performance, and the crowd gradually dispersed among the stalls to chat and shop once more. A few minutes later I saw a couple of Riften guards approach Brand-Shei with their weapons drawn. Apparently, someone had tipped them off that he was in possession of stolen goods. They found Madesi's ring in the elf's pocket and hauled him off to jail. His anguished cries of innocence echoed off the gloom of Riften's shabby, gray walls. Who did this to me, he cried over and over again.
When Brynjolf caught up with me later, he paid me more than I'd earned for any work I’d done for the Companions. In fact, since we began our operation against the Silver Hand, there hadn't been any coin. Those were not paying jobs.
I took Brynjolf's money, and he took the next step. There's more where that came from lass, he purred. If I was interested, I could find him at The Ragged Flagon down in the Ratway. But getting there was a test I'd have to pass.
I'd already been told about the Ratway by several of the townsfolk. A network of tunnels built long ago to channel the city sewer, the Ratway wound like an underworld maze beneath the streets of Riften. Seemed a fitting place to house a down-on-their-luck band of thieves. Most of the Ratway was dry now, and home to the sort of outcasts and vagrants you didn't want to encounter in dark, tight quarters where they knew the lay of the land and you didn’t. No wonder the Riften guards couldn't find the stomach to go down there and clean the place out.
But the Ratway would have to wait. I needed to get to Faldur's Tooth and then back to Aela with the stolen stratagems. Besides, it wouldn’t do to let Brynjolf think I was too eager. Let him wonder for a while.
Before I left Riften, I had to check on Brand-Shei. On the lower level of the prison wing of Mistveil Keep, the palace of Laila Law-Giver, Jarl of the Rift, I found his jail cell. He sat in its far corner with head down and shoulders slumped, dispirited but otherwise unharmed. Who did this to me, he said again, I am innocent. The guard told me he'd be there for five days--his first offense for petty theft. I am not proud of the way he got there.
I spoke to Jarl Laila and her steward Anuriel on my way out. They said that the prominent local citizen Maven Black-Briar was working hard on the Thieves Guild problem. She had the Jarl's confidence and backing, and would soon have them all incarcerated.
Brynjolf and his bunch had things sewn up just the way they wanted.
Regardless, Jarl Laila said, the real threat to Riften was the civil war. Ulfric needed all the support they could give. The White-Gold Concordat must be overturned and Skyrim's Nords free to worship Talos unhindered once again.
The war. What a waste. I met a man at the Bee and Barb who had lost his daughter to the war. From the number of empty mead bottles at his table, he spent a lot of his time these days sitting alone there trying to kill the pain with Black-Briar’s best. His daughter had joined the Stormcloaks several years back as a battlemaiden-healer and died during one of the first skirmishes with Imperial forces. They'd left her body to rot in the mud with the rest of the Stormcloaks they'd killed. Since then, Vulwulf Snow-Shod had channeled his grief into a virulent hatred for anything Imperial. The anger in his voice when he said he wouldn't rest until every last Imperial soldier had joined his Lilija could not mask the deep sadness in his eyes.
Hearing his story, I too felt the pain of it all, much more than I wanted to show him. I had seen that Riften had an orphanage. Someone said that most of the children there had lost their parents in the war. Families torn apart. Lives ruined. If Talos has the power they say he does, why doesn't he do something for the people who are dying for him? Could it be that the gods don't care as much about our worship as we think they do? Anyway, the gods have never been much good at fighting evil. They leave that for us. And religious persecution is an evil that never goes out of style.
**************************
I left Riften for Faldur's Tooth through the stable gate. Shadr was there, and I had to tell him that I’d had no luck in persuading Sapphire to forgive his debt. I wouldn't forget though. Don't give up hope.
While I was at the stables, I impulsively decided to purchase a horse. The coin I'd gotten from Brynjolf gave me just enough to do it with a little cushion for unforeseen expenses. I rode away on a fine-looking dapple gray. It's a long journey back to Whiterun, but with Vindstjarni*, I might even enjoy it. I wonder if he's fast enough to outrun bears.
My destination was a large crumbling fort a few miles outside Riften on the north shore of Lake Honrich. Are there any forts in Skyrim that are not crumbling? Haven't seen any yet. Faldur's Tooth may not have been much to look at, but it was well defended. Locked gates secured the main portals, and half a dozen Silver Hands patrolled the courtyard. Fortunately, once I was inside, they were a little more spread out. I did not see any signs of slaughtered werewolves, but this contingent of the Silver Hand had found another way to torment the wolf: pit-wolf fighting. The reek of dog shit nearly knocked me over when I came in the door. They had a collection of half-starved animals waiting in cages and a large fighting pit with a cashier's betting booth on the side. There was blood everywhere. And that was before I came through. I found the plans Aela wanted in a fancy chest in their leader's quarters. It wasn't even locked. I got out of there as quick as I could.
***********
Vindstjarni may just be the best thing I have ever bought. He can't quite outrun bears, but he knows better than to try to fight them when I am working on one. I think he likes me. I found that with just a bit of practice, he will come to my whistle, when I have strayed too far with my exploring. We cantered and walked along the lake, making our way toward the north. It is so beautiful here. I remember living on a lake when I was young. Don't quite recall where it was, but it was even prettier than Honrich. Late in the day when the winds died down and the sun hit the perfect angle, the surface made a mirror so clear you could see the sky reflected like it went from your feet to the heavens without stopping. I wonder if that happens here sometimes.
I stopped to let Vindstjarni take a good long drink before we took off again on our evening’s travel, and sure enough I could see the sky in the water. Not quite like I remember, though. And I could see myself, too, reflected in the shadows of this dark water. Ever since I've been in Skyrim, the Nords have been calling me kinsman. By the looks of it, I guess I am. Well, I knew I wasn’t Khajiit. Don't feel any more Nord than anything else though. I suppose it must be why I have such empathy for the Nords’ struggle in Skyrim. Funny, I look older than I feel. There are lines on my face the young don’t have. And I see sadness behind my eyes like I saw in Vulwulf Snow-Shod's. Maybe I don't want to remember everything about my life before that day in the wagon at Helgen. But good memories or bad, you can't stop time and the thread of your life. They say there's a face sculptor in Riften who can change the way you look. Must be some kind of special magic. Sounds like a foolish idea. Even if you erase the lines on your face, they're still there in your soul.
*Vindstjarni—silver dapple with star
