Just outside the gates of Riften was a stable with a matched set of dappled gray horses, a rugged gray-haired Nord grooming them, and a carriage manned by another short-sleeved blonde man, ready for hire. “Hello there,” called the driver.
She walked over to him. “Good day to you. What can you tell me about Riften? It’s probably obvious, but I’m new here.” Carriage drivers went everywhere and remembered more gossip from their last trip than most people heard in a lifetime.
“If it’s a room you’re needing, head to the Bee and Barb. But watch your coin purse. It’s no secret that the Thieves Guild makes its home here.” He dropped his voice lower. “And if you should run into Maven Black-Briar, try to keep on her good side. This is her city, and nobody else’s.”
“Alright, thanks for the tip,” Dagnell said, waving. That sounds good, she thought; the Bee and Barb it is. Before she had gone much more than ten more steps toward the gate, though, one of its two guards stopped her.
“Hold there. Before you can enter the city, you have to pay the visitor’s tax,” he said, holding out his hand.
She was sure her mouth must have fallen open just a bit. “Visitor’s tax? What’s the visitor’s tax for?”
“For the privilege of entering the city,” he replied, in a tone that implied she’d just asked the stupidest question he’d heard in a long time. “What does it matter?” For the briefest of astonished moments she started to reach for her coin purse. Then she stopped.
She had absolutely never encountered a visitor’s tax at any place she’d ever been, and at this point she’d been a lot of places. Even as a theory it made no sense. If every traveler had to pay a tax simply to enter the city they would simply go someone else and Riften would have no commerce to speak of. She could understand an entry fee for shipments, maybe; but not for visitors.
She looked them both up and down and snorted. “No, sorry, I don’t buy it. This is nothing more than a shakedown. Obviously.”
The guard looked startled, and then flustered. “Alright, alright, keep your voice down,” he said in a hushed tone. “You want everyone to hear you? I’ll let you in. Just let me unlock the gate.” She’d been right; this was an under-the-table deal and he didn’t want to get caught doing it. He walked under the archway to the gate and worked a great key into it. “Gate’s unlocked. You can enter whenever you’re ready.” She shook her head at both of them as she passed, wondering how they ever expected to get away with such a ridiculous thing. Maybe most people were just more gullible than she was, or more willing to simply do as they were told. Not Dag. And particularly not Dag without money.
Dagnell stepped inside the gate to take stock of Riften. It was an interesting place at first glance: built mostly of wood, old and worn, some buildings with sagging rooflines, but still a lot more appealing to her than Windhelm had been in spite of its slight air of neglect. Maybe it was just that she was used to living near water, not snow, and she smelled water.
To her left were several larger homes, their yards surrounded by stone and wrought iron fences and filled with flowers. An old canal bisected the town, a full story below street level. Boardwalks ran along both sides of it, at street level and below at water level, and several footbridges led across it. From her vantage point she could just see the circular marketplace in the center of town; it sounded full of activity. To her right were a number of older buildings and homes, as well as a large building with an inn sign hanging at its entry. She couldn’t see a fishery, but she knew it was there; it was hard to disguise that familiar and distinctive odor.
“Welcome to Riften, home of the Thieves Guild, or so they’d have you believe things,” a passing guard told her sarcastically. “It’s all lies. They’re just thugs. Vermin creeping around in the Ratway.” Interesting, Dag thought. There it is again, Thieves Guild. She would definitely keep her eyes open and her head down in this place. Meanwhile, she needed to trade some of her looted gear for coin. She headed toward the marketplace.
“I don’t know you,” announced a deep, gravelly, threatening voice to her left.
An impressively large, dark-haired man with biceps the size of tree trunks was leaning against a building’s support pillar, frowning at her. “You in Riften looking for trouble?” he growled.
Dag considered several smart responses she might make as she tried to take the measure of him. She didn’t like being threatened, but he was a big, mean-looking man with an attitude and he clearly wouldn’t take well to being challenged. No fistfight with him was going to end well for her. What she settled on was “I’m just passing through.” That was true enough and he’d just made it truer.
“Yeah? Well I got news for you. There’s nothing to see here. Last thing the Black-Briars need is some stranger stickin’ their nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Ah, Black-Briar, she thought. As in the meadery Roggi had raved about, and the Maven she’d just heard mentioned. “The Black-Briars?” she asked to be certain.
He sneered. “The Black-Briars have Riften in their pocket and the Thieves Guild watchin’ their back, so keep your nose out of their business. Me? I’m Maul. I watch the streets for ‘em.”
I don’t know that I personally would have shared that with a complete stranger just through the gates, she thought, but maybe people are different in Riften. She had no intention of doing anything at all with the Black-Briars’ business, though, except maybe buying a mead, so it wouldn’t be a problem.
“If you need dirt on anything, I’m your guy – but it’ll cost you.”
Oh please, she thought. Another shakedown? There was definitely something fishy in Riften, and it wasn’t just the fragrance of the place.
“No, I don’t need anything, but thanks.”
“If you change your mind, I’ll be down at the docks. Try anything, and I’ll gut you like a fish.”
Dag had gutted what felt like a lifetime of fish back in Port Hunding on Stros M’Kai, and knew exactly what he meant. She decided not to indulge the words that were begging to come out of her mouth. “Thanks,” she said instead, and continued past him.
There was a lot of foot traffic in the marketplace, enough that Dagnell stepped back out of the way to look around for the smithy she could hear over the hum of business. Like everything else she had seen in Skyrim, the place was weather-beaten and gray, but Riften at least felt alive. Shopkeepers called out their wares. A woman somewhere, Dunmer from her accent, cried “All meat guaranteed clean and free from rockjoint!” Dag smiled. One would hope. A man called “Beautiful baubles and gleaming gemstones here!” in the distinctive tones only the Argonian lizard people could make. And then there was: “Genuine Falmerblood Elixir! Make love like a saber cat or crush your enemies to dust like a giant! Only twenty septims a bottle,” in a lilting brogue that reminded her of a sailor she’d met once when his ship arrived from the far-northern island of Falskaar. Right, she thought, amused. What a deal.
The smithy was on the other side of the marketplace, under a sign that named it the Scorched Hammer. The smith, a great strawberry-blonde bear of a man with a blacksmith’s huge arms and a dirty face, looked up to greet her.
“Come to see Balimund work wonders with steel?” She couldn’t help but smile.
“No, I’ve come to do some trading, if that’s ok. Let me figure out what I have that you might want.” He nodded and went back to hammering out what looked like a war axe head.
As she sorted through the looted gear, the distinctive brogue again lifted out over the marketplace. “Learn a library’s worth of knowledge in a moment, or grow back that missing limb with my genuine Falmerblood Elixir!”
She laughed out loud in spite of herself. Falmerblood Elixir indeed. Even if you could get close enough to a Falmer without being killed, from what little she knew of the creatures descended from Snow Elves, the chances of getting its blood back to an alchemist would be slim. She simply had to get a look at whoever was selling … whatever it was he was selling.
Dag didn’t have a good vantage point from her place next to the smithy, but she scanned the market. Though she could only see his back, the spiel seemed to be coming from a tall man with shoulder-length red hair and green robes, standing in front of a stall full of large red apothecary bottles. A con man, she decided. Through and through, and a good one judging by the number of people gathered around his stall. Amused, she looked at his prospective customers and saw more than a few fluttering eyelashes over flushed cheeks, both men’s and women’s, paying him rapt attention. Now there, she thought, is a charmer, a real pro. She grinned again and shook her head. Falmerblood Elixir. Smooth, Red.
Balimund was happy to take all of the spare equipment off her hands. His prices were fair, he was pleasant, he was genuinely proud of his forge and his work, and she liked him. With some of the proceeds, she bought from him some lockpicks and a bit of steel with which to improve her bow. A few minutes’ work at his benches gave her a weapon that felt solid in her hands. She could just hear the satisfying splat it would make out of the next spider she encountered.
It had been good haul, and as she settled her coin purse into her pocket she considered the purchases she needed to make with it. Heal potions were a must as well as at least one cure disease potion — gods-damned wolves and their rockjoint – and most definitely a good meal and a night at the inn in a clean bed.
A quiet, deep voice, like the purr of a great beast, spoke disturbingly close to her ear.
“Never done an honest day’s work in your life for all that coin ye carry, eh lass.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement.
It was a lovely voice, rich, intensely persuasive, guaranteed to turn heads, and Dagnell was furious that Red had been able to get close enough to her, unheard, to use it on her. She turned to glare at him, to size him up, to get a good look at him up close.
Up close, Red was big. Very big. Imposing, even. He was tall, his eyes half a head above her. It was hard to guess his age, but he wasn’t a young man. He had a well-creased brow and there were lines at the corners of his eyes and his full lips, but he hadn’t a hint of grey. His long, aquiline nose had been broken at least once in his life, giving him the look of a bird of prey. His hair wasn’t the strawberry blonde common among the Nords she’d met, but a rich auburn that turned bright red where the sun struck it. An even more unfortunate, jagged scar than hers, on his left cheek, interrupted a short, neat beard. But the most impressive thing about him was his eyes. They were an intense, brilliant green, almost mesmerizing, and they carried the look of deep intelligence.
The man had definitely been around Tamriel a few times. He was not exactly handsome, certainly not ugly, but definitely, exceptionally striking; between that and his charming voice, no wonder he’d had hearts beating in the marketplace. Right now, though, his eyes were calculating, maybe a bit too sure of himself. No, she decided; definitely too sure of himself.
And the green robes looked good on him, they were a terrific choice with his coloring, but they didn’t seem to go with him somehow. They might easily have been concealing a belly gone soft and round in another man of his vintage but she had no illusions about this one; he was bulky but not soft, with great broad shoulders and an aura of real strength. He was not just a slick tradesman hawking his wares, not in the slightest.
She would not be brawling with him, either.
Dagnell was well and truly annoyed, though. Never worked a day in my life, indeed, she fumed. Sure, she’d slipped that odd coin into her pocket here and there, and had no major qualms about taking the gear from a dead man, but when you were alone and hungry you did what needed doing. Most of her life, she’d worked hard. Well, at least part of it, anyway.
“Excuse me, what did you say?” she snapped, trying but failing to conceal her annoyance.
“I’m saying you’ve got the coin but you didn’t earn a septim of it honestly. I can tell.” His eyes were narrowed, brows lowered, the corner of his mouth quirked in an expression that was either amusement or a sneer.
Dag was even more annoyed. “That’s quite a hello,” she said. “What on earth would lead you to say such a thing?”
“It’s all about sizing up your mark, lass. The way they walk, what they’re wearing. It’s a dead giveaway. Look how you sniffed out my little scheme at the north gate. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Oho, she thought. So I was right about you, speaking of sizing up a mark. And your little scheme was pretty obvious, Red, like it or no.
“Hmm.” She looked him up and down, slowly, hoping she was making an observable point. “You certainly seem to be well acquainted with wealth.”
His mouth smiled just a bit, but his eyes did not. “Wealth is my business. Help me out and I can add to yours,” he purred. “Would you like a taste?”
This was just too, too much. A taste, was it then? Really? Taste this, you skeever, she thought. I’ve met your kind before. You think I’m just going to melt at your charm and your suggestive language like a young maid about to have her first kiss. You think too highly of yourself. Well, I can play games too.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked, in as interested a tone as she could manage.
“I’ve got a bit of an errand to perform, but I need an extra pair of hands. And in my line of work, extra hands are well paid.”
It was all she could do not to roll her eyes. Oh, the pretension. On the other hand, a coin was a coin and her desire to get re-established and out of Skyrim was growing stronger by the minute. It was going to take a tidy sum to replace her scimitars, if in fact she could find anything remotely like them. It wouldn’t hurt to find out what he intended.
“So…what do I have to do?”
“Simple. I’m going to cause a distraction.” She was to take a ring from a lockbox under one vendor’s stand – Madesi, the Argonian jeweler — and put it into the pocket of another – Brand-Shei, the cranky-looking Dunmer she’d heard selling “oddities from Morrowind.”
I could probably do that without too much trouble, Dag thought; but there was a lot of risk involved and he didn’t seem to be taking on any of it in this scheme of his. Red also spoke as though her participation in this “errand” was already settled, which irked her even more. He needed to be taken down a peg.
She widened her eyes and tried to look shocked and innocent.
“But … isn’t that illegal? You want me to break the law?”
She had him. His eyebrows went up and his head twitched backward a tiny bit, as though he’d been stung. Only for the slightest moment, though; then his smooth demeanor returned, with a frown trying hard to masquerade as a smile. “Hmm. Sorry. I usually have a nose for this kind of thing. If you change your mind, come and find me.” He sauntered away toward his stand, but not without giving her another brief, curious glance and a frown over his shoulder. Red was definitely not accustomed to being denied.
She laughed as she left the marketplace to explore the rest of Riften. By the gods, it felt good to win.