There had been one day, one terrible day, when Dagnell had thought it would all fall apart.
Dag overheard Delvin talking to Vekel. “I’m getting together a shipment from Morrowind,” he said. “Anything you need?”
“Well,” Vekel answered, “if you happen across any moon sugar…”
Dag stopped in her tracks, stunned, her heart suddenly threatening to beat its way out of her chest. It couldn’t possibly be. She walked around the corner to one of the few remaining empty alcoves and sat down to calm herself. No, she decided, it was ok. Moon sugar wasn’t a terrible problem, right? It made sense that Delvin’s shipments would include, how had Enthir put it? Items of questionable interest. Just so long as it was only moon sugar.
She said nothing, either to them or to Brynjolf, but kept her ears open around the Flagon. It ate at her. How could the Guild, her Guild, be involved in that? She was out of sorts and on-edge for days afterward, to the point at which she found herself snapping at people, even Delvin. And she never snapped at Delvin.
“Everything all right, boss?” he asked, obviously taken aback by her irritability.
“Yes, yes, everything’s all right,” she replied. Then she sighed. “I’m sorry, Delvin, I just have something on my mind that’s bothering me.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” Delvin was the last person she wanted to talk to about this issue.
Not more than a few hours later, she overheard Veckel and Tonilia whispering about whether or not Dag and Brynjolf had a bun in the oven. It startled her, and she almost walked over to disabuse them of that notion, but then snickered and decided to leave it alone. A pregnancy certainly would be a good cover for a foul mood, and they’d realize soon enough that they were wrong. She had to laugh, though. It was something of a wonder that there hadn’t been a Brynjolf the Younger in the works already. Goodness knows he’d taken every possible opportunity to try, and a few opportunities that had seemed next to impossible at the time, as well.
A few days later, Dag was in Mistveil Keep in her capacity as Thane, attending Jarl Laila at court. As she approached the throne she heard Laila speaking to her steward Anuriel.
“We have heard rumors that the poison known as skooma is once more in our city,” she said. “What do you know of this?”
Anuriel looked uncomfortable, but spoke in a soothing voice.
“I believe these to be rumors spread by the Empire, milady, meant to weaken the citizen’s faith in your leadership and to disturb the peace.”
Laila let it go at that. She trusted Anuriel implicitly. Dag stared at Anuriel, but couldn’t glean anything further from her expression. Dag’s peace was disturbed, all right, but she said nothing. Skooma. Again. Roggi and I took care of the problem more than a year ago, didn’t we?
Dag returned to the Flagon, agitated, deep in thought, bought a flagon of mead from Vekel and sat down at one of the tables to drink it. Her mind started racing, thinking of Coyle, and Roggi, and Cragslane, and Wujeeta, and then back to Coyle. Gods, I thought I was past this. I thought it was done, and I never had to think about it again.
Calm down. You’re overreacting.
Shut up.
Dirge’s voice was the type that would fill any space it could fill, even if he was trying to speak quietly. When he approached Vekel, Dag couldn’t help but hear what he said.
“Job’s done, boss. Gave the package to her just like you said.”
Vekel’s voice was quieter, so she had to strain to hear what he said. Yes, she told herself, I’m eavesdropping.
“Good. Did she say anything?”
“Yep. She said that the Jarl was planning a surprise raid on us, but she talked her out of it. Said she saved us a lot of trouble.”
“That she did. Very good. I’ll tell Brynjolf.”
Dag saw red for a moment. Or me, she thought. You could tell me. I’m the Guildmaster, after all, not that anyone seems to notice it some days.
“She.” Who was “she?” It could be Maven, but if Maven had been the one to talk Laila out of a raid, there would be no need to tell Brynjolf. The two of them were practically joined at the hip when it came to business. Dag sometimes wondered what other services he might have been called upon to render for Maven before she met him; he was nothing if not obedient where she was concerned. Plus, Maven had gone to great lengths to convince the Jarl of her own success in pursuing the Guild, and that it would only be a matter of time before it was snuffed out. No, Maven wasn’t the person Dirge and Vekel were talking about.
It had to be Anuriel. The Jarl’s steward.
So that was where Sarthis Idren had gotten the key to the warehouse. Anuriel. She would have had easy access to the key that supposedly only the Jarl held; because of course the Jarl didn’t personally handle all of the keep’s keys.
And that meant that Vekel and Dirge and the Flagon were connected to Anuriel, and that the moon sugar shipments might well once have included Sarthis’ skooma trade. There certainly had been moon sugar there in Sarthis’ secret closet in the warehouse.
And they were going to report it to Brynjolf.
Dag stood and stomped through the tavern toward the Cistern. Vekel and Dirge exchanged startled looks. They may not have been intimidated by her size, but they knew enough to duck if she was in a bad mood.
Brynjolf was behind the Guildmaster’s desk – her desk – looking over papers, when she snarled at him, as quietly as she could manage.
“Tell me what is going on, Brynjolf.”
He looked startled. She rarely called him by his full name any more. He’d gotten used to being Red.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this: is the Guild involved in the skooma trade?”
Brynjolf straightened up and crossed his arms, a shadow passing over his face. “And why are you asking me this?”
“Answer the question.”
Brynjolf frowned. Then his face relaxed and his voice turned gentle. “You know that part of our wealth comes from shipping and distribution. If there happens to be something that’s not exactly legal in the shipments, well, we are the Thieves Guild, after all, lass.” It was such an obvious attempt to exercise his particular skills on her that she wanted to slap him.
“Do not try to ‘lass’ me, Brynjolf,” she spat. “You know better than that by now. Don’t insult my intelligence.” In spite of herself, her voice had risen. “Why have I not been told of this before now?”
He had been getting angry, too. She should have seen it, but she didn’t.
“I thought you were smarter than this. I didn’t know that I had to hold your hand at this stage,” he growled, very quietly. “Don’t be stupid. Think about who we are. We make money by doing things that aren’t necessarily above-board. And, as it happens, Maven prefers it if we don’t talk about some things so that nothing leaks out.”
Dag couldn’t help it; her temper ran away from her. “And who, exactly, is the Guildmaster here? Do you remember that, Brynjolf? You had your opportunity to be Guildmaster and you turned it down. You wanted me to do the job. Maven is not in charge here. I am. I think we need to talk about your unhealthy relationship with her.”
He looked about ready to explode, the way he had once before, in that very spot. But Brynjolf was, first and foremost, a member of the Guild. He was Guild Second, and he had been there much longer than she had, decades longer. He knew the rules, and so did all the others. You did not attack another member of the Guild. Even Delvin would be beside her to administer a swift punishment if he broke them, just as they had gone with Karliah to administer it to Mercer. He’d told her as much, that other time. So he stood, shaking just slightly, his hands clenching and unclenching.
“How could you possibly do this to me, after everything I went through?” Dag hissed, trying to keep her voice down and not quite succeeding.
“What in Oblivion are you talking about?” he growled.
“Coyle,” Dag said through clenched teeth. “Coyle and Daron. And Wujeeta. I told you.”
Brynjolf had clearly been angry, his brow furrowed. For a moment he also looked surprised, before his eyes narrowed. What came out of his mouth was venomous, dripping with sarcasm, pitched low like an animal’s warning growl.
“I don’t have a clue what you’re on about, lass. You never told me anything of the sort. You must have told your… your friend.”
Dag had felt as though she was about to drop through the floor, stunned as though the bandit with the warhammer back at Cragslane had actually hit her a second time.
He was right. She had never told him about this, the thing that had put her on the road that had led her here, the most important thing in her life before she’d met him.
She had told Roggi.
Her “friend.” That’s what he’d called Roggi, the “friend” she’d taken with her to Honningbrew all those months ago.
She had always known Brynjolf had the capacity to be cruel, even though he’d never directed it at her. Most of the time he managed to limit himself to sarcasm, but she knew it ran deeper in him than that; it was part and parcel of what Mercer had been able to tap with the Skeleton Key, to make him attack Karliah. But he had never before said something deliberately cruel to her. Not to her. Even when he had accused her and Karliah of not killing Mercer at Snow Veil Sanctum, he hadn’t been deliberately cruel, just angry and anguished.
“We need to talk, Brynjolf. But not here. I am going home. You will follow me and we will discuss this.”
“No. We will not. I have actual work to do.”
She saw red. “Go to Honeyside. Now. Do I make myself clear?”
She hadn’t realized that she was shouting. Somehow she had managed to pitch her voice just right that it made the stone arches of the Cistern ring. There was dead silence in its wake for a moment, until the plop of a single drop of condensation into the pool broke the spell.
“Do what the boss says, Bryn,” came Delvin’s quiet voice from off to her left somewhere.
Brynjolf turned on his heel and stomped out of the Cistern without a word. Delvin waited until he was gone, then turned to Dag. “Beginning to sound a bit like Mercer, pet. Be careful.” And then he had left, while Dag stood quaking like an aspen. He was right. That had been one of Mercer’s first questions to her. Do I make myself clear.
By all the gods, she was losing her mind.
She ran to Honeyside.
It had been a very long night, then, as they shouted and growled at each other and paced the floors, and hashed out the various and sundry truths and half-truths that needed sorting. Brynjolf nearly screamed at her for treating him like a child in front of his people. Dag stood, open-mouthed, not daring to say a word for fear she would say something she truly regretted.
He stopped, closed his mouth, and then sighed.
“I’m sorry, Dag. Sometimes I forget that I’m not the Guildmaster anymore. They’re not my people. They’re yours.”
She couldn’t help herself; she snapped at him. “Well you’re hardly alone. Some days it feels as though nobody else remembers that either. I told you from the beginning that this was a poor choice.”
He glared at her.
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Bryn. It just gets to me.”
Then Dag took a deep breath and told him about Coyle, and Daron, and Wujeeta, and Roggi helping her clear Cragslane; and the tears of frustration came again in spite of every effort to stop them, Dag angrily wiping her eyes with her sleeve, wondering aloud if she would ever get over it and wondering to herself if she was going to lose yet another love to this thing that had been haunting her for years.
Brynjolf’s eyes were also moist as the claws of their individual pride tore at their connection to each other and threatened to sever it. He’d told her so many times how surprised he was not to be alone any longer, how it felt so good to know he was loved.
“It hurts, lass,” he said, standing with his arms wound up against himself like a shield. “Not that you told Roggi about this. I’d tell Roggi my problems, too, you know that. But it hurts that you didn’t remember to tell me. I thought I meant more to you than that.”
She got angry again. “Brynjolf, I am your wife,” she shrieked. “How could you possibly mean more to me than you do?” Then she took a deep breath and shook her head. “I know,” she whispered, staring at the floor. “I know, and I’m sorry. I really thought I had. I’m so sorry.”
He paced the floor for a few moments, then turned to her.
“And I’m sorry, too. I forget that there are some things you had no way of knowing, either, not unless I told you. I just didn’t think this one was necessary.” He took her hand. “Sit with me and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
So they sat, and they talked.
Brynjolf quietly told her that yes, the Guild was part of the skooma smuggling operation in Skryim, although indirectly. They didn’t sell it themselves, but they had a long-standing, discreet agreement that included Maven and Anuriel, and Maul, and his brother Dirge, and had once included Sarthis Idren. Delvin’s contacts, Vekel’s front end, and the Guild’s muscle in exchange for Maven’s money and the Jarl’s carefully tended ignorance of the entirety.
“I didn’t mention it specifically, Dag, because I assumed you knew. Remember when you first joined the Guild? I told you about the network of connections we had to keep together for things to run smoothly.”
“But Bryn,” she said. “Skooma.”
He ran his hand over his face and heaved a huge sigh. “You ever tried it?”
“Gods no. It was bad enough watching Coyle… and Doran…” and her voice started to crack again.
“And that’s why it’s illegal, because some people just get sucked in by it. For the rest of us, it’s just a nice ride, like a good mead only a lot stronger. You have to be careful, but still.”
It took a second to register what he was telling her. “You…”
“Lass, I’ve told you how old I think I am. You don’t suppose I never had any experiences before I met you, do you? It’s not something I’ve touched in a long while but … I’m not telling you this from a place of ignorance either. Your friends were just some of the unlucky ones. We make a lot of money from the ones who aren’t. And if it wasn’t us making the money, it would be the Empire, and we’d just have to go through an extra step to pry the money loose from them. I didn’t know this was an issue for you, and I would never have had you find out like this. I don’t know what to say except that I’m really sorry.”
Well, that certainly made sense, Dag thought. It was hard, but it made sense. She nodded.
“I killed Sarthis Idren,” she blurted out.
“What?”
“I’m the one who killed Sarthis,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Just before you talked me into the shill job on Brand-Shei. Laila asked me to do it and I did. It’s why I ended up with this house. He almost killed me but … here I am.”
He grimaced. “Maul isn’t worth half his pay some days. You’d think he might have remembered seeing you go into the warehouse, or come out of it, especially when Sarthis turned up dead inside it. He never told us. Idiot.” Then he grinned at her. “But well done, lass. He was a tough bastard.”
“He sure was,” she said, a small grin playing at the corners of her mouth.
It felt like the ice was breaking.
Brynjolf acknowledged that Maven had too much power over the Guild. Dag knew their arrangement had once been absolutely necessary to the Guild’s survival, but now that they had Nocturnal at their back they were doing well and needed to make some changes. He agreed. Neither of them knew exactly how to go about it but they agreed to do something about it, together. They couldn’t and didn’t want to sever ties with her, but the Guild needed to be its own organization.
Then Dag sighed.
“Bryn, I hope you know that I couldn’t possibly do this job if not for you, and Delvin and Vex. I just couldn’t. Someone has to make the decisions in the end, and you gave that to me. But I don’t know anything without the rest of you. Just… keep me informed, ok?”
“Yes, lass. I’ll make sure to talk to everyone about things. They forget, too.”
“And I’m sorry for being an idiot. I guess I have this big blind spot because it just hurt so much to have the two of them …not want me any more.”
Brynjolf reached for her and cupped her face with his hand. “Maybe it’s time to try to let go of that a bit now, Dag,” he said, quietly. “You did your best. It wasn’t your fault how things went with them and it wasn’t your fault that he turned you away.”
Dag nodded even as the tears threatened to roll down her face.
On that terrible night, Dag and Brynjolf had made peace in spectacular fashion. Because Dag loved Brynjolf, desperately so, and he made it abundantly clear every day that he returned that love, and their brief marriage had hung in the balance for that little bit of time. Things had returned to normal, uneasily at first but only uneasy for a brief time.
And the time had passed.
It should have been perfect.