It was very late indeed, the deepest part of the night. Roggi was sitting on the deck of Honeyside, relaxing in the chilly air with his feet up on the railing, nursing the lone bottle of mead he’d decided to allow himself, and smiling. He could smell wood smoke drifting up from the cooking fire in the fishing shack just down the lake from him. Only the lapping of Lake Honrich against the shore broke the stillness.
A guy gets to celebrate a little bit on his wedding day, after all. If I were the kind of guy who smoked a pipe, I’d be doing that, too.
Dardeh had fallen hard asleep, the sleep of a man who’d been fighting dragons and running halfway across a province. And making love to his new husband, Roggi thought with a grin. I wore him out. Who’d ever have expected such a thing.
He’d been watching the candlelight flicker in the fishing shack. Two figures had entered, some time ago, and he was fairly sure he knew who they were. One figure was emerging, just now, and walking toward the stairs up to Honeyside; and as he got closer Roggi confirmed that he knew who it was. He brought his feet down from the rail and reached into the barrel beside him, pulling out a full bottle of mead and setting it on the table behind him, then moved his chair back to the table and sat down again.
I wonder what those two were up to so late. I was surprised to see them there at the wedding, but it felt good, like having a real family again. I guess I do have a real family again. It can’t make up for everyone I lost but oh, does it feel good.
He smiled to himself, thinking of how Dardeh had been once they’d gotten here from the Temple. There was a difference, when you knew you weren’t going to be left behind, when you knew the one you were with was as much in love with you as you were with him, when you knew there was no reason to hold back anything of yourself. It had been ecstatic.
Ah, Ulfric. You can’t even begin to hold a candle to Dardeh. You’re a cold man, and you’ve always been a cold man. You’ll never have any power over me again. Not ever. I’ve got the real thing now. Now and forever. You, and everything you ever did to my life, I can put behind me. I know it. Maybe I can begin to put the rest of it behind, too.
“Up late, lad?” Brynjolf said quietly, climbing the steps and sliding onto the chair opposite Roggi. “I’d have thought you’d be otherwise occupied tonight.”
Roggi grinned at him. “I could ask you the same. I know you don’t sleep much, Bryn, but this is late even for you.” He nodded at the bottle resting between them on the table. “Take it. And I was. Earlier. Occupied, that is. Dar’s been, well…” He took a sip of his own drink while Brynjolf nodded and opened his. “I don’t think I could ever explain what it is that he’s been doing in the past few weeks with the dragons and all, but if anyone ever earned an uninterrupted sleep it’s that guy. So I’ll get him to make it up to me later.”
Brynjolf chuckled.
“You surprised me, Roggi.”
Roggi looked at Brynjolf and smiled. “I’m sure I did. Ah, I don’t know what to say. It’s not really as surprising as you might otherwise think, truly, not that you’d have had any reason to know that. Now you do.” He looked out over the lake, breathed in the crisp night air, and searched for words. “I wish I could tell you how this is, Bryn. I feel… complete. Content. And safe. For the first time in a very long time.”
Brynjolf was watching him, studying his face.
“You’ll get no judgments from me, lad. But safe? Safe from what? You’ve always seemed like the sort of person who could fend for himself, to me.”
Roggi nodded. “Oh I can fend for myself all right.” You don’t know the half of it, Bryn, and I don’t want you to know. “But sometimes a person needs to be saved from himself. I think you know that.”
There was a brief silence. Brynjolf tipped up his bottle and drank. Then he nodded.
“Aye.”
“So now we’re officially brothers. I’m pretty pleased with that, personally. Never thought I’d be saying that about someone from the Guild, but there it is.”
“Unless the lass is dead, I suppose you’re right.”
I can see how you might think that would make her being gone easier to deal with, Bryn, but it doesn’t. Missing leaves a window of hope. Dead is dead.
“She’s not. I think we both know that, don’t you?”
There was another minute or two of silence, while the slight breeze rustled nearby tree branches and the lake lapped against its edges.
“Aye. I suppose I do.”
They sat in companionable silence for a few moments, then Roggi spoke again.
“Do you still want her back, Bryn? Because I’ll keep helping you look as long as you need me.” I owe you that. I’d help anyway, but I do owe you that much regardless.
Brynjolf looked down at the decking and then chuckled, a brief moment of humor that was more about how well Roggi knew him than anything else. Roggi knew that chuckle.
“I don’t think I need to tell you the answer to that, do I?”
Roggi looked out over the water, and smiled again.
“No, not really. I was just checking. So let’s put our heads together tomorrow and see if there’s something else we can come up with. I don’t know what Dar has in mind from here on out but for the short term I think it will be fine if I call the shots. Long-term? Well, I find myself married to the Dragonborn. If he wants me to do something I’m going to do it.”
“You mean today, don’t you? That’s what you get for getting married in the middle of the night.”
“You’re right. And yes, I suppose I should get a little bit of rest myself.” He stood and stretched. “We didn’t want to wait. Didn’t want to give the world a chance to pull us apart again for some reason. Gods it feels good, Bryn. I wasn’t sure, not completely, until a short while ago, but … do you know that he ran down the mountain and halfway across the province to come find me? I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone want me that much. Not even my wife.”
Brynjolf laughed. “Sometimes I forget how much you’ve gotten around, my friend.”
Roggi chuckled. “Yeah, I guess I have. Well everyone has their weakness. I’m not sure I’ve figured out yours, Brynjolf, but I have no doubt you have one as well.”
Brynjolf set his bottle back on the table and rose. “I suppose I’d best be going. I’ll cut through the house if that’s ok.”
“It’s your house.”
Brynjolf nodded.
“And you do know what my weakness is, lad.” He smiled. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.” He opened the door to Honeyside and slipped inside.
Roggi stretched and yawned.
Yes, I do know what your weaknesses are, Bryn. I may not do that job any more but I do know how to observe people. One of your weaknesses is the Guild. You’d do pretty much anything for it.
But there’s another one, and I know what that is, too. I’m married to her brother.
We’ll find her.
—-
Brynjolf slipped quietly through Honeyside and out into the Riften marketplace, walking slowly toward the Temple of Mara and the graveyard just behind it. Even as experienced a thief as he was, he couldn’t prevent his footsteps from making quiet crunching sounds as the dirt beneath them ground against the stones and the wooden planks of the city. At this time, the wee hours of the morning, it didn’t matter much; there was nobody about save the two or three city guards. And they all knew him. He paid them to keep things running smoothly.
The guard on the far side of the marketplace nodded to him as he passed. He pondered stopping for an update, but then thought better of it. There were plenty of other things on his mind.
Roggi, married to Dardeh.
What a surprise it had been, when Dardeh had come to see him in the marketplace, asking him to be at their wedding. They certainly hadn’t gotten off on a good foot, he and Dardeh, but he’d been impressed by the man when they’d all met to discuss finding Dagnell.
It must have been hard to learn that a sister you’ve never met was in this organization. He struck me as the kind of lad who would just as soon have turned us all in as anything else, all things being equal, but he didn’t; he sized up the situation and played it accordingly instead of jumping ahead of himself. I’d have relied on Andante to take care of the problem if it was a problem, but he seems to think Dar is a good risk. And now with Roggi married to him, I’m confident that they’re both right.
He pushed the stone button to activate the sliding doorway, and waited as the stone lid ground its way backward to reveal the stair down. He thought of all those days – how many days he couldn’t recall – when he’d been falling apart at the seams and Roggi had cared for him.
Never a hint. Never a word from him. Well. I suppose this means that I don’t need to worry about Roggi anymore. If Dag ever comes back I’ll have her to myself.
He tugged the chain to close the entryway, then dropped down into the Cistern and scanned the area. It was quiet, as he would have expected at this hour. Only soft snoring and an occasional drip of condensation broke the quiet. He padded around the circular room to the bed behind the screen and lowered himself onto it, peeling his boots off and then stretching out atop the bed.
If she comes back. Roggi’s right. She’s not dead. We would know it, both of us, if she were.
He knew that feeling, that sudden, icy-cold, cavernous dread that said an important person was gone, the bottom dropping out of the world. It had been decades, but he remembered it with the same sharp horror he’d felt when it had happened to him all that time ago. He’d not felt anything like that with respect to Dag. Pain, yes; rage, definitely. But that horrible, world-ending plummet into darkness that said the loved one was forever out of reach, that he had not felt. She was out there. Whatever reason she’d had for what she’d done, she was still out there.
It had been hard, watching two people so obviously in love standing where he and Dag had exchanged their own vows not so very long before. Andante had walked with him after the wedding, out the gates and around the city, sensing that he needed company and, surprisingly enough, giving it to him without speaking. They’d fallen into the habit of spending time together, he and Andante, because in spite of Andante’s constant teasing, constant pushing for the two of them to get involved, he’d found that Andante could get things done.
He acts a fool. He acts a dandy. But he’s got icewater for blood and he knows his business, and he’s smarter than two or three of the next footpads put together. I can count on him. And he makes me laugh, even if I don’t let him see it.
Andante had brought him into the fishing shack and shared a drink with him, teasing him with the offer of a bottle of skooma but otherwise remaining quiet.
The lad can act like a civilized human being on occasion. There’s so much more to him than meets the eye. I just don’t know what it is, yet.
I hope it lasts, Roggi and Dardeh. I think it will. I heard it in Roggi’s voice. I don’t know much about Dardeh, but I know that I will be happy if Roggi’s content.
The drip … drip … drip of condensation had his eyes closing. As he drifted away, he thought about the feisty Redguard woman he loved. He knew she wasn’t dead.
No. She’s alive. She’s just not here.