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Marilyn couldn't believe Faendal was dead.

They had only known each other for a few weeks and hadn't been close friends, but it had warmed her heart to meet a fellow Bosmer in this cold and hostile country, and she suspected he had felt the same, although neither of them had acknowledged their fondness of the other. A nod, a smile as they passed each other in the street or chopped wood side by side at the lumbermill, that was the extent of their displays of affection. Sometimes they had met when their day's work was done and practised their marksmanship in a little shooting contest. Occasionally Faendal had put a hand on her hip or elbow to correct her stance in a manner both friendly and detached, and she had been fine with his touch, knowing his heart belonged to Camilla Valerius.

But now he lay dead in a puddle of drying blood in the street between Sven's house and the blacksmith's workshop, his face smashed in by a mace, and Camilla strode up to Marilyn, eyes hot with tears and rage, shaking her fist and yelling: "This is all your fault! Those mercenaries were after you, not him. Divines know what you've done to bring them upon you. We could have been happy, Faendal and I, if not for you! I wish you'd never come to Riverwood!"

Helpless and speechless, Marilyn watched her being led away by her brother Lucan and comforted by Sven the bard - Sven, who had once vied with Faendal for Camilla's love, standing by to take his dead rival's place before the corpse was buried.

She felt the reassuring weight of Gorr's broad, brown hand on her shoulder. "What she said wasn't right, friend." The huge Redguard's booming voice could sound amazingly soft in moments like this. "It wasn't fair."

Marilyn smiled at him over her shoulder and squeezed his hand in gratitude; without his help she would lie next to Faendal, as cold and dead as he. However, she couldn't deny the truth in Camilla's accusation. Faendal would still be alive if she had never set foot into Riverwood. Or if she hadn't helped herself to those steel ingots lying around in the smithy without paying.

When she had stepped out of the Sleeping Giant and found three armoured thugs walking up to her she had run - run for her life, run to gain distance for a bowshot, trusting Gorr to handle himself in melee, but also run to draw them out of town, to avoid getting bystanders hurt; but even as she had turned to run she had seen Faendal step into the street from the wooden bridge that led to the lumbermill, take in the situation with a single glance, drop the load of firewood he had been carrying and draw his bow to assist her.

The main fight had been fought outside the village, across the bridge straddling the White River, her and Gorr killing one of the thugs each. The third, whom they had finished together, had taken longer to come after her. Apparently he had taken the time to kill the other bothersome wood-elf before.

Sitting on the boardwalk outside the Riverwood Trader, head hung and hands between her knees, she relived the walk back to the village after looting the corpses. Commotion in the street, people running, gathering around a body prostrate on the cobblestones. Dreadful anticipation, then truth closing around her heart like a dead hand as the Trader's door flew open and Camilla threw herself on the body, wailing with heartbreak.

A horse-drawn cart pulled up in the street, Hod the lumber-miller on the box, and Marilyn watched as the men of the village lifted Faendal's shrouded body onto the cart. They were going to take him to Whiterun to be embalmed and blessed by a priest of Arkay and laid to rest in the Hall of the Dead like all people of the hold.

She heard footsteps on the boardwalk and Gerdur's voice next to her: "This is what he would have wished. I don't know your customs in Valenwood, but he lived among us all these years, he would have wanted to lie among us in death."

In this Marilyn couldn't gainsay her. Apart from Camilla and her brother, the mill owner and her husband had been the closest thing to a family Faendal had in Riverwood, having worked next to him at the mill for years, and Mari herself knew little more about Bosmeri burial customs than Gerdur. She wasn't even sure to what extent Faendal had followed the Green Pact, if at all. Would he have wanted her to consume his body? An impossible task, unless she were to cut him into strips and smoke or dry his flesh into jerky - which she was sure these Nords would never have countenanced. Still, she couldn't help feeling he would have preferred being buried in the woods where he'd been wont to hunt to being immured in a stone building in a city of stone, waiting to be joined by the man who had got him killed.

She raised her head and stared across the street at Alvor. The blacksmith had watched Faendal being laid on the wagon from the porch outside his workshop. When he felt Marilyn's gaze on his face he shot a glowering look at her, then quickly retreated and busied himself at the forge. Mother's voice filled her mind with daydreams of blood and slaughter.

"Marilyn?"

She turned her head. Gerdur was still standing there, accompanied by one of the Jarl's men, holding a written parchment and a small but heavy leather bag.

"It turns out he mentioned you in his will. To my compatriot Marilyn, known to the citizens of Riverwood, I leave the sum of two hundred septims in gratitude for her tact in handling bardic letters. There are also several items in my house which she may find useful. Let her take what she thinks appropriate."

That came as a surprise. True, she had helped Faendal to outsmart his rival Sven and win Camilla's love, but he had recompensed her for that little service while still alive. She had never dreamed that he would be so generous as to leave her money in his will. Her eyes moistened.

"As usual," Gerdur continued, "I have subtracted a tax of ten percent for the Jarl. The rest of the sum is yours." She handed Mari the bag, along with an iron key of simple, rustic design. "Please return the key to me after taking your pick. I'll pass it on to Camilla who inherits the house. I don't think she would want to see you now, and you may not be too keen on facing her either."

Marilyn tied the bag to her belt and nodded thanks to Gerdur. The mill owner's eyes rested on her for a long time, and when Gerdur spoke again the words came slowly in that heavy Nord accent, as if carved from stubborn stone.

"I know nothing of your past, Marilyn, nor who sent those thugs to kill you or why. I've known you as a fine, hard worker at the mill, and it speaks well of you that Faendal took a liking to you. But maybe it would be for the best if you left Riverwood for a while and took a long time coming back."

Faendal's corpse being secured on the cart, Hod cracked his whip and the horses fell into a slow trot. The men and women of Riverwood watched the hearse pass under the village gate, hands raised in a last farewell to their elven neighbour, then slowly dispersed as it crossed the bridge and turned north-west for Whiterun. The Jarl's guards went to find and bury the dead hirelings.

"I think she's right, friend," said Gorr. "We should move on." He slapped Marilyn's shoulder, meaning to cheer her up but nearly knocking her off the boardwalk. "Let's flip a bandit and go where the head points on landing, shall we?"

Marilyn couldn't help but smile. Even when it grated against her own mood Gorr's irrepressible rough humour was a solace to her.

"Yeah, let's do that," she said, standing up. "Just give me half an hour or so to look into Faendal's house."

"Sure. I'll be at the Giant when you're done."


Faendal's house, tucked away under a group of firs at the edge of the village and surrounded by a little garden full of wild flowers, was built in the typical log-and-plank style of Nordic farmhouses, its thatched roof shadowing a porch where firewood was piled up against the winter. Small compared to its neighbour buildings, but cosy-looking.

Marilyn turned the key and stepped inside. The single room was dim, as the small square windows admitted little daylight, but the embers in the fireplace were still glowing; once she had stoked the fire she lit a few goathorn candlesticks and a soft golden light spread through the room.

Hunting trophies mounted on the walls, fur rugs on the floor. A bed and end table, a round dining table with two chairs, another table with a bench, two cupboards, two chests. Books and bottles, dishes, potions and pelts, utensils and weapons, arranged in the seeming disorder characteristic of a lived-in space whose owner left it only hours ago, meaning to return soon.

But now he never would.

Marilyn rummaged through the chests and cupboards, and a small amount of coins went into her belt pouch. In a drawer she found two spare candles which she threw into a cast iron pot and heated in the fire. While the wax was melting she examined Faendal's bookshelf. Pension of the Ancestor Moth, Ode to the Tundra Striders, Scourge of the Grey Quarter: Faendal, it appeared, had been a widely read mer whose curiosity extended far beyond required reading for hunters like Herbane's Bestiary, a copy of which lay on the end table by his bed.

The food on his kitchen table was another surprise: next to several wheels of cheese and a slice of seared slaughterfish lay carrots, leeks, potatoes and two loaves of bread. Faendal had strayed even further from the way of their people than she had suspected, and for a moment she doubted whether she had ever truly known him. This house could have been anybody's.

In life he had been a brother Bosmer to her; death turned him into a stranger.

Her gaze wandered across the weapons laid out handily on another table. A sword, shield and helmet made her wonder whether Faendal's past had been more warlike than she had given him credit for. He was old enough to have fought in the Great War, like her father. On which side had he stood then?

There was also a spare hunting bow and a quiver of arrows -

She caught her breath, then let it out in a soft whistle. A quiver of black leather embroidered with silver thread, filled with ten sleek, black arrows tipped with spiralling barbs of glinting black metal.

Ebony. The black volcanic gold of Morrowind. He had left her ten bloody ebony arrows. Her eyes filled with tears even as a broad grin spread across her face. Faendal, wherever you are now, thank you!

They were worth a small fortune, but she would never sell them. Ebony arrows were every archer's wet dream - hard enough to punch through any armour, and their winding heads went through flesh and bone like drills. Arrows like these would pierce the tough hide of mammoths and giants, maybe even the scales of a dragon.

Or the heart of a less lofty quarry.

Marilyn drew a chair up to the fireplace and sat down. The wax in the iron pot was completely liquid now. She removed the pot from the fire and dipped the key she had received from Gerdur into the molten wax, then set it aside for the mould to cool down. It never hurt to have a spare key to somebody else's house, preferably without them knowing about it; especially if the new owner was next of kin to a merchant.

She drew a single arrow from the quiver and, looking down its perfectly straight black shaft with one eye closed, imagined setting sights on her prey with it nocked to her bowstring. Then she placed it across her knees, reached into the bosom of her fur armour and produced the crumpled contract she had found in the pouch of the thugs' leader. She smoothed the paper on her thigh and reread the words she had only skimmed until now:

Here is the amount we agreed on. I trust you to faithfully carry out my request to teach a lesson to the thief Marilyn. You need not kill Marilyn, but I have no qualms about it if you deem it necessary.

The letters were cramped and crude, drawn rather than written by a hand better suited to wielding a hammer than a pen. The signature was clearly legible: Alvor.

Kill him, Mother whispered in her head. Kill the blacksmith. Shoot him dead.

Marilyn wrapped the paper tight around the shaft, then put the arrow back into the quiver. Mother smiled.