User:JohnB/Scotti's Revenge 1

Laila

A CHANGE OF SCENERY:

About half a year had passed since Scotti’s return to the capitol. Of course, the Atrius Building Commission immediately moved to impound the bundle of contracts that Scotti had brought back from Silvenar. The Vanech Building Commission countered that the Imperial company had already released Scotti from employment, meaning he was a free agent when he used Vanech’s stationery to draw up the contracts. The matter was brought before the emperor, who surprisingly ruled in favor of the Vanech company.

Thus released from any obligation to his former employer, Scotti began to play the star employee at Vanech, which actually had as little use for him as his former employer did but felt obligated to keep him on for appearance’s sake. Scotti sensed this almost as soon as Vanech won the suit.

He was immediately put in charge of processing the mountain of contracts that he'd made. Negotiating contracts was easy; the hard part was procuring all the nuts and bolts. Orders had to go out to companies all over Tamriel because not everything was produced in Cyrodiil. If a supplier had gone out of business, an alternate had to be found. And larger projects had specifications that looked like bound volumes of Encyclopedia Tamrielica. He begged for an assistant or two but was told, "You made the contracts; you process them!" It was sheer madness—but maybe the idea was to make clear to him that he was free leave on his own at any time. The pride of the House of Scotti wasn't going to let him do that.

On the personal level, hardly a day went by without people suddenly speaking in hushed tones when he entered a room. He could feel their side glances at him in the cafeteria as they whispered and chuckled together. They were all familiar with the poor sod, named Reglius, who’d allegedly tossed his satchel full of their contracts to Scotti before falling to his death (honestly, he did—read the story yourself), and everybody vouched that Scotti would have had to pry the satchel from Reglius’s cold, dead fingers. Somehow Scotti learned that the going nickname for him was “Son of M’aiq the Liar”.

Worse yet, work on procuring and sending construction materials to Silvenar went at a mudcrab’s pace with numerous messages coming in from Silvenar complaining that materials that had been sent many moons ago never arrived. Now, don’t forget that the freight carts have to slog through a Valenwood war zone, and the enemy is in just as much need of building materials. And then cost overruns happen all the time—that’s all part of the profit motive: finalizing a contract is only half the business; the other half is overcharging for the delays. However, being at heart an architect rather than a businessman, Scotti saw what was going on and was horrified that all his work was coming to nought. Something had to be done about this. But what he really needed was a change of environment where people didn’t know him, mock him, or accuse him.

He stepped up to the Lord Vanech’s door. He almost knocked but then thought, “But what if he says no?” He took a deep breath, rapped on the door, and entered without being bidden.

Lord Vanech looked up startled. Then he mumbled, “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”

“Your Lordship, we need to discuss the Silvenar contracts.”

“Why?!” Vanech blurted as he tossed his quill pen aside, thinking Scotti was now about to try and scotch everything.

Scotti suddenly felt less certain whether what he was doing was the right thing. He groaned inside and then began pacing back and forth scratching his head and trying to find the right words. Everything came out disjointed about the complaints and the cost overruns and how nothing was getting done.

Vanech was coming to regret having fought with Atrius over the contracts Scotti had returned with. What originally looked like a bonanza was more like a quagmire. If Valenwood was serious about rebuilding, it would help greatly if it ceased hostilities with its neighbors. The first successful rebuilding project, which was in Falinesti, was very soon burned to the ground a second time when the Altmeri from Summerset overran the area yet again.

And then there was Scotti. What does one do with such a worthless specimen of humanity? Keeping him on the payroll was like sitting on the painful carbuncle on Vanech's behind. If only he could have that carbuncle surgically removed!

Vanech leaned back in his armchair.

“All right, I’ve heard enough,” he finally said to Scotti, “so tell me, what do you propose we do?”

“We need a point man in Silvenar. I'm just the right man because I’ve been there and actually negotiated with the Silvenar himself. I'm ready to set out tomorrow, if-if that's agreeable with your Lordship.”

Vanech thought for a moment.

“I tell you what,” he responded, "let's have it your way."

"Huh?"

“Seriously! Go home and start packing. Be back here this afternoon to pick up some gold and your letter of appointment.”

Scotti exulted over how the boss was so easily persuaded as he rushed home and threw a few things into a tote bag. He knew from experience that the road to Silvenar was treacherous, so the less he carried with him the better. Then having received a sealed envelope, a letter of credit, and a hefty purse from the comptroller, he made his way to the caravansary to spend the night and get on the first caravan out.

THE UNWELCOME GUEST:

Scotti had no idea to what extent the company would honor it’s letter of credit. The gold itself was enough to last a good long time. Given that all the roads through Valenwood were swarming with either highwaymen or rampaging soldiers or both, he decided the occasion called for a hefty “last supper”. It was also doubtful whether his next meal was going to be roasted Khajiit or tree bark and grass. He sat himself down and ordered the best of everything in the caravansary restaurant.

Suddenly a rather tall, attractive woman plopped into the chair across the table from him. He continued chewing as he looked vacantly at her and then swallowed hard.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“Of course not, but you soon will,” she answered cheerily.

There was an awkward silence.

“Uh, you shouldn’t be here,“ he finally said, “the ‘ladies’ congregate at the saloon district on the other side of town.”

“Are you calling me a streetwalker?!” she snarled.

Heads turned because such words were never uttered in decent establishments such as this.

“Ssshhh! Well, what am I supposed to think when you suddenly enter my space uninvited ?!” he asked keeping his voice low. “Look, if it’s alms you want, I can give you a few drakes, but please for the love of Talos and all his saints, be on your way and leave me alone.”

Her face softened.

“How much have you got?”

Scotti’s blood ran cold. He shouldn’t have ordered the best of everything. You only live once—but still.

“As I said, I can give you a few drakes...”

“I understand you’re going to Silvenar.”

“Wait..., where did you hear that?”

The girl winced as she thought, “Ouch, shouldn’t have said that!”

“Well...” she fumbled for words, “these caravans do go to Silvenar...”

“...and every caravansary along the way,” Scotti added. “So tell me, where are you going?”

“To Silvenar,” she answered. “I...I just thought that if, you know, if you and I could pretend to be a couple, I would stand a better chance of maintaining my virtue along the way.”

This had to be the strangest favor anybody had ever asked of him.

“Why?”

“Something that happened to my mom. She’s a Bosmer.”

“A tall Bosmer—yeah, right,” Scotti chuckled dryly.

“The man I call ‘father’ was an Altmer battle-mage who cornered her alone in a storage room and created me.”

Ah, that’s where the tall willowy form and skin like old ivory came from!

“I see. You have a ticket? (Uh-huh.) Your own money? (Uh-huh.) All set to go? (Uh-huh.) Leaving tomorrow? (Uh-huh.)”

Something still didn’t seem quite right about all this.

“The benefit to you is quite understandable,” he finally said, “but what’s in it for me?”

“A good laugh and a tall tale? (Uh-uh.) Companionship? (Uh-uh.) Protection? (Now you’re talking. How?)”

She glanced about and then undid her gown to show him the sheathed Daedric tanto hanging from a cord around her neck. He quickly motioned to her to cover it up again.

“Any more questions?” she said blankly.

STAYING ALIVE:

Scotti was a poor sleeper whenever he was in a room not his own, on a bed not his own, and using a pillow not his own. He would drift in and out of sleep, wake with an involuntary jump, or mentally analyze something totally innocuous, like how does one square a circle? Some time after midnight, he got the feeling that last night’s supper didn’t agree with him, and he was about to get up to go to the loo when he heard a distinct click in the lock. He reached under the pillow to grasp the hilt of a glass dagger he kept there, then slid under the bed and waited.

From the hallway light that came from under the door, he could see a silhouette of two bare feet creeping silently toward his bed. They stopped. The intruder seemed to be surveying the situation and wondering what to do with an empty bed.

"Now or never!" Scotti thought, and lying sideways raised the dagger above his head then brought it down with a swift slash across the right ankle.

There was a shriek of pain, and the person fell crumpled onto the floor. Scotti scrambled out from under the bed and lit a lantern. He found the girl hunched on the floor with blood running from her ankle.

He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her face toward his.

“What’s the meaning of this?!” he hissed.

“Can't you see I’m hurt?” she said through clenched teeth while grasping her ankle. Blood was starting to well up between her fingers.

“I’ll hurt you some more if you don’t tell me who sent you.”

She shook her head. He grasped her hair harder and could feel some of the roots popping out.

“Stop! Please! Somebody called Vanech...”

Did he hear right? He shoved her roughly away.

“Why?”

“I’m never told why. A person can get rubbed out for any number of reasons. Why should this Vanech send the Dark Brotherhood after you?”

“No way! He even advanced several thousand drakes to cover my expenses!”

“Yeah, right! That gold was actually meant for me. My prepayment.”

Scotti’s eyes popped wide open when the thought hit him. He grabbed for his bag and rummaged for the letter of appointment. He tore open the envelope and pulled out a...blank sheet of paper.

“That son of a nix hound!” he roared balling up the paper and pitching it at her face.

She turned away afraid he might give her a black eye as well.

“I’m sorry,” he said regaining his composure. “You were only doing your job. Here let me see your leg. Hmm, not so deep. Now brace yourself because this is going to sting a bit.”

He used the glass dagger to cut a strip of cloth from the hem of his nightshirt. Then he sprinkled a few drops of Cyrodiilic brandy onto the gash, and she kept repeating to herself through clenched teeth, "Be strong! Be strong!" He wound the cloth strip around her ankle firmly to stop the bleeding. For a Dark Brother (or Sister) to be injured during a job was most unusual, so this wound came as a tremendous surprise to her.

“You’re very kind," she panted. "I’m the one who should be sorry. I was about to snuff you out and didn’t even know or care why.”

He noticed a bowstring still tangled in her hand. He took it from her and held it out the ends at arm’s length.

“Well, I'll be danged!" he mused. "I’ve never heard of anyone dying because one of these. What were you going to do?"

"String you up from a rafter."

"With this?"

“No, with a rope, but first I had to strangle you. It was my idea. The Brotherhood had set a graduation project for me, in which I was not to spill blood but to make the job look self-inflicted.”

“Really?!” Scotti chuckled in amusement. “You were going to heft my dead weight up to one of these rafters?!”

“It will astound you what a woman is capable of doing,” she answered dryly, “when she’s trained to kill.”

An icy shower seemed to hit Scotti.

“So what’s it going to be? String me up? Or play at being Mr. and Mrs. Smith all the way to Silvenar?”

“Failure at the Brotherhood means instant dismissal,” she mumbled glancing down. “I was doing so well as an apprentice. They said, ‘Oh, don't worry! This guy will be a push-over.’ Yeah, right!” she said as if responding to them after finding out otherwise. She looked at him and wiped away a few tears, “But you, Mr. Smith, are one of a kind!”

“Scotti. Decumus Scotti,” he said holding out his hand.

“Laila. Just call me Laila,” she responded as they shook hands.

A CHANGE IN PLANS:

Scotti was pleased to have a guest in his room. Laila slept on the bed while he bulged over the edge of the sofa, but he slept as if released from a thousand demons.

When he woke, Laila was behind a screen changing into clothes she’d retrieved from her own room.

“Good morning, Mrs. Smith!” Scotti said cheerfully and stretched his arms and legs.

“Oh please, Mrs. Scotti, if you don’t mind,” she responded playfully.

“Ah, Laila Scotti—what a pretty name! And so shall it be!”

He removed the bandage from her ankle and surveyed the situation.

"Can you walk?"

"Slowly. It hurts."

He made a new bandage and wound it around her foot and ankle to make it look as if it was a sprain.

They boarded the coach to Arenthia just across the border in Valenwood. Arenthia was close enough to the frontier that hostile forces didn’t dare even appear to encroach on Cyrodiilic territory, so Arenthia was spared the horrors of war. But like every border town, it was a hodge-podge of races and nationalities looking either to exploit or be exploited, for better or for worse.

They arrived in Arenthia around sundown. Laila had never traveled this far, and what she saw horrified her: the destitution and misery of refugees from the war zone.

“Decumus,” she said, “I never imagined humanity laid so low as I see here now.”

“Laila,” he responded somberly, “keep in mind, this is the good part of Valenwood.”

She looked at him thinking he might be joking. No, it was no joke.

They let the caravan continue on its way into the heart of darkness called Valenwood and stayed in Arenthia to consider their options. There was no commission for him to take up in Silvenar; in fact, he was supposed to be dead now, so using the letter of credit was out of the question as well. Laila had no particular reason to be in Silvenar. There were supposed to be maternal relatives there, but if she were to go calling on any of them, it's certain the door would be slammed in her face.

Being mixed was bad enough, but being a mixed Altmer/Bosmer made it worse.

Intermarriage between the races was frowned upon, even if it was “accidental”, because each race had its inborn attributes that could get mixed up. For example, the arrogant Altmeri were supposed to be the noblest and most civilized of the elves while the tree-hugging Bosmeri were the least civilized and thus not averse to cannibalism. So what does one make of an Altmer/Bosmer? Being a “barracks baby” certainly ruled out nobility in Laila, and the only trees she ever saw were those growing in the city. As far as she was concerned, the attributes of one canceled out the attributes of the other, like adding +1 and -1.

Arenthia did have one very attractive feature—a promenade where the locals enjoyed walking in the evening. Decumus and Laila sat on a park bench watching the sunset paint the clouds gold, orange, and pink. With the air turning cooler, Laila bundled up in a shawl and snuggled close to Scotti.

“Decumus.”

“Hmm?”

“Was there ever another woman in your life?”

“My mother, a sister who married into an aristocratic family.”

“No, I mean a ‘special’ woman.”

He shook his head.

“No. The Scottis are an aristocratic family as well, but so low in rank that one step lower and we’d be commoners. Technically, I'm an Esquire. The cushy civil service jobs weren’t open to me because I didn’t have the connections. So I studied in the Department of Architecture at the Imperial University, received a parchment to prove it, and while all my classmates moved on to high-level civil engineering positions, I was hired to push a pencil at the Atrius Building Commission. There was no lack of suitable girls out there, but they all wanted upward mobility, so I was left empty-handed until you came along. I was perfectly contented with the single life, but when I’m with you, I feel very differently." He gave her a smooch on the forehead. "And you, were there any ‘special’ men?”

“No. When I came of age, my mother wanted me to follow her footsteps into the legion, but I turned her down. I couldn’t bear all the guys leering at me as my body started gaining some shape, and I never entered a storage room without another female with me. A friend suggested I join the Dark Brotherhood and make use of my fighting skills. I thought I could forego male companionship altogether, but when I'm with you, I feel very differently.”

Scotti removed the gold signet ring from his left little finger and slipped it onto her left ring finger.

“I want you to have this,” he said, “to commemorate our engagement. However, I’m sure you’re aware that a human generation is maybe a tenth as long as yours, so we will have to say good-bye before you’re ready for it.”

She smiled as she gazed on the family crest that would soon be hers as well.

“Thank you,” she whispered into his ear.

They decided to wait until their situation was more settled. Tamrielic law made no provisions for marriage. For want of a Shrine of Dibella, a simple oath to love and to hold till death do them part was deemed quite sufficient. Only marriage among blood relatives was taboo.

There was twilight in the western sky as they slowly made their way back to their hotel.

THE INTRUDER:

One thing that Laila didn’t take into consideration is that nobody survives the Brotherhood. You can’t just walk away from them. They will track you down and make sure the skills you learned from them will not be shared with the Morag Tong, or anybody else for that matter.

That evening, a black-suited figure suddenly appeared on their balcony, and ran toward her to cut her down. But she quickly produced something like a pipette and blew it at him causing him to freeze like a statue.

“What did you just do?!” Decumus shouted amazed.

“I used a blowgun. It works for two minutes, so we’ve got to get rid of this guy before he becomes un-paralyzed!”

It really was like moving a heavy statue, but as soon as they got him to the balcony, he recovered and started to struggle.

“Push him over!” Laila shouted.

He wouldn’t budge and was trying to fight with his back to the balcony railing.

“Grab his feet!” Laila shouted to Decumus.

Decumus bent down, grabbed his ankles, and pitched him over the railing. There was a scream as the assassin fell from the fourth floor and hit the rocks below with a sickening thud.

“So much for such riff-raff!” Laila said blandly and returned to their room.

But Decumus stayed as if riveted to the railing.

“Decumus?”

No response.

She approached and found him staring in a catatonic state.

“Decumus, are you all right?” she asked frightened.

She didn’t know that he had seen Reglius fall to his death during his first foray into Valenwood, so all of this was very mysterious to her.

She led him to the bed and tucked him in.

After about a week he suddenly came to. Laila was nodding off in a chair next to the bed. Decumus had no recollection as to what had happened, and all of this was very strange to him.

“Laila?” he asked shaking her arm. She woke.

“Decumus! You’re back! Oh, thank the gods!” she exclaimed hugging him.

“What happened?”

She told him of his mental breakdown after witnessing the assassin fall to his death, and how she’d been using the money he’d brought to keep them housed and fed in this hostelry.

“Did the authorities look into this?” he asked with trepidation.

“Yes, they did. They invited themselves in, and when they saw you in bed and asked about you, I told them my husband was inconvenienced because he was afflicted with the collywobbles. They immediately excused themselves and were gone from here.

"I imagine the Brotherhood put this down as a botched vendetta on a botched vendetta. I doubt they'll dispatch any more of their best people to harry us.”

“Laila, you’re a genius!” Decumus exulted.

“So what happens now?”

Decumus spoke as if recalling something from a dream he'd just awakened from.

“I have some unfinished business with Lord Vanech. I’ll give you enough of our gold to live on after having crossed over to Ebonheart. I’ll meet you there when I’m finished.”

LATE FOR THE APPOINTMENT:

Laila had been waiting for weeks, sitting on the steps overlooking the Ebonheart docks. Every day ships would come in disgorging passengers, but she got so accustomed not to finding Decumus among them that she just stared languidly at the coming and going.

“I hope he didn’t do something stupid and land in jail,” she thought.

“Lai~la!” a voice sang out in front of her.

She sat bolt upright and listened intently.

“Lai~la!”

“There it is again! Decumus, is that you?”

She was bowled backward when he suddenly appeared right in front of her like magic. His hair was nearly shoulder length, and he’d grown a scruffy beard, so he looked more like a Nord than an Imperial.

“B’vec, Decumus! You nearly made me wet myself!”

He was nearly doubled over in laughter. “Sorry, my love! I just couldn’t resist!”

“Where’ve you been, you palooka?!” she cried jumping into his arms and holding him tight.

“I had to make a detour to Seyda Neen, on the prisoner transport ship.”

“Oh, gods! You’re not in trouble, are you?”

“Not yet anyway. It was the only ship I could stow away on without arousing suspicion. All the gold I had was spent, so it was the only way to make the crossing.”

“But what happened?