Thieves Never Prosper?

Note:

This story follows on from the Bravil Mage's Guild recommendation quest, taking it up a few months later. I wanted to give some background on the characters and their motivations, so there will not be much action in the first few chapters save for one character's overactive imagination. Good things come to those who wait!


***

Varon Vamori walked from the inn heading home, his steps on the muddy ground not entirely steady. He couldn’t believe that he had just passed up the chance of bedding the first woman who’d looked his way in quite a while. She was a tall Nord with corn-coloured hair and a lightly freckled nose. Her leather cuirass had clung tightly to her figure, showing the outline of shapely breasts and a small waist. No body-denying, voluminous mage robes for her, he thought bitterly. Yet he had rejected her, fool that he was, when she invited him up to his room. Startled, he made some hasty excuse. She’d looked a little hurt for a moment, then she had shrugged and cut him down to size.

“Your loss. I’m not sure an elf like you would be man enough for me anyway.”

He let out a sigh. Maybe she was right. "Why couldn't I say yes? She wasn’t my dream woman, but she wasn’t bad-looking either, and it’s been almost a year now! What is the matter with me these days?" he muttered to himself.

Out of the night air, the answer came to him, as if the Nine were giving him a sign.

“Ardaline.”

Varon stopped, suddenly. Who said that? He looked round and realised he was standing by the side of the Mage’s Guild, underneath an open window. He had been here many times before, spending a small fortune on alchemical supplies whilst trying to get the attention of a certain young Altmer mage by the name of Ardaline. His attempts to court her had failed quite spectacularly. The shy young woman shunned all his advances, no matter how many times he tried to persuade her. In a fit of temper one day, he’d secretly stolen a staff which belonged to her. Thanks to a passing adventurer, that little problem had been sorted out eventually but Kud-Ei, the Guildmistress, had warned him to stay away. Filled with remorse for upsetting the girl, he complied: now he only ever saw her from a distance or in his dreams.

The voice spoke again, and this time he recognised the gravelly tones of an Argonian female. He guessed it was the Guildmistress herself.

“Ardaline?”

“Oh! I’m sorry, Kud-Ei. I was so busy reading that I didn’t see you come in.”

Varon could picture Ardaline’s face, the sweet look of surprise that she would have in her blue eyes right now. If it had been anyone else speaking, he would have walked away, but even now, after all these months, he felt hopelessly drawn to her.

Kud-Ei spoke again. “Must be an interesting book.”

“It’s just a treatise on alchemy. In truth, I was starting to fall asleep over it.”

“And there I was thinking it was something gripping, like ‘Thief of Virtue’!”

“Oh no!” Ardaline giggled. “Nowhere near as interesting as that!”

She’s read that smutty little tome? wondered Varon. He wondered if she found the story arousing. His imagination provided him with a mental picture of Ardaline alone in her room, one hand holding the book, whilst the other strayed between her parted thighs. His cock twitched involuntarily at the thought.

Kud-Ei was talking, and Varon made the effort to turn his attention back to the conversation.

“...wonderful progress with your studies, but you’re almost too much of a model student. I’m not convinced it’s good for you, staying in every single night.”

“I’m fine, really... I suppose I get lonely sometimes. I still don’t know many people here yet. Once or twice I tried going out to the inn with another Guild member, but I found the crowd a little rough in there and the wine gave me a headache.”

Varon suspected that Ardaline saw him as one of the ‘rough’ crowd. That had been the very first time he had seen her. He had been so struck by her beauty that he took more than one drink before approaching her, in order to steady his nerves. He knew that he must have come on too strong with her. In the end her companion, a dignified Imperial called Ita Rienus, had told him in no uncertain terms to get lost.

“Do you really think that this refined young lady wants a drunken fool slobbering all over her?” Ita had scolded.

Once his hangover had subsided, he had made the effort to visit the Mage’s Guild dressed in his finest clothes and with a clear head, but clearly the first impression had lasted, for all of his subsequent attempts to talk to Ardaline had failed. She would allow him to buy alchemy ingredients but she barely talked to him, refused to go out anywhere with him, and would not even make eye contact. She always handed over his goods in near-silence, with a faint flush on her high cheekbones and a slightly pained look on her lovely face.

Varon turned his attention back to the conversation inside the Guild.

“It’s not the classiest place to have a drink, but I’m still surprised that you don’t have a young man in tow by now. You’re a very pretty young woman.”

“Thank you, Guildmistress. I suppose I stay in too much, so I don’t get to meet anyone new. I’m rather shy, which doesn’t help.”

“I know you are, but I also know that it’s no fun being single. I didn’t enjoy those few months I spent on my own when my dear friend was incapacited. I wonder if I could help you out?”

“How?”

“I have an idea. I could ask some of my guild contacts in other towns if there are any promising young mages coming up through the ranks. They’ll have to be reliable, trustworthy and single, of course. If I hear of anyone who sounds especially suitable, I’ll make sure that they get sent here to run a few errands.”

Varon felt a twinge of jealousy at the thought. He could imagine the scenario. Some snooty, social-climbing mage would be encouraged to court Ardaline. He would do it just for the chance to suck up to the Guildmistress, regardless whether he cared one whit for Ardaline herself. Varon cared a great deal, even though he had found some quite disastrous ways to demonstrate his feelings for her, and now he couldn’t go anywhere near her.

But Ardaline was speaking again, her voice quieter now. Varon pressed himself closer to the wall.

“I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that.”

“It wouldn’t be any trouble. In truth there are a few errands which need doing, not worthy of my more experienced members. So I was thinking of asking for a new apprentice sometime soon. It won’t do any harm if it just happens to be a handsome young man, will it? What’s your type, by the way? Not Dunmer, I’d guess.”

There was a hint of sarcasm in the Argonian’s voice, which made Varon wince. No doubt Kud-Ei was directly referring to him. To his further discomfiture, Ardaline laughed at the comment.

“I shouldn’t laugh... it’s not funny at all really. It’s just that it’s the opposite of what you might think. I don’t know quite what it is about Dunmer males... there’s just something about those intense red eyes they have, which makes me go weak at the knees.”

Varon couldn’t believe his ears. If she found his kind so attractive, why had she always avoided making eye contact with him?

Inside the room, Kud-Ei was asking the very same thing.

“Really? I’m surprised. I remember the young Dunmer who used to come in here all the time a few months ago, pestering you to go out with him. You always seemed to be uncomfortable around him.”

“I was,” said Ardaline, “but not for the reasons you might think. He... reminded me of someone else. You know that I hadn’t been here long when that happened? I moved here in order to get away from a Dunmer man. He was my first love, and it ended quite badly.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I was stupid - far too naive. You’ll remember that I came here from Cheydinal. I had only just left my family home to join the Mage’s Guild. Quite quickly, I met someone. He was older than me, very confident and sophisticated - nothing like me at all. When he suggested that I abandon my studies to move in with him, I jumped at the opportunity, against all the advice of my colleagues at the guild. They said he had a shady reputation but they wouldn’t tell me why. I disregarded the warnings because I was completely infatuated. After a short while of staying at his house, I began to notice he had a rather callous streak, but I rationalised it at first, thinking he had to be that way in order to succeed in business. He also used to... laugh about something which happened to me in the bedroom. I found that quite hurtful.”

Varon was fascinated in spite of his jealousy: he longed to know what the problem was. Unfortunately for him, Kud-Ei did not seem to share the same curiosity and she allowed Ardaline to carry on talking without questioning her further.

“He would also disappear at odd times of the day without an explanation, and I never knew when he was going to come back. One day I found he was out in the middle of the night and I felt so lonely that I went out for a walk. I saw him coming out of a well next to an abandoned, derelict house. I didn’t think that it might be dangerous to ask him about it.”

“Oh, think I know which house you mean,” said Kud-Ei. But you should choose your next words with great care. You never know who may be listening.”

Such an irony. Varon was indeed listening, but he had no interest in some run-down old house in Cheydinal. He only cared to know what happened to Ardaline.

“I... won’t say more about the place. I never found out what happened there, anyway. When I confronted him, he became so angry that he... he gave me a severe beating. He said it was to teach me a lesson for following him around. I was so frightened. When he left me alone, I ran away from the house and returned to the Mage’s guild. I told everyone that I had been out collecting herbs when I was attacked by goblins, but I’m not sure anyone believed me. They fixed me up with some healing spells, but my mind was still in a state of shock. Nothing happened for a few days, and then one day I noticed that some acquaintances of my former lover were laughing at me, and later a complete stranger, one of the town beggars, called me by a vulgar name."

"I soon found out that an embarrassing rumour was spreading around the whole town, and it was something that only my former lover could have known about me. I felt so humiliated, so betrayed. He had made me into a laughing stock. I suppose I could have asked the Guild leader in Cheydinal for help, but we didn’t get along very well. I wanted to run home to my parents, but Deetsan suggested that I transfer to Bravil. She told me that the town looked a little run-down, but at least you could easily tell who the disreputable types were. She also said that I would feel safe here in the Bravil Mages Guild, under your leadership.”

Varon heard the slight shake in her voice, as if she held back tears. He felt an odd mixture of anger and pity. Anger at the man who’d hurt the innocent young Altmer. Deep pity for her, and a little for himself too, for having such damnably bad timing. If he had met her a year later, when she was no longer on the rebound, would she have seen him in an entirely different light?

“Oh, my dear,” said Ku-Ei in a motherly tone, “how unlucky you were with your first love. And Deetsan was so right to send you here. She’s my cousin, you know. She sent me a letter asking me to look out for you, did you know about that?”

“That’s so kind of her.” Ardaline sounded as if she was weeping quite openly now.

Suddenly Varon heard another voice, but it did not come from the window above him.

“Hello, what’s this? Spying, are we?” The voice was male, elven, slightly high-handed. Even as Varon began to turn, he saw a robed hand raising up, and a flash of blue light in front of his eyes.