The stench was unmistakable, but somehow I gathered the strength to supress my initial impulse to throw up, because I was surrounded by enemies and did not dare to show any weakness. I opened my eyes painfully and checked around: three handcuffed nords with me in the wagon, driven by another nord dressed in imperial outfit. They were all looking at me with disgusted frowns on their stupid hairy faces, so I looked back in defiance and I immediately recognized the gagged one as the vile Ulfric Stormcloak. I was sure he didn’t recognized back me, or there would be far more than just contempt in his frown. One of the nords even commented something like we were brothers in binding, but I could see plainly nobody, not even himself, agreed with that. Good thing I didn´t, either.
I assessed my situation: There I was, handcuffed and weakened, so every thought of escaping was out of question. Also I had been shaken, beaten, cut and stabbed by those accursed imperial soldiers, and my body ached in places I had never noticed were there, and ah…. It suddenly came to my attention that I would very soon be put to death. Yet that putrid smell of nord’s sweating was the only thing that really bothered me. By the Holy Triune! I know it’s cold out there, but have those people never taken a bath on their whole lives?
The way I saw things, the pain was just the fair reward for my lack of skill; the death, well, I didn’t mind so much being executed, since I kind of expected to die after having completed the task that had brought me here; and the smell, now that was undeserved and kind of cruel, but I had been well taught by my mother in the secrets of the garasithis doctrine, which demands from us to endure every pain and to accept any sacrifice to reach a noble goal. And eventually I was almost grateful to those imperial bastards, because they would perform for me the task that my incompetence had prevented me from doing myself. You see, I had come here to kill a man. Admittedly, a very difficult man to kill, but one more deserving of death than any other man I knew.
Now, the peasant one finally understood what everybody else on that wagon already knew, and started to whine like a little girl. Those weakling nords and their fright of death have always made me sick, but for a moment I wished the vile one were not gagged so I could also hear his whimpers. Of course I knew he would not have whimpered, he would instead have shouted everybody into pieces, but we can always fantasize, can´t we. So I had to be contented to see him beheaded by some imperial headsman, preferably before my turn, instead of killing him myself. OK, that would have to do, and, having miserably failed my own assassination attempt, I felt not in the right to complain on my condition. Well…, except for the stench.
If you would have asked me then why the death of that particular man was so important to me, that I would have gladly sacrificed my own life to accomplish it, well, I would answer you with nothing but silence, you fool, because I don´t have to explain my actions to any mortal man. But to my Holy Ancestors of the Almsivi, who will judge my faith and piety, and to my beloved mother, whose ghost I’ll meet today, and only to them, I will tell my story and plead my case.
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