“Well, that was interesting” – Lena looked at Hauk when they were outside Castle Skingrad. “So Mannimarco has returned. Traven will want to know that – but should we hurry back?”

“I wouldn’t hurry” – Hauk said slowly. “If Traven hasn’t figured it out for himself yet, he isn’t much of an Arch Mage.”

Lena nodded. The information was important, of course, but she felt that the Count had simply used it to ask Lena’s help with the vampire hunters. She would have given her help regardless though.

“Well, if we are not going to worry about Traven for now” – she continued, lost in thought. “Then there are a few obligations I need to follow up on. Namely, trouble has been brewing in the Shivering Isles with the Saints and Seducers quarrelling again, and also I need to check up on the Leyawiin Sanctuary – I had asked Borba to fix it up.”

“Then I suggest Leyawiin first” – Hauk looked at her intently. “This seems important somehow. Surely it can’t be just about the furniture?”

“It isn’t…” – Lena blushed. “There’s someone there. A slave.”

“What?!” – Hauk and Jowan looked indignant. “You..?!”

“I didn’t!” – Lena protested. “I didn’t buy a slave! Or at least I didn’t know I was buying a slave! I was buying the original furnishings left behind by my great-uncle, and suddenly there was a slave there as well.”

“What does the trader have to say about that?” – Hauk looked stern.

“He… well… Let’s just say he was a swindler and a slave trader, so I had to have Borba change the furnishings, but I can’t just abandon that slave. Especially since he’s a vampire.”

“Riiiight…” – Hauk whistled. “That explains your sudden warmth towards the vampires in the Bloodcrust Cavern. So what do you intend to do?”

“I wish I knew” – Lena looked uncertain. “There’s also a captive there – for the vampire to feed on. I tried to wake him up, but he seems to have been infected with Narcolepsy, so there’s nothing I can do for him. And the vampire needs to feed. I want to make this slave into a free person again.”

“That might not be so easy” – remarked Jowan. “In Tevinter – a neighbouring kingdom of where I’m from – slavery is so common, that many slaves have accepted it and don’t even want to be free. And that’s where Magisters kill and bleed their slaves for blood magic rituals – and the slaves… they just think it’s normal! People get used to all sorts of things…”

“Then we should go to Leyawiin and check on this slave” – concluded Hauk. “What’s his name?”

“Fenris Bero.”

“What?! And you kept that for last?!” – Hauk laughed. Jowan looked at them with a blank face. “I’ll tell you later” – Hauk promised. A lesson in the history of Morrowind was on the cards.

17 Rain’s Hand

They took a coach to Leyawiin, arriving within a day. The Sanctuary was just a short walk from the city.

“Mistress!” – Fenris Bero kneeled before Lena as they entered the central hall. “You have returned!”

“As I said I would” – Lena replied. “Is there any food in the stores?”

“Yes, the Orcs filled it up” – Fenris pointed at the storage. “I haven’t touched anything.”

“Right…” – Lena looked at Hauk and Jowan. “Can you two take care of dinner while I talk to Fenris?”

She took him into the study and closed the door.

“Please don’t kneel, you are not my slave.”

“But Mistress!” – Fenris was confused but he remained standing. Lena sat down.

“Tell me about your life with Rowley.”

“Well…” – Fenris seemed hesitant. “He… started by sending us out for assassinations, as he said, but he always insisted we bring back loot, and that’s what got the others killed. I was lucky, I guess. Then, when I was the only one left, he kept me in his house… I tended to his garden and made his poisons for sale, and he… kept me chained most of the time… He’d come for satisfaction often enough, and if I performed well, he’d give me blood… Just enough to survive.”

Fenris dropped to his knees, but Lena didn’t insist he’d get up. His story echoed what she’d heard before.

“Then, when I was no longer good enough, he’d beat me, keep me hungry, not give me any water or food at all, and no blood… Then once I was weak and beaten, he’d come for satisfaction again… But in the last few years I was never good enough for him… He used to have other slaves, but they seemed to have gone… or died… Then suddenly he brought me here and said that I had a new master now – a Mistress – and good riddance. You bought me, and I am sorry I am probably no use or satisfaction to you either…”

Lena listened wondering more and more what to do with him.

“Fenris” – she started. He looked up. “Rowley is dead – I killed him.” Fenris froze. “And you are not a slave here. Do you wish to leave?”

“You are sending me away, Mistress?” Tears ran down Fenris’ face and he was shaking all over. “I… I have no where to go.”

Lena had said the wrong thing. She sat down on the floor next to Fenris and put her arm around his shoulders.

“I am not sending you away” – she wiped away his tears not unlike Lucien had wiped away hers some weeks back. “I killed Rowley Eardwulf because he was a traitor – to my great-uncle, to the Dark Brotherhood, to all of you new recruits, and certainly to you. He did not deserve to live.”

“And he was with the Crimson Scars, and you are with the Dark Brotherhood. I am ready to die by your hand, Mistress!” – he looked resolved.

“He was with the Dark Brotherhood before he was with the Crimson Scars, and that is why he had to die” – Lena replied. “But you are a different matter. You were not involved, and I absolve you. It is in my power – I am a Silencer.”

“And who is your Speaker?”

“Lucien Lachance.”

They were already sitting on the floor, so Fenris could not kneel. Still, he could prostrate himself before Lena, and there he was. Every attempt she made to tell him that his enslavement and suffering were over, seemed to have gone wrong. How do you bring back someone who’s been a slave for over 200 years?

She let him lie there for a little while, then she propped herself up on an elbow and started stroking his hair. After a while, Fenris looked up, his grey Dunmer skin having a white undertone, his vampire eyes light pink.

“When was the last time you fed?” – Lena asked.

“I haven’t touched the prisoner” – he said. “I hadn’t earned it.”

Weeks, then. Perhaps months. Now, try not to say the wrong thing again, Lena.

“I shall have work for you” – she said, lifting him up by the shoulders and looking straight into his face. “But I need you at full strength. Feed on the prisoner. Eat the food. My companions and I will stay here tonight and leave tomorrow, but I shall be back in a few weeks. You will need to come with me then. Be ready.”

Fenris straightened up.

“Yes, Mistress.”

She got up and left the room to join Hauk and Jowan at the table.

“Well? How did it go?” – Hauk asked.

“He’s a slave” – Lena answered grimly. “He doesn’t know how not to be.”