After, in the bitter dark of prison, he thinks about the bodies plummeting from the walls, the blood trickling down the sloped stone streets. The gates of Markarth, burst by the same ancient siege weapon that broke the doors of fortresses in the First Era. He remembers Arngeir speaking of Jurgen Windcaller, of the defeat that was the price of arrogance. He has not thought of Arngeir in a long time. During the war the peace of High Hrothgar shone so brightly in his memory that it was painful to look at. He locked it away, like some powerful relic entombed lest it bring about destruction. He suspects Arngeir would have many choice words for him if they could speak now.
And yet he is not sorry. He has been very angry for a very long time, but now, suddenly, that fury is channeled toward something outside himself. What are his broken vows, before the broken faith of an Empire that sells its subjects to buy its safety? That spits upon the sacrifice of untold thousands and profanes the sacred name of its founding god? He believed that he was fighting for a just cause. Now he sees that he was fighting for a petty Colovian warlord to keep his throne, and Ulfric vows that he is finished bleeding for an Empire that will not return the favor.
He has seven years to brood on the ways he has been wronged. The Ulfric Stormcloak who emerges to claim his father's throne is older and paler, with a new, reluctant caution and the faintest of premature lines etched into his face. But he has a hard hot smolder behind his eyes and a voice that men will follow. Within the great stone walls upon which a hundred armies have broken like water Windhelm's Temple of Talos opens, and the ramparts spanning the river bristle with a swelling militia of guards wearing Eastmarch blue.
(Far away, in the cutthroat political circles of Alinor where there are no more Blades to observe, an interrogator receives a promotion for a job well done.)
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By the time he is thirty Ulfric has been a student and a soldier and a criminal. After he returns to Windhelm he buries his father - over and over, in a hundred different ways - by becoming a jarl.
It has a long memory, his city: in the Valunstrad he can feel the press and whisper of ancient kings at his back, the weight of ancient eyes. Sometimes the grey snow whirls and flurries into ghostly shapes. Every year, on the thirteenth of Sun's Dawn, all five hundred names of Ysgramor's Companions are still recited before the Feast of the Dead.
Ulfric is acutely conscious of whose throne it is that he sits upon, and grimly determined to prove worthy of the honor. He speaks, and holds court, and learns to wield cunning like a sword. He recalls that his father never spoke of the citizens as a common rabble. He acquires a reputation among Skyrim's jarls. He makes a magnificent politician, and surrounded as he is by the ghosts of his entire culture maybe it is not surprising that he never loses sight of his own. Bitterly contemptuous of Imperial promises, he pours Windhelm's treasury into what amounts to a private army. He bides his time. At the temple of Talos he prays for strength: to defy the Concordat, to atone for his failures, to fight for his people.
(Five minutes' walk would find some of his people huddled in their grimy cornerclub and cursing his apathy, and a visit to the docks would see more of his people engaged in backbreaking labor for half-wages. But Ulfric never sees the irony.)
Some eighteen years pass, and then High King Istlod dies.
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timeasmymeasure
True Need 3b/3
Date: 2013-06-07 07:22 pm (UTC)And yet he is not sorry. He has been very angry for a very long time, but now, suddenly, that fury is channeled toward something outside himself. What are his broken vows, before the broken faith of an Empire that sells its subjects to buy its safety? That spits upon the sacrifice of untold thousands and profanes the sacred name of its founding god? He believed that he was fighting for a just cause. Now he sees that he was fighting for a petty Colovian warlord to keep his throne, and Ulfric vows that he is finished bleeding for an Empire that will not return the favor.
He has seven years to brood on the ways he has been wronged. The Ulfric Stormcloak who emerges to claim his father's throne is older and paler, with a new, reluctant caution and the faintest of premature lines etched into his face. But he has a hard hot smolder behind his eyes and a voice that men will follow. Within the great stone walls upon which a hundred armies have broken like water Windhelm's Temple of Talos opens, and the ramparts spanning the river bristle with a swelling militia of guards wearing Eastmarch blue.
(Far away, in the cutthroat political circles of Alinor where there are no more Blades to observe, an interrogator receives a promotion for a job well done.)
----------
By the time he is thirty Ulfric has been a student and a soldier and a criminal. After he returns to Windhelm he buries his father - over and over, in a hundred different ways - by becoming a jarl.
It has a long memory, his city: in the Valunstrad he can feel the press and whisper of ancient kings at his back, the weight of ancient eyes. Sometimes the grey snow whirls and flurries into ghostly shapes. Every year, on the thirteenth of Sun's Dawn, all five hundred names of Ysgramor's Companions are still recited before the Feast of the Dead.
Ulfric is acutely conscious of whose throne it is that he sits upon, and grimly determined to prove worthy of the honor. He speaks, and holds court, and learns to wield cunning like a sword. He recalls that his father never spoke of the citizens as a common rabble. He acquires a reputation among Skyrim's jarls. He makes a magnificent politician, and surrounded as he is by the ghosts of his entire culture maybe it is not surprising that he never loses sight of his own. Bitterly contemptuous of Imperial promises, he pours Windhelm's treasury into what amounts to a private army. He bides his time. At the temple of Talos he prays for strength: to defy the Concordat, to atone for his failures, to fight for his people.
(Five minutes' walk would find some of his people huddled in their grimy cornerclub and cursing his apathy, and a visit to the docks would see more of his people engaged in backbreaking labor for half-wages. But Ulfric never sees the irony.)
Some eighteen years pass, and then High King Istlod dies.
----------