#couriers

The day had started like any other day – breakfast with all the apprentices, followed by the morning classes. Except that today, one of their usual morning classes was replaced by another.

“Do you think Master Nigel got ill?” one of the apprentices asked to no one in general. “Or that something happened to him?”

“I don’t think anything of that happened,” Alyss replied when it stayed silent. “If I remember correctly, Lady Pauline did mention something about it.”

Next to her, a couple of her classmates nodded. They remembered that too.

They were sitting in the shared common room of the Diplomatic Service, which was situated on the third floor of a building in Castle Redmont.

After their language class had ended, they were summoned to go there and wait for further instructions. All of them were eager to know what was going on, but they had to be patient.

Alyss used the opportunity to read a report that had been given as homework. She didn’t like to waste her time and preferred to have her work done whenever she had time.

“Students, time for your next class.”

In the door frame, Lady Pauline was waiting for them. She was wearing a white dress with a blue cape over her shoulder, which was fastened with a silver laurel – the typical clothes of a Courier. To show her position, she wore a simple yet elegant brooch, decorated with white and blue stones.

The students stood up and followed the Head of the Diplomatic Service. While silent at first, they couldn’t keep their surprised whispers to themselves when they headed outside of the building.

While most of the classes were held in the castle, they now walked through the courtyard towards the Battleschool.

To minimalize the contact between the Battleschool students and the Courier apprentices, the boys were all inside following their own classes.

Lady Pauline directed her students to the entrance where they were greeted by Sir Rodney.

“A very good before noon, Lady Pauline,” he greeted her, bowing his head slightly. “I take that these are all the students you mentioned?”

Lady Pauline greeted the knight before answering his question.

“Good morning, Sir Rodney. Those are indeed the apprentices that I mentioned earlier on. I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience that there happens to be one extra? She got accepted the previous week.”

Although no names were mentioned, Alyss knew they were talking about her. She had been the last to be taken as apprentice for this year.

Besides, it wasn’t like Sir Rodney didn’t know about it. He had been present when Alyss had told her name and which profession she wanted to do.

“That’s no problem at all,” the knight replied. He looked at all the students in front of him; four girls and three boys.

“In that case, please follow Sir Rodney.”

It was a subtle way of telling the man that he could show them the way to the place they had to go to.

Lady Pauline waited until all seven apprentices were walking inside before following them. All of them remained silent, for none wanted to cause any trouble for the Battleschool students.

As they walked through the corridors, Alyss kept wondering if she might be able to see Horace. Although he had been very confident in front of their friend group, he had entrusted her that he was, in fact, a bit anxious about the Battleschool. He wasn’t a noble born or from a family that had proved themselves. He feared that once word got out that he was an orphan, the other students would bully him for it.

“Please, go inside and sit down on the benches that are placed against the wall.”

Alyss was pulled out of her thoughts by the knight’s voice. She followed the others and sat down on the far end of one bench.

While waiting, the apprentices softly talked with each other, all guessing what business they had that involved the Battleschool.

They didn’t have to wait long. Soon after Sir Rodney had disappeared through the door, one of the instructors appeared. He was a man halfway his forties and going by his uniform, a knight as well. He was wearing a gambeson with chainmail and on top of that a tunic with the symbol of a boar – indicating that he was one of Baron Arald’s soldiers.

“Lady Pauline, students,” he greeted them, skipping formality and heading straight to the point. “You might wonder why you, students of the Diplomatic Service, are now sitting in the Battleschool. The answer to that might be easier than you think.”

He looked at Lady Pauline who had gotten up from her place to stand next to the knight.

“Once you’ve finished this apprenticeship, your most important task will be to deliver documents to other fiefs and, in some cases, outside of our borders. Those can vary from simple messages to ones that contain top secret information. In an ideal world, we could send you off in a carriage or with a small escort, but we have to be real. We live in uncertain times, with people who wish to do more harm than good. And while most of the time an escort will be enough to protect you, there might be times that you will be on your own. And in such moments, you will have to be able to protect yourself.”

She looked at each of them and saw that realisation was slowly falling down on them.

“As you might know, Couriers do not carry a visible weapon. It doesn’t mean that we do not have any,” Lady Pauline continued. From a hidden pocket in her dress, she pulled out her own weapon. “What we have, is a Courier’s dagger. Simple, light weighted and easy to hide. Each of you will get one and will also have to learn how to use it.”

The knight walked to a table that had been standing not too far away from Alyss. On it, there was a cloth that the man now pulled away. Underneath were seven daggers, one for each of them.

The seven students came forward and picked one. Once they had done that, Lady Pauline showed them how to add it to their belt.

After that, the knight told them to line up and stretch out their arms.

How pretty and thank you!

🤟☺️💜👍💌📦📪📫📬📭

🌨️☁️⛈️⛈️🌤️🌥️🌦️🌩️🌡️🌀

I do indeed bind my own journals, yes, when I've the time and materials available. It's a wonderfully meditative craft, one that was taught to me young; the Temple in Balmora never had any shortage of books needing rebinding or pilgrim's handbooks needing assembly. To this day the motions are all deep muscle-memory to me. I can't imagine how many thousands of pages my hands have laid and stitched and cut over the years...

On Vvardenfell, the tradition was to 'bind like with like'; a tome on Telvanni architecture might have its covers bound in preserved mycelium, for example. This tradition extended to the binding of holy scripture, though in a more metaphorical manner, spawning endless ecumenical debate...

Some argued that Truth was most often symbolized by water, and thus the skins and resins of dreugh ought to be used to honor the sacred truth within such writings. Others, more pedantic than I, pointed out that the sea's waters were under the purview of Sotha Sil, and that therefore fish glues like isinglass should only be used to bind books of Lord Seht's influence and studies, suggesting that the skins of cliffracers be used for the writings of Vivec so as to honor the Lord of the Middle Air. And then would come the bickering over whether utilizing such winged vermin would be a profaning insult, and perhaps some sniping over just what Mardyn suggested we glue these Homilies Of Blessed Almalexia together with if he was so smart, and some barbs about milking starlight into gluepots would get slung at Mardyn until he shut up and finished those binding boards...

The intellectual rigors of academic theology.

In Cyrodiil, when gold was plentiful, I would send for fine Nordic isinglass for my bookbinding, made from great sturgeons native to Skyrim's White River. Now, finding myself in Skyrim by the very banks of the White, I may buy the same isinglass for a pittance, but I dare not. You see, Nordic isinglass is the finest glue for bookbinding... Unless it freezes, whereupon it cracks and becomes hopelessly brittle. Look here, my journal is like a willow in Sun's Dusk: one hard frost, and the leaves start falling. I'll have to make another soon...

Hmm. Bookbinders, bookbinders... Now that's a difficult thing to answer. Here, I've only a few persons I would trust, none of them bookbinders. These are times of war, and it is child's play for any paid-off stationery clerk with an enchanter's kit to lace those cheap journals with hidden dictation enchantments for the purposes of spycraft. If you would keep your writings private, dear, it pays to remember this. All sides pay well for information.

(It's been years since I've seen any amulets or rings bearing useful enchantment-detecting properties, and even then they were perilously expensive. Don't despair, however, for a book may only be enchanted once, which can be turned to your advantage. For but a little gold (or a few rats, if you fill your own soul gems), you may have some small enchantment placed upon your new journal by any local artificer. Something cheap and inconsequential. Muffle, perhaps. It doesn't matter. If the enchantment takes, then no further enchantments may be placed upon it, and you can rest easy knowing that no spies have tainted it. If it doesn't, then you will know to burn that book immediately, or fill it with vulgar invective and waste some shadowy investigator's time.)

As for my favourite materials, oh... Fawn skin, I think, for the cover, tanned in alder-leaf and Pelletine sumach liquor in an iron pot for a year, and dressed with oil rendered from a young female badger (be wary not to get cheaper badger oil rendered from the old boars, the stench is terrible). The leather's color becomes like that of gathering storm clouds, quite beautiful. Brass for the cornerplates, engraved if I can get it. Linen laceweaver's line for the thread, of course, at least three-stranded but still quite fine, or else the spine will bulk out too far.

Couriers