Northbound Pilgrimage II

Aeyrin stopped for a second in front of the large building towering before her.

She couldn't help but get a little nervous about the meeting. She still wasn't exactly sure what all of this was going to entail and she had no idea how many people she was meeting with. It didn't help that Bishop wasn't there with her, but it was probably for the best.

She absentmindedly scratched Karnwyr behind his ear as she took a deep determined breath. She wasn't going to find out anything more by standing around.

She left the wolf waiting for her at the doorstep and she stepped inside the Kynesgrove inn. The second the door closed behind her, she saw them among the other patrons – a large table with ten people around it, men and women, most of them Nords, and the familiar nobleman among them. Brunwulf's eyes met hers right away and he looked quite relieved to see her.

"Lady Aeyrin! What a lovely surprise to see you here," he called out to her across the inn as he stood up from his seat.

'Surprise'? Alright. So he wanted this to look like a chance encounter? She wasn't exactly great at these games, but hopefully she could manage.

"Lord Free-Winter," she smiled wryly as the man approached her. "Nice to see you here too. What... uhm... what brings you here?" She wasn't sure if she could ask. She wasn't sure if this was the right question, but it seemed like something she would have asked if she really didn't expect him here, right? It wasn't common to find the nobleman outside of Windhelm, was it? She really hoped he had some excuse prepared.

"I'm having some work done on a nearby estate of mine," Brunwulf explained. "These ladies and gentlemen are my very capable workers," he gestured towards the table filled with people.

'Nearby estate'? That sounded plausible. At least Aeyrin thought so.

"It's quite fortunate that we ran into you, lady Aeyrin," Brunwulf smiled at her. "We were merely stopping for a meal, but we have a longer way to go still. I hired mercenaries to guard us on the road, of course, but unfortunately, we had a... nasty bandit encounter only a short distance outside of Windhelm. The patrolling soldiers helped, but my mercenaries didn't make it. I don't suppose you would have time to take their place for the rest of the way? I would compensate you for the trouble, of course."

Aeyrin was pretty certain that the whole bandit encounter was made up, but it was probably best to keep up these charades. They couldn't just reveal their real plans in the tavern, in front of strangers, and they shouldn't look like they had any previous associations either.

"Oh... I could do that," Aeyrin nodded at him. "I could use the money." That was believable enough, wasn't it?

"Excellent," Free-Winter smiled at her brightly. "Come, join us for a meal. We can head out after."

Hopefully she would get some more explanations on the road, without all these games.

...

It was surprising how fast everything was arranged and how smoothly the work was going.

Though Aeyrin had never expected to find herself all the way here.

She had a meal with the workers first and she checked in with the innkeeper for any mail she may have received there. Though no letter from Erik had arrived yet. It was worrying, but it was still too soon. She had to remember that.

Only after they all left Braidwood Inn behind, she got some information out of Brunwulf. As she had suspected, this was all tied to the list of names that Bishop had retrieved, but it was also much more than she had anticipated.

Brunwulf explained his plan soon enough. Not only did he want to create a safe place to hide any dissidents from the Thalmor in the controlled regions, he wanted a place for people from down south to come and learn about Talos and the lost branch of the Church of the Nine Divines. He wanted to build a chapel – a place to meet and teach and a sanctuary for those who needed it.