Beyond the Pale

Jack of all Traitors

Essentially, wearing Stormcloak armor wasn't too different from wearing the Imperial kind, except for one important feature: it sure as Oblivion was a lot warmer. This made sense, of course, but it struck Castorius that he'd not before thought to question the Empire's refusal to upgrade their attire into something more suitable for the northern climate. And so far he'd been in the habit of questioning them all.

Almost certainly this was due to their very Cyrodiilian mulish stubbornness, and their standard wrongheaded demand for uniformity. But whatever it was, it was yet another call on their part Castorius did not hesitate to call absolutely idiotic.

That list just kept getting longer and longer.

Now, his legs nice and warm under the pair of leather trousers, he though back to those couple winters he'd served here so far, suffering though the frigid winds and the biting frost. Each spring, he couldn't have given enough praise to whatever incompetent fools ruled the universe, once the sun started to offer some actual warmth instead of just sitting up there in the sky like some painted-on decoy—mocking the folks down below fooled into thinking that the thing might have served any sort of purpose besides just hanging pointlessly in the firmament.

Yes, he could have certainly used these things earlier.

As warm as he might have physically been, though, a chilling sense of uncertainly gnawed at his guts. How could this possibly end well? He was not trusted by either of the factions whose trust he was supposed to gain, and he didn't even know which one it was he was ultimately supposed to betray.

It was hard enough trying to keep up on who wanted him dead more badly.

That, in itself, wouldn't have even been all that bad, if he'd only had some clear idea of why they wanted him dead to begin with. If Torygg didn't really think Castorius a traitor, and if he didn't actually know about him and Elisif, then why send him into the lion's den? Castorius had not for a second bought the whole "spy for the Empire" story, and since the High King had himself admitted to not believing that Ulfric would be fooled by his purported conversion, what other reason to order him here if not to be taken out by the Stormcloaks?

And, on the other hand, if the original purpose was simply to have Castorius killed, why bother interrupting the execution? None of it added up.

It wasn't any better with Ulfric. For all his chumminess and jovial good cheer, Castorius knew now—after having had some time to reflect—that there had been a clear subtext to his conviviality. The fine print in Stormcloak's deceptively warm acceptance of Castorius into his army was loud and clear: you will not breathe my air for long. There had not been any briefing as to the nature of the "mission" he'd been sent on, but it was bound to be something nasty. Castorius half expected to be attacked at any moment, maybe take an arrow from nowhere—just like those wolves had.

And yet: if they wanted him dead, why save him from them in the first place?

Frustrated by the circular nature of his mind—unable not only to find satisfactory answers, but confused about the questions themselves—Castorius scratched his head under the loose-fitting Stormcloak helmet. The heads of these northern mooks being so gods-damned large, they'd not had anything in their stores to comfortably fit around his own sophisticatedly-shaped skull. And there'd been no question of them even considering Castorius' perfectly sensible request to simply wear his old helmet. It would scarcely be the first thing to mark him somewhat different from your average pale and light-eyed Nord. With his olive skin and hazel eyes, nobody would in a million years take him for a legitimate Stormcloak.

An Imperial fighting for the freedom of Skyrim? Surely nobody had heard of anything that unlikely. And, as Castorius had been taught, when it came to war, odds were pretty much everything.