Sacred Witness , Part 1 Content . I have met countesses and courtesans , empresses and witches , ladies of war and slatterns of peace , but I have never met a woman like the Night Mother . And I never will again . I am a writer , a poet of some small renown . If I told you my name , you may have heard of me , but very likely , not . For decades until very recently , I had adopted the city of Sentinel on the coast of Hammerfell as my home , and kept the company of other artists , painters , tapestrists , and writers . No one I knew would have known an assassin by sight , least of all the queen of them , the Blood Flower , the Lady Death , the Night Mother . Not that I had not heard of her . Some years ago , I had the good fortune of meeting Pelarne Assi , a respected scholar , who had come to Hammerfell to do research for a book about the Order of Diagna . His essay , " The Brothers of Darkness " together with Ynir Gorming ' s " Fire and Darkness : The Brotherhoods of Death " are considered to be the canon tomes on the subject of Tamriel ' s orders of assassins . By luck , Gorming himself was also in Sentinel , and I was privileged to sit with the two in a dark Skooma den in the musty slums of the city , as we smoked and talked about the Dark Brotherhood , the Morag Tong , and the Night Mother . While not disputing the possibility that the Night Mother may be immortal or at least very long - lived , Assi thought it most likely that several women — and perhaps some men — throughout the ages had assumed the honorary title . It was no more logical to say there was only one Night Mother , he asserted , than to say there was only one King of Sentinel . Gorming argued that there never was a Night Mother , at least no human one . The Night Mother was Mephala herself , whom the Brotherhood revered second only to Sithis . " I don ' t suppose there ' s any way of knowing for certain , " I said , in a note of diplomacy . " Certainly there is , " whispered Gorming with a grin . " You could talk to that cloaked fellow in the corner . " I had not noticed the man before , who sat by himself , eyes hidden by his cloak , seemingly as much a part of the dingy place as the rough stone and unswept floor . Turning back to Ynir , I asked him why that man would know about the Night Mother . " He ' s a Dark Brother , " hissed Pellarne Assi . " That ' s as plain as the moons . Don ' t even joke about speaking with him about Her . " We moved on to other arguments about the Morag Tong and the Brotherhood , but I never forgot the image of the lone man , looking at nothing and everything , in the corner of the dirty room , with fumes of skooma smoke floating around him like ghosts . When I saw him weeks later on the streets of Sentinel , I followed him . Yes , I followed him . The reader may reasonably ask " why " and " how . " I don ' t blame you for that . " How " was simply a question of knowing my city as well as I do . I ' m not a thief , not particularly sure - footed and quiet , but I know the alleys and streets of Sentinel intimately from decades worth of ambling . I know which bridges creak , which buildings cast long irregular shadows , the intervals at which the native birds begin the ululations of their evening songs . With relative ease , I kept pace with the Dark Brother and out of his sight and hearing . The answer to " Why " is even simpler . I have the natural curiosity of the born writer . When I see a strange new animal , I must observe . It is the writer ' s curse . I trailed the cloaked man deeper into the city , down an alleyway so narrow it was scarcely a crack between two tenements , past a crooked fence , and suddenly , miraculously , I was in a place I had never seen before . A little courtyard cemetery , with a dozen old half - rotted wooden tombstones . None of the surrounding buildings had windows that faced it , so no one knew this miniature necropolis existed . No one , except the six men and one woman standing in it . And me . The woman saw me immediately , and gestured for me to come closer . I could have run , but — no , I couldn ' t have . I had pierced a mystery right in my adopted Sentinel , and I could not leave it . She knew my name , and she said it with a sweet smile . The Night Mother was a little old lady with fluffy white hair , cheeks like wrinkled apples that still carried the flush of youth , friendly eyes , blue as the Iliac Bay . She softly took my arm as we sat down amidst the graves and discussed murder . She was not always in Hammerfell , not always available for direct assignment , but it seemed she enjoyed actually talking to her clientele . " I did not come here to hire the Brotherhood , " I said respectfully . " Then why are you here ? " the Night Mother asked , her eyes never leaving mine . I told her I wanted to know about her . I did not expect an answer to that , but she told me .