“Ah.”
“You know what the common folk are like, they love gossip. They see a woman with a man and at once turn it into an affair. The Witcher, I admit, visited me quite often. And indeed, we were seen together in town. But, I repeat, it only concerned business.”
Yennefer put down her goblet, rested her elbows on the table and put her fingertips together, creating a steeple. And looked the red-haired sorceress in the eyes.
“Primo,” Lytta coughed slightly, but didn’t look down, “I’ve never done anything like that to a close friend. Secundo, your Witcher wasn’t interested in me at all.”
“Wasn’t he?” Yennefer raised her eyebrows. “Indeed? How can that be explained?”
“Perhaps mature women have stopped interesting him? Regardless of their current looks. Perhaps he prefers the genuinely young? Mozaïk! Come here please. Just look, Yennefer. Youth in bloom. And innocence. Until recently.”
“She?” said Yennefer, irritated. “He with her? With your pupil?”
“Well, Mozaïk. Come closer. Tell us about your amorous adventure. We’re curious to listen. We love affairs. Stories about unhappy love. The unhappier, the better.”
“Madame Lytta …” The girl, rather than blushing, paled like a corpse. “Please … You’ve already punished me for it, after all … How many times can I be punished for the same offence. Don’t make me—”
“Tell us!”
“Let her be, Coral,” said Yennefer, waving a hand. “Don’t torment her. Furthermore, I’m not at all curious.”
“I surely don’t believe that,” said Lytta Neyd, smiling spitefully. “But very well, I’ll forgive the girl, indeed I’ve already punished her, forgiven her and allowed her to continue her studies. And her mumbled confessions have stopped entertaining me. To summarise: she became infatuated with the Witcher and ran away with him. And he—once he’d become bored with her—simply abandoned her. She woke up alone one morning. All he left were cooled sheets and not a single trace. He left because he had to. He vanished into thin air. Gone with the wind.”
Although it seemed impossible, Mozaïk paled even more. Her hands trembled.
“He left some flowers,” said Yennefer softly. “A little nosegay of flowers. Right?”
Mozaïk raised her head. But didn’t answer.
“Flowers and a letter,” repeated Yennefer.
Mozaïk said nothing. But the colour slowly began to return to her cheeks.
“A letter,” said Lytta Neyd, looking closely at the girl. “You didn’t tell me about a letter. You didn’t mention one.”
Mozaïk pursed her lips.
“So that’s why,” Lytta finished, apparently calmly. “So that’s why you returned, although you could expect a stiff punishment, much stiffer than you consequently received. He ordered you to return. Were it not for that you wouldn’t have.”
Mozaïk didn’t reply. Yennefer also said nothing and twisted a lock of black hair around a finger. She suddenly raised her head and looked the girl in the eyes. And smiled.
“He ordered you to return to me,” said Lytta Neyd. “He ordered you to return, although he could imagine what might be awaiting you. I must admit I’d have never expected that of him.”
The fountain splashed, the basin smelled of wet stone. There was a scent of flowers and ivy.
“I find it astonishing,” Lytta repeated. “I’d never have expected it of him.”
“Because you didn’t know him, Coral,” Yennefer replied calmly. “You didn’t know him at all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The stable boy had been given half a crown the evening before and the horses were waiting saddled. Dandelion yawned and scratched the back of his neck.
“Ye gods, Geralt … Do we really have to start this early? I mean it’s still dark …”
“It isn’t dark. It’s just right. The sun will rise in an hour at the latest.”
“Not for another hour,” said Dandelion, clambering onto the saddle of his gelding. “So I could have slept another one …”
Geralt leaped into the saddle and after a moment’s thought handed the stable boy another half-crown.
“It’s August,” he said. “There are some fourteen hours between sunrise to sunset. I’d like to ride as far as possible in that time.”
Dandelion yawned. And only then seemed to see the unsaddled dapple-grey mare standing in the next stall. The mare shook its head as though wanting to attract their attention.
“Just a minute,” the poet wondered. “And her? Mozaïk?”
“She’s not riding any further with us. We’re parting.”
“What? I don’t understand … Would you be so kind as to explain …?”
“No I wouldn’t. Not now. Let’s ride, Dandelion.”
“Do you really know what you’re doing? Are you fully aware?”
“No. Not fully. Not another word, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s go.”
Dandelion sighed. And spurred on the gelding. He looked back. And sighed again. He was a poet so he could sigh as much as he liked.
The Secret and Whisper inn looked quite pretty against the daybreak, in the misty glow of the dawn. For all the world like a fairy castle, a sylvan temple of secret love drowning in hollyhocks, cloaked in bindweed and ivy. The poet fell into a reverie.
He sighed, yawned, hawked, spat, wrapped himself in his cloak and spurred on his horse. Owing to those few moments of reflection he fell behind. Geralt was barely visible in the fog.
The Witcher rode hard. And didn’t look back.
“Here’s the wine,” said the innkeeper, putting an earthenware jug on the table. “Apple wine from Rivia, as requested. My wife asked me to ask you how you’re finding the pork.”
“We’re finding it among the kasha,” replied Dandelion. “From time to time. Not as often as we’d like to.”
The tavern they had reached at the end of the day was, as the colourful sign announced, The Wild Boar and Stag. But the sign was the only game offered by the establishment; you wouldn’t find it on the menu. The local speciality was kasha with pieces of fatty pork in thick onion sauce. Largely on principle, Dandelion turned his nose up a little at the—in his opinion—excessively plebeian vittals. Geralt didn’t complain. You couldn’t find much fault with the pork, the sauce was tolerable and the kasha al dente—in few roadside inns did the cooks prepare the latter well. They might have done worse, particularly since the choice was limited. Geralt insisted that during the day they cover the greatest distance possible and he hadn’t wanted to stop in the inns they had previously passed.
Not only for them, it turned out, did The Wild Boar and Stag turn out to be the end of the last stage of the daily trek. One of the benches against the wall was occupied by travelling merchants. Modern-thinking merchants, who—unlike traditional ones—didn’t disdain their servants and didn’t consider it dishonourable to sit down to meals with them. The modern thinking and tolerance had their limits, naturally; the merchants occupied one end of the table and the servants the other, so the demarcation line was easy to observe. As it was among the dishes. The servants were eating pork and kasha—the speciality of the local cuisine—and were drinking watery ale. The gentlemen merchants had each received a roast chicken and several flagons of wine.
At the opposite table, beneath a stuffed wild boar’s head, dined a couple: a fair-haired girl and an older man. The girl was dressed richly, very solemnly, not like a girl at all. The man looked like a clerk and by no means a high-ranking one. The couple were dining together, having quite an animated conversation, but it was a recent and fairly accidental acquaintance, which could be concluded unequivocally from the behaviour of the official, who was importunately dancing attendance on the girl in the clear hope of something more, which the girl received with courteous, although clearly ironic reserve.
Four priestesses occupied one of the shorter benches. They were wandering healers, which could easily be seen by the grey gowns and tight hoods covering their
hair. The meal they were consuming was—Geralt noticed—more than modest, something like pearl barley without even meat dripping. Priestesses never demanded payment for healing, they treated everyone for nothing and custom dictated that in return for that they be given board and lodging on request. The innkeeper at The Wild Boar and Stag was evidently familiar with the custom, but was clearly rather observing the letter than the spirit of it.
Three local men were lounging on the next bench beneath a stag’s antlers, busy with a bottle of rye vodka, clearly not their first. Since they had tolerably satisfied their evening’s requirements, they were looking around for entertainment. They found it swiftly, of course. The priestesses were out of luck. Although they were probably accustomed to such things.
There was a single customer at the table in the corner. Shrouded, like the table, in shadow. The customer, Geralt noticed, was neither eating nor drinking. He sat motionless, leaning back against the wall.
The three locals weren’t letting up, their taunts and jests directed at the priestesses becoming more and more vulgar and obscene. The priestesses kept stoically calm and didn’t pay any attention at all. The fury of the locals was increasing in inverse relation to the level of the rye vodka in the bottle. Geralt began to work more quickly with his spoon. He had decided to give the boozers a hiding and didn’t want his kasha to go cold because of it.
“The Witcher Geralt of Rivia.”
A flame suddenly flared up in the gloomy corner.
The lone man sitting at the table raised a hand. Flickering tongues of flame were shooting from his fingers. The man brought his hand closer to a candlestick on the table and lit all three candles one after the other. He let them illuminate him well.
His hair was as grey as ash with snow-white streaks at the temples. A deathly pale face. A hooked nose. And yellow-green eyes with vertical pupils.
The silver medallion around his neck that he had pulled out from his shirt flashed in the candlelight.
The head of a cat baring its fangs.
“The Witcher Geralt of Rivia,” repeated the man in the silence that had fallen in the inn. “Travelling to Vizima, I presume? For the reward promised by King Foltest? Of two thousand orens? Do I guess right?”
Geralt did not reply. He didn’t even twitch.
“I won’t ask if you know who I am. Because you probably do.”
“Few of you remain,” replied Geralt calmly. “Which makes things easier. You’re Brehen. Also known as the Cat of Iello.”
“Well, I prithee,” snorted the man with the feline medallion. “The famous White Wolf deigns to know my moniker. A veritable honour. Am I also to consider it an honour that you mean to steal the reward from me? Ought I to give you priority, bow to you and apologise? As in a wolf pack, step back from the quarry and wait, wagging my tail until the pack leader has eaten his fill? Until he graciously condescends to leave some scraps?”
Geralt said nothing.
“I won’t give you the best,” continued Brehen, known as the Cat of Iello. “And I won’t share. You won’t go to Vizima, White Wolf. You won’t snatch the reward from me. Rumour has it that Vesemir has passed sentence on me. You have the opportunity to carry it out. Let’s leave the inn. Out into the yard.”
“I won’t fight you.”
The man with the cat medallion leaped up from behind the table with a movement so fast it was blurred. A sword snatched up from the table flashed. The man caught one of the priestesses by the hood, dragged her from the bench, threw her down on her knees and put the blade to her throat.
“You will fight with me,” he said coldly, looking at Geralt. “You’ll go out into the courtyard before I count to three. Otherwise the priestess’s blood will bespatter the walls, ceiling and furniture. And then I’ll slit the others’ throats. One after the other. Nobody is to move! Not an inch!”
Silence fell in the inn, a dead silence, an absolute silence. Everybody stopped in their tracks. And stared open-mouthed.
“I won’t fight you,” Geralt repeated calmly. “But if you harm that woman you will die.”
“One of us will die, that’s certain. Outside in the yard. But it isn’t going to be me. Your famous swords have been stolen, rumour has it. And you’ve neglected to equip yourself with new ones, I see. Great conceit indeed is needed to go and steal somebody’s bounty, not having armed oneself first. Or perhaps the famous White Wolf is so adept he doesn’t need steel?”
A chair scraped as it was moved. The fair-haired girl stood up. She picked up a long package from under the table. She placed it in front of Geralt and returned to her place, sitting down beside the clerk.
He knew what it was. Before he had even unfastened the strap or unwrapped the felt.
A sword of siderite steel, total length forty and one half inches, the blade twenty-seven and one quarter inches long. Weight: thirty-seven ounces. The hilt and cross guard simple, but elegant.
The second sword, of a similar length and weight: silver. Partially, of course, for pure silver is too soft to take a good edge. Magical glyphs on the cross guard, runic signs along the entire length of the blade.
Pyral Pratt’s expert had been unable to decipher them, demonstrating his poor expertise in so doing. The ancient runes formed an inscription. Dubhenn haern am glândeal, morc’h am fhean aiesin. My gleam penetrates the darkness, my brightness disperses the gloom.
Geralt stood up. And drew the steel sword. With a slow and measured movement. He didn’t look at Brehen. But at the blade.
“Release the woman,” he said calmly. “At once. Otherwise you’ll perish.”
Brehen’s hand twitched and a trickle of blood ran down the priestess’s neck. The priestess didn’t even groan.
“I’m in need,” hissed the Cat of Iello. “That bounty must be mine!”
“Release the woman, I said. Otherwise I’ll kill you. Not in the yard, but here, on the spot.”
Brehen hunched forward. He was breathing heavily. His eyes shone malevolently and his mouth was hideously contorted. His knuckles—tightened on the hilt—were white. He suddenly released the priestess and shoved her away. The people in the inn shuddered, as though awoken from a nightmare. There were gasps and sighs.
“Winter is coming,” Brehen said with effort. “And I, unlike some, have nowhere to lodge. Warm, cosy Kaer Morhen is not for me!”
“No,” stated Geralt. “It is not. And well you know the reason.”
“Kaer Morhen’s only for you, the good, righteous and just, is it? Fucking hypocrites. You’re just as much murderers as we are, nothing distinguishes you from us!”
“Get out,” said Geralt. “Leave this place and get on your way.”
Brehen sheathed his sword. He straightened up. As he walked through the chamber his eyes changed. His pupils filled his entire irises.
“It’s a lie to say that Vesemir passed sentence on you,” said Geralt as Brehen passed him. “Witchers don’t fight with witchers, they don’t cross swords. But if what happened in Iello occurs again, if I hear word of anything like that … Then I’ll make an exception. I’ll find you and kill you. Treat the warning seriously.”
A dull silence reigned in the inn chamber for a good few moments after Brehen had closed the door behind him. Dandelion’s sigh of relief seemed quite loud in the silence. Soon after, people began moving again. The local drunks stole out stealthily, not even finishing off the vodka. The merchants remained, although they fell silent and went pale, but they ordered their servants to leave the table, clearly with the task of urgently securing the wagons and the horses, now at risk with such shady company nearby. The priestesses bandaged the cut neck of their companion, thanked Geralt with silent bows and headed off to bed, probably to the barn, since it was doubtful that the innkeeper had offered them beds in a sleeping chamber.
Geralt bowed and gestured over to his table the fair-haired young woman thanks to whom he had recovered his swords. She took advantage of the invitation most readily, abandoning her erstwhile c
ompanion, the clerk, quite without regret, leaving him with a sour expression.
“I am Tiziana Frevi,” she introduced herself, shaking Geralt’s hand as a man would. “Pleased to meet you.”
“The pleasure’s all mine.”
“It was a bit hairy, wasn’t it? Evenings in roadside inns can be boring, today it was interesting. At a certain moment, I even began to be afraid. But, it seems to me, wasn’t it just a male competition? A testosterone-fuelled duel? Or mutual comparison of whose is longer? There wasn’t really a threat?”
“No, there wasn’t,” he lied. “Mainly thanks to the swords I recovered because of you. Thank you for them. But I’m racking my brains trying to figure out how they ended up in your possession.”
“It was meant to remain a secret,” she explained freely. “I was charged with handing over the swords noiselessly and secretly and then vanishing. But circumstances suddenly changed. I had to give you the swords openly, with upraised visor, so to speak, because the situation demanded it. It would be impolite to decline any explanations now. For which reason, I shall not decline to explain, assuming the responsibility for betraying the secret. I received the swords from Yennefer of Vengerberg. It occurred two weeks ago in Novigrad. I’m a dwimveandra. I met Yennefer by accident, at a master sorceress’s where I was just finishing an apprenticeship. When she learned that I was heading south and my master could vouch for me, Madam Yennefer commissioned me. And gave me a letter of recommendation to a sorceress acquaintance of hers I was planning to do an apprenticeship with.”
“How …” said Geralt, swallowing. “How is she? Yennefer? In good health?”
“Excellent, I think,” said Tiziana Frevi, peering at him from under her eyelashes. “She’s doing splendidly, she looks enviably well. And to be frank I do envy her.”
Geralt stood up. He went over to the innkeeper, who had almost fainted in fear.
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