‘Dammit. What can I do?’
‘Keep quiet. They’re returning.’
Hooves pounded, someone whistled piercingly. Somebody yelled, called, and ordered somebody else to go back. Ciri listened intently.
‘They’re riding off,’ she murmured. ‘They’ve given up the chase. They didn’t even catch the horses.’
‘Good.’
‘We won’t catch them either. Will you be able to walk?’
‘I won’t have to.’ He smiled, showing her a cheap-looking bracelet fastened to his wrist. ‘I bought this trinket with the horse. It’s magical. The mare has carried it since she was a foal. When I rub it, like this, it’s as though I were calling her. As though she were hearing my voice. She’ll run here. It’ll take some time, but she’ll come for certain. With a bit of fortune your roan will follow her.’
‘And with a bit of bad luck you’ll ride off by yourself?’
‘Falka,’ he said, becoming grave. ‘I won’t. I’m counting on your help. I’ll have to be held up in the saddle. My toes are already going numb. I may lose consciousness. Listen: this ravine will lead you to a narrow river valley. You’ll ride uphill, against the current, northwards. You’ll carry me to a place called Tegamo. You’ll find somebody there who’ll know how to get this iron out of my back without me ending up dead or paralysed.’
‘Is that the nearest village?’
‘No. Jealousy is nearer, it’s in a valley about twenty miles in the opposite direction, downstream. But don’t go there under any circumstances.’
‘Why?’
‘Under no circumstances,’ he repeated, frowning. ‘It’s not about me, it’s about you. Jealousy means death for you.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t have to. Simply trust me.’
‘You told Giselher—’
‘Forget Giselher. If you want to live, forget about all of them.’
‘Why?’
‘Stay with me. I’ll keep my word, Snow Queen. I’ll cover you with emeralds… I’ll shower you in them…’
‘Indeed, this is a wonderful time for making jokes.’
‘It’s always a good time for jokes.’
Hotspurn suddenly seized her, pulled her close and began to undo her blouse. Unceremoniously, but unhurriedly. Ciri pushed him away.
‘Indeed!’ she snapped. ‘A wonderful time for that too!’
‘It’s always a good time for that. Especially for me, right now. I told you, it’s my spine. There may be complications tomorrow…’
‘What are you doing? Oh, damn it…’
This time she pushed him away harder. Too powerfully. Hotspurn blanched, bit his lip and groaned in pain.
‘I’m sorry. But if somebody is wounded they ought to lie still.’
‘Being close to you makes me forget the pain.’
‘Stop that!’
‘Falka… Be nice to a suffering man.’
‘You’ll really suffer if you don’t take your hand away. This second!’
‘Quiet… The thugs are liable to hear us… Your skin is like silk… Don’t wriggle.’
Oh, dammit, thought Ciri, let it be. In any case, what difference does it make? I’m curious. I can be curious. There’s no real feeling in it. I’ll treat him functionally and that’s that. And forget him unpretentiously.
She yielded to his touch and the pleasure it brought. She turned her head away, but decided that was exaggeratedly modest and fraudulently prudish; she didn’t want to be a goody-goody being seduced. She looked him straight in the eyes, but that seemed too bold and provocative; she didn’t want to be like that either. So she simply closed her eyes, hugged him around the neck and helped him with the buttons, because he was having difficulty with them and wasting time. The touch of fingers was joined by the touch of lips. She was close to forgetting about the entire world when Hotspurn suddenly froze stiff. For a while she lay patiently, remembering that he was wounded and the wound must be bothering him. But it went on a little too long. His saliva was cooling on her nipples.
‘Hey, Hotspurn? Are you asleep?’
Something oozed onto her chest and side. She touched it with her fingers. Blood.
‘Hotspurn!’ she shoved him off her. ‘Hotspurn, have you died?’
Foolish question, she thought. I mean, I can see.
I can see he’s died.
‘He died with his head on my breast.’ Ciri turned her head away. The glow from the fireplace played red on her disfigured cheek. Perhaps there was a blush there too. Vysogota could not be certain.
‘The only thing I felt then,’ she added, still turned away, ‘was disappointment. Does that shock you?’
‘No. Actually not.’
‘I understand. I’m trying not to embellish the story, not correct anything. Not keep anything back. Although occasionally I feel like it, especially that last part.’ She sniffed, rubbing a knuckle into the corner of her eye.
‘I covered him with branches and stones. Any old thing I could find, I confess. It grew dark, I had to sleep there. The bandits were still hanging around, I could hear their shouts and I was certain they weren’t ordinary bandits. I just didn’t know who they were hunting: me or him. But I had to stay quiet. The whole night. Until dawn. Next to a corpse. Brrr.’
‘At dawn,’ she began again a moment later, ‘the sound of our pursuers had long since faded away and I could set off. I had a mount. The magical bracelet I took from Hotspurn’s arm really worked. The black mare returned. Now she belonged to me. That was my present. That’s the custom on the Isles of Skellige, did you know? A girl has the right to a costly gift from her first lover. So what if mine died before he managed to actually become my lover?’
The mare banged her front hooves on the ground, neighed and turned in profile as though ordering Ciri to admire her. Ciri could not suppress a sigh of admiration at the sight of the dolphin-like neck; straight and slender, but powerfully muscled, the small shapely head with its concave forehead, the high withers and her build of delightful proportions.
She approached cautiously, showing the mare the bracelet on her wrist. The mare gave a long drawn-out snort, flattened her twitching ears, but allowed herself to be caught by the bridle and stroked on her velvety nose.
‘Kelpie,’ Ciri said. ‘You’re as black and agile as a sea-kelpie. You’re as magical as a kelpie. So you’ll be “Kelpie”. And I don’t care if that’s pretentious or not.’
The mare snorted, stuck her ears up, and shook her silky tail, which reached her hocks. Ciri–favouring a high saddle position–shortened the stirrup leathers and felt the unusual, flat saddle. It had no saddle tree or pommel. She fitted her boot to the stirrup and seized the horse by the mane.
‘Nice and easy, Kelpie.’
The saddle, in spite of appearances, was quite comfortable. And for obvious reasons much lighter than standard cavalry saddles.
‘Now,’ Ciri said, patting the mare on her hot neck, ‘let’s see if you’re as fleet as you are beautiful. If you’re a real racer or just a hack. What do you say to a twenty-mile gallop, Kelpie?’
Had someone quietly crept up deep in the night to the remote cottage in the midst of the swamp with its sunken, moss-grown thatched roof, had they peered through the slits in the shutters, they would have seen a grey-bearded old man listening to the story told by a teenage girl with green eyes and ashen hair.
They would have seen the dying glow in the fireplace come alive and grow bright, as though sensing what would be told.
But that was not possible. No one could have seen it. The cottage of old Vysogota was well hidden among the reeds in the swamp. In a wilderness permanently covered in mist, where no one dared to venture.
‘The stream’s valley was level, and good for riding, so Kelpie ran like the wind. Of course, I wasn’t riding uphill but downstream. I remembered that curious name: Jealousy. I recalled what Hotspurn had said to Giselher at the station. I understood why he had warned me about that village. The
re must have been an ambush in Jealousy. When Giselher made light of the offer of the amnesty and working for the guild, Hotspurn deliberately mentioned the bounty hunter quartered in the village. He knew the Rats would swallow the bait, ride there and fall into the trap. I had to get to Jealousy before them, cut off their route and warn them. Turn them back. All of them. Or at least just Mistle.’
‘I conclude,’ Vysogota mumbled, ‘that you didn’t manage to.’
‘At that time,’ she said softly, ‘I thought that a large force, armed to the teeth, was waiting in Jealousy. In my wildest dreams it never occurred to me that the trap was a single man…’
She was silent, staring into the gloom.
‘Nor did I have any idea what kind of man he was.’
Birka had once been a wealthy village, charming and picturesquely situated–its yellow thatch and red tiles crowded into a valley with steep, forested sides, which changed colour with the seasons. In autumn, especially, Birka delighted the artistic eye and sensitive heart.
It was like that until the settlement changed its name. Here is what happened:
A young farmer from a nearby elven colony was madly in love with the miller’s daughter from Birka. The miller’s prankish daughter ridiculed the elf’s wooing and continued to sleep around with neighbours, friends and even relatives. They began to mock the elf and his blind love. The elf–somewhat untypically for his race–exploded with anger and vengeance, exploded horribly. One night, with a strong wind blowing the right way, he started a fire and burned Birka down.
The victims of the fire, now ruined, lost heart. Some roamed the world and others fell into idleness and drunkenness. The money gathered for the rebuilding of the village was regularly defrauded and squandered on drink, and the settlement became a vision of misery and despair: it was a jumble of ghastly, carelessly thrown together shacks beneath the bare and black-charred slope of the valley. Before the fire Birka had been oval-shaped, with a central square; now the few solidly built houses, granaries and a distillery formed something like a long main street, which was topped by the façade of The Chimera’s Head, built by the efforts of the community and kept by the widow Goulue.
And for seven years no one had used the name ‘Birka’. People said ‘Flaming Jealousy’, or for short; simply ‘Jealousy’.
The Rats rode down the main street. It was a chill, overcast, gloomy morning.
People fled into their homes, hid in their sheds or their wattle-and-daub shacks. Those who had shutters slammed them closed, those who had doors bolted them. Whoever still had vodka drank it to give them courage. The Rats rode at a walk, ostentatiously slowly, stirrup against stirrup. An indifferent contempt was painted on their faces, but their narrowed eyes closely observed the windows, porches and alleyways.
‘One bolt from a crossbow!’ Giselher warned, loudly. ‘One clang of a bowstring, and there’ll be a bloodbath here!’
‘And the red flame will be let slip!’ Iskra added in her high, melodious soprano. ‘Only earth and water will remain!’
Some of the villagers certainly had crossbows, but no one wanted to find out if the Rats’ words were empty.
The Rats dismounted. They covered the final furlong separating them from The Chimera’s Head on foot, side by side, their spurs, adornments and jewellery rhythmically jangling and clinking.
At the sight of them, three Jealousy residents, soothing the previous day’s hangover with beer, bolted from the steps of the inn.
‘Hope he’s still here,’ Kayleigh muttered. ‘We’ve taken our time. There was no need for that rest, we should have come right away, even travelled at night…’
‘Fool.’ Iskra bared her little teeth. ‘If we want bards to sing songs about this, it can’t be done at night, in the darkness. People must see it! Morning is best, when everybody’s still sober, right, Giselher?’
Giselher did not reply. He picked up a stone, swung and hurled it against the door of the inn.
‘Come out, Bonhart!’
‘Come out, Bonhart!’ the Rats called in unison. ‘Come out, Bonhart!’
Footsteps could be heard inside. Slow and heavy ones. Mistle felt a shiver crawling over the nape of her neck and her shoulders. Bonhart stood in the doorway.
The Rats involuntarily took a step back. The heels of their high boots dug into the ground and their hands shot to their sword hilts. The bounty hunter held his sword under one arm. That way he had his hands free; in one he held a peeled boiled egg and in the other a hunk of bread.
He slowly walked to the balustrade and looked down on them, from high up. He stood in the porch, and was huge. Immense, though he was as gaunt as a ghoul.
He looked at them, sweeping his watery eyes over each in turn. Then he bit off a morsel of egg and after it a piece of bread.
‘Where’s Falka?’ he asked indistinctly. Bits of yolk fell from his moustache and lips.
‘Run, Kelpie! Run, my beauty! Fast as you can!’
The black mare neighed loudly, extending her neck in a headlong gallop. A hail of gravel shot out from under her hooves, though it seemed as if they were barely touching the ground.
Bonhart stretched lazily, his leather jerkin creaking. He slowly pulled down and adjusted his elk-hide gloves.
‘What could this be?’ he grimaced. ‘You want to kill me? And why?’
‘For Muchomorek, for starters,’ Kayleigh answered.
‘And for our amusement,’ said Iskra.
‘And to get you off our backs,’ Reef threw in.
‘Aaaah,’ Bonhart said slowly. ‘So that’s what it’s about! And if I swear to leave you alone, will you leave me alone?’
‘No, you grey cur, we will not.’ Mistle smiled charmingly. ‘We know you. We know you won’t drop it, that you’ll trudge along our trail and wait for a chance to stab one of us in the back. Come down!’
‘Easy does it.’ Bonhart smiled too, malevolently stretching his mouth wide beneath his grey whiskers. ‘We can always find time to cavort around, there’s no need to be hasty. First I’ll make you an offer, Rats. I’ll permit you to choose.’
‘What are you mumbling about, you old fool?’ Kayleigh shouted, crouching. ‘Speak clearly!’
Bonhart nodded and scratched a thigh.
‘There’s a bounty on you, Rats. A goodly one. And life must go on.’
Iskra snorted and opened her eyes wide like a wildcat. Bonhart crossed his arms on his chest, holding his sword in the crook of his arm.
‘That goodly reward,’ he repeated, ‘is for you dead, and it’s a little larger for taking you alive. But, to tell the truth, it’s all the same to me. I have nothing against you personally. I was thinking yesterday that I’d dispatch you all, for a bit of amusement and diversion, but you’ve come yourselves, saving me the bother. You’ve won my heart by so doing. Thus I shall let you choose. How do you prefer me to take you: the playful way or the painful way?’
The muscles on Kayleigh’s jaw twitched. Mistle leaned over, ready to leap. Giselher caught her arm.
‘He means to enrage us,’ he hissed. ‘Let the bastard talk.’
Bonhart snorted.
‘Well?’ he repeated. ‘The easy way or the hard way? I advise the first. For you see, the easy way hurts much, much less.’
The Rats drew their weapons at the same instant. Giselher made a few crosscuts and struck a swordfighter’s pose. Mistle spat copiously on the ground.
‘Come down here, skinny old man,’ she said, apparently calmly. ‘Come here, you blackguard. We’ll kill you like a grizzled old dog.’
‘So you wish it the hard way,’ Bonhart said, looking somewhere above the rooftops. He slowly drew his sword, throwing down his scabbard, and unhurriedly descended from the porch, his spurs clanking.
The Rats swiftly spread out across the street. Kayleigh went furthest to the left, almost to the wall of the distillery. Beside him stood Iskra, twisting her thin lips in her usual, dreadful smile. Mistle, Asse and Reef went off to the right. Giselher remained
in the centre, staring at the bounty hunter from under narrowed eyelids.
‘Very well, Rats.’ Bonhart looked from side to side, looked up at the sky, and then raised his sword and spat on the blade. ‘If we’re to cavort, let us cavort. Let the music play!’
They leaped at each other like wolves, like lightning, silently, with no warning. Blades wailed in the air, filling the narrow street with the plaintive clang of steel. At first all that could be heard was the clang of sword hilts, gasps, groans and quickened breathing.
And then, suddenly and unexpectedly, the Rats began to scream. And die.
Reef lurched out of the melee first, his back smacking against a wall, splashing blood on the dirty whitewash. Asse reeled out after him, staggering, curled over and fell on his side, by turns bending and straightening his knees.
Bonhart whirled around and leapt like a mad thing, surrounded by the glint and whistle of his blade. The Rats backed away from him, lunging forward, slashing and jumping aside, furiously, fiercely, pitilessly. And ineffectively. Bonhart parried, struck, parried, struck, and attacked, attacked relentlessly, without respite, dictating the tempo of the bout. And the Rats backed away. And died.
Iskra, slashed in the neck, fell over in the mud, cowering like a kitten, blood gushing from an artery onto Bonhart’s calves and knees as he walked past her. The bounty hunter parried the attacks of Mistle and Giselher with a broad swing, then whirled and carved Kayleigh open with a lightning-fast blow, striking him with the very tip of his sword; from collar bone to hip. Kayleigh released his sword, but did not fall, just curled up and seized his chest and belly in both hands, as blood trickled through his fingers. Bonhart once more whirled away from Giselher’s thrust, parried Mistle’s attack and smote Kayleigh again, this time turning the side of his head into scarlet pulp. The fair-haired Rat fell, splashing into a puddle of blood mixed with mud.
Mistle and Giselher hesitated for a moment. And instead of fleeing, yelled with a single voice, savagely and furiously. And leaped at Bonhart.
The Tower of Swallows Page 7
