While they worked they had quite a strange conversation.
*
‘You don’t know who I am. You can’t even imagine who I am.’
She repeated that banal statement several times and slightly annoyed him with it. Of course, he did not betray his annoyance – he wouldn’t betray his feelings before such a chit. No, he couldn’t allow that, nor could he betray the curiosity that was consuming him.
Groundless curiosity, in truth, for he could have guessed who she was without any difficulty. Gangs of youths hadn’t been rare in Vysogota’s younger days, either. Nor could the years that had passed eliminate the magnetic power with which gangs lured whelps, hungry for adventure and thrills. Very often to their death. Whelps flaunting scars on their faces could count their luck; torture, the noose, the hook or the stake awaited the less fortunate of them.
Since Vysogota’s younger days only one thing had changed – growing emancipation. Not only teenage boys, but also reckless girls, preferring a horse, a sword and adventures to lace-making, the spinning wheel and waiting for the matchmakers.
Vysogota did not say all that straight out. He said it in a roundabout way, but so that she knew that he knew. To make her aware that if someone in the cottage was an enigma, it was certainly not her – a young thug from a band of underage thugs who had miraculously escaped a manhunt. A disfigured teenage girl trying to cloak herself in an aura of mystery . . .
‘You don’t know who I am. But don’t worry. I’ll be leaving shortly. I won’t put you at risk.’
Vysogota had had enough.
‘I’m not at risk,’ he said dryly. ‘For what peril would there be? Even if a search party were to show up here, which I doubt, what ill could befall me? Giving help to fugitive criminals is punishable, but not for a hermit, since a hermit is unaware of worldly matters. It is my privilege to give asylum to anyone who comes to my retreat. You said it correctly: I don’t know who you are. How am I, a hermit, to know who you are, what mischief you’ve been up to and why the law is pursuing you? And which law? For I don’t even know what law applies in this region, or what and whose jurisdiction I live in. And it does not concern me. I am a hermit.’
He had mentioned the hermit’s life a few too many times; he sensed it. But he did not quit. Her furious green eyes pricked him like spurs.
‘I am a penniless anchorite. Dead to the world and its concerns. I’m a simple, uneducated man, unaware of worldly matters . . .’
That was an exaggeration.
‘Like hell you are!’ she yelled, hurling a pelt and the knife to the floor. ‘Do you take me for a fool? I’m not a fool, be sure of that. A hermit, a penniless anchorite? I had a look around when you weren’t here. I looked in the corner, behind that rather filthy curtain. How did learned books get on those shelves, eh, my simple, ignorant man?’
Vysogota threw a coypu skin down on the pile.
‘A tax collector once lived here,’ he said light-heartedly. ‘They are cadasters and bookkeeping ledgers.’
‘You’re lying,’ Ciri grimaced, massaging her scar. ‘You’re lying through your teeth!’
He did not reply, pretending to be assessing the hue of another hide.
‘Perhaps you think,’ the girl began again, ‘that if you have a white beard, wrinkles and you’ve lived a hundred years, you can easily hoodwink a naive young maid, eh? Let me tell you: maybe you would have tricked just any lass. But I’m not just any lass.’
He raised his eyebrows in a wordless, but provocative, question. He didn’t have to wait long.
‘I, my dear hermit, have studied in places where there were plenty of books, including the same titles you have on your shelves. I know plenty of them.’
Vysogota raised his eyebrows even higher. She looked him straight in the eye.
‘This filthy sloven, this ragged orphan,’ she drawled, ‘is saying strange things. Must be a thief or bandit discovered in the bushes with her mush cut up. And yet you ought to know, hermit, that I have read The History of Roderick de Novembre. I’ve looked through the Materia Medica several times. I know the Herbarius you have on your shelf. I also know what the gules cross ermine blazon on the spines of those books means. It means the book was published by the University of Oxenfurt.’
She broke off, still observing him intently. Vysogota was silent, trying not to let his face betray anything.
‘Which is why I think,’ she said, making her habitual sharp, haughty toss of head, ‘that you aren’t a simple hermit at all. That you didn’t die for the world, either, but fled from it. And you’re hiding here, in the wilderness, disguised by appearances and a boundless reed bed.’
‘If that is so,’ Vysogota smiled, ‘then our fates really have become uncannily entwined, my well-read young lady. This destiny has flung us together in a highly mysterious way. After all, you’re also in hiding. You too, Ciri, are skilfully spinning a veil of deception around yourself. I am, however, an old man, full of suspicion and embittered senile mistrust . . .’
‘Mistrust regarding me?’
‘Regarding the world, Ciri. A world in which a deceptive appearance dons the mask of truth to pull the wool over the eyes of another truth – a false one, incidentally, which also tries to deceive. A world in which the arms of the University of Oxenfurt are painted on the doors of bordellos. A world in which wounded thugs pass themselves off as worldly, learned, and perhaps nobly born maidens, intellectuals and polymaths, reading Roderick de Novembre and familiar with the crest of the Academy. In spite of all appearances. In spite of the fact that they carry another mark. A bandit’s tattoo. A red rose tattooed on the groin.’
‘Indeed, you were right.’ She bit her lip, and her face turned a crimson so intense that the line of the scar seemed black. ‘You are an embittered old man. And a nosy old prick.’
‘On my shelf, behind the curtain–’ he nodded toward it ‘– is a copy of Aen N’og Mab Taedh’morc, a collection of elven fairy tales and rhyming parables. There is a story there of a venerable old raven and a youthful swallow, very fitting to our situation and conversation. Because I am a polymath like you, Ciri, let me quote an appropriate excerpt. The raven, as you certainly recall, accuses the swallow of flightiness and unseemly frivolity.
‘Hen Cerbin dic’ss aen n’og Zireael
Aark, aark, caelm foile, te veloe, ell?
Zireael—’
He broke off, rested his elbows on the table, and his chin on his interlocked fingers. Ciri jerked her head, straightened up, and looked at him defiantly. And completed the verse.
‘ . . . Zireael veloe que’ss aen en’ssan irch
Mab og, Hen Cerbin, vean ni, quirk, quirk!’
‘The embittered and mistrustful old man,’ Vysogota said a moment later, without changing his position, ‘apologises to the young polymath. The venerable old raven, sensing everywhere deceit and trickery, asks for forgiveness of the swallow, whose only crime is to be young and full of life. And very pretty.’
‘Now you’re talking drivel,’ she said crossly, involuntarily covering the scar on her cheek. ‘You can forget compliments like that. They won’t correct those wonky stitches you tacked my skin with. Don’t think, either, that you’ll gain my trust by apologising. I still don’t know who you really are. Why you lied to me about those dates and days. Or why you looked between my legs, when I’d been wounded in the face. And if looking was where it finished.’
This time she made him lose his temper.
‘What are you saying, you brat?’ he roared. ‘I could be your father!’
‘Grandfather,’ she corrected him coldly. ‘Or even great-grandfather. But you aren’t. I don’t know who you are. But you are certainly not who you pretend to be.’
‘I am he who found you on the bog, almost frozen to the moss, with a black crust instead of a face, unconscious, and filthy. I am he who took you home, although I didn’t know who you were, and was within my rights to expect the worst. Who bandaged you and put you to bed. Tended to you, whe
n you were expiring with fever. Nursed you. Washed you. Thoroughly. In the tattoo region as well.’
She blushed again, but had no intention of changing her insolent, defiant expression.
‘In this world,’ she growled, ‘deceptive appearances occasionally feign the truth; you said it yourself. I also know the world a little, if you can imagine it. You rescued me, tended my wounds, nursed me. Thank you for that. I’m grateful for your . . . your kindness. Although I know that there is no such thing as kindness without—’
‘Without calculation or the hope of some profit,’ he finished with a smile. ‘Yes, yes, I know, I’m a worldly man. Perhaps I know the world as well as you do, Ciri? Wounded girls, of course, are robbed of everything that has any value. If they’re unconscious or too weak to defend themselves, free rein is normally given to one’s urges and lust, often in immoral and unnatural ways. Isn’t that so?’
‘Nothing is as it seems,’ answered Ciri, her cheeks reddening once more.
‘How true a statement,’ he said, throwing another pelt on one of the piles. ‘And how mercilessly does it lead us to the conclusion that we, Ciri, know nothing about each other. We know only appearances, and appearances are deceptive.’
He waited a while, but Ciri wasn’t hurrying to say anything.
‘Although both of us have managed to carry out something of a provisional inquisition, we still know nothing about each other. I don’t know who you are, you don’t know who I am . . .’
This time he waited with calculation. She looked at him, and in her eyes there was the hint of the question he was expecting. Something strange flashed in her eyes when she posed the question.
‘Who shall begin?’
*
Had someone had crept up after nightfall to the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof, had peered inside, in the firelight and glow of the hearth they would have seen a grey-bearded old man hunched over a pile of pelts. They would have seen an ashen-haired girl with a hideous scar on her cheek, a scar which in no way suited her huge green childlike eyes.
But no one could have seen that. For the cottage stood among reeds in a swamp where no one dared to venture.
*
‘My name is Vysogota of Corvo. I was once a doctor. A surgeon. I was an alchemist. I was a scholar, a historian, a philosopher and an ethicist. I was a professor at the Academy of Oxenfurt. I had to flee after publishing a paper which was deemed godless. At that time, fifty years ago, it was punishable by death. I had to emigrate. My wife did not want to emigrate, so she left me. And I only ceased my flight when I reached the far South, in the Nilfgaardian Empire. Later I finally became a lecturer in ethics at the Imperial Academy in Castell Graupian, a position I held for almost ten years. But I had to run from there, too, after the publication of another treatise . . . Incidentally, the work dealt with totalitarian power and the criminal character of imperialist wars, but officially I and my work were accused of metaphysical mysticism and clerical schism. It was ruled I had been goaded into action by the expansive and revisionist groups of priests who were actually governing the kingdoms of the Nordlings. Quite amusing in the light of my death sentence for atheism twenty years previously! Indeed, it so happened that the expansive priests in the North had long since been forgotten by their people, but that had not been acknowledged in Nilfgaard. Combining mysticism and superstition with politics was a severely punishable offence.
‘Today, looking back down the years, I think that had I humbled myself and shown remorse, perhaps the scandal would have blown over, and the emperor limited himself to disfavour, without using extreme measures. But I was bitter. I considered some of my arguments timeless, superior to this or that dominion or politics. I felt wronged, unjustly wronged. Tyrannously wronged. So I made active contact with the dissidents secretly fighting the tyrant. Before I knew it, I was in a dungeon with those dissidents, and some of them, when they were shown the torture instruments, pointed me out as the movement’s chief ideologue.
‘The emperor availed himself of his privilege to issue a pardon, though I was sentenced to exile, under the threat of immediate execution should I return to imperial territories.
‘Thus I took offence against the entire world, against kingdoms, empires and universities, against dissidents, civil servants and lawyers. Against my colleagues and friends, who stopped being such at the touch of a magic wand. Against my second wife, who, like my first, thought her husband’s difficulties a suitable reason for a divorce. Against my children, who disowned me. I became a hermit, here, in Ebbing, in the Pereplut Marshes. I inherited a dwelling from an anchorite I had once known. Unfortunately, Nilfgaard annexed Ebbing, and all of a sudden I found myself in the Empire again. Now I have neither the strength nor the inclination to continue wandering, so I must hide. Imperial sentences do not lapse, even in a situation when the emperor who issued it died long ago, and the present emperor has no cause to remember the previous one fondly or share his views. The death sentence remains in force. That is the law and custom in Nilfgaard. Sentences for high treason do not expire, and neither are they subject to the amnesties that every emperor proclaims after his coronation. After the accession to the throne of a new emperor, everybody who was sentenced by his predecessor is given an amnesty . . . except those guilty of high treason. It is unimportant who reigns in Nilfgaard: if news gets out that I’m alive and am breaking my sentence of exile, dwelling in imperial territory, my head is for the noose.
‘So as you see, Ciri, we find ourselves in wholly similar situation.’
*
‘What is ethics? I knew, but I’ve forgotten.’
‘The study of morality. Of the precepts of conduct: of being decorous, noble, decent and honest. Of the heights of goodness, to which probity and morality carry up the human spirit. And of the chasms of evil, into which malice and immorality are flung . . .’
‘The heights of goodness!’ she snorted. ‘Probity! Morality! Don’t make me laugh, or the scar on my face will burst. You were lucky that you weren’t hunted, that they didn’t send bounty hunters after you, people like . . . Bonhart. You’d see what chasms of evil are. Ethics? Your ethics are worth shit, O Vysogota of Corvo. It isn’t the evil and indecent who are flung down into the depths, no! Oh, no! The evil and decisive fling down those who are moral, honest and noble but maladroit, hesitant and full of scruples.’
‘Thanks for the lesson,’ he sneered. ‘In truth, though one may have lived a century, it is never too late to learn something new. Indeed, it is always worth listening to mature, worldly and experienced people.’
‘Mock. Go ahead and mock.’ She tossed her head. ‘While you still can. For now it is my turn, now I shall entertain you with a tale. I’ll tell you what happened to me. And when I’m done we’ll see if you still feel like mocking me.’
*
Had someone crept up after nightfall to the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof, had they peered inside, in the dimly lit interior they would have seen a grey-bearded old man listening raptly to a tale told by an ashen-haired girl sitting on a log by the fireplace. They would have noticed that the girl was speaking slowly, as though having difficulty finding the words; that she was nervously rubbing her cheek, which was disfigured by a hideous scar, and that she was interweaving her story with long silences. A tale about the lessons she had received, of which all, to the last one, turned out to be false and misleading. About the promises made to her which were not kept. A story about how the destiny she’d been ordered to believe in betrayed her disgracefully and deprived her of her inheritance. About how each time she began to believe in her destiny she was made to suffer misery, pain, injustice and humiliation. About how those she trusted and loved betrayed her, did not come to her aid when she was afflicted, when she was menaced by dishonour, agony and death. A tale about the ideals to which she was instructed to remain loyal, and which disappointed, betrayed and abandoned her when she needed them, proving of what little value they were. About how she fina
lly found help, friendship – and love – with those among whom she should have sought neither help nor friendship. Not to mention love.
But no one could have seen that, much less heard it. For the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof was well hidden among the fog, in a swamp where no one dared venture.
CHAPTER TWO
A west wind brought a storm that night.
The purple-black sky burst along the line of lightning, exploding in a long drawn-out clatter of thunder. The sudden rain struck the dust of the road with drops as viscous as oil, roared on the roofs, smeared the dirt on the skins covering the windows. But the powerful wind quickly chased off the downpour, drove the storm somewhere far, far away, beyond the horizon, which was blazing with lightning.
And then dogs began to bark. Hooves thudded and weapons clanged. A wild howling and whistling made the hair stand up on the heads of the peasants who had woken and now sprang up in panic, barring their doors and shutters. Hands, wet with sweat, tightened on the hafts of axes and the handles of pitchforks. Clenched them tightly. But helplessly.
Terror sped through the village. Were they the hunted or the hunters? Insane and cruel from ferocity or fear? Will they gallop through, without stopping? Or will the night soon be lit up by the glare of blazing thatch?
Quiet, quiet, children . . .
Mamma, are they demons? Is it the Wild Hunt? Phantoms from hell? Mamma, mamma!
Quiet, quiet, children. They are not demons, not devils . . .
Worse than that.
They are people.
The dogs barked. The gale blew. Horses neighed, horseshoes thudded. The gang raced through the village and the night.
The Saga of the Witcher Page 109
