The Saga of the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  On the steps leading down to the canal of Ensenada Palace, the royal winter residence, the only building with a wide frontage, was already waiting for them a welcoming committee and the royal couple: Gedovius, the king of Kovir, and his wife, Gemma. The couple welcomed the new arrivals courteously, politely . . . and uncharacteristically. Dear uncle, Gedovius greeted Radovid. Darling grandfather, Gemma smiled to Benda. Gedovius was a Troydenid, after all. Gemma, however, it turned out was descended from the rebellious Aideen, in whose veins flowed the blood of the kings of Ard Carraigh, who had fled from Kaedwen.

  The proven consanguinity improved the mood and evoked affection, but didn’t help in the negotiations. By and large what followed were not negotiations. The ‘children’ briefly stated their demands. Their ‘grandfathers’ heard them out. And then signed a document, which posterity called the First Exeter Treaty. To distinguish it from those entered into later. The First Treaty also bears a name in keeping with the first words of its preamble: Mare Liberum Apertum.

  The sea is free and open. Trade is free. Profit is sacred. Love the trade and profit of your neighbour like your own. To hinder someone’s trading and profiting is to break the laws of nature. And Kovir is no one’s vassal. It’s a sovereign, autonomous – and neutral – kingdom.

  It didn’t look as if Gedovius and Gemma wanted – even, say, in the name of politeness – to make a single concession, even the slightest, nothing that would have rescued Radovid and Benda’s honour. Nonetheless, they did. They agreed for Radovid – during his lifetime – to use in official documents the title of King of Kovir and Poviss, and Benda – during his lifetime – the title of King of Caingorn and Malleore.

  Of course, with the proviso de non preiudicando.

  Gedovius and Gemma reigned for twenty-five years; the royal branch of the Troydenids ended with their son, Gerard. Esteril Thyssen ascended to the Koviran throne. And founded the House of Thyssen.

  The kings of Kovir were soon after bound by blood ties to all the other dynasties of the world, and they all steadfastly abided by the Exeter Treaties. They never interfered with their neighbours’ affairs. They never raised the issue of foreign succession, though often historical turbulence meant that the king or prince of Kovir had all possible grounds to judge himself the rightful successor to the throne of Redania, Aedirn, Kaedwen, Cidaris or even Verden or Rivia. The mighty Kovir didn’t attempt territorial annexations or conquests, nor did it send gunboats armed with catapults and ballistae into foreign waters. It never seized the privilege of ruling the waves. Mare Liberum Apertum; a sea free and open for trade was sufficient for Kovir. Kovir believed in the sanctity of trade and profit.

  And in absolute, unswerving neutrality.

  Dijkstra put up the beaver collar of his cloak, protecting his nape from the wind and the lashing rain. He looked around, shaken from his contemplations. The water in the Great Canal looked black. In the drizzle and fog, even the Admiralty building – the boast of Lan Exeter – looked like a barracks. Even the merchants’ townhouses had lost their usual sumptuousness – and their narrow frontages seemed narrower than normal. Perhaps they are sodding narrower, thought Dijkstra. If King Esterad has raised the tax, the sly householders may have narrowed their houses.

  ‘Has the weather been so plague-stricken for long, Your Excellency?’ he asked, just to interrupt the annoying silence.

  ‘Since the middle of September, Count,’ answered the ambassador. ‘Since the full moon. It looks as though winter will come early. It has already snowed in Talgar.’

  ‘I thought,’ said Dijkstra, ‘the snow never melted in Talgar.’

  The ambassador glanced at him, as if to make sure it was a joke and not ignorance.

  ‘In Talgar –’ now he showed off his wit ‘– the winter begins in September, and ends in May. The remaining seasons are spring and autumn. There’s also the summer . . . it usually falls on the first Tuesday after the August new moon. And lasts until Wednesday morning.’

  Dijkstra didn’t laugh.

  ‘But even there,’ the ambassador turned gloomy, ‘snow at the end of October is a sensation.’

  The ambassador – like most of Redania’s aristocracy – couldn’t stand Dijkstra. He considered the need to receive and entertain the arch-spy as a personal affront, and the fact that the Regency Council had charged Dijkstra and not him with negotiations with Kovir as a mortal insult. It sickened him that he, de Ruyter of the most celebrated branch of the de Ruyter family, Grafs for nine generations, should have to address a churl and upstart as ‘Count’. But as an experienced diplomat he concealed his resentment masterfully.

  The oars rose and fell rhythmically, and the boat glided swiftly along the canal. They had just passed the bijou – but extremely tasteful – palace of Culture and Art.

  ‘Do we sail to Ensenada?’

  ‘Yes, Count,’ confirmed the ambassador. ‘The minister of foreign affairs stressed emphatically that he wished to see you immediately on arrival, which is why I’m taking you directly to Ensenada. In the evening I shall send a boat to the palace, for I would like to entertain you over supper—’

  ‘Your Excellency will deign to forgive me,’ Dijkstra interrupted, ‘but my duties won’t allow me to take you up on it. I have a prodigious amount of matters to deal with and little time, so I must manage them at the cost of pleasure. We shall sup another day. In happier, more peaceful times.’

  The ambassador bowed and furtively sighed with relief.

  *

  He entered Ensenada, naturally, by a rear entrance. For which he was very glad. An impressive but damned long staircase of white marble led straight from the Great Canal to the main entrance of the royal winter residence, beneath a magnificent frontage supported on slender columns. The stairs leading to one of the numerous rear entrances were incomparably less spectacular, but far easier to negotiate. In spite of that, Dijkstra, as he walked, bit his lip and swore softly under his breath, so that the major-domo, lackeys and guardsmen escorting him wouldn’t hear.

  More stairs and more climbing awaited him inside the palace. Dijkstra cursed again sotto voce. Probably the damp, cold and uncomfortable position in the boat was why his leg, with its smashed and magically healed ankle, had begun to make itself known with a dull, nagging pain. And a nasty memory. Dijkstra ground his teeth. He knew that the Witcher – the man responsible for his suffering – had also had his bones broken. He had profound hopes that they also pained the Witcher and wished in his heart of hearts that it would pain him as long and as severely as possible.

  Dusk had already fallen outside and Ensenada’s corridors were dark. The route Dijkstra was taking behind a silent major-domo was, nonetheless, lit by a sparse row of lackeys with candlesticks. And outside the doors of the chamber to which the major-domo was leading him stood guardsmen with halberds, so erect it seemed spare halberds had been stuck up their backsides. The lackeys with candles stood more densely there, so the luminance was blinding. Dijkstra was somewhat astonished by the pomp with which he was being received.

  He entered the chamber and immediately stopped being astonished. He bowed low.

  ‘Greetings to you, Dijkstra,’ said Esterad Thyssen, King of Kovir, Poviss, Narok, Velhad and Talgar. ‘Don’t stand by the door, come closer. Put etiquette aside, it’s an unofficial audience.’

  ‘Your Majesty.’

  Esterad’s wife, Queen Zuleyka, responded to Dijkstra’s reverential bow with a slightly absent-minded nod, not interrupting her crocheting for a moment.

  There wasn’t a soul in the chamber apart from the royal couple.

  ‘Precisely.’ Esterad had noticed his glance. ‘Just the two of us will chat. I beg your pardon, just the three of us. For something tells me it’ll be better this way.’

  Dijkstra sat down on the scissors chair indicated, opposite Esterad. The king was wearing a crimson ermine-trimmed cape and a matching velvet chapeau. Like all the men of the Thyssen clan he was tall, powerfully built and devilishly handsome. He
always looked robust and healthy, like a sailor just returned from the sea; one could almost smell the seawater and cold, salt wind coming from him. As with all the Thyssens it was difficult to determine his exact age. Judging by his hair, skin and hands – the features which most clearly express one’s age – Esterad might have passed for forty-five. Dijkstra knew the king was fifty-six.

  ‘Zuleyka.’ The king leaned over towards his wife. ‘Look at him. If you didn’t know he was a spy, would you give credence to it?’

  Queen Zuleyka was short, quite stout and pleasantly plain. She dressed in quite a typical way for women of her looks, which was based on selecting elements of attire so that no one would guess she wasn’t her own grandmother. Zuleyka achieved this effect by wearing loose-fitting gowns, dull of cut and grey-brown of tone. On her head she wore a bonnet inherited from her ancestors. She didn’t use any makeup and didn’t wear any jewellery.

  ‘The Good Book,’ she spoke in a quiet and sweet little voice, ‘teaches us circumspection in judging our neighbours. For one day they will judge us, too. Let’s hope not on the basis of appearance.’

  Esterad Thyssen favoured his wife with a warm look. It was widely known that he loved her boundlessly, with a love which for twenty-nine years of marriage hadn’t dimmed a jot. On the contrary, as the years passed it blazed brighter and hotter. Esterad, it was claimed, had never betrayed Zuleyka. Dijkstra couldn’t really believe in anything so unlikely, but himself had tried three times to plant on – or virtually place under – the king stunning female agents, candidates for favourites, superb sources of information. Nothing had come of it.

  ‘I like to speak bluntly,’ said the king, ‘therefore I shall reveal at once, Dijkstra, why I’ve decided to talk to you personally. There are several reasons. Firstly, I know you won’t shrink from bribery. I’m certain, by and large, of my ministers, but why put them to the test, lead them into temptation? What kind of bribe did you intend to offer the minister of foreign affairs?’

  ‘A thousand Novigradian crowns,’ the spy responded without batting an eyelid. ‘Were he to haggle, I’d have gone up to a thousand five hundred.’

  ‘And that’s why I like you,’ Esterad Thyssen said after moment’s silence. ‘You’re a dreadful whoreson. You remind me of my youth. I look at you and see myself at your age.’

  Dijkstra thanked him with a bow. He was just eight years younger than the king. He was convinced that Esterad was well aware of it.

  ‘You’re a dreadful whoreson,’ the king repeated, growing serious. ‘But a respectable and decent one. And that’s a rarity in these rotten times.’

  Dijkstra bowed once more.

  ‘You see,’ Esterad continued, ‘in every country one may encounter people who are blind fanatics for the idea of social order. People committed to an idea, prepared to do anything for it. Including crime, for to them the aim justifies the means and changes the meaning of concepts. They don’t murder, they rescue order. They don’t torture, they don’t blackmail: they safeguard the national interest and fight for order. For such people, the life of an individual – should that individual violate the dogma of the established order – is not worth a farthing or a shrug. People like that don’t acknowledge the fact that the society they serve is made up of individuals. People like that are availed of the so-called “broad” view . . . and such a view is the most certain way of not noticing other people.’

  ‘Nicodemus de Boot,’ Dijkstra blurted out.

  ‘Close, but wide of the mark.’ The king of Kovir bared his alabaster-white teeth. ‘It was Vysogota of Corvo. A lesser known, but also able, ethicist and philosopher. Read him. I recommend it. Perhaps one of his books has survived in Redania. Perhaps you didn’t burn them all? Come, come, let’s get to the point. You, Dijkstra, are also unscrupulous in your use of intrigue, bribery, blackmail and torture. You don’t bat an eyelid when condemning someone to death or ordering an assassination. That fact you do it for the kingdom you faithfully serve does not excuse you or make you any more pleasant in my eyes. Not in the slightest. Be aware of that.’

  The spy nodded as a sign that he was.

  ‘You are, though,’ Esterad continued, ‘as it’s been said before, a whoreson of upright character. And that’s why I like and respect you, why I’ve granted you a private audience. For you, Dijkstra, having had a million opportunities, have never done anything for private gain or stolen so much as a ha’penny from the state coffers. Not even a farthing. Zuleyka, look! Is he blushing, or am I deceived?’

  The queen raised her head from her crocheting.

  ‘Their righteousness shall be known from their modesty.’ She quoted a passage from the Good Book, although she must have seen that not even a trace of a blush had appeared on the spy’s features.

  ‘Very well,’ Esterad said. ‘To business. Time to move to state affairs. He, Zuleyka, crossed the sea motivated by his patriotic duty. Redania, his fatherland, is threatened. Chaos rages there, following the tragic death of King Vizimir. Redania is now governed by a band of aristocratic idiots, calling themselves the Regency Council. That band, my Zuleyka, will do nothing for Redania. In the face of danger it will either bolt or begin obsequiously to grovel before the pearl-trimmed slippers of the Nilfgaardian Emperor. That band despises Dijkstra, for he’s a spy, a murderer, an upstart and a boor. But Dijkstra crossed the sea to save his country. Demonstrating who really cares about Redania.’

  Esterad Thyssen fell silent, exhaled loudly, wearied by his speech, and adjusted his crimson chapeau, which had slipped down slightly over his nose.

  ‘Well, Dijkstra,’ he continued. ‘What ails your kingdom? Aside from a shortage of money, naturally?’

  ‘Aside from a shortage of money,’ the spy’s face was inscrutable, ‘all are well, thank you.’

  ‘Aha,’ the king nodded. His chapeau once more slipped down over his nose and had to be adjusted again. ‘Aha. I comprehend.’

  ‘I comprehend,’ he continued. ‘And I applaud the idea. When one has money, one may purchase medicaments for every affliction. The crux is to have the money. Which you do not. If you did, you wouldn’t be here. Do I understand correctly?’

  ‘Impeccably.’

  ‘And how much do you need, I wonder?’

  ‘Not much. A million bizants.’

  ‘Not much?’ Esterad Thyssen grasped his chapeau in both hands in an exaggerated gesture. ‘You call that not much? Oh, my!’

  ‘But for Your Royal Highness,’ the spy mumbled, ‘such a sum is a trifle—’

  ‘A trifle?’ The king released his chapeau and raised his hands towards the ceiling. ‘Oh, my! A million bizants is a trifle. Do you hear, Zuleyka, what he’s saying? And do you know, Dijkstra, that to have a million and not to have a million, is two million together? I understand, I comprehend, that you and Philippa Eilhart are looking desperately and feverishly for an idea to defend yourselves against Nilfgaard, but what do you want? Do you plan to buy the whole of Nilfgaard?’

  Dijkstra did not reply. Zuleyka crocheted on. For a moment Esterad pretended to be admiring the nude nymphs on the ceiling.

  ‘Come along.’ He suddenly rose and nodded to the spy. They walked over to a huge painting portraying King Gedovius sitting astride a grey horse, pointing out something which wasn’t included on the canvas to the army with his sceptre, probably indicating the right direction. Esterad fished a tiny, gilded wand from his pocket, tapped the frame of the picture with it, and murmured a spell in hushed tones. Gedovius and his grey horse vanished, and a relief map of the known world appeared. The king touched a silver button in the corner of the map with his wand and magically transformed the scale, narrowing the visible sweep of the world to the Yaruga Valley and the Four Kingdoms.

  ‘The blue is Nilfgaard,’ he explained. ‘The red is you. What are you gawping at? Look here!’

  Dijkstra tore his gaze away from the other paintings – chiefly nudes and seascapes. He wondered which was the magical camouflage for another notorious map of Esterad�
�s: the one which depicted Kovir’s military and trade intelligence service, an entire network of bribed informers and blackmailed individuals, agents, operational contacts, saboteurs, hired killers, moles and active resident spies. He knew such a map existed; he had been trying unsuccessfully for many years to gain access to it.

  ‘The red is you,’ Esterad Thyssen repeated. ‘Looks pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?’

  Yup, pretty hopeless, Dijkstra admitted to himself. Lately he had been continuously looking at strategic maps, but now, on Esterad’s relief map, the situation seemed even worse. The blue squares formed themselves into the shape of terrible dragon’s jaws, liable at any moment to snatch and crush the small, miserable red squares in its great teeth.

  Esterad Thyssen looked around for something that might serve as a pointer for the map, finally drawing a decorative rapier from the nearest panoply.

  ‘Nilfgaard,’ he began his lecture, pointing appropriately with the rapier, ‘has attacked Lyria and Aedirn, declaring an assault on the border fort Glevitzingen as a casus belli. I’m not going to investigate who really attacked Glevitzingen wearing which disguise. It’s also senseless to speculate how many days or hours Emhyr’s armed operation occurred before the analogical undertakings by Aedirn and Temeria. I shall leave that to the historians. I’m more interested in the situation today and what it will be tomorrow. At this very moment Nilfgaard is in Dol Angra and Aedirn, shielded by a buffer in the shape of the elven dominium in Dol Blathanna, bordering with that part of Aedirn which King Henselt of Kaedwen, speaking vividly, tore from Emhyr’s teeth and himself devoured.’

  Dijkstra made no comment.

  ‘I shall also leave a moral judgement of King Henselt’s campaign to the historians,’ Esterad continued. ‘But a single glance at the map is sufficient to see that by annexing the Northern Marches Henselt barred Emhyr’s way to the Pontar Valley. He secured Temeria’s flank. And yours, the Redanians. You ought to thank him.’