Geralt was silent again, contemplating the titan fighting the dragon.
‘Dandelion,’ he said finally. ‘If you’ve been drinking, sober up. If you haven’t taken a drink, do so. Then we’ll talk.’
‘I don’t quite understand why you’re talking like this.’ Dandelion frowned.
‘Then have a little think.’
‘What about? Does my relationship with Anarietta shock you so much? Perhaps you’d like to appeal to my good sense. Skip it. I’ve thought the matter through. Anarietta loves me—’
‘And do you know the saying “the favours of duchesses are uncertain”?’ Geralt interrupted, ‘Even if your Anarietta isn’t flighty, and if you’ll excuse the frankness she looks that way to me, then—’
‘Then what?’
‘Duchesses only marry musicians in fairy tales.’
‘Firstly—’ Dandelion puffed himself up ‘—even a boor like you must have heard of morganatic marriages. Must I give you examples from ancient and modern history? Secondly, it’ll probably surprise you, but I’m not from the hoi-polloi. My people, the de Lettenhoves, come from—’
‘I’m listening to you and I’m amazed,’ Geralt interrupted again, losing his temper. ‘Is my friend Dandelion really spouting such balderdash? Has my friend Dandelion really gone completely mad? Is Dandelion, whom I know as a realist, now beginning all of a sudden to live in the sphere of illusion? Open your bloody eyes, you dolt.’
‘Aha,’ Dandelion said slowly, tightening his lips. ‘What a curious reversal of roles. I’m a blind man, and you meanwhile have suddenly become an attentive and astute observer. It was usually the other way around. And, out of interest, what don’t I notice that you can see? Eh? What, according to you, should I open my eyes to?’
‘For instance,’ drawled the Witcher, ‘the fact that your duchess is a spoiled child that has grown up into a spoiled and arrogant turkey cock. That fact she – fascinated by the novelty – has graced you with her charms, and will dump you immediately when a new busker with a newer and more beguiling repertoire comes along.’
‘What you’re saying is very base and vulgar. You’re aware of that, I hope?’
‘I’m aware of your lack of awareness. You’re a lunatic, Dandelion.’
The poet said nothing and stroked the neck of his lute. Some time passed before he spoke.
‘We set off from Brokilon on a deranged mission,’ he began slowly. ‘Taking a lunatic risk, we launched ourselves on an insane quest for a mirage without the slightest chance of success. A quest for a phantom, a daydream, an absolutely impossible ideal. We set off in pursuit like idiots, like madmen. But I didn’t utter a word of complaint, Geralt. I didn’t call you a madman. I didn’t ridicule you. For you had hope and love in you. You were being guided by them on this reckless mission. I was too, as a matter of fact. But I’ve caught up with the mirage, and I was lucky enough that the dream came true. My mission is over. I’ve found what is so difficult to find. And I intend to keep it. Is that insanity? It would be insanity to give it up and let it slip through my fingers.’
Geralt was silent for as long as Dandelion had been earlier.
‘Pure poetry,’ he finally said. ‘And it’s difficult to rival you at that. I won’t say another word. You’ve destroyed my arguments. Helped, I admit, by your quite apposite ones. Farewell, Dandelion.’
‘Farewell, Geralt.’
*
The palace library really was immense. Its dimensions were at least twice those of the knights’ hall. And it had a glass roof. Owing to which it was light. Although Geralt suspected it was bloody hot during the summer.
The aisles between the bookshelves were narrow and cramped so he walked cautiously, in order not to knock any books off. He also had to step over volumes piled up on the floor.
‘I’m here.’
The centre of the library was lost among the books, which were arranged in piles and columns. Many were lying quite chaotically, individually or in picturesque heaps.
‘Here, Geralt.’
He ventured among the canyons and ravines between the books. And found her.
She was kneeling among scattered incunables, leafing through and categorising them. She had on a modest grey dress, hitched up a little for convenience. Geralt found the sight extremely seductive.
‘Don’t be horrified by the mess,’ she said, wiping her brow with her forearm, because she was wearing thin, dust-stained silk gloves. ‘The books are being inventoried and catalogued. But the work was stopped at my request so I could be alone in the library. I can’t bear strangers’ eyes on me while I’m working.’
‘I’m sorry. Shall I leave?’
‘You’re not a stranger.’ She narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘I enjoy . . . having your eyes on me. Don’t stand like that. Sit here, on the books.’
He sat down on A Description of the World published in folio.
‘This shambles—’ Fringilla indicated around her with a brisk gesture ‘—has unexpectedly made my work easier. I was able to get to books that are normally lying somewhere at the bottom of a heap that’s impossible to shift. The ducal librarians moved the mounds – a titanic effort! – thanks to which some literary treasures and rarities saw the light of day. Look. Ever seen anything like this?’
‘Speculum Aureum? Yes, I have.’
‘I apologise, I forgot. You’ve seen plenty. That was meant to be a compliment, not sarcasm. And take a glance at that. It’s Gesta Regum. We’ll start with that so you’ll understand who your Ciri really is, whose blood flows in her veins . . . Your expression’s sourer than usual, did you know? What’s the reason?’
‘Dandelion.’
‘Tell me.’
He did. Fringilla listened, sitting cross-legged on a pile of books.
‘Well,’ she sighed, after he’d finished. ‘I admit I expected something of the kind. I noticed long ago that Anarietta was betraying symptoms of lovesickness.’
‘Love?’ he snorted. ‘Or a lordly whim.’
‘You seem not to believe—’ she looked at him piercingly ‘—in sincere and pure love?’
‘My beliefs,’ he said, ‘aren’t the subject of debate and are beside the point. It’s about Dandelion and his stupid—’
He broke off, suddenly losing confidence.
‘Love,’ Fringilla said slowly, ‘is like renal colic. Until you have an attack, you can’t even imagine what it’s like. And when people tell you about it you don’t believe them.’
‘There’s something in that,’ the Witcher agreed. ‘But there are also differences. Good sense can’t protect you from renal colic. Or cure it.’
‘Love mocks good sense. That’s its charm and beauty.’
‘Stupidity, more like.’
She stood up and walked towards him, taking off her gloves. Her eyes were dark and profound beneath the curtains of her eyelashes. She smelled of ambergris, roses, library dust, decayed paper, minium and printing ink, oak gall ink, and strychnine, which was being used to poison the library mice. The smell had little in common with an aphrodisiac. So it was all the stranger that it worked on him.
‘Don’t you believe,’ she said in a changed voice, ‘in sudden impulses? In unforeseen attractions? In the impacts of fireballs flying along collision trajectories? In cataclysms?’
She held out a hand and touched his arms. He touched her arms. Their faces moved closer, still hesitantly, vigilantly, as though they were afraid of scaring away some very, very timid creature.
And then the fireballs collided and a cataclysm ensued.
They fell onto a pile of folio volumes which scattered in all directions under their weight. Geralt pushed his nose into Fringilla’s cleavage, seized her powerfully and grabbed her by the knees. Various books impeded him from pulling her dress up above her waist, including The Lives of the Prophets, which was resplendent with intricate initials and illustrations, and De Haemorrhoidibus, a fascinating but controversial medical treatise. The Witcher pushed the volumes to o
ne side, impatiently tugging at her skirt. Fringilla raised her hips enthusiastically.
Something was chafing her shoulder. She turned her head. A Study of the Midwife’s Art. She quickly looked the other way so as not to tempt fate. On Hot, Sulphurous Waters. The temperature was rising indeed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the frontispiece of the book her head was resting on. Remarks on Inevitable Death. Even better, she thought.
The Witcher was fighting with her underwear. She lifted her hips, but this time gently, so it would look like an accidental movement and not provocative assistance. She didn’t know him and didn’t know how he reacted to women. Whether he didn’t, perhaps, prefer the kind that pretend they don’t know what they want, to those that do. And whether it would discourage him if her knickers were hard to take off.
The Witcher, however, wasn’t betraying any signs of discouragement. On the contrary, one might say. Seeing that it was high time, Fringilla spread her legs enthusiastically and vigorously, knocking over a tower of books and fascicles, which slid down on them like an avalanche. A copy of Mortgage Law bound in embossed leather came to rest against her buttock and a copy of Codex Diplomaticus decorated with brass edgings against Geralt’s wrist. Geralt assessed and exploited the situation at once, placing the bulky tome where it belonged. Fringilla squealed, because the edgings were cold. But only for a moment.
She sighed loudly, let go of the Witcher’s hair, spread her arms and seized a book in each hand, her left grabbing Descriptive Geometry, her right An Outline Study of Reptiles and Amphibians. Geralt, holding her hips, knocked over another pile of books with an unwitting kick, but was nonetheless too occupied to worry about the volumes falling on him. Fringilla, moaning spasmodically, thrashed her head from side to side over the pages of Remarks on Inevitable . . .
The books subsided with a rustle, the sharp scent of old dust making their noses tingle.
Fringilla screamed. The Witcher didn’t hear it, because her thighs were clenched against his ears. He threw off the bothersome History of Wars and The Journal of All the Arts Necessary for a Happy Life. Impatiently fighting with the buttons and fastenings of her bodice, he wandered from the south to the north, unintentionally reading the inscriptions on covers, spines, frontispieces and title pages. Under Fringilla’s waist was The Exemplary Farmer. Under her armpit, not far from her small, charming, jauntily pert breast, On Ineffective and Recalcitrant Shire Reaves. Under her elbow Economics; or, a Simple Exposition on how to Create, Divide up and Consume Wealth.
He read Remarks on Inevitable Death with his mouth on her neck and his hands near Shire Reaves . . . Fringilla emitted a difficult to classify sound; neither a scream, a moan nor a sigh.
The bookshelves shook, piles of books trembled and tumbled down, arranging themselves like rocky inselbergs during a severe earthquake. Fringilla screamed. A rare book, the first edition of De larvisscenicis et Figuriscomicis, fell from its shelf with a crash, followed by A Collection of General Horsemanship Commands, taking down with it John of Attre’s Heraldry, embellished with beautiful prints.
The Witcher groaned, kicking over more volumes as he jerked a leg straight. Fringilla screamed once again, long and loudly, knocking over Contemplations; or, Meditations for Every Day of the Year, an interesting anonymous work which had ended up on Geralt’s back for no apparent reason. Geralt trembled and read above her shoulder, learning – like it or not – that Remarks . . . had been written by Dr Albertus Rivus, had been published by the Academia Cintrensis, and had been printed by the master typographer Johann Froben Jr in the second year of the reign of HM King Corbett.
All was silent, save only the rustle of books slipping down and pages turning over.
What to do? thought Fringilla, touching Geralt’s side and the hard corner of Deliberations on the Nature of Things with lazy strokes of her hand. Should I suggest it? Or wait until he does? As long as he won’t think me flighty and immodest . . .
What will happen if he doesn’t suggest it?
‘Let’s go and find a bed somewhere,’ the Witcher suggested, a little hoarsely. ‘It doesn’t do to treat books like this.’
*
We found a bed, thought Geralt, letting Roach gallop down an avenue in the castle grounds. We found a bed in the alcove in her chambers. We made love like mad things, voraciously, greedily, ravenously, as though following years of celibacy, as though storing it up for later, as though at risk of celibacy again.
We told each other many things. We told each other very trivial truths. We told each other very beautiful lies. But those lies, although they were lies, weren’t calculated to deceive.
Excited by the gallop, he steered Roach straight at a snow-covered rose bed and made the mare jump it.
We made love. And talked. And our lies became more and more mendacious.
Two months. From October to Yule.
Two month of furious, greedy, wild love.
Roach’s horseshoes thudded on the flags of the courtyard at Beauclair Palace.
*
He passed through corridors quickly and soundlessly. No one saw or heard him. Not the guardsmen with halberds, killing time on their sentry duty by chatting and gossiping, nor the slumbering lackeys and pages. Even the candle flames didn’t flicker when he passed by the candelabras.
He was near the palace kitchen. But he didn’t go in, didn’t join the company, who were inside, disposing of a small cask and something fried. He remained in the shadows, listening.
Angoulême was speaking.
‘There’s something bewitched about this place, this fucking Toussaint. Some kind of charm hangs over the whole valley. Especially over the palace. I was surprised at Dandelion, I was surprised at the Witcher, but now I’m nauseous and I’ve got a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. Shit, I even caught myself . . . Eh, I’m not going to tell you that. Seriously, let’s get out of here. Let’s get out of here as fast as possible.’
‘Tell that to Geralt,’ said Milva. ‘It’s him you should tell.’
‘Yes, talk to him,’ said Cahir somewhat sarcastically. ‘During one of those brief moments when he’s free. Between the two activities he’s been engaging in for two months to help him forget.’
‘As for you,’ snorted Angoulême, ‘you’re mainly available in the park, playing at hoops with the barons’ daughters. Pshaw, no two ways about it, there’s something bewitched about this bloody Toussaint. Regis disappears somewhere at night, aunty has her tight-lipped baron—’
‘Shut it, you brat! And don’t call me aunty!’
‘Come, come,’ Regis interjected placatingly. ‘Girls, take it easy. Milva, Angoulême. Let there be concord. United we stand, divided we fall. As Her Grace the Duchess, lady of this country, this palace, this bread, dripping and gherkins, says: Another drop, anyone?’
Milva sighed heavily.
‘We’ve stayed here too long! Too long, I tell you, too long we’ve sat here in idleness. It’s driving us mad.’
‘Well said,’ said Cahir. ‘Very well said.’
Geralt cautiously withdrew. Soundlessly. Like a bat.
*
He passed through corridors quickly and soundlessly. No one saw or heard him. Neither the guards, nor the liveried servants nor the pages. Not even the candle flames flickered as he passed by the candelabras. The rats heard him, raised their whiskered snouts, and stood up on their hind legs. But they didn’t take fright. They knew him.
He often went that way.
In the alcove it smelled of charms and witchcraft, ambergris and roses, and woman’s sleep. But Fringilla wasn’t asleep.
She sat up in bed, threw off the eiderdown, enthralling him with the sight and taking possession of him.
‘You’re here at last,’ she said, stretching. ‘You neglect me dreadfully, Witcher. Get undressed and come here quickly. Very, very quickly.’
*
She passed quickly and soundlessly through the corridors. No one saw or heard her. Neither the guardsmen, idly gossipin
g at their posts, nor the slumbering liveried servants, nor the pages. Not even the candle flames flickered as she passed by the candelabras. The rats heard her, raised their whiskered snouts, stood up on their hind legs, and followed her with their black beady eyes. They didn’t take fright. They knew her.
She often went that way.
*
There was a corridor in Beauclair Palace, and at the end a chamber, the existence of which no one knew about. Neither the current lady of the castle, the Duchess Anarietta, nor the first lady of the castle, her great-grandmamma, the Duchess Ademarta. Nor the architect, the celebrated Peter Faramond, who made extensive modifications to the building, nor the master masons who worked according to Faramond’s plans and guidelines. Hell, even Chamberlain Le Goff, who was thought to know everything about Beauclair, didn’t know about the existence of that corridor.
The corridor and the chamber, disguised by a powerful illusion, were known only to the palace’s original elven builders. And later – when the elves had gone, and Toussaint became a duchy – to the small number of sorcerers linked to the ducal house. Including Artorius Vigo, a master of magical arcana and great specialist in illusions. And his young niece, Fringilla, who had a special talent for illusions.
Having passed quickly and noiselessly through the corridors of Beauclair Palace, Fringilla Vigo stopped in front of a fragment of wall between two columns decorated with acanthus leaves. A softly spoken spell and rapid gesture made the wall – which was illusory – vanish, revealing a corridor, apparently blind. At the end of the corridor, though, was a door, disguised by another illusion. And beyond the door a dark chamber.
Once inside, not wasting time, Fringilla launched a telecommunicator. The oval looking glass became cloudy and then cleared, lighting up the room, illuminating in the darkness the ancient, dust-laden tapestries on the walls. A large room plunged in subtle chiaroscuro, a round table with several women sitting around it appeared in the looking glass. Nine women.
‘Greetings, Miss Vigo,’ said Philippa Eilhart. ‘What’s new?’
The Saga of the Witcher Page 163
