‘I’m joining the army as a volunteer,’ declared Jarre. ‘I’m signing up myself, of my own free will, not from the levy. Partly for personal reasons, but mainly from patriotic duty.’
The company roared with loud, thunderous, general laughter.
‘Heed, boys,’ Pike finally said, ‘what contradictions sometimes lurk in a body. Two natures. Here we have a young shaver, it would seem, educated and worldly, and undoubtedly clever by nature on top of all that. He ought to know what’s happening in the war, know who’s fighting whom and who will soon utterly defeat whom. And he, as you’ve heard, without being forced, of his own free will, out of paterotic duty, wants to join the losing party.’
No one commented. Jarre included.
‘Such a paterotic duty,’ Pike finally said, ‘is usually only the mark of the feeble—minded. Why, perhaps it even befits temple—court alumni. But there was talk here of some sort of personal reasons. I’m awful curious as to what those personal reasons might be.’
‘They’re so personal—’ Jarre cut him off ‘—that I’m not going to talk about them. All the more so since you, good sir, are in no hurry to talk about your reasons.’
‘Now heed,’ said Pike a moment later. ‘Were some boor to talk to me like that, he’d get a punch in the mush right off. Well, if he’s a learned scribe . . . I’ll forgive him . . . just this once. And say: I’m also going to join up. And also as a volunteer.’
‘In order, like one of the feeble-minded, to join the losers?’ It surprised Jarre himself where so much insolence had suddenly come from. ‘Fleecing travellers on bridges en route?’
‘He,’ chortled Melfi, anticipating Pike, ‘he’s still mad at us for that ambush on the footbridge. Let it go, Jarre, it was only a prank! Just innocent tricks. Right, Pike?’
‘Right.’ Pike yawned and snapped his teeth so loud it echoed. ‘Just innocent tricks. Life is sad and glum, just like a calf being led to the slaughter. Then only tricks or pranks can cheer it up. Don’t you think so, scribe?’
‘I do. By and large.’
‘That’s good.’ Pike didn’t lower his shining eyes from him. ‘For otherwise you’d be a miserable companion for us and it would be better if you walked to Vizima by yourself. Right away, for instance.’
Jarre said nothing. Pike stretched.
‘I’ve said what I meant to say. Well, mates, we’ve fooled around, frolicked, had our fun, and now it’s time. If we’re to be in Vizima by suppertime, we ought to set off with the sun.’
*
The night was very cold, and Jarre couldn’t sleep despite his tiredness. He was curled up in a ball under his mantle, with his knees almost touching his chin. When he finally fell asleep, he slept badly, his dreams constantly waking him up. He couldn’t remember most of them. Apart from two. In the first dream, the witcher, Geralt of Rivia, was sitting beneath long icicles hanging from a rock, motionless, covered in ice and being quickly buried under drifting snow. In the other dream, Ciri was galloping on a black horse, hugging its mane, along an avenue of misshapen alders that were trying hard to seize her with their crooked boughs.
Oh, and just before dawn he dreamed of Triss Merigold. After her stay in the temple the year before the boy had dreamed about the sorceress several times. The dreams had made Jarre do things which he was very ashamed of afterwards.
This time, naturally, nothing shameful happened. It was too cold.
*
All seven of them set off in the morning, barely after the sun rose. Milton and Ograbek, the peasant sons from the acreage duty, fortified themselves by singing a soldiers’ song.
Here rides the warrior, armour glinting bright.
Flee young lass, he’ll steal a kiss this night.
And wherefore not; who will stay his hand?
For his keen blade defends the motherland.
Pike, Okultich, Klaproth and Melfi the cooper’s son – who had attached himself to them – were telling each other anecdotes and stories; extremely funny ones. In their opinion.
‘—and the Nilfgaardian asks: “What stinks around here?” And the elf says: “Shit”. Haaa, haa, haaa!’
‘Ha, ha, ha, ha! And do you know this one? A Nilfgaardian, an elf and a dwarf are walking along. They look: a mouse is scampering . . .’
The longer the day went on, the more other wanderers, peasants’ carts, bailiffs and small squads of marching soldiers they encountered on the highway. Some of the carts were crammed with goods. Pike’s gang followed them with their noses almost touching the ground, like pointers, gathering whatever fell – here a carrot, there a potato, a turnip, occasionally even an onion. Some of the loot they cleverly put away for a rainy day, and some they greedily devoured without even interrupting their joke-telling.
‘—and the Nilfgaardian goes: fluuub! And shits himself right up to the ears! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!’
‘Haa, haaa, haa! O Gods, I can’t bear it . . . Shat himself . . . Haaaa, haaa, haaa!’
Jarre was waiting for an opportunity and a pretext to wander off. He wasn’t keen on Pike, he wasn’t keen on Okultich. He wasn’t keen on the glances which Pike and Okultich were casting at the passing merchants’ wagons, peasants’ carts and the women and girls sitting on them. He wasn’t keen on Pike’s sneering tone, since he kept talking about the usefulness of signing up as a volunteer when defeat and extermination were certain and self-evident.
There was a smell of ploughed earth. And smoke. They saw the roofs of buildings in the valley, among a regular patchwork of fields, groves and fishponds gleaming like mirrors. Sometimes the distant barking of a dog, the lowing of an ox, or the crowing of a cock reached their ears.
‘You can see these villages are wealthy,’ Pike lisped, licking his lips. ‘Tmall but fanthy.’
‘Halflings live and farm here in the valley,’ Okultich hurried to explain. ‘Everything about them’s fancy and pretty. A thrifty little nation, those midgets.’
‘Damned inhumans,’ rasped Klaproth. ‘Bloody kobolds! They farm here, and poverty and misery befalls real people because of creatures like them. Even war doesn’t harm such as them.’
‘For now.’ Pike stretched his mouth in an ugly smile. ‘Remember this village, lads. The outermoft one, among those birches, right in the forest. Remember it well. If I ever dethire to visit here again, I wouldn’t want to go astray.’
Jarre turned his head away. He pretended he couldn’t hear. That all he could see was the highway in front of him.
They walked on. Milton and Ograbek, the peasant sons from the acreage duty, sang a new song. Less soldierly. Perhaps a little more pessimistic. Which could – particularly after Pike’s earlier allusions – be considered a bad omen.
Hark and think on what I say,
I shall speak of death today,
For no matter how old you be,
You’ll not escape its misery,
Be ever mindful of your due;
Death will surely throttle you!
*
‘He,’ judged Okultich morosely, ‘must have cash. If he doesn’t have cash, may me balls be cut off.’
The individual about whom Okultich had made such a ghastly bet was a wandering trader, hurrying beside a donkey-drawn cart.
‘Dosh or no dosh,’ lisped Pike, ‘the donkey must be worth something. Hasten your steps, boys.’
‘Melfi.’ Jarre seized the cooper’s son by his sleeve. ‘Open your eyes. Can’t you see what’s being planned?’
‘Oh, they’re only jokes, Jarre.’ Melfi wrenched himself free. ‘Just jokes . . .’
The trader’s cart – it was evident from close up – was at the same time a stall, and could be set up within a few moments. The whole donkey-drawn construction was covered in garishly and picturesquely sprawling writing, in which the goods on sale included balsams and remedies, protective talismans and amulets, elixirs, magical philtres and poultices, cleaning agents, and furthermore detectors of metals, ores and truffles and fail-safe baits for fish, ducks and w
enches.
The trader, a thin old man weighed down by the burden of his years, looked around, saw them, cursed and drove his donkey on. But the donkey, like all donkeys, had no intention of going any faster.
‘Fine robes on that one,’ judged Okultich quietly. ‘And we’ll certainly find a little something on the cart . . .’
‘Very well, boys,’ said Pike. ‘Chop, chop! We’ll deal with this matter while there are few witnesses on the road.’
Jarre, astonished at his courage, pulled ahead of the company in a few swift paces and turned around, standing between them and the merchant.
‘No,’ he said, fighting to get a word out of his tight throat. ‘I won’t allow it . . .’
Pike slowly opened his coat and displayed a long knife shoved into his belt, clearly as sharp as a razor.
‘Out of the road, scribbler,’ he lisped malevolently. ‘If you respect your neck. I thought you’d fit into our company, but no, your temple, I see, has made you overly sanctimonious. You stink overly of pious incense. So out of the way, for otherwise—’
‘And what’s going on here? Eh?’
Two strange shapes emerged from behind the stout and spreading willows which flanked the highway and were the most common feature of the Ismena valley’s scenery.
The two men wore waxed and upwardly twisted moustaches, colourful puffed breeches, quilted short jackets decorated with ribbons and huge, soft velvet berets with bunches of feathers. Apart from the sabres and daggers hanging from their broad belts, the two men carried on their backs double-handed swords, probably two yards long, with hilts measuring two feet and large, curved cross guards.
These landsknechts were hopping up and down, and fastening their trousers. Neither of them made even a movement towards the hilts of their terrible swords, but in any case, Pike and Okultich immediately became more docile, and the huge Klaproth shrank like a deflated goatskin.
‘We’re . . . we’re doing nothing . . .’ lisped Pike. ‘Nothing we shouldn’t . . .’
‘Just pranks!’ squealed Melfi.
‘No one’s been harmed,’ unexpectedly piped up the stooping trader. ‘No one!’
‘We,’ Jarre quickly interjected, ‘are going to Vizima, to join up. Perhaps you’re going the same way, noble sirs?’
‘Indeed we are,’ the landsknecht snorted, realising at once what this was about. ‘We head for Vizima. Whoever wishes may go with us. It will be safer.’
‘Safer, I swear,’ added the other one, knowingly, eyeing Pike up and down. ‘It behoves me to add, indeed, that not long ago we saw a mounted patrol in the vicinity of the Vizimian bailiwick. They are most inclined to hang, and miserable will be the fate of any marauder whom they catch in the act.’
‘And it’s most good—’ Pike had regained his aplomb, and grinned a gap-toothed smile ‘—my lords, it’s good, gentlemen, that there is law and punishment for rogues, that is the correct order of things. Thus let us set off to Vizima, to the army, for our paterotic duty summons us.’
The landsknecht looked at him long and quite contemptuously, then shrugged, straightened his great sword on his back and set off down the road. His companion, Jarre, as well as the merchant with his donkey and cart set off after him, and at the rear, some distance away, shambled Pike’s rabble.
‘Thank you, sir knights,’ the merchant said some time later, driving his donkey with a withy. ‘And thank you, young master.’
‘It’s nothing.’ The landsknecht waved a hand. ‘We’re accustomed to it.’
‘Various characters are drawn to the army.’ His companion looked back over his shoulder. ‘The order comes to a village or small town to supply a recruit for every five hundred acres, and sometimes that method is used to rid themselves right away of the worst sort of scoundrel. And then the roads are full of nuisances like that lot there. Well, in the army the lance-corporal’s rod will teach them obedience. Those rascals will learn discipline when they’ve run the gauntlet once or twice, faced the rows of lashes—’
‘I,’ Jarre hurried with an explanation, ‘am signing on as a volunteer, not compulsorily.’
‘Commendable, commendable.’ The landsknecht glanced at him and twisted the waxed ends of his moustaches. ‘And I see you are moulded from somewhat different clay than those men. Why are you with them?’
‘Fate brought us together.’
‘I’ve seen such chance encounters and fraternising before.’ The soldier’s voice was grave. ‘It led the fraternisers to the same gibbet. Learn a lesson from that, lad.’
‘I shall.’
*
Before the cloud-darkened sun had stood at the zenith, they reached the main road. Here a forced break in their journey awaited them. As it did a large group of wanderers who also had to stop – for the main road was packed full of marching soldiers.
‘Southwards,’ one of the landsknechts commented knowingly on the direction of the march. ‘To the front. To Maribor and Mayena.’
‘Heed their standards,’ the other one indicated with his head.
‘Redanians,’ said Jarre. ‘Silver eagles on crimson.’
‘You’ve guessed right.’ The landsknecht slapped him on the back. ‘You’re a truly smart youngster. That’s the Redanian Army, which Queen Hedwig has sent to aid us. Now we are strong in unity. Temeria, Redania, Aedirn and Kaedwen. Now we’re all allies, supporters of one cause.’
‘A bit late,’ said Pike with a pronounced sneer from behind their backs. The landsknecht looked back, but said nothing.
‘So let’s sit down,’ suggested Melfi, ‘and give our pins a rest. There’s no end in sight of that army. It will be ages before the road frees itself up.’
‘Let’s sit down,’ said the merchant, ‘yonder, on that hill. The view will be better from there.’
The Redanian cavalry rode by and, after them, raising dust, marched crossbowmen and pavisiers. After them a column of heavy cavalry trotted past.
‘And they,’ Melfi pointed to the armoured troops, ‘are marching under different colours. They have black standards, flecked with something white.’
‘Ah, the ignorant provinces.’ The landsknecht glanced at him contemptuously. ‘They don’t know their own king’s arms. They are silver lilies, blockhead . . .’
‘Field sable with lilies argent,’ said Jarre, who all of a sudden felt a desire to prove that of all people he wasn’t from the ignorant provinces.
‘In the kingdom of Temeria’s former coat of arms,’ he began, ‘there was a lion passant. But the Temerian royal dukes used a different one. To be precise, they added an extra field to the shield, containing three lilies. Since in heraldic symbolism the lily flower is a sign of the successor to the throne, the royal son, the heir to the throne and sceptre—’
‘Sodding know-it-all,’ barked Klaproth.
‘You can shut your gob, cloth-head,’ said the landsknecht menacingly. ‘And you, lad, go on. This is interesting.’
‘And when Prince Goidemar, the son of old King Gardik, went to fight against the insurgents of the she-devil Falka, the Temerian Army, under his standard, under the emblem of the lily, fought and won decisive victories. And when Goidemar inherited the throne from his father, he established three lilies argent on a field sable as the kingdom’s coat of arms as a memento of those victories and for the miraculous escape of his wife and children from the hands of the enemy. And later King Cedric changed the state coat of arms by a special decree so that it’s a black shield aspersed with silver lilies. And the Temerian coat of arms has been like that ever since. Which you may all easily confirm for yourself, since the Temerian lancers are riding along the main road right now.’
‘You have worked it out very elegantly, young master,’ said the merchant.
‘Not I,’ Jarre sighed, ‘but John of Attre, a heraldic scholar.’
‘And you are no worse schooled, I see.’
‘Perfect for a recruit,’ added Pike under his breath. ‘To be clubbed to death under the standard of those s
ilver lilies, for the king and Temeria.’
They heard singing. Menacing, soldierly, booming like a sea wave, like the growl of an approaching storm. Following the Temerians passed other soldiers in close and even array. Grey, almost colourless cavalrymen, over which neither standards nor pennants fluttered. A pole with a horizontal bar decorated with horses’ tails and three human skulls nailed to it was being borne in front of the commanders riding at the head of the column.
‘The Free Company.’ The first landsknecht subtly indicated the grey riders. ‘Mercenaries. Soldiers of fortune.’
‘They’re clearly stout-hearted,’ gasped Melfi. ‘Every man! And they’re marching in step, as though on parade . . .’
‘The Free Company,’ the landsknecht repeated. ‘Take a good look, O peasants and striplings, at a genuine soldier. They’ve been in battle before. It was they, those mercenaries, the companies of Adam Pangratt, Molla, Frontin and Abatemarco, who tipped the scales at Mayena. Thanks to them the Nilfgaardian encirclement was broken. We owe it to them that that the fortress was liberated.’
‘Brave and doughty folk indeed, those mercenaries,’ added the other, ‘as unyielding in battle as a rock. Though the Free Company serves for coin, as you can easily mark from their song.’
The troop approached at a walk, their thunderous song sounding a strong and booming, but strangely gloomy, bitter, note.
No sceptre nor throne will win us over
We shall never be in league with kings
We are in the service of the ducat
That glitters in the sun!
Your oaths are nothing to us
We do not kiss your standards or your hands
We swear faith to the ducat
That glitters in the sun!
‘Eh, to serve with them,’ sighed Melfi again. ‘To fight together with such as them . . . A man would know glory and spoils . . .’
The Saga of the Witcher Page 175
