‘I also . . .’ she whispered back. ‘I’m also surprised.’
‘I beg your pardon? Don’t be shy, please.’
‘I’d like to be able . . . to go for walks more often. And talk. But I understand . . . I understand that it’s not possible.’
‘You understand well.’ He bit his lip. ‘Emperors rule their empires, but two things they cannot rule: their hearts and their time. Those two things belong to the empire.’
‘I know that only too well,’ she whispered.
‘I shall not be staying here long,’ he said after a moment of oppressive silence. ‘I must ride to Cintra and grace with my person the ceremony of the peace treaty being signed. You will return to Darn Rowan . . . Raise your head, girl. Oh no. That’s the second time you’ve sniffed in my presence. And what’s that in your eyes? Tears? Oh, those are serious breaches of etiquette. I will have to express my most serious discontent to the Countess of Liddertal. Raise your head, I said . . .’
‘Please . . . forgive Madam Stella . . . Your Imperial Majesty. It’s my fault. Only mine. Madam Stella has taught me . . . And prepared me well.’
‘I’ve noticed and appreciate that. Don’t worry, Stella Congreve isn’t in danger of my disfavour. And never has been. I was making fun of you. Reprehensibly.’
‘I noticed,’ whispered the girl, paling, horrified by her own audacity. But Emhyr just laughed. Somewhat stiffly.
‘I prefer you like that,’ he stated. ‘Believe me. Bold. Just like—’
He broke off. Like my daughter, he thought. A sense of guilt tormented him like a dog worrying at him.
The girl didn’t take her eyes off him. It’s not just Stella’s work, thought Emhyr. It really is her nature. In spite of appearances she’s a diamond that’s hard to scratch. No. I won’t let Vattier murder this child. Cintra is Cintra, and the interest of the empire is the interest of the empire, but this matter seems only to have one sensible and honourable solution.
‘Give me your hand.’
It was an order delivered in a stern voice and tone. But in spite of that he couldn’t help but get the impression it was carried out willingly. Without compulsion.
Her hand was small and cool. But wasn’t trembling now.
‘What’s your name? Just please don’t say it’s Cirilla Fiona.’
‘Cirilla Fiona.’
‘I feel like punishing you, girl. Severely.’
‘I know, Your Imperial Majesty. I deserve it. But I . . . I have to be Cirilla Fiona.’
‘One might suppose you regret you are not she,’ he said, not letting go of her hand.
‘I do,’ she whispered. ‘I do regret I am not she.’
‘Indeed?’
‘If I were . . . the real Cirilla . . . the emperor would look more favourably on me. But I’m only a counterfeit. A poor imitation. A double, not worthy of anything. Nothing . . .’
He turned around suddenly and grabbed her by the arms. And released her at once. He took a step back.
‘Yearning for a crown? Power?’ he was speaking softly, but quickly, pretending not to see as she denied it with abrupt movements of her head. ‘Honours? Accolades? Luxuries—’
He broke off, breathing heavily. Pretending he couldn’t see the girl still shaking her lowered head, still denying further hurtful accusations, perhaps all the more hurtful because of being unexpressed.
He breathed out deeply and loudly.
‘Do you know, little moth, that what you see before you is a flame?’
‘I do, Your Imperial Majesty.’
They were silent for a long time. The scent of spring suddenly made them feel light-headed. Both of them.
‘In spite of appearances,’ Emhyr finally said dully, ‘being empress is not an easy job. I don’t know if I’ll be able to love you.’
She nodded to show she also knew. He saw a tear on her cheek. Just like in Stygga Castle, he felt the tiny shard of cold glass lodged in his heart shift.
He hugged her, pressed her hard to his chest, stroked her hair, which smelled of lilies-of-the-valleys.
‘My poor little one . . .’ he said in an unfamiliar voice. ‘My little one, my poor raison d’état.’
*
Bells rang throughout Cintra. In a stately manner, deeply, solemnly. But somehow strangely mournfully.
Unusual looks, thought Hierarch Hemmelfart, looking, like everybody else, at the hanging portrait which measured, like all the others, at least one yard by two. Strange looks. I’m absolutely certain she’s some kind of half—breed. I’d swear she has the blood of the accursed elves in her veins.
Pretty, thought Foltest, prettier than the miniature the people from the intelligence service showed me. Ah well, portraits usually flatter.
Utterly unlike Calanthe, thought Meve. Utterly unlike Roegner. Utterly unlike Pavetta . . . Hmmm . . . There’ve been rumours . . . But no, that’s impossible. She must have royal blood, must be the rightful ruler of Cintra. She must. It is demanded by raison d’état. And history.
She’s not the one I saw in my dreams, thought Esterad Thyssen, King of Kovir, who had recently arrived in Cintra. She’s certainly not that one. But I shan’t tell that to anyone. I’ll keep it to myself and my Zuleyka. Zuleyka and I shall decide how we shall use the knowledge those dreams gave us.
She was almost my wife, that Ciri, thought Kistrin of Verden. I’d have been Duke of Cintra then, according to custom the heir to the throne . . . And I’d probably have perished like Calanthe. It was fortunate, oh, it was fortunate that she ran away from me then.
Not even for a moment did I believe in the tale of great love at first sight, thought Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen. Not even for a moment. And yet Emhyr is marrying that girl. He’s rejecting the chance for reconciliation with the dukes. Instead of the daughter of one of the Nilfgaardian dukes he’s taking Cirilla of Cintra for his wife. Why? In order to seize that miserable little country, half of which, if not more, I would anyway have gained for the empire in negotiations. To seize the mouth of the Yaruga, which is in any case under the dominion of a Nilfgaardian-Novigradian—Koviran maritime trading company.
I don’t understand anything of this raison d’état.
I suspect they aren’t telling me everything.
Sorceresses, thought Dijkstra. It’s the sorceresses’ handiwork. But let it be. It was clearly written that Ciri would become the Queen of Cintra, the wife of Emhyr and the Empress of Nilfgaard. Destiny clearly wanted that. Fate.
Let it be, thought Triss Merigold. May it remain like that. Well and good. Ciri will be safe now. They’ll forget about her. They’ll let her live.
The portrait finally ended up in its place, and the servants who had hung it stood back and removed the ladders.
In the long row of darkened and somewhat dusty paintings of the rulers of Cintra, beyond the collection of Cerbins and Corams, beyond Corbett, Dagorad and Roegner, beyond the proud Calanthe and the melancholy Pavetta, hung the last portrait. Depicting the currently reigning gracious monarch. The successor to the throne and to the royal blood.
The portrait of a slim girl with fair hair and a sad gaze. Wearing a white dress with green gloves.
Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon.
The Queen of Cintra and the Empress of Nilfgaard.
Destiny, thought Philippa Eilhart, feeling Dijkstra’s eyes on her.
Poor child, thought Dijkstra, looking at the portrait. She probably thinks it’s the end of her worries and misfortunes. Poor child.
The bells of Cintra rang, frightening the seagulls.
*
‘Shortly after the end of the negotiations and the signing of the Peace of Cintra—’ the pilgrim picked up the story ‘—a grand holiday, a celebration lasting several days, was held in Novigrad, the crowning moment of which was a great and ceremonial military parade. The day, as befitted the first day of a new era, was truly beautiful . . .’
‘Are we to understand,’ the elf asked sarcastically, ‘that you were present there, sir? At th
at parade?’
‘In truth, I was a little late.’ The pilgrim clearly wasn’t the type to be disconcerted by sarcasm. ‘The day, as I said, was beautiful. It promised thus from the very dawn.’
*
Vascoigne, the commandant of Drakenborg – until recently deputy to the chief of political affairs – impatiently struck his whip against the side of his boot.
‘Faster over there, faster,’ he urged. ‘The next ones are waiting! After that peace treaty signed in Cintra we’re snowed under here.’
The hangmen, having put the nooses around the condemned men’s necks, stepped back. Vascoigne whacked his whip against his boot.
‘If any of you has anything to say,’ he said dryly, ‘now is your last chance.’
‘Long live freedom,’ said Cairbre aep Diared.
‘The trial was fixed,’ said Orestes Kopps, marauder, robber and killer.
‘Kiss my arse,’ said Robert Pilch, deserter.
‘Tell Lord Dijkstra I’m sorry,’ said Jan Lennep, secret agent, condemned for bribery and thievery.
‘I didn’t mean to . . . I really didn’t mean to,’ sobbed Istvan Igalffy, the fort’s former commandant, removed from his position and arraigned before the tribunal for acts committed against female prisoners, as he tottered on a birch stump.
The sun, as blinding as liquid gold, exploded above the fort’s palisade. The gallows poles cast long shadows. A beautiful, new sunny day rose over Drakenborg.
The first day of a new era.
Vascoigne hit his whip against his boot. He raised and lowered his hand.
Stumps were kicked out from under feet.
*
All the bells of Novigrad tolled, their deep and plaintive sounds echoing against the roofs and mansards of merchants’ residences, the echoes fading amongst the narrow streets. Rockets and fireworks shot up high. The crowd roared, cheered, threw flowers, tossed up their hats, waved handkerchiefs, favours, flags, why, even trousers.
‘Long live the Free Company!’
‘Hurraaaah!’
‘Long live the condottieri!’
Lorenzo Molla saluted the crowd, blowing kisses to beautiful townswomen.
‘If they’re going to pay bonuses as effusively as they cheer,’ he shouted over the tumult, ‘then we’ll be rich!’
‘Pity,’ said Julia Abatemarco, with a lump in her throat. ‘Pity Frontino didn’t live to see this . . .’
They walked their horses through the town’s main street, Julia, Adam ‘Adieu’ Pangratt and Lorenzo Molla, at the head of the Company, dressed in their best regalia, formed up into fours so even that none of the groomed and gleaming horses stuck their muzzles even an inch out of line. The condottieri’s horses were, like their riders, calm and proud; they weren’t frightened by the crowd’s cheers and shouts, reacting with slight, faint, almost imperceptible jerks of their heads at the wreaths and flowers flying at them.
‘Long live the condottieri!’
‘Long live Adieu Pangratt! Long live Pretty Kitty!’
Julia furtively wiped away a tear, catching a carnation thrown from the crowd.
‘I never dreamed . . .’ she said. ‘Such a triumph . . . Pity Frontino . . .’
‘You’re a romantic,’ smiled Lorenzo Molla. ‘You’re getting emotional, Julia.’
‘I am. Attention, by my troth! Eyes leeeft! Look!’
They sat up straight in the saddle, turning their heads towards the review stand and the thrones and seats arranged there. I see Foltest, thought Julia. That bearded one is probably Henselt of Kaedwen, and that handsome one Demavend of Aedirn. That matron must be Queen Hedwig . . . And that pup beside her is Prince Radovid, son of the murdered king . . . Poor boy . . .
*
‘Long live the condottieri! Long live Julia Abatemarco! Hurrah for Adieu Pangratt! Hurrah for Lorenzo Molla!’
‘Long live Constable Natalis!’
‘Long live the kings! Long live Foltest, Demavend and Henselt!’
‘Long live Dijkstra!’ roared some toady.
‘Long live His Holiness!’ yelled several voices paid to do so. Cyrus Engelkind Hemmelfart, the Hierarch of Novigrad, stood up and greeted the crowd and the marching army with arms raised, rather inelegantly turning his rear towards Queen Hedwig and the minor Radovid, obscuring them with the tails of his voluminous robes.
No one’s going to shout ‘Long live Radovid’, thought the prince, blocked by the hierarch’s fat backside. No one’s even going to look at me. No one will raise a cry in honour of my mother. Nor mention my father; they won’t shout his glory. Today, on the day of triumph, on the day of reconciliation, of the alliance to which my father, after all, contributed. Which was why he was murdered.
He felt someone’s eyes on the nape of his neck. As delicate as something he didn’t know – or did, but only from his dreams. Something like the soft, hot caress of a woman’s lips. He turned his head. He saw the dark, bottomless eyes of Philippa Eilhart fixed on him.
Just you wait, thought the prince, looking away. Just you wait.
No one could have predicted then or guessed that this thirteen-year-old boy – now a person without any significance in a country ruled by the Regency Council and Dijkstra – would grow into a king. A king, who – after paying back all the insults borne by himself and his mother – would pass into history as Radovid V the Stern.
The crowd cheered. Flowers rained down under the hooves of the parading horses of the condottieri.
*
‘Julia?’
‘Yes, Adieu.’
‘Marry me. Be my wife.’
Pretty Kitty delayed her answer a long time, as she recovered from her astonishment. The crowd cheered. The Hierarch of Novigrad, sweaty, gasping for air, like a large, fat catfish, blessed the townspeople and the procession, town and world from the viewing stand.
‘But you are married, Adam Pangratt!’
‘I’m separated. I’ll get a divorce.’
Julia Abatemarco didn’t answer. She turned her head away. Astonished. Disconcerted. And very happy. God knows why.
The crowd cheered and threw flowers. Rockets and fireworks exploded with a crack over the rooftops.
The bells of Novigrad moaned plaintively.
*
A woman, thought Nenneke. When I sent her away to war she was a girl. She’s returned a woman. She’s confident. Self—aware. Serene. Composed. Feminine.
She won that war. By not allowing the war to destroy her.
‘Debora,’ Eurneid continued her litany in a soft, but sure voice, ‘died of typhus in a camp at Mayena. Prine drowned in the Yaruga when a boat full of casualties capsized. Myrrha was killed by Squirrel elves, during an attack on a field hospital at Armeria . . . Katje—’
‘Go on, my child,’ Nenneke urged her on gently.
‘Katje—’ Eurneid cleared her throat ‘—met a wounded Nilfgaardian in hospital. She went back to Nilfgaard with him after the peace was concluded, when prisoners of war were exchanged.’
‘I always say,’ sighed the stout priestess, ‘that love knows no borders or cordons. What about Iola the Second?’
‘She’s alive,’ Eurneid hurried to assure her. ‘She’s in Maribor.’
‘Why doesn’t she come back?’
The novice bowed her head.
‘She won’t return to the temple, Mother,’ she said softly. ‘She’s in the hospital of Mr Milo Vanderbeck, the surgeon, the halfling. She said she wants to tend the sick. That she’ll only devote herself to that. Forgive her, Mother Nenneke.’
‘Forgive her?’ the priestess snorted. ‘I’m proud of her.’
*
‘You’re late,’ Philippa Eilhart hissed. ‘You’re late for a ceremony graced by kings. By a thousand devils, Sigismund, your arrogance regarding etiquette is well known enough for you not to have to flaunt it so blatantly. Particularly today, on a day like this . . .’
‘I had my reasons.’ Dijkstra responded to the look of Queen Hedwig and the raised
eyebrows of the Hierarch of Novigrad with a bow. He noticed the grimace on the face of priest Willemer and the expression of contempt on the impossibly handsome countenance of King Foltest.
‘I have to talk to you, Phil.’
Philippa frowned.
‘In private, most probably?’
‘That would be best.’ Dijkstra smiled faintly. ‘If, however, you consider it appropriate, I’ll agree to a few additional pairs of eyes. Let’s say those of the beautiful ladies of Montecalvo.’
‘Hush,’ hissed the sorceress from behind her smiling lips.
‘When can I expect an audience?’
‘I’ll think about it and let you know. Now leave me in peace. This is a stately ceremony. It’s a great celebration. Let me remind you of that, if you hadn’t noticed yourself.’
‘A great celebration?’
‘We’re on the threshold of a new era, Dijkstra.’
The spy shrugged.
The crowd cheered. Fireworks shot into the sky. The bells of Novigrad tolled, tolled for the triumph, for the glory. But somehow they sounded strangely mournful.
*
‘Hold the reins, Jarre,’ said Lucienne. ‘I’ve grown hungry, I’d like a bite of something. Here, I’ll wrap the strap over your arm. I know one’s not much use.’
Jarre felt a blush of shame and humiliation burning on his face. He still hadn’t got used to it. He still had the impression that the whole world didn’t have anything better to do than stare at his stump, at the sleeve sewn up over it. That the whole world didn’t think of anything else but to look at his disability, to falsely sympathise with the cripple and falsely pity him, and secretly disdain him and treat him as something that unpleasantly disturbs the nice order by repulsively and blatantly existing. By daring to exist.
Lucienne, he had to hand it to her, differed a little from the whole world in this respect. She neither pretended she couldn’t see it, nor adopted an affected style of humiliating help and even more humiliating pity. Jarre was close to thinking that the fair-haired young wagoner treated him naturally and normally. But he drove that thought away. He didn’t accept it.
For he still hadn’t managed to treat himself normally.
The wagon carrying military invalids creaked and rattled. Hot weather had come after a short period of rain, and the ruts created by military convoys had dried out and hardened into ridges and humps of fantastic shapes, over which the vehicle being pulled by four horses had to trundle. The wagon positively jumped over the bigger ruts, creaking, the coach body rocking like a ship in a storm. The swearing of the crippled soldiers – mainly lacking legs – was as exquisite as it was filthy, and in order not to fall Lucienne hung on to Jarre and hugged him, generously giving the boy her magical warmth, extraordinary softness and the exciting mixture of the smell of horses, leather straps, hay, oats and young, intense, girlish sweat.
The Saga of the Witcher Page 198
