‘Forgive me, I didn't mean to disturb you,’ he said stiffly, watching her lips take on the same pinched expression that the poet had turned on the young man in brocade.
‘You're not bothering me,’ she replied with a smile and pushed back her circlet. ‘I'm not looking for solitude here, only the fresh air. Does the smoke and stale air bother you as well?’
‘Somewhat, but what bothers me more is the knowledge that I hurt you. I have come to ask for your forgiveness, Essi, and for another chance to have a friendly conversation with you.’
‘I'm the one who should ask forgiveness,’ she said, resting her hands on the railing. ‘I reacted too rashly. It happens all the time: I can't control myself. Forgive me and allow me another chance to speak with you.’
He walked over and leaned next to her. He felt a warmth emanating from her person, and a faint smell of verbena. Geralt was fond of that scent, even if it was not the equal of lilac and gooseberry.
‘What does the sea make you think of, Geralt?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Of worry,’ he responded spontaneously.
‘Interesting. You seem so calm and composed to me.’
‘I didn't say that I felt worried. You asked me what I associate with the sea.’
‘Associations are a reflection of the soul. I should know: I'm a poet.’
‘And what is the sea for you?’ Geralt asked quickly, to avoid any rambling about any supposed uneasiness he felt.
‘A perpetual movement,’ she replied after reflection. ‘Change. And an enigma, a mystery, something that I cannot understand, that I could describe a thousand ways in a thousand poems without ever reaching the core or the essence. Yes, that's probably it.’
‘What you're feeling is also worry,’ he said, the scent of verbena growing stronger and stronger. ‘Yet you seem so calm and composed…’
She turned, causing her circlet to slip and placing her beautiful eyes on him.
‘I am neither calm nor composed.’
It happened suddenly, without warning. The gesture that he made, which should have been a brief touch to her shoulders, became an ardent grip on her waist. Geralt approached quickly, but without violence, until the unexpected contact with the girl's body made his blood boil. Essi froze suddenly, stiffened and arched her back, and seized the witcher's hands as if to pull or drag them from her waist.
‘Why… what's the point?’
The circlet fell, and from behind it appeared the wide open eyes of Little-Eye.
The witcher brought his face close to hers. They kissed on the lips. For the moment, Essi didn't release the hands that Geralt put on her waist; she continued to arch her back to avoid the contact of their bodies. They spun around each other in this position as if in a dance. Essi kissed Geralt with passion and expertise. At length.
Then the girl deftly and effortlessly broke free from the grip of the witcher. Leaning back against the railing, she put her head in her hands once more. Geralt suddenly felt terribly foolish. The feeling stopped him from approaching her and kissing her hunched shoulders.
‘Why?’ she asked coldly without turning. ‘Why did you do that?’
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. The witcher knew he had taken the wrong path and found himself standing on a thin layer of grass and moss ready to collapse under the force of any insincerity, lies, deceit, or bravado.
‘Why?’ she repeated.
Geralt did not answer.
‘Looking for a woman for the night?’
He did not answer. Essi turned and touched his shoulder.
‘Let's go back inside,’ she said without apparent emotion, but this untroubled tone did not deceive the witcher, who felt a strong tension. ‘Don't make that face: nothing happened. I'm not looking for a man for the night. Don't feel guilty, all right?’
‘Essi…’
‘Let's go, Geralt. The audience is calling for Dandelion's third encore. It's my turn, now. I'll sing…’
Essi pushed back her circlet with a puff of breath. She looked at him strangely.
‘I'll sing for you.’
IV
‘Aha!’ The witcher feigned astonishment. ‘You're already home? I thought that you wouldn't come back tonight.’
Dandelion secured the hasp of the door, hung up his lute and feather-plumed hat on a nail, then took off his jacket, dusted it, and left it on some bags lying in a corner of the small room. Aside from those bags, a mattress and an enormous bale of hay, the room contained no furniture: even the candle dripped a pool of wax on the floor. Drouhard admired Dandelion, but obviously not to the point of offering him a real bedroom or alcove.
‘Why did you think I wouldn't be back tonight?’ Dandelion asked, removing his shoes.
The witcher got up on his elbows, making the straw creak. ‘I thought that you would be delivering a serenade outside the window of Miss Veverka, the girl you've been feasting your eyes on all evening like a dog fixated on his bitch.’
‘Hey, hey!’ the bard replied, laughing. ‘You can be so stupid and primitive! Don't you understand? I never had any fondness for Veverka. I simply wanted to make Miss Akeretta jealous before I make my move tomorrow. Move over a little.’
Dandelion collapsed on the mattress and tugged the thick rug that covered Geralt toward himself. Feeling a strange anger rising within him, the witcher turned his head toward the window through which, despite the presence of numerous cobwebs, he could see the stars.
‘What's the matter with you?’ asked the poet. ‘Does it bother you that I chase after girls? Since when? Would you have me take an oath of purity like a druid? Or maybe…’
‘Quit posturing. I'm tired. Haven't you noticed that we have a mattress and roof over our heads for the first time in two weeks? The idea that you won't be roughly shaken awake tomorrow doesn't make you crazy with joy?’
‘For me,’ mused Dandelion, ‘a mattress without a young woman isn't a mattress at all. It is incomplete happiness… and what good is incomplete happiness?’
Geralt groaned softly. Enjoying the sound of his own voice, Dandelion continued his late-night chatter:
‘Incomplete happiness, it's… like an interrupted kiss… Why are you grinding your teeth, may I ask?’
‘You are terribly boring, Dandelion: you have no subjects of conversation except for beds, girls, asses, breasts, incomplete happiness and kisses interrupted by the dogs set upon you by the parents of giddy brides. Apparently, you can't stop yourself. Only the frivolity, or the debauchery, enables you to compose ballads, write poems and sing. It is, you see, the dark side of your talent.’
The witcher had spoken with emotion.
Dandelion had no trouble reading his sentiments:
‘Aha!’ the bard replied serenely. ‘This must be because of Essi Daven, our Little-Eye. She cast her pretty little eye over the witcher and started sowing disorder. He went off violently in front of the princess. And instead of blaming himself, he reproaches me for I don't know what hidden agenda.’
‘You talk a lot of shit, Dandelion.’
‘No, my friend. Essi made a big impression on you. Don't deny it. I don't see anything wrong with it, but be careful not to put a foot wrong. She is not as you imagine her. If her talent has many dark sides, they aren't the ones you think.’
‘I see,’ the witcher said. ‘You know her very well.’
‘Quite well. But not in the way you think, no.’
‘It's amazing to hear you admit it.’
‘You really are stupid.’ The bard stretched, placing his hands at his neck. ‘I've known Little-Eye almost since she was a child. For me… she's like a little sister. I repeat: don't make any stupid moves with her. You would do a lot of damage, because she's fallen for your charms, too. Admit that you want her.’
‘Even if I did, I don't usually talk about these things, unlike you,’ Geralt said impassively. ‘I don't compose songs on the subject. Thank you for what you told me about her. It actually saved me from making a stupid mi
stake. Now drop it. As far as I'm concerned the matter is closed.’
Dandelion lay in silence for a moment. Geralt nonetheless knew his companion well:
‘I know,’ the poet said finally. ‘I understand everything.’
‘You don't understand anything, Dandelion.’
‘Do you know what your problem is? You appear to be something that you're not. You flaunt your otherness, what you consider to be your abnormality. You impose this upon yourself, never understanding that for most ordinary people, you yourself are one of the most normal people who ever lived. What difference does it make that your reflexes are faster, that your pupils become vertical slits in the sun, that you can see in the dark like a cat and that you can cast whatever spells you know? What do I care? I once knew an innkeeper who could fart for ten minutes without interruption and in this way managed to interpret the melody of the psalm Welcome, welcome the morning star. Aside from what one might call his talent, he was a perfectly normal innkeeper with a wife, children, and a paralytic grandmother.’
‘Can you explain what this has do with Essi Daven?’
‘Of course. You wrongly assumed that Little-Eye was interested in you for dubious, even perverse reasons, that she looked at you with the fascination reserved for a unicorn, a two-headed calf or a salamander in a bestiary. You provoked her animosity at the first opportunity in the form of an unkind and unjustified reprimand; you returned a blow that she didn't deal. I saw it with my own eyes! I didn't witness the events that followed, but I noticed that you left the room and her cheeks were red when you returned. Yes, Geralt. I'll inform you of a mistake you made. You wanted to get revenge for the, in your opinion, prurient interest that she displayed. You then decided to take advantage of her fondness for you.’
‘I say again: you're talking crap.’
‘You tried,’ the bard continued without budging from the mattress, ‘to get her into bed by showing her what it's like to go to bed with a monster, a mutant, a witcher. Fortunately, Essi showed herself to be smarter than you are and tremendously sympathetic to your stupidity, whose causes she understands. I infer this from the fact that you did not return from the terrace with a black eye.’
‘Have you finished?’
‘I'm finished.’
‘Fine, good night.’
‘I know why you fidget and grind your teeth.’
‘Of course, you know everything.’
‘I know that you've been tortured to the point where you aren't capable of understanding a normal woman. But you're under Yennefer's thumb: the devil knows what you see in her.’
‘Drop it, Dandelion.’
‘Really, you wouldn't prefer a normal girl like Essi? But what can those sorceresses have that Essi doesn't? Age? Perhaps Little-Eye is early in her youth, but she is at least as old as she looks. Do you know what Yennefer told me one day after some drinks? Hah… She told me she did it with a man for the first time in the year that the plow was invented from two plowshares!’
‘You're lying. Yennefer likes you as much as a malevolent pestilence. She would never have admitted anything like that to you.’
‘You're right. I lied. I admit it.’
‘You don't have to: I know you well.’
‘It seems to you that you know me. Never forget that human nature can be complex.’
‘Dandelion,’ sighed the witcher, falling halfway asleep already, ‘you're nothing but a cynic, a disgusting womanizer and a liar. Nothing about that, believe me, is truly complex. Good night.’
‘Good night, Geralt.’
V
‘You get up early, Essi.’
The poet smiled, holding her windblown hair. She advanced slowly along the pier, avoiding the holes formed by the rotten boards.
‘I couldn't resist the urge to watch the witcher at work. Will you still consider me a filthy busybody? Well yes, I'll admit it: I am actually a little curious. How is your work going?’
‘What work?’
‘Oh, Geralt!’ she said. ‘You underestimate my curiosity and my aptitude for collecting and interpreting information. I already know all about the fishermen's accident; I know the details of your last contract with Agloval. I also know that you're looking for a helmsman willing to take you to the shore of the Dragon's Teeth. Have you found one?’
He studied her for a moment before he decided to speak:
‘No. I haven't found a one.’ ‘They are afraid?’
‘Yes.’
‘How then will you perform your reconnaissance without crossing the sea? If you can't navigate, how will you tickle the ribs of the monster responsible for the death of the fishermen?’
Geralt took the hand of the girl and led her away from the pier. They walked on the rocky beach, between the boats perched on the shore, along the rows of nets suspended from posts and through curtains of dried and gutted fish blown by the wind. Geralt found to his surprise that the girl's company was neither unpleasant nor burdensome. He also hoped that a peaceful and pleasant conversation would erase the memory of the kiss on the terrace. Essi's presence on the pier meant, moreover, that she didn't want him. He was happy.
‘Tickle the monster's ribs,’ he muttered, repeating the girl's words. ‘If I knew how… My knowledge in matters of marine teratology remains very limited.’
‘Interesting. According to what I know, there are a lot more monsters in the sea than on the land, in terms of both individuals and species. It seems to me then that it's good hunting grounds for a witcher.’
‘That's not so.’
‘Why?’
‘The spread of humans to the ocean,’ he replied, clearing his throat and turning his head, ‘is too recent. Witchers were especially necessary on land at the time of the first settlement. We are not adapted for combat with sea creatures, even though the most aggressive creatures abound underwater, it's true. The capabilities of witchers aren't enough against these sea monsters. These creatures are either too large or too well-protected behind their shells or finally too much at ease in their element. Or all three at once.’
‘What do you think about the monster that killed the fishermen? Do you have any suspicions?’
‘It could be a kraken.’
‘No, a kraken would have destroyed the boat that was recovered intact and covered in blood.’ Little-Eye grew pale and swallowed. ‘Don't think that's idle speculation. I was raised next to the sea… I saw more than one creature.’
‘A giant squid could throw people over the side…’
‘Then there would be no blood. Geralt, it's neither squid nor orca nor turtle-dragon, because our monster neither destroyed nor overturned the boat. Maybe you're making a mistake in looking for the culprit in the sea.’
The witcher considered this.
‘I begin to admire you, Essi,’ he said. The poet blushed. ‘You're right. This could be an attack from the sky: an ornithodragon, a griffon, a wyvern, a dermoptera or a diploures giant. Maybe even a…’
‘Excuse me,’ Essi interrupted. ‘Look who's coming.’
Agloval only skirted the shore. His clothes were drenched. His anger seemed to intensify when he saw them.
Essi bowed discreetly, while Geralt inclined his head and tapped his chest with his fist. Agloval spat.
‘I waited on the rocks for three hours, almost since the sun rose,’ he growled. ‘She hasn't shown. Three hours to wait like an idiot on wave-swept rocks.’
‘I see… I'm sorry,’ muttered the witcher.
‘Sorry?’ the duke exploded. ‘Sorry? But everything is your fault. You're the one who bungled the job. You're the one who ruined everything.’
‘What did I ruin? I only acted as the translator…’
‘To hell with all this!’ he interrupted nervously, putting himself in profile. It was a very royal profile, meriting inclusion on a well-beaten currency. ‘I would be better off if I hadn't resorted to your services. This may sound strange, but when we had no translator, we understood one another better, Sh'eenaz and me, if y
ou know what I mean. Now… you know what they say in town? It's whispered that the fishermen died because I lost my temper with the siren. That it was revenge.’
‘Absurd,’ the witcher commented icily.
‘How do I know it's absurd?’ the duke burst out. ‘What do I know, except for what you told me? Do I know what she is capable of? What monsters can hear her there, in the depths? Prove to me, please, that it's absurd. Bring me the head of the monster that slaughtered the fishermen. Get to work instead of flirting on the beach…’ ‘To work?’ Geralt exploded. ‘But how? Should I cross the sea riding on a barrel? Your Zelest threatened the sailors with the worst tortures and the gallows… There's nothing I can do: no-one wants to take me. Zelest himself is not exactly eager. How…’ ‘What's that to me: how?’ Agloval yelled, cutting him off. ‘It's your business! Weren't the witchers created so that normal people do not have to wonder how to get rid of monsters? I hired your services and I demand that you obey me. Otherwise, go to hell before I drive you with a stick to the very borders of my domain!’
‘Calm yourself, my lord Duke,’ said Little-Eye in a low voice despite her nervous pallor and the trembling of her hands. ‘And stop threatening Geralt, please. Dandelion and I are honored to count among our friends the king Ethain Cidaris, one of our fans, an enthusiastic amateur artist. The king Ethain is an enlightened sovereign who considers our ballads not only from the perspective of music and rhyme, but also as a chronicle of humanity. Would you, my lord duke, like to appear in this chronicle? I can help you.’