‘Wa… Wait…’
‘Yes?’
‘I'll come with you.’
‘It is an honor. Isn't that right, Braenn?’
‘But you can't take me back to Kistrin! Promise?’
‘Who is…’ he began. ‘Ah, by the devil! Kistrin. Prince Kistrin? The son of Ervyll of Verden?’
The little girl took out a small handkerchief and blew her nose, turning her face away.
‘No more games,’ Braenn said gloomily. ‘We must return to the path.’
‘One minute, one minute.’ The witcher stood and looked haughtily at the dryad. ‘Our plans have slightly changed, my sweet archer.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Madame Eithné will wait. I must accompany this little girl home. To Verden.’
‘You will go no other way. Her either.’
The witcher smiled horribly.
‘Be careful, Braenn,’ he warned. ‘I'm not the kid from yesterday whose eye you pierced with an arrow in ambush. I know how to defend myself.’
‘Bloede arss!’ she growled, raising her bow. ‘You go to Duén Canell. Her also. Not to Verden!’
‘No, no, not to Verden!’ The little girl with ash-gray hair rushed to the dryad and clung to her slender thigh. ‘I am staying with you! Let him go, if he wants, all alone to Verden and that idiot Kistrin!’
Braenn did not even give her a glance: she preferred to keep her eyes on Geralt. She nevertheless allowed her bow to lower.
‘Ess turd!’ she spat at his feet. ‘Very well, go where your eyes take you! I'm curious to see if you survive. You will die before you leave Brokilone.’
She's right, Geralt thought. I don't have a chance of getting out. Without her, I can neither leave Brokilone nor reach Duén Canell. Too bad, we'll see then. I may be able to convince Eithné…
‘Very well, Braenn,’ he concluded apologetically. He smiled: ‘Don't be angry, my sweet. Yes, it will be as you wish. We will all go to Duén Canell to pay a visit to Madame Eithné.’
The dryad muttered something between her teeth and removed the arrow from her bowstring.
‘Let's go,’ she said. She adjusted the scarf in her hair. ‘We have lost too much time.’
‘Oh!’ the little girl wailed after a step.
‘What is it?’
‘I have something… in my leg.’
‘Wait, Braenn! Come on, little girl, I'll carry you on my shoulders.’
From the heat of her body emanated a smell of wet feathers.
‘What is your name, Princess? I forgot.’
‘Ciri.’
‘Where is your kingdom, if I may be permitted to ask?’
‘I will not say,’ she replied. ‘I will not say, that's all.’
‘It wouldn't kill you. Stop squirming and don't sniffle in my ear. What explains your presence in Brokilone? You got lost? You took a wrong turn?’
‘Actually, I never get lost.’
‘Stop fidgeting. You ran away from Kistrin? Castle Nastrog? Before or after marriage?’
‘How do you know?’ she asked, sniffing with a preoccupied air.
‘I am incredibly intelligent. Why exactly flee into Brokilone? There were no directions less dangerous?’
‘It's my stupid horse.’
‘You're lying, Princess. At your size, you could only ride a cat. And even then, it would have to be very sweet-tempered.’
‘Marck was leading it. The squire of the knight Voymir. In the forest, the horse stumbled and broke a leg. Then we got lost.’
‘You say that this never happens to you.’
‘He got lost, not me. There was fog. We got lost.’
You're lost, thought Geralt. Poor little squire of knight Voymir: he had the misfortune to meet Braenn and her companions. The boy – who had probably never been with a woman – had made up his mind to help a little girl with green eyes after hearing tales of knights and the virgins they are required to marry. He had then helped her only to fall to the arrow of a motley dryad who herself has probably never been with a man, but already knew how to kill.
‘I asked you: you fled before or after the marriage?’
‘I ran away, that's all. What does it matter to you?’ she said, frowning. ‘Grandmother told me I had to go to the castle and get to know this Kistrin. Only to get to know him. Then, his father, the big king…’
‘Ervyll.’
‘For him, right away, he only had marriage in mind. But me, I don't want this Kistrin. Grandmother told me…’
‘He displeases you so much, the prince Kistrin?’
‘I don't want him,’ Ciri declared haughtily, sniffing loudly. ‘He's big, stupid, and ugly. He has bad breath. Before I left, I saw one of his portraits where he wasn't so big. I don't want a husband like him. I don't want to marry.’
‘Ciri,’ the witcher replied hesitantly. ‘Kistrin is still a child, just like you. In a few years, he could become a nice, very attractive young man.’
‘Then they can send me another portrait in a few years!’ she snorted. ‘And to him too. He told me that I was a lot prettier than the portrait he received. He told me that he loved Alvina, a lady of the court, and that he wants to become a knight. You see? He doesn't want me and I don't want him. What good is that marriage?’
‘Ciri,’ murmured the witcher, ‘he is a prince, and you are a princess. Princes and princesses are made to unite. Such is the custom, that's how it is.’
‘You talk like all the others. You think you can lie to me because I'm still small.’
‘I'm not lying to you.’
‘You're lying.’
Geralt fell silent. Ahead of them, Braenn, astonished by the silence, turned around before resuming the walk with a shrug.
‘Where are we going?’ Ciri asked sadly. ‘I want to know!’
Geralt kept quiet.
‘Answer when I ask you a question!’ she threatened, underscoring her order with a loud sniff. ‘Don't you know… who is on you?’
He did not react.
‘I'll bite your ear!’
The witcher had had enough. He took the girl down from his shoulders and set her on the ground.
‘Listen, kid,’ he said sternly, gripping the buckle of his belt. ‘I'll put you over my knee and give you a good thrashing. No-one will prevent me here: this is not the royal court and I am neither a courtier nor a servant. You will regret not staying at Nastrog. You'll understand very shortly that it is better to be a married princess than a brat lost in the forest. Married princesses have the right to be intolerable, it is a fact. Married princesses are never even spanked, except perhaps personally by the prince, her husband.’
Ciri frowned, sobbing and sniffing a few more times. Braenn, leaning against a tree, watched without blinking.
‘So?’ asked the witcher, wrapping his belt around his wrist. ‘Are we going to behave decently and kindly? Or will I have to tan your royal hide? Well?’
The little girl sniffed again and then shook her head quickly.
‘You will be sensible, Princess?’
‘Yes,’ she growled.
‘It's nearly the brown hour,’ said the dryad. ‘Let's continue on our journey, Gwynbleidd.’
The forest became more sparse. They crossed young sandy woods, fields of heather, misty prairies where herds of deer grazed. The temperature fell.
‘Venerable lord,’ said Ciri, breaking a very long silence.
‘My name is Geralt. What is it?’
‘I'm terribly hungry.’
‘We'll stop soon. It's almost nightfall.’
‘I can't stand it,’ she continued, sobbing. ‘I haven't eaten anything since…’
‘Don't cry.’ He reached into his wallet and took out a piece of fat bacon, a small slice of cheese and two apples. ‘Here.’
‘What is that yellow thing?’
‘Bacon fat.’
‘That, I don't want,’ she growled.
‘It goes down well,’ he said, swallowing the piece of animal fat. ‘Eat the
cheese. And an apple. Just one.’
‘Why just one?’
‘Don't fidget. Eat both.’
‘Geralt?’
‘Hum?’
‘Thank you.’
‘It's nothing. Eat heartily.’
‘No… not for this. For this too, but… You saved my life before, from the centipede… Brr… I almost died of fear…’
‘There are many things that can kill you that way,’ he confirmed seriously. There are many things that can kill you in even more horrible and tragic ways, he thought. ‘You can thank Braenn.’
‘Who is she?’
‘A dryad.’
‘An evil fairy of the forest?’
‘Yes.’
‘They're the ones that we… They steal children! She abducted us? Except you're not small. Why does she speak so strangely?’
‘She speaks as she speaks, it's not important. The important thing is how she shoots. Don't forget to thank her when we stop.’
‘I will not forget,’ she replied, sniffling.
‘Don't squirm, princess, future wife of the prince of Verden.’
‘I will never be the wife of some prince,’ she grumbled.
‘Well, well, you won't marry anyone. You will become a hamster and take refuge in a burrow.’
‘That's not true! You don't know anything at all!’
‘Don't scream in my ear. Don't forget about my belt.’
‘I will not be the wife of any prince. I will be…’
‘Yes? What?’
‘It's a secret.’
‘Ah! A secret. Great.’ He lifted his head. ‘What's going on, Braenn?’
The dryad had stopped.
She shrugged, looking at the sky.
‘I am breaking,’ she replied sadly. ‘All because of what you picked up. Here we make camp: it's vespers.’
III
‘Ciri?’
‘Hum?’
The little girl sniffled, rustling the branches on which she rested.
‘You're not cold?’
‘No,’ she sighed. ‘Today, it's good. Yesterday… Yesterday I was horribly frozen… Oh, by the gods!’
‘Strange,’ said Braenn, untying the laces of her long and supple boots. ‘While skinny, she has traveled a vast distance despite the sentinels, the swamps and the thickets. Strong, healthy, courageous. She will be useful to us, indeed… most useful.’
Geralt cast an eye quickly over the dryad and her eyes shining in the darkness. Braenn leaned her back against the tree and untied her scarf, freeing her hair with a brisk shake of her head.
‘She was found in Brokilone,’ she murmured, anticipating his comment. ‘She is ours, Gwynbleidd. We go to Duén Canell.’
‘Madame Eithné will decide,’ he replied bitterly.
But he knew that Braenn was right.
Pity, he thought, watching the little girl squirm on her cushion of greenery. A girl so resolute. Where have I seen her before? No matter. It's a real pity. The world is so large and so beautiful. Until the end of her life, her world will be limited to Brokilone. That end might even be soon: until the day she sinks into the ferns, with a cry and the hiss of an arrow, fighting an absurd war for mastery of the forest on the side of those who are to blame for her loss. For those who… yes, sooner or later.
‘Ciri?’
‘Yes?’
‘Where do your parents live?’
‘I have no parents,’ she said, sniffling. ‘They drowned in the sea when I was little.
Yes, he thought, that would explain no small number of things. A child of a dead prince. Who knows, maybe the third daughter in a family with four boys already. Graced with a noble title that is in fact less important than that of a chamberlain or squire. A little thing with ashen hair and green eyes who meanders through the court and therefore must be disposed of as soon as possible by finding a husband. As soon as possible, before she becomes a little woman, a threat of scandal, of a misalliance or of the incest that the promiscuity of a communal bedroom in the castle can only favor…
The flight of the little girl did not surprise the witcher. He had already met a number of young princesses, even of royal blood, taken in by traveling theater troupes and happy to have escaped from a king who, though decrepit, was always eager for descendants. He had encountered the sons of kings, preferring the uncertain life of a mercenary rather than marriage to a lame and syphilitic princess chosen by his father for an inheritance as questionable as it was miserable, but guaranteeing an alliance and the sustainability of the dynasty.
He lay down next to the girl and covered her with his cloak.
‘Go to sleep,’ he murmured. ‘Go to sleep, little orphan.’
‘Oh, yes?’ she muttered. ‘I am a princess, and not an orphan. I have a grandmother. She is queen, what do you think? When I tell her that you wanted to hit me with a belt, my grandmother will order your head chopped off, you'll see.’
‘But that's monstrous, Ciri! Have mercy.’
‘You'll see!’
‘You are such a nice little girl. Chopping off heads, this is terribly wrong. You won't say anything, will you?’
‘I'll tell her everything.’
‘Ciri…’
‘I'll tell everything, everything, everything. You're afraid, huh?’
‘Yes, very. You know, Ciri, that when you cut off someone's head, he can die?’
‘Are you mocking me?’
‘How could I dare?’
‘You will see for yourself, then! My grandmother does not joke. When she puts her foot down, the greatest warriors and knights kneel before her. I saw it myself. And if one of them disobeys, squeak, he's beheaded.’
‘That's awful, Ciri.’
‘How?’
‘It's surely your head that they'll take off.’
‘My head?’
‘Of course. It's your grandmother, the queen, who arranged your marriage with Kistrin and sent you to Verden, to the castle of Nastrog. You have disobeyed. When you come back… Squeak! No more head.’
The little girl remained silent. She had even stopped fidgeting. He heard the click of her tongue while she bit her lower lip. She sniffled:
‘It's not true! Grandmother wouldn't let anyone cut off my head, because… she's my grandmother, isn't she? At most, I would get…’
‘Oh, yes?’ Geralt laughed. ‘Your grandmother doesn't joke around, isn't that right? You have already had beatings?’
Ciri fixed him with an expression full of anger.
‘You know what?’ he said. ‘We'll tell your grandmother that I have already beaten you. No-one can be punished twice for the same offense. What do you think?’
‘That you're stupid.’ Ciri rose up on her elbows, rustling the branches. ‘When grandmother learns that you've beaten me, she'll cut off your head, as simple as that!’
‘Even though, as you say, there's so little in my head?’
The little girl didn't respond. She sniffed once more.
‘Geralt…’ ‘What is it, Ciri?’
‘Grandma knows that I'm obligated to come back. I don't have to be a princess or even the wife of that idiot Kistrin. I must come back, that's all.’
You are obligated, he thought. Unfortunately, this depends on neither you nor your grandmother. It will depend on the mood of old Eithné and on my ability to convince her.
‘Grandmother knows,’ continued Ciri. ‘Because I… Geralt, swear to me that you won't repeat this to anyone. It's a horrible secret. Terrible, I tell you. Swear.’
‘I swear.’
‘I'll tell you. My mama was a sorceress, you know. And my papa was cursed. That's what one of my nannies told me, and when grandmother learned, it was a terrible scene. Because I'm predestined, you know?’
‘For what?’
‘I don't know,’ she responded, preoccupied. ‘But I'm predestined. That's what my nanny told me. And grandmother said that she will not allow it, that she'd rather all the cas… the castles fall in ruin. You understand? And
my nanny said that nothing could counter predestination. Ah! And then my nanny started crying and grandmother started screaming. You see? I'm predestined. I'll never be married to that idiot Kistrin. Geralt?’
‘Sleep,’ Geralt said, his jaw dropping in a yawn. ‘Sleep, Ciri.’
‘Won't you tell me a story?’
‘What?’
‘Tell me a story,’ she grumbled. ‘Am I expected to go to sleep without hearing a story? It's impossible.’
‘I don't know, damn it, I don't know any stories. Sleep.’
‘Don't lie. You know. When you were small, no-one told you any stories? What are you laughing about?’
‘Nothing. I was just reminded of something.’
‘Ah! You see! Go on, tell it.’
‘What?’
‘A children's story.’
He smiled again and placed his hands beneath his neck, looking at the stars that twinkled between the branches just above their heads.