He made a gesture with his hand, touched the poet’s cheek with his ring and Dandilion felt sensation return to his jaw, tongue and palate.
‘Now,’ Rience continued quietly, ‘I am going to ask you a few questions and you are going to answer them quickly, fluently and comprehensively. And if you stammer or hesitate even for a moment, if you give me the slightest reason to doubt the truth of your words, then… Look down.’
Dandilion obeyed. He discovered to his horror that a short rope had been tied to the knots around his ankles, with a bucket full of lime attached to the other end.
‘If I have you pulled any higher,’ Rience smiled cruelly, ‘and this bucket lifts with you, then you will probably never regain the feeling in your hands. After that, I doubt you will be capable of playing anything on a lute. I really doubt it. So I think you’ll talk to me. Am I right?’
Dandilion didn’t agree because he couldn’t move his head or find his voice out of sheer fright. But Rience did not seem to require confirmation.
‘It is to be understood,’ he stated, ‘that I will know immediately if you are telling the truth, if you try to trick me I will realise straight away, and I won’t be fooled by any poetic ploys or vague erudition. This is a trifle for me – just as paralysing you on the stairs was a trifle. So I advise you to weigh each word with care, you piece of scum. So, let’s get on with it and stop wasting time. As you know, I’m interested in the heroine of one of your beautiful ballads, Queen Calanthe of Cintra’s granddaughter, Princess Cirilla, endearingly known as Ciri. According to eye-witnesses this little person died during the siege of the town, two years ago. Whereas in your ballad you so vividly and touchingly described her meeting a strange, almost legendary individual, the… witcher… Geralt, or Gerald. Leaving the poetic drivel about destiny and the decrees of fate aside, from the rest of the ballad it seems the child survived the Battle of Cintra in one piece. Is that true?’
‘I don’t know…’ moaned Dandilion. ‘By all the gods, I’m only a poet! I’ve heard this and that, and the rest…’
‘Well ?’
‘The rest I invented. Made it up! I don’t know anything!’ The bard howled on seeing Rience give a sign to the reeking man and feeling the rope tighten. ‘I’m not lying!’
‘True.’ Rience nodded. ‘You’re not lying outright, I would have sensed it. But you are beating about the bush. You wouldn’t have thought the ballad up just like that, not without reason. And you do know the witcher, after all. You have often been seen in his company. So talk, Dandilion, if you treasure your joints. Everything you know.’
‘This Ciri,’ panted the poet, ‘was destined for the witcher. She’s a so-called Child Surprise… You must have heard it, the story’s well known. Her parents swore to hand her over to the witcher—’
‘Her parents are supposed to have handed the child over to that crazed mutant? That murderous mercenary? You’re lying, rhymester. Keep such tales for women.’
‘That’s what happened, I swear on my mother’s soul,’ sobbed Dandilion. ‘I have it from a reliable source… The witcher—’
‘Talk about the girl. For the moment I’m not interested in the witcher.’
‘I don’t know anything about the girl! I only know that the witcher was going to fetch her from Cintra when the war broke out. I met him at the time. He heard about the massacre, about Calanthe’s death, from me… He asked me about the child, the queen’s granddaughter… But I knew everyone in Cintra was killed, not a single soul in the last bastion survived—’
‘Go on. Fewer metaphors, more hard facts!’
‘When the witcher learned of the massacre and fall of Cintra he forsook his journey. We both escaped north. We parted ways in Hengfors and I haven’t seen him since… But because he talked, on the way, a bit about this… Ciri, or whatever-her-name-is… and about destiny… Well, I made up this ballad. I don’t know any more, I swear!’
Rience scowled at him.
‘And where is this witcher now?’ he asked. ‘This hired monster murderer, this poetic butcher who likes to discuss destiny?’
‘I told you, the last time I saw him—’
‘I know what you said,’ Rience interrupted. ‘I listened carefully to what you said. And now you’re going to listen carefully to me. Answer my questions precisely. The question is: if no one has seen Geralt, or Gerald, the Witcher for over a year, where is he hiding? Where does he usually hide?’
‘I don’t know where it is,’ the troubadour said quickly. ‘I’m not lying. I really don’t know—’
‘Too quick, Dandilion, too quick.’ Rience smiled ominously. ‘Too eager. You are cunning but not careful enough. You don’t know where it is, you say. But I warrant you know what it is.’
Dandilion clenched his teeth with anger and despair.
‘Well?’ Rience made a sign to the reeking man. ‘Where is the witcher hiding? What is the place called?’
The poet remained silent. The rope tightened, twisting his hands painfully, and his feet left the ground. Dandilion let out a howl, brief and broken because Rience’s wizardly ring immediately gagged him.
‘Higher, higher.’ Rience rested his hands on his hips. ‘You know, Dandilion, I could use magic to sound out your mind, but it’s exhausting. Besides, I like seeing people’s eyes pop out of their sockets from pain. And you’re going to tell me anyway.’
Dandilion knew he would. The rope secured to his ankles grew taut, the bucket of lime scraped along the ground.
‘Sir,’ said the first ruffian suddenly, covering the lantern with his cloak and peering through the gap in the pigsty door, ‘someone’s coming. A lass, I think.’
‘You know what to do,’ Rience hissed. ‘Put the lantern out.’
The reeking man released the rope and Dandilion tumbled inertly to the ground, falling in such a way that he could see the man with the lantern standing at the door and the reeking man, a long knife in his hand, lying in wait on the other side. Light broke in from the bawdy-house through gaps in the planks, and the poet heard the singing and hubbub.
The door to the pigsty creaked open revealing a short figure wrapped in a cloak and wearing a round, tightly fitting cap. After a moment’s hesitation, the woman crossed the threshold. The reeking man threw himself at her, slashing forcefully with his knife, and tumbled to his knees as the knife met with no resistance, passing through the figure’s throat as though through a cloud of smoke. Because the figure really was a cloud of smoke – one which was already starting to disperse. But before it completely vanished another figure burst into the pigsty, indistinct, dark and nimble as a weasel. Dandilion saw it throw a cloak at the lantern man, jump over the reeking one, saw something glisten in its hand, and heard the reeking man wheeze and choke savagely. The lantern man disentangled himself from the cloak, jumped, took a swing with his knife. A fiery lightning bolt shot from the dark figure with a hiss, slapped over the tough’s face and chest with a crack and spread over him like flaming oil. The ruffian screamed piercingly and the grim reek of burning meat filled the pigsty.
Then Rience attacked. The spell he cast illuminated the darkness with a bluish flash in which Dandilion saw a slender woman wearing man’s clothes gesticulating strangely with both hands. He only glimpsed her for a second before the blue glow disappeared with a bang and a blinding flash. Rience fell back with a roar of fury and collapsed onto the wooden pigsty walls, breaking them with a crash. The woman dressed in man’s clothing leapt after him, a stiletto flashing in her hand. The pigsty filled with brightness again – this time golden – beaming from a bright oval which suddenly appeared in the air. Dandilion saw Rience spring up from the dusty floor, leap into the oval and immediately disappear. The oval dimmed but, before it went out entirely, the woman ran up to it shouting incomprehensively, stretching out her hand. Something crackled and rustled and the dying oval boiled with roaring flames for a moment. A muffled sound, as if coming from a great distance, reached Dandilion’s ears – a sound very much like
a scream of pain. The oval went out completely and darkness engulfed the pigsty again. The poet felt the power which gagged him disappear.
‘Help!’ he howled. ‘Help!’
‘Stop yelling, Dandilion,’ said the woman, kneeling next to him and slicing through the knots with Rience’s stiletto.
‘Yennefer? Is that you?’
‘Surely you’re not going to say you don’t remember how I look. And I’m sure my voice is not unfamiliar to your musical ear. Can you get up? They didn’t break any bones, did they?’
Dandilion stood with difficulty, groaned and stretched his aching shoulders.
‘What’s with them?’ He indicated the bodies lying on the ground.
‘We’ll check.’ The enchantress snicked the stiletto shut. ‘One of them should still be alive. I’ve a few questions for him.’
‘This one,’ the troubadour stood over the reeking man, ‘probably still lives.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Yennefer indifferently. ‘I severed his windpipe and carotid artery. There might still be a little murmur in him but not for long.’
Dandilion shuddered.
‘You slashed his throat?’
‘If, out of inborn caution, I hadn’t sent an illusion in first, I would be the one lying there now. Let’s look at the other one… Bloody hell. Such a sturdy fellow and he still couldn’t take it. Pity, pity—’
‘He’s dead, too?’
‘He couldn’t take the shock. Hmm… I fried him a little too hard… See, even his teeth are charred—What’s the matter with you, Dandilion? Are you going to be sick?’
‘I am,’ the poet replied indistinctly, bending over and leaning his forehead against the pigsty wall.
‘That’s everything?’ The enchantress put her tumbler down and reached for the skewer of roast chickens. ‘You haven’t lied about anything? Haven’t forgotten anything?’
‘Nothing. Apart from “thank you”. Thank you, Yennefer.’
She looked him in the eyes and nodded her head lightly, making her glistening, black curls writhe and cascade down to her shoulders. She slipped the roast chicken onto a trencher and began dividing it skilfully. She used a knife and fork. Dandilion had only known one person, up until then, who could eat a chicken with a knife and fork as skilfully. Now he knew how, and from whom, Geralt had learnt the knack. Well, he thought, no wonder. After all, he did live with her for a year in Vengerberg and before he left her, she had instilled a number of strange things into him. He pulled the other chicken from the skewer and, without a second thought, ripped off a thigh and began eating it, pointedly holding it with both hands.
‘How did you know?’ he asked. ‘How did you arrive with help on time?’
‘I was beneath Bleobheris during your performance.’
‘I didn’t see you.’
‘I didn’t want to be seen. Then I followed you into town. I waited here, in the tavern – it wasn’t fitting, after all, for me to follow you in to that haven of dubious delight and certain gonorrhoea. But I eventually became impatient and was wandering around the yard when I thought I heard voices coming from the pigsty. I sharpened my hearing and it turned out it wasn’t, as I’d first thought, some sodomite but you. Hey, innkeeper! More wine, if you please!’
‘At your command, honoured lady! Quick as a flash!’
‘The same as before, please, but this time without the water. I can only tolerate water in a bath, in wine I find it quite loathsome.’
‘At your service, at your service!’
Yennefer pushed her plate aside. There was still enough meat on the chicken, Dandilion noticed, to feed the innkeeper and his family for breakfast. A knife and fork were certainly elegant and refined, but they weren’t very effective.
‘Thank you,’ he repeated, ‘for rescuing me. That cursed Rience wouldn’t have spared my life. He’d have squeezed everything from me and then butchered me like a sheep.’
‘Yes, I think he would.’ She poured herself and the bard some wine then raised her tumbler. ‘So let’s drink to your rescue and health, Dandilion.’
‘And to yours, Yennefer,’ he toasted her in return. ‘To health for which – as of today – I shall pray whenever the occasion arises. I’m indebted to you, beautiful lady, and I shall repay the debt in my songs. I shall explode the myth which claims wizards are insensitive to the pain of others, that they are rarely eager to help poor, unfortunate, unfamiliar mortals.’
‘What to do.’ She smiled, half-shutting her beautiful violet eyes. ‘The myth has some justification; it did not spring from nowhere. But you’re not a stranger, Dandilion. I know you and like you.’
‘Really?’ The poet smiled too. ‘You have been good at concealing it up until now. I’ve even heard the rumour that you can’t stand me, I quote, any more than the plague.’
‘It was the case once.’ The enchantress suddenly grew serious. ‘Later my opinion changed. Later, I was grateful to you.’
‘What for, if I may ask?’
‘Never mind,’ she said, toying with the empty tumbler. ‘Let us get back to more important questions. Those you were asked in the pigsty while your arms were being twisted out of their sockets. What really happened, Dandilion? Have you really not seen Geralt since you fled the banks of the Yaruga? Did you really not know he returned south after the war? That he was seriously wounded – so seriously there were even rumours of his death? Didn’t you know anything?’
‘No. I didn’t. I stayed in Pont Vanis for a long time, in Esterad Thyssen’s court. And then at Niedamir’s in Hengfors—’
‘You didn’t know.’ The enchantress nodded and unfastened her tunic. A black velvet ribbon wound around her neck, an obsidian star set with diamonds hanging from it. ‘You didn’t know that when his wounds healed Geralt went to Transriver ? You can’t guess who he was looking for?’
‘That I can. But I don’t know if he found her.’
‘You don’t know,’ she repeated. ‘You, who usually know everything, and then sing about everything. Even such intimate matters as someone else’s feelings. I listened to your ballads beneath Bleobheris, Dandilion. You dedicated a good few verses to me.’
‘Poetry,’ he muttered, staring at the chicken, ‘has its rights. No one should be offended—’
‘ “Hair like a raven’s wing, as a storm in the night…” ’ quoted Yennefer with exaggerated emphasis, ‘ “… and in the violet eyes sleep lightning bolts…” Isn’t that how it went?’
‘That’s how I remembered you.’ The poet smiled faintly. ‘May the first who wishes to claim the description is untrue throw the first stone.’
‘Only I don’t know,’ the Enchantress pinched her lips together, ‘who gave you permission to describe my internal organs. How did it go? “Her heart, as though a jewel, adorned her neck. Hard as if of diamond made, and as a diamond so unfeeling, sharper than obsidian, cutting—” Did you make that up yourself? Or perhaps…?’
Her lips quivered, twisted.
‘… or perhaps you listened to someone’s confidences and grievances?’
‘Hmm…’ Dandilion cleared his throat and veered away from the dangerous subject. ‘Tell me, Yennefer, when did you last see Geralt?’
‘A long time ago.’
‘After the war?’
‘After the war…’ Yennefer’s voice changed a little. ‘No, I never saw him after the war. For a long time… I didn’t see anybody. Well, back to the point, Poet. I am a little surprised to discover that you do not know anything, you have not heard anything and that, in spite of this, someone searching for information picked you out to stretch over a beam. Doesn’t that worry you?’
‘It does.’
‘Listen to me,’ she said sharply, banging her tumbler against the table. ‘Listen carefully. Strike that ballad from your repertoire. Do not sing it again.’
‘Are you talking about—’
‘You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Sing about the war against Nilfgaard. Sing about Geralt and me, you?
??ll neither harm nor help anyone in the process, you’ll make nothing any better or worse. But do not sing about the Lion Cub of Cintra.’
She glanced around to check if any of the few customers at this hour were eavesdropping, and waited until the lass clearing up had returned to the kitchen.
‘And do try to avoid one-to-one meetings with people you don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘People who “forget” to introduce themselves by conveying greetings from a mutual acquaintance. Understand ?’
He looked at her surprised. Yennefer smiled.
‘Greetings from Dijkstra, Dandilion.’
Now the bard glanced around timidly. His astonishment must have been evident and his expression amusing because the sorceress allowed herself a quite derisive grimace.
‘While we are on the subject,’ she whispered, leaning across the table, ‘Dijkstra is asking for a report. You’re on your way back from Verden and he’s interested in hearing what’s being said at King Ervyll’s court. He asked me to convey that this time your report should be to the point, detailed and under no circumstances in verse. Prose, Dandilion. Prose.’
The poet swallowed and nodded. He remained silent, pondering the question.
But the enchantress anticipated him. ‘Difficult times are approaching, ’ she said quietly. ‘Difficult and dangerous. A time of change is coming. It would be a shame to grow old with the uncomfortable conviction that one had done nothing to ensure that these changes are for the better. Don’t you agree?’
He agreed with a nod and cleared his throat. ‘Yennefer?’
‘I’m listening, Poet.’
‘Those men in the pigsty… I would like to know who they were, what they wanted, who sent them. You killed them both, but rumour has it that you can draw information even from the dead.’
‘And doesn’t rumour also have it that necromancy is forbidden, by edict of the Chapter? Let it go, Dandilion. Those thugs probably didn’t know much anyway. The one who escaped… Hmm… He’s another matter.’
‘Rience. He was a wizard, wasn’t he?’