‘What do you know?’ he finally asked. ‘And from whom?’
‘You had your Codringher,’ she snorted, lifting her head proudly. ‘And I have my own contacts. The kind with sharp eyes and ears.’
‘Tell me. Please, Milva.’
‘After the fighting on Thanedd,’ she began, after waiting a moment, ‘unrest erupted everywhere. The hunt for traitors began, particularly for any sorcerers who supported Nilfgaard and for the other turncoats. Some were captured, others vanished without trace. You don’t need much intelligence to guess where they fled to and under whose wings they’re hiding. But it wasn’t just sorcerers and traitors who were hunted. Squirrel commandoes led by the famous Faoiltiarna also helped the mutinous sorcerers in the rebellion on Thanedd. So now he’s wanted. An order has been issued that every elf captured should be tortured and interrogated about Faoiltiarna’s commando.’
‘Who’s Faoiltiarna?’
‘An elf, one of the Scoia’tael. Few have got under the humans’ skin the way he has. There’s a hefty bounty on his head. But they’re seeking other too. A Nilfgaardian knight who was on Thanedd. And also for a…’
‘Go on.’
‘The an’givare are asking about a witcher who goes by the name Geralt of Rivia. And about a girl named Cirilla. Those two are to be captured alive. It was ordered on pain of death: if either of you are caught, not a hair on your heads is to be harmed, not a button may be torn from her dress. Oh! You must be dear to their hearts for them to care so much about your health…’
She broke off, seeing the expression on his face, from which his unnatural composure had abruptly disappeared. She realised that however hard she tried, she was unable to make him afraid. At, least not for his own skin. She unexpectedly felt ashamed.
‘Well, that pursuit of theirs is futile,’ she said gently, with just a faintly mocking smile on her lips. ‘You are safe in Brokilon. And they won’t catch the girl alive either. When they searched through the rubble on Thanedd, all the debris from that magical tower which collapsed—Hey, what’s wrong with you?’
The Witcher staggered, leant against a cedar, and sat down heavily near the trunk. Milva leapt back, horrified by the pallor which his already whitened face had suddenly taken on.
‘Aglaïs! Sirssa! Fauve! Come quickly! The plague on it, I think he’s about to keel over! Hey, you!’
‘Don’t call them… There’s nothing wrong with me. Speak. I want to know…’
Milva suddenly understood.
‘They found nothing in the debris!’ she cried, feeling herself go pale too. ‘Nothing! Although they examined every stone and used spells, they didn’t find…’
She wiped the sweat from her forehead and held back the dryads running towards them with a gesture. She seized the Witcher by his shoulders and leant over him so that her long hair tumbled over his pale face.
‘You misunderstood me,’ she quickly repeated, incoherently; it was difficult to find the right words among the mass which were trying to tumble out. ‘I only meant—You understood me wrongly. Because I… How was I to know she is so… No… I didn’t mean to. I only wanted to say that the girl… That they won’t find her, because she disappeared without a trace, like those mages. Forgive me.’
He didn’t answer. He looked down to the side. Milva bit her lip and clenched her fists.
‘I’m leaving Brokilon again in three days,’ she said gently after a long, very long, silence. ‘The moon must wane a little and the nights become a little darker. I shall return after ten days, perhaps sooner. Shortly after Lammas, in the first days of August. Worry not. I shall move earth and water, but I shall find out everything. If anyone has asked about that maiden, you’ll know about it.’
‘Thank you, Milva.’
‘I’ll see you in ten days… Gwynbleidd.’
‘Call me Geralt,’ he said, holding out a hand. She took it without thinking. And squeezed it very hard.
‘I’m Maria Barring.’
A nod of the head and the flicker of a smile thanked her for her sincerity. She knew he valued it.
‘Be careful, please. When you ask questions, be careful who you ask.’
‘Don’t worry about me.’
‘Your informers… Do you trust them?’
‘I don’t trust anyone.’
* * *
‘The Witcher is in Brokilon. Among the dryads.’
‘As I thought,’ Dijkstra said, folding his arms on his chest. ‘But I’m glad it’s been confirmed.’
He remained silent for a moment. Lennep licked his lips. And waited.
‘I’m glad it’s been confirmed,’ repeated the chief of the secret service of the Kingdom of Redania, pensively, as though he were talking to himself. ‘It’s always better to be certain. Oh well, were it turn out that Yennefer were with him… There isn’t a witch with him, is there, Lennep?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ the intelligence agent shuddered. ‘No, Your Lordship. There isn’t. What are your orders? If you want him alive, I’ll lure him out of Brokilon. But if you’d prefer him dead…’
‘Lennep,’ said Dijkstra, raising his cold, pale-blue eyes towards the agent. ‘Don’t be overzealous. In our trade, officiousness never pays and should always be viewed with suspicion.’
‘Sire,’ said Lennep, blanching somewhat. ‘I only—’
‘I know. You only asked about my orders. Well, here they are: leave the Witcher in peace.’
‘Yes, sire. And what about Milva?’
‘Leave her in peace, too. For now.’
‘Yes, sire. May I go?’
‘You may.’
The agent left, cautiously and silently closing the oak door behind him. Dijkstra remained silent for a long time, staring at the towering pile of maps, letters, denunciations, interrogation reports and death sentences in front of him.
‘Ori.’
The secretary raised his hand and cleared his throat. He said nothing.
‘The Witcher is in Brokilon.’
Ori Reuven cleared his throat again, involuntarily glancing under the table, towards his boss’s legs. Dijkstra noticed the look.
‘That’s right. I won’t let him forget that,’ he barked. ‘I couldn’t walk for two weeks Because of him. I lost face with Philippa, forced to whimper like a dog and beg her for a bloody spell, otherwise I’d still be hobbling. I can’t blame anyone but myself; I underestimated him. But the worst thing is that I can’t get my own back and tan his witcher’s hide! I don’t have the time, and anyway, I can’t use my own men to settle private scores! That’s right isn’t it, Ori?’
‘Hem, hem…’
‘Don’t grunt at me. I know. But, hell, how this power tempts! How it beguiles, invites to be made use of! How easy it is to forget, when one has it! But if you forget once, there’s no end to it… Is Philippa Eilhart still in Montecalvo?’
‘Yes.’
‘Take a quill and ink. I’ll dictate a letter to her. I shall begin… Bloody hell, I can’t concentrate. What’s that bloody racket, Ori? What’s happening in the square?’
‘Some young bucks are throwing stones at the Nilfgaardian envoy’s residence. We paid them to do so, hem, hem, if I remember rightly.’
‘Aha. Very well. Close the window. And have the lads throw stones at the dwarf Giancardi’s bank, too. He refused to reveal the details of some accounts.’
‘Giancardi, hem, hem, donated a considerable sum of money to the military fund.’
‘Ha. Then have them throw stones at one of the branches that didn’t donate.’
‘They all did.’
‘Oh, you’re boring me, Ori. Write, I said. Darling Phil, the sun of my… Blast, I keep forgetting. Take a new sheet of paper. Ready?’
‘Of course, hem, hem.’
‘Dear Philippa. Madam Triss Merigold is sure to be worried about the witcher she teleported from Thanedd to Brokilon, which action she has made a deep secret, one she even kept from me, which hurt me terribly. Please reassure her: the Witcher is
doing well now. He has even begun to send female emissaries from Brokilon to search for traces of Princess Cirilla, the young lady you’re so interested in. Our close friend Geralt clearly doesn’t know Cirilla is in Nilfgaard, where she’s preparing for her wedding to Emperor Emhyr. It’s important to me that the Witcher remains quietly in Brokilon, which is why I’ll do my best to ensure the news reaches him. Have you got that?’
‘Hem, hem… the news reaches him.’
‘New paragraph! It puzzles me… Ori, wipe the bloody quill! We’re writing to Philippa, not to the royal council. The letter must look neat! New paragraph. It puzzles me why the Witcher hasn’t tried to make contact with Yennefer. I refuse to believe that his passion, which was verging on obsession, has petered out so suddenly, irrespective of learning his darling’s political leanings. On the other hand, if Yennefer is the one who handed Cirilla over to Emhyr, and if there’s proof of it, I would gladly make sure the Witcher was furnished with it. The problem would solve itself, I’m certain, and the faithless, black-haired beauty would be on very shaky ground. The Witcher doesn’t like it when anyone touches his little girl, as Artaud Terranova discovered on Thanedd in no uncertain terms. I would like to think, Phil, that you don’t have any evidence of Yennefer’s betrayal and you don’t know where she is hiding. It would hurt me greatly to discover this is the latest secret being concealed from me. I have no secrets from you… What are you sniggering about, Ori?’
‘Oh, nothing, hem, hem.’
‘Write! I have no secrets from you, Phil, and I count on reciprocity. With my deepest respect, et cetera, et cetera. Give it here, I’ll sign it.’
Ori Reuven sprinkled the letter with sand. Dijkstra made himself more comfortable, interlacing his fingers over his stomach and twiddling his thumbs.
‘That Milva, the Witcher’s spy,’ he asked. ‘What can you tell me about her?’
‘She is engaged at present, hem, hem,’ his secretary coughed, ‘in escorting the remnants of Scoia’tael units defeated by the Temerian Army to Brokilon. She rescues elves from manhunts and traps, and allows them to rest and regroup into combat commandoes…’
‘Refrain from supplying me with common knowledge,’ interrupted Dijkstra. ‘I’m familiar with Milva’s activities, and will eventually make use of them. If not, I would have thrown her to the Temerians long since. What can you tell me about Milva herself? As a person?’
‘She comes, if I’m not mistaken, from some godforsaken village in Upper Sodden. Her true name is Maria Barring. Milva is a nickname the dryads gave her. In the Elder Speech it means—’
‘Red Kite,’ interrupted Dijkstra. ‘I know.’
‘Her family have been hunters for generations. They are forest dwellers, and feel most comfortable in the greenwood. When old Barring’s son was trampled to death by an elk, the old man taught his daughter the forest crafts. When he passed away, her mother married again. Hem, hem… Maria didn’t get on with her stepfather and ran away from home. She was sixteen at the time, if I’m not mistaken. She headed north, living from hunting, but the barons’ gamekeepers didn’t make her life easy, hunting and harrying her as though she were fair game. So she began to poach in Brokilon and it was there, hem, hem, that the dryads got hold of her.’
‘And instead of finishing her off, they took her in,’ Dijkstra muttered. ‘Adopted her, if you will… And she repaid their kindness.’
‘She struck a pact with the Hag of Brokilon, old silver-eyed Eithné. Maria Barring is dead; long live Milva… How many expeditions had come unstuck by the time the forces in Verden and Kerack cottoned on? Three?’
‘Hem, hem… Four, if I’m not mistaken…’ Ori Reuven always hoping he wasn’t mistaken, although actually his memory was infallible. ‘All together, it was about five score humans, those who’d gone after dryad scalps most savagely. And it took them a long time to catch on, because Milva occasionally carried someone out of the slaughter on her own back, and whoever she’d rescued would praise her courage to the skies. It was only after the fourth time, in Verden, if I’m not mistaken, that someone caught on. “Why is it?” the shout suddenly went up, hem, hem, “that the guide who bands humans together to fight the dryads always gets out in one piece?” And the cat was out of the bag. The guide was leading them. But into a trap, right into the range of the dryads waiting in ambush…’
Dijkstra slid the interrogation report to the edge of his desk, because the parchment still seemed to reek of the torture chamber.
‘And then,’ he concluded, ‘Milva vanished into Brokilon like the morning mist. And it’s still difficult to find volunteers for expeditions against the dryads in Verden. Old Eithné and young Red Kite were carrying out pretty effective executions. And they dare say that we, humans, invented all the dirty tricks. But perhaps…’
‘Hem, hem?’ coughed Ori Reuven, surprised by his boss’s sudden – and then continuing – silence.
‘Perhaps they’ve finally begun to learn from us,’ said the spy coldly, looking down at the denunciations, interrogation reports and death sentences.
* * *
Milva grew anxious when she couldn’t see blood anywhere near where the buck had disappeared. She suddenly recalled that he had jumped just as she had fired her arrow. Had jumped or was about to; it amounted to the same thing. He had moved and the arrow might have hit him in the belly. Milva cursed. A shot to the belly was a curse and disgrace for any hunter! The very thought of it!
She quickly ran over to the slope of the ravine, looking carefully amongst the brambles, moss and ferns. She was hunting for her arrow. It was equipped with four blades, each so sharp they could shave the hairs on your forearm, and had been fired from a distance of fifty paces. The arrow must have passed right through the animal.
She searched, she found it and sighed in relief, then spat three times, happy with her luck. She needn’t have worried; in fact it was better than she had imagined. The arrow was not covered in sticky, foul-smelling stomach contents. Neither did it bear traces of bright, pink, frothy blood from the lungs. What covered the shaft was dark red and viscous. The arrow had gone through the heart. Milva didn’t have to creep or stalk; she had been spared a long walk following the deer’s tracks. The buck had to be lying in the undergrowth, no more than a hundred paces from the clearing, in a spot that would be clearly indicated by the blood. And after being shot through the heart, it would have started bleeding after a few paces, so she knew she would easily find the trail.
She picked it up after ten paces and followed it, once again losing herself in her reverie.
* * *
She kept the promise she had given the Witcher. She even returned to Brokilon earlier than she had promised, five days after the Harvest Festival – five days after the new moon – which marked the beginning of the month of August for people, and for elves, Lammas, the seventh and penultimate savaed of the year.
She crossed the Ribbon at daybreak with five elves. The commando she was leading had initially numbered nine riders, but the soldiers from Brugge were following them the whole time. Three furlongs before the river they were hot on their trail, pressing hard, and only abandoned their efforts when they reached the Ribbon, with Brokilon looming up in the dawn mists on the far bank. The soldiers were afraid of Brokilon and that alone saved the commando. They made it across. Exhausted and wounded. But not all of them.
She had news for the Witcher, but was thought that Gwynbleidd was still in Col Serrai. She had intended to see him around noon, after a good long sleep so she was astonished when he suddenly emerged from the fog like a ghost. He sat down beside her without a word, watching as she made herself a makeshift bed by spreading a blanket over a heap of branches.
‘You’re in a hurry, Witcher,’ she scoffed. ‘I’m ready to drop. I’ve been in the saddle all day and all night, my backside’s numb, and my trousers are soaked up to my belt, for we crept through the riverside osiers at dawn our way like a pack of wolves…’
‘Please. Did you learn any
thing?’
‘Yes I did,’ she snorted, unlacing and pulling off her drenched, clinging boots. ‘Without much difficulty, because everybody’s talking about it. You never told me your young lady was such a personage! I’d thought she was your stepdaughter, some sort of waif and stray, an orphan maltreated by fate. And what does she turn out to be? A Cintrian princess! Well! And perhaps you’re a prince in disguise?’
‘Go on, please.’
‘The kings won’t get their hands on her now, for your Cirilla, it turns out, fled straight from Thanedd to Nilfgaard; probably with those treacherous mages. And Imperator Emhyr received her there with all ceremony. And do you know what? He’s said to be thinking of marrying her. Now let me rest. We can talk after I’ve slept, if you wish.’
The Witcher said nothing. Milva hung her wet footwraps on a forked branch, positioned so that the rising sun’s rays would fall on them, and tugged at her belt buckle.
‘I want to get undressed,’ she growled. ‘Why are you still hanging about? You can’t have expected happier news, can you? You’re in no danger; no one’s asking after you, the spies have stopped being interested in you. And your wench has escaped from the clutches of the kings and will be the Imperatoress…’
‘Is that information reliable?’
‘Nothing is certain now,’ she yawned, sitting down on her bed, ‘apart from the fact that the sun journeys across the heavens from the East to the West. But what people are saying about the Nilfgaardian Imperator and the Princess of Cintra seems to be true. It’s all anyone is talking about.’
‘Why this sudden interest?’
‘You really don’t know? She’s said to be bringing Emhyr a goodly acreage of land in her dowry! And not just Cintra, but land on this side of the Yaruga too! Ha, and she’ll be my lady too, for I’m from Upper Sodden, and the whole of Sodden, it turns out, is her fiefdom! So if I bring down a buck in her forests and they lay hands on me, I can be hung on her orders… Oh, what a rotten world! And a pox on it, I can’t keep my eyes open…’