‘Just one more question. Did they capture any sorceresses—I mean did they capture anyone from that pack of treacherous sorcerers?’
‘No. But one enchantress, they say, took her own life. Soon after Vengerberg fell and the Kaedweni Army entered Aedirn. For certain out of distress, or fear of torture—’
‘There were riderless horses in the commando you brought here. Would the elves give me one?’
‘Oh, in a hurry, I see,’ she muttered, wrapping herself in the blanket. ‘I think I know where you’re planning to…’
She fell silent, astonished by the expression on his face before she realised that the news she had brought was not at all happy. She suddenly saw that she understood nothing, nothing at all. Suddenly, unexpectedly, without warning, she felt the urge to sit down by his side, bombard him with questions, listen to him, learn more, perhaps advise him… She urgently ground her knuckles into the corners of her eyes. I’m exhausted, she thought, death was breathing down my neck all night. I have to rest. And anyway, why should I be bothered with his sorrows and cares? What does he matter to me? And that wench? To hell with him and with her! By the pox, all this has driven the sleep from me…
The Witcher stood up.
‘Will the elves give me a horse?’ he repeated.
‘Take whichever you please,’ she said a moment later. ‘But don’t let yourself be seen. They gave us a good hiding by the ford, blood was spilt… and don’t touch the black; he’s mine… What are you waiting for?’
‘Thank you for your help. For everything.’
She didn’t answer.
‘I’m indebted to you. How shall I pay you back?’
‘How? By getting out of my sight!’ she cried, raising herself on an elbow and tugging sharply at the blanket. ‘I… I have to sleep! Take a horse… and go… To Nilfgaard, to hell, to all the devils. Makes no difference to me! Go away and leave me in peace!’
‘I’ll pay back what I owe,’ he said quietly. ‘I won’t forget. It may happen that one day you’ll be in need of help. Or support. A helping hand. Then call out, call out in the night. And I’ll come.’
* * *
The buck lay on the edge of the slope, which was spongy from gushing springs and densely overgrown with ferns, its neck contorted, with a glassy eye staring up at the sky. Milva saw several large ticks bored into its light brown belly.
‘You’ll have to find yourselves some other blood, vermin,’ she muttered, rolling up her sleeves and drawing a knife. ‘Because this is going cold.’
With a swift and practiced movement, she slit the skin from sternum to anus, adroitly running the blade around the genitalia. She cautiously separated the layer of fat, up to her elbows in blood. She severed the gullet and pulled the entrails out. She distended the stomach and gall bladder, hunting for bezoars. She didn’t believe in their magical qualities, but there was no shortage of fools who did and would pay well for them.
She lifted the buck and laid it on a nearby log, its slit belly pointing downwards, letting the blood drain out. She wiped her hands on a bunch of ferns.
She sat down by her quarry.
‘Possessed, insane Witcher,’ she said softly, staring at the crowns of the Brokilon pines looming a hundred feet above her. ‘You’re heading for Nilfgaard to get your wench. You’re heading to the end of the world, which is all in flames, and you haven’t even thought about supplying yourself with victuals. I know you have someone to live for. But do you have anything to live on?’
Naturally enough, the pines didn’t comment or interrupt her monologue.
‘I don’t think,’ Milva said, using her knife to scrape the blood out from beneath her fingernails, ‘you have the slightest chance of getting your young lady back. You won’t make it to the Yaruga, still less Nilfgaard. I don’t think you’ll even make it to Sodden. I think you’re fated to die. It’s written on your determined face, it’s staring through your hideous eyes. Death will catch up with you, O mad Witcher, it’ll catch up with you soon. But thanks to this little buck at least it won’t be death by starvation. It may not be much, but it’s something. That’s what I think.’
* * *
Dijkstra sighed to himself at the sight of the Nilfgaardian ambassador entering the audience chamber. Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen, Imperator Emhyr var Emreis’ envoy, was accustomed to conducting conversations in diplomatic language, and adored larding his sentences with pompous linguistic oddities, comprehensible only to diplomats and scholars. Dijkstra had studied at the Academy of Oxenfurt, and although he had not been awarded the title of Master of Letters, he knew the basics of bombastic academic jargon. However, he was reluctant to use it, since he hated pomposity and all forms of pretentious ceremony with a vengeance.
‘Greetings, Your Excellency.’
‘Count,’ Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen said, bowing ceremoniously. ‘Ah, please forgive me. Perhaps I ought to say: Your Grace the Duke? Your Highness the Regent? Your Honourable Secretary of State?’ Indeed, Your Honour, offices are falling on you like hailstones, such that I don’t know how to address you so as not to breach protocol.’
‘ “Your Royal Highness” would be best,’ Dijkstra replied modestly. ‘You are aware after all, Your Excellency, that the king is judged by his court. And you are probably aware that when I shout: “Jump!” the court in Tretogor asks: “How high?”.’
The ambassador knew that Dijkstra was exaggerating, but not inordinately. Prince Radovid was still a minor, Queen Hedwig distraught by her husband’s tragic death, and the aristocracy intimidated, stupefied, at variance and divided into factions. Dijkstra was the de facto governor of Redania and could have taken any rank he liked with no difficulty. But Dijkstra had no desire to.
‘Your Highness deigned to summon me,’ the ambassador said a moment later. ‘Passing over the Foreign Minister. To what do I owe this honour?’
‘The minister,’ Dijkstra said, looking up at the ceiling, ‘resigned from the post owing to his poor state of health.’
The ambassador nodded gravely. He knew perfectly well that the Foreign Minister was languishing in a dungeon and, being a coward and a fool, had doubtless told Dijkstra everything about his collusion with the Nilfgaardian intelligence service during the demonstration of torture instruments preceding his interrogation. He knew that the network established by Vattier de Rideaux, head of the imperial intelligence service, had been crushed, and all its threads were in Dijkstra’s hands. He also knew that those threads led directly to his person. But his person was protected by immunity and protocol forced them to play this game to the bitter end. Particularly following the curious, encoded instructions recently sent to the embassy by Vattier and Coroner Stefan Skellen, the imperial agent for special affairs.
‘Since his successor has not yet been named,’ Dijkstra said. ‘It is my unpleasant duty to inform you that Your Excellency is now deemed persona non grata in the Kingdom of Redania.’
The ambassador bowed.
‘I regret,’ he said, ‘that the suspicions that resulted in the mutual recall of ambassadors are the consequence of matters which, after all, directly concern neither the Kingdom of Redania nor the Nilfgaardian Empire. The Empire has not undertaken any hostile measures against Redania.’
‘Apart from a blockade against our ships and goods at the mouth of the Yaruga and the Skellige Islands. And apart from arming and supporting gangs of Scoia’tael.’
‘Those are insinuations.’
‘And the concentration of imperial forces in Verden and Cintra? The raids on Sodden and Brugge by armed gangs? Sodden and Brugge are under Temerian protection; we in turn are in alliance with Temeria, Your Excellency, which makes an attack on Temeria an attack on us. In addition, there are matters which directly concern Redania: the rebellion on the Isle of Thanedd and the criminal assassination of King Vizimir. And the question of the role the empire played in those incidents.’
‘Quod attinet the incident on Thanedd,’ the ambassador said, spreading his arms, ‘does not em
power me to express an opinion. Imperial Highness Emhyr var Emreis is unaware of the substance of the private feuds of your mages. I regret the fact that our protests are achieving minimal success in the face of the propaganda which seeks to suggest something else. Propaganda disseminated, I dare say, not without the support of the highest authorities of the Kingdom of Redania.’
‘Your protests greatly astonish and surprise me,’ Dijkstra said, smiling faintly. ‘Since the Imperator in no way conceals the presence of the Cintrian duchess at his court, after she was abducted from the very same Thanedd.’
‘Cirilla, Queen of Cintra,’ Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen corrected him with emphasis, ‘was not abducted, but sought asylum in the empire. That has nothing to do with the incident on Thanedd.’
‘Indeed?’
‘The incident on Thanedd,’ the ambassador continued, his countenance stony, ‘aroused the Imperator’s horror. And the murderous attack on the life of King Vizimir, carried out by a madman, evoked his sincere and intense abomination. However, the vile rumour being disseminated amongst the common people is an even greater abomination, which dares to search for the perpetrators of these crimes in the Empire.’
‘The capture of the actual perpetrators,’ Dijkstra said slowly, ‘will put an end to the rumours, one would hope. And their capture and the meting out of justice to them is purely a matter of time.’
‘Justitia fundamentami regnorum,’ admitted Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen gravely. ‘And crimen horribilis non potest non esse punibile. I affirm that His Imperial Majesty also wishes this to happen.’
‘The Imperator has it in his power to fulfil that wish,’ Dijkstra threw in casually, folding his arms. ‘One of the leaders of the conspiracy, Enid an Gleanna, until recently the sorceress Francesca Findabair, is playing at being queen of the elvish puppet state in Dol Blathanna, by the imperial grace.’
‘His Imperial Majesty,’ said the ambassador, bowing stiffly, ‘cannot interfere in the doings of Dol Blathanna, recognised by all its neighbouring powers as an independent kingdom.’
‘But not by Redania. For Redania, Dol Blathanna remains part of the Kingdom of Aedirn. Although together with the elves and Kaedwen you have dismantled Aedirn – although not a stone remains of Lyria – you are striking those kingdoms too swiftly from the map of the world. It’s too soon, Your Excellency. However, this is neither the time nor the place to discuss it. Let Francesca Findabair play at reigning for now; the time for justice will arrive. And what of the other rebels and King Vizimir’s assassins? What about Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, what about Yennefer of Vengerberg? There are grounds to believe they both fled to Nilfgaard following the collapse of the putsch.’
‘I assure you that is not so,’ said the ambassador, raising his head. ‘But were it true, they would not escape punishment.’
‘They did not wrong you, thus their punishment does not rest with you. Imperator Emhyr would prove his sincere desire for justice, which after all is fundamentom regnorum, by handing the criminals over to us.’
‘One may not deny the truth of your request,’ admitted Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen, feigning an embarrassed laugh. ‘However, primo, those individuals are not in the Empire. And secundo, had they even reached it, there exists an impediment. Extradition is carried out on the basis of a judgment of thelaw, each case decided upon by the Imperial Council. Bear in mind, Your Lordship, that the breaking of diplomatic ties by Redania is a hostile act;it would be difficult to expect the Council to vote in favour of the extradition of persons seeking asylum, were a hostile country to demand that extradition. It would be an unprecedented matter… Unless…’
‘Unless what?’
‘A precedent were established.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘Were the Kingdom of Redania prepared to hand one of their subjects to the Imperator, a common criminal who had been captured here, the Imperator and his Council would have grounds to reciprocate this gesture of good will.’
Dijkstra said nothing for a long time, giving the impression he was either dozing or thinking.
‘Whom do you have in mind?’
‘The name of the criminal…’ said the ambassador, pretending to recall it. He finally searched for a document in his saffian portfolio. ‘Forgive me, memoria fragilis est. Here it is. A certain Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach. Serious gravamina weigh on him. He is being sought for murder, desertion, raptus puellae, rape, theft and forging documents. Fleeing from the Imperator’s wrath, he escaped abroad.’
‘To Redania? He chose a long route.’
‘Your Lordship,’ said Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen, smiling faintly, ‘does not limit his interests only to Redania, after all. There is not a shadow of doubt that were the criminal to be seized in any of Your Lordship’s allied kingdoms, Your Lordship would hear of it from the reports of his numerous… friends.’
‘What did you say the name of the felon was?’
‘Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach.’
Dijkstra said nothing for a long time, pretending to be searching in his memory.
‘No,’ he said finally. ‘No one of that name has been apprehended.’
‘Indeed?’
‘I regret that my memoria is not fragilis in such cases, Your Excellency.’
‘I regret it too,’ Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen responded icily. ‘Particularly since the mutual extradition of criminals seems to be impossible to carry out in such circumstances. I shall not weary Your Lordship any longer.’
‘I wish you good health and good fortune.’
‘It is mutual. Farewell, Your Excellency.’
The ambassador left, after several elaborate, ceremonial bows.
‘Kiss my sempiternum meam, you sly old devil,’ Dijkstra muttered, folding his arms. ‘Ori!’
His secretary, red in the face from suppressing his cough, emerged from behind a curtain.
‘Is Philippa still in Montecalvo?’
‘Yes, hem, hem. Mistresses Laux-Antille, Merigold and Metz are with her.’
‘War may break out in a day or two, the border on the Yaruga will soon go up in flames, and they’ve hidden themselves in some godforsaken castle! Take a quill and write. Darling Phil… Oh, bugger!’
‘I’ve written: “Dear Philippa”.’
‘Good. Continue. It may interest you that the freak in the feathered helmet, who disappeared from Thanedd as mysteriously as he appeared, is called Cahir Mawr Dyffryn and is the son of Seneschal Ceallach. This strange individual is being sought not only by us, but also, it would appear, by the intelligence service of Vattier de Rideaux and the men of that son of a bitch…’
‘Madam Philippa, hem, hem, does not like expressions of that kind. I have written: “that scoundrel” ’.’
‘Let it be: that scoundrel Stefan Skellen. You know as well as I do, dear Phil, that Emhyr’s intelligence service is urgently hunting only those agents and emissaries who Emhyr has promised to torment. Those who, instead of carrying out their orders or dying, betrayed him and their orders alike. The case thus appears quite curious, since we were certain that the orders of this Cahir concerned the capture of Princess Cirilla and her delivery to Nilfgaard.
‘New paragraph: I would like to discuss in person the strange, but well-founded, suspicions this matter has evoked in me, and the somewhat astonishing, but reasonable theories I have arrived at. With my greatest respect et cetera, et cetera.’
* * *
She rode south, as the crow flies, first along the banks of the Ribbon, through Wypalanki, and then, having crossed the river, through marshy gorges covered in a soft, bright green carpet of hair moss. She guessed that the Witcher, not knowing the terrain as well as she did, would not risk crossing onto the human-controlled bank. Taking a short cut across a huge bend in the river, which curved towards Brokilon, there was a chance she might catch up with him in the region of the Ceann Treise falls. Were she to ride hard and not take a break, she even stood a chance of overtaking him.
The chirruping of chaffinche
s hadn’t been wrong. The sky had clouded over considerably to the south. The air had become dense and heavy, and the mosquitoes and horseflies extremely annoying and unbearable.
When she rode into the wetlands, thick with hazel hung with still-green nuts and leafless, blackish buckthorn, she felt a presence. She didn’t hear it. She felt it. And so she knew it must be elves.
She reined in her horse, so the bowmen concealed in the undergrowth could have a good look at her. She also held her breath. In the hope that she hadn’t happened upon quick-tempered ones.
A fly buzzed over the buck, which was slung over the horse’s rump.
A rustling. A soft whistling. She whistled back in answer. The Scoia’tael emerged from the brush and only then did Milva breath freely again. She knew them. They belonged to Coinneach Dé/Dá Reo’s commando.
‘Hael,’ she said, dismounting. ‘Que’ss va?’
‘Ne’ss,’ an elf whose name she couldn’t recall replied coldly. ‘Caemm.’
Other elves were encamped in the nearby clearing. There were at least thirty of them, more than there should be in Coinneach’s commando. This surprised Milva; in recent times, Squirrel units were more likely to shrink than grow in size. In recent times, commandoes were groups of bloodied, agitated ragbags who could barely stand or stay upright in the saddle. This commando was different.
‘Cead, Coinneach,’ she greeted the approaching commander.
‘Ceadmil, sor’ca.’
Sor’ca. Little sister. It’s how she was addressed by those she was friendly with, when they wanted to express their respect and affection. And that they were indeed many, many more winters older than she. At first, she had only been Dh’oine – human – to the elves. Later, when she had begun helping them regularly, they called her Aen Woedbeanna, ‘woman of the forest’. Still later, when they knew her better, they called her – following the dryads’ example – Milva, or Red Kite. Her real name, which she only revealed to those she was closest to, responding to similar gestures received from them, didn’t suit them – they pronounced it Mear’ya, with a hint of a grimace, as though in their speech it carried negative connotations. Then they would immediately switch to ‘sor’ca’.