Time of Contempt (The Witcher) (24 page)

‘Radcliffe, take the traitors to Garstang! Detmold, give your arm to Arch-Mistress de Vries. Go. I’ll join you soon.’

Footsteps. The scent of cinnamon and muskroot.

‘Dijkstra.’

‘I’m here, Phil.’

‘Your men are no longer needed here. They may return to Loxia.’

‘Are you absolutely sure—’

‘To Loxia, Dijkstra!’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’ There was scorn in the spy’s voice. ‘The lackeys can leave. They’ve done their bidding. Now it is a private matter for the mages. And thus I,
without further ado, will leave Your Grace’s beautiful presence. I didn’t expect gratitude for my help or my contribution to your putsch, but I am certain that Your Grace will keep me
in her gracious memory.’

‘Forgive me, Sigismund. Thank you for your help.’

‘Not at all. It was my pleasure. Hey, Voymir, get your men. I want five to stay with me. Take the others downstairs and board
The Spada
. But do it quietly, on tiptoe, without any
fuss, commotion or fireworks. Use side corridors. Don’t breathe a word of this in Loxia or in the harbour. That’s an order!’

‘You didn’t see anything, Geralt,’ said Philippa Eilhart in a whisper, wafting cinnamon, muskroot and baking soda onto the Witcher. ‘You didn’t hear anything. You
never spoke to Vilgefortz. Dijkstra will take you to Loxia now. I’ll try to find you when . . . when it’s all over. I promised you as much yesterday and I’ll keep my
word.’

‘What about Yennefer?’

‘I’d say he’s obsessed,’ said Dijkstra, returning and shuffling his feet. ‘Yennefer, Yennefer . . . It’s getting tedious. Don’t bother yourself with
him, Phil. There are more important things to do. Was the expected item found on Vilgefortz?’

‘Indeed. Here, this is for you.’

‘Oh!’ The rustle of paper being unwrapped. ‘Oh my, oh my! Excellent! Duke Nitert. Splendid! Baron—’

‘Discreetly; no names. And please don’t start the executions immediately after your return to Tretogor. Don’t incite a premature scandal.’

‘Don’t worry. The lads on this list – so greedy for Nilfgaardian gold – are safe. At least for the moment. They’ll become my sweet little puppets. I’ll be
able to pull their strings, and later we’ll put those strings around their sweet little necks . . . Just out of curiosity, were there any other lists? Any traitors from Kaedwen, from Temeria,
from Aedirn? I’d be delighted to take a look. Just a glimpse . . .’

‘I know you would. But it’s not your business. Radcliffe and Sabrina Glevissig were given those lists, and they’ll know what to do with them. And now I must go. I’m in a
hurry.’

‘Phil?’

‘Yes.’

‘Restore the Witcher’s sight so he doesn’t trip on the stairs.’

The banquet in the Aretuza ballroom was still in progress, but it had become more traditional and relaxed. The tables had been pushed aside, and the sorcerers and enchantresses
had brought in armchairs, chairs and stools they’d found in other rooms and were lounging in them and amusing themselves in various ways. Most of their amusements were vulgar. A large group,
crowded around a bulky cask of rotgut, were carousing, talking and erupting into laughter from time to time. Those who not long before had been delicately spearing exquisite morsels with little
silver forks were now unceremoniously chewing mutton ribs held in both hands. Several of them were playing cards, ignoring the rest. Others were asleep. A couple were kissing passionately in the
corner, and the ardour they were displaying indicated it wouldn’t stop there.

‘Just look at them, Witcher,’ said Dijkstra, leaning over the banisters of the cloister and looking down at the sorcerers. ‘How merrily they play. Just like children. And
meanwhile, their Council has just nicked almost their entire Chapter and are trying them for treason, for cuddling up to Nilfgaard. Look at that couple. They’ll be soon looking for a secluded
corner, and before they’ve finish bonking, Vilgefortz will have hanged. Oh, what a strange world it is . . .’

‘Be quiet, Dijkstra.’

The path leading to Loxia was cut into the slopes of the mountain in a zigzag of steps. The steps connected terraces, which were decorated with neglected hedges, flowerbeds and
yellowing agaves in flowerpots. Dijkstra stopped at one of the terraces they passed and walked over to a wall with a row of stone chimeras’ heads. Water was trickling from their jaws. The spy
leaned over and took a long drink.

The Witcher approached the balustrade. The sea glimmered gold, and the sky was even more kitsch in colour than it was in the paintings filling the Gallery of Glory. Below, he could see the squad
of Redanians who had been ordered to leave Aretuza. They were heading for the harbour in well-ordered formation, just crossing a bridge linking the two sides of a rocky cleft.

His attention was suddenly caught by a colourful, lone figure, conspicuous because it was moving quickly. And moving in the opposite direction to the Redanians. Uphill, towards Aretuza.

‘Right,’ said Dijkstra, urging him on with a cough. ‘It’s time we were going.’

‘Go yourself, if you’re in such a hurry.’

‘Yeah, right,’ scowled the spy. ‘And you’ll go back up there to rescue your beloved Yennefer. And stir up trouble like a tipsy gnome. We’re heading for Loxia,
Witcher. Are you kidding yourself or something? Do you think I got you out of Aretuza because of some long-hidden love for you? Well I didn’t. I got you out of there because I need
you.’

‘For what?’

‘Are you having me on? Twelve young ladies from Redania’s finest families are pupils at Aretuza. I can’t risk a conflict with the honourable rectoress, Margarita Laux-Antille.
But the rectoress won’t give me Cirilla, the Princess of Cintra, the girl Yennefer brought to Thanedd. She’ll give her to
you
, however. When you ask her.’

‘What gave you the ridiculous idea that I’ll ask for her?’

‘The ridiculous assumption that you want to make sure Cirilla will be safe. She’ll be safe in my care, in King Vizimir’s care. In Tretogor. She isn’t safe on Thanedd.
Refrain from making any sarcastic comments. Yes, I know the kings didn’t have the most wonderful plans for her at the beginning. But that has changed. Now it’s become clear that Cirilla
– alive, safe and in good health – may be worth more in the coming war than ten regiments of heavy horse. Dead, she’s not worth a brass farthing.’

‘Does Philippa Eilhart know what you’re planning?’

‘No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t even know I know the girl’s in Loxia. My erstwhile beloved Phil may put on airs and graces, but Vizimir is still the King of Redania. I
carry out his orders, and I don’t give a shit what the sorcerers are plotting. Cirilla will board
The Spada
and sail to Novigrad, from where she’ll travel to Tretogor. And
she’ll be safe. Do you believe me?’

The Witcher leaned over towards one of the chimera heads and drank some of the water trickling from its monstrous maw.

‘Do you believe me?’ repeated Dijkstra, standing over him.

Geralt stood up, wiped his mouth, and punched him in the jaw with all his strength. The spy staggered but didn’t go down. The nearest Redanian leapt forward, intending to seize the
Witcher, but grabbed thin air, and immediately sat down, spitting blood and one of his teeth. Then all the others jumped him. There was a chaotic confusion and crush, which was exactly what the
Witcher had been hoping for.

One of the Redanians slammed head first into the gargoyle, and the water trickling from its jaws turned red. Another caught the heel of the Witcher’s fist in the windpipe and doubled up as
though his genitals had been ripped out. A third, smacked in the eye, fell back with a groan. Dijkstra seized the Witcher in a bearlike grip, and Geralt kicked him hard in the ankle with his heel.
The spy howled and cavorted hilariously on one leg.

Another heavy tried to strike the Witcher with his short sword but slashed only the air. Geralt caught hold of his elbow in one hand and his wrist in the other. He spun him around, knocking over
two others who were trying to get up. The thug he was holding was strong and had no intention of releasing his sword. So Geralt tightened his grip and the man’s arm broke with a crack.

Dijkstra, still hopping on one leg, seized a partisan from the ground, hoping to pin the Witcher to the wall with its three-pronged blade. Geralt dodged, seized the shaft in both hands and used
the principle – well known to scholars – of the lever. The spy, seeing the bricks and mortar of the wall looming, dropped the partisan but was too late to prevent his crotch slamming
into the chimera’s head.

Geralt used the partisan to knock another thug off his feet and then held the shaft against the ground and broke it with a kick, shortening it to the length of a sword. He tried out the
makeshift club, first by hitting Dijkstra – who was sitting astride the chimera – and then by quietening the moans of the bruiser with the broken arm. The seams of his doublet had burst
under both arms some time before, and the Witcher was feeling considerably better.

The last brute on his feet also attacked with a partisan, expecting its length to offer him an advantage. Geralt hit him between the eyebrows, and the bruiser sat down hard on the pot holding
the agave. Another of the Redanians – who was unusually stubborn – clung to the Witcher’s thigh and bit him painfully. This angered the Witcher, who deprived the rodent of his
ability to bite with a powerful kick.

Dandelion arrived on the steps out of breath, saw what was happening and went as white as a ghost.

‘Geralt!’ he yelled a moment later. ‘Ciri’s disappeared! She isn’t here!’

‘I expected as much,’ answered the Witcher, bashing the next Redanian, who was refusing to lie down quietly, with his club. ‘But you really make a body wait, Dandelion. I told
you yesterday that you were to leg it to Aretuza if anything happened! Have you brought my sword?’

‘Both of them!’

‘The other one is Ciri’s, you idiot.’ Geralt whacked the heavy trying to get up from the agave pot.

‘I don’t know much about swords,’ panted the poet. ‘Stop hitting them, by the gods! Can’t you see the Redanian eagle? They’re King Vizimir’s men! This
is treachery and rebellion. You could end up in a dungeon for that . . .’

‘On the scaffold,’ mumbled Dijkstra, drawing a dagger and staggering closer. ‘You’ll both be for the scaffold . . .’

He wasn’t able to say anything else because he collapsed on all fours, struck on the side of the head with the stump of the partisan’s shaft.

‘Broken on the wheel,’ pictured Dandelion gloomily. ‘After being rent with red-hot pincers . . .’

The Witcher kicked the spy in the ribs. Dijkstra flopped over on one side like a felled elk.

‘. . . then our bodies quartered,’ continued the poet.

‘Stop that, Dandelion. Give me both swords and get away from here as quickly as possible. Flee from the island. As far away as you can!’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m going back up. I have to save Ciri . . . And Yennefer. Dijkstra, lie there nicely and get your hands off that dagger!’

‘You won’t get away with this,’ panted the spy. ‘I’ll send my men after you . . . I’ll get you . . .’

‘No you won’t.’

‘Oh, I will. I’ve got fifty men on
The Spada
. . .’

‘And is there a barber surgeon among them?’

‘Eh?’

Geralt came up behind the spy, bent down, seized him by the foot and jerked it, twisting the foot quickly and very powerfully. There was a cracking sound. Dijkstra howled and fainted. Dandelion
screamed as if it had been his own ankle.

‘I don’t much care what they do to me after I’ve been quartered,’ muttered the Witcher.

It was quiet in Aretuza. Only a few diehards remained in the ballroom, but now they had too little energy to make a racket. Geralt avoided it, not wanting to be noticed.

He had some difficulty finding the chamber where he’d spent the night with Yennefer. The palace corridors were a veritable labyrinth and all looked alike.

The ragdoll looked at him with its button eyes.

He sat down on the bed, clutching his head. There was no blood on the chamber floor. But a black dress was draped over the back of a chair. Yennefer had changed. Into men’s clothes, the
uniform of the conspirators?

Or they’d dragged her out in her underwear. In dimeritium handcuffs.

Marti Södergren, the healer, was sitting in the window alcove. Hearing his footsteps, she raised her head. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

‘Hen Gedymdeith is dead,’ she said in a faltering voice. ‘It was his heart. I couldn’t do a thing . . . Why did they call me so late? Sabrina hit me. She hit me in the
face. Why? What has happened?’

‘Have you seen Yennefer?’

‘No, I haven’t. Leave me. I want to be alone.’

‘Show me the shortest way to Garstang. Please.’

Above Aretuza were three terraces covered with shrubs. Beyond them, the mountain slopes became sheer and inaccessible. Garstang loomed up above the precipice. At its foot the
palace was a dark, uniformly smooth block of stone growing out of the rocks. Only the marble and stained-glass windows of its upper storey sparkled and the metal roofs of its domes shone like gold
in the sun.

The paved road leading to Garstang and on to the summit wound around the mountain like a snake. There was another, shorter, route: a stairway linking the terraces, which vanished into the black
maw of a tunnel just beneath Garstang. It was this stairway that Marti Södergren pointed out to the Witcher.

Immediately beyond the tunnel was a bridge joining the two sides of the precipice. Beyond the bridge, the stairway climbed steeply upwards and curved, vanishing around a bend. The Witcher
quickened his pace.

The balustrade was decorated with small statues of fauns and nymphs which gave the impression of being alive. They were moving. The Witcher’s medallion began to vibrate intensively.

He rubbed his eyes. The statues were not in fact moving but metamorphosing, transforming from smooth-surfaced carvings to porous, shapeless masses of stone, eroded by strong winds and salt. And
an instant later they renewed themselves once more.