Introducing the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  The expressions on the faces of Dandelion and the halfling showed emphatically that they both thought differently.

  ‘There is absolutely nothing to be concerned about,’ Chappelle repeated. ‘You may leave Novigrad without let or hindrance. I will not detain you. I do have to insist, gentlemen, however, that you do not broadcast the lamentable fabrications of the innkeeper, that you do not discuss this incident openly. Statements calling into question the divine power of the Eternal Fire, irrespective of the intention, we, the humble servants of the temple, would have to treat as heresy, with all due consequences. Your personal religious convictions, whatever they might be, and however I respect them, are of no significance. Believe in what you will. I am tolerant while somebody venerates the Eternal Fire and does not blaspheme against it. But should they blaspheme, I shall order them burnt at the stake, and that is that. Everybody in Novigrad is equal before the law. And the law applies equally to everybody; anyone who blasphemes against the Eternal Fire perishes at the stake, and their property is confiscate. But enough of that. I repeat; you may pass through the gates of Novigrad without hindrance. Ideally . . .’

  Chappelle smiled slightly, sucked in his cheeks in a cunning grimace, and his eyes swept the square. The few passers-by observing the incident quickened their step and rapidly turned their heads away.

  ‘. . . ideally,’ Chappelle finished, ‘ideally with immediate effect. Forthwith. Obviously, with regard to the honourable merchant Biberveldt, that “forthwith” means “forthwith, having settled all fiscal affairs”. Thank you for the time you have given me.’

  Dainty turned away, mouth moving noiselessly. The Witcher had no doubt that the noiseless word had been ‘whoreson’. Dandelion lowered his head, smiling foolishly.

  ‘My dear Witcher,’ Chappelle suddenly said, ‘a word in private, if you would.’

  Geralt approached and Chappelle gently extended an arm. If he touches my elbow, I’ll strike him, the Witcher thought. I’ll strike him, whatever happens.

  Chappelle did not touch Geralt’s elbow.

  ‘My dear Witcher,’ he said quietly, turning his back on the others, ‘I am aware that some cities, unlike Novigrad, are deprived of the divine protection of the Eternal Fire. Let us then suppose that a creature similar to a vexling was prowling in one of those cities. I wonder how much you would charge in that case for undertaking to catch a vexling alive?’

  ‘I don’t hire myself out to hunt monsters in crowded cities,’ the Witcher shrugged. ‘An innocent bystander might suffer harm.’

  ‘Are you so concerned about the fate of innocent bystanders?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Because I am usually held responsible for their fate. And have to cope with the consequences.’

  ‘I understand. And would not your concern for the fate of innocent bystanders be in inverse proportion to the fee?’

  ‘It would not.’

  ‘I do not greatly like your tone, Witcher. But no matter, I understand what you hint at by it. You are hinting that you do not want to do . . . what I would ask you to do, making the size of the fee meaningless. And the form of the fee?’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘Come, come.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Purely theoretically,’ Chappelle said, quietly, calmly, without any anger or menace in his voice, ‘it might be possible that the fee for your services would be a guarantee that you and your friends would leave this— leave the theoretical city alive. What then?’

  ‘It is impossible,’ the Witcher said, smiling hideously, ‘to answer that question theoretically. The situation you are discussing, Reverend Chappelle, would have to be dealt with in practice. I am in no hurry to do so, but if the necessity arises . . . If there proves to be no other choice . . . I am prepared to go through with it.’

  ‘Ha, perhaps you are right,’ Chappelle answered dispassionately. ‘Too much theory. As concerns practice, I see that there will be no collaboration. A good thing, perhaps? In any case, I cherish the hope that it will not be a cause for conflict between us.’

  ‘I also cherish that hope.’

  ‘Then may that hope burn in us, Geralt of Rivia. Do you know what the Eternal Fire is? A flame that never goes out, a symbol of permanence, a way leading through the gloom, a harbinger of progress, of a better tomorrow. The Eternal Fire, Geralt, is hope. For everybody, everybody without exception. For if something exists that embraces us all . . . you, me . . . others . . . then that something is precisely hope. Remember that. It was a pleasure to meet you, Witcher.’

  Geralt bowed stiffly, saying nothing. Chappelle looked at him for a moment, then turned about energetically and marched through the small square, without looking around at his escort. The men armed with the lamias fell in behind him, forming up into a well-ordered column.

  ‘Oh, mother of mine,’ Dandelion whimpered, timidly watching the departing men, ‘but we were lucky. If that is the end of it. If they don’t collar us right away—’

  ‘Calm down,’ the Witcher said, ‘and stop whining. Nothing happened, after all.’

  ‘Do you know who that was, Geralt?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That was Chappelle, minister for security affairs. The Novigrad secret service is subordinate to the temple. Chappelle is not a priest but the eminence grise to the hierarch, the most powerful and most dangerous man in the city. Everybody, even the Council and the guilds, shake in their shoes before him, because he’s a first-rate bastard, Geralt, drunk on power, like a spider drunk on fly’s blood. It’s common knowledge – though not discussed openly in the city – what he’s capable of. People vanishing without trace. Falsified accusations, torture, assassinations, terror, blackmail and plain plunder. Extortion, swindles and fraud. By the Gods, you’ve landed us in a pretty mess, Biberveldt.’

  ‘Give it a rest, Dandelion,’ Dainty snapped. ‘It’s not that you have to be afraid of anything. No one ever touches a troubadour. For unfathomable reasons you are inviolable.’

  ‘In Novigrad,’ Dandelion whined, still pale, ‘an inviolable poet may still fall beneath a speeding wagon, be fatally poisoned by a fish, or accidentally drown in a moat. Chappelle specialises in mishaps of that nature. I consider the fact that he talked to us at all something exceptional. One thing is certain, he didn’t do it without a reason. He’s up to something. You’ll see, they’ll soon embroil us in something, clap us in irons and drag us off to be tortured with the sanction of the law. That’s how things are done here!’

  ‘There is quite some truth,’ the halfling said to Geralt, ‘in what he says. We must watch out. It’s astonishing that that scoundrel Chappelle hasn’t keeled over yet. For years they’ve been saying he’s sick, that his heart will give out, and everybody’s waiting for him to croak . . .’

  ‘Be quiet, Biberveldt,’ the troubadour hissed apprehensively, looking around, ‘because somebody’s bound to be listening. Look how everybody’s staring at us. Let’s get out of here, I’m telling you. And I suggest we treat seriously what Chappelle told us about the doppler. I, for example, have never seen a doppler in my life, and if it comes to it I’ll swear as much before the Eternal Fire.’

  ‘Look,’ the halfling suddenly said. ‘Somebody is running towards us.’

  ‘Let’s flee!’ Dandelion howled.

  ‘Calm yourself, calm yourself,’ Dainty grinned and combed his mop of hair with his fingers. ‘I know him. It’s Muskrat, a local merchant, the Guild’s treasurer. We’ve done business together. Hey, look at the expression on his face! As though he’s shat his britches. Hey, Muskrat, are you looking for me?’

  ‘I swear by the Eternal Fire,’ Muskrat panted, pushing back a fox fur cap and wiping his forehead with his sleeve, ‘I was certain they’d drag you off to the barbican. It’s truly a miracle. I’m astonished—’

  ‘It’s nice of you,’ the halfling sneeringly interrupted, ‘to be astonished. You’ll delight us even more if you tell us why.’

  ‘Don’t play dumb, Biberveldt,
’ Muskrat frowned. ‘The whole city already knows the profit you made on the cochineal. Everybody’s talking about it already and it has clearly reached the hierarch and Chappelle. How cunning you are, how craftily you benefited from what happened in Poviss.’

  ‘What are you blathering about, Muskrat?’

  ‘Ye Gods, would you stop trying to play the innocent, Dainty? Did you buy that cochineal? For a song, at ten-forty a bushel? Yes, you did. Taking advantage of the meagre demand you paid with a backed bill, without paying out a penny of cash. And what happened? In the course of a day you palmed off the entire cargo at four times the price, for cash on the table. Perhaps you’ll have the cheek to say it was an accident, a stroke of luck? That when buying the cochineal you knew nothing about the coup in Poviss?’

  ‘The what? What are you talking about?’

  ‘There was a coup in Poviss!’ Muskrat yelled. ‘And one of those, you know . . . levorutions! King Rhyd was overthrown and now the Thyssenid clan is in power! Rhyd’s court, the nobility and the army wore blue, and the weaving mills there only bought indigo. But the colour of the Thyssenids is scarlet, so the price of indigo went down, and cochineal’s gone up, and then it came out that you, Biberveldt, had the only available cargo in your grasp! Ha!’

  Dainty fell silent and looked distressed.

  ‘Crafty, Biberveldt, must be said,’ Muskrat continued. ‘And you didn’t tell anybody anything, not even your friends. If you’d let on, we might both have made a profit, might even have set up a joint factory. But you preferred to act alone, softly-softly. Your choice; but don’t count on me any longer either. On the Eternal Fire, it’s true that every halfling is a selfish bastard and a whoreson. Vimme Vivaldi never gives me a backed bill; and you? On the spot. Because you’re one tribe, you damned inhumans, you poxy halflings and dwarves. Damn the lot of you!’

  Muskrat spat, turned on his heel and walked off. Dainty, lost in thought, scratched his head until his mop of hair crunched.

  ‘Something’s dawning on me, boys,’ he said at last. ‘Now I know what needs to be done. Let’s go to the bank. If anyone can make head or tail of all this, that someone is the banker friend of mine, Vimme Vivaldi.’

  III

  ‘I imagined the bank differently,’ Dandelion whispered, looking around the room. ‘Where do they keep the money, Geralt?’

  ‘The Devil only knows,’ the Witcher answered quietly, hiding his torn jacket sleeve. ‘In the cellars, perhaps?’

  ‘Not a chance. I’ve had a look around. There aren’t any cellars here.’

  ‘They must keep it in the loft then.’

  ‘Would you come to my office, gentlemen?’ Vimme Vivaldi asked.

  Young men and dwarves of indiscernible age sitting at long tables were busy covering sheets of parchment with columns of figures and letters. All of them – without exception – were hunched over, with the tips of their tongues sticking out. The work, the Witcher judged, was fiendishly monotonous, but seemed to preoccupy the staff utterly. In the corner, on a low stool, sat an elderly, beggarly-looking man busy sharpening quills. He was making hard work of it.

  The banker carefully closed the door to the office, stroked his long, white, well-groomed beard, spotted here and there with ink, and straightened a claret-coloured velvet jerkin stretched over a prominent belly.

  ‘You know, Dandelion, sir,’ he said, sitting down at an enormous, mahogany table, piled with parchments, ‘I imagined you quite differently. And I know your songs, I know them, I’ve heard them. About Princess Vanda, who drowned in the River Duppie, because no one wanted her. And about the kingfisher that fell into a privy—’

  ‘They aren’t mine,’ Dandelion flushed in fury. ‘I’ve never written anything like that!’

  ‘Ah. I’m sorry then.’

  ‘Perhaps we could get to the point?’ Dainty cut in. ‘Time is short, and you’re talking nonsense. I’m in grave difficulties, Vimme.’

  ‘I was afraid of that,’ the dwarf nodded. ‘As you recall, I warned you, Biberveldt. I told you three days ago not to sink any resources into that rancid cod liver oil. What if it was cheap? It is not the nominal price that is important, but the size of the profit on resale. The same applies to the rose oil and the wax, and those earthenware bowls. What possessed you, Dainty, to buy that shit, and in hard cash to boot, rather than judiciously pay with a letter of credit or by draft? I told you that storage costs in Novigrad are devilishly high; in the course of two weeks they will surpass the value of those goods threefold. But you—’

  ‘Yes,’ the halfling quietly groaned. ‘Tell me, Vivaldi. What did I do?’

  ‘But you told me not to worry, that you would sell everything in the course of twenty-four hours. And now you come and declare that you are in trouble, smiling foolishly and disarmingly all the while. But it’s not selling, is it? And costs are rising, what? Ha, that’s not good, not good. How am I to get you out of it, Dainty? Had you at least insured that junk, I would have sent one of the clerks at once to quietly torch the store. No, my dear, the only thing to be done is to approach the matter philosophically, and say to oneself: “Fuck this for a game of soldiers”. This is business; you win some, you lose some. What kind of profit was it anyway, that cod liver oil, wax and rose oil? Risible. Let us talk about serious business. Tell me if I should sell the mimosa bark yet, because the offers have begun to stabilise at five and five-sixths.’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘Are you deaf?’ the banker frowned. ‘The last offer was exactly five and five-sixths. You came back, I hope, to close the deal? You won’t get seven, anyhow, Dainty.’

  ‘I came back?’

  Vivaldi stroked his beard and picked some crumbs of fruit cake from it.

  ‘You were here an hour since,’ he said calmly, ‘with instructions to hold out for seven. A sevenfold increase on the price you paid is two crowns five-and-forty pennies a pound. That is too high, Dainty, even for such a perfectly timed market. The tanneries will already have reached agreement and they will solidly stick to the price. I’m absolutely certain—’

  The door to the office opened and something in a green felt cap and a coat of dappled coney fur girded with hempen twine rushed in.

  ‘Merchant Sulimir is offering two crowns fifteen!’ it squealed.

  ‘Six and one-sixth,’ Vivaldi swiftly calculated. ‘What do we do, Dainty?’

  ‘Sell!’ the halfling yelled. ‘A six-fold profit, and you’re still bloody wondering?’

  Another something in a yellow cap and a mantle resembling an old sack dashed into the office. Like the first something, it was about two cubits tall.

  ‘Merchant Biberveldt instructs not to sell for below seven!’ it shouted, wiped its nose on its sleeve and ran out.

  ‘Aha,’ the dwarf said after a long silence. ‘One Biberveldt orders us to sell, and another Biberveldt orders us to wait. An interesting situation. What do we do, Dainty? Do you set about explaining at once, or do we wait until a third Biberveldt orders us to load the bark onto galleys and ship it to the Land of the Cynocephali? Hey?’

  ‘What is that?’ Dandelion stammered, pointing at the something in a green cap still standing in the doorway. ‘What the bloody hell is it?’

  ‘A young gnome,’ Geralt said.

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ Vivaldi confirmed coldly. ‘It is not an old troll. Anyway, it’s not important what it is. Very well, Dainty, if you please.’

  ‘Vimme,’ the halfling said. ‘If you don’t mind. Don’t ask questions. Something awful has happened. Just accept that I, Dainty Biberveldt of Knotgrass Meadow, an honest merchant, do not have a clue what’s happening. Tell me everything, in detail. The events of the last three days. Please, Vimme.’

  ‘Curious,’ the dwarf said. ‘Well, for the commission I take I have to grant the wishes of the client, whatever they might be. So listen. You came rushing in here three days ago, out of breath, gave me a deposit of a thousand crowns and demanded an endorsement on a bill amounting to two thousand five hundred
and twenty, to the bearer. I gave you that endorsement.’

  ‘Without a guaranty?’

  ‘Correct. I like you, Dainty.’

  ‘Go on, Vimme.’

  ‘The next day you rushed in with a bang and a clatter, demanding that I issue a letter of credit on a bank in Vizima. For the considerable sum of three thousand five hundred crowns. The beneficiary was to be, if I remember rightly, a certain Ther Lukokian, alias Truffle. Well, I issued that letter of credit.’

  ‘Without a guaranty,’ the halfling said hopefully.

  ‘My affection for you, Biberveldt,’ the banker said, ‘ceases at around three thousand crowns. This time I took from you a written obligation that in the event of insolvency the mill would be mine.’

  ‘What mill?’

  ‘That of your father-in-law, Arno Hardbottom, in Knotgrass Meadow.’

  ‘I’m not going home,’ Dainty declared glumly, but determinedly. ‘I’ll sign on to a ship and become a pirate.’

  Vimme Vivaldi scratched an ear and looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he said, ‘you took that obligation and tore it up almost right away. You are solvent. No small wonder, with profits like that—’

  ‘Profits?’

  ‘That’s right, I forgot,’ muttered the dwarf. ‘I was meant not to be surprised by anything. You made a good profit on the cochineal, Biberveldt. Because, you see, there was a coup in Poviss—’

  ‘I already know,’ the dwarf interrupted. ‘Indigo’s gone down and cochineal’s gone up. And I made a profit. Is that true, Vimme?’

  ‘Yes, it is. You have in my safe keeping six thousand three hundred and forty-six crowns and eighty pennies. Net, after deducting my commission and tax.’

  ‘You paid the tax for me?’

  ‘What else would I do?’ Vivaldi said in astonishment. ‘After all, you were here an hour ago and told me to pay it. The clerk has already delivered the entire sum to city hall. Something around fifteen hundred, because the sale of the horses was, of course, included in it.’