‘Did it go well?’ she asked. ‘What was it?’
‘A zeugl, as I thought.’ Geralt pulled off his boots, threw off his clothes and plunged a foot into the tub. ‘Damn, Yen, it's cold. Can't you heat it up?’
‘No.’ The sorceress said. Bringing her face nearer to the mirror, she placed a few drops of something in her eye with a pipette. ‘That type of spell is terribly exhausting and makes me feel sick. Anyway, after the elixirs, the cold water will do you good.’
Geralt did not argue. Arguing with Yennefer was pointless.
‘Did the zeugl cause you difficulty?’
The sorceress plunged the pipette into the bottle and moistened her other eye, grimacing comically.
‘Not especially.’
They heard a loud noise on the other side of the opened window, the sharp crack of breaking wood and a slurred falsetto voice, brazenly reciting the chorus of a popular bawdy song.
‘A zeugl.’ The sorceress grabbed a second bottle from amongst the imposing battery of containers that stood on the table and drew out the cork. The smell of lilac and gooseberries filled room. ‘You see, even in the city it's easy for a witcher to find work. You don't have to roam the wilds. Istredd maintains that after the extinction of a forest or marsh creature, another one always replaces it; a new mutation adapted to the artificial environment created by humans.’
As usual, Geralt frowned when Yennefer mentioned Istredd. The witcher was starting to get fed up with her going on about the genius of Istredd. Even when Istredd was right.
‘Istredd is right,’ continued Yennefer massaging her cheeks and eyelids with the potion that smelt of lilac and gooseberries. ‘You've seen it yourself: pseudo-rats in sewers and cellars, zeugls in the refuse, platocorises in filthy ditches and drains, giant molluscs rampant in the mill ponds. It's almost symbiotic, don't you think?’
And ghouls in the graveyards devouring the dead a day after the funeral, he thought, rinsing the soap from his body. Utterly symbiotic.
‘Yes…’ The sorceress pushed back the bottles and jars. ‘Even in city, there's work for a witcher. I think you'll eventually settle down permanently in some market town, Geralt.’
The devil take me first! he thought, but kept it to himself. To contradict Yennefer would have inevitably led to a quarrel and quarrelling with Yennefer could be dangerous.
‘Have you finished, Geralt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Get out of the tub.’
Without getting up, Yennefer casually waved her hand and cast a spell. The water from the tub, along with that which spilled onto the floor and dripped from Geralt came together in a translucent sphere, then flew, whistling, out of the window. There was a loud splash.
‘A plague upon you, you son of a whore!’ came an angry shout from below.’Don't you know where to chuck out your piss? May you be eaten alive by lice! Until you are dead!’
The sorceress closed the window.
‘Damn, Yen,’ the witcher chuckled. ‘Couldn't you throw the water away somewhere else?’
‘I could have,’ she muttered, ‘but I didn't feel like it.’
She took a lantern from the table and approached the witcher. Her white nightgown, clinging to every slight movement of her body, cut an incredibly enchanting vision. More so than if she were naked, he thought.
‘I want to examine you,’ she said. ‘The zeugl could have wounded you.’
‘It didn't wound me. I would've felt it.’
‘After the elixirs? Don't make me laugh. You wouldn't have felt a fracture unless the bone was poking out and catching on things. And the zeugl could have given you anything including tetanus and blood poisoning. You have to be checked. Turn around.’
He felt the warmth of the lantern on his body, and the occasional caress of her hair.
‘You seem to be alright,’ she said. ‘Lie down before the potions knock you down. Those potions are terribly dangerous. They'll eventually kill you.’
‘I have to take them before a fight.’
Yennefer did not respond. She sat before the mirror once again, combing her long, black, shiny curls. She always combed her hair before going to bed. Geralt thought it strange, but he loved to watch her do it. He suspected that Yennefer knew this.
He suddenly felt very cold, the elixirs making him shiver violently. His neck grew stiff and the effects finally settled in the pit of his stomach in swirling eddies of nausea. Her swore under his breath and collapsed on the bed, his gaze still on Yennefer.
A movement in the corner of the room caught his eye and he looked closer. Nailed crookedly to the wall were some deer antlers, covered in cobwebs, atop which perched a small black bird.
Turning its head sideways, the bird fixed the witcher with a yellow, unmoving stare.
‘What's that, Yen? Where did it come from?’
‘What?’ Yennefer turned around. ‘Oh, that! It's a kestrel.’
‘A kestrel? Kestrels are speckled russet. That one's black.’
‘It's a magical kestrel. I made it myself.’
‘Why?’
‘I need it for something,’ she replied coldly.
Geralt didn't ask any more questions, knowing that Yennefer would not answer them.
‘Are you going to see Istredd tomorrow?’
The sorceress pushed back the bottles on the table, placed her comb in a small casket and closed the leaves of the triptych mirror.
‘Yes, I'm going in the morning. Why?’
‘Nothing.’
She lay next to him without putting out the lantern. She was unable to sleep in the dark, so she never put out the light. Whether the lamp was a night light or candle, it always had to burn to the last. Always. Another eccentricity. Yennefer had an incredible amount of eccentricities.
‘Yen?’
‘Yes?’
‘When are we going back on the road?’
‘Stop going on about it.’ Yennefer pulled on the eiderdown roughly. ‘We've been here three days and you've already asked this question about thirty times. I told you: I have business here in the city.’
‘With Istredd?’
‘Yes.’
He sighed and embraced her without concealing his intentions.
‘Hey!’ she whispered. ‘You took the elixirs…’
‘So what?’
‘Nothing.’ she giggled like a teenager.
She nestled against him then wriggled around so that she could remove her nightgown more easily. Delighting in her nakedness, as usual Geralt felt a shiver go down his spine and a tingling in his fingers as they came into contact with Yennefer's bare skin. His lips lightly touched her breasts, rounded and delicate with nipples so pale they were only apparent by their prominence. His hands got lost in the tangle of her hair, sweet with the fragrance of lilac and gooseberries.
Yennefer gave herself up to his caresses, purring like a cat, wrapping her legs around his hips.
The witcher soon realised that he had, as usual, overestimated his resistance to the elixirs and had forgotten their negative effects on the body.
Maybe it's not the elixirs, he thought. Maybe it's down to battle fatigue and the ever present risk of death. It's a fatigue that's so routine, I often forget about it. My body, even though it's enhanced, can't fight that routine. It reacts in the usual way, but the only trouble is that it happens when you don't want it to. Damn it…
As usual, Yennefer didn't allow herself to lose heart over such a trifle. He felt her touch and heard her soft murmur in his ear. As usual, he thought of the countless number of times she'd needed to use this very practical spell. And then he thought of it no more.
As usual, it was extraordinary.
He gazed at her mouth, the corners quivering in an involuntary smile. He knew this smile well; more a smile of triumph than happiness. He never asked her about it. He knew that she wouldn't have answered him.
The black kestrel, perched on the deer's antlers, flapped its wings and snapped its crooked beak. Yennefer turned h
er head and sighed with great sadness.
‘Yen?’
‘Nothing, Geralt.’ She kissed him. ‘It's Nothing.’
The lantern shone with a flickering light. In the wall, a mouse scratched and a beetle rustled quietly and rhythmically in the chest of drawers.
‘Yen?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Let's get away from here. I have a bad feeling about this place. This city has a malignant effect on me.’
The sorceress turned on her side and caressed his cheek, pushing away strands of hair. Her fingers slid lower, touching the calloused scar that ran across his neck.
‘Do you know what the name of this city means? Aedd Gynvael?’
‘No. Is it the language of the elves?’
‘Yes. It means 'Shard of Ice'.’
‘That's strange, it doesn't suit this disgusting hell-hole.’
‘Amongst the elves,’ she whispered thoughtfully, ‘there is the legend of the Queen of Winter, travelling across the country through a blizzard on a sleigh drawn by white horses. She sows hard, sharp, tiny shards of ice as she goes and woe betide he should one of these shards pierce his eye or his heart. That someone is lost forever. Nothing will be able to cheer him, all that is not the pure white of snow will become for him ugly, hateful, disgusting. He will not know peace and, forsaking all, will follow the Queen in pursuit of his dream and his love. Of course, he will never find it and will die of sorrow. Apparently in this city, in ancient times, such a thing happened. It's a beautiful legend, isn't it?’
‘The elves know how to dress everything up with pretty words,’ mumbled Geralt sleepily, tracing her shoulder with his lips. ‘It's not a legend, Yen. It's a beautiful way to describe the terrible phenomenon called the Wild Hunt, a curse apparent in certain lands. An irrational collective insanity drives people to follow the ghostly procession racing across the sky. I've seen it. Indeed, it's not uncommon in winter. I've been offered a lot of money to end the curse, but I didn't take it. Nothing can stand against the Wild Hunt…’
‘Witcher,’ Yennefer murmured, kissing his cheek, ‘you possess not one ounce of romanticism. I… I love the legends of the elves; they're so beautiful. It's a pity that humans don't have such legends. Maybe one day they'll create some? But what will their legends be like? All around, everywhere you look, is dullness and uncertainty. Even something born of beauty soon leads to boredom and banality, commonplace, the human ritual, the tedious rhythm of life. Oh, Geralt, it's not easy being a sorceress, but in comparison with ordinary human existence… Geralt?’
She laid her head on his chest, feeling his slow, rhythmic breathing.
‘Sleep,’ she whispered, ‘Sleep, witcher.’
III
The city had a malignant effect on him.
From the moment he awoke, everything put him in a bad mood and roused his anger. Everything. He was annoyed that much of the morning had been wasted because he had overslept and annoyed at the absence of Yennefer who had left before he woke up.
She must have hurried, because her accoutrements, which were usually neatly put away in the caskets, had been left scattered across the table like dice thrown by a fortune-teller during a divination: brushes of fine hair - the largest to powder her face, the smaller to apply lipstick, the smaller still for the paint that Yennefer used on her eyelashes; pencils and sticks for her eyelids and eyebrows; tweezers and silver spoons; jars and bottles made of porcelain and milky-white glass containing, as he knew, potions and ointments made of commonplace ingredients such as soot, goose grease and carrot juice and dangerous ingredients such as the mysterious mandrake, antimony, belladonna, cannabis, dragon's blood and the concentrated venom of giant scorpions. And finally, the air was filled with the scent of lilac and gooseberries - the perfume she always wore.
Her presence was felt in these objects. In this scent.
But she was not there.
He went downstairs, feeling a growing anxiety and rising anger. At everything.
Angry at the cold and congealed scrambled eggs which the innkeeper, distracted from feeling up the girl who worked in the kitchen, served him. Particularly annoyed that the girl was barely twelve years old and tears stood in her eyes.
The warm spring weather and the joyful noise of street life did nothing to alleviate Geralt's mood. There was still nothing he liked about Aedd Gynvael, which was an unpleasant parody of all the small cities he had ever known - infinitely more noisy, more humid, dirtier and more annoying.
He still caught the faint odour of refuse in his clothes and hair. He decided to go to the baths.
There, he was irritated by the expression of the bath attendant, who stared at the witcher's medallion and his sword as it lay on the edge of the tub. Geralt was angered at the fact that the bath attendant had not offered him the services of a young woman. He had no intention of making use of such a girl, but the fact that they offered such a service to everybody except him enraged him.
When he left, despite the clean scent of the soap on his body, the witcher's mood had not improved and Aedd Gynvael seemed no better. Still there was nothing that pleased him. He didn't like the piles of manure littering the streets. He didn't like the beggars crouched around the temple walls. He didn't like the slapdash inscription painted on the walls: ELVES: SEGREGATION NOW!
He was denied entrance to the castle, being told to seek out the alderman of the Guild of Merchants. This upset him. It also upset him when a senior guildsman, an elf, told him to look for the alderman in the market place with a look of contempt and superiority, which was strange for someone about to be forced into a ghetto.
The market place swarmed with people, stalls, wagons, horses, cattle and flies. Upon a dais, a pilloried convict was pelted with mud and dung by a mob of people. Showing admirable composure, the convict mocked his tormentors with a string of obscenities, barely raising his voice.
For Geralt, having seen such set ups before, the reason for the alderman's presence in the throng became clear. The travelling traders inflated their prices to cover the bribes they had to pay and the bribes had to trace back to somebody. The alderman, well aware of the custom, attended to it in person so the other merchants didn't have to bother.
He officiated under a dirty blue canopy, held up by poles. There was a table beneath it besieged by angry customers. Alderman Herbolth sat behind the table, his contempt and disdain for all and sundry showing clearly on his pallid face.
‘Hey! Where are you going? ‘
Geralt slowly turned around. He immediately suppressed his anger and frustration, becoming a sliver of cold, hard ice. He couldn't allow himself to express any emotion. The man who approached him had hair as yellow as an oriole and brows of the same colour above pale and empty eyes. Slim hands with long fingers rested on his belt of large brass plates which bore a sword, a mace and two daggers.
‘Yeah,’ said the man. ‘I know you. You're the witcher, right? Here to see Herbolth?’
Geralt nodded, keeping his eyes on the man's hands. He knew it was dangerous to lose sight of a man's hands.
‘I've heard of you, monster slayer’ said the blonde man as he paid careful attention to Geralt's hands. ‘Although I don't believe we've ever met, you've probably heard of me. My name is Ivo Mirce. But everyone calls me The Cicada.’
The witcher nodded to confirm that he had heard of him. He also knew that there was a price on head of The Cicada in Wyzim, Caelf and Vattweir. If they had asked his opinion, he would have told them it was too little. But they hadn't, so he didn't.
‘Okay,’ said The Cicada. ‘I know that the alderman's waiting for you. You can pass. But your sword, my friend, will have to stay here. I'm paid to keep an eye on proceedings. Nobody can approach Herbolth armed. Got it?’
Geralt shrugged indifferently and unbuckled his belt, wrapping it around his scabbard and handing it to The Cicada. The Cicada gave a slight smile.
‘Goodness me,’ he said. ‘Such manners, not a word of protest. I knew the rumours about you
were exaggerated. I wish you'd asked me for my sword, just so you could see my response.’
‘Hey, Cicada!’ the alderman suddenly cried, rising, ‘Leave him be! Come over here Lord Geralt, welcome, welcome. Away, gentlemen, merchants, leave us alone for a moment. Your interests give way to issues of greater importance to the city. Submit your requests to my secretary!’
The outpouring of false welcome didn't fool Geralt. He knew that it served only as an opportunity for bargaining. The merchant wanted some time to consider whether the bribes were high enough.
‘I'll bet that The Cicada was trying to provoke you.’ Herbolth casually raised his hand in reply to the witcher's equally hurried bow. ‘Don't worry about it. The Cicada only draws his sword when ordered. True, he doesn't much like that, but as long as I'm in charge, he'll have to obey or he'll be sent on his way. Don't worry about it.’
‘Why the hell do you need someone like The Cicada, alderman? Surely it's not that dangerous here?’
‘It's not dangerous because of the presence of The Cicada.’ Herbolth smiled. ‘His fame travels far and he's on my side. You know, Aedd Gynvael and all the other cities in the Toine Valley belongs to the Governors of Rakverelin. Recently, these governors are changing all the time. It's not clear why, because nothing else changes and every other one is half or quarter elf; cursed breed. They're responsible for all the problems around here.’
The Sword of Destiny Page 10