The Saga of the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  The Scarra sisters were in the slammer for assaulting an officer, while in the case of Kohut – who had served as a quartermaster – an investigation was ongoing into a notorious, major scandal regarding the theft of army bows, which was creating ever-widening ripples.

  ‘In the shit, Kenna,’ the older Scarra repeated. ‘You’ve got yourself in a fine pickle. Or rather they got you into it. How come you never bloody caught on it was a political game?’

  ‘Humph.’

  Scarra glanced at her, not quite knowing how to interpret her monosyllabic response. Kenna looked away.

  I’m not going to tell you something I kept quiet about in front of the judges, am I? she thought. That I knew what kind of game I was getting tangled up in. Or when and how I found out.

  ‘You’ve landed yourself in a sorry mess,’ said the younger Scarra solemnly. She was the much more dull-witted one, who – Kenna was certain – understood nothing of what it was about.

  ‘And what finally happened with that Cintran princess?’ The older Scarra kept probing. ‘I mean you finally nabbed her, didn’t you?’

  ‘We did. If you could call it that. What’s the date today?’

  ‘September the twenty-second. It’s the Equinox tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah. Well, that’s a queer coincidence. Tomorrow, it’ll be a year to the day since those events . . . A year already . . .’

  Kenna stretched out on her pallet, hands clasped behind her head. The sisters remained silent, hoping it had been an introduction to a story.

  Nothing doing, sisters dear, thought Kenna, looking at the obscene drawings and even more obscene comments scrawled on the planks of the upper bunk. There won’t be any story. It’s not even that that bastard Kohut smells like a bloody nark. I just don’t feel like talking about it. I don’t feel like remembering it.

  What happened a year ago. After Bonhart gave us the slip in Claremont.

  We’d arrived there two days too late, she recalled, the trail had already gone cold. No one knew where the bounty hunter had gone. No one apart from the merchant Houvenaghel, that is. But Houvenaghel didn’t want to talk to Skellen, or even have him in the house. He communicated through his servants that he had no time and wouldn’t grant them an audience. Tawny Owl was cross and indignant, but what could he do? It was Ebbing, he didn’t have the necessary jurisdiction. And we could do nothing about Houvenaghel any other way – I mean our way – for he had a private army down in Claremont, and we couldn’t exactly declare war . . .

  Boreas Mun sniffed around, Dacre Silifant and Ola Harsheim tried bribery, Til Echrade elven magic, I used telepathy and listened to his thoughts, but it wasn’t much use. All we learned was that Bonhart had left the town through the southern gate. But before he left . . .

  In Claremont there was a tiny little temple with larches, by the southern gate and the small market place. Before leaving Claremont, Bonhart had cruelly beaten Falka with a knout in the square in front of the temple. Before everybody’s eyes, including the temple priests’. He yelled that he’d prove to her who her lord and master was. That he was flogging her with a knout as he wished, and if he so wished he’d flog her to death, because no one would stand up for her, no one would come to her aid. Neither people nor gods.

  The younger Scarra was looking out of the window, hanging onto the grating. The older one was eating porridge from the bowl. Kohut took the stool, lay down and covered himself with a blanket.

  The bell in the guardhouse tolled, the guards on the walls yelled out their presence . . .

  Kenna turned her face to the wall.

  We met several days later, she thought. Me and Bonhart. Face to face. I looked into his inhuman, fishlike eyes, thinking only of one thing – how he’d beaten the girl. And I looked into his thoughts . . . For a moment. And it was like sticking my head into a dug-up grave . . .

  That was at the Equinox.

  And the day before, the twenty-second of September, I’d realised that an invisible spy had wormed his way among us.

  *

  Stefan Skellen, the imperial coroner, listened without interrupting. But Kenna saw his face changing.

  ‘Again, Selborne,’ he drawled. ‘Say it again, for I don’t believe my own ears.’

  ‘Cautiously, my lord coroner,’ she murmured. ‘Pretend to be angry . . . That I’ve come to you with a request and you won’t grant it . . . For the sake of appearances, I mean. I’m not mistaken, I’m certain. An unseen guest has been hanging around us for two days. An invisible spy.’

  Tawny Owl, to give him his due, was clever and understood at once.

  ‘No, Selborne, I refuse,’ he said loudly, but without over-dramatizing his tone or expression. ‘Discipline applies to everyone. There are no exceptions.’

  ‘Please, at least listen, lord coroner,’ Kenna didn’t have Tawny Owl’s talent, failed to avoid awkwardness, but in the scene being played out awkwardness and embarrassment by the petitioner were permissible. ‘Please at least see fit as to listen.’

  ‘Speak, Selborne. But be brief and to the point!’

  ‘He’s been spying on us for two days,’ she muttered, pretending she was humbly presenting her argument. ‘Since Claremont. He has to ride behind us secretively, and when we’re camped he approaches unseen, moves around among people, and listens.’

  ‘He listens, the sodding spy.’ Skellen didn’t have to pretend to be stern and angry; the fury was trembling in his voice. ‘How did you uncover him?’

  ‘Yesterday, when you were giving Lord Silifant his orders outside the tavern, the tomcat sleeping on the bench hissed and flattened its ears. It seemed suspicious to me, because there wasn’t anyone on that side . . . And then I picked up something, a thought, kind of, an unfamiliar thought and will. When there are familiar, ordinary thoughts all around, an unfamiliar thought like that, lord coroner, is as if someone were shouting . . . I started taking heed, intensely, I doubled my efforts and now I can sense him.’

  ‘Can you always sense him?’

  ‘No. Not always. He has some kind of magical protection. I only sense him from very close, and even then not every time. So I have to be vigilant, because I never know if he’s not hiding nearby.’

  ‘Just don’t scare him away,’ Tawny Owl muttered. ‘Don’t scare him away . . . I want him alive, Selborne. What do you suggest?’

  ‘We’ll give him the pancake treatment.’

  ‘The pancake treatment?’

  ‘Quiet, lord coroner.’

  ‘But . . . Oh, never mind. Very well. I’m giving you a free hand.’

  ‘Tomorrow, make sure we stop and billet in some village or other. I’ll sort out the rest. And now for the sake of appearances give me a dressing-down and I’ll go away.’

  ‘I can’t really.’ He smiled at her with his eyes and winked slightly, immediately assuming the overbearing air of a stern commander. ‘For I’m pleased with you, Miss Selborne.’

  He said “miss”. Miss Selborne. As though to an officer.

  He winked again.

  ‘No!’ he said and brandished an arm, playing his role splendidly. ‘Request denied! Dismissed!’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  *

  The next day, in the late afternoon, Skellen ordered his soldiers to make camp in a village by the River Lete. The village was prosperous, ringed by a palisade, and they rode in through a fine gate of freshly cut pine palings. The name of the village was Unicorn and it took its name from its small stone temple, inside which there was a straw effigy of a unicorn.

  I remember, Kenna recalled, how we laughed at that straw idol, and the village headman gravely explained that the sacred unicorn which looked after the village had many years before been made of gold, then silver, then copper; there were several versions in bone and several in hardwood. But all of them had been stolen. People came from far away to rob or steal it. Things had only been peaceful since the unicorn had been made of straw. We set up camp in the village. As agreed, Skellen occupied the headman’s hall
.

  Less than an hour later we’d given the spy the pancake treatment. In classic, textbook fashion.

  *

  ‘Please come closer,’ Tawny Owl ordered loudly. ‘Please come closer and take a look at this document . . . Hold on? Is everybody here? So I won’t have to explain twice.’

  Ola Harsheim, who had just taken a sip of cream somewhat watered down with sour milk from a milking pail, licked the creamy moustache from his lips, put down the vessel, looked around and counted. Dacre Silifant, Bert Brigden, Neratin Ceka, Til Echrade, Joanna Selborne . . .

  ‘Dufficey’s not here.’

  ‘Summon him.’

  ‘Kriel! Duffi Kriel! To the commander for the briefing! To receive important orders! At the double!’

  Dufficey Kriel ran into the hall, out of breath.

  ‘Everybody’s here, lord coroner,’ Ola Harsheim reported.

  ‘Leave the window open. We could expire from the smell of garlic in here. Open the door, too, make a draught.’

  Brigden and Kriel obediently opened the window and the door. Kenna, meanwhile, thought once again that Tawny Owl would make a really splendid actor.

  ‘Please step this way, gentlemen. I’ve received this document from the emperor, confidential and of extraordinary gravity. Your attention, please . . .’

  ‘Now!’ yelled Kenna, sending a powerful directional impulse, whose effect on the senses was similar to being struck by lightning.

  Ola Harsheim and Dacre Silifant picked up the milk pail and simultaneously flung the cream in the direction Kenna was indicating. Til Echrade vigorously emptied a flour barrel which had been hidden under the table. A creamy, floury shape – amorphous at first – appeared on the floor of the chamber. But Bert Brigden was alert. Correctly judging where the pancake’s head might be, he whacked it as hard as he could with a cast-iron frying pan.

  Then everybody threw themselves at the spy who was plastered all over with cream and flour, tore the hat of invisibility from his head and seized his arms and legs. After upturning the table, they tied the captive’s limbs to the legs. They pulled off his boots and footwraps and stuffed one of them into his mouth which was open and ready to shout.

  In order to crown their work, Dufficey Kriel kicked the captive hard in the ribs, and the others took pleasure in watching the spy’s eyes bulge out of their sockets.

  ‘Magnificent work,’ commented Tawny Owl, who hadn’t moved during the entire, brief, incident but had stood with his arms crossed on his chest.

  ‘Bravo. Congratulations. Above all to you, Miss Selborne.’

  Bloody hell, thought Kenna. If it carries on like this I really am liable to end up an officer.

  ‘Mr Brigden,’ Stefan Skellen said coldly, standing over the prisoner spread out between the table legs, ‘put the irons in the coals, please. Mr Echrade, please make sure no children are hanging around outside.’

  He leaned over and looked into the bound man’s eyes.

  ‘You haven’t shown your face for ages, Rience,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to think some misfortune had befallen you.’

  *

  The bell in the guardhouse – the signal for the changing of the guard – struck. The Scarra sisters snored euphoniously. Kohut, hugging the stool, smacked his lips in his sleep.

  He played the hero, Kenna recalled, pretending to be brave, that foolhardy Rience. The sorcerer Rience, given the pancake treatment and tied to the legs of a table with his bare feet sticking up. He was playing the hero, but wasn’t fooling anybody; least of all me. Tawny Owl warned us he was a sorcerer, so I scrambled his thoughts to stop him casting spells or sending for magical help. And read his thoughts while I was about it. He was blocking my way in, but when he caught a whiff of the smoke from the coal of the brazier where the irons were heating up, his magical protection and blockades burst along all their seams like old britches, and I was able to read him freely. His thoughts didn’t differ from those of other people I’ve read in like situations. The thoughts of people who are about to be tortured. Chaotic, trembling thoughts; full of fear and despair. Cold, slimy, wet, foul-smelling thoughts. Like a corpse’s entrails.

  In spite of that, when the gag was removed, the sorcerer Rience tried to play the hero.

  *

  ‘Well, well, Skellen! You’ve caught me, you win! Congratulations. A deep bow to your technique, expertise and professionalism. Splendidly trained operatives; truly, it’s enviable. And now please release me from this unseemly position.’

  Tawny Owl drew up a chair and straddled it, resting his clasped fingers and chin on the backrest. He looked down at the captive. And said nothing.

  ‘Have me released, Skellen,’ Rience repeated. ‘And then order your subordinates to leave. What I have to say is meant for your ears only.’

  ‘Mr Brigden,’ Tawny Owl said, without turning his head. ‘What colour are the irons?’

  ‘A bit longer, sir.’

  ‘Miss Selborne?’

  ‘I’m having difficulty reading him now,’ Kenna shrugged. ‘He’s too afraid, the fear’s drowning out all other thoughts. And there are lots of those thoughts. Including a few he’s trying to hide. Behind magical screens. But it’s not hard, I can—’

  ‘That won’t be necessary. We’ll try the classic method: a red-hot iron.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ the spy howled. ‘Skellen! You surely don’t mean—’

  Tawny Owl leaned over, his face a little changed.

  ‘First, it’s Mister Skellen,’ he hissed. ‘Second, yes, absolutely, I plan to order your soles scorched, Rience. I shall do it with the utmost satisfaction. For I shall treat it as an expression of historical justice. I’ll wager you don’t understand.’

  Rience remained silent, so Skellen continued.

  ‘You see, Rience, I advised Vattier de Rideaux to scorch your heels back then, seven years ago, when you were fawning to the imperial intelligence service like a cur, begging for mercy and the privilege to be a traitor and a double agent. I repeated that advice four years ago, when you shamelessly kissed Emhyr’s arse, mediating in contacts with Vilgefortz. When, during the hunt for the Cintran wench, you were promoted from a humble little turncoat to being virtually first resident spy. I wagered Vattier that when burned you’d say who you serve . . . No, I’ve got that wrong. That you’d name everyone you serve. And everyone you betray. And then, I said, you’ll see, you’ll be astonished, Vattier, how many points on the two lists correspond. But, well, Vattier de Rideaux didn’t listen to me. And now surely regrets it. But nothing’s lost. I’ll only toast you a little, and when I know what I want to know, I shall leave you to Vattier’s disposal. And he’ll flay you, slowly, one piece at a time.’

  Tawny Owl removed a handkerchief and a vial of perfume from his pocket. He sprinkled the perfume liberally on the handkerchief and pressed it to his nose. The perfume smelled pleasant, but nonetheless Kenna felt like vomiting.

  ‘The iron, Mr Brigden.’

  ‘I’m tracking you on Vilgefortz’s orders!’ Rience roared. ‘It concerns the girl! By tracking your troop I hoped to get ahead of you, reach that bounty hunter before you did! I was going to try to negotiate the wench away from him! From him, not from you! Because you want to kill her, and Vilgefortz needs her alive! What else do you want to know? I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you everything!’

  ‘Whoa, there!’ Tawny Owl called. ‘Not so fast! Why, a fellow’s head could ache from such a racket and mass of information. Can you imagine, gentlemen, what will happen when we burn him? He’ll scream us to death!’

  Kriel and Silifant cackled raucously. Kenna and Neratin Ceka didn’t join in the merriment. Neither did Bert Brigden, who had just then removed the iron from the coals and was examining it critically. The iron was so hot it seemed to be transparent, as though it wasn’t iron, but a glass tube full of molten fire.

  Rience saw it and shrieked.

  ‘I know how to find the bounty hunter and the girl!’ he yelled. ‘I know! I’ll tell you!’
r />   ‘I’m certain of that.’

  Kenna, still trying to read his thoughts, grimaced, picking up a wave of desperate, impotent fury. Something snapped in Rience’s brain, yet another partition. He’ll say something out of fear, thought Kenna, something he meant to keep until the end, as a trump card, an ace, which would have beaten all the other aces in a last, deciding hand for the highest stakes. Now he’ll discard that ace, out of a banal, revolting fear of pain.

  Suddenly something popped in her head, she felt heat in her temples and then sudden cold.

  And she knew. She knew Rience’s hidden thought.

  By the Gods, she thought. What a pickle I’m in . . .

  ‘I’ll talk!’ howled the sorcerer, reddening and staring goggled-eyed in the coroner’s face. ‘I’ll tell you something genuinely important, Skellen! Vattier de Rideaux . . .’

  Kenna suddenly heard another thought, belonging to someone else. She saw Neratin Ceka with a hand on his dagger moving towards the door.

  Boots pounded and Boreas Mun rushed into the headman’s hall.

  ‘My lord coroner! Quickly, sir! You’ll never believe who’s here!’

  Skellen gestured to Brigden, who was bending over towards the spy’s heels with the iron, to stop.

  ‘You ought to play the lottery, Rience,’ he said, looking out of the window. ‘I’ve never met anyone in my life with such luck.’

  Through the window they could see a crowd and two people on horseback in the midst of it. Kenna knew at once who it was. She knew who the bony giant was, with the pale fishlike eyes, riding a powerful bay.

  And who the ashen-haired girl on the splendid black mare was. With hands bound and a collar around her neck. And a bruise on her swollen cheek.