‘Believe me, Dandelion,’ Geralt interrupted, steering his horse down the hillside. ‘I don’t give a damn who remembers what.’
A colourful tent resembling a cake stood outside the city, not far from the turnpike. A white shield with a red chevron hung on a pole in front of it. A knight in full armour and a white surcoat decorated with the same arms as the shield was standing under the raised flap of the tent. The knight was scrutinising women in headscarves, tar and pitch makers with kegs containing their wares, herdsmen, pedlars and beggars. His eyes lit up in hope at the sight of Geralt and Dandelion riding slowly along.
‘The lady of your heart—’ Geralt dispelled the knight’s hope in an icy voice ‘—whoever she is, is the most beautiful and most virtuous virgin from the Yaruga to the Buina.’
‘By my troth,’ the knight snapped back. ‘You speak the truth, sir.’
*
A fair-haired girl in a densely studded leather jacket vomited in the middle of the street, bent in two, holding on to the stirrup of a flea-bitten grey mare. The girl’s two male companions, identically attired, carrying swords on their backs and wearing bands on their foreheads, cursed the passers-by filthily, in somewhat incoherent voices. Both were more than tipsy, unsteady on their feet, bumping into horses’ sides and the bar of the hitching post situated outside the inn.
‘Must we really go in there?’ asked Dandelion. ‘There may be more nice lads like that inside.’
‘I’m meeting someone here. Have you forgotten? This is The Rooster and Mother Hen mentioned in a notice on the oak tree.’
The fair-haired girl bent over again, puked spasmodically and extremely profusely. The mare snorted loudly and jerked, knocking the girl over and dragging her through the vomit.
‘What are you gawking at, you fool?’ mumbled one of the youngsters. ‘You grey-haired old bum?’
‘Geralt,’ muttered Dandelion, dismounting. ‘Don’t do anything foolish, please.’
‘Fear not. I won’t.’
They tied their horses to the hitching post on the other side of the steps. The young men stopped paying attention to them and began insulting and spitting at a townswoman crossing the street with a child. Dandelion glanced at the Witcher’s face. He didn’t like what he saw.
The first thing that stuck out after entering the inn was a sign: WANTED: COOK. The next was a large picture on a signboard made of planks of wood, portraying a bearded monster holding a battle axe dripping blood. The caption announced: THE DWARF – A WRETCHED, TREACHEROUS RUNT.
Dandelion was right to be worried. In practice, the only guests in the inn – apart from a few seriously drunk drunks and two skinny prostitutes with dark circles around their eyes – were more ‘lads’ dressed up in leather sparkling with studs, with swords on their backs. There were eight of them of both sexes, but they were making enough of a commotion for eighteen, shouting over each other and swearing.
‘I recognise you and know who you are, gentlemen.’ The innkeeper surprised them as soon as he saw them. ‘And I have news for you. You’re to go to a tavern called Wirsing’s in Elm.’
‘Oooh.’ Dandelion cheered up. ‘That’s good . . .’
‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ The innkeeper went back to drying a mug on his apron. ‘If you disdain my establishment, that’s your choice. But I’ll tell you that Elm’s a dwarven district, where non-humans reside.’
‘And what of it?’ Geralt squinted his eyes.
‘Aye, I’m sure it doesn’t bother you.’ The innkeeper shrugged. ‘Why, the one who left the news was a dwarf. Since you associate with such as he . . . that’s your affair. It’s your affair whose company you find more agreeable.’
‘We aren’t particularly fussy as regards company,’ announced Dandelion, nodding towards the youths in black jackets with bands around their pimply foreheads yelling and wrestling at a table. ‘But I swear we aren’t fond of that kind.’
The innkeeper put down the dry mug and glared at them unpleasantly.
‘You should be more understanding,’ he instructed with emphasis. ‘Youngsters have to let off steam. There’s a certain saying, youngsters have to let off steam. The war damaged them. Their fathers perished . . .’
‘And their mothers screwed around,’ finished Geralt with a voice as icy as a mountain lake. ‘I understand and I’m full of understanding. At least, I’m trying hard to be. Let’s go, Dandelion.’
‘Be off with you – with respect,’ said the innkeeper without respect. ‘But don’t be a-complaining about what I warned you of. These days it’s easy to get a sore head in the dwarven district. If anything were to happen.’
‘If what were to happen?’
‘How would I know? Is it any business of mine?’
‘Let’s go, Geralt,’ urged Dandelion, seeing out of the corner of one eye that the war-damaged youngsters, those who were still reasonably conscious, were observing them with eyes shining with fisstech.
‘Goodbye, master innkeeper. Who knows, perhaps we’ll visit your establishment one day, in a while. Once those signs have gone from the entrance.’
‘And which one don’t you gentlemen like?’ The innkeeper frowned and stood with legs aggressively apart. ‘Eh? The one about the dwarf, perhaps?’
‘No. The one about the cook.’
Three youngsters got up from the table, slightly unsteady on their feet, clearly intending to bar their way. A girl and two boys in black jackets. With swords on their backs.
Geralt didn’t slow his stride, he walked on and his face and eyes were cold and totally indifferent.
Almost at the last moment the striplings parted, stepping back. Dandelion smelled the beer on their breath. And sweat. And fear.
‘You have to get used to it,’ said the Witcher, when they were outside. ‘You have to adapt.’
‘It’s hard sometimes.’
‘That’s no argument. That’s no argument, Dandelion.’
The air was hot, dense and sticky. Like soup.
*
Outside, in front of the inn, the two boys in black jackets were helping the fair-haired girl wash in a horse trough. The girl snorted, incoherently indicating that she was feeling better and announced that she needed a drink. And of course she’d go to the bazaar to overturn some stalls for a lark, but first she needed a drink.
The girl’s name was Nadia Esposito. That name became etched in the annals. It passed into history.
But Geralt and Dandelion couldn’t have known that then. Neither could the girl.
*
The narrow streets of the city of Rivia bustled with life, and what seemed to wholly occupy the residents and visitors was trade. It seemed as though everybody was trading in everything there and trying to exchange anything for something more. A cacophony of shouts resounded from all sides – goods were being advertised, people were bargaining heatedly, insulting each other, thunderously accusing each other of cheating, thievery and swindles, as well as other peccadilloes absolutely unconnected to commerce.
Before Geralt and Dandelion had reached Elm they were presented with a great deal of attractive offers. They were offered, among other things, an astrolabe, a brass trumpet, a set of cutlery decorated with the coat of arms of the Frangipani family, stocks in a copper mine, a large jar of leeches, a tattered book entitled An Alleged Miracle or the Medusa’s Head, a pair of ferrets, an elixir to increase potency and – as part of a package deal – a none too young, none too slim and none too fresh woman.
A black-bearded dwarf tried to convince them extremely aggressively to buy a shoddy little mirror in a pinchbeck frame, attempting to prove it was the magical looking glass of Cambuscan, when soon after somebody threw a stone and knocked the ware out of his hand.
‘Lousy kobold!’ bellowed a barefoot and dirty street urchin. ‘Unhuman! Bearded old goat!’
‘And may your guts rot, you human shithead!’ roared the dwarf. ‘May they rot and leak out of your arse.’
People looked on in gloomy silenc
e.
*
The district of Elm lay right beside the lake, in a bay among alders, weeping willows and – naturally – elms. It was much more quiet and peaceful, no one bought anything or wanted to sell anything here. A light breeze was blowing from the lake, especially pleasant after getting out of the stuffy, flyblown stink of the city.
They didn’t have to search long to find Wirsing’s tavern. The first passer-by they encountered pointed it out to them without hesitation.
Two bearded dwarves, sipping beer from mugs hugged against their bellies, were sitting beneath a roof covered in bright green moss and swallows’ nests on the steps of a porch enveloped in climbing peas and wild roses.
‘Geralt and Dandelion,’ said one of the dwarves and belched daintily. ‘What took you so long, you rogues?’
Geralt dismounted.
‘Greetings, Yarpen Zigrin. Glad to see you, Zoltan Chivay.’
*
They were the only guests of the tavern, which smelled strongly of roast meat, garlic, herbs and something else, something elusive, but very pleasant. They sat at a heavy table with a view of the lake, which looked mysterious, charming and romantic through tinted panes in lead frames.
‘Where’s Ciri?’ Yarpen Zigrin asked bluntly. ‘She can’t be—’
‘No,’ Geralt quickly interrupted. ‘She’s coming here. She’ll be here any moment. Well, beardies, tell us how things are going.’
‘Didn’t I say?’ Yarpen said with a sneer. ‘Didn’t I say, Zoltan? Comes back from the end of the world, where, if rumours can be believed, he waded in blood, killed dragons and overthrew empires. And he asks us how things are going. That’s the Witcher all over—’
‘What smells so appetising here?’ Dandelion interjected.
‘Dinner,’ said Yarpen Zigrin. ‘Meat. Dandelion, ask me where we got the meat.’
‘I won’t, because I know that joke.’
‘Don’t be a swine.’
‘Where did you get the meat?’
‘Crawled here itself.’
‘And now more seriously—’ Yarpen wiped away tears, although the joke, to tell the truth, was pretty hoary ‘—the situation with vittles is quite critical, as usual after a war. You won’t find meat, not even poultry, it’s also hard to get fish . . . Things are bad with flour and spuds, peas and beans . . Farms have been burned down, stores plundered, fishponds emptied and fields lie fallow . . .’
‘There’s no turnover,’ added Zoltan. ‘There’s no transport. Only usury and barter are functioning. Did you see the bazaar? Profiteers are making fortunes beside beggars selling and exchanging the remains of their possessions . . .’
‘If the crops fail on top of that, people will begin to die of hunger in the winter.’
‘Is it really that bad?’
‘Riding from the South you must have passed villages and settlements. Think back to how often you heard dogs barking.’
‘Bloody hell.’ Dandelion slapped himself on the forehead. ‘I knew it . . . I told you, Geralt, that it wasn’t normal! That something was missing! Ha! Now I get it! We didn’t hear any dogs! There weren’t any around—’
He suddenly broke off and glanced towards the kitchen and the smell of garlic and herbs with terror in his eyes.
‘Fear not,’ snorted Yarpen. ‘Our meat doesn’t come from anything that barks, meows or calls out “Mercy!”. Our meat is totally different. It’s fit for kings!’
‘Let us in on it, dwarf!’
‘When we received your letter and it was clear we’d meet in Rivia, Zoltan and I pondered over what to serve you. We racked our brains till all that racking made us want to piss, and then we went down to a little lakeside alder. We looked, and there were positively tons of snails. So we took a sack and caught a load of the dear molluscs, as many as we could stuff in it . . .’
‘A lot of them escaped,’ Zoltan Chivay nodded, ‘We were a tad drunk and they’re devilish fast.’
Again, both dwarves wept with laughter at another old chestnut.
‘Wirsing—’ Yarpen pointed at the innkeeper bustling around by the stove ‘—knows how to cook snails, and that, you ought to know, demands considerable arcane knowledge. He nonetheless is a born chef de cuisine. Before he became a widower he and his wife ran the roadhouse in Maribor with such a table that the king himself entertained guests there. We’ll soon be tucking in, I tell you!’
‘And before that,’ nodded Zoltan, ‘we’ll have a starter of freshly smoked whitefish caught on a gaff in the bottomless depths of this lake. And we’ll wash it down with hooch from the depths of the cellar.’
‘And the story, gentlemen,’ reminded Yarpen, pouring. ‘The story!’
*
The whitefish was still hot, oily and smelled of smoke from alder chips. The vodka was so cold it stung the teeth.
Dandelion spoke first; elaborately, fluently, colourfully and volubly, embellishing his tale with ornaments so beautiful and fanciful they almost obscured the fibs and confabulations.
Then the Witcher spoke. He spoke the same truth, and spoke so dryly, boringly and flatly that Dandelion couldn’t bear it and kept butting in, for which the dwarves reprimanded him.
And then the story was over and a lengthy silence fell.
‘To the archer Milva!’ Zoltan Chivay cleared his throat, saluting with his cup. ‘To the Nilfgaardian. To Regis the herbalist who entertained the travellers in his cottage with moonshine and mandrake. And to Angoulême, whom I never knew. May the earth lie lightly on them all. May they have in the beyond plenty of whatever they were short of on earth. And may their names live forever in songs and tales. Let’s drink to them.’
*
Wirsing, a grey-haired fellow, pale and as thin as a rake, the sheer opposite of the stereotype of an innkeeper and master of culinary secrets, brought to the table a basket of snow-white, aromatic bread, and after that a huge, wooden dish of snails on a bed of horseradish leaves, sizzling and spitting garlic butter. Dandelion, Geralt and the dwarves set about eating with a will. The meal was exquisitely tasty and at the same time extremely comical, considering the need to fiddle with bizarre tongs and little forks.
They ate, smacked their lips and caught the dripping butter on bread. They swore cheerfully as one snail after another slipped from the tongs. Two young kittens had great fun rolling and chasing the empty shells across the floor.
The smell coming from the kitchen indicated that Wirsing was cooking another batch.
*
Yarpen Zigrin reluctantly waved a hand, but realised that the Witcher wouldn’t give up.
‘Nothing new with me, by and large,’ he said, sucking out a shell. ‘A bit of soldiering . . . A bit of politicking, because I was elected vice-starosta. I’m going to make a career in politics. There’s great competition in every other trade. And there are no end of fools, bribe-takers and thieves in politics. It’s easy to make a name for yourself.’
‘While I don’t have a flair for politics,’ said Zoltan Chivay, gesticulating with a snail held in his tongs, ‘I’m setting up a steam and water hammer works, in partnership with Figgs Merluzzo and Munro Bruys. Remember them, Witcher, Figgs and Bruys?’
‘Not just them.’
‘Yazon Varda fell at the Battle of the Yaruga,’ Zoltan informed them dryly. ‘Pretty stupidly, in one of the last skirmishes.’
‘Shame. And Percival Schuttenbach?’
‘The gnome? Oh, he’s doing well. The crafty thing, he got out of the draft using some ancient gnomish laws as an excuse, claiming his religion forbad him from soldiering. And he managed it, even though everybody knows he’d give the whole pantheon of gods and goddesses for a marinated herring. He has a jeweller’s workshop in Novigrad. Do you know, he bought that parrot Field Marshal Duda and turned the bird into a living advertisement, after teaching it to call: “Diiiamonds, diiiamonds”. And just imagine, it works. The gnome has lots of custom, hands full of work and a well-stuffed safe. Yes, yes, that’s Novigrad! Money lies in t
he streets there. That’s also why we want to start our hammer works in Novigrad.’
‘People will be smearing shit on your door,’ said Yarpen. ‘And throwing stones at the windows. And calling you a filthy short-arse. It won’t help you at all that you’re a war veteran, that you fought for them. You’ll be a pariah in that Novigrad of yours.’
‘Be all right,’ said Zoltan cheerfully. ‘There’s too much competition in Mahakam. And too many politicians. Let’s drink a toast, lads. To Caleb Stratton. And Yazon Varda.’
‘To Regan Dahlberg,’ added Yarpen, growing gloomy. Geralt shook his head.
‘Regan too . . .’
‘Aye. At Mayena. Old Mrs Dahlberg was left a widow. Ah, by the devil, enough, enough of that, let’s drink. And hurry with those snails, I see Wirsing’s bringing another bowl!’
*
The dwarves, belts loosened, listened to Geralt’s story about how Dandelion’s ducal romance finished up on the scaffold. The poet pretended to be piqued and didn’t comment. Yarpen and Zoltan roared with laughter.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Yarpen Zigrin at the end, grinning. ‘As the old song goes: Though man can bend rods of steel, women will always bring him to heel. Several wonderful examples of the aptness of that adage are gathered around one table today. Zoltan Chivay springs to mind. When I told you what’s new with him, I forgot to add he’s taking a wife. And soon, in September. The lucky girl is called Eudora Brekekeks.’
‘Breckenriggs!’ Zoltan corrected emphatically, frowning. ‘I’m beginning to have enough of correcting your pronunciation, Zigrin. Take heed, for I’m liable to start cracking heads when I’ve had enough of something—!’
‘Where’s the wedding? And when exactly?’ Dandelion interrupted in mid-sentence placatingly. ‘I’m asking, because we might look in. If you invite us, naturally.’
‘It hasn’t been decided what, where or how, or even if it’s happening,’ Zoltan mumbled, clearly disconcerted. ‘Yarpen’s getting ahead of himself. Eudora and I are engaged, right enough, but who knows what might happen? In these fuck-awful times?’
The Saga of the Witcher Page 205