Lady of the Lake

  They continued on and soon arrived at the dock that ran along the ponds and channels. And suddenly above the tops of the alder spotted the red-tiled towers of Vizima castle which stood by the river.

  ‘We’re almost there,’ said the merchant. ‘Can you smell it?’

  ‘Pu-ugh!’ Melfi cried. ‘What a stink! What is it?’

  ‘Probably the soldiers who have died waiting for the king to pay them,’ muttered Pike form behind them, but so the landsknechts could not hear.

  ‘A wonder your snout doesn’t break, huh?’ laughed one of them/ ‘We are approaching the camp, where during the winter thousands of troops camped. An army has to eat and shit too. So it was established by nature and nothing that can be remedied! And all that shit has to go somewhere. Like in those pits over there, where they go and cover it with soil. In winter, it remains frozen and you can withstand it a bit, but come spring… Pah!’

  ‘Do you hear that buzz?’ the second landsknecht sniffed. ‘There are clouds of flies and in the spring it will be an unheard of thing. Cover your face as best you can, because these flies go rampaging through the mouth and eyes. Let’s pick up the pace, the faster the better.’

  They left the trenches behind, but failed to lose the smell. On the contrary, Jarre would have given his head, the closer to the city, the worse the smell got. And much more diverse. The smell surrounded the city stank of military camps and tents. It smelled of hospitals. I stank of crowded and busy boroughs, squares and streets, the walls above the city stank. Luckily the nostrils soon grew accustomed to it and could not tell the difference between either dung or carrion or whether it was cat urine or the next inn.

  Flies where everywhere. Buzzing annoyingly like experienced soldiers, crawling into mouths, noses, eyes and ears. The insects could not be driven off and it was easier to crush them on their faces.

  As they left the darkness of the city gate, Jarre’s eye fell upon a huge poster of a painted knight, who pointed his finger at him. The inscription beneath the knight in capital letters read – WHAT ABOUT YOU? HAVE YOU ENLISTED?

  ‘Yes,’ muttered the landsknecht. ‘Unfortunately.’

  There were many similar signs, hung on almost every available wall. Most were of the knight pointing his finger, often also with a pathetic looking mother with billowing grey hair, standing in the background of burning villages and babies impaled on Nilfgaardian stakes. Another popular motif was pictures of elves with bloody knives in their teeth dripping blood.

  Jarre turned around and suddenly realized they were alone – the landsknecht, the merchant, and himself. Pike, Okultich, Klaproth, Melfi and the rural recruits were gone without a trace.

  ‘Well, well,’ the landsknecht confirmed his conjectures looking around inquisitively. ‘As I expected, your comrades took off at the first opportunity, rascals, gave us the slip at the first corner. But you know what I’ll tell you, boy? Be glad that your paths diverged. And wish that you had never met.’

  ‘I’m sorry for Melfi,’ Jarre murmured. ‘He is not a bad person.’

  ‘Each person chooses his own destiny. Come with us. We will show you were to recruit.’

  They entered a square with a stone platform in the center, on it stood a pillory.

  Around the pillory townspeople and soldiers thronged. The condemned had mud and shit flung at their faces, they were spitting, spluttering, screaming and crying. The crowd laughed.

  ‘Wow!’ cried the landsknecht. ‘Look who is locked in the stocks! It’s Fuson! I wonder why he is in there?’

  ‘For farming,’ a fat burgher in wolf fur and a felt hat hastened to explain.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For farming,’ the fat man repeated with emphasis. ‘For planting.’

  ‘Ha! So you spoke clearly, forgive me,’ the landsknecht laughed. ‘That’s nonsense, I have known Fuson for many years. He is a shoemaker, the son of a shoemaker and grandson of a shoemaker. In his life it has never occurred to him to plough or sow or reap. Where did you come to such a towering pile of shit, sir?’

  ‘The magistrate read the judgment,’ the man said indignantly. ‘It is said the criminal will stay in the pillory until tomorrow morning for on the command of Nilfgaard he has sown some strange, exotic herb. Probably poisonous… Wait, I remember… Oh! Defetyzm!’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ cried the merchant. ‘I heard talk of it. The Nilfgaardian spies and the elves are spreading epidemics, poisoning wells, springs and streams with various poisons such as hemlock, typhoid and defetyzm.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the fat man in the felt cap. ‘Yesterday in the square they hanged two elves. Surely for such poisonings.’

  ‘In this street,’ the landsknecht pointed, ‘is an inn, with a draft board in the office. Good luck kid, and perhaps the gods with let us meet in better times. Farewell, and you, Mister merchant.’

  The merchant cleared his throat.

  ‘Kind gentlemen,’ said the merchant rummaging through little chests and trunks on his cart, ‘for your help… As a sign of gratitude…’

  ‘Do not trouble yourself, good man,’ the landsknecht said with a smile. ‘Let’s not speak of it.’

  ‘How about a magic ointment against arrows?’ the old man rummaged through a trunk. ‘Or an effective and versatile tool for the treatment of asthma, gout, paralysis and to remove

  dandruff? Or a balm for bee stings or if you have been bitten by a rabid dog, vipers or a vampire? Or a talisman against the evil eye?’

  ‘And you do not have anything,’ the second landsknecht said seriously, ‘for the effects of bad food?’

  ‘I have!’ cried the merchant. ‘Here it is, the most effective antidote developed from magical roots, spices and herbs. Three drops will suffice after each meal. Please take it, noble lords.’

  ‘Thank you. Farewell, sir. You too, boy.’

  ‘Honest and decent gentlemen,’ said the merchant, when both the landsknecht disappeared into the crowd. ‘It’s not every day you find people like that. Nor like you, young sir! What can I give you then? An amulet against lightning? A bezoar? Turtle pebbles effective against spells of charming? Aha! I even have a hanged man’s tooth and a piece of devil shit…’

  Jarre tore his gaze away from a group of people fiercely washing paint from the wall of a house which read – DOWN WITH THE FUCKING WAR!

  ‘No need,’ he said. ‘It is time for me…’

  ‘Ha!’ the merchant shouted and pulled out a brass medallion in the shape of a heart. ‘This is the right thing for a young man. It is truly unique, I have only one such amulet. It is a magic charm. It makes the one who carries it never forget his love, even if time and many miles separate them. Look, inside is a piece of papyrus, with magical red ink that I have, you just write the name of the loved one and she will never forget or betray you. What do you think?’

  ‘Hmmm…’ blushed Jarre. ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘What name,’ the merchant dipped a quill into his magic ink, ‘should I write?’

  ‘Ciri. I mean Cirilla.’

  ‘Done. Here you go.’

  ‘Jarre! Bloody hell! What are you doing here?’

  Jarre turned impulsively. I’d hoped, he thought, that I would leave my past behind, that everything would be all new and I seem to constantly bump into old acquaintances.

  ‘Dennis Cranmer!’

  A dwarf dressed in a heavy fur coat, steel armor, arm guards and a fox-skin hat with a tail cast a penetrating look at the boy, then the merchant, then again at the boy.

  ‘What are you doing here Jarre?’ he asked sternly, his brows, beard and moustache bristling.

  For a moment the boy thought to lie and get the good-hearted merchant to confirm it. He immediately gave up this idea. Dennis Cranmer, who had once served in the guard in the Principality of Ellander, enjoyed the reputation of being a dwarf who was difficult to deceive. And he knew it was not worth the try.

  ‘I’m going to enlist in the army.’

  He knew what the next quest
ion would be.

  ‘Do you have permission from Nenneke?’

  He did not respond.

  ‘You ran away,’ Dennis Cranmer stroked his beard. ‘You fled from the temple. And Nenneke and the priestesses are probably pulling out their hair…’

  ‘I left a letter,’ grumbled Jarre. ‘Mister Cranmer, I could not… I had to… One cannot sit idly by while the enemy is on his border… in a time of threat to one’s homeland… and… Ciri… Mother Nenneke banned me. She sent three quarters of the sanctuaries girls to the army, but she did not want me to go. But I had to…’

  ‘So you ran away,’ the dwarf wrinkled his brow. ‘By a thousand sacramental demons! I should tie you to a stick and send you back to Ellander. I should order you locked up in a cave until the priestesses come and pick you up! I should…’

  He snorted angrily.

  ‘When was the last time you ate something, Jarre? How long since your throat had a hot meal?’

  ‘Hot meal? Three… No, four days ago.’

  ‘Come with me.’

  ***

  ‘Eat slower, son,’ Zoltan Chivay, one of Dennis Cranmer comrades rebuked him. ‘Not so fast, it’s not healthy to swallow without chewing properly. Where are you going in a hurry? Believe me; no one is going to take the pot away.’

  Jarre was not so sure. In the main hall of the Hairy Bear inn a duel of fisticuffs was being held. Two stubby dwarves as wide as stoves were banging fist together so loud that the noise rang over the top of the clamor and cheers from the companions of the regiment. The plank floor creaked, dishes fell from shelves and blood from broken noses sprayed the surrounding area like rain. Jarre was afraid that one of the opponents would soon roll over the table and throw the wooden platter with pork, cooked peas and earthenware pints to the floor. He swallowed a chunk of meat without swallowing, because the last few days had taught him that anything could befall you.

  ‘I don’t understand, Dennis,’ said another dwarf at the table called Sheldon Skaggs, without paying attention to the fact that one of the fighters after a hard blow almost rolled over his back. ‘If the boy is a priest, how is he going to enlist? The blood of priests should not be spilled.’

  ‘He was schooled at the temple, he’s not a priest.’

  ‘Damn, I can never understand those human superstitions. But it is not proper to mock other people beliefs… However, since this young man was only brought up in the temple, there is nothing against the shedding his blood. Especially Nilfgaard’s. What do you say, boy?’

  ‘Let him to eat in peace, Sheldon.’

  ‘I will answer…’ Jarre took a bite of pork with a spoonful of peas. ‘I think the spilling of blood in a righteous war is permissible and justified. That’s why I want to enlist. The motherland is calling.’

  ‘You can see for yourself,’ Sheldon Skaggs looked at his companions, ‘how much truth there is in the assertion that humans are a race closely akin to our own and that we derive from the same root, both them and us. The best proof is sitting in front of us and eating peas. In other words, the same stupid enthusiasm we see in young dwarves.’

  ‘Especially after Mayena,’ said Zoltan Chivay calmly. ‘After winning a battle voluntary enlistment always rises. The momentum will cease as soon as the news that Menno Coehoorn is heading up the Ina River, leaving land and going by water.’

  ‘I only wish that the rush was the other way,’ muttered Cranmer. ‘I do not have confidence in the volunteers. It is interesting that every second deserter is a volunteer.’

  ‘How can you…’ Jarre almost choked. ‘How can you suggest something like that, sir… I volunteer from patriotic motives… For the motherland…’

  One of the dwarves had fallen during the fistfight, the boy thought the he had shaken the foundations of the building, because the dust from the cracks in the floor planks rose as high as a raised arm. However, this time he stayed down, rather than jumping back up and

  pouncing on his opponent, he lay on the floor, feebly moving his limbs so he looked more like a giant beetle on his back.

  Dennis Cranmer stood up.

  ‘The issue is resolved,’ he announced in a thundering voice, looking around the taproom. ‘The post of company commander, vacant after the heroic death of Elkana Foster, killed in the field of honor during the battle of Mayena, will be occupied by… What is your name, son, I have forgotten?’

  ‘Blasco Grant!’ the winner of the match spat a tooth on the floor.

  ‘Blasco Grant is the new commander. Does anyone have any objection to his promotion? There are none? All right. Innkeeper! Beer!’

  ‘What were we talking about?’

  ‘Of a just war,’ Zoltan Chivay began to count on his fingers. ‘Of the volunteers. Of the deserters…’

  ‘Oh, that!’ Dennis interrupted him. ‘I knew I wanted to explain something concerning volunteers, deserters and traitors. I remember the late volunteer army for the Marshal of Cintra, Vissegerd. The motherfuckers, it turns out, have not even changed their banner. I know this from the condottieri of the Free Company from Julia “Pretty Kitty”. At Mayena they encountered the Cintrans. Those sons of bitches were fighting alongside Nilfgaard under the banner of the golden lion…’

  ‘Called on by their motherland,’ Skaggs said gloomily. ‘And the future Empress Cirilla.’

  ‘Shh,’ said Dennis.

  ‘ Right,’ said the fourth dwarf Yarpen Zigrin who had been silent up until now. ‘Hush! And quieter than silence. But not because of fear of spies, but because you cannot talk about things you have no fucking idea about.’

  ‘And you, Zigrin,’ Skaggs puffed out his beard. ‘You know something about this?’

  ‘Aye, I know. I tell you one thing – nobody, not even Emhyr var Emreis, nor those treacherous sorcerers from Thanedd, not even the devil himself could force that girl to do anything. They did not manage to break her. I know it. Because I know her. It’s a hoax this whole marriage to Emhyr. A deception that has led many fools astray… Also I’ll tell you, that girl’s destiny is quite different.’

  ‘You talk,’ muttered Skaggs, ‘as if you really know her, Zigrin.’

  ‘Leave him!’ Zoltan suddenly scolded. ‘Her fate is different. I think so too. I have my reasons for it.’

  ‘Bah!’ Sheldon Skaggs replied, shaking his hands. ‘Why spend saliva in vain. Cirilla, Emhyr, destiny… They are distant issues. Our concern is Menno Coehoorn the Field Marshal of the Center Army Group.’

  ‘Well,’ sighed Zoltan Chivay. ‘It seems to me that we are not going to escape a battle. Perhaps the biggest in known history.’

  ‘Much will be decided,’ muttered Dennis Cranmer. ‘A lot will end.’

  ‘Everything…’ Jarre belched and covered his mouth with his hands, embarrassed. ‘Everything ends.’

  The dwarves watched him for a moment, silent.

  ‘I don’t think I fully understand you,’ Zoltan finally said. ‘Could you explain what you mean?’

  ‘At the royal council in Ellander I heard…’ stammered Jarre. ‘There was talk about a great victory in this war; it was so important that… That this war put an end to all wars.’

  Sheldon Skaggs snorted, spitting beer onto his beer. Zoltan Chivay roared with laughter.

  ‘What do you think, gentlemen?’

  Now it was Dennis Cranmer’s turn to burst out laughing. Yarpen Zigrin retained his seriousness. He studied the young man attentively and seemed concerned.

  ‘Son,’ he said very seriously. ‘Look. There, sitting at the counter is Evangelina Parr. She is admittedly, substantial. Indeed, even great. But despite her actions, not one whore can put an end to all whores.’

  When they left the inn, Dennis Cranmer took the young man aside.

  ‘I have to praise you, Jarre,’ he said. ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do not pretend. Before me, you do not. It is worthy of praise that you did not blink an eye when they mentioned Ciri. Do not look as if you don’t know what I me
an. I know a few things that were happening at Nenneke’s temple. I also heard the name that you had entered in the heart medallion.’

  The dwarf pretended not to notice the blush that suffused the boy’s face.

  ‘Keep it up, Jarre. And not only about Ciri… What are you looking at?’

  On the wall of a granary visible at the entrance to an alley stood a blurred painting, written in lime, which read – MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR.

  Just below, with significantly smaller letters, someone had scrawled the following message – MAKE SHIT EVERY MORNING.

  ‘Look the other way, stupid,’ Dennis Cranmer barked. ‘Just seeing such inscriptions can get you in trouble. Do not say no out of place, or they tie you to a post and whip you bloody. Here the trials are very fast! Incredibly fast!’

  ‘I saw,’ Jarre whispered, ‘a shoemaker in the pillory. He allegedly sowed defetyzm.’

  ‘The sowing,’ the dwarf said seriously, pulling the boy’s sleeve, ‘probably consisted of the fact that the father was driving his son to the military, and he cried and shouted about patriotism. For the more serious sowing there is a different punishment. Come on, I’ll show you.’

  They entered a small square. Jarre had to pull back and cover his nose and mouth with his sleeve. On a huge gallows hung several bodies. Some, from their appearance and smell, had been hanging there for some time.

  ‘That one,’ said Dennis, while swatting away flies, ‘wrote silly phrases on the walls. He said that war is a thing of lords and peasant recruits and that Nilfgaard were not their enemies. That one was drunk and told the following anecdote – “What is a spear? The weapon nobles stick a poor man at each end.” And there, at the end, you see the old woman? She was the mistress of a military brothel, and had decorated a sign with this – “Fuck today, warrior! Because tomorrow you may not be able to.”’

  ‘And just for that…’

  ‘One of the girls, it was revealed later, also had gonorrhea. And that came within the paragraph of conspiracy and sabotage of combat capabilities.’