Lady of the Lake

  ‘But only to adults,’ Peyrac-Peyran quickly added.

  ‘The ladies of Toussaint,’ Geralt said looking around, ‘would not be very happy if they knew of this conversation. Nor would the Duchess.’

  ‘We fully agree with you,’ murmured Palmerin de Launfal. ‘We recommend the utmost discretion. There is no need to irritate the bigoted guardian of decency.’

  ‘Open an account for me with one of the local dwarven banks,’ Geralt said slowly and quietly. ‘And amaze me with your generosity. But be advised that it is not easy to amaze me.’

  ‘We are still going to try,’ Peyrac-Peyran said confidently.

  They exchanged farewells.

  He returned to Regis, who of course had heard everything with his vampire hearing.

  ‘Now,’ he said without smiling,’ you can argue that it was an involuntary reflex and inexplicable impulse. But how do you explain that to an open bank account?’

  Geralt looked somewhere high above the tops of the cypress trees.

  ‘Who knows,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ll spend a few days here. Given Milva’s broken ribs, it may even be more than a few days. Maybe a couple of weeks? It would not hurt if during this time we gained some financial independence.’

  ‘So that’s were there bank account with Cianfanelli came from,’ Reynart de Bois-Fresnes shook his head. ‘Well, if the Duchess finds out, it will mean new changes in rank, there would be a new distribution of patents. Ha, maybe I’d even get promoted? On my honor, it’s a shame you do not have the qualities of a snitch. Tell me now of the famous banquet that caused you so much joy. I longed to take part in it, to eat and drink! But they sent me to the border, to a watchtower, in the cold and grey mountains. What despair, the fate of a knight..!’

  ‘The large and highly anticipated banquet,’ Geralt said, ‘was prepared with great care and diligence. We mainly had to find Milva, who had holed up in the stables and convince her that her attendance at the banquet was essential and depended upon the fate of Ciri and nearly

  the whole world. We almost forcibly compelled her to wear women’s clothes. Then we had to get Angouleme to promise to behave as a well-behaved young lady, and to especially avoid words like “fuck” and “ass”. And when we finally got everything ready and to ensure our success we downed a cup of wine, your confectioner Le Goff appeared. Smelling like frosting and puffing like a pig’s bladder.’

  ‘By virtue of my office,’ Le Goff said through his nose. ‘I want to assure you that at the festive board, Her Highness has few places of honor and importance, therefore no one can feel prejudice to the place allocated to him. But because here, in Toussaint, we pay special attention to traditions and customs…’

  ‘Get to the point, sir.’

  ‘The banquet is tomorrow. I organize all guests according to their origin and status.’

  ‘Sure,’ the Witcher said seriously. ‘The most important of us is Dandelion. Both in origin and status.’

  ‘Viscount Julian,’ the Chamberlain said, wrinkling his nose, ‘is an extraordinary guest of honor. As such, he will sit at the right hand of Her Serene Highness.’

  ‘Sure,’ repeated the Witcher, with all seriousness. ‘And he has failed to clarify what our ranks, titles and honors are?’

  ‘He revealed,’ the Chamberlain coughed, ‘but only that the noble gentlemen and maidens are travelling incognito, and therefore cannot reveal their names, ranks and titles.’

  ‘That is correct. What is the problem?’

  ‘I have to know! You are guest and companions of the Viscount, so you will be sitting near the head of the table… Among the Barons. But it is still possible that you gentlemen and ladies maybe of a higher rank, which would entitle you to sit closer to the Duchess…’

  ‘He,’ said the witcher, pointing to the vampire without hesitation, who was not far away admiring a tapestry which took up most of the wall, ‘is an Earl. But not a word about it. It is a secret.’

  ‘I understand,’ gasped the fat man with excitement. ‘In those circumstances… I will seat him next to Countess Notturna, the noble and gracious aunt of the Duchess.’

  ‘You will not regret it, neither you nor the aunt,’ Geralt assured him with a straight face. ‘The earl has no equal in the ways of art and conversation.’

  ‘I am pleased to hear it. For your part, Lord of Rivia, I will sit you next to the venerable Lady Fringilla. As is the tradition. You carried her to the vat, you are her… hmmm… knight, as it…’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Excellent. Ah, Earl…’

  ‘What?’ the vampire said surprised who had just moved away from the tapestry, representing the battle with a Cyclops.

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ Geralt smiled. ‘We were just talking.’

  ‘Aha,’ Regis nodded. ‘I do not know if you gentlemen have noticed… But the Cyclops in the tapestry, the one with the club… Look at the toes on his feet. I’m afraid to say that he has two left feet.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Chamberlain Le Goff confirmed without a trace of amazement. ‘There are more of these tapestries in Beauclair. The weaver who wove it was a true master. But he drank a lot. But he was an artist.’

  ‘It’s time,’ said the witcher, avoiding the eyes of the wine tipsy girls peering at him from the other table, who were amusing themselves with divination. ‘Let’s go, Reynart. Pay up, get the horses and lets go to Beauclair.’

  ‘I know why you are in such a hurry,’ the knight showed his teeth. ‘Don’t worry, green eyes will be waiting. It is hardly midnight. Tell me about the banquet.’

  ‘I’ll tell you and we’ll go.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  The sight of the huge horseshoe shaped banquet table clearly reminded them that autumn was finished and winter was approaching. Among the food bowls and trays, were platters of venison and all possible types of game. There were whole quarters of wild boar, deer, hams and pink slices of smoked meat and pies. All decorated with seasoned mushrooms, cranberries and rowanberries. There were autumn birds – grouse, pheasant, quail, served with decorative wings and tails, roasted in hazel and mistle. They also served fish – trout and pike, fished from the mountain streams.

  Even in autumn they did not lack the festive greens. It included a salad of lettuce, which must have been harvested while still under the snow. Flowers had been substituted with mistletoe.

  In the middle of the horseshoe table at the place of honor, where the Duchess Anarietta and her guest would sit, was a large silver tray filled with decorations. Among the flowers, lemon slices, artichoke hearts and truffles, stood an enormous sturgeon on whose back stood a heron. In its raised beak it held a golden ring.

  ‘I swear by the heron!’ Peyrac-Peyran the well-known Baron with the bull’s head coat of arms cried, standing up and raising his cup. ‘By the heron I swear to defend the honor of knighthood, and to never leave the field to anyone!’

  The vow was rewarded with tumultuous applause. They began to eat.

  ‘I swear by the heron,’ shouted another knight with a twisted aggressive moustache like a broom. ‘ I swear to defend to the last drop of my blood the borders of Her Excellency Anna Henrietta! To prove my loyalty, I swear to paint on my shield a heron and for a year to fight incognito and shall be called the Knight of the White Heron! Health to Our Lady the Duchess!’

  ‘Health! Happiness! Cheers! Long live the Duchess!’

  Anarietta thanked them with a slight nod of her diamond tiara decorated head. She was wearing so many diamonds, that if she was to walk past a window she would scratch the glass. Dandelion sat beside her and smiled stupidly. A little further on, between to matrons, sat Emiel Regis. He was dressed in a black velvet jacket which made him look like a vampire. He served the matrons with conversation and they listened fascinated.

  Geralt took a platter covered in a perch and parsley and offered it to Fringilla Vigo who was sitting to his left. She wore a gown of blue satin and a gorgeous amethyst necklace. She looked at him from under her
long eyelashes, lifted her cup and smiled mysteriously.

  ‘Your health, Geralt. I’m glad that we sat next to each other.’

  ‘Do not praise the day before sunset,’ he said returning her smile, because he was in a good mood. ‘The banquet has barely begun.’

  ‘On the contrary. It has lasted long enough, you haven’t given me a compliment. How long must I wait?’

  ‘Your beauty so dazzles me that I lack the words.’

  ‘Slow down, slow down,’ she laughed, and he swore that it was honest. ‘I fear to think how far we would go at this rate before the end of the banquet. Start from… Well, say I have an elegant dress and blue suits me.’

  ‘The color blue suits you. But I have to admit that I liked you more in white.’

  He recognized a challenge in her emerald eyes. He feared to accept it. His good humor did not reach that far.

  Cahir and Milva sat on the opposite side of the table. The young man was sitting between two noble young ladies, probably baronesses that kept talking to him. Meanwhile, the archer kept company with an older gentleman, dark and silent, his stone face was scarred from smallpox.

  A little further on sat Angouleme, leading yarns and the uproar of young knights.

  ‘What is this?’ she squeaked, waving around a silver knife. ‘A blunt knife? Are they afraid that we will start a fight at the banquet?’

  ‘These knives,’ explained Fringilla, ‘have been used in Beauclair since the days of Princess Caroline Roberta, Anna Henrietta’s grandmother. Karoberta hated when the guests at the table picked their teeth with knives and blades with rounded tips were introduce so there was no way of picking.’

  ‘No way,’ agreed Angouleme, smiling impishly. ‘Fortunately, they gave me a fork!’

  She pretended to put the fork in her mouth, but a menacing glare from Geralt stopped her. The knight who sat to his right laughed with a vibrant falsetto.

  Geralt took a pot of duck in aspic and served it to Fringilla. He saw two young Baronesses religiously looking at Cahir, and how he honestly tried to divide among them equally his attention. He saw the young knights bustle around Angouleme, getting her food and laughing at her silly jokes.

  He saw Milva crumbling bread and staring at the tablecloth.

  Fringilla seemed to read his thoughts.

  ‘It’s too bad,’ she whispered, leaning towards him, ‘about your tight-lipped friend. Well, such things happen when laying out the table. Chivalry is not Baron de Trastamara strong point.’

  ‘Maybe it’s better,’ Geralt said quietly, ‘a slobbery and willing courtier would have been worse. I know Milva.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ she looked at him quickly. ‘Could it be you measure her with your own staff? Which, frankly. Is pretty grim.’

  He did not answer, instead he poured wine. And he recognized it was time to clarify a certain issue.’

  ‘You’re a sorceress, right?’

  ‘I am,’ she said, deftly hiding her total surprise. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I can feel an aura,’ he did not enter into details. ‘I have had experience.’

  ‘To be clear,’ she said. ‘I did not intend to deceive anyone. On the other hand, I am under no obligation to show off my profession or to impose a pointy hat and black cloak. Why should they have to scare children with me? I have the right to be incognito.’

  ‘I do not deny it.’

  ‘I am in Beauclair because here is the largest and richest library in the known world. Besides the university, that is. But universities guard access to their shelves and here I am a relative and friend to Anarietta and can do anything I want.’

  ‘An enviable position.’

  ‘During the audience the duchess suggested that in the library or archive you may find some useful information. Do not be fooled by her exaltation, she’s like that. But you may find something in the local books. You just have to know where to look.’

  ‘As simple as that.’

  ‘Your enthusiasm is really contagious and encourages me to continue the conversation,’ her green eyes flashed. ‘I guess the reason is because you do not trust me, correct?’

  ‘Would you like more hazel grouse?’

  ‘I swear by the heron!’ A young knight from the end of the horseshoe got up and tied a sash around one eye that was held out by a neighbor at the table. ‘I vow to not take off this sash until all the bandits in the passage of Cervantes are killed!’

  The Duchess nodded at him with her sparkling tiara.

  Geralt hoped Fringilla would not pursue the subject. He was wrong.

  ‘You do not believe or trust me,’ she said. ‘You have caused me a painful double blow. Not only do you doubt the sincerity that I want to help, but you do not believe that I can. Oh, Geralt! You have hurt my pride and lofty ambition.’

  ‘Listen…’

  ‘No!’ She raised her knife and fork as if threatened them. ‘Do not explain yourself. I cannot stand men who are justified.’

  ‘What kind of man can you stand?’

  Her eyes narrowed, but she still held the cutlery like knives ready to strike.

  ‘The list is long,’ she said slowly, ‘and I do not want to bore you with the details. I will mention only those men occupied by distinguished positions who are willing to follow a loved one to the end of the world and do not succumb to fear and despise danger. And do not give up even when it seems there is no chance.’

  ‘What about other positions on the list?’ he could not contain himself. ‘Are their men who you do like? Are they also crazy?’

  ‘What is real masculinity,’ she mockingly shook her head, ‘but the right mixture of crazy and style?’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, barons and knights!’ Cried the Chamberlain Le Goff as he rose and stood with both hands on a gigantic glass. ‘Under these circumstances I would make a toast to the health of our most serene ladyship, the Duchess Anna Henrietta!’

  ‘Health and happiness!’

  ‘Hurray!’

  ‘Long live the Duchess!’

  ‘And now ladies and gentlemen,’ the Chamberlain set down the glass and gestured towards the servants, ‘Now… Magna beast!’

  On a tray resting on the shoulders of four strapping servants was a gargantuan roast being brought into the hall.

  ‘Magna beast!’ The rest of the guest cried in chorus. ‘Hurray! Magna beast!’

  ‘And what fucking beast is that?’ Angouleme expressed her concern aloud. ‘I won’t eat it until I find out what it is.’

  ‘It’s a deer,’ Geralt said. ‘A roast deer.’

  ‘And not just any deer,’ Milva spoke, clearing her throat. ‘The deer weighs about seven hundredweight.’

  ‘Close. It is seven hundredweight and forty pounds,’ said the baron sitting next to her hoarsely. They were the first words that he had spoken since the beginning of the banquet.

  Maybe it would have been the beginning of a conversation, but the archer blushed, fixed her eyes on the tablecloth and resumed crushing her bread.

  But Geralt took to heart, Fringilla’s words.

  ‘Were you perhaps, Lord Baron,’ he asked, ‘the happy hunter, who took down this beast?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘My nephew, an excellent marksman. But these are men’s interests, so to speak… I’m sorry, I did not mean to bore the ladies present…’

  ‘From what bow?’ Milva asked, still staring at the tablecloth. ‘I’m sure from at least a seventy?’

  ‘The double bent Zefhar,’ the Baron said slowly, visibly surprised. ‘Laminate, Layers of yew, acacia, ash and bonded tendons. Seventy-five pounds of force.’

  ‘And tension?’

  ‘Twenty-nice inches,’ the Baron spoke more slowly, he seemed to almost spit out the words.

  ‘A nice piece,’ Milva said happily. ‘It can shot a deer from perhaps a hundred paces. If the shooter is really good.’

  ‘I,’ growled the Baron somewhat indignantly, ‘at a quarter of a hundred paces, hit a pheasant.’

/>   ‘At a quarter of a hundred paces,’ Milva lifted her head, ‘I hit a squirrel.’

  The Baron, clearly flustered, quickly started on his food and drink.

  ‘A good bow is half the success,’ he stammered. ‘But equally important, so to speak, are quality arrows. To me the best…’

  ‘To the health of Her Excellency Anna Henrietta! To the health of Viscount Julian de Lettenhove!’

  ‘Cheers!’

  ‘…And she kicked him in the ass,’ Angouleme finished another silly joke. The young knights rolled with laughter.

  The Baronesses whose names were Queline and Nique, listened to Cahir with open mouths, wide eyes and burning cheeks. At the head of the banquet table could be hear Regis and the higher aristocracy. For Geralt – even with his witcher hearing – could only make out a few buzz words here and there, but they seemed to be talking about ghosts, strigas, succubi and vampires. Regis gesticulated with a silver fork and argued the best remedy for vampires are silver, whose lightest touch is absolutely deadly to a vampire. What about garlic? Asked one of the ladies. Garlic is also effective; Regis went on, but socially awkward, because of the awful smell.

  In the gallery and orchestra played softly, fiddles and flutes and jugglers and fire-eaters boasted their arts. Jesters tried to entertain the company, but Angouleme raked over the top of them. Then came a bear – which to everyone’s amusement did a pile of the floor. Angouleme became sad – she could not compete with something like that.

  The Duchess suddenly fell into a rage, with some reckless word one of the barons fell out of favor and went under escort to the tower. No one but the victim showed any sorrow.

  ‘Don’t leave here so quickly,’ Fringilla Vigo said suddenly, sipping from a cup. ‘Even if you prefer to run away, none of this will.’

  ‘Please, do not read my thoughts.’

  ‘Sorry. They were so strong that I read them involuntarily.’

  ‘I don’t know how many times I have heard that.’

  ‘I myself don’t know how many times I know. Please, eat the artichokes, they are health and are good for the heart. The heart is an important organ in the male, the second when it comes to validity.’