As it turns out though, one does not simply dine with the Duchess of Toussaint.

A small, informal dinner turned out to be six courses. Eight if you include the small table of nibbles and tiny pastries before hand as well as the platters of fruits and cheeses afterwards. I had forgotten about this side of Toussaint hospitality.

Also, a small intimate gathering of people contains at least thirty people. Don't ask me where they get this sense of scale but there you go. And this wasn't even our “official” welcoming banquet which would be taking place on the morrow. It was happening this way on the insistence that we would need time to settle in. A thing that had been agreed by both my sister and the Duchess' master of ceremonies. A Toussaint Banquet is not something that you can just go straight into unprepared after all.

But I had forgotten about the food of Toussaint. Rich in creams and cheese based sauces, delicately flavoured and so filling that you pushed one course away moments before another course turned up in front of you, covered in a wine based gravy that smelled so enticing that, despite already feeling as though you were about to explode, you simply had to take at least a small sample of so as to avoid being rude as well as in order to see if the food tastes as good as it smells.

It does. It always does.

Also, for an informal gathering, it also required my very best clothing. One of the dubious pleasures of the following day was going to be when the Ducal tailor would come to our rooms in order that Kerrass, Mark and myself should be fitted with clothing proper and appropriate to our station. We would need several changes of this kind of clothing during this visit to Toussaint in order to deal with all of the balls and banquets and Flame knows what else that we would be required to attend.

I was positively giddy with anticipation. But for now, I was dressed in my formal clothing with several other layers of padding underneath in order that I not become too cold. Kerrass, the ever present nurse-maid, inspected me during this entire process and sniffed before deciding that he was happy with the results.

His meeting had passed rather quickly with The Duchess. He gravely told us all what had happened while Emma and Laurelen were doing each other's hair, I scribbled some notes about something that had caught my attention during the day, Ariadne was taking care of her own ablutions but listening through the link that she shared with me. Mark had just changed his cassock for a fresh one and was standing in front of the fire.

The Duchess had taken the meeting with her sister, Captain De La Tour and Colonel Duberton of the 4th. There was also another knight who was invited to attend but had been late to the meeting for a reason that I was not party to. Syanna had been cross on the subject and from her dark mutterings, I rather thought that this knight was part of the rival faction to her and her sister.

But everyone had listened to what Kerrass had to say, asked a few questions, expressed their own dissappointment that the information Kerrass had gathered was not more defined or definitive. Something to which Kerrass agreed readily. Then Kerrass had left to allow the Duchess to discuss the new intelligence with her immediate advisors. I do not know what came of it, but Commander Syanna was still frowning in thought when she came to escort us all to dinner later.

The dinner started with a light kind of reception sort of affair which people seemed to kind of drift into. It was, for Toussaint, highly informal in that there was no receiving line. It was just people wandering in, taking a glass of wine and mingling informally. There was a minstrel off in the corner who was gently plucking away at a Lyre, seemingly oblivious to anything else other than the music that he was playing, his eyes were closed and I found myself wondering if he stroked his lover in the same way that he stroked that musical instrument. Eyes closed, head moving with the music as he gently stroked the strings. The music easily spreading out into the open silences.

Not that there were many of those really. As it does with this kind of thing, People started to talk and then when more people started to talk then the overall noise factors of the place started to become louder and louder. But there was a genteel kind of atmosphere about the place.

Emma tells me that the Lyre player was very good. Just playing the way he wanted with no real tune but clever harmonies as he just played away, letting the sound and the melody take him where it wanted.

The room itself was what I was told to be the Duchess' own dining room. So not the Throne room or the official Banquet hall which was much larger. Like the rest of th ecastle, it had an air of a place that had been quickly... stripped of it's decorations. If you looked at the walls too closely you could see damage in some of the wood panneling where an over enthusiastic person had accidentally gouged the wood to get the gold off.

It was now plain wood panneling. Torches and things on the wall to generate heat and light. Armour stands and weapons were regular things but also sprigs of winter plants such as holly and accompanying berries for a splash of colour. There were also a number of busts of various people that I took to be family members due to the striking resemblence to both the Duchess and her sister both.

I truly wish that I had been entirely healthy and on top of my game that night. I feel as though I missed a lot of the subtleties that I would enjoy in the middle of that throng. I might have learned things that would have stood me in good stead later. But I was still in a bewilderment of fear, sickness, left over feelings from earlier spikes in my nervous system. I was dreading the inevitable queue of people coming over to wish me well and to enquire after any progress regarding the search for my sister. I was nervous over the coming events, the conversation regarding my health and Ariadne's decision to choose a surrogate to help with my return to healing.

And then there were all the warnings about the potential enemy factions that were due to be coming after us. So, in being hyper-alert and hyper-aware of everything going on, I actually managed to miss a great deal so some of what happened that night had to be related to me later on.

For instance, I missed the fact that in that early part of the reception when it was mostly made up of people sitting around and talking, The Duchess and her sister spent a large amount of time talking with their heads together. That might not be too surprising but I also managed to miss the people that were watching the pair from the sidelines. Being nervous that the two sisters might have come together in some way that had not been previously contened with.

I also missed the fact that Mark was extremely popular with everyone, but that Emma was not. Mark was, to a certain extent, in as much trouble as I was. It appealed to the romantic nature of the people of Toussaint that here he was, one of the highest ranking people in the Church of the Eternal Flame. Dying of some unknown disease, but at the same time, continuing to soldier on and perform his duty as he saw fit. They admired him for that and there were no small number of enterprising noblewomen that were making their concern and admiration known to him, most ardently. Much to the disgust of some of their male escorts but even despite that, I rather think that Mark might have made a splash among some of the female population of Toussaint who all wanted to take care of him, should that have been his inclination.

I have never heard Mark pass comment on his romantic preferences but I do not doubt that he will have been gallant, courteous and blissfully unaware of all the attention that he was getting.

Emma on the other hand, was treated with an almost cold indifference until a certain event took place. When we were last here, the people of Toussaint did not care about the fact that Emma and Laurelen were lovers. They liked the romance of the entire thing and as such did not mind. But now, Emma more than Laurelen, seemed to be struggling with people not wanting to talk to her. Or pretending that they had not heard her. I'm told that she took it like an old hand though, as though she was used to it and had not expected anything else.

It continued until Commander Syanna and the Duchess broke apart their mini conference so that the Duchess could come and comandeer Emma, laughing at all the jokes and loudly telling everyone how Coulthard management had produced the best Kayalese wine for years. Indeed, a point was made that it would be this wine that people would be drinking tonight before it then went off to the vaults to be laid down to age and mature properly. The night's dishes had been chosen, specifically, to compliment the efforts of Lady Emma Coulthard on bringing the Kayalese vinyard out of the dire straights that it's previous owners had left it in.

As a reminder. The Kayalese vinyard was the one presided over by Sir Craythorne's family. In his disgrace there was no heir to the estate and so, as is proper for Toussaint law, the estate had reverted to the Duchy. It was part of the justice administered to Sir Craythorne that his family estate would then go on to be used in order to help create the new order of knights to take the place of the old Knight's Errant. The Manor house had been turned into a barracks and training building and the surrounding vinyards were turned over to the Coulthard family to administer in order to help finance the new order of knights.

It was part of why Mark was so popular in Toussaint that he had asked to continue using the old name for the wine rather than it be called the “Coulthard Vinyard” on the grounds that a dissappointing son should not be the reason why so old a lineage should be forgotten overnight. Thus showing mercy, one of the five knightly virtues of Toussaint.

And Emma had used the vinyard as she saw fit, produced the wine and done, to all purposes, an excellent job in administering the place. It would seem that this was the reason that people were unhappy with her. For doing too good a job maybe? For showing up those families that have been doing it for years? That is also a theory.

She was not without friends though. I was introduced to a young couple. A Lord Liam and Lady Matilda who, between them, seemed to have inherited and bought three of the larger vinyards in Toussaint. Especially prominent as all three were located relatively close to Beauclair itself. They were pleasant enough, although they seemed to have that energy that some couples have where they enjoy sniping at each other a little too much for my own comfort. I can't imagine wanting to spend the rest of my life with someone who entertains themselve by trying to make me bleed.

It must be working for them though as she was clearly, and rather heavily, pregnant. Emma was well aware of this and knew enough to state with some certainty that the baby was a couple of months off yet.

Laurelen was off spending time with Lady Vigo discussing various matters. They had a similar air about them that the Duchess and her sister had had when they were talking. So I was left wondering if they were discussing what Kerrass had found as well.

Ariadne was my guide during all of this. She had changed into one of her more subdued formal gowns which in this case was a muted, dark blue. The blend of her own stylistic choices of the darker colours but with the defined colours that were chosen from Toussaint. Long sleeved with a certain amount of lace at the wrists and at the neck. She wore her symbol of the Eternal Flame prominently and proudly as she guided me through the throng, making observations about what she was seeing and what was happening around us.

It was in this manner that I met Lady Duberton for the first time and the poor woman, who was clearly overwhelmed by all of this.... Tousaintiness around her, latched onto the Northern visitors as though we were a piece of wood thrown to a drowning woman.

In her words, she absolutely loved Toussaint but she had a tendency to find it all a little overwhelming. Especially the people who she described as being “A bit full on.” She would be travelling home for a while in the spring while her husband finished off his tour of duty and was looking forward to his return from that where she hoped to start a family.

She was not unusual in a Nilfgaardian woman in my experience. She did not chafe against all the controls that people place on her gender on the grounds that it was all she had ever known and all she had ever been taught to expect. She had been encouraged to widen her experience by her husband and had become a voracious reader of all things, to the point where she would be considered to be self-educated. She had lots of little fascinations that she would chase through the library.

She claimed to have dozens of books waiting for her at any one time but envied the discipline of those who she called “serious scholars” to be able to stay on one topic for extended periods of time. But that meant that she could discuss specific topics in great detail until it became clear that she had been distracted by another field of study.

She was also a little naive. She teased Ariadne for claiming to be a Vampire as it would seem that she didn't really believe that Vampires existed. She thought that Vampires were just some kind of made up northern superstition. So when she was confronted with an actual vampire or the very real victims of Vampire attacks in Toussaint, she had a strange reaction of not really believing them. Ariadne offered to demonstrate but Lady Duberton pointed out that such things would probably not be entirely welcome at the Duchess' table. Which they wouldn't, to be fair.

I liked her. She was charming, a little shy and a little too eager to defer to other people's opinions other than putting forward her own. She hid what she was thinking carefully and I suspect that if she put her mind to it, she would be a formidable card player. It took us a while to break through her reserve, but when we did, we found a considerable wit under there that enjoyed playing off her perceived naivete on those people that were more worldly in the room.

I also became reacquainted with Lord Marhsal Palmerin de Launfal. The uncle of our bodyguard.

Lord Palmerin and I had become acquainted when I had last come to Toussaint. I had protected his identity at the time because I didn't think that he deserved all the hate that was bearing down on his head. I could easily imagine that if I had identified him in my writing of that time and place, then his life would have been made incrimentally worse.

But he was one of the first people to come and see me during that short little reception before the meal itself actually started.

So who was he? Not an unfair question before I get on with talking about how and who he is now. Back when we were hunting down Jack, I described the disaster of the Fish Market where the man masquerading as Jack, or having taken on the aspects of Jack, however we want to say it. When Jack had goaded the Knight's Errant into attacking and disrupting the plan that had been in place in order to capture him properly. There had been one Knight Errant that had held his rank and stood firm. He had stood and screamed, ordered, yelled, begged and cajoled his fellow Knights Errant to maintain their files and stick to the plan and his efforts had been fruitless.

He had become a broken man that day and had gone from a strong, blustery and powerful man to being a shell of his former life. He had stood before the Empress and the Duchess and declared that the fault regarding the disaster lay solely with the Knights Errant and as the only surviving Knight without injury from that night, he had decided that it was his duty to take on the penalty for all of that horror upon himself.

The two powerful women had refused this interpretation of events and, backed up by Lord Geralt who is, I understand, a friend of Lord Palmerin from times gone by, as well as the other Witchers, Sam and the the other knights of the Imperial Guard, it had been declared that Lord Palemerin was without fault in the matter.

But all of those people had not taken into account the fact that Toussaint will be Toussaint and two things had happened. The first was that Lord Palmerin still believed that he was at fault here and he believed that he deserved to take the blame for everything that happened. His was the failure and therefore he deserved the punishment and if neither of his lieges would do that punishing for him, he resolved to do it to himself.He was not aided in this matter by the rest of Toussaint society who took his lack of injury as being evidence of cowardice.

I shit you not.

So he was decried from tower to tower. Phrases were uttered like “Well.... He's always been a bit funny hasn't he.” and “He might have been the blade that tipped the difference.” And “At least those other men had the balls to stand up.”

As I say. Toussaint will be Toussaint. They were too used to the tales of the invulnerability of the Knights Errant. They could take it on board that a Knight could fail but nearly always, that failure would result in the death of the knight in question. Lord Palmerin had failed. Provably that was the case. So why had he come back. Why had he failed?

They were also too used to the legend that knights will perform their duties or die in the attempt. He had not when so many others had. The only possible explanation from their point of view was that he was a coward.

The matter was not helped by the fact that Lord Palmerin absolutely agreed with them.

In the immediate aftermath of the event he had spent a good amount of time trying to apologise to Emma, Sam, Mark and myself. When we all told him that he had nothing to apologise for, he spread his apologies to the surviving Witchers, Kerrass, Ariadne and Laurelen. Then when it became clear that no-one was accepting his apologies. Outsiders because we didn't believe that an apology was needed and the people of Toussaint because they didn't believe that an apology was enough, he set himself some penance.

He threw himself into the efforts to search Toussaint for any sign of my sister. When they found the petty Necromancer that had managed to animate a rabbit, it was Palmerin that kicked in the door. When they unearthed the bandit strongholds it was Palmerin that was first into the attack. When the Smuggler ring was broken, it was Palmerin....

I'm sure you get the idea.

It was clear to everyone that he was looking for a way to die so that he could wipe away his cowardice with his own blood. Unfortunately, the effort was futile because Lord Palmerin was also really really good with a blade. All that happened was that he got some more dents in his armour because it was implausible for him to actually allow someone to kill him. He just wanted to die in service to the Duchy.

Luckily, the Duchess had a great deal of affection for Lord Palmerin and summoned him back to Beauclair where she insisted that he preserve himself. She declared him the last true Knight Errant and told him to do his best to ensure that the future generations of knights would have his example to live up to.

It is my opinion that this was a mistake. It is still something of a topic of discussion in certain circles in Toussaint and I even managed to have the debate with the Duchess herself at one point. But I maintain that this was a mistake. This is because Lord Palmerin's reputation was already damaged. And in saying that he was the last true thing. Then the inference was that all knights Errant were like him. And as everyone thought that Palmerin was a coward, then everyone thought that the Duchess was calling the other Knights Errant cowards in return.

Lord Palmerin did not take this very well either. But he did his duty as he saw fit. He sold his armour and weapons, sending the proceeds to the poor houses and to the orphanage that exists just outside of Beauclair. Then he spent a bit of time stripping his family estate of all wealth so that he could live as an all but hermit. The buildings started to fall down and decay and the only reason that he devoted any time to the upkeep of the buildings were when his relatives would point out that he was leaving nothing for his next of kin to use upon his death.

At some stage in the middle of all of this his wife left him. I never had the chance to meet her properlyback then as she exiled herself to the estates after the disaster of the Fish-Market. She was a much injured woman anyway. I do not want to say that she was abused but she was certainly an unhappy woman. Lord Palmerin suffered from that sickness that afflicts a lot of the higher ranking Toussaint nobility which was that his first love was for Toussaint. His second love was for the Duchess, even though that love was an unromantic kind but more of a love of devotion or a love of a symbol. Which made his wife a distant third at best.

This was made worse by the fact that, at some point in their marriage, A Succubus had come to Toussaint and Lord Palmerin had been one of those men to fall under the spell of the Succubus. Through no fault of his own to be fair. Having been one of those men who have felt the full force of a Succubus' desire, if she had chosen him as a lover then there would have been very little that Lord Palmerin could have done about it.

But the good lady could only reconcile the fact that she was essentially a baby-making device for so long, given that her duties in that regard were long over. She was compensated by the family wealth and luxury so that when Lord Palmerin had started giving that away. Then her rage had driven her into the arms of a poet in Beauclair itself. When she was done with the poet, she moved on to an artist and on and on it went.

Lord Palmerin is up front and honest about these things. He is aware that what she was essentially doing was that every time she spent a fraction of his wealth, then she was doing it to drive a dagger into his heart. Every time she cuckolded him with the latest artistic pretty boy, allowing herself to become a notch on so many people's bed posts, she was doing it to get her vengeance upon him for years of neglect.

During one of his fits of self-flaggelation, he bought her a nice town house with plenty of room for entertaining, set her up with servants to see to her every need and want. He calls it his apology to her.

Needless to say that she hated him for this gesture.

That might sound like it was a lot, given that it all took place in a little under four or five months, but again, you are thinking like a member of the rest of the continent. These people are from Toussaint. They like to pack as much drama and scandal into as small a space as possible.

Lord Palmerin credits his recovery to two people.

The first person was Commander Syanna who staged a one woman siege of his manor house and hauled him out of it by his ear when he was feeling particularly lonely and determined in his self-pitying drunkenness. Her words.

He still hated her for everything that she had done during the lead up to the night of the Long Fangs, especially the death of his friend Lord Peyrac-Peyran. But in his drunken state, he was no match for her. She plunged his head into a horse trough repeatedly and often until he had sobered up enough to sit on his horse without falling off. Then she dragged him off to where the training had already began for the knights of Saint Francesca and she had him perform an inspection.

When he was done, he was shown to her office where she and Captain de La Tour were waiting for him. They asked him what needed to be done to improve things, to improve the training regime. Naturally he had some ideas and Commander Syanna enquired as to when he would want to start work.

The other person that helped save him was the same Succubus that had caused so much trouble in his marriage previously. She had gone off him when he was wallowing in his self-hatred. But when she heard that he was doing his best to recover, she had visited him and they had restarted their love affair. She moved in with him into his manor house and the two lived as a man and his favoured mistress. She had a way of turning up when he was home, but allowed him to go off and “work” which was when she would go off and have adventures of her own.

There was a lot of scandal about it but in the end, Lord Palmerin decided that there were two types of scandal. Scandals that he would care about and scandals that he would ignore. He examined the five virtues of knight hood and decided that he was breaking none of them. According to people that have known him the longest, he has never been happier.

I remembered him as a well muscled man with a thin, clean shaven face despite the large side-burns that men of Toussaint seem to favour. He shaved his head deciding that if he was going to go bald then he would be in control of the matter.

He seemed a lot thinner to me now, when he approached me in that small reception hall. I will freely admit that this might be due to the fact that he was not wearing his armour which can make even the thinnest and most wiry man appear big and muscled. Or maybe the muscles happen because you spend all your time in the armour. It's one of those tricky things to be able to tell.

He was still a broud shouldered man, somewhere in his fifties. When his face rests, it has taken on an air of sadness that he finds difficult to dismiss, meaning that when he is deep in thought, he tends to attract comments from others as to wondering what it was that he was so unhappy about. He was wearing a thick leather arming jacket that had been tailored a little to both appear a little more formal but also to fit his frame that little bit better. There were also a large pair of leather gloves tucked into his belt and another thick leather hood that had been pushed back so that it settled around his neck. His boots were worn and comfy looking. In a land where everything was a statement, he was just as at home here in court as he would have been in the training yard.

He had a large fighting dagger on one side and a long sword on the other. He had strapped it carefully so that it didn't trip him up but nor did it spin around and catch people out.

Of course, his clothing was plain leather. Another statement. In the same way that the knights of Saint Francesca wore their armour polished but unadorned, he was wearing his arming jacket. Well made, clean and cut to suit him, but without the vanity that would have led to the dyes and the colour coordination that many other people might have let themselves indulge in.

His sword was different as well. Gone was the jewelled pommel and golden wire wrapped blade. Now there was a simple leather wrap and a plain metal pommel that had been carved into the symbol of the cup of Toussaint.

The only colour on him was his coat of arms that he wore above his heart and the symbol of the knights of Saint Francesca on his back.

Believe me when I say that we will get back to that.

I found that I liked him more in this way. He had changed from the relaxed kind of ultra formality that he had worn like a shield. Now he just gave off the air of someone who doesn't give a damn. He had decided what was right and what was wrong and be damned to anyone that thinks differently.

This was most personified in the matter of his escort. He had brought the Succubus to dinner with the Duchess.

Lord Palmerin and his escort were already at the little reception when we arrived, myself in one of my better coats and with Ariadne on my arm. It was hard not to notice him but he did his best, standing at the back of the room while he waited for the other VIPs to get their opportunity to shake my hand and kiss Ariadne's knuckles. He did catch my eye at one point and gave just the hint of a wink before coming over to us when we found a moment of quiet.

“Lord Frederick.” He said, cutting through the crowd with the experience of someone who has been to more of these than is reasonably appropriate. “Might I say that it is good to see you.”

“Lord du Launfal.” I said taking his hand and bowing slightly, as befitted someone of a higher rank than I. “Or is it Lord Marshall du Launfal now?”

He laughed. He seemed to do that much easier now. Something for which I was grateful. “Palmerin, please Lord Frederick. The knights of Saint Francesca are not overly given to displays of overt formality.”

“Then I suspect that I should also insist on being called Freddie.”

“And I shall ignore it. Just as, I suspect, you will ignore my insistence to be just, Palmerin to you.”

“Well.” I mused. “I will certainly struggle not to affix a “Lord” to the front of that.”

“Then I will settle with Lord Frederick on formal occasions and Freddie in private. Is that more acceptable?”

“I think that that will do nicely Lord Palmerin.” I said. “You remember my fiancee? Madame La Comtesse, Ariadne du Angral.”

“I do not believe that I have ever had the pleasure.” He said, bowing to Ariadne formally. Notably not pressing his lips to her knuckles. “You are a lucky man Lord Frederick.”

“I would prefer to think of myself as a lucky woman Lord du Launfal.” Ariadne said with just a touch of asperity.

“Forgive me,” he bowed again. “I meant no offence.”

“Then none taken. I worked hard to engage this man and I am always a little dismayed when that effort on my part is dismissed.”

He laughed again. “I wanted to introduce my escort who has been simply dying to meet you.” He turned and called “Darling?”

The woman dissentangled herself from the raw and bald hatred that was levelled at her by a significant chunk of the older women in the room and approached. She is a Succubus. What can I say. A little more dark skinned than the average skin tone of Toussaint, Large Blue eyes that seemed to wear an almost constant twinkle of amusement. Her hair was long, blonde and lustrous which, in this case, was pulled back in the current Toussaint fashion. Her horns came out of the back of her forehead and curved backwards gently. She wore a long gown with voluminous skirts in exactly the same shade of blue as her eyes.

It was cleverly done. Her hair was cut so that if you didn't know what you were looking for you would be prepared to swear that the horns were some part of a headdress. And the skirts were cut so that, unless you were quick, you would almost be left to assume that the occasional betrayal of the different shaped legs were a trick of the cloth.

Of course she was beautiful. Absurdly so but then, Succubus. She smiled easily as she approached. She had been in a conversation with Madame Duberton of all people and excused herself formally with a smile and a gentle pat on the arm.

“Now Tubbynubs.” She said chidingly to Lord Palemerin. “What did we say about introducing me in formal situations? Such an interesting, fascinating and.... important word.”

Palmerin who, again, couldn't give a damn turned back to Ariadne and I. “I have the honour to present my Mistress Natanis.” His eyes twinkled as he said it. “Mistress, it is my honour to present Lord Frederick von Coulthard, Proffessor of Oxenfurt university and his fiancee, Madame La Comtesse, Ariadne du Angral.”

The Succubus' eye looked me up and down appraisingly as the introduction begun before Palmerin got to my name. Then her eyes widened and the air of mild temptation left her instantly.

“You're him,” she said in a whisper.

“Oooookay.” I said.

Natanis stared at me for a long moment before turning to Ariadne. “Madame La Comtesse,” she curtsied formally and deeply. “I must crave your pardon for a moment as I must embrace your man. For although he does not know me, he did me a great service. I have learned that ladies of your station and,” she smirked despite the formal tones of her speech, “...power do not always appreciate me showing my appreciation in this way to people that I care about or am grateful to. But I simply must. If it helps, I prefer my prey to be somewhat more aged in vintage and I am well sated at present by my Dear Tubbynubs here.”

Ariadne smiled and pretended to consider a moment as the speech went on. “I think I can permit an embrace.”

“I am grateful.”

Then I got hugged by a Succubus. Hard. Almost hard enough to crack my ribs. “I might make an exception for one such as you though.” she whispered fiercely in a way that, I won't lie, made my loins stir. “Thank you. From the bottom of this monster's heart. Thank you.”

I was astonished to hear tears in her voice as she pulled back. “I read what you wrote about my sister. I had not expected such kindness.”

The proverbial penny dropped. “You and Saffron... I did not know that Succubi had familial relationships?”

“We are all sisters. But the one you called Saffron and I... I loved her once.”

Palmerin offered her a handkerchief and she blew her nose loudly before looking at me again. “You are sick.” She declared.

“Just a cold. I am....”

“No,” she shook her head sharply. “There is something deeper....” She lifted her hand and moved towards placing it on my chest. “Something here.” She pulled back, just before contact was made. “I rather think that you would not sustain me much anyway Lord Frederick. Is there anything I can do to help you. Anything at all then please?”

“That would depend on what you can do?” Ariadne asked curiously.

The Succubus turned to Ariadne and her eyebrows rose. “You are trying to...” Then she grinned and took Ariadne's arm. “I think we should talk, oh terrifying one.”

“Ariadne's eyebrows rose in amusement as this, rather formidable Succubus tugged her over into a corner where the two of them had their heads together for quite a while before dinner was called.

“Grateful to you Lord Frederick.” Lord Palmerin said. “She was heart-broken when Saffron died. She was inconsolable for a long time and nearly charged off north to find out what happened. Then we heard that the matter had already been dealt with and Saffron had been avenged. When word reached us that it had been you and your Witcher that had done it, she demanded that I buy her everything that you have written. She wept when she read your account. And she cheered most bloodthirstily when you described the vengeance that you enacted.”

He turned to me. “I know somehting of what you suffer.” He told me. “I can see it in your eyes. It is the gaze of a good man who has gone through to much, who has seen too much but has forced themselves onwards to see more. To do more. Where... I don't want to say Lesser. But where other men,” he smiled slightly. “Where more sensible men would set things aside and rest. Where they would say, “No more”. Good men push on and hurt themselves more surely than any enemy might have managed. It is no shame to acknowledge that, nor is it a shame to allow others to take up the fight while you recover.”

He sighed a little and a sadness swept across his expression. “Believe me when I say that the fight will still be there when you are ready.”

We chatted for a while after that. He told me about the training of the knights that he had been overseeing. His reluctant pride in how Commander Syanna had stepped up to the fore in the command and administration of the knights. But his pride in what they had shaped towards the service of Toussaint. I promised that Ariadne and I would join him and Natanis for dinner at his manor house should we be able to find the time.

We did not discuss Jack or the events of that long ago night. Nor did we talk about Francesca. In regards to that matter, he had drunk the communion wine on the matter of “Saint” Francesca and felt awkward in discussing the saint with her brother. It was an awkwardness that I appreciated.

For all those other people that I met that night that I haven't name checked then I apologise. Lord Palmerin and his “Mistress” stood out for me, as did Lady Duberton but, as has been expressed by many, including me, I was not at my best.

It was one of those arrangements where we were sat at an open square of a series of tables. I was sat next to Ariadne on one side and to my right was Lord Palmerin. During the meal we were entertained by a juggler and some acrobats who were, undeniably skilled, but I lacked the porper depth to be able to properly appreciate them. They were certainly very good but I could not tell you how good. It struck me that I might have seen better in roadside caravans where men and women took more risks but the payoff was a more dazzling display.

Then there was poetry and music but the oooh'ing and aaah'ing meant that conversation was all but impossible. Which might have been part of the design after all. It would certainly be within the Duchess' abilities to craft an evening to ensure that we would not be able to discuss to much politics on the opening night.

The evening mostly devolved into a series of people coming up and wishing me well for my coming nuptials as well as small anecdotal stories about how good a person Francesca was. It was all fairly meant but I was left with the most distinct impression that no-one could really understand just how painful all of that was to me.

As I say, dinner was huge, rich and delicious. The courses interspersed with the entertainments and more wine than I was strictly comfortable with. Kerrass, the ever present nurse-maid took me in hand when he realised that I was falling asleep in my chair and said something to Ariadne who, in turn, said something to Emma who whispered something to the Duchess.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

And just like that, the night was over. I climbed to my feet, made my respects to the Duchess and made it back to our suite of rooms where I had a little weep to myself for being so overwhelmed. I was warned that tomorrow would be a busy day though as that was when our official banquet was to be held and there was a list of “things that needed to be done in the meantime” to be done during the day.

Ariadne put me to bed that night. She stood over me while I drank some of the potion provided by Sir Walther and helped me change into my nightshirt. The potion was powerful stuff and we made a note that, in the future, should I need to use the stuff again, then I should get changed after taking it.

Ariadne sat on the bed and we talked a while before she left. She told me that she had some people that she needed to see in the nearby area and that she would be back in the morning. I remember asking if I should be concerned and she told me that I didn't need to worry. I distinctly remember her saying that if there was anything to worry about, then she would already be dead.

It was not an encouraging statement.

But regardless of my sudden worry for the woman that I love, I had the best, most restful, most dreamless night's sleep that I had had in months. If not years.

I was woken up disgustingly early though, so it might be that the good night's sleep is only good in my memory due to the fact that I had to be dragged from my bed, almost literally kicking and screaming.

Fortunately for everyone's sanity, including my own, Ariadne had brought some of her coffee with her as a gift for the Duchess. Therefore I was lifted from my dreamless slumber by the heady aroma of the strongest blend that she could manufacture. It was served with enough honey and milk in order to make it palatable to my undisciplined palate, but it acted in much the same way that a red hot pitch fork up the back-side would.Breakfast had been served in our rooms that day as it was clear that we could look forward to a day of extensive activities. More than one of them seemed to be almost designed purely to aggravate me but I was a guest so...

The first of these activities was the arrival of the Duchess' own tailor. I hope that no-one gets offended when I describe him as a fussy, effeminate man with dark hair, moustache and a pair of magnifying glasses on his nose. He seemed to have several pairs of these that he used depending on what it was that he was trying to focus on. Immaculately dressed in colours that were so vibrant that they hurt the eyes a little bit. I have no idea as to his character as he barely exchanged any words with me. His conversation seemed to be purely spent with Ariadne who was also getting fitted and a few words exchanged with Emma. So Mark, who got to share my discomfort that day along with Kerrass, and I were simply told where to stand, how to stand and what to do while we were measured thoroughly.

No we didn't really get much of a choice in what we were going to wear on the grounds that we would be dressed according to the fashions and the requirements of the event that we were going to. So I was standing there being measured. Or I was sitting there and having some breakfast while giggling at Kerrass' discomfort and also admiring Ariadne as she took the fitting for her own garments.

The Tailor chatted amiably with Ariadne about Fabric choices and colour palettes but it soon became clear that the tailor would make his own mind up on such matters and that if we didn't like it then it wasn't us that were paying for it all therefore he didn't care that much.

The Duchess' own hair stylist was also in attendance who spent some time fussing over Emma, Laurelen and Ariadne as well before, much to my horror and disgust, I too had my hair cut and styled according to whatever it was that I was going to be doing over the course of the day. Apparently just cutting the ends of it with a pair of shears was not going to be good enough. There needed to be a style here.

I jest really. It was not as bad as I am making out. But there is certainly a small amount of truth in the fact that I was a little out of my depth in these things. When all was said and done and I had ended up having a little bit too much coffee while having my fill of the wonderful breakfast pastries that had been sent up by the Ducal kitchen. It was time to start the days.... festivities.

Lady Syanna arrived to collect us and during the process we had all changed into our mourning guard. Black on black. At everyone's insistence, I did not wear my weapons. I had an eating knife and my combat dagger on my belt as overt weapons. And of course, my boot knife was in my boot. I actively can't wear boots now without there being a boot knife in the middle of it. Progress I suppose.

Each of our ensembles were completed by large thick black cloaks that came out of our luggage, something that I suspect had been forseen and we were led out into the morning sunshine. There was a bright, brittle feeling to the air of Beauclair that morning. The Sun was out and the stone of the building was shining but there was just an edge to it. I don't know how else to describe it. I assume that it's due to the difference in weather systems between where we were in the North versues where we were now. It felt as though the cold winter air was made out of a delicate crystal. That if I simply breathed on it then the entire thing would shatter into a million pieces. It was like the breath that you take in before the plunge.

But all of Toussaint seems to exist on that edge of things. As though they all know just how ridiculous the entirety of their way of life is. And they're just waiting for the world to jump up and tell them how stupid it all is. That they're waiting for it all to go wrong.

But still it doesn't.

We were escorted through the palace with Commander Syanna next to us who took us out to the courtyard where we were all piled into a pair of coaches. Kerrass, myself and Ariadne got into one while Mark, Lauarlen and Emma got into the front coach. One of the knights got in beside us while Commander Syanna herself got into the coach with Emma and we were taken off through the streets of Beauclair.

I felt like an outsider looking in. I was walled off from everything by the carage's doors and the cavalry escort that rode on either side of us. There weren't exactly troops lining the streets but that was what it felt like. It felt like I was being kept away from the real world. I didn't like it. I saw the taverns that I had gone drinking in, the street corners where I had stopped for something to eat and the art galleries that I had spent a bit of time in as we all waited for the news of the searches to come in.

But now I was seperate from all of those things. I was kept apart and it didn't feel right. People would stop in the streets to watch us go past. Some waved, others bowed, a few even managed to summon a cheer. But all of them watched as we went past.

We came out of the city and around to the beginnings of the Ducal gardens. That point of things where there are several paths that lead up and towards the palace itself through the rose gardens, through the water gardens, through the herb gardens that are arranged according to smell rather than for appearance or usefulness. Ariadne particularly didn't approve of this.

I had been here before but there was a new building there now. It must have been put together awfully quickly and cost a small fortune, even by Toussaint standards. It was made out of the same colour stone as all of the other buildings with the same styles of architecture involved. It was a nice building. I don't know how they achieved the feeling that the place was already aged. As though it had always been here despite the fact that I knew for a fact that it was a recent addition.

I began to have a slow, sinking feeling as we pulled to a stop outside the entrance to this building and we climbed from our carriages. I noticed that Syanna wouldn't meet our eyes and I felt myself take a deep breath. As though I was preparing myself for something.

Emma's face was stony.

Knights opened the main entrances to the building which was where the Duchess was waiting for us with a few other VIPs. I saw Lord de Launfall was there, without the Succubus, I saw that Captain De La Tour was there and I wondered if either he, or Syanna were aware that they instinctively moved to stand together.

We arranged ourselves as best we could to ensure that we were as comfortable as we could be and that our cloaks were all arranged properly for movement and that we could get to weapons if we need to. A factor that only Kerrass and I seemed to care about, and then we entered.

“Welcome.” The Duchess began, dipping low in a curtsy. “When last you were here, grievous harm was done to your family. Grievous harm and we wish you to know that we share your grief, even as we cannot possibly understand it or come close to the depth of feeling that you must have in your soul.”

The premonition of something awful was coming to me again, but the Duchess had not stopped speaking.

“Although we leave the ultimate assessment of blame to the historians that come after us, we must take on a certain amount of the fault onto our shoulders. So we want you to know just how sorry we are for your loss.”

Please let that be all, please let that be all, please let that be all.

It wasn't.

“I do not use the terms “we” and “our” in the royal sense.” The Duchess continued. “But rather I speak for the whole of Toussaint when I say these things. The whole of Toussaint grieves and we all feel that same loss.”

We nodded and mumbled our way through some gratitude and other platitudes of understanding. I saw Syanna turn and mumble something to Captain De La Tour. I don't know what it was she said but his face went bleak. Not with anger but I suspect, with a certain amount of agreement.

“Since the loss of your Sister, the people of Toussaint have wanted to show you that they share your loss. They have tried to express their own grief and their own love and sorrow for one who was taken from the world far too early. We are a country of artists. Of sculptors and poets, musicians and painters. I do not believe that it will surprise you to know that many of these artists have devoted themselves to the subject of the Lady Francesca and onwards into her symbolic status of Saint Francesca. Those piece of artwork are collected here in this building and in the gardens of rememberance. Culminating in that place near the waterfall where she was last known to be alive. We invite you to come. See the paintings, read the poetry, listen to the music and know that you are not alone in your torment.”

She curtsied again and I felt myself kind of... leave.

On one level I was touched and deeply moved by the outpouring of support and love directed towards us and Francesca. But the other part of me, the greater part of me I think, thought that this was grotesque and disgusting. They had made a tourist attraction out of my sister. A place where people could come and shed fake tears and be seen to be grieving before the masses.

I found it all profoundly insulting. The bobbing little man who introduced himself as the curator of the art exhibit, with his little magnifying glasses perched on the end of his nose. His pompous assertations about the techniques involved in the production of the artwork under his care. The protestations as to how honoured he was to have us there with him while the occasionally repeated assertation that the fees charged for people to come and tour the galleries and the gardens, waived for us of course went to good causes and for his own, small upkeep. An assertation that made me want to punch him in the head so hard that his face would explode out the back of his skull.

My hatred crystallised into a point when he, with reluctance so obvious that it was insulting, told us that if any of the paintings took our fancy then he would waive the cost of the painting and that we should consider it a gift with his compliments. Notice the singlular there.

“Wait,” I said, the horror too much for me to stay silent. “These paintings are for sale?”

“Why yes.” He said. “We need to pay for the upkeep of the building and the gardens of course. As well as my own small stipend.”

I looked at his rich clothing, at his nose with the burst blood vessels of the regular drinker, the pot belly of a man who has never missed a meal and those meals are always large and expensive. I looked at these things and I resolved, on the spot, that if no other painting took my fancy then I would choose the largest painting with the largest price tag that I would find. I would take that painting, even if it was the most tasteless and gaudy thing in the hall and I would roll it up and keep it in the basement of Angral somwhere. Just so that I could keep this piece of human waste from proffiting off my sister even a little bit more.

I hated it all. I hated the wooden panneling. I hated the artists themselves who came to stand next to their own artwork as they stood there, quivering with pride that they got to display their works before the family of the subject. I could almost feel the animosity between them all as well. It was all too easy to imagine that they were just waiting until our backs were turned before they would start clawing each others eyes out in an effort to get ahead or to achieve some notoriety or to otherwise gain a patron. I noticed, for example, that they didn't really seem to care about what any of the family thought of the artwork, but that they fell over themselves to get into the Duchess' eyeline.

I hated the artwork too. Not because it was bad. Far from it. It was exquisite because of course it was. This was Toussaint we were talking about. It was beautiful and awful in equal measure. Because they had done a really good job. A fantasticly good job. I would, legitimately, have taken all the paintings if I could have done. Just because of how good they were and how much they reminded me of Francesca.

Flame but I missed her.

I heartily encourage you to go if you can. People still, occasionally, ask me some questions about what my sister was like. I find that I can no longer answer that question. I am not unbiased in the answering and I remember my sister very differently, I suspect, from how she actually was. But if you want to know, then she is there, in that room and in those inks, oils and canvasses.

I don't know how we got through it. I really don't. Courtier training can only account for so much. Ariadne didn't leave my side. Laurelen didn't leave Emma's side and Kerrass stationed himself near Mark so that at least he had someone to lean on when it got too much. More than once, Ariadne passed me a piece of cloth when I would be astonished by the fact that the tears were running down my face. Or other times when I would wonder why my vision was blurring and lift my hand to brush the dirt, or hair from my eye only to find the tears there, waiting for me.

It was awful.

Some particular paintings that stood out for me. The one titled “The first meeting of the Empress and the Saint.” This was a large, almost comical painting that depicted the moment where Francesca had fixed Ciri's hair in some far away Nilfgaardian courtroom. The Empress had told me the story, back from when she was still finding her place in Nilfgaardian society and was still in the process of wearing dresses and ornate hair styles that her hair simply refused to obey. That one day, when the carefully arranged style had fallen apart, Francesca had sorted out the problem with a wooden stirer from a jug of Lemonade.

The painting depicted that moment with the Empress wearing a large dress, of Toussaint fashion, obviously hugely uncomfortable and frustrated. Francesca was standing on a stool behind the Empress, tongue clamped firmly between her teeth as she wrestled the ashen blonde hair into order. It was the expressions on both their faces that made the painting stay together.

There was also a much simpler painting that depicted Francesca, again in Toussaint fashions, holding her skirts up so that she could play a game of hopscotch with a group of street children. Again, her tongue clamped between her teeth. Leaving me wondering if tongue between teeth is a convention in some way because I certainly do not remember Francesca ever having that particular idiosyncracy. If she had ever had such a behaviour pattern then Mother, Father, her Governess or any number of tutors would have trained her out of it for it being “unladylike”.

There was also a landscape painting of Toussaint that I quite liked. With a figure that I took to be Francesca resting against a tree with a book in her hand. She was sitting on a blanket and there was a bottle, a loaf of bread and some cheeses nearby.

I could go on and on, describing each painting but many of them blur together in my memory. But do not delude yourself into thinking that it was only pleasant pictures of Francesca that we saw.

We saw a painting called “Beauty Caged” which depicted Francesca in a cage in some awful dungeon. There were several different paintings along these lines. There were several paintings of Laughing Jack stood on rooftops and one, awful painting that made me so angry that I had to turn away, that depicted Laughing Jack carrying my unconscious sister in the same way that a husband carries his bride over the threshold.

I very nearly murdered that painter there. Even though I gather that that was exactly the response that the artists was after. Rage against the failure. That we could have allowed her to fall into the hands of such an animal.

There were paintings of us in there too. There was one painting called, “A family's grief,” which showed Emma, Mark, Sam and I standing together in tears with the ghostly form of Francesca stood nearby watching us with sorrow. Another painting showed the moment where the Duchess had bowed to Mark after his displays of pity and mercy towards everyone after the destruction of Craythorne, again with an image of Francesca looking on approvingly.

This was a running theme as well. Things happening with Francesca watching, sadly, happily, laughing and in joy. Ariadne and I were the subject of one such picture. The two of us sharing a tender and chaste embrace with Francesca watching, an expression of joy and pride on her face.

The entire hall was dominated by one of those epic paintings that the people of Toussaint love so much. It was a painting of Beauclair. But in all the locations were the events that took place. Numerous streets were painted with Laughing Jack killing the men of the Knights Errant and the Imperial Guard. My pursuit of Jack through the streets, the disaster of the Fish market was especially well realised. The final capture of Jack by the Witchers in the Beauclair graveyard, the Death of Sir Thomas, the exile of Sir Crawthorne.

In the middle of the painting, which is, I understand, traditional for this kind of painting. The palace of Beauclair which showed Francesca leaving the palace and then beling clubbed unconscious on the path near the waterfall. It was an epic work, one of those pictures that draws you in with all of the detail to it. Everywhere you looked there was more detail, another story of what had happened over that series of nights.

You could see the littered streamers and remains of the coronation. The murder scenes where Jack's victims had been left abandoned by the neglect of the Knights Errant. It was a powerful work. Designed to have people, viewers and historians alike, pouring over it to catch every last detail. Every facet of it demanded to be discussed and gone over. For years to come.

Mark chose a painting of Francesca knelt in prayer. By far the simplest painting of the lot. It was little more than an outline of a figure in stark black lines. Upper body, head and hands clasped together in prayer were the only things shown. But even with that simplicity it was plain who the figure was.

There was a brief complaint by the curator as he tried to insist that he could only afford one painting to go to the family. Syanna nearly took his head off before Captain De La Tour calmed her. The Duchess merely asked the puffed up little pheasant of a man as to whether or not he wanted to keep the family away from the saint. Because if he did, then such knowledge and behaviour would surely become well known in time.He subsided after that. Especially after that Duchess agreed that the Duchy would foot a portion of the costs.Emma chose a formal picture of Francesca in all of her finery. It was so realistic that my sister almost seemed to step out of the canvas. I didn't think Emma went for that kind of thing and said so until Emma turned to me and told me that Francesca was laughing. That it was in the eyes.

It took me a moment to see what she was talking about but it was there.

It took me quite a long time to choose a picture. I wanted them all and I wanted none of them at the same time. I was drawn in and disgusted by it all. It was obscene and beautiful at the same time and I rather think, looking back, that I was overwhelmed by it.

But in the end I kept coming back to the same picture over and over again. It was the picture of Francesca caught in laughter at some kind of inconvenient moment. Those moments when it is impolite to laugh and as a result, the fit of the giggles just won't go away. Francesca was helpless with them, hand half lifted to her face in an effort to keep things back but even then, the shaking that had come over her along with the giggles meant that she couldn't hide it any further. Tears of laughter on her face, mirrored with tears of pain on my own. I swear, as the Flame is my witness, that I heard my sister laughing in delight when I saw that picture.I asked Ariadne if we could hang it somewhere. Apparently, I said it in a child's voice. “Of course we can.” She replied. “Oh my Love, of course we can.”

She told me later that she wanted to hold me while I sobbed but then I turned away and I had my courtiers mask in place again. Tears still streaming down my face.

I don't know what the Duchess was expecting from all of this. I don't know how the artists expected us to respond and I don't know how the other courtiers and people wanted us to behave. I do know that we didn't respond in the same way that they expected. I do know that they were dissappointed in us. With the benefit of hindsight, I suspect that they wanted us to be flowery with our compliments and hug the artists and thank them for their hard work on our behalf.

But instead, we were a subdued, sullen and almost angry group of people. Mark, for one, didn't even bother wiping the tears from his face as the water ran down his face. I think that Emma had been kind of expecting this, or something like it on the grounds that she knew more about how Toussaint worked and had been down here before. But even she wore a bleak, remote kind of expression on her face.

When we had seen all that there was to see and our emotions were rubbed raw, we were led to the end of the building, I could not trust myself to speak so I suspect that I came off as being quite rude to the proprieter as we brushed past him on the way out without saying anything. But I don't care. I felt a sullen... disgust is the right word. He was profitting from our dead sister and our grief and right there I wanted to knock him to the ground and pound him and pound him and pound him until all the money that he had made from the exploitation of my grief came out.

The Duchess led us out into the garden silently. I did catch one exchange between the Duchess and her sister. A kind of “I told you so,” expression from Syanna with a similar kind of. “I know, but others needed to see this.” Which was when the truth of the entire situation hit me in the balls. I went very cold and very quiet for a long time. Which was fair enough, but it was also true that part of my job, as a noble and as a player and performer in these areas, is that I need to play the part that is assigned to me. So I resolved to do just that.

Outside the hall, there were a group of servants with waiting cups of brandy, in theory for warming us for the coming cold. I have no doubt that I doled out some more insults as I just drank the stuff at a swallow and asked if there was a refill available. The servant looked over my shoulder to where I am sure that he was checking with the Duchess before a bottle was produced and another, slightly more generoud measure was dished out.

Nor was I alone in drinking my brandy in such a way.

Then we were led up the hill to observe some of the more.... Outdoor presentations which were... something else again.

I have never seen an ice sculpture exhibit before and I dread to think how difficult it was to get the ice all the way from... wherever it was to here in one piece before the artists started carving it. I almost felt that it was obscene the expense that was gone to to make this whole thing a, well, a thing. All of the artists were carving their own particular block of ice along the same theme which was the theme of Francesca. Although I was alarmed how many of them depicted wings.

This was the exhibit that was most removed from the woman herself, Or so I felt. Because they were working quickly and with no reference material, there was a rushed feeling to the artwork. But that meant that some of the carvings were a little too abstract for my taste. And it was only when I asked the artist in question as to how the thing applied to Francesca that the image became clear. I also felt that the artists were more engaged in their work than the men and women in the painting hall. They were so absorbed that they almost seemed to resent the interruption whenever one of us asked the questions.

The poetry tent was next. An established canvas structure with a trestle table full of fruits and nibbles assembled on it. There was a small, raised platform where poet after poet would climb up on the platform and give voice to their own lines and verse about the incredible loss that everyone felt at the loss of Francesca. Some of the verse was of heart-rending quality. Sufficient to reduce me to tears and expose my heart in my chest for all to see. But other poets and poetry was so painfully bad that I winced and almost laughed at several of the rhyming couplets. Coulthard and Francesca are not the easiest words in the continent to rhyme so if you are not absolutely sure of your decision, then my advice is to move on. The Duchess sensed the change in the mood of her guests and we were moved on.

I won't go over everything that I saw that day but some of the highlights include some of the winter wine that had been brewed that now bore Francesca's name. It had been brewed from the vinyards of Corvo Bianco which means that they also bore the seal of Lady Yennefer and Lord Geralt. The man attending the bottles was a tall fussy gentleman with lenses perched on the end of his nose and a ledger book that he was reading while we were not at his table directly.

He struck me as a happy man who took pride in his work. I chatted with him briefly and it seemed that he and an older woman that cooked for the vinyard had come up with the wine. He had much to say on the subject of his master and mistress but most notably he told me that he enjoyed working for two people who knew enough to get out of the way and let the proffessionals do their own work. The wine was delicious and I told him so.

I also saw a new kind of flower that had been bred in the memorial greenhouse of Peyrac-Peyran. It seemed that there had been some form of competition with only the most beautiful of all the flowers being judged worthy enough to be allowed to bear the name of Francesca. I am not able to carry out enough of a comment on the aesthetic quality of a plant, other than to say that it was, indeed, very beautiful. Ariadne enquire more about it and asked if she might take some seedlings for.... planting in her home garden so that I might enjoy them at home. She very nearly admitted that she wanted to study them to see if they had any medicinal properties but she managed to remain diplomatic.

There were also several statues that seemed to have either informed or been informed by some of the paintings that we had seen earlier. The one about Francesca being at prayer seemed to be a theme that the artists liked a lot. As did something about Francesca in torment. I turned away from all of these particular statues in disgust. I understand that artists find their inspiration in lots of different places, but I found such glorification of people suffering to be tastless. If you absolutely must glorify my sister and raise her up into being an almost semi-divine figure, then kindly do that. But do not fetishize all the things that she went through, nor all the things that those of us who love her have been through in the mean time.

There is nothing sexy about being kidnapped and taken into torment.

We stopped for lunch in another little pavilion, maybe an hour or so after midday. It was surprisingly warm in the tent as we were served various, undoubtedly delicious foods. I tasted none of them. Nor did I particularly take in the music that was being played by the attending musicians. Much to the distress of the composer that was conducting them. Ariadne, who was much more awake to the nuances of what was going on around us told us later that the composer who was conducting the musicians came to check with the Duchess that everything was alright. When the Duchess confirmed that it was and that we were all just a little overwhelmed, the small man nodded his understanding and moved off.

I know that the piece of music was good though. I heard it played many different times and it never ceases to amaze. I heard it properly for the first time later and recognised it despite not really having listened to it previously.

When the light luncheon was done. A meal which none of us really ate that much of, we started to climb the path towards the castle. I shivered. We were heading to the waterfall where Francesca had been taken and I pulled my thick cloak that much closer about myself. There was a singer somewhere, her words floating down towards us on the light breeze. The tune was full of sorrow and although I could not hear the words, I felt that they were meant for me. There was more people in the party now. People had joined us and were following behind us and as we came up to that waterfall where we had found the rock with the smear of Francesca's blood on the side, there were more people waiting for us there.

I promised myself then that if they made us take part in some kind of ceremony then I was literally going to murder someone. I didn't know who, but I was going to find the person responsible for all of this and then I was going to kill them.

We came to the waterfall and there was a large covered statue there and as we stood in front of it. Mark, Emma and I, someone pulled the cloth away.

Out of some reflex Emma turned away. Mark sobbed. I brushed the tears from my cheeks with a gesture of almost anger.

The painting showed Francesca in a virginal robe or dress, holding her hands wide in supplication, welcome, prayer, whatever you want to call it. She was staring towards us as if, I swear to the flame, as if she was beckoning the three of us in to be embraced.

She had wings.

It was, and is, a remarkable statue. At the same time, it was the religious figure, Saint Francesca in all her glory. But it was also our sister. Frannie. Even from the cold marble, I could see the humour in her eyes and the dry turn to the corner of her mouth that betrayed a humour that was just desperate to emerge from her.

“Oh Freddie.” She seemed to say. “Oh Freddie,” And I desperately wanted that statue to come alive and hug me for real.

Emma turned back towards the statue. I don't know if she had seen it before and knew what to expect but was still blown away by it, or if she had never seen it before.

Mark's lips moved in a whisper of prayer.

I recognised the statue. It was this statue that had been taken as the symbol for the Knights of Saint Francesca. This statue, in Silhouette, would be emblazoned on banners and on armour from now until the order of knights themselves moved on into legend and whatever comes next. It was fitting, it was honest and it was disgusting in equal measure.

I took a step forward and found myself reaching up towards her face before I pulled back. It seemed, unholy to touch her. As though I would blemish that perfect face or that in touching it and feeling the cold stone beneath my fingers, I would be reminded that she wasn't real. That Francesca was gone and that this statue was all that was left. I just stood there, looking up into her face for the longest time.

Mark broke the tableau. When he finished his prayer, he pulled Emma into an Embrace before tugging at my shoulder and pulling me in in the same way. I very nearly fought him. It was a wrench to tear my eyes away from that statue but I had lost track of how long I had stood there and how long I was in danger of continuing to stand there. I resolved there and then that I would come back here and spend some time with that statue.The three of us stood together for a long while as we, all three of us fought for control of ourselves. Physically and mentally.

“Flame preserve me.” Mark muttered.

“I hope something will.” Emma sobbed quietly.

I said nothing. The expression on the statue was still in front of my eyes.

“Flame but we need to get out of here.” Mark said.

We finally pulled ourselves apart and looked around us. Straight into the eyes of all the people of Toussaint that were watching us. Tears streaming down their cheeks. Only Commander Syanna would not meet our eyes.

I literally saw one man, one of the artists from the painting hall trying to surreptitiously sketch something on a pad and as I looked around I saw one of the poet's lips moving. Someone else reached for their own notepad and I shook my head.

I could already see the painting. Mark, Emma and I, stood in front of the statue that would seem to be reaching towards us to comfort us in our grief. It would be called something like “A families pain.” Or “a families loss.”

I wanted to vomit.

The Duchess nodded and turned away from us towards her people. “That ends the ceremony. I am sure that the Coulthard family are very tired. You may express your condolences at a later date. Knight Commander? Captain of the Guard?”

“Your Grace?” Syanna stepped forward smartly, Captain De La Tour just a step behind her.

“See to it that our guests may return to their quarters without interruption.”

Captain De La Tour bowed. “Yes your grace.”

“With Pleasure.” Syanna hissed.

They did too. We were all but hussled along and I saw more than one, doubtlessly well meaning but utterly unwelcome, courtier unceremoniously barged out of the way to make way for our passing. Syanna grinned nastily as it was done.

We made it to our quarters and all but ran through the corridor, past the door and into privacy. Ariadne wrapped me in her arms, Laurelen did the same with Emma and Kerrass carefully steered Mark to a seat and poured him another drink.

“I'm sorry.” Syanna said to us. “I'm truly sorry. I tried to tell her... But....” She just shook her head. “I'm sorry.”

She left before someone could throw something at her.

I don't think you could have had a more profound effect on us if you had smashed us in the face with a hammer. That was literally how I felt. I felt dazed, confused and utterly, utterly raw.

Numb might be a word for it but I don't think that is quite right. If there is a place between being overwhelmed by something and being numbed by something then that was how I think we felt. Ariadne held me for a long time but I felt oddly calm. There were a lot of things swirling round my head. Not least of which was fatigue but also sadness, anger, frustration and outrage. I felt like I had come through an ordeal. Part of me wondered why I wasn't weeping any more. I had been really struggling to hold it in throughtout the entire affair but now, I did not really feel the need. It seemed pointless in some way.

I wondered, almost clinicly if the tears would come later, when all was said and done, would the tears come afterwards.

It was more than possible I suppose. I rather thought that there would even be shouting.

But then I realised that I hadn't put my arms round Ariadne, instead, she had just clung on to me while I held my hands down by my sides with fists clenched. Slowly, I managed to reach up and hug her back, I suddenly felt as though I needed to comfort her.

“I'm so sorry.” She muttered when she felt me react. “...Flame, but that must have been awful.”

“It was.” I told her, “but it's done now.”

“Say the word Freddie.” She told me. “Say the word and I will take you away from this place. Far away. You and me, we can go anywhere and I will take care of you.” Her voice sounded oddly stricken and I wondered why she was so affected by it all. I felt her own tears on the side of my face and I stroked her back. But my treacherous thoughts rose to the surface.

“Did you just...” The words caught and I cleared my throat. “Did you just have to try and remember how to curse and blaspheme in the name of the Holy Fire.”

I pulled back from her to discover, once again, that Vampires can indeed weep. I don't know why that always surprises me, but it does.

“What?” She wiped her eyes with a cloth that she pulled from a sleeve.

“You paused before you said “Flame” back then.” I teased gently.

“I.... I thought that that's what you do.” She stammered out. “Did I do it wrong?”

“No,” Mark said from where he was sitting with his head in one hand while he held the cup that Kerrass had poured for him “No you did it right.” He was dragging his hand across his face and scalp repeatedly

“Did I offend you?” Ariadne asked the Cardinal of the flame.

“No.” He said. “I know the difference between blasphemy and a prayer. And this deserves a prayer or two.”

“Mark,” I said gently disentangling myself from Ariadne. “Mark, your hands are shaking. You might wanna put the cup of wine down before you....”

Mark looked at his hand that was now trembling violently. There was a moment where he just stared as his hand shook. And then he went still.

“Fuck.” I heard myself say.

Mark is not a well man and he has lost a lot of his weight and bulk since he started to get sick. But he is still a big man. If he and Sam had swapped placed and Sam had gone into the church and Mark had become a warrior then he would have been a terrifying figure on the battlefield. My brother was hugely strong when he was younger and he still has much of that strength now although he lacks the stamina to make full use of it. Physically powerful and although it is easy to forget about it under the layers of Eternal Flame robes, rank and ceremony, he can occasionally have a temper.

In some ways, Mark and I share a number of different character traits.

Mark hurled the cup that was still full of liquid at the nearest of the Knights that were inside the room. Because of course they had followed us inside. In order to keep us safe. I had been surprised at how quickly they had just fallen into the background and that I no longer really registered their presence. But Mark had not forgotten. He looked up, his pain naked in his face and found his target, hurled the cup at the nearest one and then he was out of his chair so fast that it was almost impossible to react.

I moved, trying to catch him. The knight had lifted his shield to block the cup. The other knights were also moving on the periphery of my vision. I didn't see what Emma and Laurelen were doing and Ariadne was behind me.

But it was Kerrass that caught him. Kerrass was closer, catching Mark by the wrist and spinning him to the ground. A table went flying, glass broke and someone, I think it was Emma, screamed briefly.

Kerrass twisted so that he was underneath Mark. Mark lashed out and caught Kerrass in the face. Not hard, but enough to shock the Witcher.

The door sprang open and there was the sound of crashing armour.

“Get back.” I think it was Syanna that gave the order.

Kerrass had wrapped himself round Mark now, restraining Mark's arms with his legs. Looking for all the world like a limpet grasping hold of something. Kerrass was trying to free a hand and I guessed what he was trying to do. I grabbed one of Mark's arms and almost lay across my brother in restraint. There was a struggle, I was bruised at some point and we think that I must have been kicked or taken a knee in the ribs.But in the middle of all of that, Kerrass got a hand free made a gesture before Mark's eyes and mercifully, Mark went limp.

Kerrass pulled himself free and between the two of us we got Mark to a seated position so that he leant against a chair. Gradually, Mark seemed to fold in on himself as he pulled his knees up to his chest, and covered his face with his hands and shook with silent sobs.

The sudden exertion was suddenly too much for me as well and I sat, slumped next to my brother. Even Kerrass was breathing hard.

Mark reached out and pulled me into a hug. “I'm sorry.” He whispered, over and over again. I told him that it was alright, also, over and over again.

Emma was sobbing and the room settled into that tableau for a while.

Silence descended after a while.

“Emma.” It was Ariadne's voice and I looked up. Ariadne had moved to stand in front of my sister. Laurelen was holding Emma but there was some interessting body language there. It was as though Emma didn't want to be held and Laurelen had just wrapped her arms round her.

“Emma,” Ariadne said again. “Did you know that that was going to happen?” There was little inflection about the question. I don't know if there was anger or sadness of what there.

“That's enough.” Laurelen snarled. “That's unfair.”

“Is it?” Ariande remained calm. “The two of you have been down to Toussaint regularly. A display like that doesn't happen over night. Freddie and Mark could have been warned, they oculd have been prepared. I love you like you were my own sister Emma but... I have to know. Did you know that this was going to happen?”

Emma looked up in horror. “No. Of course not. How could I have known? How could you ask me that? I knew about the statue but not the glorification. How could you?”

I tried to climb to my feet as I suddenly felt the need to get between my sister and the woman that I love.

“How could you believe that I would be party to that kind of horror?” Emma wailed. “She staggered backwards from Ariadne as though she had been struck. “She was my sister too, how could.... Oh Flaaame.”

She wailed and tottered backwards.

Ariadne caught her and held her close. “I'm sorry.” She said. “I had to know. I had to ask.”

After a moment or two of Emma sobbing as Ariadne held her while Laurelen struggled to decide whether to embrace or continue to be angry, Ariadne reached out and pulled Laurelen into the hug.

At some point in the middle of all of this, The extra knights from the corridor outside were taken back outside and the doors were closed again.

I spent a lot of time staring into space as numbness and fatigue had their way with me for a while and my eyes burned.

Finally, and mercifully, the tears came and I wept silently. Mark had come back to himself enough that the two of us sat there with arms round each other and we wept.

Kerrass moved awkwardly. He poured us all drinks and made sure that we all had at least a cup in our hands. Although I noticed that he took Mark's cup away when the contents had been drunk. Emma and Ariadne had sat together on a couch and Laurelen had moved to a window. After his small round of playing at being a servant before Kerrass stood, staring into the fire.

“I've not been to Toussaint often.” Kerrass said after a while. “But at the same time, I rather think it was...” He shifted his weight. “I thought that was a bit extreme. I can understand wanting to honour you all, honour Francesca but that was.... That was awful.”

It says something that even Kerrass was struggling.

“I mean why put you all through that again. Why do that? I get being a guest of honour. I get a private viewing of some choice pieces or two. I get a banquet but that was almost...” He spat into the flame. “Goddess, but that was grief and guilt almost sexualised. They took an almost erotic pleasure in showing you all of that. People actually came to watch how you would react to everything that they had done. And then they got so angry the more you got upset.”

I took a deep breath and looked over at Emma who was now sobbing gently into Ariadne's shoulder.

“That wasn't for us.” I told Kerrass, remembering my realisation from earlier. “We were players in that. That was for the people watching, not for us.”

I checked on Mark who looked as though he was beginning to nod off. I squeezed his shoulder and slumped against his side. My legs felt stiff and painful and I massaged them a bit before putting my arm back round Mark. He squeezed my hand to show me that he was awake and aware of what was going on. Doing better than I would have been had our circumstances been traded.

Emma looked at me, eyes bloodshot in that special state of someone who has wept all the tears that she has to give. I met her gaze for a long time, trying to communicate that I was there and that I was on her side.

“I don't understand.” Kerrass had watched me move.

“I don't know all the ins and outs.” I said, struggling to make my head work. Ariadne had caught Laurelen's gaze and brought her back over to hold onto Emma. The three women sat on the couch and just held each other, Ariadne doing her best to care for and comfort both of the other women. “But I would guess that you are right.” I went on. “Toussaint is fetishising Francesca and her loss. They are beating themselves up for it but also glorying in the pain and the grief and the anger at what happened afterwards.

“Francesca is becoming a figure of myth for them. A holy woman. I wonder if people are already beginning to question her existence and say that Francesca is really all the women that Toussaint have lost, let down or betrayed over time. Some ideal woman that never existed and that, at some point in a nebulous future, the term “Francesca” will become a term for a woman in peril that needs rescuing. Then it will turn into a piece of slang as well. Something where people who want rescuing from something relatively mundane. It will become a term for a drama Queen who wants someone to sweep in and sort it all out for them. “Oh you don't want to spend time with them,” they'll say. “They're a real Francesca”.” I tried to shake myself clear of that train of thought.

“I think,” Emma began, taking up the thread as she began to recover her composure, “that the Duchess was showing those people, reminding them, that Francesca was a woman. That grief is not to be glorified. I'm just guessing. But I think she wants people to start getting past this. Reminding people that Francesca was a woman. A woman with a family and friends and people that loved her. That the knights Errant and the people of Toussaint failed her as well as their own people and resisting that all being turned into some poetry and then forgotten about.

“She is reminding her people of the human cost.” Emma went on. “She wants her people to move forward while remembering the best of the past. Not allowing this all to be dismissed as a poetic incident.” Her lip curled into a sneer as she said that.

“She's afraid that Francesca will become another Heron for knights to swear by.” Emma went on. “So she wants to remind them that she was real, that we exist, and that Toussaint failed us. You watch as she, and her faction at court, fall over themselves to make it up to us. To apologise for the hurt that was done to us, thus putting the artists and the romantics in their place. So that they glorify the right things and elevate the right values. So Francesca becomes a warning of what's at stake, not something to be aspired to or a romantic ideal.”