But these killings… There was a glee about them. There was a deliberate chasing of the gore, of the shock and of the sexual nature of the killings and the torture that went with it all.

When the killers had the chance of course. Torture takes time.

And that was one of the main reasons that I didn’t think it was Jack. It was inconceivable to me that Jack would be found with his pants around his ankles and his dick hanging out while standing over his purported victim. That just wouldn’t happen. If Jack has decided to kill you, torture you and leave you in a place where you will eventually be found by the surrounding people. Then he will do that. No amount of planning on our part, no sudden burst of ingenuity was going to save anyone. If Jack wanted you dead then he was going to kill you. He would not be caught.

That was why it wasn’t Jack.

Kerrass once joked about me and the way I speak about Jack. I can’t remember where this was. It was probably in Novigrad while we were waiting for our ship to come in, or on one of the other sailing voyages where we were sitting around with nothing much to do. I will have been sitting down, ordering my notes and my research and he told me that he rather thought I was in love with Jack. That I admired him. I remember pausing for thought and saying the following. I even put it into the book as part of my closing remarks at the end.

“I do not love Jack. Nor do I particularly fear Jack. I certainly do not revere or worship Jack in the way that I would revere or worship the Eternal Flame. Jack would find such things amusing. However, I do respect Jack. In the same way as I respect the storm at sea, the avalanche on the mountain, the forest fire and the tidal wave. Jack simply is. You can admire such a thing while also being absolutely aware of how awful, how terrifying such a thing is. You stand before Jack at your peril, you defy him at your own risk. Just as you cannot protect yourself from the tide by hiding behind a shield or fend of an avalanche with a lantern.”

It wasn’t Jack. My fantasies about what it would be like if Jack himself walked into the clearing intending to slay the Countess were just that. Fantasies. My mind, spinning increasingly complex things in order to occupy itself. The fear of the unknown that is always there when this kind of thing would happen. The very real and utterly normal fear of “Is this the time that I lose a limb, am blinded, crippled, maimed or even killed. My imagination spun off into all the things that this monster could do to me.

I blinked.

“Is it always like this?” Mark asked me as we leant against the tree. Flame but he looked so young then. So young and healthy. I felt like I was watching the scene from inside the body of my own younger and far more naive self. He looked young, vital and energetic. But as I examined him closer with the benefit of hindsight, I could see those early signs of the illness that was taking him from us and I berated the younger me for not seeing it. For not doing something about it so that we could have our older brother that bit the longer.

Emma and Laurelen were nearby as well. Sat, holding hands and talking. Mark was avoiding looking at them because they made him feel so uncomfortable. Then, as I did now, I felt a certain frustration with Mark. There she was, our sister, better than both of us, sitting with the woman that she loved and Mark just could not get past the dogma that had poisoned his mind. It was no consolation to know that he would get past that.

All that was clear was that we had missed out. We could have been closer. We could have been better. And if we had done so then maybe Mother wouldn’t have had to leave, Mark wouldn’t be dying, Sam would not be becoming increasingly estranged and Francesca would not have disappeared.”

I blinked.

Flame but I hoped that something would happen soon. This was beginning to get tedious.

I hunted around my mind for something to think about. Something small that my mind could latch on to that would be safe for me to think about rather than becoming obsessed or sinking into the past. Normally in this kind of instance I might entertain myself with small fantasies about what life was going to be like in the future. I would imagine the horror that Kerrass is going to put me through on the night of my Bachelor’s party. I would entertain myself with small erotic fantasies about what Ariadne and I could get up to after we were married but I was avoiding such things at the moment in order to prevent the lady herself from gettind distracted.

But there was no avoiding it. Sooner or later my thoughts were pulled back towards the place that we were in. The situation that we had found ourselves part of and wondering what was going to happen next.

I was sure that someone was going to come. I was certain of it. After all, we had left enough of a trail for people to follow that even a child would know where the Countess was hiding.

So I allowed my mind to diversify for a bit. Because there was a question that we could try and answer. Who was it going to be that would be wearing the costume and hiding under the mask of the killer. Who would be wearing the hat and carrying the stick, wielding the sword and billowing the cape.

It was a good puzzle to be occupying myself with. Mostly because there was no easy answer to go with. We knew that it wouldn’t be Alain. If he wasn’t stupid enough to realise that he was now a suspect in the killings then the people that were around him would certainly be aware of such matters. They would also, probably, be aware that this was a trap.

So who would they send.

We knew that Jack would be a skilled swordsman. He would have to be because otherwise the whole pretense of it being Jack would have fallen apart. He would need to be skilled with a sword. He would need to be acrobatic, quick on his feet and strong as well. In the face of all of those things it meant that we were all but certain that it would be someone, or several someones that had proper knightly training. The murders or the sneaky bits could be done by anyone. They could even be done by patsy’s or people that had no idea who they were working for.

But the people beneath the mask and hat would need to be Knights. I was all but certain of it. I was also certain that although we knew that Alain had not been the man that had killed his wife, it had certainly been him that had carried out one, or more, of the other attacks. He had all the characteristics that were required of a person to be able to do that.

But who did that leave?

Personal prejudices were a problem and I was as guilty of this as anyone. The more traditionally minded of the people that we were working with, wanted it to be Gregoire because he was the villain of modern Toussaint in the Knightly arenas. So there was just something fundamental in their makeup that made them want it to be Gregoire. They couldn’t help it.

But I didn’t think that it fit with his character or his… life. I don’t think he cared enough to make an effort to overthrow the Knights of Saint Francesca. He had carved out a life for himself and seemed satisfied with it. I was of the opinion that he was desperately unhappy with his lot in life but I rather thought that this was because he was tired of being the villain. He would not be the one to do this.

I wanted it to be Raoul. He too had all the capabilities to be Jack. But even though I wanted it to be him, I didn’t think it was. I was confident that he was involved, but Raoul had that animal intelligence, the low cunning that meant that he would know what would happen to anyone that tried to pretend to be Jack. He would be that kind of person. He would not leave it to chance. He was the kind of person that I was kind of expecting to be the mastermind behind it all. But I couldn’t see him taking the risk of wearing the costume.

So who was it?

If we didn’t catch him tonight and find out, there were only limited ways that we could bring all of this into the light, none of them were safe and none of them guaranteed success. The weak thread, the one person that we knew about was Alain…

I blinked.

The Duchess was in full flow. It is always interesting to see people when they are beside themselves with fury. You can tell a lot about a person when they are angry and in this case, she reminded me a lot of Ciri when she was doing one of her tirades.

The Duchess was pacing up and down while the rest of us were sat in comfortable chairs. And by the rest of us I mean myself, Guillaume, Syanna, de la Tour and Lady Vivienne who sat out of the way and in the corner. My impression was that she would jump in if there was a political concern but otherwise would want to stay out of the entire situation.

The Duchess had been ranting for a solid ten minutes now. Enough time for me to pour a cup of coffee, wait for it to cool enough to a temperature that it could be easily drunk and then drinking it.

The temper and contrary nature of the Duchess is famous and it would seem that we were getting a whole bunch of it in the face.

She stopped abruptly and spun to glare at the lot of us with her hands on her hips.

May the Eternal Flame and the lady in question forgive me, but it was in that moment that I knew why Professor Dandelion calls her his “Little Weasel” and why he was so convinced that she was never more beautiful than when she was absolutely furious with him.

The fact that he claimed that this was the real reason that he would go out of his way to be unfaithful to her is neither here nor there. He may have pushed that too far.

“Can any of you.” She growled at us. “Give me one good reason. Just ONE good reason. Why I shouldn’t haul that son of a bitching bastard out of his bed and in front of my torturer to find out what he knows before I hang him in a cage over the top of the Palace walls so that he can die of exposure. Just one good reason?”

There was a small pause.

“The question was not rhetorical.” She snarled.

She was talking about Alain.

“I have a reason,” Syanna began. “That reason being that you don’t have a torturer any more since the last one retired. As I recall, you even said that torture is best used in the moment, that all a man needs to torture is some imagination and that having a specialised torturer was a waste of money.”

“Sweet sister.” The Duchess hissed with the smile of a cat that has just heard that the mice have organised a revolt. “There is a time for your jokes. There is a time for irreverence and there is a time where the tension of the moment needs to be deflated. But in case you were wondering. That moment is not here.”

Syanna subsided, much to my astonishment.

“I mean it.” The Duchess snapped. “Any single one of you. If my newly adopted daughter is to be believed, and I do believe her, then Alain is in this up to his filthy neck. He has seduced her, abused her, taken advantage of her, I could even argue that he raped her and all this time she was being groomed into a position where she could take my place in an effort to subvert the duchy to other forms. He will give me the names of those other conspirators at the point of a knife or the tip of the red hot poker that I will have inserted up the eye of his penis. I will, in fact, have that particular hole stretched by other red hot implements so that it can make way for the poker that is to follow.”

She carried on like this for a while. For long enough that I won’t carry on using the paper to make the use of it. I winced at the thought of all of those things, Guillaume crossed his legs, Syanna seemed bored and De La Tour could clearly not give a damn.

“So explain to me.” The Duchess seemed to finally be coming to the point. “Tell me, why should I not do this thing? Give me a reason. Just one reason, but make it a good one because I will not be able to stand for any paltry excuse of things like “morals” or “honour” after everything that he has done. After everything that that man has done he deserves everything that I have described and more. He deserves....”

And she was off again. I was forced to stop listening as things got particularly graphic.

I’ve had some of those things done to me and I was learning that if I was going to have to live with sudden memories darting into my consciousness without control or warning, then I would have to learn to sidestep these moments whenever possible.

So I was honestly startled when I realised that she had stopped.

“Well?” She demanded.

There was a pause. “There is a lot of attraction to your idea.” Syanna began slowly. “And speaking for myself, I would more than happily hold him down while someone did all of those things to him. What my… newly adopted niece has told me is enough to make me hate him.”

“Stop dancing around the subject Syanna. Spit it out.”

“Your idea would be catastrophic.”

“Why?”

“All he would do would be to demand trial by combat in order to prove that your… daughter and my niece is lying.”

Guillaume nodded. “There is no-one to beat him in that field Your Grace. No-one at all. So all of a sudden, your adopted daughter is in the same state as her father. Everyone knows that she is right. Everyone knows that she is innocent of all the horrible things that he will, undoubtedly, say about her. But by the rules of trial by combat he will be right and she will be nothing more than…. Words fail me.”

“A liar.” De La Tour suggested quietly.

“Whore.” Syanna said less quietly. “A silly little girl with a crush. A silly little girl that has delusions of grandeur. That lived in the woods and was fed lies by a father who was disgruntled at all the things that were done to him when he was found guilty of having tried to molest the young Duchess of the realm which will drag that old scandal out into the open again.”

“I have seen you both fight.” The Duchess told Guillaume. “You are by far the better fighter.”

“Yes I am.” Guillaume said without pride in his voice. “In armour, on a battlefield, certainly on horseback. Where rules are that anything goes and the winner takes all. That I would win. But in the duelling fields, where rules are carefully curated, rituals properly observed and honour is the primary virtue. Where witnesses will be called, swords inspected and proper breaks can be called for and given. He is the better swordsman. He would dissect me piece by piece and he would do so carefully, slowly and in a way to torment those watching.”

Not Guillaume I noticed. His own pain was dismissed as unimportant.

The Duchess waved her hand. “The truth will…”

“Oh come on Anna.” Syanna protested. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

“Honour is no protection in the face of… Guillaume began.

“He will still be… De La Tour tried to rise above it and be calm.

“Are you telling me that you are not willing to face him?” The Duchess demanded of Guillaume. The atmosphere in the room shifted. “If you are not then I say that you are a coward and that you dishonour yourself and your entire line.”

De La Tour stiffened.

“ANNA,” Syanna protested. She almost screeched in her horror.

Guillaume said nothing for a long moment. The air seemed to crystallise. Then the Knight stood, the face of the normally happy, animated young Knight was a mask as he rose to his feet. “It is no dishonour to say that a man is better than he. It is in fact a mark of the honourable man to acknowledge a superior opponent. It is no dishonour to protest that such an action would only result in disaster for the Duchess herself, her daughter, her sister and Toussaint as a whole, which is what I am doing.”

I was watching the Duchess carefully. Neither her expression or her posture had changed but I thought that there was just a hint around her eyes that suggested that she was aware that she had gone too far.

“If the Duchess wants my death, then she has only to ask for it.” Guillaume continued. “If she orders it, I shall march to his door from here and I will demand that he face me in order to answer for his crimes, even knowing that I am going to my death. I would ask only that the Duchess make some kind of provision for my wife when my, inevitable, death leads to her disgrace. But my duty is also to the realm, and that duty prompts me to say, again, that I cannot beat him. That strength of arms will have proven him innocent. That…”

The Duchess finally relented and waved him off.

“I apologise Sir Guillaume. Lady Vivienne. I am angry at the things that have been done to my family and to Toussaint as a whole and I forget myself.”

“The Duchess has no need to apologise to me.” Guillaume said a little stiffly, despite his words. “My life belongs to the Duchess.” He sat down.

Lady Vivienne got up and left the room. The Duchess watched her go before rubbing her eyes “Dammit,” She muttered before looking up at us. “Is there anyone that can beat him in that arena?” She demanded.

“I have been thinking about that.” Guillaume told her, speaking more comfortably now that he was on matters of his own expertise. “I have not met every Knight that claims the vows, but those are far too young. The only person that could be depended on to defeat Alain in the duelling circle would be Lord Geralt.”

Syanna nodded. “I would concur.”

“But he is in Cintra.” The Duchess was starting to get frustrated again. “What about Raoul?”

Everyone in the room shifted uncomfortably, including me.

“You are suggesting that he is not involved?” De La Tour put to words what the rest of us were thinking. “But even if he is not, you will not persuade him to fight on your behalf. But even if you did, LeBlanc is the better with a horse and a lance, but Alain would win with a sword.”

Guillaume spoke up. “I draw the Duchess’ attention to the fact that Raoul no longer competes with the sword. He is on the lance only since Alain came to the fore. My feeling is that he would want to be in the stands and watch this contest.”

“If Geralt could do it, what about Witcher Kerrass?”

Syanna shrugged. “I have not seen enough of Kerrass’ bladework to comment. I do know that he would admit that he is not the swordsman that he was before his arms were mangled in the north. He has said so over dinner.”

“He might manage it.” Guillaume said. “But again, there is a difference between a duel and a fight. Kerrass would not be able to use all of his tricks. Lord Frederick has admitted in his works that in a contest between Geralt and Kerrass, then even Kerrass would admit that Geralt is the better sword.”

“By a country mile.” I agreed. “His words, not mine.”

“To play the duelling game the way that Alain does for just a moment.” Guillaume continued. “Kerrass would have a shot. But it is a long one and the outcome would be far from certain. We would be pinning all our hopes on a tricky prospect.”

“He is also a prisoner.” Syanna said. “Currently accused of being the killer that we want to prove Alain is. We know that he isn’t, just as we know that Alain was not the one that killed his wife, but it would seem odd to everyone if we backtracked on everything. We arrested him properly, so to free him on no evidence, because we don’t have it yet, to have him fight Alain as our champion will mean that…”

“Alright alright. We’ll keep Kerrass in reserve for now. What about Sir Morgan?” The Duchess suggested.

“Again,” Syanna responded. “If he is not involved in the conspiracy, which is a big “if”, he would take Alain’s side on this anyway.” She switched into a remarkably accurate impression of the older Knight. “The word of a Knight Errant over some illegitimate daughter of a disgraced man with no lands, no wealth and barely any title. If we defended that kind of thing then we would be fighting off claims from every daughter of every peasant within the realms of Toussaint who demand justice. Justice that would eventually take the form of a fat purse.”

“Your Morgan is getting better.” De La TOur commented dryly.

“Thank you.”

“But also,” Guillaume piped up, a little annoyed at the levity. “Sir Morgan has passed the peak of his ability. Two years ago, three even, then yes. I would give better odds on Morgan versus Alain. Sir Morgan at the height of his powers was as good as any. But now?” He shook his head.

“What about Gregoire?” I heard myself suggest. In my defence, it made sense at the time.

The Duchess shook her head. “I do not trust Gregoire.”

“What kind of man would allow himself to be portrayed as the villain of every piece of propaganda.” De La Tour growled.

“A man who knew his place.” I suggested. “A man who never realised that he could be anything different.”

Guillaume jumped in. “Speaking just as a swordsman here. Gregoire’s fighting style is unique. But in this particular instance I don’t think that it would work out. Leaving aside all of the moral questions and capabilities as to who was in charge and who would be right and under what circumstances. In a duel to the death then yes, Gregoire might edge it. But Gregoire needs to wind himself up to get into his pattern. Everyone knows how Gregoire fights. Everyone, including me. And everyone knows that the way to beat it is to be fast, get in, injure and get out before that awful sword comes round and kills with a single blow. It’s just that the only person, to date, that has been quick enough to do that is Geralt. In the duelling field, I think you could persuade Gregoire to fight.”

“A large enough purse of money will do that.” Syanna agreed.

“But,” Guillaume was a little annoyed at the fact that people kept interrupting his assessments. I could relate. When you are holding forth on the subject that you know more about than any of the other people assembled, it is always annoying when people interrupt to remind everyone of their importance. Even worse when you know that they are doing it to assuage their own feelings and are not doing it intentionally.

“But… Gregoire would be a champion and everyone would know it. Alain would push for first blood so that “he would not be forced to kill the champion of the state” and then he would wear little to no armour. He would wield a rapier or something else sharp and absurdly fast in the air. Then while Gregoire is still winding up to start those patterns of his, Alain will dart forward and with a small nick to something exposed, the duel would be over. He is good enough to do that.”

“There is also the political view of that.” Syanna said unhappily. “Lord Frederick’s determination to see something in Sir Gregoire that none of the rest of us can see notwithstanding. He has been the villain for so long and now he is the champion of justice for the realm. People will automatically see the realm as being in the wrong.”

“So we don’t do it like that.” The Duchess said. “We arrange for Alain to disappear. We have some people take him off somewhere in secret and have him questioned. Can we do that?”

“We can certainly do that.” De La Tour said with the air of someone that has done exactly that many times before. “But it would be a mistake.” He finished.

“I agree.” Syanna added.

Guillaume looked uncomfortable at the prospect.

“Why?” The Duchess demanded. “Why would it be a mistake? I cannot have a man like that walking around and doing the things he’s doing without a damn good reason. So why shouldn’t I have Damien go out there, arrest him, take him off to one of the hidden caves that Lord Geralt cleaned out for us a couple of years ago and beat him until he gives up the plot? He deserves nothing less.”

There was a long moment there, where the four of us desperately avoided looking the Duchess, or each other, in the eye.

It was like… It was like that moment when a tutor lines you up and asks you all a question, or a parent is standing over the wreckage of some expensive broken item, or a master is standing over some kind of botched piece of construction. They look at each of you and demand to know what the answer is. Who the perpetrator was or what happened.

There is a moment there where the future stretches out in front of you as your, often young, brain figures out all of the possibilities, all the possible consequences of what happens next. Because you all know the answer. You all know who broke the vase, who messed up the project and you all know the answer to the question. The problem is wondering what happens next.

Sam and I would often be in the same classroom as we worked together because, depending on who you speak to, I was too clever for my lessons and needed more advanced work, or Sam was unable to deal with the older lessons and needed to work “on the fundamentals a bit more.” But if I answered too fast, especially when Sam didn’t know the answer. Then I knew that Sam would feel humiliated and take it out on me later when we were on the practice field later when our talents and skills were reversed.

Or standing over the broken item. We all knew that Edmund had broken it in an effort to get one of the rest of us, or a castle servant, into trouble, but if we told Father, or Mother or whoever, that. Then Edmund’s vengeance would be rather… unpleasant.

It’s one of those universal experiences that we can all relate to. Whether we are born to the highest or the lowest station, people always ask us what the right answer is and then we are scared of answering it in case we get into trouble.

In this case, we all had some form of why just preemptively arresting Alain was a bad idea. We all had”part of the analysis” as my tutors would say. But if we volunteered that information then the woman that we were talking to had every power that she needed in order to have our heads removed from their necks.

In courtier lessons, if that is the sort of thing that you are after and apparently, I am told that were I to write a book on the subject then that book would be quite marketable...

I can’t think of a subject I would less like to talk about. There are far more gifted teachers and works on the subject than what I could provide.

In the courtroom the term for this moment is called “speaking truth to power.” Those same works, specifically I am thinking of “The Courtier’s worth” by Proffessor Stefan Darga will tell the powerful that it is vital to surround yourself with people that are willing and capable of doing this. It stresses the need not to drive these people away on the grounds that your enemy will have no qualms about picking those people up and using their advice. It also stresses the need to refrain from killing them when they give you advice that you don’t like. On the grounds that surrounding yourself with people that only tell you what you want to hear can lead you down a path of inevitable self-destruction.

Unfortunately, Professor Darga was killed when he told King Radovid that the Eternal Flame had a dangerous propensity towards fanatcisim and mob building. That he should keep himself separate from them lest the mob turn against him.

Such are the perils of speaking truth to power. Especially in a world where monarchs have the direct power of life and death over the people around them.

But then there is another moment that follows the first. It is the moment where the class, or family group, realises that the authority figure is quite content to wait until they have an answer, whether it’s true or not, and that someone needs to answer. Sometimes people manage to restrain themselves but there is an awful moment, a truly awful moment, thankfully much shorter than the situation that led to ir, where you realise that no-one else is going to respond to the question and you realise that you are going to be the one that answers it and that has to live with the consequences of all of that are going to fall on your head.

I sighed, attracting the Duchess’ attention to me.

“Alain is not the head of the snake.” I said. “He is a buffoon and everyone that is involved in this entire enterprise knows that. I would even suggest, in fact it is more than possible, that he has been deliberately kept apart from certain details because they are aware that he will be under suspicion and that if we take him down, then he will spew everything forth in order to save his own skin. He is precisely that kind of bully. Same as you accuse Gregoire of being and that Crawthorne was.

“He can get away with anything in your culture because his skill with a sword is unmatched. He can seduce, assault and do what he likes because the instant anyone complains then he can challenge them to a duel in the sure knowledge that he will get away with it.

“But your enemies, his companions, are aware of that. They know that you are not stupid, even as they think that they are stronger and better than you, so they will have taken that into account. They will have taken into account that your first urge is going to be to arrest and interrogate the man. Therefore they will have minimised his exposure to the rest of the conspiracy. They will have told him something foolish like “compartmentalisation” or “cell structure” so that they can justify to him why they are keeping things from him. Why he is not as aware of what is going on as part of the conspiracy as he would like.

“And conspiracy it is. Your… Daughter’s account tells us that. It is a conspiracy and some form of this has been in the planning stage for months, if not years. Alain’s role in this has been to be the skilled sword arm and the pretty face that they can hide behind. He is the most exposed in that his wife has been killed as part of the plot, and because the target of his seduction has fled. So to them, he is also the most disposable. His part of the plan was the riskiest and now it is all but defunct.”

The Duchess was standing in front of me now. Staring at me, her eyes wide and blazing, the full force of her anger, will and intelligence was falling on my head. I wanted to hide behind something.

I could see the entire white’s of her eyes around the iris.

“So let’s play this out.” I told her. “You arrest him and have him taken off somewhere to be questioned. Fair enough. What does he tell you? Let’s assume that he tells you everything in a short, to the point series of answers. Speaking as someone who has been tortured, that is the least likely of possibilities but let’s play this optimistically.

“Say he gives you a series of names, that are all true instead of lies or being inaccurate. That aren’t enemies that he wants disposed of. I would tend to agree that he isn’t that clever but he may have been coached. Sorry, I am supposed to be being optimistic here. Say he gives you those names and tells you those plans. What are you going to do with him, and them, afterwards.

“Do you arrest all the conspirators. I can already tell you what they will say. They will say that you are arresting them on the basis of a man, already found guilty, who will say anything that he can in order to save his own skin. If he survives he will be portrayed as the wounded martyr, victim of your feminine and emotional need for some form of vengeance.”

I saw that one strike home and had time to wonder if that would be the sentence that would kill me. Then my mouth started working again.

“The other men will portray themselves as innocent. They will say something like “Obviously we disagree with the Duchess on matters of Knighthood and the proper uses of authority in order to keep the peace. There are many things that we disagree with the Duchess on but we would never be disloyal. Never. We are hurt, wounded and distraught that she could even consider that we would sink to such levels.” And then they are the martyrs and you are the tyrant. Proving everything that they have ever said about you and their cause, when they gather to try again because they will, their cause will attract new followers who do not want to find themselves victimised the way that you victimised them.

“But let’s tilt the thing in the other direction just a little bit. Let’s assume that things don’t entirely go to plan. What happens when Alain feeds you some false names. The conspiracy has already proven that they have redundancies in place. I wasn’t involved in that part of the investigation but I would be prepared to bet a considerable amount of my… sister’s money… Not my money, I don’t gamble with anything more than a few copper.”

“Very wise,” Syanna commented.

“But Alain had an alibi for the night that his wife was killed didn’t he? I bet it was a really good one too. Something unassailable.”

“He did.” De La Tour admitted.

“So even if he gives you true names then there will be men who have alibis that they will be able to hide behind. You say that it is all a conspiracy and again you are a tyrant.

“But what happens then. While you are desperately trying to find proof that all of these men are in it together, while you search their residences, hunting lodges and the homes of their mistresses for something, anything, that might prove that they have been working together in an effort to undermine the Knights Francesca, then the others, because you won’t get them all at the same time, are hiding or destroying the evidence that incriminates them. They will set their own alibis in stone and then they will retreat. They will hang Alain out to dry saying something like…”

I reached for the words and stared at the ceiling.

“No.” I began. “No, Alain came to us with this far fetched and treasonous scheme to undermine and blah blah blah treason. We were horrified, mortified, shocked, appalled and so on at the prospect that he would think that we would do such a thing regarding the Empress and the Duchy that we love. We threw him out and brought it to the attention of the proper authorities. What? You mean the proper authorities know nothing about it? Well, that was back when Nilfgaard were in charge of security wasn’t it. Obviously the Knights Francesca, or the Knights Errant before them would have handled things differently.”

I looked back down to the Duchess whose face was stony.

“And then you have driven the conspiracy further underground. They will come back, stronger, more sure of themselves and much more cautiously. You might catch them that time but it is just as likely, if not far more likely that you do not catch them until they have already won. The people in charge of this conspiracy are clever men, even as they use stupid men like Alain.”

Silence fell for a moment while I fought the urge to breathe heavily.

“So what would you have us do Lord Frederick?” Syanna asked carefully. One eye on me, the other on her sister. “There is still no proof that you have read any of these situations right although I notice that they did try to drive us all apart when you predicted they would.”

“And succeeded.” De La Tour said. “Kerrass is still in prison and we cannot get him out without proving his innocence. He is far safer in there than he would be out here. There is also the question about why Alain is trying to have him freed, that is a question that picks at my brain.”

“Indeed.” Syanna said, still watching her sister. “But your theories fit the facts far better than mine Lord Frederick. So what would you suggest we do? What strategy are you leaning towards?”

I took another deep breath and went back to staring at the ceiling.

“Strategy.” I mused. “Strategy...Ummmm. Ok. It’s about pressure. We know about Alain. We know about his presence and we know about what he is doing. He is like…. Ok.

“He is like…” I cleared my throat. “If this conspiracy is like a gigantic snarl of twine. If they all come together in this tangled ball of… stuff… then how do you untangle the ball of twine?”

“This is a long way away from…” De La Tour protested. “People are dying and…”

“Leave him alone Damien.” Syanna said sharply.

“You don’t untangle the snarl by pulling on the thread.” I told them, letting the thoughts come as they would. I tried to find the anger, or the pain, or the fear that would motivate my mouth to do that thing where it just starts speaking. It wasn’t there though.

Flame but I was tired.

“You coax it gently.” I said, answering my own question. “You tease it out, pulling at the other loops equally as gently until it all unravels in your hand. The thing here is that the tangle is all made up of the same coloured wool with one line of wool in the middle that is coloured red. So we can see where that thread is and using that we can untangle the rest. We use that thread for our own purposes.

“We know that they are using Alain. We do. We can keep that going, we can watch them. We can feed him false information. We know that there is more than just one person being Jack. We know that there are multiple people but so far, we have not given anyone else the impression that we know that. So from the conspiracies perspective, they have provided the alibi. If we can continue to pretend stupidity then we can use what we know against them,”

There was a beat of silence. “Ok.” Syanna said carefully. “I’m not sure I understood any of that.”

“I do.” Guillaume said. “It’s one of Freddie…. Lord Frederick’s I should say, favourite strategies. When Strong, pretend weakness.”

“Precisely.” I said, grinning at him with what I hoped was obvious gratitude. “We apply pressure to Alain, we expose him slowly so that he starts to unravel and make more mistakes. Then, when it becomes clear that he is making those mistakes, he will become desperate, he may even come to us of his own accord so that we will protect him from his former comrades. In the meantime we pull on other strings until another one pops free.”

I looked down. The Duchess was still looking at me. “So what you are saying is that we turn our knowledge of Alain’s guilt into a tool for our own hands.”

“Yes. We cannot just remove Alain. If we do that, then the conspiracy retreats, only to come back stronger. Because of him, they are exposed and for a conspiracy, exposure means weakness. They think they know more than us which, in turn, makes them arrogant. If we can increase that arrogance before shattering it utterly, then we make them desperate. Desperate people make mistakes. And when they do, we capitalise on them.”

I considered what I just said. “Yes,” I mused. “That makes more sense.”

Syanna sniggered.

The Duchess nodded. “Knight Commander?”

“Lord Frederick is correct.” She said. “Speaking as someone who has been part of a conspiracy before, I started to make mistakes when I felt that success was in my grasp. If I had just kept my head down and done nothing then I would have gotten away with it. But I was here, success was so close and I felt over-confident. And when that overconfidence made me take liberties, Damien, Geralt and Your Grace were able to apply more pressure so that I made more mistakes. And then I was caught. Deservedly so. This conspiracy has made their mistakes in choosing targets so obviously to benefit one of them which has led to another target. Now we apply pressure.

The Duchess looked disappointed. “Damien?”

“I am a simple soldier.” He began.

Syanna snorted and muttered something that might have been “Fuck that.”

“I know tactics more than I know strategy.” Damien went on, glaring at Syanna. “But I do know about pretending weakness in strength. If they are still ignorant of what we know, then we should use that rather than showing our hand too early.”

“I didn’t know you played Gwent Damien.” Syanna was smiling.

“Lord Geralt taught me.”

“We shall have to lay them down sometime.”

The Duchess cleared her throat. “Sir Guillaume?”

“It causes me pain to disagree with the Duchess. But in this case, I can’t see an alternative. I can’t claim to entirely see where Lord Frederick is leading. Like Captain De La Tour, I prefer following orders and formulating tactics rather than discussing overall strategy. But I do know that if we go after Alain in strength, then our own laws and traditions will be used to hang us. We should exhaust all other possibilities before we go down that route and if we do find ourselves forced into that choice, we should be careful who we choose to cross swords with him.”

The Duchess nodded once more before staring at the heavens for a moment. “I so dearly wanted to watch someone punch that smug bastard in the mouth until every. Single. One. Of his teeth…. Fell out. Did you know he once made a pass at me?”

From the general intakes of breath around the room, I guessed that people did not.

“The part I hated about the entire thing the most was that I was genuinely tempted.” The Duchess sighed again. “I knew what he was doing. I knew every trick that he was employing and even despite all that, I could feel myself responding. It would have been… Jaskier all over again.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to mention that name again.” Syanna teased.

The Duchess glared at her sister. “I was a grown woman, experienced in such matters. Caroline had no defences and so I cannot blame her for what happened.”

We all nodded.

“Lord Frederick.” She turned back to me.

I took a deep breath. “Yes your grace.”

“Were you aware that there is a price on your head?”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I considered this. “As far as I know, there have been several prices on my head over the course of various times. I have resolved to take each one as it comes.”

“Very wise.” Syanna muttered.

“In this case.” The Duchess ignored her sister. “The bounty comes from the Imperial palace.”

“Oh?” I would like to say that a chill ran down my spine, but the truth was that I was too tired.

“Yes. Lord Voorhis has issued a reward to any person who is able to recruit you to be an advisor to the Empress. Apparently you are one of the few people that she is willing to listen to.”

“I had heard.”

“I wondered what quality it was that recommended you to Lord Voorhis’ thoughts and now I am aware and I agree that the Empress, indeed all heads of state could do with someone like you hanging onto their coat tails. Thank you.”

“Ummm. You’re welcome?”

She nodded.

“So what do we do now?” She wondered.

“What?”

“We are going with your strategy Lord Frederick. So what is your plan for how we proceed from here?”

“We need to put them on the defensive.” I said promptly and without thinking. We need to deprive them of a victory.”

“That’s lovely and everything,” Some of the Duchess’ frustrations were shining through again. “But how do we do that?”

I thought for a moment before realisation hit me in the face with a club.

“Oh.” I said. It was suddenly clear that everyone was looking at me. “I do have an idea. But you won’t like it.”

The Duchess leant forward.

“Tell me.” She ordered.

I blinked and frantically rubbed my face in an effort to banish the memory back to wherever it came from.

He was here. I have no idea what it was that had told me this. I don’t know if it was a twig snapping or the sound of some unseen horse moving up the pass. I don’t know what it was that I heard, or saw or felt.

But he was here and the last of my fear that this might really be Jack after all vanished in the pre-dawn darkness. The relief was enough to make me dizzy and I had to grip my spear tightly, the cold metal keeping me from drifting off into a daze with the sheer, heart stopping wave of that relief. I was right. We were right. We had read the circumstances correctly and now we were going to be able to take the fight back to our enemies. The enemies that we still didn’t know who they were or what they looked like. But now we could begin to fight back. There was still some way to go. Still some things to take care of. But we were going to make it. I knew that now.

He was here. It wasn’t Jack.

I forced myself to breathe evenly and to calm down, taking care that my breath didn’t whistle between my teeth as I waited.

It wasn’t Jack. If it was Jack then I would never have heard him coming. I would never have seen him coming. He would simply be there, probably perching on the eaves of the cottage like some kind of gargoyle that would normally be seen on the side of a cathedral. I would have had enough time to see that he was there before his blade would have flashed in the night, then there would be pain, wetness and death.

But I had heard him and I strained to hear something else.

There it was. I nearly sobbed with the feeling of the weight lifting off my shoulders.

There was some horse tack jingling. It might have been a stirrup, or it might have been some reins or something equally as innocuous if we hadn’t been waiting for it. But it was there. He was coming. There was no other reason for anyone, or anything to come to this cottage, at this time. The loose net of the Knights and guards that were watching would make sure of that. So it was him.

And then I saw it. A horse, being led cautiously forward and even more than that. I could see the figure that was leading it up the path and I almost laughed with it.

This was no supernatural being. This was just a man.

The shadows that the light from the cottage, that danced and flickered were just shadows. There were no wraiths waiting to jump out. They were just shadows cast by the dancing leaves in the wind and the guttering of the flame.

The rustling of things in the undergrowth were the early morning rodents looking for something to eat. Not arachnomorphs, kikkimores, Endregas or any of the other things that might skitter round in the darkness.

I felt the hunger in myself, the need for combat. I wanted to laugh, jump forward and attack this man, this… thing that was causing so much fear in Toussaint and I wanted to punish him for everything that had happened.

But that was not my role.

I reached out for Ariadne.

“He is here.” I said, sending an image of what I could see.

She didn’t respond. I simply felt her acknowledging the contact and the statement before she was gone. Off to make her own part clear.

I watched. The figure led his horse forward. He was bundled up against the cold and, I assumed, to preserve his anonymity. I cursed the lack of light that meant that I could not see his face. The guard was stamping his feet against the cold and was deliberately facing away. I couldn’t tell if he had seen or heard anything yet but the figure was being cautious. He retreated when he saw the guard and led the horse to a tree. I watched carefully in the half light. The figure took something from behind the saddle and pulled it over his head and I cursed again. He was putting his mask on so that we couldn’t see him. So even if the guard spotted something then…

But there was time.

The figure… I refused to think of him as Jack. The figure moved to his horse's head and stroked the horses nose. So, a war-trained horse. A scout’s horse. Something that knew how to be quiet. Important information.

Then I watched as the figure crept towards the house. He took his time, he went round the side so that there were always obstacles between him and the guard. He moved with the wind so that there was no overt sound of movement. He was careful and he did indeed have a mask on. A hood of sackcloth with large holes cut for his eyes and mouth.

I had to stop myself from laughing again as he kept having to straighten the mask so that he could see out of it properly.

In this way, he crept up to the house and one of the windows so that he could peer through the cracks, tugging the mask tight so that he could see clearly.

As I watched, the sound of a young woman humming could be heard. It was a song that I had heard before. A song about young love and chaste kisses underneath the apple-blossoms.

I watched the figure carefully.

He was mostly already in his Jack costume. He was only missing the hat. He had a sword at his side although it was lacking the cane-sword aspect of the weapons that Jack traditionally carried. But a sword and a well made scabbard would do the trick. He was well dressed in dark clothes although he kept his dark cloak across his chest. That was another sign of his cleverness. There should be a white tunic or vest under there, maybe even in the pattern of a ribcage. He had hidden it so that it didn’t reflect the light. But he was prepared in case he needed to be Jack suddenly.

He watched through the window for a little while before he retreated, the same way as he had come.

So… one man. Sent forward and by himself. One man who could be denied and easily sacrificed. Unless there were other men waiting in the trees. But I rather thought that this man was prepared to run. If it was a trap, he would fight his way clear before fleeing. That horse was going to be bred for speed and stamina, not for fighting.

The figure went back to his horse, changed his heavy cloak for a cape so as to look more flashy. I finally got a glimpse of his chest. Just a white tunic, no bone pattern.

I was oddly disappointed. If they were going to pretend to be Jack then the least they could do was to do the job properly.

He pulled out the hat and placed it firmly on his head before he literally did some limbering up exercises.

Then he turned back towards the cottage.

“Here we go.” I sent towards Ariadne.

It started with laughter. Of course it did.

And if there had been any suspicion in my mind that it was actually Jack that we were dealing with, it would have dissolved in that moment. There was laughter but the laughter was not sinister. It was not scary or dramatic. It did not echo off the trees or seem to come from all around like some kind of omnipresent demon. It was kind of flat. The kind of laughter that happens when a superior officer or employer makes a joke and all the subordinates realise that they are expected to laugh.

It was not special laughter either and it was uncomfortably false. Like at a party when a man misreads the situation, starts laughing because everyone else is laughing and then doesn’t stop in time. So that everyone else has stopped and he keeps laughing. Only, even worse, he then decides to double down and keeps on laughing.

It was embarrassing. I found myself feeling sorry for the person that was putting that… noise out. And then I wondered how this sort of thing would have actually worked for real. How would people fall for this kind of thing?

That is a question for wiser heads than my own. But I suppose it would start with admitting that people that are already terrified, do not need much of a suggestion to descend into panic and terror.

It started with laughter. A laughter which fell dead as it arrived.

The guard made us proud.

“Who’s there?” He shouted into the night, brandishing his torch and managing to draw his sword on the second attempt. “Show yourself. Who’s there, damn your eyes.”

The laughter actually got an edge of genuine amusement to it. I was frantically trying to recognise the voice. If I could put a face and a name to it, it would make life all the easier. Again, we knew it wasn’t Alain so…

“I demand that you show yourself.” The guard was doing a passable impression of someone who was in the grips of a proper panic. Waving the torch around so much that it nearly guttered and went out. The kind of thing which would make it impossible to actually see if there was anything out there at all.

The laughter increased. “You know who’s here.” The voice said. I didn’t recognise it, it was muffled and distorted in a way. “Jack” was disguising his voice which was interesting in and of itself. It meant that he was worried that his voice would be recognised.

“I am your worst nightmare.” Jack called. A phrase that I always found a little funny. I’ve lived through some of my worst nightmares so that nowadays, my worst nightmare is Ariadne lying naked on a bed and beckoning to me, only for me to realise that I have been castrated and am bleeding to death from the injury.

That’s my worst nightmare. Don’t get me wrong, Jack emerging from some shadow with burning eyes and a hungry smile is right up there though. With blade dripping gore and my own severed head dangling from his other hand is a favourite. Part of the problem is that it often occurs when I am dreaming of something rather pleasant. Walking through Oxenfurt, sleeping in a lover’s arms or something and then I will see Jack unfolding from the depths that are just behind the curtain.

But a man, a normal man, coming out of the woods in the dark was not even close to the top of my nightmares.

Having said all of that though, he was feeding off the fear in the guard’s face. His laughter was becoming more maniacal, his language was becoming more purple and he was enjoying himself by darting around in the undergrowth so that his voice seemed to be coming from all over.

It was one of those things, now that I have some distance from these events, It reminds me of the way that the cult of the First-born kept the local villagers in line. When you removed the fear and the toxic gas that they put out as part of their attacks. What they actually looked like with their silly leather costumes and their drug-addled minds. With their shitty weapons and badly nourished horses. They actually looked quite ridiculous.

So watching this figure darting around in the undergrowth was rather comical. But if I was a villager, if I didn’t know that it was just a man and that all I could hear was the voice calling out to me. Then it would be terrifying.

Suddenly, it was no longer as funny as it had been. I gripped my spear tightly and leant forward eagerly.

“I am going to kill you little guardsman. I am going to tear your guts out and string them from tree to tree. I am going to cut out your heart and consume it whole so that you can live in the underworld, far from the rays of the Golden sun, far from the redemptive light of any of your other puny gods and you will exist as my plaything. I shall keep you in the darkness where you will join all of the others that I have killed where a heartbeat is as long as years and when I grow bored with you, I shall return to this world and take your family as well. Do you have a family?”

The guard was whimpering now as he spun in place. I could no longer tell if he was acting or not.

“WHERE ARE YOU?” the guard screamed.

“Here.” The voice called.

Sure enough, he was standing on the edge of the trees now. Jack had chosen the spot of his emergence well. The deepest and darkest hollow of trees was behind him and with the right amount of theatricality, it would appear as though he had emerged from the very depths of hell itself in order to torment the innocent.

He had his sword drawn, a slim, fast looking blade that glittered menacingly in the torchlight. There was a club held as an off-hand weapon and he stood there for a moment.

“I am torment.” Jack told the guard. “I am pain and I am your death. You will not stand before me for I am Jack, come to…”

The guard dropped his sword and fled, his footsteps echoing through the night, crunching the dried dead leaves that littered his path.

Just for a moment, the comedy returned as Jack held his ready pose for a moment and then relaxed. As body language goes, this particular one was rather eloquent. “Oh.” It said. “Well that was easy.”

Then he shrugged and rolled his shoulders to resettle his cape around his shoulders before moving up towards the cottage.

The menace was back. He went low and quiet. Stealth that seemed a little bit redundant to me, especially after all the shouting and screaming there had been recently but again, I was being unfair. It is easy to think that you would do something sensible like “running the fuck away” when the intense situation comes up on you. But I am here to tell you that it is just as likely that in the heat of the terrifying moment, you will freeze in place and be unable to move. You will literally be shivering in terror, hoping against all reasonable expectation that the danger will have just gone away all by itself while you were worrying about something else.

But the danger never goes away. The monster really is still out there.

Jack approached the windows of the cottage and peered in before moving back on course towards the front door.

He levelled his blade for a quick lunge forward, planted his feet so that he could spring forward and then slowly, painfully slowly to my eyes, he reached forward and put his hand on the door.

Which exploded outwards under the impact of Guillaume charging through it in his full plate harness, broadsword drawn and shield properly seated on his arm.

It all happened fast. I scraped the blade of my spear into the flint at my feet which sent sparks into the oiled brush that we had circled the clearing with in advance. The fear that the, to us, rather pungent smell would give the game away to the attacking conspiracy was long forgotten as the fire raced round forming a ring of fire giving light and enclosure so that “Jack” had nowhere to go.

At the same time, there was the thunderclap, whooshing, sucking noise of a magical portal being opened. That would be Ariadne taking Countess off and back to the palace where she would be safe.

“SURRENDER VILLAIN.” Guillaume yelled and yes, he really did yell that. “Surrender and you will be spared.”

I caught up my spear and used the woodpile that I had been hiding behind as a platform and springboard to clear the flames and enter the circle to stand with Guillaume.

The fire was the signal. There were lookouts posted who would see the flame. They in turn would pass the word to where the Knight Commander was waiting with her hand-picked cadre of Knights and the trap was sprung.

I blinked,

“NOT NOW.” I screamed at myself.

I blinked again, and the memory was on me.

I had been right. The Duchess had not liked my plan. She had sworn at me briefly and with venom. Her mood was not helped by the fact that Syanna agreed with me and said it was a good idea. But the Duchess had support this time.

“That’s preposterous.” De La Tour protested. “It cannot be allowed.”

“Why not?” Syanna demanded. “Why is it preposterous and why can it not be allowed? She is a citizen of Toussaint.”

“And as a citizen of Toussaint it is our duty to protect her and keep her safe. The Prophet preserve me but she is now the presumptive heir to the Ducal throne. Even if the Duchess does have another heir in mind.”

“The Duchess doesn’t have another heir in mind.” I said. I know it was me because everyone turned to look at me. “Or at least if she does, they are much further down the list than young Countess Vasseur.”

The pall of silence that greeted that statement was profound. It fell over the room more suddenly and more completely than if someone had dropped a Witcher bomb.

“Fuck,” I said. “Did I say that out loud? I really need to get some more sleep.”

The Duchess had turned away at some point although I don’t know when.

“Explain.” She said. “Finish your thought Lord Frederick.”

I sighed.

“It’s masterful really.” I said. “It has fallen even better because of what recent circumstances have led to. If anything her torment plays into your hands, and hers for that matter in the long run.”

The Duchess used the oldest trick in the book. The same trick that I have commented on in the past, the same trick that I have used myself in order to get what I wanted out of someone. She said nothing. And I was compelled to fill in the silence.

“In court, you have been telling people for ages that you have an heir and that she agrees with you. It might be that you said that “they” agree with you on your various policies and things but I don’t think that that matters. Everyone would easily assume that your heir is the Knight Commander but I don’t think that works. With all due respect to the Knight Commander, she is a known traitor to the Duchy and although many have forgiven her and though she works to redeem herself in the eyes of the populace…”

“And in my own eyes.” Syanna muttered.

“There is no way that the Lords, even the ones that agree with you. Would stand for a Duchess that actually set out to overthrow her predecessor.

“So I think that you have always had an alternative waiting in the wings as it were. It was even commented on earlier when we were talking about the young Countess. It is a very Toussaint story. She’s out there, in the woods, the long forgotten princess and heir to the throne. Learning how the common people work, learning how the nobility used to be from her father. Her mother, heart-broken at the distance that was forced on her by the corruption of the existing system who is, nevertheless, paving the path ready for her daughter’s return while seeing to her needs of education.

“And now comes the moment, the big reveal. She is brought back to court, circumstances dictate that she is a little early to return but still, brought back to court in the wake of the tragedy of her father’s death. It’s a powerful story.

“Or it would be if it wasn’t also exactly the same story that your enemies were telling to the public as a whole. I don’t know what Alain, or… whoever, had on the late Count. Maybe they were able to play on the bitterness that the Count still feels or felt towards the court. Or maybe they were able to convince him that they were part of the circumstances that would bring his daughter to the throne. Or maybe they were able to convince him that they were on board, but that if she married one of theirs before she was sent to court. Then that would be the revenge on the Duchess that deserted him.”

“If the girl is of the Ducal family and blood.” Damien said.

“I don’t think that matters any more.” I replied. “Especially with what the Duchess has just done. Those people that want to believe that Lady Caroline is the Duchess’ daughter will not believe or entertain anything that suggests anything to the contrary. Nor will anyone who believes that she is not. Such is the mark of a good conspiracy theory. There is evidence that the Duchess is just seeing to the promise that was once made to an old friend, no matter whether she wishes to honour that promise or not. There is also evidence that proves that she is a caring mother who is finally righting an old wrong, reuniting her with her long lost daughter.

“People see what they want to see. If I was being particularly paranoid, I would even make some predictions. The Duchess will be a remote, but caring mother, seeing to her daughter’s every need and being loving when she can be together with her. In the meantime, the Knight Commander is going to be the affectionate big sister role. She will be taught about life and then, in a few years, the young adopted daughter will travel to the Nilfgaardian capital where she will learn at the feet of her “cousin” the Empress. I would further predict that she will come back from that with several foreign suitors on the hook, master of her own destiny and more than capable of smacking the shit out of any uppity Knights who want to bring up old scandals. Literally with sword and dagger, and figuratively in court and banquet.

“She is the Duchess’ daughter now and that is the end of the matter. Even if it is only by adoption. And anyone who insults or doubts that, tries to play it off as being somehow lesser, will face the full wrath of the Duchess, the Knights Francesca who will, by that point, be utterly devoted to her, the Knight Commander herself and the Empress. An Empress who has already upended Toussaint culture once in her reign.”

Damien grunted.

“The Knight Commander will have her charmed by the end of the week.” I went on. “Especially if we are able to help the, forgive me, help the girl to get some justice, or failing that, some revenge. And the future of the Knights Francesca is assured. The future that the Empress, and yourself Your Grace, set in motion last year will be continued in the way that you want it to be continued. The heir will even be properly outraged at the seduction and assault of her person. She will be furious that it is perfectly possible for people to take advantage of young women in her position. I would imagine that the next stage of things will be that fathers of bastard children must be held accountable for the bastard children that they father. That a noble “taking advantage” of the young women or the families that work his fields will be called the rape that it is and treated with the proper criminal degrees. And before she’s done, whoever the Lady Caroline will marry will be called “Ducal Consort” rather than Duke, and Toussaint will become a Matriarchy.”

Silence fell again.

Of all people, it was Guillaume that cleared his throat.

“Speaking as a man who is happily, and knowingly, married to a woman that is considerably smarter than me. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, before we worshipped the Prophet and the sun, we worshipped the “Lady” in the lake. It was she that gave us the tenets of Knighthood and the cup that graces our flag. It was also she that gave the Aerondight to those first Knights that scoured the lands of evil and have since given it to the heroes that deserve it.”

“Why Guillaume.” Syanna grinned. “I never knew you had it in you.”

“I am a simple man and I like simple things. Some men have the mind for this kind of nonsense, but I find that the good ones hate it, even when they do.”

“Even if everything you say is true.” Damien said, bringing us back to the topic at hand. “There is still the problem that faces us. You want us to use that young girl who, as you suggest, is very possibly the future of Toussaint, as bait for the trap?”

““Want” is a strong word.” I said. ““Need” is better. The conspiracy will kill a girl tonight. I think they want to kill this one. If they come after the one that we know about,then we can defend her, ensure her safety and possibly catch the attempted killer. If we just have her vanish, then they will look for someone else and find them. There are plenty to choose from after all.”

“How do we set the trap?” Damien wondered and I nearly cheered with delight. They agreed with me.

“We use their exposed thread.” Syanna told him. “Alain is still downstairs, trading between the dungeon demanding that Kerrass should be released and the courtroom, trying to find someone who will believe him when he says that Kerrass should be released.”

“Yes, why is he trying to get Kerrass released I wonder.” De La Tour mused before shaking his head. “I know a good place for an ambush though. A local gamekeeper’s cottage is often empty over the winter. We can leak it to Alain that we are hiding the Countess there.”

“How?” Syanna wondered.

“I’ll do it.” Guillaume climbed to his feet. “I will moan about the status of everything and about how we can’t pursue things to their proper lengths without the proper back up. I will say that an important witness that we want to talk to regarding the murders is in that cottage, and I think I know which cottage Damien is talking about. He will ask what witness and so I will give a physical description, he will take the bait.”

“Lying Guillaume.” I teased. “To another Knight no less.”

Guillaume shrugged. “To an enemy Freddie. Deceiving an enemy is perfectly acceptable.”

“Knights and their honour.” Syanna snorted. “You sure you can carry that off Guillaume?”

“I can lie to a traitor Commander.”

“Will the girl agree to the trap?”

“I have only spent a short amount of time with her Captain.” Guillaume told him.”But I note two things. First, she is a lady of Toussaint, no matter her birth, and is of sterner stuff than her enemies have credited her with. Second, she is angry and wants to take the fight to her enemy. In fact, angry is not the right word. Furious would be closer. She is too well mannered and educated in the ways of being a proper lady to be hissing and spitting like a cat, but she’s not far off. If we offer her a chance to be part of the destruction of her enemies, she will jump at the task. She will literally snap our hands off in her eagerness.”

Syanna was nodding. “I had the same impression. Reminded me of her mother in that way.” She tried to catch her sister’s eye who hadn’t moved. Syanna shrugged. “Alright, let’s get this done.”

“Wait.” The Duchess spoke for the first time since I had told everyone my plan. Then she turned on me. She looked like she had aged. “Every work Freddie.” She said. “Print every word.”

Then she turned on her sister.

“Caroline’s safety is your first, second, third, fourth and every priority.” She ordered. There is a difference between her “ordering voice” and her normal voice. “Catching whoever is masquerading as Jack is a bonus. If even one hair…”

“I know.” Syanna told her sister. “I know.” Then she was the Commander again. “But I will not be held responsible if that means that we lose Jack.”

“Preventing an attack is just as much a victory.” The Duchess said.

“Alright. But you get to convince Sir Morgan and the rest of the court that.”

“Bring her back safely.” The Duchess snarled, overriding the genial atmosphere. “Or hope that the passes are clear enough for you to escape my anger.”

I blinked.

Barely a heartbeat had passed.

Guillaume was just finishing settling himself. He was fighting with a shield which meant that he led with his left rather than his right. He had just finished swinging his blade round in a forehand swipe and back with a speed that made the air scream with the passage and he settled into a position with the sword held high above the shield.

“I mean it,” he called over the sound of the roaring flame. “I am authorised by the Duchess and by the Knight Commander to make a deal for clemency and mercy if you put up your sword and come along with us. However this offer exp…”

Jack had started laughing. This was genuine laughter now, not the false, faked, forced laughter that he had been using earlier. This was the real, belly laughter. He literally bent over at the waist with it.

“I see.” Guillaume said. “Then I’m afraid…”

Jack attacked him. He dropped the off-hand weapon, presumably so that he could focus on the blade. His sword was blindingly fast, flickering in the light of the flame as it swept forward towards Guillaume’s neck.

I put away some more information. Even as it was clear that I was outmatched and that the best thing I could do during this confrontation was to stay out of the way. I would only interfere with what Guillaume was trying to do. I would be an obstacle, a distraction and maybe even a hostage.

But this man, this… imposter that was masquerading as Jack. He was already a fascinating figure. He could obviously move with lightning speed. Helped by the fact that he wore no armour that I could see and that his sword was light and flexible. It did not need to be wound up in the same way that Guillaume’s broadsword did. Which implied a sabre or rapier style weapon.

Kerrass had once told me of these weapons. “Easy to learn,” he said. “Impossible to master. A wound from such a thing can usually be ignored for long enough to get a man to healer, unless the swordsman is good enough to be fatal with it and strike something that will cause you to bleed to death, or to stike at the heart, brain or any of the other things that can lead to instant weakness or death. Be wary of such men, they are faster than you.”

I also marked him as having some kind of martial training. This man was experienced at the killing. He knew what he was doing and I would guess that he had killed a number of people before, many even with a blade in his, and their, hands. I knew this because it takes a particular kind of mind to attack someone else when they are talking. Guillaume knew this which is why he had tried to keep his opponent talking giving enough time for the reinforcements to arrive.

I don’t know if “Jack” had spotted the ruse or had simply attacked because he believed that Guillaume would not be ready. But he attacked anyway.

I would have been caught if that had happened to me. I sometimes take pride in the fact that I am not as hardened a killer as some. I would prefer to not have to fight and I would certainly rather not have to kill. I had gone to some bad places and I had fallen a long way from the early days when I collected the names of every man that I had killed during my journeys with Kerrass. But I still, would far rather not have to kill anyone.

But I would have died there and then. I would have been caught out. I would have assumed that I was well out of range of even the most… athletic of fighters.

Kerrass would have been prepared. It was easy for me to imagine an explosion of golden light as his shield would have exploded in a shower of sparks while he would already have been moving into his own attack.

Guillaume simply twisted slightly and the blade skittered off his gorget.

Jack had expected this though and followed on with several other strikes at what I would guess would have been vulnerable spots. I remembered way back when Kerrass had fought against William the Ram and how he had defeated the young Knight by attacking the joints of the armour and those places where the body was weakest. I could not see, given my angle as to where the strikes were aimed, but if I had to guess, it would have been eyes, armpit, groin and back to the neck again. It was blindingly fast. The effect was made worse by the flames dancing in the metal.

To my eyes, Guillaume didn’t seem to move. Just small shifts in posture. Tiny little things, a twist of the body, a shift of the shield. The strike aimed at his eyes I knew about because Guillaume literally ducked into it so that the blade glanced off the top of his helmet.

Jack was still laughing as he danced backwards. Kerrass’ training was paying off. I saw the “warrior’s tell” where Jack, whoever he was, realised that he was not up against some simple soldier but against someone skilled and experienced. He rolled his shoulder and spun his sword. The laughter had shifted into one of delight.

“I meant it.” Guillaume said, keeping well out of range of the other man. “And I still mean it. Except that this is your last chance. You have yet to do lasting harm to yourself or to others. Surrender now and I will speak to the Duchess on your behalf. Continue to fight and I cannot be responsible for your safety.”

I could feel Jack grin. I knew it, I sensed it. I felt it. He leant forward into a resting position, a traditional “guard” posture for a man with a rapier. Hilt high, blade almost parallel with the point just down from the horizontal. Off hand ready and parallel to the blade, ready to catch a rist and parry a weapon.

Yes, if you are skilled, you can parry a sword with a hand or a sword arm. It’s risky, especially if you are not carrying an arming glove which would be traditional in that situation.

The off hand twisted until the hand could beckon Guillaume forward.

“Very well.” Guillaume said as he himself moved forward.

And they were off.

I have only, really, seen two examples of Knights with all of their equipment on, properly fighting. Those men who can afford full plate armour are rare and far between anyway so that many men, and some women in these more modern times, can call themselves Knights, but few have the capability to carry the full and expected weight of that title. By which I mean, segmented plate and chainmail harness. It’s an impressive thing. Impossibly heavy unless you are trained into it and even those people that have the stuff very rarely get the opportunity to… show it off, as it were. This is because when the enemies are attacking, there is not really enough time to go through all the faff of putting the stuff on.

Far simpler to shrug into a shirt of chain mail and hop to it. Harness comes on for battles when the two armies have lined up the night before and men have time to get properly geared up.

So I have seen, and fought, men in armour before and they generally move around much like men without armour. Trusting that when they miss a block, or a parry, that there will be enough leather, fur or whatever to prevent the resulting injury from being deadly. There is even a school of thought that, with improvements to metal working and the sciences of proper smelting making armour more affordable and common, that there will soon be a need for the science of war to counter the increasingly common protections.

But I am digressing again. So I have seen two men in full harness properly fighting. And by properly fighting I mean fighting for their lives. The fight of the Knights Errant versus Jack was not a proper fight. That was a mob, a massacre and a massive travesty. Those men didn’t fight properly. They were reaching for glory and… well… Glory came for them.

The first was William the Ram, all that time ago. At the time, I remember thinking that it was an impressive sight. I remember thinking that this was how all Knights fought and I remember thinking that they would be an impressive force on the battlefield. The people around me at the time certainly seemed to believe that the results of that formal duel between William and Kerrass was a foregone conclusion.

Now that I look back, I wonder about it. Especially in the light of comparison to seeing Guillaume (and others but we will get to that) fight. I have also been in a number of fights myself since then and am forced to wonder if I could go back and watch that fight again, would I see the same things.

Now I feel as though what I saw was an arrogant young man. Undoubtedly talented but arrogant with it. He had every reason to as well. He was better than the majority of his peers. He was the favoured suitor of the woman that he desired. His armour was expensive and well made and his sword would probably cleave through the average man.

He also had the arrogance of his caste. He had been brought up to believe that common born men were lesser to him. That Witchers were filthy mutants that would not and could not stand up to a proper Knight in proper armour. No more could a farmer with a scythe and a pitchfork.

And Kerrass had shown him the error of that. Guillaume had spoken of the moment when arrogance had fled, except William had not seen that.

And now I had someone to compare it to.

The major difference was the economy of movement which was startling and it wasn’t until I figured out what was happening that I could see the sense of it. I had been thinking in terms of his sword and his shield being the weapons and the method of defence. But in the body of Guillaume, he was using his armour as well. His armour became a shield and weapon in and of itself. The odd shapes in the vambraces and gauntlets started to make more sense. The ridge on the elbows would make elbow strikes deadly. The sake with the sharpened toes on the boots and the knees.

The odd angles and curves were designed so that weapons glanced off rather than struck home and caused bruises.

For his part, Jack moved with a lightning degree of speed. His flickering blade struck sparks off Guillaume’s armour, gouging marks and dents into the heavy metal but at the same time. I wondered if Guillaume even felt any of them. I wonder if he could even hear anything. (He had taught himself to lip read so that he could understand it when people try to surrender)

And he moved towards “Jack” with the inexorable, unstoppable force of a boulder rolling down hill.

Jack was everything that I had expected. Moving, dancing, striking in and falling back with a speed that dazzled the eye. Shifting out of the reach of Guillaume’s blade, sometimes by inches. He was no longer laughing now as, I presumed, he was saving all of his breath and concentration for the fight.

There was a different feel to their movements. When Kerrass fights, every attack is a parry and every parry is an attack. I am told that this is a good philosophy for most weapons. It is certainly how I think with my spear.

But these men didn’t do that. The only clash of metal was when Jack’s sword struck armour or shield. Jack never parried Guillaume’s movements which seemed slow in comparison. Slow, but far from clumsy.

The only way I can describe it is watching the fight... It was like a young child dancing with an elderly grandmother. The child was all bouncing around with energy and drama while the older woman still knew all the movements but moved slowly and with astonishing grace.

A lot of this analysis came afterwards. The fight moved so quickly that I could barely see it.

Jack was keeping his blade out of the way of Guillaume’s. If he tried to parry, or even block, Guillaume’s much larger sword, then it might break.

And that was the difference.

I followed them around the circle of fire, spear ready and in guard. But at a careful distance. I wanted to be there in order to leap forward and support Guillaume if I needed to, if he mistimed his own steps in the movements and Jack’s blade found something deadly. But not so close that Jack could change direction and get to me.

I don’t know when the shift in the fight was. I didn’t catch the movement but something happened. Guillaume was constantly trying to close the distance with Jack and Jack was always dancing out of the way. It had become a meeting of minds as they tried to out-think each other and watching it, I could not tell you who was winning. I don’t think that Jack could hurt Guillaume, but I also couldn’t see how Guillaume would close without Jack making a mistake.

The balance was on Guillaume’s side. The way Guillaume moved, suggested that he could keep this going all day, and night. But Jack? His way of fighting was acrobatic and time was not on his side. The Knights on our side would be closing in. I don’t know if he knew this or what, but it started to become clear that Jack was hurt.

There was no blood or anything. I didn’t see what caused it but I realised that Jack was not being as acrobatic as he had been. He was moving awkwardly, limping slightly. Some kind of muscle thing happening. Maybe a twist or a strain or any of the other things that can happen when your body doesn’t quite do as it’s told.

Guillaume saw it too.

“Surrender.” He called again. “Surrender now.”

Jack tried to move to the attack again, but even I could see that his lunge was not as steady as it had been nor was it as accurate.

And finally, at last, I could see the shape of the fight. I could feel the difference and the things that were happening. It was no longer a mystery to me what the gambits were and the moves and the countermoves. I could understand.

“Jack” knew what was going on now. He knew that he had been trapped and he also knew that Guillaume was delaying him. He knew that every move, every parry and every thrust were about keeping him in one place so that he could be properly captured. He knew that. So his strikes, parries and thrusts were all based around trying to make enough room between Guillaume and himself so that he could get away.

If he just turned and ran straight away then the danger was that Guillaume would be able to get a good clean cut into the man’s side, some kind of flat of the blade thing into the legs or some other kind of… non fatal injury that could be patched up by a field surgeon, which was undoubtedly on the way.

Guillaume was the opposite player in this and more of his previous style of fighting came into shape. He was not fighting to kill his opponent, which always leaves a person at a disadvantage, he was fighting to contain him. He was fighting to keep him on his toes and keep him engaged. So all of his movements were about conserving energy while keeping him close enough to his enemy for it to still be a threat. Now that I was looking for it, I could see that he was primed to spring. Ready so that if “Jack” just turned and made a run for it, that Guillaume could cast his weapons aside and tackle the other man to the ground. In another situation it might be risky. In any other situation it might be risky. But if “Jack” was armoured at all, then it was only light armour. There was no sign of a secondary weapon…

As a note: Always carry a secondary weapon for precisely this reason. If someone tackles you to the ground then your weapon might go flying. Which is not great. And if it’s an armoured man on top of you then you need to get that dagger out and start working on the gaps in the armour. You would be astonished as to how many real fights and battlefield “Knightly” duels are finished in exactly this way. There is even a problem that is well known in certain circles which is the balancing act between number of secondary weapons against the amount of weight that that entails. No, I’m not going to tell you how many weapons I carry.

… So If Guillaume would tackle him to the ground, then all the advantages would be in favour of Guillaume. He would be heavier, more protected from random flailing and all he would have to do would be to hold tight until the support turned up. He couldn’t just cast things aside now and go for it. THat would be far too dangerous on the grounds that if he missed then he would be lying on his face listening to Jack’s laughter. Or, “Jack” had proven that he was fast and accurate with that sword, casting aside the defences could lead leaving Jack an open shot into any of the weaknesses in the armour of a Knight.

Yes, there are always some. A Knight has to move of course.

And time was on Guillaume’s side. Capturing Jack was not his problem any more. It was the problem of the incoming reinforcements to try and capture him.

And I finally found a way that I could be useful. I started to edge forward and around. Spear extended, held solidly at just below the level of “Jack’s Face so that to get to me, he would need to run almost directly onto the spear. It takes a lot for a man to force himself to do that.

And then I edged slowly towards him and at an angle to try and steer him away from the direct line towards his horse.

It also meant that he had someone else that he was having to pay attention to. The entire thing could fall apart if Jack heard the people that were coming to help us. If he realised that and managed to get away before the net was properly tight. So the more weights on his mind the better.

But I was not fooled into false confidence. This man could still run me through without really thinking about it.

So I crept forward. Slowly and surely. Just as I wanted to distract “Jack”. I didn’t want to distract Guillaume.

I don’t know who it was. I don’t know what it was that gave it all away.

Jack’s head jerked up suddenly but he had to scramble backwards from Guillaume who was still coming for him after the distraction. He parried and dodged desperately for a moment or two, his limp increasing exponentially. He was good. Very good. I could not have avoided those sword movements. Even Kerrass would have struggled I think, but “Jack” managed it. Dodging aside quickly, bending at angles that I would have thought impossible so that Guillaume’s sword spun over his head.

I sprang forward. Some instinct told me that this was the decisive moment and that if we were going to take this man alive then now was the time. I tried to come at Jack from the right angles on Guillaume’s left so that I could use the shield and I was in less danger from Guillaume’s own blade.

Jack saw the movement and Guillaume’s blade finally managed to strike flesh. There was a spray of dark blood in the firelight. Not much but there was some certainly and Jack staggered away. Spinning, he tore his own cloak from his back and hurled it over Guillaume in an effort to foul the blade.

Now I know that, in theory, this sounds like a move of genius. I also know that there is a school of fencing developing in one of the small city states that make up the Hengfors league that is trying to come up with a way of fighting with a sword in one hand and a cloak in the other. The purpose of the cloak is to try and foul the blade and distract the fighter. To put them off their game or to otherwise bewilder them with the flashing, flapping cloth and the snapping sounds that a man can make.

Kerrass’ assessment of that kind of technique was that it would be an interesting technique if you are dealing with a rapier or a polearm of some kind. But a sharp, a really sharp sword would cut through the cloth. He suggested that it would be much more useful for a cloak to be wrapped around the forearm to aid in the parrying of a weapon so that the fighter could get in nice and close.

It was a move of desperation. The move of a desperate man but bugger me if it didn’t work. Guillaume lost a precious two heartbeats clearing the fouled weapon. He moved sideways as he did so, leaving me room to strike as I ran forward.

“Jack” whistled and his horse screamed, snapping the branch that it was tied to before barrelling through the undergrowth towards it’s master. And when a warhorse was trying to get toward’s it’s master, it barely noticed the skinny little scholar that was in the way.

There was plenty of luck flying around that night. Plenty of luck. “Jack” had his share, Guillaume had his shaire in that Jack did not bother wasting time in stabbing Guillaume while his weapon was fouled. My luck? I was struck by the shoulder of the horse which meant that I was sent to the side rather than under the hooves. I owe my survival to that piece of sheer luck and good fortune.

I had enough time to see Jack swing into the saddle in what had to have been a practised maneuver. Even to the point where he didn’t use his injured leg.

Guillaume leapt forward, desperately reaching for the horse, the rider, anything that he could get his hands on but the horse danced sideways. Jack threw us an ironic salute before turning his horse and diving away.

Guillaume sighed and sheathed his sword before bellowing.

“Blood trail.” Into the night. Someone must have heard it because there was some answering shouting. He nodded and came over to me.

“Are you alright?” He wondered.

I gasped at him. The breath having been driven out of me by an impact. I have no idea which one. The horse or the impact with the ground were equal suspects.

He checked me over before nodding. “Maybe a bruised rib or something.”

“Ariadne will be thrilled. “I wheezed. “More excuses to keep me in bed. Did we get him?”

“Too early to tell.” Guillaume said, staring off into the night. “Prophet’s balls but I enjoyed that.”

“He was good.” I muttered.

“Very good.” Guillaume agreed happily. “Trained, and experienced. If I hadn’t had to take him alive then I could even have had some fun with that. The added challenge of keeping him alive though added some spice to the mixture.”

“He got away.” I moaned.

“Possibly.” Guillaume told me. “Although if he did, you and I are not to blame. We did well, all things told. Syanna will agree with us and protect us from the Duchess’ wrath.”

“Will she be angry? The Duchess I mean.

“Furious.” Guillaume grinned at me. “The more so because of all the people that were involved in tonight’s planning. She was the one that wouldn’t let us commit to it properly. She will be angry with herself and that will fall onto someone else.”

“Something to look forward to.”

After that, there was nothing for the pair of us to do really other than to sit and wait for everything to come in. Also for me to get my breath back and for the bruise to start to appear on my side. I was right, Ariadne was going to be furious with me.

Almost as furious as the Knight Commander was when she arrived, ranting at another Knight who was still wearing their full face plate.

“I want to find out which idiot it was that gave the game away. I want to know who it was and I want them to stand in front of me while they explain to me why it was necessary to stand on the dry twig in that particular instance.”

“It can’t have been a twig ma’am.” The Knight protested. “The forest is well curated and…”

“Then someone farted. Find out who it was and bring them here. Because if they don’t end up facing me then they are going to end up facing my sister and the difference between the two of us is that I’m not allowed to execute people.”

The Knight fled.

“You two alright?” She demanded as she walked up.

“Bruised.” I said.

“I’m fine.” Guillaume said. “He was good though. Very good.”

“How good?”

“He was trained.” Guilllaume said. “A normal horse wouldn’t break the branch it was tied to to get to it’s master if it wasn’t trained to it. He fought well. He wasn’t perfect and I think that if he had the choice then he would have used a different sword. Certainly unused to off-hand weapons. And he was hampered by a few things. I think he has some form of old injury that plays up if he fights for too long.”

Syanna was nodding, taking in the information for relay.

Much like I was.

“Good horseman too. He knew what he was doing. He recognised the plays and was brave enough to play for time. Not many people would stand up to me in a straight fight. Let alone without armour or proper arms.”

Syanna nodded at this too. One of those things that just seemed as though everyone knew. Don’t fuck with Sir Guillaume kiddies.

“What else?”

“I think he was older.” Guillaume said. “A man who depended on past abilities but whose body has begun to fail him. And…” Guillaume paused before nodding. “I don’t think he was from Toussaint. He moved differently and I have fought all the men that could do what he did in Toussaint. I didn’t recognise his style.”

Syanna nodded. “A ringer then. A hired sword?”

“Maybe.” Guillaume mused. “We should see if any of them are in town.”

Syanna stood there for a while staring into the growing dawn.

“He got away.” She decided. “If we haven’t caught him by now…”

She swore and kicked the floor before swearing a bit more. “If my sister had allowed us to set up the ambush inside the house we would have had him. More men, freeing up Fringilla for the use...”

“She didn’t want to risk…”

“I know who she didn’t want to risk.” Syanna snarled. Guillaume visibly decided that discretion was the better part of valour. “We could have had him and the risk to Caroline would have been minimal at best. Fuck, we could have done a disguise or Ariadne could have done an illusion.”

“You cannot blame a woman for protecting…” I tried. Not being able to help myself.

“No.” Syanna calmed instantly. “No, I suppose not.”

She sighed. “What are we going to do now?”

“First.” I said, climbing to my feet. “We get Kerrass out of prison. With that many witnesses, we can prove that Kerrass wasn’t Jack.”

“We know that there are probably multiple people out there being Jack.” Guillaume warned.

“Yes, but neither our enemies, nor the rest of the people know that we know that. So we have proven his innocence and Kerrass has skills that we need. He might have suggestions but after that.” I allowed myself a small smile. “I have an idea or two.”

(A/N: Believe it or not, there is no commentary on world politics in this chapter. Thanks for reading and I will see you all soon)