(Warning: Autopsy comments on what a very bad person or persons did to a woman in this chapter. Seriously, it’s bleak enough that Freddie, who has seen some pretty shitty things, feels strongly enough to warn readers himself. These injuries were taken from what happened a few years ago in India, so this kind of thing does happen and is still happening today. Not just in a world as far back as the Witcher. That this is the case, along with so many things that are still around in the modern world, is sometimes depressing enough to cause comment.)

I have seen many terrible things in my time on the road. I have seen the results of a Wyvern attack on an isolated farmstead where the beast carried off the young children for the beasts young back in the nest.

Kerrass and I once found a nest of Alghouls that had been fighting off competition from other Necrophages from the rich spoils that they had found. Those spoils being the fact that a local group were using the Necrophage nest as a place to dump the bodies of their victims. Unfortunately for them, Necrophages do not gorge themselves instantly and often keep back a hefty chunk of food against leaner times.

I have seen what happens when a rabid troll hits someone with a flying boulder and also what happens when a giant stands on someone's head.

I have seen bodies torn apart in the air when harpies and sirens carry their victims off and then fight over them in mid flight. I have also seen what happens when Gargoyles spray their acid over livestock and found the horror that is left when an Engrega carries something fleshy off to be cocooned in webbing and slowly dissolved into some kind of fluid so that the larval state of those horrors can properly ingest them.

I have seen the bloated corpses of men, women and children of all races after the drowned dead have dragged their victims down to the watery depths to drown before being eaten.

And May Ariadne forgive me for saying this, but I have also found those murder sites where a Katakan vampire has torn it’s victim apart so that it can lap the still warm blood from the surrounding area as is it’s preference.

During my time on the path with Kerrass where I hope I have been able to assist him in my own small way, both as a practical assistant in the hunts, but also as an emotional and mental support in those hardest parts of the time. I have seen many horrible things. Horrible, awful things, much of which I can still see in my nightmares and who’s echoes I can still hear on the edge of my hearing in the cold hours of the morning before the sun has fully risen. I can still hear the echoes of the man who was woken from his venom induced stupor to realise that the eggs that the Arachnomorph had planted in his guts were starting to hatch ready to burst forward.

Kerrass shot him in the throat so that he bled out. He turned and smiled at us while his blood welled around the bolt and Kerrass doused his body in oil before setting fire to the awful things that were emerging. I can still smell that as well. It’s odd how these things come back to you. Nightmares are never just about what you have seen or heard, but about what you can smell and taste as well. The worst is when it actually smells rather pleasant.

I have seen all these things and they are awful. Awful enough that they can melt your mind if you let them. Awful enough that were I not surrounded by good people who help and support me then I feel sure that I could only find solace in the bottom of a bottle. Indeed, as Kerrass has told me, more than one Witcher also finds their own solace in such a place.

But I find that these are not the worst things that haunt my nightmares. They are not the memories that come up, unbidden in the middle of the day to overwhelm otherwise sunny, bright, happy moments. They are not the thoughts that cause me to clench my jaw, squeeze my ears shut and ball my hands into fists so that I can force those memories back into the past where they belong. Those killings are the result of monsters being monsters.

The poison that emerges from an Endrega’s jaws is not the result of a choice, it is simply how they devour their prey. The charred remains of the men and women in the field are not the result of an active decision. It is more the result of the natural rage of the Noonwraith, raging at the fate that leaves her tied to this world and unable to move onto the next.

Truly, the worst dreams, the things that wake me up at night, sweating and throat burning as I try to scream are not due to what I have seen at the hands (or claws, jaws, mandibles or whatever) of the monsters. But rather the things that have been done at the hands of our fellow sentient being.

And to be clear. I am not talking about what the Scoia’tael, what little remains of them, do to the unwary. Their hatred is understandable to me, even while it is not particularly useful, nor do I believe that it is going to achieve anything. But I can understand where it is coming from. Nor is it done at the hands of the thieves and criminals of the cities who are only trying to get enough to be able to survive.

It is, instead, what is done at the hands of those that believe that they are entitled to more than the people next to them.

I still, even now, have nightmares where I think that everything that I have done, everything that has happened since Ariade was released, is a fever dream brought about by the fantasy of what a dying man hopes for as his insides slowly liquify as a result of the greed of a man who wanted more than he had been given.

I also hear the screams of my comrades of the Wave-Serpent as they freeze to death in icy waters, driven there by the greed of Nilfgaardian merchants and those same merchant sailors who signed up in order to have a job that pays. About how they died in the cold and unyielding horror of the artificial winter of the Skeleton ship while being unaware that they were sent to sail against the Empress of a continent.

I can also remember looking out from a castle’s walls over a mist shrouded plain in order that we could look at a man that I hadn’t liked, being tortured to death in an effort to provoke those of us that were safe inside a castle’s walls.

There are so, very many of these that it beggars belief. As I look through my previous collected notes, it is sometimes dispiriting to realise that a lot of the problems that Kerrass and I have dealt with, certainly those that I have noted down in this particular collection of works, have been to do with the actions of people rather than the actions of the monsters themselves.

I have wondered why this might be the case and unfortunately, I am forced to concede that the answer is rather simple. The actions of monsters are fairly boring and do not warrant the kind of coverage that this magazine requires. The very basic hunts of the monsters in question are so rapidly covered that it is quicker and more expedient to group them all together into a single source and that, often, is better done as part of an academic text.

Why do I think of this? Unfortunately, I think that you can probably guess the things that I am about to tell you.

I had managed to get a few hours sleep, but certainly no more than that and it was beginning to add up. The previous night had been the night where we had fought the Witch of Lynx Crag and rescued one of the presumptive heirs of the Duchy. The fallout from that as well as everything that accompanied that had meant that I had only had a few hours sleep that night.

The previous night to that had been relatively sleepless as well. Not because I didn’t have time to sleep properly, but because I was so busy desperately trying to disentangle the riddle that I had been set that getting my mind to relax, even with the input of Anne and Ariadne between them that I could not get to sleep quickly and then, afterwards, I had not been able to get back to sleep when pressure in the bladder had woken me up precipitously.

Ariadne was not happy to wake me up. She was wearing a white ish travelling dress with a fur lined cloak and had one of her working satchels on which I knew would contain healing items. She gestured imperiously towards the food and the coffee that she had laid out to me while she told me in no uncertain terms that she would not be parted from my side that day. That she would be there to catch me when I fell (notice the “when” there. I certainly did) and that she was furious with the various people that were conspiring to ensure that I was not getting the rest and the relaxation that I needed given my “fragile state.”

Who she was choosing to blame for this, I had no idea but I suspect that the list included the Duchess, Syanna, Guillaume and the other Knights of Saint Francesca, my parents for allowing me to have overly romantic notions of a man’s duty in the face of enemies that wish to do us, and those weaker than us, harm. She was openly muttering about the people that were doing this in the first place, the people responsible, the people that had driven events to the point where they felt as though they needed to do it. Emma for agreeing that we should all be in Toussaint at this particular time. Me for being ill in the first place and refusing to stay in bed which was good for me. Kerrass for giving me the ability to fight back as needed and giving me the capability to be involved.

She didn’t spare herself either. Cursing her own proven inability to keep me in my bed where I needed to be and also her own enjoyment of the fact that she was in love with a man that put the needs of others before his own needs. She was particularly grumpy about the last part.

She wasn’t as angry with me though. She was just coming round to admit that there was nothing she could do about me and that I was already a lost cause when it came to this kind of thing. Kerrass didn’t help by commenting that it was one of the reasons that she loved me so much which prompted a moan and an anguished “I know,” before she allowed herself to be shooed off into the corner so that Kerrass could join me in eating something and telling me what he knew.

Which was not a lot.

It seemed that Colonel Duberton and his wife had been invited to dinner at some nobleman’s house in the city. They had absolutely intended to be there and back before the curfew was in effect but they weren’t that worried anyway. Colonel Duberton is a fine swordsman, skilled and experienced in battle. They were also accompanied by other members of the Nilfgaardian regiment that were escorting the couple to and from the dinner and that the lord of the house that had invited them also had his own guards. The route home was often patrolled by Guards and Knights of Toussaint and as a result, there was little belief that the couple were in any danger at all.

It would seem that it was this confidence that was their undoing.

We ate in all but silence, Kerrass and I. It was an odd feeling that had stolen over us in those early hours of the morning. No-one told me what time it was. I could only see darkness out of the windows in our little room so if we had passed midnight then it was still early. Even for Winter. I was desperately trying not to think of how little sleep I had managed to get over the course of the night and in trying not to think about it, naturally, it was all I could think about.

As I say, we ate in silence. It felt like… It felt like… I have no idea what it feels like the morning before battle. Nor do I have any idea what it feels like to wake up the morning before you go to be executed. I know that there are Jack induced dreams and memories in my past that give me a clue, but I have no idea if that’s actually true or not. The closest I have to describing how it felt was that it was like the morning of a funeral. One of those funerals where you are not particularly close to the person that has died but are there to support the people who have really lost someone.

There was a weight to the morning which sat upon us heavily. A weight that was nothing to do with our fatigue or lack of sleep. Kerrass and Ariadne could feel it too where Kerrass is used to doing without sleep for extended periods of time and Ariadne can save up sleep and get rid of it all in what she describes as “an orgy of snoozing.”

But we sat there around our guest table and ate breads and cheeses that were quite delicious despite our inability to actually enjoy them. Our conversation was hushed and the small jokes that we told each other in order to pass the time while we ate our food and I drank my medicine were cut off with our laughter coming in short bursts.

Poor Lady Duberton. I had liked her.

In the end, we couldn’t procrastinate for too long and we were led out into the courtyard by a yawning servant carrying a lantern. There we were met by Sir Guillaume who was waiting for us and the figure of Sir Gregoire bidding farewell to Anne.

Some part of me had hoped that I wouldn’t have to see her again for some time, let alone having to see her together with Sir Gregoire being all lovey with him. But in the light of torches and lanterns, I could see them for what they were, which was a couple who had been in love for an age but had only just found each other. And in seeing this, I found that I did not mind so much. Indeed, I felt a small amount of pride as I looked on Anne’s face that was radiant with her happiness as she gazed up into Gregoire’s eyes. Gregoire still looked as though he had been struck in the head with a pole-hammer.

“I did that.” I thought to myself and it didn’t seem so bad.

Especially given that we were about to go down and see that another good woman had been murdered. If I could bring a little bit of romance and happiness into the world, then I had done well and I could be proud of what I had done.

Guillaume greeted us with a wave.

“Kerrass.” He began, “Lady Ariadne…”

“Please, just Ariadne.” She said as she smiled at Guillaume. “I think we can admit that the time for such formalities has passed.”

“Lord Ffff…. Freddie.” He went on. “Are you alright. You look a little grey.”

“That’s a shame,” I joked. “I was trying for Bright orange.”

“Do not joke of such things.” Ariadne said as she covered her smile with her hand.

“You understand I’m talking about the orange of the fruit right.” I carried on. “The kind of orange where, when you see it it’s not Orange it’s more, “ORANGE”.”

Kerrass snorted.

“Stop stop.” Ariadne complained. “It’s a sign of illness.”

“I see,” I said, smiling at her. “So I should go for yellow instead.”

“That’s worse.”

We all snickered as we watched Gregoire lean down and kiss his intended bride.

We were speaking quietly and the rippling sound of the flames leaping from the lit torches was loud as we waited for the loving couple to finish with their farewells.

Gregoire eventually pulled away. Anne said something to him which was too quiet for us to hear. Guillaume murmured something back. There was a brief conversation and a pause as they both turned and looked at me before finishing up and kissed each other again.

“Boo.” Kerrass called softly. “Boo, I say thee.”

“Put him down Lady.” Guillaume called. “You don’t know where he’s been.”

“Maybe she does know and that’s the point.” Ariadne joined in the teasing as the couple finally broke up and Gregoire could come towards us.

Anne had clearly heard the teasing and smiled as she waved at us before pulling her shawl around her shoulders a little tighter and turning for the doors.

“Lord Frederick.” Was Gregoire’s opening gambit as we moved to where a groom was holding onto our horses. “I am instructed to inform you that you should still be in bed.”

“I agree.” Ariadne said. “But unless you are willing to sit on him to keep him there Sir Gregoire, then I’m afraid that Freddie is coming with us.”

“I do not think I will try that.” The huge Knight said. “My duty is done with telling him that he should return to his bed and now I will leave it. Although I am instructed to ensure that you do not overexert yourself Lord Coulthard.”

“And how were you going to do that?” I wondered after I had pulled myself into the saddle.

“It wasn’t made clear.” Gregoire admitted after a while. “I am reluctant to use violence, given the incredible service that you have done for me.”

“That might be what you need to do.” Kerrass commented dryly.

Gregoire frowned for a while. “Yes.” He decided. “I am coming to see that. Where are we going Guillaume?”

“The house of Lord Bas-Tyra.” Guillaume said. “Kerrass and I in front, Freddie and Guillaume at the rear, Ariadne, if you would ride in the middle. The order of the day is that we are to appear calm and collected.”

“Not wanting to start a panic then.” Kerrass commented.

“Less that, more so that we appear as though we are in command of the situation I think.” Guillaume told him. “Lets go.”

We turned and walked our horses out of the gates.

There was still no sign of the sun rising over the eastern mountains. Poor Lady Duberton.

I looked over at the Sir Gregoire riding next to me. He had his head bowed and was frowning slightly.

“How are you doing?” I asked him.

“Hmm?” He shook his head and looked up at me.

“How does it feel to leave with the blessing of the lady rather than the curses of one?” I wondered, taking care to smile gently so that he wouldn’t take offence.

“It is interesting.” He admitted. “I will admit that I am not sure yet. It is not what I am used to to be certain. It was always useful to me to have those last boos and insults as I leave my pavilion. It is something that gives me an extra kick. That little bit of a boost to carry me over, to prove to the bastards that I am a better Knight than they can ever expect to be. This though? This riding out in the dead of night to no cheers, no cries or insults. Just quiet men…”

“And women.” Ariadne commented, showing that she was listening.

“Forgive me Madam, but of course, I mean women as well.” Gregoire visibly adjusted his thinking. “Quiet people about our business, the business of securing Toussaint for the good of her citizens. I feel cold. Tired and sluggish.”

“Would it help if I insulted you?” I wondered before I could stop myself. “You know, one last insult for the road to get your juices flowing.”

He grinned. It was an odd grin, it took years off his face and I could vividly see what he looked like as a child when he had been caught at some kind of mischief.

“No.” He said. “For then I must kill you and that would return me to where I was.” He sighed again, returning to his more solemn demeanor. “My world was very small.” He said slowly after a while. “I was the villain to be defeated and slain. I was the… the sideshow brute that men paid to see get knocked off his horse. Now that I know the difference I will admit that I was far from happy in that circumstance, but I was comfortable in that situation. I was used to it.

“Now… I look out and I see the difference. I had been placed in my niche and I did not see that these kinds of things happened. My job was to be the villain. To walk out in daylight and make children shriek in terror as they fled for their mother’s skirts. I was there to make men scowl and women flee in terror. I knew how to do that. I was good at it too. Now I cannot be those things. Now, I would know it to be a lie. An act that I used to put on to be set aside when I went home to a woman that loves me.”

He scratched his nose.

“I am uncomfortable in this new role. I am not used to it. I do not know if I like it. It is… foreign to me.”

“And yet you have the perfect reason to become used to it.” I pointed out.

He shook himself. “Oh don’t get me wrong Lord Frederick…”

“Freddie.” I corrected him.

“Yes of course.” He grinned again. “As you say. I would sooner die than to make Anne unhappy and being uncomfortable for a while as I get used to my new role is a small price to pay in order to make her smile.”

“I can understand where you are coming from.” Guillaume said from the front, twisting in the saddle. “I remember doing everything in my power to get Vivienne to even notice me, let alone fall in love with me. I nearly died trying to do that. But then, when it was done, suddenly I had no reason to go out there any more. Nothing to do. When I left my pavilion to go to the joust or the contests, I would look for her face and pray for a smile. Now, that price was guaranteed so it occurred to me to wonder why I was bothering. I will not lie, it was a dark moment.”

“What did you do?” Kerrass wondered, more curious than I thought he was going to be.

“She is Toussaint for me. Trying to think of the country as a whole is too much. The Duchess is the ruler of Toussaint to be sure, but to me… Now… When I think of Toussaint, I think of Vivienne smiling at me from some Pavillion. And every late night or unprophetly early morning, I do it to serve Toussaint with the face of the woman that I love before my gaze. I have found that this gives me the kick I need to get on the horse and go to do my duty.”

Gregoire considered this.

“I like that.” He decided. “I shall take it.”

“I’m not saying that it doesn’t take practice.” Guillaume joked. “After all, it’s fucking cold this morning.”

We all chortled at that.

“How is it going, the new lifestyle?” I wondered at Gregoire. “Life with Anne I mean.”

“It is taking some getting used to.” He said. “I keep looking at her and realising that I’ve told her how I feel. Then she notices me looking and smiles at me shyly. I feel like I’m a child again, telling the girl that I like her and presenting her with a daisy. Only instead of running away screaming, she smiles and kisses me.”

“I remember that feeling.” I said, looking at Ariadne. “It never goes away.”

Ariadne turned in the saddle and smiled at me.

“Good.” Gregoire said. “That bit I am enjoying immensely.”

“I thought you had been given your freedom.” I wondered. “So that you can get used to your new found status.”

“I was.” Gregoire admitted. “But the Knight Commander came to see me. Apparently she needs all she can get… I am a dutiful servant of the Duchy now and well…”

He shrugged.

We were speaking with each other quietly, soft voices echoing in the night. After all, Graveyard humour is always the best kind of humour. As we talked, we crossed the bridge and came into the city of Beauclair itself. It looked like a painting of itself, cloud cover was forming over the winter skies which promised more snowfall or rain. According to a conversation I had with Lady Vigo at another juncture, Toussaint is, essentially, a massive valley, surrounded by mountains. This is another one of those odd coincidences that means that the land of Toussaint is ideal for the growing of grapes. The effect results in the odd weather patterns that are almost unique to that part of the world, the brighter, warmer sunshine without it getting too muggy. The clear skies as well but, according to Lady Vigo, it meant that when it rained or snowed it really fucking hammered it down.

Her words.

She also told me that temperature could change on the edge of a dagger, especially in winter time. Where you might look out of your bedroom window first thing and see the rain coming down so hard that it was hitting the floor and literally bouncing (if you haven’t seen that before and are currently considering tearing the magazine up as being full of nonsense then I would stress that it is true. It does happen) you might prepare yourself with oilskins and thick boots only for the rain to ease off in a few moments and for the sun to come out a little while later.

I had a dim view that we would begin to see that soon.

What that meant was that the light of the moon was diffused through the cloud cover bathing the city in an eerie sheen of silver and white. Which, mixed with the torchlight that was carried by the guards that were around the place, made Beauclair itself seem like an alien place. As though it was the set in some kind of highly elaborate stage production.

The guards were everywhere. Knights too. And if I was any judge, after this latest death, the troops of the Alba division would be back on the streets again soon. The Colonel’s wife was not a small target to be taken and retribution would be swift and certain.

I could not decide if this latest move by the conspirators was the work of genius or foolishness. It is true that the dividing line between the two is a thin one at the best of times. But it seemed to me that there was no way out of this. As we rode and bantered with each other quietly, my imagination would run off with the train of thought. Killing the Colonel’s wife was a big deal. From what little I had seen, the Colonel himself was as popular with his troops as a Commanding officer can be. And it is the nature of men to love their master’s wives.

The Nilfgaardians would tear the country aside in order to find out who killed the wife of their colonel. So all the conspirators had to do was to hold up a scapegoat, make it seem convincing and then….

But the other thing would be that all of that rage and anger could, just as easily, fall back onto the heads of the conspirators themselves. As we had seen before when talking about Lord Tratamara hiding a few things in order to preserve his dead daughter’s dignity…

Or so we assumed…

Syanna’s hands were tied. There were certain truths to the feudal system which meant that she couldn’t act without proof. The Nilfgaardians themselves would not be so easily contained. They would not care who a person was. They would not mind who was in charge, or how ancient a man’s noble line was or where their name came from. If a man had done them wrong then they could expect to demand justice and they would not be the kind of people that would take no for an answer.

And that was before the Empress got involved. I had no idea if Lady Duberton or the Colonel knew Ciri personally, but it rather struck me that it would not matter so much. Toussaint was an annexed country, a Nilfgaardian national and noblewoman had been killed. Politicians and Generals get excited over that kind of thing. Words like “Reperations” get bandied around and before you can turn around, wars start.

So it was an odd move. If properly handled, it really could unseat the Duchess. I didn’t really think that this was likely though. The Duchess has fielded this kind of attempt before and she plays these games on an international scale. And the truth was the Empress was firmly on the side of the Duchess herself, but when you are playing these kinds of games, that might not matter. It would need doing carefully to bring the Duchess and her sister down. But I rather thought it could be done.

We continued to ride down into Toussaint itself.

The guards were carefully not rushing around. You can always tell if you are looking for it. Kerrass calls it the “Purposeful Nonchalant Walk.” Where a guard has somewhere to be. Needs to get there quickly, but doesn’t want to let anyone know that there’s a problem. It is used when tracking someone or chasing someone or approaching a hiding spot but they don’t want to alarm anyone. Apparently, criminals use the same walk when they are running away from the scene of the crime but don’t want to draw anyone’s attention to the fact that they are running away from the scene of the crime.

Kerrass would often make a joke to say that the line between thief and thief taker is a matter of semantics. He sat down and debated the thing with me once. The results were far from conclusive but they were rather… unsettling.

We approached a row of houses that had been shown to me as being the first row of New money. When the first generation of Knights who were not associated with the older families came together, this was the group of houses that they built.

The history of any city is a fascinating read if you ever get the time and I would heartily recommend it if you get the time. This row was also one of the first groups of houses that were part of the expansions that were being built on the edges of Beauclair.

We were led to one a few houses in from the edge of the city itself. It was a large house for a city dwelling. Not the grandest of buildings, but neither was it the smallest. Father would have called it “respectable”. Three stories tall, fully detached from the neighbouring buildings with a small courtyard in the front. As I would later find out, the main reason for the richness of the dwelling was due to the view over the river that the back of the house afforded. There were city guardsmen that were waiting for us outside the front gates of the courtyard, one of which had ducked inside when he saw us coming. Our horses were taken as Syanna came out.

She was still wearing the same clothing and armour that she had been wearing the last time I had seen her. Her face looked unsettled and unformed, as though it had been made out of clay or plaster that hadn’t quite set yet.

We didn’t say anything, we just dismounted as the guards took our horses and led them away to a stable that was just down the street. Apparently a neighbour who owed the guard a favour had opened his house for that purpose.

Syanna led us through the gate into a nice little courtyard. There was a large pool of water in the middle that had floating plants in the middle and around the place. The very stereotypical carving of the perfect toddler boy, peeing into the fountain was present and correct. It wasn’t working at the moment. Every time I see one of those things working, I always resolve to figure out how it’s done and then never quite get round to learning the secret.

The walls were covered in ivy and there were various plant pots and hanging baskets. Most were empty but there were one or two small trees and bushes that were around so that there was at least some greenery. Mostly though, I was given the sense of shelter. There was no wind. No air and as a result, the smell of burning oil from all the torches that were about was overpowering.

There were two corpses in the courtyard. One was lying on his back with his arms outstretched and splayed out. There was a not inconsiderable pool of blood that was drying underneath him and I guessed that there was a stab wound somewhere. I couldn’t see it though. He looked like some kind of servant.

Syanna led us to where the door was. There was another dead man just outside the door, he looked to have crawled to where he had fallen before collapsing due to the blood loss. One hand was at his throat from where the throat had been slashed and the other was reaching out towards something.

He too looked like a servant.

Inside the door was another one. This time, he looked like a guard of some kind. Or at least, he was wearing a breast plate and some livery colours. It looked as though the armour was mostly for show though, both of his femoral arteries had been slashed. He must have bled out in seconds with nothing to do but to sit there and watch as his life ran away from him.

There was a sword next to him, it was clean.

We were in a small entrance hall. A serving woman was slumped against one wall. She looked like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I couldn’t see her face but there was a tray of drinks next to her that had fallen, the wine splattering against the wall.

“This way.” Syanna said, leading us into a comfortably furnished sitting room. Mercifully, this room was empty of bodies.

There was a fire lit and it was burning away merrily. The things that you notice. The back of the room opened up onto a balcony.

“The other side of the entrance way is the dining room where most of the horror seems to have taken place.” Syanna told us. “The back of the house opens out onto a veranda which hangs over the gorge. Lady Duberton’s body lies at the bottom of the gorge. We are still trying to figure out how to get her out of the gorge, Prophets stand with her soul.”

“What is the issue?” Ariadne wondered.

“Getting to her. It is a long way down and getting into the gorge is treacherous at the best of times. Let alone at night. Even in the morning it’s going to take ropes and…”

“I can get her out.” Ariadne said, taking her satchel off. “I will have a look and see which is the best method to use.”

“Are you going to teleport?” Gregoire wondered.

“No. I will turn into a mist and move down. That is if I cannot easily jump.”

“Not, turn into a bat?” Kerrass teased.

Ariadne glared at him.

Gregoire goggled for a moment.

“Vampire.” I told him helpfully.

“You know.” He said wonderingly, “it’s one of those things that you think you couldn’t forget.”

We all, including Syanna, had a quick chuckle.

The things we laugh about.

A guard was summoned who took Ariadne through the door at the back of the room.

“Ok.” Syanna. “Here’s what we know. The owner of this house was a man called Lord du Bas-Tyra. He was not anyone special but it seemed that Colonel and Madame Duberton had struck up a friendship with him at some point early in their deployment to Toussaint. The couple had been invited to dinner and were loath to put that off much further.

“They were in the middle of dinner when Jack attacked. Several courses and several bottles of wine in which dulled the reactions. They heard a commotion in another room and then they heard a scream. Colonel Duberton rushed to render aid but then, as soon as he opened the door, Jack was on him.”

“Is the Colonel dead?”

“No, although he rather wishes that he was. He is upstairs at the moment, talking to Damien.”

Damien I noticed. Not Captain de la Tour.

“We rather think that a combination of the drink and things slowed the Colonel down as we are aware that he is a very fine fighter in his own right. But Jack took advantage of the Colonel’s inebriated state and rendered him unconscious. Lord du Bas-Tyra was similarly incapacitated. After that our information is sketchy for a while. We think Jack went on to massacre the other people in the house. You have already seen one of the guards who, again we think, tried to hold Jack off while the other two men ran for help… Much good that did them.”

“No survivors?” Guillaume wondered rather grimly.

“None.”

Guillaume nodded.

“When Colonel Duberton woke up he was restrained. Lord du Bas-Tyra was already dead and the Colonel tells us that Madame Duberton was tied to the dining table where Jack… did things to her before he beat her to death with a fire poker.”

“In front of her husband?” Gregoire wondered before shuddering. “And people used to call me a monster.”

A sense of humour can only carry you so far in the face of horror.

“After that,” Syanna carried on with a sigh. “Jack took Lady Duberton and threw her over the balcony down into the gorge below. Leaving the same way that he arrived.”

“And we don’t know how he did that?” Kerrass wondered.

“No.”

“So…” Guillaume took stock. “How many dead servants?”

“Six.” Syanna told him, “Two maids, two footman, the butler, the cook, two Nilfgaardian soldiers and two guards. As well as that, Lord du Bas-Tyra himself. And let us not forget the incapacity of Colonel Duberton who is no slouch with the blade. Even if he was drunk, I would have put considerable odds on him against, well, anyone. I don’t think there are many people in Toussaint that would be outright better with a blade. Kerrass and Guillaume maybe?”

“Alain.” Guillaume was looking at his feet and scuffing them across the carpet. “I have seen the Colonel train as well. Alain could take him. Gregoire too if Michelle did not have a chance to make some room to come up with a strategy.”

“Michelle?” Gregoire wondered.

“The Colonel’s first name.” Syanna supplied.

The Big Knight nodded. “I never met him. I didn’t feel the need to talk to him and he didn’t feel the need to talk to me.”

“And then there is Lady Duberton herself.” Syanna finished with a big sigh. “And if even half of what Colonel Duberton says is true then her death was… horrific.”

“Who could do that?” I wondered. “Not that I don’t believe it. And I’ve seen some horrific things in my time. I mean it as a practical question. Who would be able to do that? Who has the… lack of themselves to be able to do that to such a woman. To any woman for that matter.”

“Keep thinking Freddie.” Syanna was watching me so I obeyed.

“The Cultists in the North did horrible things. There’s no getting away from that. And if it’s remotely similar to that… Then… But they were doing it because there was a power there. There was… a magic to the actions that gave them a high. It was like a drug.”

I had started to pace.

“But this… This is politically motivated. That is different. So someone did some horrible things to a woman for political reasons. That takes…. Something. That takes a lack of Empathy that is almost staggering. To do that in cold blood? In front of her husband. And then you would have to be certain that he would have no way to come back at you. You would need to know that you would be safe from Colonel Duberton. I did not know the man well but he rather strikes me as the kind of man that isn’t going to take this sitting down.”

“He will not.” Guillaume commented.

“So who could do that?” I wondered. “It’s not a rhetorical question. Who would be capable of mowing down, what was it six servants, two guards, two soldiers plus the Lord of the house? AND to torture an innocent woman to death. And she was as inoffensive a lady as you can get. If ever there was a woman in the world that it’s impossible to hate, it was that one.”

“Francesca was impossible to hate?” Syanna wondered.

“No.” I winced at the name. “Francesca had gained the ear of the Empress. People were jealous of her and that makes for hatred really quickly. So who could do that? Who could, and would do that?”

“Up until recently,” Guillaume admitted. “I would have thought that Gregoire could have done it. I apologise for that by the way.”

Gregoire shook his head. “I worked hard at maintaining that image. And it will take more than a duel and a betrothal to completely rid me of that stigma. I take no offence.”

“Thank you. But even then, this carnage looks clinical.” Guillaume looked back out into the hall. “These strikes are precise, calculated. Utterly deadly. With all respect to my newest colleague, wounds inflicted by such as he would have left much more… well….”

“Carnage.” Gregoire offered. “It is true, that you do not need to be precise when you use weapons and styles such as mine.”

“There is also a speed to this.” Kerrass commented. “Do we know if the Servants were killed before or after Colonel Duberton was debilitated?”

“We do not.”

Kerrass nodded. “So this happened fast. Lightening fast. Frighteningly fast…” He pulled at his lips. I think there must have been more than one person here. I would even wonder if Lord Bas-Tyra was in on it. This was an ambush. It was planned and executed. Even I would struggle to knock out a Colonel of the Imperial Army and incapacitate his wife before killing eleven people before someone got a warning off, or someone escaped to carry word of what was happening to the guard. Even Geralt, possibly the finest swordsman currently on the continent would struggle to do all of that without an alarm being raised. How did we find this out by the way?”

“A patrolling guardsman was summoned by the sound of the Colonel calling for help.” Syanna told us.

Kerrass nodded. “This is staged.” He decided. “This was an ambush. This has been planned.”

“But who is it staged for?” I wondered. “Us?”

“The Colonel surely.” Guillaume spoke up. “Otherwise, why would he be left alive? It has been announced that this is a man. So what is going to happen now? What is going to happen in the Nilfgaardian court when word is passed that a Nilfgaardian national, wife of the man sent to help us, was so horribly murdered?”

“Outrage.” I said, somewhat needlessly. “Fury. There will be calls for blood. Demands for it even.”

Syanna nodded. “So now we are up against it. Time for the news to get out of our borders. Time for decisions to be made. The Empress will want to be on our side, I am confident of that. But she can only do so much. But the solution is still that we need to catch the fuckers.”

“I still haven’t been given an answer.” I said. “Who could do this? Who could use a sword like that and do that to a woman. Not only must there be one person but it seems like there must be several to get this done. Who could do that?”

“Alain.” Guillaume said again. “He treats women like objects to be bought and sold. Notches on his bedpost. I do not doubt, for one instant, that he could do this without blinking. Childhood association makes me hope that he wouldn’t have been involved in torturing a woman to death. I could believe him… assaulting a woman. Killing one even. But not torturing one to death. He would see it as tasteless. He would argue that a death would be enough there.”

“You should have let me duel him,” Kerrass said in a sing-song voice.

There was another moment of silence after that. A short while as we all considered things.

“Raoul.” Gregoire said. “He is cruel enough, skilled enough and he wants to watch Toussaint burn. He would not blink at doing this. He would feel nothing for the woman or the other dead people. We are all pieces on a board to him and he would feel no different about torturing a woman as he would… say… splitting a training dummy. In all honesty, it is a surprise to me that you haven’t spoken about suspecting him before.”

“I want it to be him.” I admitted. “I want it to be him so badly that I was worried that I was biasing myself.”

“Sometimes, instincts are right though.” Syanna said. “But we still need proof.” She turned to Gregoire. “We know that Alain is guilty, but without proof of connections to others, the conspiracy can just cut him out of their thinking and leave him to rot.”

Gregoire nodded. “I am unused to these efforts. I see an opponent, I kill the opponent. This detective work is outside my normal area of expertise. What do we do next?”

Syanna nodded before thinking. “Well. I agree with Freddie that this was an ambush. So if I was ambushing someone, I would have set lookouts. There would have been runners and messengers and things. So Guillaume, take Gregoire and head for the Colonel’s lodgings. Speak to the servants there and see if one was paid off as an informant. Then work your way back and see if anyone saw anything that might help us. Dawn is not far off and the shops will be opening soon.”

“I am not good at being charming.” Gregoire warned.

“Then it is time to learn.” Syanna told him. “You are my Knight now and this will, unfortunately, not be the last murder that we have to investigate. Besides, you might find that you are more popular than you might think. You are the man that saved the street worker from being executed. Also, the Colonel and his wife were popular. Tell them what happened and that you were investigating. People will believe it and offer information.”

“The trick might not be getting the information.” I suggested. “But rather figuring out which piece of information is actually worthwhile.”

“Come on my large friend.” Guillaume said. “We can have breakfast as we work. You would be astonished how free people are with their mouths when you spend some money in their stall.”

“Kerrass.” Syanna went on. “You are an investigator and tracker. See if you can put together what really happened here. Who died first and who died last. Where were people waiting? Where were attackers watching from?”

Kerrass nodded. “I still think you should let me drag Alain through the streets by his hair.”

“Now who’s allowing bias to cloud their judgement.” I teased.

He made an obscene gesture.

“Freddie?” Syanna prompted. “Paperwork. If you could go through all of the diaries and things. I struggle to believe that Lord du Bas-Tyra would be involved in his own murder. But on the other hand, he was just the kind of ambition but no ability kind of Lord that would be taken in by such a plot. I just thought he was better than that.”

“I will look. It is also possible that he was being blackmailed or coerced in some way.”

“And Ariadne? If you could see your way towards getting Madame Duberton out of the gorge then I would be most grateful.”

“I will do that.” She said.

We split up about our different tasks although I followed Ariadne out to the balcony out the back of the house. Unable to keep from being curious as to how she was going to get down there.

There were already two guards out there who looked as though they were trying to secure ropes and things but Ariadne strolled past them, taking her satchel off and leaving it on a nearby table. A place that looked as though it had been reserved for some quiet drinks with friends while looking out over the view.

It must have been a spectacular view in daylight. The eastern skies were just beginning to brighten. The cloud cover was still rather thick though so it was hard to see much more than the silhouette of the clouds. The wind carried the promise of the rain and the smell of the harbour on the river bank.

“Where is she?” Ariadne wondered of the guards.

“Errr.” One of the two quailed and fell back from the view of the Vampire, the other straightened himself up.

“Down there Ma’am. We threw torches to see her.”

Ariadne nodded and peered over the balcony.

“Why not send people round the long way?” I wondered.

“Ravine is treacherous and rocky milord.” The more nervous of the two said. “It’s the same reason that we can’t climb down. Loose rocks could go down and crush… well… you know.”

“I do.” I admitted.

“I can see her.” Ariadne said. “Poor woman, she looks like a broken rag doll. Ground is too rough for a teleport though, Ah well.” She turned to the two guards.

“I am going to need rope and blankets?”

The nervous one fled.

“Why blankets?” I wondered.

“The poor woman looks as though she might come apart.” Ariadne told me. “It is not pretty Freddie. Tell them to hurl the rope and blankets down to me. No need to worry, I can see them.”

She looked at me for a long time. “You have never seen me do this Freddie, stand back.”

I did as I was told before she turned and leapt over the wall in something very similar to a dive. Except it seemed to elongate her body before she turned into a reddish black smoke. It was odd to watch. Her body didn’t transform so much as it seemed to dissolve into the smoke. The physical form seemed to disappear into the billowing smoke as it drifted down to the gorge below. Far faster than woodsmoke actually moves.

It was… interesting to watch.

But I wasn’t there to gawk at the woman I love, work, I was there to work myself.

I found some stairs and headed up. I passed one room which was under guard by a fully armoured Knight of Francesca. As I say, they were FULLY armoured so there was no way that I could easily recognise them. As it was, they gave me an apologetic look as I was forced to edge round them due to the sheer bulk of the armour. The door was open so looking in I could see what I took to be some kind of guest room judging by the lack of personality. There was a bed, a chair and a painting of a landscape of some kind. There was a fire in the hearth.

In the room, sat on the chair was the stricken figure of Colonel Duberton who was sat, staring into space. If Captain De La Tour had been doing any questioning at all, then he wasn’t doing it any more. Instead, he was sat on the bed. He had a look of poised, coiled tension.

I recognised the scene as one that I had seen before. It’s how people sit when they have delivered bad news to someone and don’t know if they need to comfort or restrain the person that they are speaking to. On any given day, it could go either way. Especially when it comes to husband and wife. If it’s a love match, there is always the danger that one or other partner might try for a knife in order to end their own life and join the departed in whatever life comes after this one.

You can stop that sort of thing if you’re careful. I have found, from watching Kerrass work, that the mistake is to remind them what they have to live for, or what they can look forward to. This is a mistake. As it tends to make people think that they would rather share that experience with the people that they have lost. Instead, remind the person who needs them. It’s shitty and manipulative, but in the heat of the moment, sometimes you need to be shitty and manipulative. Remind them of children, relatives, friends, comrades and colleagues that would miss them if they died.

It doesn’t always work as sometimes you might have misread the relationship. But it is a good start.

I tried to remember whether or not the Colonel and his wife had any children. Something told me that they didn’t though. A half-remembered conversation about waiting until the end of the tour of duty before settling down to trying to start a family.

I moved on. I found the master bedroom next. It was clear that Lord du Bas-Tyra was unmarried rather quickly. There was no writing desk in evidence in the bedroom though so I moved past it. Kerrass is far better at ransacking a bedroom for clues than I am anyway.

I found the man’s study and I found myself forming a picture of Lord du Bas-Tyra. I found that I was beginning to dislike him. The purpose of a study is a place to keep your work out of the way of the other occupants of the house. Or if there is other business that is carried out at the house. Otherwise, you have all your work in the main rooms of the house where it is more easily accessible.

If I lived, by myself, in this house other than with the servants, then my paperwork, books and things would have been downstairs. I would have things set out so that I could take books and letters out to the Veranda so that I could work while enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine. You find similar measures taken with most serious scholars and researchers.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Lady Yennefer reads and studies outside when the weather is available to do so. Otherwise, according to the gossip, she spreads her books and papers all over the main eating table in the chateau at Corvo Bianco. It’s important to have these things at hand so that when a thought occurs in the middle of the day or in the middle of the meal, you don’t have to traipse all the way up to your study to get at a notebook.

This looked like the kind of place where there was a study because he felt as though he had to have a study. There had been no signs of books or any of the other working paraphernalia elsewhere in the house that I had seen. A treacherous part of my brain was trying to tell me that this meant nothing. The man had been expecting guests after all and he might have tidied things away in preparation for having people over.

But somehow I knew that this wasn’t the case.

There was an Encyclopedia on one shelf. Not the full version but it still came in several volumes. There was a work on local Etymology as well as several books on Flora and Fauna of the local area. To my eyes, even though there was evidence of regular cleaning, there was no sign that any of these books had been seriously read. Even the most careful reader leaves a mark on a book. Spines get damaged and scuffed, paper gets worn by the passage of fingers and the opening to the elements. Sunlight and damp in the air gets into books when you open them and all of that leaves a mark.

I decided that I would check them for hidden messages later. None of them were misshapen though so I doubted that I would find anything in that shelf.

The only books that looked as though they were regularly read or used was a book on Etiquette and the proper comportment of a gentleman in polite society. These kinds of books are almost entirely useless. There are certain rules of etiquette that never change but the rest of it is in a state of constant flux. By the time that a person starts to write a book on the subject then the fashions and rules of the game have changed.

There was another book on deeper analysis of the duties, responsibilities and privileges of a Knight. This book was, to my eyes, particularly well thumbed. I made a note of the author in order to ask someone like Guillaume as to what kind of politics that particular book would talk about. I also had a quick flick through it and felt like I had some idea. The author was moaning about the lack of proper pride in the examples of modern Knighthood that they had seen. I didn’t need to read much more than that to think about what else I would find. I checked it for hidden messages and letters and things but found nothing.

There were several volumes of noble heraldry. As I think I’ve said before, these are the kinds of reference books that no noble library is without at any stage. Inside you will find a comprehensive list of nobles, their heraldry and their holdings. It is one of those skills that gets drilled into you when you grow up in the gentry to be able to recognise a flag and to be able to provide some information about them. Even if you don’t know them personally or have any idea what their name is. You can usually tell where they come from and how old their family is and a bit about their family history by just looking at their flags.

For everything else there are these volumes. There are new editions every year and your average noble family buys a full set once every two or three years while keeping up to date with the regularly published addenda that are supplied from the original book sellers.

Emma buys new ones every year so that she can keep up to date. There is a hope that it will all die down now that the wars are over and that, therefore, there will not be any sudden deaths, dispossessions and completely new noble houses being founded in the next few years.

There was also a book of Romantic Erotica in there. Of course I looked. People hide things in places where others would fear to tread. So of course I looked. I found it odd and certainly not to my taste. The romance was sweet and naive while the erotica itself was brutal, rough and repetitive.

“FREDDIE.” Ariadne bellowed through our link. “FREDDIE IF…”

The volume and the strength of feeling was absurd and it all but knocked me off my feet. I caught myself in the chair.

“FREDDIE, YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO...”

“Ariadne please,” I begged.

I may have whimpered.

“Oh flame I’m so sorry.” She sobbed through the link.

I took a moment to let the room stop spinning as I listened to the woman that I loved weep over a link. “What’s wrong?” I asked carefully.

“Bastards.” She whimpered. “Bastards.”

I did my best to soothe her. “Do you need me?”

“No, no I will be fine. Just promise me something.”

“Anything, you know that.”

“When you find these… things. Promise me that you will not leave me with them. I don’t think I could stop myself from tearing them apart. Oh that poor woman.”

“Do you need me to come down?” I asked again.

“No, I must still do some work to get her back up to the house. But I swear Freddie. I swear that these bastards are going to pay. Catch them Freddie. Catch them so that they can be destroyed.”

She broke off the link and I took a couple of breaths. I have seen Ariadne angry before. Hers is a restrained, simmering rage. It is a banked fire that she carefully directs against the target of her ire. When she does unleash that flame then it is something to see. This was… something else.

But I was here to work.

The desk in the office was a thing of beauty. Expensive, well built and solid. There was a large surface area for the moving of things around there were numerous drawers in it to store things. It must have cost a fortune. It was also, all but unused.

I found one drawer that was full of perfect quills along with a trimming knife that was properly razor sharp. There were spear blocks of ink and blotting sand in their proper areas. There was some sealing wax the looked barely used and a candle that was only just reduced. The papers, such as they were, were non-existent.

It is easier to say what there wasn’t. There was no list of accounts. Nor were there any investment reports or anything that might say how a man might make his money. With a house like this… it wasn’t rich enough to assume that he could afford to pay someone to do all of that for him. But nor was it small enough to mean that there was no source of income at all. It felt like a summer home. A temporary building that a man might go to if he mostly lived in the country but came to town on business. Except, that would mean that there would be no need for a study really, or if there was… The reading would be for leisure.

What there was was the correspondence. It was not epic in scale. Certainly nothing on the level that Emma maintains, or that even I maintain given my infrequent ability to set time aside to actually see to such things.

When I sat down to start reading them though, I started to groan. The letters that he received fell into three categories. The first was letters from various ladies that he had been pursuing telling him varieties of excuses as to why they would not be able to accept his suit for their hand. Mostly such things were palmed off on reluctant fathers. I have received many such letters myself and there soon becomes an almost standardised look to them. These appeared… cold. There was no care about them. They read like he had just asked as many people as possible and that the responses were not unexpected.

My letters were slightly different. I had never had any difficulty getting the girls to laugh and like me. It was taking it to the next level that I found difficult so I tended to receive far more personal letters that spoke of enjoying my visit and a desire to continue a friendship. But also cutting me off for any hope for the future.

These particular letters felt a lot more. “Stop talking to us and leave us alone.” Except more polite than that.

I started to wonder what Colonel Duberton and, or his wife, might have seen in such a man in order to establish any kind of relationship at all.

The next series of letters was from various creditors that were wondering when they could receive their promised payments with varying degrees of civility. None of them were to the stage of making overt threats. It was much more about… “I am sure that My Lord du Bas-Tyra would not wish for future dealings to be negatively impacted by tardiness.” Thus saying that when he needed money in the future, that it might be less likely to be forthcoming than he might have preferred.

I only recognised three of the names from the letters. Most were from various private individuals that I didn’t recognise from places that were an increasing distance outside of the Duchy itself. It would seem that the further away the creditors were, the less likely it was that Lord du Bas-Tyra knew them personally. Again, I was left with the feeling that these letters were standardised letters written by a clerk somewhere before being taken to the relevant person for a personal signature and seal.

The three names that I recognised were The Vivaldi bank from the North. The Dwarven family that initially, at least, owned most of the banking concerns in the Northern Kingdoms. Various efforts have been made to remove the venerable financial institution from the hands of the “non-human scum” but I have noticed that when this has been done, often to fund a monarch’s or private individuals military expansion, the money is inevitably wasted and the individual branch has ended up being reclaimed by the dwarves until it gets built up again accordingly. There is a certain circle of people, including me, that finds that endlessly amusing. There are just some things that they are better at than we are and one of those things is that dwarves are simply better at making money than we are.

Another name was the Giancarli bank based out of Beauclair itself. The Vivaldi letter had a more personal touch to it whereas the Giancarli bank was telling Lord du Bas-Tyra, in detail, exactly how much money he was losing while he waited to pay back the amount owed. There was also a little reminder on the bottom of their letters that told Lord du Bas-Tyra that failure to pay the amount owed would result in legal action which could lead to seizure of assets and time spent in penal servitude or prison.

The last name was Lord Velles, or Sir Velles if you prefer. To refresh people’s memories. Lord Velles is the merchant that was seeking an invitation to Sam’s confidences. A former soldier and veteran of Temeria’s armed forces. He was the most insistent that money be repaid sooner rather than later and was also the most blunt about what would happen should the money not be forthcoming. In this case, any and all business interests that might have been in existence between the two would be voided and the debt would be reclaimed out of those business dealings.

I laid this group of letters down and sighed. The man was just a gambler’s problem and a few bastard’s away from being the stereotype of the useless noble man’s son.

I sighed and reached for the third pile.

And the image of the man that I had constructed in my mind was complete. These letters were from other men that seemed to mostly be agreeing with Lord du Bas-Tyra about the different faults and wrongs that he could see in the world. People complaining about peasants not paying their proper respect and that kind of thing. Moaning about how the world would be a much better place if people would just listen to them rather than to other people. It was only due to the brief suggestion that some of these letters might contain some kind of code that I didn’t hurl them away from me in some form of disgust.

I was in the process of this when I heard some voices from further into the house that I didn’t recognise. Old habits of curiosity caused me to set my work aside, work that I was becoming convinced was pointless anyway, take up my spear and head in the direction.

There I found myself facing, down the corridor on the upper levels of the house, a man in a Nilfgaardian officer’s uniform who was looking… unhappy would be the right word for it. Not angry. Definitely not that. It was more… It was the face of a man that was doing an unpleasant job. He was being led by Syanna who saw me.

“Lord Frederick.” She called. “I do not believe you have met Major Dunnet of the Alba division. Second in command to Colonel Duberton.”

I strode forward and offered my hand to be shaken.

“I have not.” I said. “It is my honour sir although I wish it was under better circumstances. Much better circumstances.”

“I share your sentiment Lord Frederick.” He said with a slight smile, saluting before taking my hand. He was not wearing armour. But instead, he was wearing a formal looking tunic that bore the Golden sun of Nilfgaard and the crest of the regiment. He was also carrying a heavy broadsword on his hip in a cavalryman’s sheath.

He did not wear spurs which told me a lot that I needed to know of the man.

“May I add my personal thanks Lord Frederick.” He went on.

“Oh?”

“Yes My Lord. I have both read your accounts of your journey with the Empress and it is noted throughout our military that the Empress has had more… Pep since returning from the islands. She had lost some of her drive after the loss of her friend, your sister and it was a concern to certain members of the military. But since then she has returned to being the woman that we are coming to respect and admire.”

“Ummm, well, you are quite welcome.”

“I am also particularly pleased about your recent essays on the cost of this lifestyle. Both in terms of physical cost as well as the cost to a man’s mind. We were able to use these essays to persuade my father to not force my younger brother into service. My brother is a sensitive soul who would have broken under military discipline and would not have survived some of the things that a soldier is expected to do. I do believe that you saved his life sir. And for that I thank you.”

“Not so sir.” I told him. “I am just the messenger. It was my brother that told me to send the message and it was you, and your father that acted on it.”

He smiled “I had thought I would like you. Much though I would enjoy getting to know you better sir, I am here on official business. Is this the room that the Colonel is in?” He asked Syanna this last.

“It is,”

The Major nodded and moved into the room. Damien stood.

“Colonel Duberton.” The Major said to his superior formally.

The Colonel took a deep breath before rising to his feet with the same kind of ponderousness as the ram striking the castle gate. Once he was standing he straightened his clothing and arranged his sword.

“Major Dunnet.” He said. “I am sorry that it had to be you.”

“As am I sir.” The Major said. “It is my duty to inform you that, on this most horrible of occasions, that I am here to relieve you of your command and your authority. Once matters are dealt with, your orders are that you will return to your place of residence near the capital and you will deal with family matters until such a time as the Empress deems it prudent.”

The Colonel drew himself up to attention and nodded.

“I must ask you to surrender your sword sir.”

The Colonel looked down to his side and was astonished to see that it was still there. He unclipped the scabbard from his belt and held it out to the Major who took it.

“I stand relieved sir. I will not be able to leave until the pass is clear and I will not leave here until justice is served. If you intend to prevent that then I would ask you to say so now.”

“Understandable sir.”

“Further to this,” The Colonel went on. “I give you my word that I will not seek to interfere with the running of the regiment. You will do a good job Bill and I hope that you stay with the lads.”

The Major then handed the sword back. “Now that that’s over with. I thank you for your parole.” He scratched behind his ears. “Sun burn me to a crisp Mike,” He went on, I guessed that Mike was short for Michelle. “But I am so sorry. I loved her like a sister and… Well… If there is anything you need.”

“Thanks Bill.”

“The lads, those that were no duty are just itching to pay the bastards back as well.” The Major went on. “You know how they felt about her.”

For a minute there, it looked as though the Colonel’s self control was going to crumble. “Thank them for me Bill. I wish it didn’t have to end like this.”

“As do I sir.”

“Congratulations Colonel.” Duberton held his hand out.

“Thank you sir.” The new Colonel of the 4th Regiment took the hand. “But I wish it wasn’t like this.”

Colonel Dunnet turned to Syanna. “The 4th stand ready to assist you Knight Commander. We are yours to command and deploy as you see fit until we receive orders to the contrary.”

“One last bastard to catch for the road Ma… Colonel.” Syanna wondered.

“As you say. I will be with the lads should you need me. You should know that Major Forrest went to the palace to speak with the Duchess.”

Syanna nodded. “I was expecting that.”

“We all have our duties to attend to. It would have been the other way round if he had been senior. Lord Frederick? A pleasure. You must dine with me when this is all over.”

“I would be honoured.” I told him.

“Captain de la Tour.” The Colonel shook hands with the bemused Guard Captain and left.

We all stood there for a moment as the new man left and tromped down the hall. Of all people, it was Colonel Duberton that broke the silence. How did he do that? He chuckled.

“You have questions Lord Frederick.” He said.

“What?”

“I have read about you sir.” He said, a little formally. “I know that one of the things that drives you is your curiosity and that you cannot do anything until your curiosities are vanquished. I had thought it was an exaggeration of your own invention or that other people have said of you, but until I saw it for myself… You really are paralysed by it.”

“Now I have even more questions.” I said with a sigh and a rub of my temples.

“Then ask. If you are well enough of course. If I may say so, you look a little wobbly around the edges.”

“I have not been well.” I admitted. “You have read of me?”

Syanna chuckled herself and left muttering something about a scholar’s pride being worse than a Knight’s

“It is compulsory reading.” Duberton said. “I hope all this didn’t get you out of bed. Recovery time is important.”

I ignored that part. It would head into dangerous territory “Ok, I will leave why such reading would be compulsory for now. But what was that?” I gestured towards the door.

“What was… Oh. Colonel Dunnet. Well,” he scratched his chin. “I never met the Emperor.” He said before sitting back down. “Only in passing and when I was being given orders. But it’s one of those directives that he instituted into a military when our organisation and hierarchy stopped being feudal based and started being centrally organised. The Emperor was calm, calculating and ruthless. That part of it, the histories got right. He is also fair. He does not mind the first mistake but if you make that mistake again then you are going to be destroyed.

“He also has a thing in his head that if you get to certain ranks then you shouldn’t be making certain mistakes. If Marshal Coehoorn… yes, I read your assessment of the battle at Brenna. If Marshal Coehoorn had told the Emperor that his scouting corps was incompetent and that he could not trust the information enough to advance… Which he should have done, then the Emperor would have been fine with that. But he promised victory. Therefore the Emperor’s rage was colossal.

“But he strikes me as a man who learned his compassion out of a book. Someone told him that Officers should marry. Especially senior Knights and officers on the grounds that marriage makes a man more careful. Recklessness is for junior ranks. Captains and the like. Majors and Colonels up to generals and field marshals are expected to marry. And for love where possible.

“Then someone told him that having a field commander whose spouse has just died might compromise their judgement. So he gave a general order that any man,” he pointed at himself, “that loses their spouse should be relieved of command and authority instantly, before being escorted home where they can recover from their grief. It’s the kind of brutal, uncompromising act that he was famous for. Just as he was the same when waging war, he was the same when he was caring for those under his command. The needs of the many over the needs of the few. Brutal and uncompromising kindness.”

Once again, his face and manner seemed to waver as I thought he might collapse. And then he didn’t. “Ask your questions.” He told me.

“I do not have many.” I said. “I am sure that you have already given your story to others. But I do have one. I am going through Lord du Bas-Tyra’s correspondence and I am getting a picture of the man that is not very flattering. Whereas you seem a good, decent and honourable man. What was the basis of your friendship with him?”

The Colonel sighed and rubbed at his head.

“He was kind to my wife.” His voice almost cracked at the end of that. “A lot of people have been cruel to her in the courts and salons of Toussaint and I have found that all a man needs to do to earn my friendship, is to be nice to my wife.”

I nodded. It was easily believable. “I shall leave you to your Grief sir.” I told him before leaving.

“Do not neglect your health Lord Frederick.” He told me. “Take proper care of yourself.”

I accepted that with a smile and a wave before leaving. Then I stopped just outside the room and felt myself frowning. Why had I considered whether or not Colonel Duberton’s story was believable or not?

I returned to my paperwork for a while but there was nothing more to add to what I was seeing. I tried various techniques that I had left over from my army service in the logistics and intelligence divisions to see if I could see any codes. Elementary stuff, but then again, I didn’t have much of an opinion about Lord du Bas-Tyra anyway, so if there was likely to be a code, then I thought it would be fairly easy to find.

I found nothing.

Remembering Edmund I also looked to see if any of the books on the shelves could act as the basis of some kind of book code but there was nothing there either. I also took the time to take the desk apart by pulling the drawers out and looking at the back for any hidden messages. There were none. In the end I decided that I had a good idea of who the man was and that if anything was hidden then it wasn’t going to be in the man’s study. Instead, I tried to have a look round in the main bedroom.

Kerrass was already there, tearing apart pillows and blankets, looking under the mattress and behind the dressers and things. He is far better about this kind of thing than I am so I just waited. He noticed me and looked up at me with a raised eyebrow.

“Make me a happy man.” I said, “Tell me that there is some kind of hidden cache of papers and letters that owns up to everything.”

Kerrass shook his head. “You doing ok Freddie?”

“I’ve been happier but, you know, sleep when it’s done and all that.”

Kerrass frowned at me for a moment before nodding and going back to work.

I returned to the study and tried to get back down to it but everything that I was reading at that point just confirmed things that I had already found. Fighting off the urge to put my head on the desk and have a brief nap, I had just made my mind up to wander up to the servant’s floor and see if any of them kept anything interesting like a journal or a diary, but I heard the door opening and closing again. Shortly after that, a guardsman stuck his head into the study to tell me that the Knight Commander wanted us all.

We all went back into the living area. Kerrass had found something I thought as he was wearing his thinking face. Syanna was expectant. Guillaume and Gregoire were kind of impassive while Ariadne was furious.

Her face was so mask like that I looked at her carefully and it wasn’t until I saw Kerrass clutch at his medallion that I realised what was going on. She was wearing an illusion of herself. Something that I have not seen her do since the early days of her release from her tower.

I went over to her and cautiously put my hand on her shoulder.

She flinched before realising that it was me. Her shoulder felt hard. Bony, but also with a lot of iron hard muscle under there. She normally feels, well… She normally feels like a woman. A fit, healthy, woman who has some muscle on her limbs when I touch her. Now it felt… It felt like touching the hide of…. Something else.

She looked up at me and I am coming to know her well enough to realise that she was afraid.

“I’m sorry.” She said, through the link rather than via words spoken aloud.

“Are you alright?” I asked in the same manner.

“No.” She said, “No I am not alright. I want to kill them Freddie. I want to tear them apart. That poor woman.”

“I love you.” I told her. I would have hugged her too but that seemed as though it might have overwhelmed her. “I love you so much and we are going to catch them. I am also certain to the depths of my soul that what the Duchess is going to do to them is worse than what you can do. Also, justice needs to be seen to be believed.”

“I know.” She said aloud this time. She took several deep breaths and the shoulder under my hand became more… shoulder like. I know that sounds strange, but believe me when I say that it’s the closest that I can express to what it felt like.

“So you have seen my mist form.” She said after a few more deep breaths. “I don’t think you’ve seen that before.”

“I have not.” I admitted.

“What did you think?” She was challenging me there. Also a little nervous I think.

“I’m not gonna lie.” I told her as I thought carefully about what I was going to say next. “It was kind of hot?”

“Really?” She grinned, becoming herself again. “How interesting. In what way?”

“Well, it means that if you wanted to, I would never hear you coming. So all of a sudden, there you are, coming out of nowhere and kissing me or doing… other things as well…. I find I like that idea.”

“A monster fetish Freddie?” Kerrass teased. “Who would have thunk it.”

“To be fair,” I retorted. “It shouldn’t be that much of a shock. And it’s less of a monster fetish, more of a vampire fetish.”

“Lord Frederick.” Guillaume joined the deliberate lightening of the mood. “I have not known you for long and I would say that you have a beautiful woman fetish than anything else.”

“Not the worst fetish that a man could have.” Gregoire rumbled. The big man was wearing an astonished expression at the level of banter. Also, that I hadn’t taken offence seemed to be part of the astonishment.

“This opens so many new and interesting possibilities.” Ariadne said with a calculating expression and a glint in her eye.

There was more good natured chuckling at my expense which I took on the chin. It needed to happen. The world was a bleak place and the mood needed to be lightened.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Syanna told us all. “This is a tough one, I know. Let’s keep working it though. Ariadne, tell the boys what you told me.”

Now readers. I have talked about some horrible things in my time. I have talked about horror and weird sexually violent rituals that cultists have used in order to worship dark gods from… wherever the fuck. But as I warned at the top of this article, this was worse because humans did this for political purposes and it made me ill to think of it.

If reading the descriptions of horror done to women by evil men upsets you then I advise you, I encourage you to skip the next few paragraphs. I am recording it though because this is the kind of thing that people in certain circles still think is ok. So, along with my promise to my brother, I think it’s vital that we, as a continent, confront this kind of thing head on and even if it convinces one person to open their eyes, just one person, then I feel that it is worth it. I will have the publishers put some stars in the text so that people know when to start reading again.

“Madame Duberton…” Ariadne cleared her throat. “Madame Duberton was immobilised by a blow to the back of the head. It was not severe but I would guess that it was enough to shock her to a state where she was all but insensible. Then she was restrained at the wrists and ankles by some kind of thin rope or cord that was twisted. The ropes were used to pull her limbs out of position rather harshly. Then she was…”

She took another deep breath.

“She was raped. Several times by, I think, multiple people. Then when they could no longer do that properly, they started raping her with household objects. She was already dying from internal rupturing from when they used the iron poker.

“When they grew bored of that. They beat her to death including going so far as to cave in her face so that the only recognisable feature of her is her hair and even that is matted with blood and… other matter. They made her a piece of meat gentlemen. If she was in a butcher’s shop window, people would not be able to recognise her as human.”

***

Silence fell for several moments.

“Prophets preserve us.” Gregoire said. The big man had not yet learned to control his expression. “I have heard about such things being done in bandit camps and the like, but in Beauclair itself, and we think Alain is...?”

Then his face twisted into a grimace of rage that was… frightening.

“You will need to get in line.” Syanna told him. “So that’s what we’re dealing with. Freddie?”

Ariadne squeezed my hand. I could not remember the moment when she took it.

“I ummm.” I took a breath, and the same as I do every time we find something like that on the road, I took it and pushed it aside in my own mind.

“I will be honest.” I said. “If he wasn’t lying dead, I would have assumed from his correspondence, that Lord du Bas-Tyra might have been one of our conspirators.”

I saw Kerrass nod slightly.

“Explain.” Syanna went on.

“Well, he has numerous debts. From what I could see of his financial records which are all but nonexistent. He has a habit of borrowing from one creditor to pay off another. And that’s how it goes. I don’t think he has any solid records of any kind but I am almost certain that he wagers money on things. Cards would be my first guess although I have not found a gwent or Pokiir deck.”

“I did.” Kerrass said.

I nodded, that would make sense.

“He was resolutely single although not by choice. He has issued many proposals of marriage, all of which were turned down and some of those were as recent as last week. He had an approach to courting of throwing as much at the wall as he could and seeing if anything would stick. Some people appear to have found that insulting.”

“As well they should.” Guillaume muttered.

“He also keeps a considerable correspondence with various people where he moans about the state of Toussaint today. All the normal kinds of dissatisfaction. Peasants not giving enough respect, people should know who their betters are, tavernkeepers having the cheek to demand payment up front. That kind of thing. To be truthful, I am astonished that Colonel Duberton and his wife were friends with him. I asked, but apparently it’s something to do with Lord du Bas-Tyra being nice to Madame Duberton when they first arrived.”

Syanna and Guillaume nodded.

“It’s believable...” Guillaume said.

There’s that word again. I felt myself frown

“...There was a bit of an uproar when the Nilfgaardian Knights first brought their wives to court and they steadfastly refused to obey fashions and social mores. They were withdrawn, quiet and some people took that to be insulting and as a result, were… cruel.”

Syanna nodded. “I heard about that. Did you find anything concrete from the letters?” She asked me.

“No.” I said. “In his correspondences, especially with the other people that were complaining about things, we would only expand our suspect pool. I could find no family connections, there are no portraits of anyone that he might feel any kind of affection towards and so I am…” I thought about it for a moment. “There might be some friends that will be unhappy with him being dead. But it’s not going to cause a blood feud. I would imagine that his death is going to cause problems for his creditors as they fight over what was left of his estate. I found evidence of him having borrowed against this house with at least three people.”

Syanna grunted at this.

“There used to be noblemen’s sons like this one all the way through the continent.” I said. “I was nearly one myself. Young men, convinced that they deserved more than what they were given because of their birth. Living outside their means but not having the drive or the ambition to make something of themselves. Instead of doing anything, they preferred to keep their living conditions too high and spend their time spending money that they don’t have.”

I thought a bit more.

“Wow, that got harsh pretty quickly.” I commented.

“But not unfair given what I know about the man.” Guillaume said. “He would regularly complain that he would not be treated with respect because he couldn’t fight with a sword. Therefore, anyone could challenge him to a duel and he would lose. If you suggested that he should learn to use a sword, he would claim that he was far too busy. If you asked him what he was busy with he would make some kind of excuse before walking away. I know it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead, but I do not think he will be missed by anyone. As I recall, there is no family. If I was being more charitable, I might suggest that his problem was that his father died when he was too young and as a result, he got access to the family funds when he wasn’t ready for them.”

Syanna nodded.

“What did you and Gregoire find?”

“Not much.” Guillaume said. The big Knight had turned away to master his own emotions. “The Colonel and his wife left Madame Duberton’s town lodgings and headed down for dinner in the right kind of time frame. Her Landlady confirmed that this was the case although she said that Madame Duberton appeared kind of nervous. Beyond that, we met a baker who summoned his son who saw the couple going down to dinner in the evening. The same with a pair of beggars who were disappointed that Madame Duberton did not drop any money in their hats. She is, apparently, someone who can often be depended upon to add a couple of crowns to the mix. The route matches up as well.”

Syanna nodded. “Ok then, Kerrass. I can tell you found something.”

“And I found a lot.” He said.

“I think that there were two, maybe three people involved in the attack, and I am all but certain that they had been waiting in the master bedroom for the Colonel and his wife to arrive.”

I had found a chair to sit in but Kerrass’ words caused me to lean forward.

“This attack was staged.” Kerrass said. “If this was a monster, these dead people were arranged to taunt us. This is… Forgive me Ariadne. This is like a Katakan or another more feral Vampire, arranging the bodies of its victims in order to inspire fear or anger. I also agree with Freddie that Bas-Tyra was in on it. I imagine that he was very shocked when his fellows turned on him.”

“How do you know all of this?” Syanna said, she was breathing a little harder than she would normally.

“Working through it. There is no way that even the most skilled swordsman would have been able to kill all of those servants and incapacitate Colonel Duberton and his wife without someone escaping or someone screaming loud enough to bring the guards, bring the neighbours or bring anyone that was coming.

“Some people did try and escape but they were pulled from the walls. THere were also four guards who knew what they were doing. Their weapons are cared for and they have proper calluses and muscles in all the right places to be experienced fighting men. So that’s eight people not counting Lady Duberton and even if he had been drinking, to be a Colonel of the Alba Light division it takes more than knowing which end of the sword to hold.”

Guillaume was nodding.

“So that takes at least two other people, maybe three. I think these guests were known to the servants and were brought here under some form of an excuse. That they were going to surprise Colonel Duberton or play some kind of fun prank. There are signs of men waiting in the Master bedroom. There is tobacco smoke, a game of Gwent was in evidence and a book that had been set aside. So I think there was a signal at some point. The men came downstairs. One went into the dining area and incapacitated the Colonel and his wife. The surprise being enough to get the advantage on the Colonel who I would put as a better swordsman than the guards. So they neutralised the bigger threat up front…”

He paused and frowned. “Which reminds me. It is possible that there was a drug, lacing the food or drink that the Colonel had been given in order to slow him down. Is there a way to check that?”

“There is.” Ariadne said. “But it’s much harder to tell what it is. I could tell you that he has been drugged. Or if you find me a sample of a drug or a poison, I could confirm or deny whether or not it was that particular sample used. But I can’t tell what the poison was… Unless it’s spider venom of course. But that would not work to slow someone down, that would cause more paralysis. Not the slowing of a man down.”

Kerrass nodded. “It might be worth pursuing.”

Syanna nodded. “If you could take the necessary steps Lady de Angral?”

“I will go now.” Ariadne nodded. I need to get started though as the longer I leave it, the less conclusive the results will be.”

She left and I felt a loss. I stretched and yawned.

“But the fight spread from there.” Kerrass went on. The brawl in the dining area was over quickly. One attacker went forward and dealt with the servants in that direction, then either the man from the dining room went backwards, or there was another man that went in that direction, down to the Kitchens and things. Killing as they went. Then they came back, restrained Bas-Tyra. Killed him before torturing and beating Madame Duberton to death. Tossed her over the balcony edge and left. Probably through the front gate now wearing their normal clothes.”

Syanna grunted… “Were all the men involved in the killing good with the blade?” She asked.

“Oh yes. They would have to be, to get the job done this quickly.”

“Can you tell the difference between the training?” Gregoire added. He had mirrored me in sitting on a chair. “The difference between how a Knight would fight against a duellist for instance.”

“No.” Kerrass said. “The weapons were quick and sharp though, but they could have been daggers, short swords or longer blades. There is no way to tell. But most of these people were untrained, unarmoured and probably didn’t expect anything. They had probably even been told that a man appearing dressed as Jack was part of the “Friendly japes” that were planned regarding the Dubertons. Plus the shock of the untrained person in the face of violent death… The difficulty in the task was to do with the speed involved. The actual killing would have been easy… relatively speaking. But the movements, with guards and soldiers in the way? That is the bit that takes the skill.

“Also,” Kerrass went on. “This was planned. They knew exactly where they were going and they knew exactly what they were going to be doing when they got there. These people knew this house. They knew how many people were going to be here and they knew how it was going to be done and in what order.”

Syanna nodded. “There is a question here that I think I know the answer to.” She began. “It’s not a nice question and I dread the answer. But I’m going to ask it anyway. Why leave Colonel Duberton alive?”

Silence fell for a bit longer.

“Freddie, I think that question was for you.” Kerrass joked and I jerked myself back to the upright position from where I had begun to slump.”

“I think…” I began before realising that my thought patterns were not yet in order. “I think that…” I tried to force my sad and tired brain to think. “I think that the answer is currently in a meeting with the Duchess. I don’t know if our enemies knew about the standing orders about what happens when a senior officer loses their close family members. But I think that Colonel Duberton was allowed to live so that he could bring his anger and his outrage.”

I started to warm to my subject.

“We have all heard stories about how the Emperor used to act if one of his ambassadors or citizens was killed in foreign countries when not fighting a war. It’s part of the Pax Nilfgaardia. It is known throughout the land that should you kill a citizen of Nilfgaard, then it is certain that the wrath of the Empire will come crashing down on your house. So right now, the conspirators are… I think… hoping that the Colonel, or someone, is in the Duchess’ office demanding the replacement and punishment of Syanna and the Knights of Saint Francesca. They will think that the only thing that the Duchess can do in response is to reinstate the old order.

“Now for the record, if it was the Emperor of old, then I would say it would be much more likely that the Imperial 2nd army would arrive and tear Toussaint apart until the killers would be found. Wine trade and economic problems be damned. Under the Empress… I genuinely think that they have forgotten that it was the Empress that ordered these changes.”

“They are too used to living in the past.” Guillaume said. “We know this of them already. Delusions of Toussaint’s precedence in all things.”

“But I think it would be much more likely that the Empress will order something else. She will allow certain rules to be violated in the pursuit of these killers. People should also not presume that the Empress is any the less harsh than her father. More sharp and precise maybe. But not weaker.”

“So they think that they are disgracing us, but in reality, they risk the destruction of the entirety of Toussaint.” Syanna said.

“Pretty much”

“But why leave Colonel Duberton alive at all?” Gregoire wondered. “I know that I am… unused to this… what was it called?”

“Detective work.” Guillaume supplied.

“Yeah. But why does that require Duberton to be alive? What you describe could be achieved by just killing the man as easily as it would by what they did. I too have seen the Colonel train. I could take him, I think, but I would not come away unscathed and the outcome would not be certain. I would not want that man angry with me.”

I was not the only person that looked at Gregoire in surprise.

“There are two reasons that I can think of.” I said carefully. “And I don’t know which is worse. The first is that… After all, this is Toussaint. The story appeals to them. Leaving the man alive to seek his vengeance.”

“And what’s the other option?” Gregoire nodded.

A guard came in and passed Syanna a note which she read with a grimace.

“That they enjoyed the cruelty.” She said. “We’re nowhere with this.” She declared. “We have found nothing new. No new suspects, no new evidence and not particularly any new leads.

“This.” She waved the piece of paper. “Is my sister summoning me up to the castle and I agree with Lord Frederick’s assessment as to what I am going to be told. I am going to be told to step up my game or we run the risk of Nilfgaard invading. It is not a meeting that I am looking forward to. So go back to the castle. I’m going to lock all of us in a room with all the paperwork and evidence that we have until we can come up with a scheme as to what we are going to do next. Freddie?”

I realised that I was nodding off again. “Hmmm?”

“I am sorry Lord Frederick. Lady du Angral has made it clear to me before how much this is costing you, as has Kerrass. But I need you, are you with me?”

I nodded. “I’m going to need some strong coffee.” I told the room to which Kerrass snickered.

“It can be arranged.” Syanna said. “And if your intended permits, when this is all over, I will drown you in beautiful women so that you will not leave your bed for a week.”

Even Gregoire laughed at that.

“A week?” I wondered.

“Very well, a fortnight. But it might limit the number of women.” Syanna smirked. “My funds are not inexhaustible.”

Gregoire snorted. “I thought we got paid more than that.”

There was a solid minute where we all looked at him in horror.

“I mean, if the Knight Commander can’t afford the really good women, then what hope do the rest of us have? Anne needs jewellery after all.”

Guillaume laughed in astonishment at the big man’s humour. “Ah Gregoire, I never knew you had it in you.”

“What, only you lot can make jokes?”

“For my part.” Kerrass spoke up. “I found that ladies always enjoy the gesture rather than the content. Flowers work just as well.”

Gregoire looked relieved for a moment.

“Whoever told you that, Witcher, was a Prophet cursed liar.” Syanna told him. “Flowers wilt. Diamonds are forever. Now get to work.”

The little laugh was much needed as we all trooped out of the house. As we left, some guards were erecting a barrier across the door so that the early morning traffic would not be wanting to intrude. There are always nosy members of the public that want to get involved whenever there has been a tragedy, the more gruesome the better. I have no idea why. Kerrass once told me that it is a matter of reassurance. That if people can see the horrible things that have happened to other people then it reminds them that they themselves are still alive.

Like a lot of other things that Kerrass has said over the years. I am left, kind of hoping that this is not the case, but at the same time, knowing that it probably is.

We waited in the courtyard for our horses to be brought and we left, mounting up in an open area that the guards cleared for us. As they always do, the watchers called out for news. “What has happened? What is going on?” and the increasingly popular. “Why haven’t you caught the bastard yet?” and “When is this going to end?”

The fatalistic response is “This will never end. Even if we catch the killer today, there will always be another killer. There will always be someone else to catch. But the people in the streets don’t want to hear that kind of thing. They want to be reassured. THey want to be angry, shout and throw things.

I know this because I saw that Gregoire reacted to the crowd’s shouting in an automatic, reflexive kind of way. He turned to hurl abuse back. To shout and gesticulate and threaten violence. Guillaume caught it though and explained how things were. Gregoire was appalled that the Knights of Francesca were just expected to ride along and take the abuse.

“When we are on duty, or in the middle of an investigation, then yes.” Guillaume told him. “We can leap to the defence of others. We can always express some righteous violence on people if the ones that we are escorting get insulted. But if it’s us, then we suck it up.”

“You have to be careful though.” Kerrass said when we got clear from the shouting crowds. “If you hurt someone then it’s much harder to get their help at a later date. You cannot ask someone for information if they remember you smacking around their neighbour because they were a bit rude.”

Gregoire grunted, frowning in thought. “I had no idea. I kind of want to stop being one of the Knights and just follow you around, calling out all the bastards that hurl abuse at you for daring to challenge you in the process of doing your duty.”

Guillaume laughed. “I quite like that image.” He said. “But I think I would rather have you on side. I will not lie my friend, I can think of several ways that we can gleefully use your established reputation and routine in order to make Toussaint a better place.”

Syanna had gone ahead to her meeting with the Duchess. We spent a bit of time in idle speculation about what the two most powerful women in the realm would be talking about. I also spent some time talking to Ariadne, she was still bothered by what she had seen back in the house and who could blame her to be honest. We talked a bit more about what she had seen. I got the feeling that some of her faith in humanity had been damaged at that moment and, again, I couldn’t blame her . She told me that she would be working in the lab down in Corvo Bianco for a while and that I should contact her if we needed her. She wanted to help catch the fuckers but was a little bit too angry to entirely trust her own judgement to be logical.

“Yeah,” I said. “There’s a bit of that going about.”

She instructed Kerrass and Guillaume to keep an eye on me in her place. Damien caught up with us as we rode. He told us a bit more as we rode, about the first steps of the city guard and about how they had found Colonel Duberton tied up in the dining area, hoarse with tears and rage as he had been screaming for help. It had been arranged that he would be escorted back to the Imperial camps so that he could be surrounded by his Knights and men rather than in his wife’s lodgings where he would just be alone with the memory of his dead wife.

When we arrived in the castle itself, a messenger was waiting for us who passed a note to the Guard commander who in turn, told us all that we were setting up in one of the meeting rooms and that Syanna would join us there shortly. It was a nice room, large table and when we got there, there were already servants arranging large jugs of Watered wine and coffee. The latter of which I drank from greedily.

I was most disturbed to realise that my hands were shaking. Not the sort of thing that you want to realise about yourself. So I treated myself to one of the sweet pastries that were the next things to be carried in, before taking myself off to sit and watch the sun rise while I focused on breathing in and out.

A few more people started to arrive. A man that I took to be one of Captain de La Tour’s more senior Watchmen as well as a couple of scribes. A few more Knights arrived from the Saint Francesca division. A black armoured Knight of the Nilfgaardian armour division came in and greeted Guillaume as though they knew each other. There was an uneasy rattling of armour as Lady Tonlaire came in.

It was somewhat reassuring to see her in that guise and in that way. She was…. She had obviously been dragged from her bed earlier than she was entirely comfortable with. She was dressed in a much more flowing dress than she was probably used to, there were no cosmetics on her face and just a simple pair of earrings on as well as a pendant of some kind. The kind of thing that you could throw on as you were hustled down the corridor. She looked… more human than she had previously but even despite all of that, and the yawn that threatened to split her head in half. She seemed distracted.

I made a point of taking her a cup of strong coffee for which she thanked me automatically before frowning in thought at me.

We just sat there making small talk for a while. There seemed to be a consistent and conscious effort to not discuss the reason why we were all there. I met the Nilfgaardian Knight who was introduced as a Captain Carline. He seemed like a nice young gentleman and he was there to offer aid wherever and however it was needed. I asked him whether he was here to observe that Toussaint was taking this seriously or not and he grinned at me.

“Yes.” He said. “But I’m also here to help you all catch the bastard. Nothing would make me happier than that being the case.”

I liked him. There was no subterfuge in his body.

We were not kept waiting for long before Syanna came back. She did not have the attitude of a woman that had been in a shouting match. Instead, she seemed calm, her jaw was clenched slightly and she was frowning. There was a general kind of movement as we set aside coffee cups, finished off the last of our pastries and took chairs around the table.

“Right.” Syanna began. “Are we all here? I see that we are. And the scribes as well. Excellent. Everyone should know that the scribes are here in order to make a full record of these discussions. This is for two reasons. The first is so that we can refer back to the records should it be needed, but also as a formal record for coming history and explanations to the authorities should it be required.”

There was some murmuring around the table.

“And by “the authorities,” you mean the Empress.” De La Tour said. It was not really a question.

“I have no doubt that she will be one of the interested parties.” Syanna said. “Or at least, one of her secretaries will be.” There were some scattered chuckles.

“Well then Ladies and Gentlemen.” Syanna began a bit more formally. “I have just come from the office of the Duchess. Given the recent death of Madame Duberton, a citizen of Nilfgaard and wife to the Colonel who has helped train many of the people in this room as well as being beloved of the men and women that have kept us safe over the last year. The Duchess has decided that she has had enough. I share her sentiment.”

There was some muttering among those that had not heard about Madame Duberton. I was watching Lady Tonlaire specifically and she was clearly appalled. She might be a talented courtier but I didn’t think she could have faked such a thing.

“The investigation has been kept relatively small up until this point. However we can no longer afford to tiptoe around the issue. The Duchess wants this done. She wants, and I quote, she “wants the bastards caught.” She wants them to face justice and from what I gathered of her mood, the penalties will not be small. As I say, I share her sentiment.

“That is not to say that we are displeased with the work that has been done so far. I would especially like to take this moment to formally, on the record and before witnesses, thank Lord Frederick Coulthard who’s insights into the matter have been invaluable, and also Witcher Kerrass who’s tracking skills and experience have, likewise, enabled us to do far more than we would otherwise have been able to manage.

“I would also like to thank Lady Ariadne, Countess du Angraal for her services, even though she is not present, it bears saying so before witnesses and so that our gratitude, the Duchess’ as well as mine, can be entered into the official record.

“But I do not think it is unfair to say that, to date, the only thing that the investigation has managed to do is to react to what the killers and conspirators have been doing. Meaning that, all we have done is removing suspects and suspicions from the board rather than actually being able to zero in on who is actually carrying out these attacks.

“That ends today. By the end of today, I want to have given orders for us to take serious, proactive and decisive action in order to bring some of these perpetrators to justice.

“It is also true, and worth admitting, that we know who at least one of these people are.”

There was some shifting in the seats at that and I saw the Nilfgaardian man frown at that.

“We will explain why he is still allowed his freedom in a moment. But in short, it is because we believe it vital that we sweep up this entire plot in one go. We need the names and locations of everyone that has taken part in these attacks. It is impossible, as you will see, that it is only one person performing these attacks.

“We also believe that the purpose of these attacks is to undermine confidence in the law keeping abilities of the Knights of Saint Francesca in the countryside, and the city guard themselves within Beauclair. What we believe that the conspirators have not taken into account, is that the changes that they would revert, were made on the Empress’ orders. And that therefore, it is impossible for the Duchess to rescind the Imperial decree. And that if she did so, the Empress would be… well..,”

“Irate?” Suggested the Nilfgaardian Knight.

“Put out.” I added.

“I would be more inclined to say “Fucking Furious”.” Syanna said.

Lady Tonlaire was particularly troubled by that. I found myself wondering if that had even occurred to her… Probably not.

“So what we are going to do now,” Syanna told us. “Here in this room is, we are going to go over everything again. And then we are going to come up with a plan. Food will be brought and anyone that tries to say that we are not doing our job will be eviscerated by my sister who has had enough of… well… everything. So let’s start at the beginning.”

And that’s what we did. I’m not going to go through all of this again. I have to assume that if you’ve read this far in things then you have read the previous chapters, so you will know the more precise details about the different things that we had found and discussed over time.

So just brushing over things so that we can get to the meat of what was discussed. We discussed matters in order of discussion. We started off with Appoline, the bar maid at the Cockatrice inn, we talked about what we had found and our various suspicions as well as the fact that the investigation into her assault and murder was not as thorough as it might have been given the recent attack on Lady Vivienne de Launfal that took place on the same night. Syanna forced us to skip over the recriminations and accusations of incompetence and moved us on before things were allowed to get more bitter.

After that, we talked about Miss Donnet, the young girl that had wanted to be a nun due to her fascination with learning and a lack of interest in anything else. The fact that this was the first proper sighting of Jack was discussed at some length.

We moved on to the matter of the death of Flower of the Night, the courtesan that had worked as a colleague to Anne out of the Belles of Beauclair. That was dissected in a bit more detail with regards to her route and that being the first opportunity that Jack was a serious threat. That was the first time that it was considered that it might really be Jack that had returned to terrorise Beauclair. Again, Syanna refused to allow recriminations or ridicule that did begin to float around in response to this. She said that it was very easy with the benefit of hindsight to determine that it obviously wasn’t Jack but at the time, given the witness testimony, it was more than plausible that Jack had, indeed, returned.

From there we moved onto the matter of the death of Lady Matamara, the daughter of the court's most prolific huntsman the night of the party of unknown talent. Otherwise known as the party where Sir Raoul Leblanc had done his best to humiliate me in front of all of the nobility of Toussaint. That was analysed by all present. I would like to think that this was because there was a lot more evidence to be assessed and measured, that there were more witnesses to what had happened and more victims of the killer. I would like to think that this wasn’t because she wasn’t the first member of the nobility to be killed and therefore got more attention than she would have done otherwise.

As we went through the first four victims, I took the time to watch the other people around the table, to most of the people there, none of this was particularly new and that was clearly the case for the Knights of Saint Francesca that were present, as well as the guards and the Nilfgaardian Knight. So far, it was a fairly dry recitation of facts. So I was watching to see how Lady Tonlaire was taking the news of everything that happened. To be fair to her, she was frowning in conversation. She had a piece of paper that she was taking notes on, or doodling, I could not tell from the distance.

Do not let anyone tell you that doodling in the margins is a sign of someone not paying attention. It can be that. But it also can be someone who is scribbling down a thought. I have seen Ariadne do it when a thought occurs to her in the middle of a discussion and when later challenged, she does not remember where the thought came from but is glad that it has turned up.

I was pleased that she seemed to be paying attention. I would hate to think that everything we had done the other day was all for nothing.

Gregoire was also listening intently with a focus that other people might have found frightening. It is the same kind of focus that I could imagine being on his face when he was carefully lining up a lance strike against an opponent.

After the death of Lady Matamara was discussed, I started to be more involved in the discussion as that was where Kerrass and I entered the tale. I was forced to describe to the room that my family had deliberately kept the news about Jack’s supposed return from me due to fears regarding my health. There were some murmers of disbelief regarding that which Kerrass and Syanna between them shut down. There was a mortifying few minutes where my previous injuries and illnesses were disclosed to the room and what had happened as a result. It was made clear to everyone just how upset and angry I was that things had been kept from me and people were able to move on.

I spoke about how I came to be involved, spoke briefly about my assessment as to whether or not Jack was really involved and then talked about how we started to work the problem. That included Kerrass’ determination that it was more than one person that was involved and our increasing determination that it was definitely not Jack that was responsible for the various deaths.

I talked about the patterns that might have been involved and our creation of several lists of people. How we started to look for people that the dead women had rejected their advances. I also spoke about my suspicion that Appoline was a secondary target and that the real person that was the first person that was targeted for attack was Lady Vivienne and I explained why.

We moved on to talking about Lady de Launfal and her death and the message that we left to target me. We also did not hesitate to point out the delays that were put on us by various people that demanded that we make proper accounts of ourselves when we could have been out and about investigating. We spoke about our brief interview with lord Matamara and our investigation into the matter about how his dead daughter had been accosted in a party.

Again, that was interesting. Lady Tonlaire had the good grace to squirm a bit when I described the fact that we were delayed in properly pursuing our investigation due to courtly interference. I did say why such things might be useful and what I had gleaned from it but even so, she shifted in her seat.

From there the matter regarding the murder of Lady Moineau was discussed, the framing of Kerras, why he was framed, the affair that he was having with Lady Moineau and the supposed reason for that death in the figure of Lady Caroline. Guillaume and I, very briefly, described our adventures regarding the rescue of Lady Caroline from the Witch of Lynx crag and the return to court before launching into our explanation into the trap that we set in the hopes that we could capture Jack or at least one of the figures in that conspiracy.

The fight between Guillaume and Jack was assessed and analysed to a length that I rather saw as pointless but I suppose if that’s the sort of thing that you are looking for… There was also some more criticism against the fact that the net around the area of Knights and guardsmen was so loose as to allow Jack to escape. It was admitted that this was a mistake but it was a mistake that no-one could have done anything about.

No-one criticised the Duchess for issuing the decree that led to that particular judgement, but it was also quite clear as to why it had all happened.

From there we had, again, been distracted from our investigation by the matter of a spy in my family. We talked about why we pursued that instead of the person that we knew was involved in the conspiracy in the form of Sir Alain de Moineau due to political and legal matters which caused something of an unfair retread over the previous days events regarding Anne, Gregoire, Sir Morgan and Lady Tonlaire.

Then we all went over what we had found out regarding the murder of Madame Duberton and what had happened in the home of Lord du Bas-Tyra.

In total, the entirety of the conversation took several hours, numerous pots of coffee and several trays of pastries. It was frustrating, brain melting and more than a little bit embarrassing. As it always does in this kind of conversation, it is easy to see why certain things might have been mistakes and why we would have been better off doing other things but in the heat of the moment… What else were we to do? I was far from being alone in being mortified. As I say, when it was put into the context of the delays that it was caused, Lady Tonlaire was clearly embarrassed. It was missing a certain edge that made me feel that she was lacking in shame, I didn’t like that, but at the same time, it was certainly far from ideal.

Gregoire took the fact of his previously being a suspect on the chin though. Thus proving that he is a better man than I am. I would have been furious at learning that I was a suspected murderer and rapist. When it was all done, Syanna told us to break for an early lunch which was when the servants came in with more substantial things to eat as well as, mercifully from my perspective, a lot more coffee.

I mean, I can only drink the stuff when it is all but drowned in milk and honey but at the same time, it really does have an effect on your energy levels and right there and then, I found that I needed every aid to staying awake that I could get.

I tried to find a place out of the way of everyone in order to eat my food and drink my coffee and get my facts in line. The next bit was going to be the hard bit and I needed my brain to work.

“I had no idea.” Lady Tonlaire said.

“What?” I looked up at her.

“I had no idea what was happening.”

I sighed. A thousand and one retorts came to mind then. A thousand and one responses came to the fore. Things like “People like you never do.” And much less kind phrases and retorts. Instead though, I took a deep breath and properly tried to look at the woman in front of me and see what was actually there.

“You had Anne steal my spear.” I was not asking a question.

“I did.”

“You also told Raoul about how to… trigger my illnesses.”

“I did.”

I nodded and took a drink from my coffee.

“You know that that’s going to come up in a short while right? People are going to ask whether or not you were passing that information to the conspiracy. They are going to ask whether or not you told anyone else that, because Jack and his message to me over Lady de Launfal’s body was surely designed to do the same thing. It nearly worked too.”

“I know. It was…”

“Stop.” I held my hand up. “I don’t care that much, and I would rather not go over the entire thing twice. I meant it more as a warning so that you would be prepared when the questions start coming up.”

She nodded.

“Was that you trying to apologise?” I wondered.

“No.” She protested before stopping. “And yes. Yes I suppose it was. And now I realise that I should do the deed properly.”

“Probably.” I said. “It was a piss poor attempt at an apology. But out of the long list of people that you need to apologise to, I am not anywhere near the top of the list.”

“I have spoken with Lady Anne briefly this morning.” She said. “My husband and I intend to…”

I cut her off with a shake of the head. “The political games that you played, you and your husband and the other members of that faction. That delayed us. I can’t say for sure whether that resulted in more death. But it almost certainly contributed. There are families, people that your games have hurt. People that deserved better at your hands than what they received.”

She nodded unhappily and I shook my head.

“I will not condemn you Lady Tonlaire.” I told her. “But for the intervention of a Witcher and an Elder Vampire, I might even have turned into someone like you. My father would have had me married to someone that I would have hated, or worse, merely ignored. I would have stagnated and become angry and bitter. It is easy to look around a courtroom and see myself reflected in the eyes of far too many people. I cannot hate you or condemn you. Like many people that I have met on this visit to Toussaint, I could have become you, very easily.”

“Except that you are a man.” She pointed out. “Even if you were married, you would still be in control of matters.”

“True,” I admitted. “But at the same time, I have seen more than one marriage where the woman has more control than either she, or the husband, might have imagined. In my case, I would almost certainly have married for money, title or some other thing that only my father cared about. Trade concessions probably.” I sniffed. “I would imagine that it would be pretty easy to hold that kind of thing over my head. But that’s not what we’re talking about here is it.”

“No,” She admitted after a brief moment. It was interesting watching her. Guarding your expression so as to not give anything away is an elementary skill in the art of being a noble and a courtier. It’s habit forming as well. But that “courtier’s mask” is much easier when you are comfortable with the emotions that you are feeling. If those feelings are things that you are unused to, or that you find yourself thinking in new ways, then it becomes much harder to keep what you are thinking from the people around you.