(A/N: So here we are at the last story arc. I am both excited and very nervous about this one. It’s been building for the *mumble mumble* years that I’ve been working on this now and I am far from the same person that I was when I started planning this climax all that time ago. I don’t know if I would have planned it differently if I had known who I was going to be and what would have happened in the world in the intervening time. But to do it differently than I had planned it now would be to betray all the work I have done to seed this stuff. So here we go.
Also, I have a request. Please could people be careful about what they put in reviews and comments to be careful not to spoil it for people reading later? I know that some people have seen the twist(s) coming for some time and have commented in the past. But could we avoid putting it directly into the feedback so that we don’t spoil it for other people that might be just starting at the beginning and checking reviews to see if it’s for them, please? EG: “I KNEW IT” rather than “I KNEW (specific detail) was at the root of all things.” I don’t edit comments or reviews deliberately but people have posted things that could be considered spoilers and now that we are at the end of all things, I don’t want to ruin anyone’s enjoyment.
Thanks for your consideration.
I am also trying something new with a spell/grammar checking process to try and not melt my laptop but still have things being legible and readable. Fuck, I’m really nervous about starting this, need to stop procrastinating now..)
(Warning: This is the climactic arc and a lot of shit is going to go down. This is my generalised warning that things are going to get bleak and dark before they will (hopefully) get better. In this chapter, you will see a character going through a severe depressive episode.)
Hello.
You and I have never met, nor have we ever spoken. I am not Professor Coulthard. I am his publisher and in the early days of his writing, I was also his editor. Due to the work of several people, including Professor Coulthard, I can now hire people that are much better at that task than I to do that for me.
My name is Dorthan and if the name doesn’t give it away, I am a dwarf and, again, thanks to the efforts of Professor Coulthard and his family, as well as sponsorship by the University, the Imperial doctrine of education and the grants and generosity of several patrons, I own and operate one of the largest printing presses in what was once the Northern Kingdoms. Certainly, the largest within Redania and it is situated in the University city of Oxenfurt.
So, why are you hearing from me and not Professor Coulthard? Especially given that the article, or pamphlet or… the format is still being argued… that is in your hands is published under the heading of “A scholar’s travels with a Witcher”
An awful title by the way, but he wouldn’t listen then and by the point that he was having some of his arrogance chipped away, the brand was too established to set aside.
I am writing this as I look out of my office window to the East. It is night-time now but I know that on a clear day, I can look out over the river and over the wooded canopy to the hill upon which rests Castle Coulthard. It takes the better part of a day to travel that road by gentle horseback, several hours if you gallop. I promise that this is relevant information.
As I look out of my window now, we can see that the horizon is burning. Not just the place that Coulthard castle is, but the area surrounding it too, the woods, the villages and… Gods of Fire and Stone only know what else.
I am sitting at my desk and I am writing this as the volume that was brought to us out of that fire and smoke is translated. The volume is Professor Coulthard’s diary. Since he returned from the South, he has gone everywhere with this diary. When I first saw it in his hands, I asked him where it came from and he told me that his sister bought it for him. He held it like a shield, like a talisman and he went everywhere with it. And when I saw it, in the hands of his messenger, I feared the worst.
The messenger came out of the night. She was tired, aching and covered in soot with tear tracks carved out of the grime on her face that made shiny lines on her cheeks which she brushed furiously as though the tears offended her. But she couldn’t stop crying. She was bundled in a dark cloak and had a long sword on her hip and a dagger in her hand while she handed me an oil-skin-covered bundle. She had insisted on handing it to me personally and had threatened violence to my clerks and guards if they prevented her from fulfilling that mission.
Underneath her cloak, there was a quiver of arrows on her other hip and she was wearing Coulthard livery. The eyes that she still wept from were darting from face to face, marking those faces in her memory. She kept her distance from them all and was ready to strike at any moment.
She was an elf and I know her.
Her name is Carys, not to be confused with Queen Cerys of Skellige whose ship is docked at Novigrad docks. She is one of the Elves that was brought out of the North by Professor Coulthard. She regularly attends upon Lady Emma Coulthard when she comes to town. She is startlingly beautiful although she cuts her hair awkwardly and unevenly. She doesn’t talk to anyone other than Elves, Lady Coulthard and the man that appears to be her husband. She pretends that she can’t understand human languages, or humans when they speak Elven to her. She seems to hate everyone and everything and from what I understand of her history, we deserve her hatred.
Up until tonight, I would have said that she only had a tender expression on her face when the giant Skelligan warrior, who is her husband, isn’t looking at her and she can direct that expression at him.
Tonight, she was weeping as she handed over the bundle and she spoke in the language of Redania. Her voice was soft and articulate. Professor Coulthard would have called it “educated” in tone and delivery. I would agree with him.
“He told me to give you this.” She told me. “He told me to get you to publish it and to send copies far and wide. He told me that it was vital. He told me to leave the fight so that I could get this to you.”
She said all of that and turned to go. I had questions. Of course, I had questions. But she ignored them, vanishing into the night.
An hour later, the first bells of alarm began to ring as people that were fleeing the fires and the smoke started to arrive in Oxenfurt. She must have ridden her horse to the point of death.
I opened the bundle and knew the volume for what it was. I ordered one of my apprentices up to the University to wake Professor Coulthard’s clerk to translate the writing. The professor writes in this spidery kind of script, sweeping lines, dashes, dots and squiggles. Using this language he can write down fast conversations with a speed that is terrifying to us mere mortals and when it is read back it turns out to be more than accurate. But his method of language is adapted from the normal version of this scholar’s language with his own idiosyncrasies and encryption. He does this so that people can’t plagiarise his work. Like many scholars he’s paranoid. So the only person that can translate his writing is his clerk. It also means that no one else can pretend to be Professor Coulthard and… well….
That’s not important.
The Clerk is a man who works tirelessly and whenever a new manuscript turns up on some imperial messenger train or at the hands of a messenger from the castle, he goes to action and writes out what Professor Coulthard says. Like all such men, he is woefully underappreciated.
He arrived, tugged from his bed and protesting.
He also recognised the book.
When I opened up the book to check what was inside, a small piece of hide had fallen out. On it were some lines scratched. It had taken me a moment to recognise that the lines were a message and not some damage on a piece of hide that would barely serve as a bookmark. I had carried it around with me, along with the diary, until I knew more. I handed the clerk the hide first. He turned it around a few times before he saw the message. He read it quickly and his eyes widened before he read it again more carefully.
I can always tell when a man is reading something and where he is in the document, it’s about the eyes. Always watch the eyes.
I read the clerk’s horror in those eyes.
I had a piece of parchment and some ink and quills handy. I passed them to the clerk and he seized them and he translated this message from Professor Coulthard.
I am betrayed. Kerrass is dead and Ariadne killed him.
I am fleeing now, I will not make it and it will not be long before I am caught.
I am doing my best to draw them away so that my messenger can get through.
I did not believe in evil until tonight. Now I do not know what to believe.
I hope that I did not see what I saw.
Publish this, I hope that there are some clues here, something that Ciri or someone can use.
Publish it, warn people. Horror has come.
I cannot believe that Ariadne is a betrayer. I think she is a weapon which means…
What was in the bag?
I believe… I don’t know what to believe.
People are being used. Including Ariadne and possibly including me.
Get to safety. Run. Let them know.
I can’t think. I need to run, get away, carve a hole for…
Warn people. The Coulthard banner is raised in rebellion.
I have known Professor Coulthard for a long time now. I knew him when his first articles turned up, sent and published by his professors. I have seen him at his best and his worst.
I saw the shell of the man that arrived in Oxenfurt after being tortured by the Knights of the Flaming Sword. When his fingers were broken and his nails had been pulled out. I saw the growing excitement in him when he was in the process of realising that he was in love. He was the last to know, but we all saw it. I saw the awful pride he had in him when he was proven to be right, about anything really. After that first year and his first articles were published and he started to become famous. I was really afraid then that the good, naive… child that I had first met was going to become yet another arrogant ass of a University Professor.
I saw him again when his father died. Something had happened in the North that had changed him. Not just meeting the Vampire, but something else. The man that came back south was different from the one that had departed in that spring of his second year on the road. He was better and it wasn’t just his father’s death.
As humans go, Professor Coulthard is a good man. He can be arrogant, stupid and painfully naive. He suffers from the sin of being blind when it comes to people that he loves. He is hard on himself and he is certainly guilty of painting himself, and the people that he cares about in a better light than I think they deserve. And it is certainly noticeable that he stopped talking about Kerrass’ faults some time ago.
But I have never read his words and felt his fear, his confusion. He is a self-possessed man. He is impulsive, but in that note, I read disbelief, a shock that I have not felt before. My client, my colleague and my friend. He was losing his mind.
I cleared an office for the clerk to work. We asked for volunteers to man the press. We summoned the guard who also knows Professor Coulthard well and told him what had happened. We sent messages out, indeed my wife is currently packing our children off to go and visit her sister in Novigrad.
The Professor’s warning means that my family got out ahead of the rush. I will always be grateful to him for that, even if this turns out to be nothing.
It is not nothing.
And now, as I write this, introduction. Lending a piece of myself to what I have no doubt is going to be historic, the presses are working, setting up those first translated phrases.
I have guardsmen with mounted horses waiting for the first copies that will be travelling North to Novigrad and still more that will be travelling South towards where the Empress is encamped. I hope that there are clues, explanations and whatever else is going to be needed to prevent disaster in what I am printing. I have decided to just publish all of it. I don’t know what is relevant and what is pointless, so you will be able to play at being a historian if you are reading this in the future, or play detective now while you decide what is important, what will be important and what was important. There will be a lot of pointless information is what I am saying. But I hope, I do, that there is important stuff in here. He didn’t date his entries which makes life more difficult. We only have a rough idea from time passing as to his comments.
I hope that my wife and children are safe. I hope that I have made a difference.
Poor Professor Coulthard. Today was supposed to be the happiest day of his life. Delayed first by a storm of all things. But now?
Poor Freddie.
Also, for those people that are reading this and trying to figure things out. There is likely to be a lot of fluff. Professor Coulthard has a tendency to waffle, even in his diaries but we don’t know what is relevant. So we are just printing the entire thing.
Over to the Professor.
-
Entry one.
I can’t stop writing.
I have been home for three days now and I wished that it was something other than what it was. It was not a triumphant homecoming. It was not a…
Flame.
Emma lost her temper with me this morning. Not for the last time either. She is trying to understand what is happening to me. Much as I am trying to understand it myself. Poor Emma, she doesn’t know…
I think Mark understands it. Poor Mark.
I’m told that Shani, Kerrass, Laurelen and Ariadne sat with Emma and Mark, as well as Rickard, the leaders of the guards and the other household staff to warn them about the state that I was going to be in. As I say, I think Mark got it. So did Rickard I think.
Emma did not. She is angry. She is trying not to be and that makes it worse. She swears, she looks me in the eye and swears that it isn’t my fault. That she is not angry with me. But I can see it in her eyes. I can see that thought going on. That she thinks I should have come back sooner. That she thought I was better. That I had been cured of this kind of thing.
They were my thoughts as well.
Why is this happening again? Why do I lie in my own rooms and weep and sweat and tremble?
The other night, the second night of my return, I did little other than sweat and tremble in my bed. I was left with the feeling that my thoughts and mind were going round and round and round and round and… I just wanted to get those thoughts out. So it suddenly occurred to me that I should bash my brains out against the nearest stone wall because at least then I could get a bit of peace inside my own skull.
I think that Mark understands.
Poor Mark
The two Coulthard brothers, losing their minds together. He is ill. It is visible now. The periods when he is not present in his mind are getting longer and longer. Between them, Shani and Laurelen have invented a new medicine. Shani has gotten excited about it saying that we can use this medicine to solve countless problems with men and women that are losing their minds later in life. That this might even have been a cure. I asked her why that couldn’t cure Mark now. She looked at me for a long time and told me that that was not how it worked. That it was too late for Mark. That he was just coming back occasionally and that he would still get a lot worse.
It was too late for Mark.
I told her that it wasn’t fair. I told her that it was cruel that it took a good man’s sickness to invent something that could have saved him. How many other good men or women have gone mad. Why didn’t the cure start with them?
I got really angry and it hurt her. Then she got this kind of professional mask over her face. Her doctor's mask.
“It’s not fair.” She told me. “It’s never fair.”
And she’s right.
If it were fair then Francesca would never have been taken and it would have been me that had gone instead. If it were fair then Sam and Emma would have been brought together by the family tragedies that we have had to put up with, not driven further apart. If it were fair then Edmund would have…
Flame….
I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I can’t… I can’t breathe… I can’t…”
-
Entry 2
Flame this is hard. Really fucking hard. Emma gave me this book. She did it so that I could have “somewhere to put it all.” Her words. I don’t know what to say to that. Put what?
Put my thoughts is the obvious answer. She thinks that if I write it all down then I will somehow be able to get those thoughts out of my head and onto paper. I know that they are all worried about me. I know that Emma cries herself to sleep at night and moans to Laurelen that she is losing her brothers. I hear them talking when I sneak about at night.
Mark is a lot worse than he was when I last saw him. It seems stupid to say that, as though it’s even remotely surprising that that might be a thing. The man is dying. And even worse, Shani says that he’s going to get a LOT worse before…
Before he just doesn’t wake up.
I apologised to Shani for what I said to her before. She forgave me. Of course, she forgave me. I honestly think I would have been happier if she had been angry. She told me that if that is the worst thing that she has to listen to when she tells a patient’s family the bad news, then she was having a pretty good week.
I didn’t like the sound of that and threatened to get angry again.
My respect for the woman is endless and I still think that Rickard is a lucky man. He’s not as convinced. He loves her. He really does. So much that I can see the intensity in his eyes and the way that he feels. But it breaks his heart a little bit when a runner from the guard comes to her and she has to drop what she’s doing to go and deal with… whatever crisis she is being summoned to deal with. He says that she made it clear to him that he would always be second place to the patients in her care and her duty. He understood that, he really did. But he didn’t know how that would make him feel. He hates it, but that is precisely why he loves her.
Mark is tired and his death is going to be awful and when the end comes. There is more than a little conviction that we will all think it’s a blessing. He sat me down when I got back and told me that the end was going to be awful but that he didn’t want me to pre-empt that death. He doesn’t want us to slip him some strong painkillers in order to gently push him over the edge into the next world. He understands that urge but he doesn’t want it. He wants the end to come when the end wants to come. He will fight for every breath that he has, the same as Father did. He said that this trial was given to him by the Holy Flame and now he must set an example. He intends to use his position to show….
Something. I’m not entirely sure what.
They have pills for him now. The problem is that the pill is almost worse than the sickness. It would seem that because his heart is damaged, it needs to work harder to get the proper amount of blood around his system. So that blood doesn’t reach the brain, or the lungs properly. In turn, that means his lungs are working too hard and filling with fluid.
I’ve probably got that wrong.
And his brain is not getting enough air. I don’t know how that works and both Shani and Laurelen have tried to explain it. But that means his brain isn’t working properly.
But the pill does something that helps the heart and lets it do its thing. Watching it is heart-breaking. He takes the pill and if he’s having a good day, he sits and grimaces as the medicine gets into his system. Apparently, it makes him dizzy and leaves him feeling light-headed and unsteady on his feet. But then he is filled with energy and all he wants to do is work.
On those days when he is having a bad day, he takes the pill and you watch this face kind of relax, but then you watch his eyes open and by layers, you can see Mark come back into the room. Again, Laurelen and Shani have warned us all that this is going to get harder. That the pulls will stop working and will only keep his body moving and not be as much of a benefit to his mind anymore.
I hate it.
He can’t take too much of the medicine because that will weaken his body even further. So there are times when he is just left to sit there. Just to sit there. Vacant. As though his body is just a suit of clothes that have been dumped on a chair. And then he will move and it will look as though my brother has just put his body back on again. He does all of this with a smile on his face and a hymn in his heart. He’s followed around by church scribes and things in order to. I quote, “capture his wisdom when it is there.” They honestly said that. It made me sick.
Francesca was taken from me and even as I write this, she is no longer my sister. Frannie, the girl that used to laugh when I tripped on the dance floor. She is becoming Saint Francesca. It’s not just in Toussaint now. It’s spreading.
According to rumour, the Empress has plans.
And now Mark is being taken from me. He is not going to be my brother anymore. Not the man that would pass me candy after Father had forced him to be particularly harsh in giving me a penance after his confession. He’s not going to be the man who encouraged me to pursue my scholarly passions. He’s not going to be the man with whom I used to sit up late at night and discuss theology and all of the problems and contradictions in scripture.
He’s going to be another saint. I know it. His words are going to be noted down and they are going to go off somewhere and form a new gospel. His words are popular at the moment because he preaches about the hard work of everyone in society. Not just the farm workers in the field but of the merchants and the politicians and courtiers and kings and lords as well.
It’s popular, even while I can also see how people are going to take it and twist it after he’s dead and not able to defend his own speeches.
He’s going to be a saint as well and then there will be no one left of the family. My brother and sister. Taken from Emma, Sam and I. The one by enemy forces that we knew nothing about and the other by an illness that we were powerless to prevent.
I just want my family back. I just want…
Damn it.
-
Entry 3
One day. I’m going to finish one of these entries without bursting into tears. One day.
Emma gave me this book. She did it so that I would have something to try and get my feelings out. So far, all it has done is get the bad thoughts to the surface and send me to weeping again.
I feel weak. I feel tired but most of all, I feel useless.
Poor Emma. And poor fucking me.
She is so angry, so frustrated and she doesn’t understand it. And I agree with her. I really do. It shouldn’t be like this. This should be the happiest time of my life. I get married soon. I get married to a woman that I genuinely love. Not some arranged marriage that my parents have put me up for the same as any number of other people my age would accept. I love her and she loves me. How fucking crazy is that?
But I am not excited. I am angry and sad and frustrated and I cannot stop crying.
Emma wants to talk to me about the wedding. She wants to talk to me about arrangements, flower decorations, songs, hymns, choirs, and attractions. She wants me to be involved with food and drink and where we should host certain guests and who would be coming and what was going to happen afterwards.
I told her that I didn’t care. That was a lie. I do care. I know that somewhere deep down in the pits of my soul there is a version of Freddie Coulthard that really cares and is really excited about all of this stuff. But I can’t reach him. I can’t pretend to get to him and cheer him on. I just can’t seem to ake all of that work on that kind of level and to try and pretend that I cared and could talk about it with some level of excitement.
She asked me if I wanted to call the wedding off. I didn’t have words for that and turned my back on her. I couldn’t tell her how I really feel. I couldn’t tell her that of course, I don’t want the wedding called off. I love Ariadne. Why would I want the wedding called off? I want to have the wedding. It’s one of the few things that I have going for me.
She lost her temper for the second time and she finally expressed that frustration that I had seen building behind her eyes.
“I thought you were better.” She said. “I thought you were over all of this. I thought you had gotten better and moved past all of the…”
I don’t remember all of what happened after that. Apparently, I turned back to look at her and she fell back as though I had struck her. I didn’t do that but…
She came to my room later and apologised. She was in tears. Laurelen had chastised her, as had Shani. They told her that the injuries that I had taken were more severe than could be articulated. That she should think of the injuries to the mind the same way that she thought of injuries to the back. Sometimes those injuries would just come back for no readily apparent reason and that no-one knew why.
So Emma came to apologise. I told her that she was right. That I thought I was over all of this too. That I so desperately wanted to be the man that Ariadne deserved and that Emma needed. The little brother that would love and care and put everything to right. That would write to Sam and patch up a family rift. That would help keep Mark stimulated when Mark was with us at all.
I told her that I wanted to be involved with the wedding plans and I wanted to be excited and I wanted to… I wanted to talk to her about it. I was looking forward to spending days discussing and arguing over seating arrangements but I just couldn’t…
I couldn’t think about that. I can’t… I can’t bring that caring out of myself.
I just can’t…
Turns out that I’m not going to get to the end of this chapter either.
-
Kerrass left today, and with him goes the last illusion that this might only be a temporary break from travelling.
This isn’t a pause in our journey. It’s over. I’ve known it for a while but as I stood at the castle gate and watched him climb into his saddle and ride off, weaving his way through all the workmen that are setting up the generalised wedding area. It kind of sank home to me that he was really going and that it was all over.
I ached, I really did. I longed to go and get my horse and chase after him. Even though I know for a fact that my saddle and gear are locked safely away somewhere in a mysterious place that only Emma and the stablemaster know where it is. Even though the guards at the gate are under strict orders to prevent me from leaving on any unannounced journeys.
Ordered by me.
I still wanted to go with him.
Three weeks now that I’ve been back. Three, long stinking weeks and I feel like another one of my pieces of armour has been taken away from me. Another prop.
He would say, “Another crutch Freddie.” And he would be right about that too. Stupid bastard. I would have thought that eventually, he would get bored of being right all the time.
Three weeks.
We started out with the best of intentions. We knew it was going to be bad. We knew that it was going to be hard. Ariadne has been helping but she has her own things to take care of and her own methods. She has a county to run after all. But Kerrass was there.
He seems to have wanted to fight off my pain with work. He’s been the one that has dragged me out of bed. On more than one occasion he has turned up with a bucket of water prepared to pour it all over me should the time come that I haven’t been ready or prepared to do the task for myself. He hasn’t caught me out yet though.
Then he would have me run the walls with the other guards while he and Rickard sit and watch, laughing and joking with each other while the rest of us sweat in the increasingly warm weather before Kerrass moves on to train with me and he is pushing me hard.
There is a logic behind it, or at least I hope there is a logic behind it. The logic of the fact that if he works me hard then it’s that much more likely that I will sleep properly. It’s not true though. I still lie there for hours, staring at the ceiling, turning all the questions over and over in my head until I eventually pass out from exhaustion, only to wake due to an excruciating pressure in my bladder and the sound of Kerrass’ footsteps coming down the corridor.
So Kerrass is gone.
He came to me yesterday. He came and looked at me for a long moment before declaring loudly at the dinner table that he would be departing in the morning. His stated aim was that he had preparations to make for his part in the coming festivities. People to fetch, money to make, arrangements and bookings to be made. He had things to do, or so that was his argument. And he is probably right. I hear rumours of Ariadne’s weekend plans for the weekend before the wedding and it makes me a little bit nervous about what Kerrass has in mind for me.
But he announced these things and that was that.
I didn’t sleep last night.
I’ve been travelling with Kerrass for three years now, maybe a little bit more. I met him in the early spring and it is now late spring, arguably the beginning of summer. It took us a long time to be friends and still longer to be able to tell each other that we were friends but then there didn’t seem to be much else that we could…
And now he’s gone.
The longest we’ve been apart before was when he appointed himself as the personal champion of Sleeping Beauty. An act that was supposed to exorcise some of his guilt over that entire situation and help the girl herself. I was coming home, reasonably sure that I know most of what I was going to learn about Witchers but we had promised each other that we would not be strangers. We knew that we were going to see each other again come the coronation which, at the time was only a couple of months away really.
This is going to be longer. Emma claims that it isn’t and while it is true that…
Fuck.
It feels like it’s going to be longer. I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.
I was still up early this morning. I had visions of him trying to sneak off without saying goodbye. Trying to get away without some kind of extended farewell. I wasn’t going to let him get away with that though. So I dressed and I was there by the stables ready to see him off. I was going to wave dammit and I was going to watch him get out of sight.
He was waiting for me. That smug smile that I remembered so well from our earliest adventures together. That smile that came out whenever something that he had ordered me to do that I hadn’t seen as being particularly important, turned out to have saved my life, or his life or… something.
We walked to the castle gate. Rickard was waiting there also, on guard although I suspect that he had stationed himself there specifically so he could make sure that I wasn’t going to try and run away. He needn’t have worried.
Kerrass led his horse out of the gate and turned to look at me. He didn’t say anything, what else could he say that we haven’t said to each other over the years.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
It wasn’t going to be long. We both knew that. He had work to do. He had wasted enough time and he needed to get back out there. Dealing with the small Wyvern that had been attacking the eastern flocks had not been too much of an issue for him and now he needed to get back out there.
He was bored I think. Bored and sick of dealing with a petulant nobleman’s son, riddled with self-loathing.
Ok, that last part is my putting words in his mouth but the sentiment is there.
He looked at me for a long time before holding his hand out.
Of course, I took it. I wanted to slap it away and hug him. Either that or punch him in the face and scream and weep and demand to know why he was deserting me. I shook his hand and then I went to pull away but he wouldn’t let me.
“I will be back, about a month or so before the big day.” He told me. “At the absolute latest.”
“I know, we’ve said.”
He smiled or smirked, it could have gone either way.
“I know we’ve said it Freddie, but I want to make sure that you know it. I will be back.”
“Ok Kerrass,” I said.
“You’re doing fine.” He told me.
“I don’t fucking feel as though I’m doing fine,” I told him, the tears threatening again. Those damned tears.
“Then trust the outside observers.” He told me. Then he clapped me on the shoulder and swung into the saddle.
“Show off.” I joked.
“We all have to have a talent.” He replied. “And mine is to be better at this than you.”
“Which of us is getting married again?” I demanded and he laughed before waving and riding off.
I watched him go. I stood there for a long moment. I don’t know why, I wonder if I was hoping that he would come back. That I would look and see him turning around and slowly walking his horse back and not leaving after all.
Footsteps turned up next to me.
“You are doing better,” Rickard told me.
I couldn’t hold it in anymore and I fled.
-
Entry… Fuck I can’t remember. And I forgot to number the last one…
Entry five.
I went to see Father today. I spent the day yesterday, walking around the halls of the castle and wondering what he would make of all of this. The conversation at the end of the adventure in the Black Forest is praying on my mind still.
I just can’t get it out of my head. Was that Father?”
Mark says it wasn’t, but Emma disagrees.
Laurelen has warned that if it was Father, then the Schattenmann was far more dangerous than we had previously suspected and Ariadne took a deep breath and tilted her head to one side.
“Fascinating.” She said. The same thing that she said when I first told her about the entire conversation.
So yesterday, I was wandering around, turning things over in my head. It was a bright day, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. I stood on top of the castle walls and I decided that enough was enough. That I needed to start getting back on top of things. Easier said than done of course, but the decision was made. So last night, I told Emma and Rickard what I intended to do. There was some concern about that. There is a worry that I might head down to the crypt to kill myself but I told them that I had no intention of doing that.
They didn’t look reassured. In the end, I had to agree to take someone with me. Carys, the elven wife of the Skelligan Sergeant whose name I still can’t remember, was told to come with me. The argument was that she would not particularly care about my status, who I was, or what I was. That if I was going to do something foolish, then she would stop me without pausing to consider that I might be offended by this or that.
The thought amused me so I agreed.
Turns out that she still hates me. And she still pretends not to understand northern. And then she claims not to understand me when I speak Elder to her, claiming that my accent is appalling. In a strange way, I find this entire process incredibly amusing.
Emma claims that Carys is the best guard that she could wish for because no one dares get close to her for fear of the elf unsheathing her claws.
Their words.
But she came with me. I am pleased to realise that she still hates me. But there is a friendly, little brotherly cast to her hatred. It makes the entire thing seem real to me somehow. As though it can be quantified.
So I got the staff to prepare us something to eat which I packed into a small bag and we set out.
First, though, there was another unpleasant thing that I had to do. I also visited Edmund.
He’s still there. That part of the crypt is designated for those people that are considered traitors to the family. It always said something to me that there is part of the family crypt that is meant for that. It says something, I have no idea what, but it says something. It’s dark, damp and mostly derelict although there are signs that someone does come down here occasionally. I suspect Emma, even if it’s just to spit on Edmund’s headstone.
I talked to Edmund for a while. I don’t know why. We were never close. I was never interested in his style of games and therefore, he found me boring. I wonder now, knowing what I do, whether he would have tried to recruit me into his cult if we had had a few more things in common. But then again, he was the first born and I was… well… not. So the thought of the matter is not wonderful in my mind.
I told him that I was sorry. I make a point of visiting him whenever I come down here. It would seem churlish to visit Father and not Edmund.
But when I was done, I went and sat with Father. I talked for a while and I like to think that he listened. It was a long conversation and by the end of it, I was feeling tired.
I hope it was Father that I was speaking to in that clearing of dreams. I really do. I hope it was him. And that he really was proud of me.
And he really did love me.
Tears still come, but they are different now, I think. Less desperate. I think… I think I might be on the mend.
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Entry 6
Ding Dong I Was Wrong.
Went to go out and do some training today. The physical exercise was not too bad but when it came time for the weapons work, I had to stop because the tears were streaming down my face and my training partner was becoming uncomfortable. I was fighting the Knight of Toussaint that hated me. The Shadow from Amber’s crossing. A cultist, a guard, a bandit, a wraith and I could barely lift my spear. I was sobbing and shaking as I fought.
And in the end, the fight was over and I was left trembling.
Rickard came and led me away.
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Entry 7
I had another go at getting back into the swing of things today. Emma was going to Oxenfurt so I asked if I could go with her. I needed to pay my respects at the university and see if I could get some work done.
This didn’t go well either. It had been decided that I should leave my spear at home and I wasn’t allowed to carry my belly dagger either. By the time I got to the castle gates, I felt relatively ok. But then we started down the tree-lined path that takes us down to the market square at the foot of the hill upon which the fortress stands. Each tree by the side of the road was examined, by me, in detail to see if an assailant was hiding behind it. Then as we passed it, for a moment I was relieved until the point occurred to me that the assailant could have moved around the tree, keeping the eye contact broken. The logical rebuttal to this would be that we were riding with twenty or so guards which takes up quite a lot of space. And in turn, at least one of those guards would have seen someone sneaking around a bush like that.
But that assumes that I was thinking logically. And I wasn’t.
So now I had potential assailants in front of me and behind me.
Then we came down to the market square. My wedding day is still several months off. But that still means that the market stall holders are desperately trying to sell their goods in advance. Desperately trying to get Lady Coulthard to buy their goods before the wedding comes and the chances of making a sale retreat. But there was a new horror in me now as well. That horror was the fact that there were people down there. Lots of people. People that I could, in no way, protect myself from. But that meant that I couldn’t keep my eyes everywhere.
This was the square in which I had first met Robart de Radford. I remembered kicking him in the face, one of the highlights of memories that I have about our interactions that I have… enjoyed isn’t the right word. But when I feel particularly low, the feeling of the impact shooting up my leg as I kick him in the face. The rattling crash of the armour and the strange kind of yelp, gasp thing that he did upon impact. I like to imagine the kind of smirk that some of his men might have hidden after I had done the deed.
I thought of this memory this time to drive the fear off. It didn’t work. It only made me more anxious. Now I was looking around for him. Convinced that he was going to jump out and try and get hold of me at a moment’s notice. I thought I could see him moving through the crowds. Again, the conflict between the logical mind and the instinctual mind. I knew he wasn’t there. I know for a fact that he is somewhere in the North at the moment, running one of the Imperial customs stations on the road.
Apparently, he’s quite good at it, even if it does mean that Coulthard goods have to travel miles out of the way. But his jobsworth nature means that he allows no pack to be unsearched and…
Flame but I’m sick of this.
I’m supposed to be using this journal to get my thoughts and feelings outside of my head. But I get distracted. My mind wanders off and down tangents. Some critics of my recent work, especially around the story of the Jack conspiracy, point out that I get diverted on these things. But I’m only ever distracting myself. And often trying to tell the reader how clever I am.
But they don’t care. They want the knowledge and the story.
I don’t care either.
After the market square, we went into the woods and I was already sweating. I could feel it running down my spine and making me shiver. It was springing up on the top of my head and making my scalp itch. My shirt was becoming sticky and slimy and I could feel my arms moving with the slickness. I had to wipe my forehead on what was not a hot day.
I started to see things. Things were hiding in the shadows by the side of the road. I do not doubt that Jack would find it all incredibly amusing. I saw assailants making their way toward us. I swear, I saw a dryad levelling her bow at me.
I blinked and shook my head furiously, intending to try and shake the illusions from my eyes. I knew they were illusions. I knew it. But I couldn’t help but see those things there. I couldn’t… get away from them.
I was breathing heavily as well and I felt dizzy.
Someone halted the column and Emma asked me if I was ok and I started to laugh hysterically.
She ordered four men to escort me back to the castle. One of those was Carys, bless her. One of the guards muttered something about me that I didn’t hear. What I did see and hear was him crashing from his horse in a clatter of armour after she hit him in the face.
“You’re fired.” She told him in the broken northern language that she affects when she is forced to communicate in the common language. I know that she has quite a pretty voice, cultured and educated. I also know that she hates that voice, that gift from a former master who used her for her beauty and her grace.
“You can’t do that.” He claimed, climbing to his feet.
I felt a cold feeling rush over my skin and suddenly, I was no longer afraid, no longer trembling or sweating.
“Yes, she can,” I said, calmly. “And if we’ve paid for that equipment you carry, you will give it back to us at the gate, or we will hunt you like a thief. I imagine that Carys would enjoy that.”
One of the older men with us sniggered.
The man spat at my feet.
He said some things. Called me a coward, a race traitor and some other things.
“I won’t be sorry.” He said. “I won’t regret not working for cowards, having to answer to fucking Elves and their unclean...”
“Ah,” I said. “You must be new around here.”
“And I won’t work for cowards like you. Fucking weak and spineless, jumping at shadows. You wouldn’t stand up to a real fight.”
One of the guards that knows me better tried to diffuse the thing with a joke, diverting his, and my, anger onto himself. He told the errant guard that I would eat him for breakfast.
The now jobless man hurled some more insults. Told me that I hadn’t met a real fighter.
I dismounted and told him to try it.
He did and ended up with my boot knife at his throat.
They had let me keep my boot knife.
That small patch of the road got really quiet and the only reason I didn’t kill him was Carys’ hand on my arm.
I threw the boot knife away and stalked off a little way before I fell to my knees and wept for a while. In the meantime, A rider rode back to the castle which wasn’t far away. They stripped the sacked guard and also got rid of the man’s brother and his friend before I came home in a cart.
The incident was reported to Emma later and Rickard told Emma that we needed better hiring tests.
I was already in bed, dosed up with a potion. I was woken for something to eat so that I could write this before the next dose kicks in.
Is this what my life is now that I’ve started to stand still? A series of challenges where men think they can make their name for themselves by challenging me to a fight and challenging the validity of what I’ve done.
Is this what life is like for Kerrass, Geralt and the rest. Men have made their names by the sword and now, people keep wanting to test themselves against those weapons.
I’m not sure I want to live like that.
Flame I’m tired. Hopefully, that’s the potion beginni…
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Entry 8
Spent the last couple of days struggling to do anything. Struggling to get out of bed. Struggling to bathe, struggling to do anything other than sit in a room and watch the life of the castle from out the window.
Even eating seems like so much hard work.
I fucking hate this.
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Entry 9
Why is everything so tiring. I’ve just had to force myself to pick up this pen to write. This is taking so much effort.
Emma, Mark and the rest are trying to get me to get out of bed and interact with the world because they think I am trying to hide. But the truth is that I am in bed because I feel exhausted and just want to sleep.
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Entry 10
Today was a good day.
Something twisted in my head yesterday and I went to Mark and demanded that he hear my confession. He was also having a good day and he laughed, reminding me of all of the times that I needed to be dragged, kicking and screaming to the confessional booth. I laughed with him.
I told him the story of the time with the Schattenmann and everything that I had done and was prepared to do. He listened to the tale gravely.
“You were lucky,” he said. “We were worried that this might happen. That you would be overcome with a desire to get back on the road and find your sister.”
“So why didn’t you stop me?”
He sighed and nodded. “That was our mistake. We so wanted to believe you, your sister, Ariadne and me. We didn’t see the danger and we wanted to believe you. You believed it and therefore we convinced ourselves that there was no danger. We were wrong.”
“Huh,” I grunted.
He agreed with me that I had done nothing wrong so my penance was to love Ariadne as no wife had ever been loved before, but if contact is made with the dryads of the Black Forest, then I should make provisions for my two, dryad bastard daughters.
“Because that’s what they will be Freddie. If they come out into the world, you will need to contend with that. Not your fault, but you will have to be peaceful with what has happened.
I nodded, he probably wasn’t wrong.
“Oh and Freddie,” he said. “That would make a good series for the scholar's travels articles.”
“But we failed.”
“Did you?” He asked. “I wonder. But even if you did. People need to hear about the failures, just as much as they enjoy hearing about the successes. You have built this aura of invulnerability around yourself. It will be good to remind people that you are human just like the rest of us.”
“Dorthan would hate me. Over and over again he’s told me that readers are only interested if the result of the story ends in success.”
Mark laughed at me.
“Are you honestly trying to tell me that if you turn up with a load of fresh articles for him, he won’t fall over himself to publish the entire lot? How much money does he make off those articles again? How much does his readership boom whenever there’s a new series of articles in them?”
“I have no idea.”
“Neither do I. But Emma finds it funny.”
We broke for dinner as I had gone to see him in the middle of the afternoon and then when dinner was over, we returned to his study and talked over the conversation that I had had with Father’s shade.
Today, I woke up refreshed and full of energy. For a moment, I wanted to examine the feeling and decide what had caused the difference. But in discussing the matter with Ariadne, she told me not to look too deeply into things and to enjoy the sun while it was out.
So I took up my spear and ran along the walls. When I was done with that. I demolished a series of practice dummies, before just as quickly, smacking the crap out of a couple of sparring partners.
Today was a good day.
I don’t know how long it will last but Ariadne is right. I must enjoy it for as long as I can.
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Entry 11
I’m bored. I’d forgotten what that feels like. At first, I was enjoying the sensation because I couldn’t remember the last time that I had been bored.
I had a good day yesterday and I felt the same today, I got up, ran the walls, and exercised in the yard with Rickard and some of the others. Then I went to…. And I discovered that I had nothing to do.
I went to see Emma who had just returned and asked if there was anything that she needed my help with and she laughed at me. She told me that the wedding would need my help in a few weeks and that they needed my help a week ago but there was nothing to do now except wait for some of the orders to turn up.
I went to see Mark, but he was having a bad day and he is surrounded by people that know how to care for a sick Mark far better than I do. Ariadne is back in Angral. Laurelen was doing something magical and technical in one of the cellars. Rickard is reforming the hiring procedures and testing for new guards that are being brought into the guards. Testing them to make sure that they can work with Elves and the like and to do our best to break down national lines.
He’s enjoying the challenge and stuff…
But it doesn’t leave me much to do.
I went to find a book in the end but my legs want activity and my mind found the book boring.
I need something to do.
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Entry 12
I’m writing this from my study in Oxenfurt. I came into town today and I feel absurdly pleased with myself. The same strange energy and cheerfulness that I have been feeling the last couple of days is still with me. I keep waiting for it to fall down and for my good mood to evaporate and to find myself back in the pits of despair again.
It hasn’t happened yet.
So this morning, not particularly appreciating the possibility of another day of looking for things to do. I dressed, prepared and went to Emma before telling her that I was going into town. She looked at me for a long time before nodding her agreement.
I felt myself kind of deflate. I had expected an argument, rows, strong words and so on. I mean we got there in the end, but I had expected the fight over whether or not I was allowed to go.
The fight was about whether or not I should take a guard or not.
She wanted to send half a dozen men. I wanted to go by myself. I have made that ride a couple of hundred times. Time enough that I can ride the road while thinking about all the things that I have to do from one end of the journey to the other. Enough so that I can do it without really thinking about it. I didn’t need an escort.
Emma decided that I did. Rickard agreed and Mark frowned at me which was as good as I was going to get.
In the end, they sent one person which was when I realised that they were there to protect me from myself as much as protecting me from anyone or anything else.
They sent Carys. According to Rickard, she volunteered. I made a joke about her getting me away from the castle so that she could slit my throat and leave me in the woods. He told me not to give her ideas.
So I dressed in my travelling gear, took up my spear and dagger… I cannot speak for how much better that felt and I rode into Oxenfurt.
We made fairly good time because the road was mostly empty and for reasons that I didn’t understand, I went and stood at the patch of ground where Edmund’s and Cousin Kalayn’s cultist group was burned by the mob.
The ground is still bare and burnt but there is a monument there now. It made me want to vomit to look at the damn thing. Carys was watching me carefully as I dismounted and went to read the inscription. I hadn’t come to this place in a while and to see it here was strange. I knew that it was here, as a couple of friends had written and warned me about it. But to actually be here and to see it.
It wasn’t much. A large stone that had been brought in from somewhere, possibly by a friendly troll. One side was smooth and into it was etched the names of those men… they were always men… that had died here. It was good work and I wondered who they got to do it.
The truly grotesque thing about it was that etched at the top was the symbol of the eternal Flame. And on the bottom, the ankh of life.
I read the names carefully to see if they had missed any off before I looked around to see if there was any other form of dedication. Something along the lines of “Paid for by Lord shithumper of Jam” or something. Someone who could be called an enemy that I could go over and hit, or arrange the destruction of. But there was nothing.
I did notice that there was a large bare patch of stone though and I felt myself smirk. This was a monument that was meant to change with time. It was fine now, just a lump of stone and a list of names. But in the future, someone was going to add a dedication. These men were going to become martyrs. Someone had decided it.
I resolved to find out who.
I laughed.
“Are you alright?” Carys wondered. She uses her normal, educated voice when she forgets that she’s supposed to be angry. Not the harsh, heavily accented voice that she affects when she is pretending to hate everyone.
“I’m fine,” I told her, before turning and climbing into my horse's saddle again.
We were not late getting into Oxenfurt, but we were late enough. My lodgings were the same as I had left them, but needed airing out. I diverted my landlord’s questions about who “the girl” was and pointed out that I was getting married. Carys just glared at him and bared her teeth.
I managed to get an extra bed out of the landlord and between us, Carys and I manhandled it into my rooms. She claimed that she would have been fine on the couch, but I countered by telling her not to be silly.
We ate at the Merchant’s rest. Not the best place to eat in Oxenfurt but far from the worst. I like it because they do good food and plenty of it, for not too much money. That, and they can appreciate when a man needs to be left alone. Carys ate her body weight in mashed potato and the chicken wrapped in bacon speciality of the house. I made jokes about having to roll her back to the rooms and she glared at me.
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Entry 13
I love Oxenfurt. I think I always will. This is the city that turned a boy into a… well… slightly older boy to be honest.
Kerrass made me a man but Oxenfurt started it. I think the Imperial takeover has been good for Oxenfurt. The university has taken a hammering from Radovid’s… ignorance and anger. And was suffering in comparison to the Universities of Kaedwen.
But Imperial money and the fallacy that the further away the learning is, the better the quality of knowledge, means that a large number of Imperial sons and daughters have started to come. You can always tell them apart from the Northerners. They dress in drab clothing for a while, walking around as though they’ve been smacked in the face and then after a while, they become the most debauched, wild dressing, wild partying group of students that you could imagine.
I did as I always do when I have been away from the city for a while. First up to the university where I checked my mail and the bulletin boards. I stopped in for a coffee with the Professor (Editor: I assume this would be Professor Coulthard’s mentor.) for Coffee where he made jokes about the beautiful warrior woman that was standing behind me.
Not for the last time, I had to stop Carys from killing someone.
I agreed to give a couple of lectures and then escaped before too many people could learn about my presence. If I leave it too long then word gets out and I end up spending hours signing autographs. I don’t mind but I had other things that I wanted to do today.
I paid a visit to Menden’s book shop. Not because I needed any books but because Menden’s son was a friend of mine and we regularly enjoyed complaining about girls. He propositioned Carys who hissed at him.
Like a cat.
I think she was enjoying herself.
Next, I went to Dorthan who, just as Mark had suggested, wanted to know if any more articles were coming from me. I was non-committal and he got quite angry. He was also the only person so far who has not commented on Carys’ beauty. He nodded to her, as between two professionals just doing their jobs.
We ate lunch at a food cart. There’s a man there that does these kinds of meat patties in a bun. No one has been able to figure out where he gets these patties from but they taste delicious. I mean, it’s little more than meat in bread. You can pay extra for onions and a slice of cheese. But otherwise, the source of the meat remains a mystery. One of those mysteries that you kind of… don’t want to know the answer to.
When I was a student, we had all decided that he makes them out of the rat population of Oxenfurt and pays the rat catchers.
I now know that this is not true of course because rat is rather gamey and most rat catchers use poison nowadays. And the city would certainly know if they were eating a poisoned rat.
But we ate there. The owner, a man called Bill, was older now, his moustache that had once been dark and bristly was now grey and a bit droopy. He had a young man with him that was close enough to his appearance to be called his son.
Carys eats like Kerrass does. She eats large portions because she remembers those days when she couldn’t. She lives an active life and given her elven frame, she remains fairly slight. But this always gives the world comedy when she is eating something as big as her head and people watch.
She also eats quickly, again, because there were times when taking the time to savour the food was dangerous.
I went to the docks and watched the workmen unload for a while as I walked up and down the new queys. It’s called Coulthard’s harbour now.
Shani was out on some errand or another so I bought Carys and me a skin of wine each and we went and sat on the quad of the university, watching the world go by.
That grassy area is covered in memories for me. Not all of them are good ones, but the march of time is beginning to cover the place in nostalgia. I don’t see the bad places now, or the bad memories. I laugh, rather than cringe, at all of the times when the pretty girls laughed before seeing my stricken face and saying “Holy flame you’re serious.” As though I would walk across the green to invite a stranger for a drink for the fun of it.
They were good times.
We dined at the University that night. Rich food, good wine and relatively good company. We didn’t stay long as I was honestly becoming concerned that Carys would murder someone.
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Entry 14
Gave a good lecture this morning and a merely ok lecture this afternoon. Had to remind myself that the keen students get up in the morning but the afternoon ones have given the students enough time to buy a skin of wine, drink it and think of lots of pointless questions. It was the wrong choice to talk about the mating habits of ghouls.
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Entry 15
Gave another good lecture this morning on the subject of the effects of hunting Griffins on the local populace. I’ve given it before but it never ceases to make people think. The point is that there was a knock-on effect from hunting and killing Griffins that we can’t see. Sometimes the world needs a natural predator. One young lady thought she had me with the question “Then why hunt them. You sound as though you are arguing that your friend the Witcher is doing bad things.”
I gave the stock answer that, sometimes the wilderness gets affected. And sometimes, when the game moves on, the griffin chooses easier prey. Like livestock or a wandering human.”
“But surely, that is acceptable if leaving the griffin alone brings benefits.”
“It might be,” I told her. “But what if that sheep, goat or cow was your last sheep and you needed the wool to clothe your children over the winter. What if the goat's cheese and the cow's milk are how you keep starving children from crying at the night. What if the shepherd has been told that if he loses a sheep, then he doesn’t get paid and will be exiled from the lord’s lands meaning his wife and children will starve.
“What if it’s your mother, your father, sibling, child, cousin, or friend that has been eaten?”
She didn’t like that but a couple of people were nodding.
“I’ve travelled with a Witcher,” I told them. “These things always always come up when someone, often a noble, sees a nice, rich piece of land. He asks the locals who tell him that the land is in the territory of a beast. The noble decides that such things would come with acceptable losses, even if he believes the people which they rarely do. He sends the flocks and pays the settlers. Over time, the Griffins, because griffins mate for life, eat one in eight people. One in seven when there are young griffins.
“But let's be generous and say that it’s one in eight. And that’s not including those people who starve or are cast out in the Lord’s insistence because of lost profits.”
I took out my bag and passed it to one student.
“Each person takes out a stone and then passes the bag around. If it’s a white stone go and stand over there, to the left of the hall, and if it’s a black stone, to the right.”
I watched. To my rather harsh delight. The questioner who was thinking that people were expendable got a black stone.
When it was done I turned to the white stones. “Congratulations, you are the seven in eight. You survived. Look back at the group of the dead. Some of you are friends, and some of you might even be seeing each other in a romantic sense. Some of you might be fuck buddies.”
There is always some sniggering. Professor Dandelion taught me once that to shock or upset people, first, you must make them laugh.
“Now they are dead. Eaten because the lord decided that the benefits of allowing a Griffin to hunt were worth more than the cost of hiring a Witcher.”
I let that sink in for a moment.
“Class dismissed,” I told them. “Sorry for over-running a little bit. You can tell your other lecturers that they can yell at me for it. Kindly put my stones back in the bag on your way out.”
Carys managed to hold her laughter in until the last one had left.
Sometimes. I love my job.
Heh, I can’t even avoid going off on ridiculously pointless tangents when it’s just my own diary.
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Entry 16
It happened today. The first one of these that I’ve had in a long time, but it was inevitable I suppose. Very little that can be done about it. They always come up, always turning up out of the woodwork and always leave me feeling like hammered crap.
This time I was on my way to the University. I need to head back to the castle the day after tomorrow to help with something that… I don’t care about it but need to go and sort it out. Probably some paperwork to sign or something.
I was on the way to giving a pair of lectures so that I could spend time in the office and answer questions and offer critiques on…
Dammit.
Carys and I had had breakfast. I have adapted to Kerrass’ pattern of eating big breakfasts in the morning before moving on to a smaller lunch before a big evening meal. I wonder when that happened. He would laugh to see it. I always used to…
Dammit
We had had breakfast and were walking over to the University when he turned up. They are always the same, these kinds of people. Loud, angry and otherwise…
Actually, they are never the same. Some are fat with large florid noses. Some are tall and ascetically thin. Some are men, some are women, some are old, and some are young.
They are always angry.
This one was a younger brother.
He launched himself at me from… a group of milling students I think. He was already angry and shouting about how I was a murderer and a thief. How I was a schemer and a heretic.
Yelling about how I was a traitor.
I have no idea if he was genuinely trying to attack me. Not a clue in the world. I didn’t even register whether he had any weapons on him. I do know that my head was more into the space of the lecture that I was due to deliver later, going over the immediate points and the salient arguments. So when he came, I reacted on instinct. Only a fraction of a heartbeat behind Carys who had her shortsword out and pointed at the idiot.
I had my spear and it was out, assembled and pointing at the man’s throat at the same time.
“Oh,” he demanded in shock. They are always shocked at how fast I move, or how fast Kerrass, and in this case, Carys, can move when we think we might be being attacked. Then a flash of fear crossed his face before the fear started to make him angry.
“So now you would kill me too would you?” He demanded. “Just like my poor…”
I didn’t hear the rest of it. The guards were there as this was not the first time that it has happened and it will certainly not be the last. They are always on their toes when one of the Coulthard family is in town as Emma gets the same things as I do.
The guards surrounded him and Carys pushed me away, supported by another one of the town guards. She made me put the spear away and got me out of sight before I started trembling.
I looked into it later and it turns out that the man was the younger brother of one of the heretics that was burnt as part of the vigilante action where Coulsin Kalayn died. He had hero-worshipped his older brother and now that his brother was dead, he hated those that he saw as being responsible for it.
Being me.
When I’m in town, I get one of these, on average, about one of these a week. Sometimes it’s relatives of people that I have killed or have outed as bastards. I try to hide the identities of the people that I write about, but I am not always successful.
Sometimes it’s someone that has lost out on business to the Coulthards, sometimes it’s someone complaining about what they see as the progressive arguments that Mark is proposing. Sometimes it’s the relatives of those victims that I was unable to protect, demanding to know why I couldn’t have done something earlier. Which is something that I sympathise with if we’re honest with each other. I will admit that I normally handle the angry ones better than I do the weeping ones.
But it always happens and I hate it. I hate it. I did my best in the situation and I did my best to save as many lives as I could. I chose the values that I was taught and did my best to protect those that are weaker than myself.
In this case I was angry, furious even. I don’t understand why parents and siblings and cousins and… friends and… Fuck knows who doesn’t see those cultists for the unspeakably evil people that they were. I don’t understand why people are ok with the rape, torture and murder of women and children. I don’t understand why people object when these fucks receive justice. It is proven that they were doing these things. There are witnesses by the dozen. Evidence by the wagonload but people don’t believe it.
They look for someone to blame and well…
I always have more trouble with the ones that are weeping.
The lecture went badly.
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Entry 17
I have not been doing well the last few days and I seem to be the only one that seems to be surprised by this.
I’m keeping my head above water, but that’s the best that can be said about it. The lectures are ok. The students aren’t too annoying but I’m also struggling to keep my head in things. I want to be reading up on the Headless Horseman. A fascinating figure that I’ve always wanted to know about. The fact that this is not the same thing as the horsewoman of war has always fascinated me.
And why is he so associated with pumpkins and Jack o lanterns?
Jack
Heh
I have numerous sources on the subject now. Things are lined up, stacked up and ready to be read and researched. And I can’t get into them.
I also have the first proofs of the Elder Vampire book to read over and go over. But I just can’t focus on… whatever.
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Entry 18
Talked with my tutor today. The old man is still my tutor, even though nowadays, we are technically colleagues. But he is still my tutor. He moves even less than I remember him moving before. But he still has the wisdom that I don’t have. I was in his office complaining about the lectures that weren’t going well.
He told me a couple of things that I need to take to heart.
“Throughout your career as an academic, you are going to give many lectures and write a lot of articles and books. Most of which, no-one will read. And regarding your lectures, some will be good, some will be bad and most will just be a recitation of facts. That is the life that you have chosen and that is the way that it will always be. None of us can be perfect at this for long. We grow bored.”
He is right. I can remember many lectures during my time here that were merely aggressively average that I needed to remember simply for the content.
“But you Frederick, You are still young and you have yet to learn how to fake the interest that you are trying to generate in the students.”
I nodded in acceptance of his point.
“Can I make another observation?”
“Since when has that stopped you before?” I wondered.
“A touch my boy, a touch.”
I hated him when I was a student. I really did. He had this habit of just asking me questions, making me go the one step further. He made me a better scholar, and I hated him for it. Since being colleagues, he still does it, only now he expects the critiques in return.
“You are trying to do this too quickly,” he said. “You have gone from being on the road for most of the last few years and now you are trying to go to the lifestyle of a Professor almost overnight.”
“Hardly overnight.”
“Nevertheless. Ease into it, my friend. Take it easy. We can use your lecturing skills, but if you burn yourself out?”
I took a deep breath. He was right. He normally is.
“Ok, so how do I…”
“Have you written up that latest adventure of yours yet? I, for one, am interested in The Schattenmann of legend.”
I feel I’m being ganged up on.
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