(A/N: I wasn’t able to find anyone that could tell me what it’s like to learn to live with prosthesis on a first-hand basis and everything that I could find online was more about motivational speaking than actual nitty gritty. So what is happening here is based on talking to people that have recovered from serious injury and a certain attempt at logical thinking. I’m sorry if I got it wrong but I will explain it away as Medieval technology and understanding with magical input. Thanks for reading.)

All told it took me four days to finish writing out what happened to me in the basement of Coulthard Castle.

It was the single most intense period of writing that I can immediately remember. I was fully in the process of it all, head down and writing furiously. I was constrained by the fact that I could no longer cheat and use my shorthand because, although there were some rumblings about the possibility that I could train someone else to be my

transcriber, that would not be fast enough. So I had to write the entire thing out in Longhand.

I sat there, frowning in the watery winter light that shone through my window, or in the flickering yellow light of the candle and lamp flames as I worked, scratching my pen across the parchment with grim determination. I want to say that it was hard, that it was difficult and that the words were dragged out of me in a style that was close to torment. But that simply wasn’t the case.

It was all too easy.

It was too easy to go back to that time and back to that place where the smell of the dead and the dying permeated the air and tickled my nose. The shockwaves of discharging magic as Sam’s blows impacted Kerrass’ shields. My sense of helplessness climbed back into my mind and my heart and I wrote, frantically and quickly.

I would hate to be the person that has to rewrite what happened or get the thing ready to take to the printers. There would be ink splatter and crossings out and misspellings all over the place.

I also know that the speed and intensity which I used to get the work done was something of a concern to a few of my minders. But the truth of the matter was that I just couldn’t stop. Now that the matter has begun, I knew in the depths of my soul that if I stopped, even for a moment, then I would not be able to start again. It was like a madness that got into the depths of my skull and the only way that I could shake it all out was if I wrote it all out for myself.

So I wrote. People would come in and sit with me. I was, and am, still recovering from everything that happened and I am now more than aware that the journey of that recovery is likely to never end. But at that point, the recovery was particularly severe.

I was self-aware enough that I knew when to call for the chamber pot and could clean myself up afterwards. I was also, to everyone’s delight including mine, able to clean myself when a bath was made for me. It was still awkward and someone did need to stay with me while I learned how to bathe without the benefit of feet or a spare hand with which to bathe myself. It is easier now, but at that point, my… stumps were still fairly tender and I didn’t want to overtax them at these points. But I was beginning to love to bathe and I wanted to do it regularly. It was only Samantha’s gentle teasing that meant that I was not bathing in the morning and again at night.

I told her that I liked to feel clean. She would get sad for a moment and then she would tell me that she understood.

I could also eat better. My strength was taking its own sweet time to recover and as a result, I was still eating lots of little things spread out over the course of the day. I longed for a day where I could eat a steak or a proper stew. But I was also realistic enough to know that that time was some way off. I was still living off soup and other such gloopy things that didn’t need to be cut up with a knife.

It was suggested, not by me, that someone could do that for me but apparently, Samantha refused the honour of performing such a task.

I was also never alone. Now that some of the bans had been lifted, I was allowed some visitors. There were some constraints on those visitors. I only found out about that later but I cannot say that I disagree with the decided filters.

My visitors were not anyone that was still involved with any of the politics that was going on. Therefore those Skelligans that were around were not permitted to come and see me until later. Neither were the Knights or the others from Toussaint. No one military was allowed to come, nor was anyone political or religious other than Father Anchor who was there as my confessor anyway.

No one of any magical persuasion was allowed in although I understood that Lady Yennefer was at the Rosemary & Thyme and it was she who was running the place. Professor Dandelion was away, watching the history take place or accompanying Lord Geralt in whatever it was that the white-haired Witcher was doing and Master Chivay was far more sensible than to get in Lady Yennefer’s way.

But no mages were allowed to come and see me.

The long and short of it was that they wanted me to be kept out of the politics. They were concerned that if the politics were allowed to come into my sphere then I would want to be involved and I would injure myself or make myself ill in the pursuit of those things. But also, decisions were being made about my future and one of those decisions was to keep me out of the firing lines of what had happened up until that point. When I rejoined society, which they were determined that I was going to do, they wanted me to rejoin without agenda and with a fresh eye. But for now, I needed to focus on my recovery.

On the second day of doing my work, I was dimly aware that a pair of dwarves and a gnome were shown in to see me to begin the process of arranging my prosthetics. They behaved a lot like a tailor does in that I seemed to be the least important person in the room. I remember very little about what happened or what they talked about but they spent some time talking to Samantha as well as my doctor before taking a whole lot of measurements of me, especially my surviving hands and around the remaining stumps of my limbs. I was encouraged to ignore them and as I still had work to do, that was fairly easy to do.

My doctor was a Nilfgaardian man who would turn up occasionally to “check on my progress”. He had the attitude of a man who had lots to do and keeping an eye on me, as one of his many patients, was a bit of a waste of time. Again, he asked more questions of Samantha than he did of me and other than doing things like looking into the light and answering a few questions, while he inserted medical things into my ears and under my arm-pits. I found that I could ignore him quite easily. He struck me as one of those doctors for whom the patient gets in the way of doing the actual work.

On the third day, Ciri came to see me again.

My routine for those four days was fairly simple. I would wake to the shaking from Samantha where I would go through my morning ablutions before I would start work. Then I would snack on something once every couple of hours or so before I would be forced to take a break for a while before dinner when Father Anchor would insist on my stopping and the two of us praying, talking or otherwise spending some time not working. If I was lucky, they would let me work for a couple of hours before bathing when I would go to bed.

Bathing is going to be a luxury for me in the future. I can still feel the clamminess and the filth clinging to my body.

I was getting stronger… But I was still far from healthy. I felt cold, I was more tired than I should be. I was… Sore and my body ached in ways that it was not supposed to ache. Samantha told me that it was my body getting used to the new normal of things. Now that I wasn’t using my left arm or my legs, then I was using muscles that had never really been used before and getting used to a different weight distribution for balance purposes.

Then she grinned nastily and told me that this was nothing compared to how it would be when I was relearning how to walk with my new prosthetic feet.

I told her to fuck off and she laughed.

But I was rarely left alone. Sometimes it was Samantha that was sitting, doing something involving needles and thread. Sometimes it was Father Anchor that would come up and sit at one of the tables in the room, often with Tulip who would sit and talk quietly with her husband. One time, Roary the Red himself came to keep me company and told me long tales about what was happening in the lands of the Black Boar but Samantha chased him out with orders that he was not to be distracting me at that moment given that I had work to be doing.

I was always aware that there was someone else in the room with me as I worked. I rarely had to ask for a new quill before I found one laid out next to me. Nor did I ever have to ask for fresh paper and I never looked up to find that those papers that I had already written were taking up space.

So these people just sat in the background and watched me work and I ignored them as I focused on getting this most unpleasant of chores done so that I could get on with finding out what would happen in my life next.

But on the third day, Ciri came to see me. She didn’t come striding in, booting the door down and demanding to be acknowledged. Nor did she appear in the middle of everything with a green flash and a smile. She was a lot like any of the other people in that she just quietly let herself in and sat in the corner watching as my quill scratched and spattered away at the paper as I recorded all of the sights, sounds and visions that I had seen.

I became aware of her gradually and although the thought occurred that I should just ignore her, I finished my thought and carefully put the pen aside to consider what I was going to say to her.

I distinctly remember thinking ‘Fuck it’.

“Have you come to wipe my arse?” I wondered. “I manage it nine times out of ten now but I still miss a bit sometimes.”

“No,” she replied. “Nor have I come to jerk you off.”

“That’s a pity,” I told her. “I could do with being able to brag that the Empress of the continent had once given me a hand.”

“You still have one working hand.” She protested.

I shook my head. “Nah, in writing, eating and most things, my writing hand is dominant, but for reasons that I have never understood, when it comes to the act of taking care of myself, my left was always the go-to option. Was always able to reach bits the right could not get to.”

We laughed and it felt good.

“I am sorry Freddie,” she told me, “but it has to be done.”

“I know,” I replied, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice and I sighed. “I know. I don’t want to talk about it though, how are things going out there?”

“It is complicated and although you will find out because I want you to be involved in dealing with it, first I need you to get better. Or at least be able to walk or something. I understand that you have been measured for prosthetic feet?”

“I have. I have also been told that relearning to walk again is going to be really really easy.”

“And utterly without pain,” she added. “Or so I’ve heard. But for now, focus on getting better. The Empire needs you.”

“The Empire can get fucked.” I was unable to keep my pain in a box. “After everything…”

I stopped and turned away for a moment to master myself.

“We know Freddie. Believe me, we know. You have been let down, badly, and your brother was not the only one that betrayed you. The Empire is going to work at making it up for you.”

I didn’t have the words to reply to that. My immediate urge was that I wanted to tell her to jam it up her ass.

“In the meantime though, I have a gift for you. Well, not really a gift more… Oh, fuck it. Here it is.”

She got up and came over to me.

In her hands was my belly knife. The same one that Letho had given me all that time ago. The scabbard was new and there were some straps and things around it.

“I have been held a captive before.” She told me. “And when I was returned to safety, even though I knew that I was surrounded by friends and was guarded by men that I knew would die rather than give me up, I felt better for having a trusted blade close to hand.”

I was astonished to find that my vision had gone blurry and I dashed the tears from my eyes.

“I will leave you to your work Lord Coulthard.”

She was almost to the door when a thought crystallised in my head.

“I can… Ciri?”

She stopped and turned to look at me, her face was bleak with unhappiness.

“I know the difference,” I told her. “I can love the woman and hate the crown,” I told her.

She nodded before taking a breath.

“I will call upon you when I can Freddie.”

“Bring something to drink with you next time,” I told her. “I am becoming parched.”

“I will check with your doctors as to what is acceptable.” She told me.

“Boring,” I told her.

She laughed and left while I bent my head and got back to work.

That was a good moment during those four days. One of the few. Occasionally other people would try to keep me cheerful or to otherwise distract me from what I was doing, but the truth of the matter was that I wanted the job done. I wanted it done and I resented these interruptions.

So people would turn up, pull a chair over and talk to me about this or that and mostly I would ignore them, telling them that I wanted to work. And I did.

But I would be lying if I tried to tell you that I didn’t feel comforted by the fact that I had a weapon on my belly or under my pillow when I slept

The fourth day came and I finally managed to finish what I was doing somewhere in the afternoon. I have no idea when because a clerk had been sent to collect the writing as soon as I was finished with it and I all but threw them at him and told him to get the fuck out of my sight and that I never wanted to see him again. He didn’t seem to take any kind of offence at that and left with the same placid expression on his face that he had worn when he had walked in.

I was useless for the rest of the day and when people came in to take me through the exercises that I needed to do to keep my limbs working and so that I didn’t end up with bed sores, they found me in tears.

Writing it all down had the same kind of effect that I had feared it would have. I had wept as I had written the part of the story when I had forced myself across the floor of the basement to plant the axe in the back of my brother. I wept at the memory of the last words that I shared with Francesca.

I absolutely believe that was Francesca that I spoke to. Some have tried to tell me that it was a last vision brought on by the horror, the exhaustion and the latent magic that was in the air. Some vision that I had conjured for myself to carry me over the line to do the awful thing that I had to do and the terrible things that I did to myself to get the job done.

That theory is entirely possible. But I believe differently. I believe that I spoke to Francesca, Rickard, Mark and Jerome in those moments. I believe that I saw my Father and talked with my mother. I believe that I saw them all, spoke to them all and that they gave me the strength to that last effort.

I believe that and nothing that anyone can tell me lets me think any differently.

Some, including Father Anchor, have generously suggested that I was close to death, teetering on the edge of things as I forced my body to do what needed to be done and as such, I hovered so close to the edge that I could see over it and see the other side. I have no idea if this is true or not.

I prefer the thought that they saw that I needed help. They saw that I needed that little bit of extra support at the end of my endurance and that they came to me then to help me see the thing through.

I ached for Ariadne and I longed, and still long, to speak to her, to take her into my arms and tell her that all is alright and that I understand.

I felt again, the absurd pride in Bronwyn the courtesan that was the first person to create and instigate a plan to fight back against her murderer. The courage that must have taken is something that almost shakes me down to my foundations.

I felt hollow as, through the pictures of memory, I watched as my mother and brother died and I felt that same aching despair as Rickard screamed his last act of defiance while he died.

And I wept for Sam. I will admit that here. I wept for my brother and as it comes down to it, I am most inconsolable about Sam and what happened there. The traitor, my torturer, the murderer that enslaved the people that I love by using their nature, or the best part of us against ourselves. The manipulator, the heretic and the mass murderer. The liar. The rapist. The…

Flame but I miss my brother.

I do not miss the brother that he was, I miss the brother that I thought I had. I remember parts of our childhood where we felt that we were each other’s only friends and allies. I remember his joy when Ariadne and I announced our engagement and I remembered his jokes at my expense. I remember him enquiring as to whether or not she had a sister. All of that is tainted now with the knowledge of what has come since and that is the thing that seems to be tearing me apart. I am struggling to reconcile the one with the other and I do not know what to do about that.

Try as they might, my guardians cannot keep all the politics away from my door. So I know that where Edmund was allowed to be buried with the rest of the family, even while there is a debate about the fact that his body should be moved and studied just as Sam’s is being, Sam will not be allowed any kind of remembrance in his assigned place. He will have a funeral though and I understand that the process had already started.

As I predicted at the time, his body is being thoroughly dissected and tested for latent magical and dangerous energies. The Lodge of Sorceresses, the council of mages and the Nilfgaardian magical colleges are collaborating on the subject and it is all taking place under the regulation and auspices of the three martial churches by which I mean, the Great Sun, the Eternal Flame and Kreve the Sky-Father.

After that, his body will be burnt in a furnace so that nothing can survive. Not some funeral pyre but a proper furnace. The kind of thing that is designed to melt steel. A fire was so hot that there will not even be ash to bury.

There will still be a place for him in the family crypt though. Because as well as the main crypt there is a small door off to one side. Another gate is locked by a key that Father used to threaten us with. That will lead to the traitor's place, where those members of the family go who do not deserve to be remembered. Sam will be the first to have his name remembered in that place and that will be his final resting place.

It will be one of the duties that I must see to when it comes to the point.

But I wept as I recalled that last conversation that I had with him. That was the closest that I could get to reconciling the two versions of Sam that now live in my head. The hateful heretic and the laughing warrior. That was the point where the two of them came together in my head. The evidence of everything that he had done to himself, given that despite the horrific injuries that he had taken, he was still alive enough to talk to me. The remorse that wasn’t quite remorse and the apology that wasn’t quite an apology. That last look of terror and awful agony on his face as he died. That was the real man. Samuel Kalayn.

My brother.

Dammit.

Turns out that there are still tears in me for that man. It baffles me as to why the memory of that traitor conjures more pain and sorrow than the loss of my other family or closest friends does.

I sobbed and wept for a long time after that was done. Enough time that Samantha whipped up one of her amazing concoctions for me and I slept, waking up on the first day of what I expected to be the rest of my life and I started to get visitors.

After those first days of work, I got the feeling that it was now that my proper and full recovery was starting. Exercises were assigned, food was carefully distributed and I was given command of my own medicine. It might seem like something small but the ability to lift a bottle to your lips and take a swallow, or to pour a bottle into a small cup before lifting that to your lips in comparison to having someone lace your food, your drink or even worse, pour you a little spoon and then pushing that into your mouth the same way you would an errant child… That alone was a significant step forward so that I didn’t feel as much like an invalid.

I do remember one plaintive episode where I complained and wondered if there was ever going to come a day when I wouldn’t have to take any medicine or rub any cream into hard-to-reach parts of my body. I was told by Samantha to stop moaning and appreciate the fact that I was still alive to carry out those chores.

My food became increasingly solid for which I was grateful. Nothing quite as soul-destroying as eating soup for prolonged periods, but the people that were measuring my recovery had declared that my internals and the digestive system had recovered enough to progress to that level. Not only that but also this was echoed by the fact that I was taking care of my own sanitary needs.

A dwarf came to see me to talk about the prosthetics that they were making for me. He spent a bunch of time telling me just how expensive they were and just how complicated the process was but other than that, he spent most of his time warning me not to take things for granted. The point was that although I could, with time, recover a lot of my former movement, there would always be a certain amount of difference there. He also warned me that, even if I had magical assistance in getting to know my new limbs, I would not just be able to bounce out of bed and start running races. I was informed that learning to walk on these things would be a long and arduous process and that it would hurt, but that I needed to get used to them. Not least of which would be the added weight.

I told him that it all sounded encouraging. He did not react to my levity with enthusiasm though.

It was around here that it became obvious that my guardians and keepers could not keep all of the politics from seeping through into my life.

Svein, Thorvald and Kar came to see me. Svein had a new scar on his face and Kar was walking with a limp but it was good to see my fellow survivors from the Wave-Serpent. There were others of course but these three were the ones that were closest to me.

“Morning scribbler.” Svein grinned as he walked in. Flame love the man but it was obvious that none of the three of them are courtiers. They saw me and were appalled about what they saw. Kar actively had to turn away, unable to keep his emotions from his face. Thorvald took the matter well, hiding his discomfort with a deep breath while Svein fought back a flash of anger.

“Morning lads.” I was getting good at ignoring people’s responses to the state of me. “How are things?”

“Ah, Scribbler.” Svein set his wrapped burdens down and well out of the way. “I have to thank you. It’s so rare that we have a good righteous fight and you gave us one of the best.”

“I live to serve,” I bowed from my waist. I’m getting good at doing that from the seated position in my bed, now and not overbalancing as I do it.

Kar was hiding his discomfort by investigating some of the jugs that were around the place and pouring some drinks for everyone. I noticed, even if others didn’t, that he poured himself a drink, downed it and then poured another by passing around the cups. Thorvald just sat quietly.

“Just a shame that we couldn’t get to you sooner,” Svein told me before becoming silent. “We are sorry my friend.”

I took a deep breath. It was not the first apology that I had received along those lines nor was it the last and I was learning how to take them. I had discovered that brushing the apology off was a quick way to insult the person, as was trying to make too little of what had happened. But also, the apologiser wanted to be reassured as well.

“It’s alright,” I told all three of them. “It’s alright. You were not there as you were bound by duty and if you were there, you would have been caught just as surely as those of us that were there. The Queen (meaning Cerys) needed your protection and as such… Helfdan would not have gone any other way.”

“He would not.” Thorvald agreed.

“And this…” I lifted my left arm. “This happened early and there would have been very little you could have done to save me. Instead, you would have died in the basement alongside all of the others.”

Svein was wise enough to have known what I was going to say and he took all of that in his stride. I think Kar was ashamed though and he wasn’t looking at me.

“I trust,” Svein leant forward. “That you have been informed that all you have to do is say the word and we can have you…”

“I know.” I patted him on the arm. “I know and I am grateful. But I must see this through. I am out of danger now at least.”

“Are you?” Thorvald seemed sceptical. “It seems to me that the continentals are treating you rather sourly.”

Svein waved the older man to silence.

“Where is Helfdan?” I wondered, attempting to divert the topic.

“He is currently making a nuisance of himself…”

Thorvald kicked Svein and Svein sighed and took a deep breath.

“We are under… orders,” Svein said darkly.

“Oh?” I wondered.

“You are not to be troubled by anything political,” Thorvald told me. “Nothing that would worry you and as such, we took that to mean that we basically can’t talk to you about anything. This is so that you don’t crawl out of your sick bed and want to get involved.”

“Which is a fair comment, let's face it,” Kar muttered, finally sitting down.

“There’s more to it than that of course,” Svein told me. “I think the Swallow has something in mind for your future that means that she wants you to go into the situation clean.”

I nodded to say that I could see the point.

“In the meantime,” Svein continued, “‘is lordship is making a nuisance of himself by ordering Redanian and Temerian merchants and courtiers around.” Svein sniffed. “I think he’s kind of enjoying ‘imself but it means that he’s not where he wants to be. Which is here, just so you know.”

He said that last while staring straight into my eye to tell me that what he was telling me was sincere.

“I know,” I told him. “Tell him that I miss him and that I look forward to seeing him again.”

“We will,” Thorvald answered with just the right amount of weight.

“Anyway, we have gifts,” Svein told me, gesturing to Kar who dragged the bundles over. “Well… not really gifts but… well, we found them. We would get you to unwrap them but they’re heavy and…”

I lost the rest of his words as Kar placed the axe of Father Gardan on the bed next to me and then propped my spear next to the bed.

“I see you already got the dagger,” Svein told me and I nodded as I stroked the haft of my spear before resting my hand on the haft of the axe.

I was, again, astonished to find tears in my eyes.

“Do not be ashamed Scribbler,” Thorvald told me. “Sometimes our weapons are our final friends. Closer than lovers even.”

I nodded as I reached back for the spear and tried to pull it towards me. I was dismayed by how weak I felt and Svein leapt forward to catch it and lay it across me. I used the moment to wipe my eyes.

“What…? How…?”

“We made it our business to find them,” Kar told me.

I looked at him sharply, remembering his reputation as a thief.

“What?” He demanded looking innocent.

“We had them examined,” Svein told me, drawing my thoughts away. “We got Ermion to look at them, then we got the most frightening Sorceress we could find to look at them. We had them oiled, cleaned and sharpened although the axe didn’t really need it. A formidable weapon that one. Then when we were downstairs we got that priest of yours to bless them.”

“I liked him,” Thorvald told me. “A well-grounded man that, I thought.”

“He is.” I pulled the spear towards me. I found it monstrously heavy but the cold weight in my hand felt good. Svein propped the axe against the nearby table and wrapped it up again.

“We’ve also had new scabbards made and they will be brought to you later.” He told me.

I nodded, again, feeling the need to wipe the tears away.

“I ummm.” I cleared my throat and everyone pretended that it was a symptom of sickness while Kar poured me another drink.

“I am grateful,” I told them. “So… what can you tell me? How goes the rebuilding of Holmstein?”

It was the right question and we spoke for many hours about the state of Helfdan’s harbour and the new keep that was being built.

The storytellers in them all soon came to the fore. They told me funny stories about how the harbour town that Svein now ruled was being rebuilt and repurposed into a ship-building town. Not the biggest shipbuilding, but it was becoming the place where they would test out all of the innovations that Helfdan was coming up with. Some of them worked, some of them did not, and still others of them would work given advances in certain other technologies. The main shipyard and harbour were still being built around Holmstein. They had divided the beach there so that some of it was being rebuilt and repurposed while the next bit was working and then they were cycling down the landing area.

All three men were in awe of the keep that Helfdan was having built. They told me that the thing was not going to be a beautiful building in the way that Kaer Trolde was a beautiful building, or at least, not unless you were aware of all of the military engineering that had gone into it.

But what they did say was that any sailor or army that tried to land anywhere near Holmstein would find the place terrifying. Svein said that the sheer field of view that the keep would command over the southern seas was enough to make a big man feel small and he was confident that no enemy fleet would be able to approach Skellige from the South, or the West, without the clan of the Black Boar knowing about it. And the only way that a land army could get to the keep was from the North as the mountains would be in the way otherwise.

The sheer pride that radiated off all three of them was heartening to see. I told them that I was looking forward to seeing it and then they waxed poetic about the times they would have with me and the hospitality that they would give me. They talked about the parties and the feasts. Apparently, there are proper sagas now about the last fight of the Wave-Serpent in which the Scribbler, the Swallow and the Witcher attacked an enemy ship.

“Brings a tear to my eye,” Svein said, wiping an imaginary tear away and sniffing hugely, thus making me laugh uncontrollably.

They told me a lot of stories. I heard, from the men that were there, about how it all went when Helfdan proposed marriage to the Queen of Skellige and Svein beamed with pride as he described how his lord had stood before the Queen and looked her in the eyes as he declared his love. He told me about her smile that started gentle and encouraging before turning into delighted, girlish and… I quote… “Adorable” as she allowed the moment to sink in.

And then they all laughed as they described how Helfdan lost control of himself and swooned, needing to sit down and be fed a large cup of ale to fortify himself before he advanced up the dais and knelt before her before Cerys picked him up and hugged him to the cheering of the halls.

There were more stories. They told me about how the Skelligans had found new kinship with the dwarven engineers who could be persuaded to sail across the straits to get to the islands. There was much laughter about the culture shock of the Temerian Siege engineers although Svein proudly told us that more than one of those siege engineers had found lots to like in the clan of the Black Boar. Kar pointed out that one of the things they liked was the women of the Black Boar as more than one of them was getting married.

There was laughter and fun and I felt better in the company of friends than I had in a while. In the end, though, the three men were chased out by a combined force of Tulip and Samantha who came and drove them from the room with threats of withheld cooking and a sound thrashing from Samantha.

I slept better that day.

The next day it was Lady Yennefer that finally came up to the room. She was dressed in her black and Silver clothing, the same as she ever does, she was wearing a skirt this time rather than her riding boots and trews which meant that she wasn’t expecting big and dangerous things. She was carrying a large sack.

She walked in and dumped the sack on the floor before turning to me and forestalling all my questions, of which I had many, by putting her finger to her lips and skewering me with a look. She waited until I subsided.

“Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies.” She told me rather severely.

I nodded a little meekly and she gave an answering, more satisfied nod before dragging the sack over to me and inspecting the nearest chair. She found some kind of fault in it and chose the next one which she brought over next to the bed and sat down before crossing her legs. She folded her hands and rested them on top of her knee.

“The situation is this.” She told me. “You are having all of the politics kept from you. This is so that you do not worry yourself over them but also so that when you do return to public life, you will be free of any blemish so that your rivals will not be able to say that your eventual appointments are political. Your friends, which I hope I can still number myself among, and your feudal superiors need you to be strong enough. Therefore we need your focus to be on returning yourself to full health.”

I nodded meekly to show that I understood.

“However, I may say that there is one piece of information that you will need.” Her face softened a little. Still, the only woman that I know that can do that. Where the expression doesn’t change but you know that she is suddenly being more gentle with you.

“There has still been no sign of Ariadne.” She told me. “We are looking, but it is becoming increasingly clear that she does not want to be found. You are not the only person that is concerned about her, but your concerns are on a different branch than mine. But those of the Lodge that are your friends, and her friends, are determined that her story and activity in the continent do not end here. But those efforts are ongoing and you will not solve the matter by leaving your sick bed prematurely. If you try, I shall ensorcel you to stay there, do you understand?”

I nodded, taking a moment to swallow the lump that was forming in her throat. Ariadne had once used the same turn of phrase and suddenly, missing her was a solid blade that was driven into my gut. I was astonished to find one of Lady Yennefer’s small hands taking mine.

“There are several heroes that come out of all of this. You and your sister are not the least, but Ariadne is one of them. She does not want to be found yet, but those who know her best, Maleficent and Enid, insist that she will not let go of you quite so easily. Just promise us that when a dark cloud of sinister origins turns up to spirit you away, that you will let someone know?”

The image was funny and a small chuckle forced its way past my lips. I looked up to see that Lady Yennefer’s expression had not changed but I wondered if I was imagining the glint of humour deep in the violet gaze.

“In the meantime,” Yennefer hauled the Sack over before digging out a couple of small leather binders of papers which she placed on the table next to my bed before dumping the sack itself on my lap. “I am sick and tired of being the only one that deals with all of this stuff. I also agree with Ciri that you have been mishandled in the past. Your mind needs work or it will spin out of control and destroy itself.”

“What is all of this?” I wondered.

“Our correspondence. Your personal correspondence is still being monitored in case there are things to be learnt that we do not want you to know or in case there are any clues inside that might lead us to leftover elements of the rebellion. But this is our correspondence when speaking regarding ‘A being that we named Jack’.”

For the uninitiated, that is the title of her and my, not small, treatise on Jack.

“As well as all of the letters, I have here,” she patted the leather-bound bundles of papers, “outlines for some future works. Of the two that I have prepared, I think that we have the most raw material regarding The Schattenmann although the figure of Kerrass’ Goddess is not far behind him. I think it would be best if we chose one of those two subjects for follow-up work as you have the evidence of your own eyes to work from when it comes to what happened. I also have the final draft of the book on the Elder and what he had to say for you to read and affix your seal of approval to which we intend to publish when everything dies down.”

“If it dies down,” I commented.

Absently, I reached into the sack to find that it was pretty full of slightly squashed scrolls and folded papers. I let my hand find one and opened it, peering at the spidery scrawl absently.

“One of the other bundles.” Yennefer went on as I read, “contains the latest reports on how we are progressing with the new creations of some more Witcher schools for you to go through. It has been a while since that particular committee has heard from you and we are getting to the point now where we are desiring your input.”

That first letter was an interesting one. I won’t transcribe it here, nor will I humiliate the person who wrote it to us by mentioning their name. They had some criticisms of the work on Jack as a whole which rather gave away the fact that they had not properly read the entire thing. The writer was polite however and I could feel my mind already formulating a response while my hand twitched to have a quill in my grip.

I looked up to find Yennefer looking at me with a slight smirk on her lips.

“I must confess,” she told me. “That I particularly enjoy replying to the rude ones so perhaps you would oblige me by setting those aside so that I might answer them and call them out for the idiots that they are. But I think it is high time that you pull your weight on this, more boring, side of academic work. I have your working desk here as well as some parchment, quills and ink. I will join you when I can and should you run out of letters to read or manuscripts to check, there is always more.”

I read the letter again and pulled over a piece of parchment to start drafting my reply.

I once wrote that no one can ever claim that I am difficult to manipulate. Least of all me. And I am pleased to say that this particular aspect of my character hasn’t changed.

So now that I had a subject to get my teeth into, I found that my days started to fill up.

The dwarves turned up with a preliminary sculpt for an arm prosthetic. Little more than a carved lower arm that they strapped up. Not for the first time during that whole process, I was reminded about visiting the tailor’s shop and about how I was the least important person there. They spent a bit of time telling me about what they had in mind for the leg prosthetics but other than that there was not much to develop. The wooden arm was surprisingly heavy and the dwarf in question frowned when I complained, telling me that I should “grow stronger” thus echoing old comments from Skelligans which I took to be an omen of some kind.

I didn’t know what it foretold but even so.

I was ordered to have it strapped onto my arm in the morning and to take it off to go to bed so that I could get used to the weight of it. Eventually, they had something else in mind and they left me with the impression that I was not the only one having input into the new contraption.

I think it was a couple of days after that when my sister and Laurelen came to see me.

My sleep patterns were not settling down so I was vacillating between only sleeping a couple of hours a night, all the way through towards sleeping twelve to thirteen hours a day. They were still encouraging me in this so I didn’t fight it too hard. I was ordered that my body knew what it was doing and I was encouraged to rest when I needed to rest and to occupy my mind when I needed to work. The sheer amount of paperwork that Yennefer piled on top of me was more than enough and when I thought I had answered all of the letters that she had left me she would turn up with another sack of letters, other than the really venomous ones that, as requested, I set aside for her.

She took delight in answering those letters as well. She showed me one of her responses and I have to admit that if I received a letter like that, it would more than likely cause my soul to leave my body.

I was getting stronger. Not just because of the new and foreign weight on my shoulders. But because my body was beginning to regularly take on the nutrients. My body was on the mend and although I had nightmares and all of the normal things that proceed after having a horrific time, the work that Lady Yennefer was setting me on was a good distraction. I missed the people and I longed to see Ariadne and Kerrass and the mysteries of all the politics that were going around that was being kept from me were plaguing me, so I knew that what I was doing was a distraction. It was a good distraction, all but tailor-made for me, but it was a distraction nonetheless.

I was not yet in a state where I could leave bed for much more than using the bath, the chamber-pot and those times when the sheets needed changing. I was looking forward to sitting in a chair again and although luxurious, the upper room of the Rosemary and Thyme was beginning to feel like a prison.

They had brought some new leg prosthetics for me to see and for me to try on. It turned out that my stumps were still a bit tender for usage but the possibility that I might be able to totter around soon was a balm to the nerves.

So there I was. Answering another interminable letter from someone who had written to me about how such and such a series of murders was definitely the work of Jack where I could point out that the person who had done it had been caught, had confessed without prompting or use of intensive questioning and that there were all of the normal things like motive, evidence, opportunity and all of the other things that go with trying a murder.

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The writer was trying to tell me that it was all part of some vast coverup and was suggesting that I was part of a grand conspiracy from the local lord.

Lady Yennefer was right. It is sometimes fun to skewer these people in the way that they need to be skewered.

So it was in the middle of all of this that Emma and Laurelen tried to come and visit me. I say try because it didn’t last very long. I didn’t know they were coming. People had been coming in and out all the time and there was rarely a time that I was left alone. Samantha, Lady Yennefer, Tulip, Father Anchor, an infrequent Princess Dorn who was turning out to be a real card sharp judging by the way that she regularly thrashed me at Gwent. There were also doctors and those Dwarves that were working on getting my prosthetic limbs ready so what happened was that I heard a shocked little grunt and I looked up to see the pair of them standing in the doorway.

Laurelen looked the better of the two but that didn’t say very much about it at all. Both of them had had their hair grown out. Both of them had lost quite a bit of weight and both of them looked really tired. Laurelen was better in that there was some light in her eyes and a look of brightness about her. It was the look of someone that had spent a long time in a dark place and had just emerged to be able to see the sun. She wore a nice dress and had her hair done up in something resembling a hairstyle. She had entered the room first and as I looked up, she had been leading Emma into the room. One of her hands was still reaching out to Emma as though they had been holding hands and Laurelen was looking back at Emma in confusion.

I stand by the many statements that I have made in the past when I say that Emma is one of the most beautiful women I know and I have met a significant portion of the Lodge of Sorceresses. But she looked dreadful. Painfully thin and drawn with large dark circles around her eyes. Her hair looked thin and brittle and she had pulled it back into a sharp braid. She wore a simple dress and a voluminous cloak and as I looked up to see who it was that had come into the room, her eyes were shining and brimming with tears.

Looking back, I guessed that the hand that Laurelen had been holding to help her into the room had been pulled back and it was this hand that had covered her mouth.

It was her that had grunted.

It all happened very fast.

Emma was looking at me in horror. There were so many emotions that were on her face that I can’t easily pick them all apart but I saw horror, fear and despair at the very least.

She looked from me to Laurelen and back to me as she covered her mouth with both hands now as the tears started to roll down her cheeks.

And she made no sound at all.

Her mouth was open and her hands started to flap at her mouth as she looked at Laurelen with horror and dismay. She looked, for all the world, as though she was retching.

I called her name I think because she looked at me. Emma grasped at her own throat before looking back at Laurelen. She was coughing and choking and then she looked at me again with something… I have no idea what it was in her eyes but she looked back at me and a…

I think I want to call it a grunt. It was not a wail, or a cry or a moan. It was something else. It was a noise torn from a throat and she made that noise as she literally turned and fled. Her face haunts me still, even as I write this. I have seen that expression on wraiths as they screech and scream their loathing and dismay. The expression of horror and… I don’t know. It was the expression of a woman that has been told that their child has died. It was the expression of a…

I don’t know what I’m saying. She looked like she wanted to claw her own throat out and put out her own eyes.

I called out to her, trying to reach her, desperately trying to reassure her or try to reach her and let her know something while also trying to reach for my big sister, the only family I had left.

I saw Laurelen look at me in dismay before she chased after Emma.

I fell, it was the first time I properly forgot that I was missing limbs and I fell out of bed with it. My tears blurred my vision as I called out my sister’s name. As I screamed it really. I had not known that I wanted my sister until the time came that she was there and that she was leaving me.

I was not down there for long as a muttering Samantha and Lady Yennefer came in, warned by Emma’s flight and Laurelen’s chasing after her. I was quickly lifted back into bed and healed from the injuries that I had inflicted on myself in my desperate need to get to my sister and tell her that everything was going to be alright.

Because that had been what I was trying to do. I was trying to wrap my sister in my arms and I wanted to hold her, to help her and to…

And I felt guilty too.

I had been trapped in this bed and this room. I had asked after Emma and Laurelen and been told that they were physically alright but that Emma especially had been profoundly affected by what had happened in Coulthard castle. I found myself on the opposite ends of the scale to how she had once found me. I knew that she was hurt on some kind of intellectual level but I had not realised just how bad it was on an emotional level until I saw it.

I have known worse depths of despair but not many. But it was enough for Samantha to sit with me and hold me without her normal caustic humour and it was enough that I did not question the medicinal drink when she put it to my lips.

The following day I did not work, but the day after that Laurelen came into the room and looked down at me with sorrow on her face.

“I am so sorry Freddie.” She told me. “So very sorry. We really fucked that one up.”

It is always interesting, as I have said before when a beautiful woman decides to really swear.

She sat in the chair that was next to my bed.

“We had hoped that there would be some measure of healing for both of you if you saw each other but it would seem that we have only made the matter worse. Something that seems obvious when you look back on it.” She chuckled but I could see that her hand was trembling. I reached out my own hand and she gratefully took my hand and we wept together for a while.

“Is she alright?” I asked when we had calmed a little.

“No,” Laurelen, who was a bit behind me, wailed. “No of course not, how could you think she was alright? I mean…”

“Laurelen, I mean right now. Is she alright right now? I know that you’re her support and you’re here and…” I let myself smile a bit.

“Oh.” She put her hand to her mouth and giggled. “Yeah, I should have seen that. She’s fine. She’s untangling everything. She’s fine so long as she’s working. Literally, that’s the moment where she’s EMMA you know?”

“I know.”

“So we’ve got a little study set up for her. We’re staying up at the family residence in town?”

I nodded to show that I understood.

“And she’s untangling all the mess that she made of everything. There are other people with her and she will be laughing and joking and arguing with people. It’s the only time she speaks now and…”

The tears were back in her eyes and she lifted her hand to her mouth to contain a sob.

Then she sighed.

“I knew that she was sick,” I told her. “I didn’t know how bad it was.”

“Funny,” Laurelen replied. “That’s the same as what we thought about you. We knew about your injuries but we didn’t know how bad it was until we saw you. Freddie, I am so so, very sorry.”

I shook my head.

“I have my right hand, they’ve promised me enough prosthetics so that I can walk and at least there will be enough of a weight on my left arm so that I can keep the paper steady as I write. I will be ok.”

“Your left hand will be able to do more than write.” She smiled as she said it. “There is a lot of guilt flying around about what has happened to us and even if you and your sister were not you and your sister, I don’t think you would need to worry about the future.”

“I am not the only one so injured and…”

“And that very sentiment is why people feel so guilty.” She told me. Lady Eilhart especially has made some very precise demands about what she expects from your prosthetic left arm.”

I laughed at the thought.

“The mind boggles,” I told her and she laughed.

We sat together for a moment, letting the silence lengthen and then a thought occurred.

“What do you mean? ‘Untangle the mess she made?” I wondered.

Laurelen nodded and looked at the door.

“There is a lot going on and I probably shouldn’t answer.” She told me. “There are orders to keep you and your sister out of it all at the moment and I can see why. But…” her face hardened. “Fuck 'em.”

She looked at me appraisingly.

“Also Freddie, I’m sorry, but I don’t know where Ariadne is. I wish I did. There are several people that I just want to hold onto tightly. Emma, you and her. I didn’t enjoy the thought of losing the family that you gave me.” She took a deep breath. “Powers but it felt so good to have brothers and sisters again.”

I nodded and let my own grief loose for a while before Laurelen audibly swallowed it again.

“There are a lot of heroes.” She said, “A lot of heroes were involved in what happened. You not least. Kerrass as well and lots of wonderful people that…” She shook her head. “But when the book of this all gets to be written, probably by you.”

I laughed and told her that I had done my part. She looked at me strangely then and looking back, I wonder if she knew more than I did or how much she was letting on.

“But still,” she continued. “Two of those heroes that did more than some will realise are Emma and Ariadne.” She shook her head in wonder. “How she did it I don’t know. Ariadne was a slave to Kalayn’s will.”

It turned out that Laurelen is not the only person that cannot say Sam’s name.

“But she found ways to obey the letter of his instructions while disobeying the intent. There are a lot of people that she saved, and they know that she saved them, because she deliberately didn’t see them or would search an area by facing a corner of the room or walking down a corridor to one side facing the wall. There’s more and you can be proud of her Freddie. She could not do much but that woman fought.”

“I believe it,” I told her, feeling the pride grow in my chest.

“She fought Freddie. Kerrass was not the only life that she saved and you don’t know it but… In the end, after she was free. She went through the castle like a demon and freed those captives remaining and saw to it that they were free before she fled.”

I nodded and hung my head.

“I’m going to find her,” I told the Sorceress. “I am going to find her.”

“I know Freddie.” She told me, putting her hand on my arm. “And I will hug her like a sister when you do.”

She didn’t believe it, not really, I could see the doubt in her eyes. But I decided not to pursue it.

“The other hero though.” Laurelen told me, “Is Emma. All of that time that Kalayn was ordering her to liquidate the Coulthard trading company to fund the rebellion. What she was doing was writing coded letters to her factors and agents so that, even if she was caught then Kalayn would never get his hands on any of that money.”

“Oh, Emma.” I felt like my chest would burst.

Laurelen saw the pride in me and nodded.

“In the same way that it would easily be said that your Father provided the arms and armour that kept Nilfgaard out of the North for so long, we will look back and tell people that the reason Kalayn’s troops did not have the arms or supplies or the mercenaries that they could have had, was because your sister sat there, in arms reach and under the noses of so many men and wrote coded letters to tell people what to do.”

Laurelen shook her head.

“There are many reasons I love your sister but I do not have that kind of courage.” She told me. “I would have broken. Indeed I did. I was Kalayn’s pet mage just as much as Ariadne was. But there you were and there Emma was, working against him right under his nose.”

She shook her head again.

“So how sick is she?” I wondered.

“She can’t speak.” Laurelen grimaced. “Physically she’s fine. The Doctors are calling it ‘selective, trauma-based muteness.’ When she’s working she can talk about business and things but the moment that one of the lawyers that have known her for a long time starts to enquire about the future outside of mercantile things. Or when they ask about the castle or what happened… It’s as though there is just no voice there. She tries. You saw it the other day. She tries to the point of doing herself injury. But it’s literally as though there is nothing there.”

“Can she speak to you?”

“A bit. In private when there’s no one else… Powers Freddie but it’s breaking my heart. She is even silent when she weeps.”

I nodded. “So she can keep the noise from Sam so that he doesn’t get angry with her.”

“That’s what I thought as well. I can all too easily imagine that filth beating her if she’s in the corner sobbing while she is supposed to be working. Although I think it might be more complicated than that.”

“It’s always more complicated than that.”

Laurelen grimaced before she nodded. “She can write though. Like you, she can still write. I would expect that you and she will be passing letters to each other for a while. She is working her way up to coming back again and I would expect that she will manage it in a day or two.”

“I am desperate to see her,” I whispered. “I had not realised how much.”

“It’s understandable. You are all you each have left after all.”

“No,” I said. “She has you and you have us too. Family, despite what the church might say.”

“Thank you.” She told me. “For everything Freddie. From day one you have worked to make that a reality. I always thought that Emma was overestimating you when I first got to know you but you…” She stopped. “You are the brother I never had.”

We hugged briefly and she left.

Sure enough, Emma got to me two days later. She and Laurelen stood at the door for a moment while Emma stood and looked at me. I was sobbing and I just held my arms wide and she gave a little grunt and then I was holding my sobbing sister who shook with the violence of the sobs that wracked her body.

Still silent.

Laurelen joined us and we were a long time before the grief started to subside.

After that development, time seemed to pass slowly with not much happening. The order to keep me away from anything political had not been relaxed and as such, this meant that I was kept from seeing many of the people that I longed to see. Svein, Kar and Thorvald would come and I knew that they were regularly in the building. But I was never allowed to see Helfdan. Svein once told me that he wanted to come and that he had passed on messages of sorrow and that should everything all fall apart for me on the continent, then he and the Queen of Skellige would welcome an advisor of my capabilities in the islands.

But he did not come to see me himself, nor did anyone tell me what he was doing.

Nor was I allowed to see the Ducal delegation from Toussaint. I didn’t even know all of the people that were in it. I knew that Guillaume and Lady Vivienne were around and I also knew that Sir Gregoire and Lady Anne, his wife, had come North as part of the delegation given Gregoire’s attendance during my stag party. But who else was there? And why were they not allowed to come and see me? I do not know and I didn’t know then.

After the brief and dramatic reintroduction to each other Emma and Laurelen would come and see me regularly. Sometimes Laurelen would come by herself but Emma was always in the company of the other woman and I could see that she was getting worse. Even the small sounds that she could make before, the grunts and the like were beginning to subside and where she had expressed frustration at the lack of sound that her throat could generate, now she just looked silent and resigned. Laurelen insisted that when she was “working” she could still be animated and work as hard as the rest of them, but she was even, at times, struggling to speak to the woman that shared her love with.

Laurelen confided in me, in which she informed me that she had told Emma that she was preparing herself for a long road to recovery with Emma as well as trying to let herself come to terms with the fact that Emma might never speak again.

Other than to discuss trade tariffs of course.

We, all three of us, later laughed at that. Emma smiled a little but it was clear that my sister was still in there somewhere, still wanting to get out but Laurelen was right. She was struggling to keep herself interested.

As it turns out, they were living in the Coulthard residence in Novigrad at the moment. The place had come out of it all surprisingly unscathed which was, apparently, part of the work of the Skelligans but no one could explain to me why this might have been the case. I wondered why the three of us could not be housed together and I was told that a couple of doctors had decided that if the three of us were together, we might make a tempting target for enemies. So someone had decided that we needed to be split up.

I was the hidden one while Emma was the bait. They didn’t tell me that of course but it seemed fairly clear to me that this might have been the case. It did not do my sense of humour much good to think of this.

Laurelen tried to tell me that they were in the townhouse so that Emma could have access to one of her studies and that the records that were in the Novigrad house were almost as good as the ones that had been in Castle Coulthard. That Emma needed to work and as such, that was the best place for her.

I believed them. But I also wondered if that was the only reason that this was the case.

Other than that, I was now beginning to insist that I be allowed to get dressed. Even if I couldn’t yet leave the room. The indignity of being in bedclothes all the time was beginning to be oppressive. A tailor was sent for and I was measured again although the man despaired, pointing out that I would be putting on new weight and new muscle mass by the time I was used to having prosthetics on the ends of three of my limbs so having new clothes made was a preposterous exercise.

I was not involved in the negotiation but Emma wrote him a note. She does that now more than speaking and what he read in the note made him pale a little bit.

Beyond that, I was also brought the prosthetics that would be my new feet and I started learning to walk again. It was horrific.

The thought had kept me going for a long time that soon, I would be able to move around under my own methods and my own strengths. The untold luxury of being able to get up and go to relieve myself on my own and without help from anyone else was like a shining moment in the future. As well as that, the prospect that I could go and do things and see things and act accordingly.

I wanted to leave now. I loved and still love the Rosemary and Thyme, but it was rapidly becoming my prison. I wanted to eat somewhere else. I wanted to stroll down to the Novigrad docks and sit in one of the parks.

And now that I had my new feet there was a moment, just a moment, where I hoped that this moment had finally arrived.

Of course, I was being naive. If the hardest thing I have ever done was asking Ariadne to marry me and the second hardest thing I have ever done was learning to kill. Then this, relearning how to walk on my new wooden feet was third and there have been times when it has crept up the list.

The thing that sent me back to bed to weep was the sheer frustration of it. The entire process was just… so slow. I wanted to do things, I wanted to walk around. I wanted to go downstairs and listen to the minstrels play. After all, I was all but living under the roof of the greatest bard on the continent.

And his wife.

And I was upstairs listening to faint and distant noises.

The process was awful and I spent more than one night crying myself to sleep with the sheer frustration of it.

Ciri came to see me when I was in the process of doing this one day. I was just in my shirt and a ragged pair of… essentially short trousers as I walked backwards and forward across the floor. To be fair to the dwarves and gnomes that had made these, my new feet, they were works of art. Minor miracles in the arts of engineering. There was spring and rotation in the ankles so there was give and bounce where there should be. But the extra straps, the extra weight and the new sense of balance that I had to develop while all of that was going on were…

It hurt.

It now made sense as to why so much time and effort had been put into making sure that the ends of my stumps had been properly worked up to withstand the friction and the pressure. No amount of padding or cushioning could make up for what was going on there.

So we just worked at it and I worked with it. It was hard. Mind achingly hard and I was not doing well with it. People like Samantha and Laurelen were insisting that I was doing better and that I was getting there. And they were probably right. In the same way that I would get frustrated with it while I was learning to fight from Kerrass. But there, I was learning a completely new skill. But this? I was relearning how to walk.

I was not falling when things were violently different. I was falling when my body and mind started to take things for granted. And then the extra weight of the things and the strange shapes that went with it would catch me out and send me stumbling.

What I had done was a switch from walking the length of the room to now walking laps of the room. I was going in one direction but when I was feeling particularly spicy I would go the other way. It was that level of thinking that I was up to.

And that was all there was to do. The stimulation of writing letters and going over plans for new books and things was an empty… pass time. I could do it for a while but sooner or later, all other questions would come to the fore. What was happening at Coulthard Castle? People still talked as though we still had enemies, who were they? Why were they not destroyed? Why was it so vital that I be kept from the politics of everything?

I had given up trying to ask as those people that were in the know were deliberately being kept from me. I received messages of well wishes and love, but I could not see them and the need to know was a background… annoyance that would conspire to keep me awake at night.

And then Ciri came to see me. She was dressed as Ciri this time. Not the half guise of Empress that she had worn before. She came in and cracked a joke at me before I told her to fuck off. She laughed and I told her to stay out of the way and she laughed, holding her hands up as she watched me walk around in circles.

“Is it getting easier?” She wondered.

“What the fuck do you think?” I wondered.

“Easy.” She smirked. “I was just asking.”

“And I was just wondering about how I can come over there, take my wooden leg off and beat you to death with it.”

“I can teleport from one place to the other at will.” She told me, picking a chair well out of the way of my flailing walking stick. “I am pretty sure that I can evade your wrath.”

“I would find a way,” I told her as I sweated. It was hard work and after every session of this, I found that I was sweating more than I had when training with Kerrass at the height of summer.

“You probably would at that,” Ciri admitted, pouring herself a cup of wine. “After all, the man who had defeated the cult dismissed the Skeleton Ship, talked to a dragon and woke up sleeping beauty is capable of many things.”

“Not exactly calming me down are you,” I told her.

“Didn’t say I was meaning to.”

I swore at her quietly, trying to keep my breath so that I could focus on what I was doing.

“You know…” She began quietly. “That there are spells that can make your feet behave the way that you remember them too. You could be walking tomorrow?” A thought occurred to her. “Well maybe not tomorrow, but it could be done.”

“It has been mentioned,” I told her. “As it has also been mentioned that my eventual hand can be enchanted to move as a normal hand would.”

Ciri nodded. “You don’t sound convinced.

This was not a new argument for me.

“Magic can do many things,” I told her. “But I also know that magic degrades and can become dangerous. But that is not the real reason.”

“Then what is the real reason?” she wondered.

“How many people are missing limbs? Just from what Sam did alone?” I wondered of her. “How many from the last war or the one before that? The head of Imperial Intelligence for Novigrad is still missing a hand.”

“Former head of intelligence.” Ciri interrupted before looking sheepish. “Sorry, I should not have said that.”

“Why not?”

“Politics.” We both said.

“He was a good man,” I argued.

“No Freddie.” She said, “No he wasn’t, but that didn’t become clear until after he sat in judgement over you. I would tell you more but…” She shrugged. “The answers are coming. I promise. Hopefully in the next couple of days. But you were telling me about how you think…”

“Yeah. So are you going to pay for the expensive prosthetics that every cripple, whether from war or accident needs? And are you then going to pay for the magic that will be needed to keep them working in the meantime?”

“It would not be a wasted effort.” She admitted. “But it would be expensive.”

I grunted my agreement.

“It is not lost on me Ciri,” I began. “That these feet of mine are well made and designed by the best minds that the North can offer. I am already ahead of the matter by not simply having a shoe on the end of a peg leg. And I cannot drive that into the face of others that do not have my advantages.”

“You may have to,” she warned.

“If the day comes where I need that magic to make my hand, or my feet work to do… whatever comes next, then I will take that as it comes. But for now…” I shook my head.

“That day may come sooner than you think.” She warned.

I looked at her for a while and she had a thoughtful expression. I shuffled over to a chair and sat in it.

“What are you plotting, Ciri?” I wondered.

“Many, many things Freddie.” She told me with a slightly unhappy smile.

I peered at her, and carefully leant on my stick. I was swiftly learning that I needed to treat this walking stick the same way that I had been treating my spear. I always needed it close to hand and I always needed to know where it was.

Otherwise, I would fall and I would be lost.

“What are you plotting, Ciri?” I wondered.

She peered at me for a long moment, mirroring my stance and I saw that she was still in the habit of cradling her sword like it was a baby. Some form of self-comforting thing I think.

“You know that you have a weakness for when people ask you for help?” She asked suddenly, leaning back.

“I do,” I replied, leaning back. One of the benefits of having prosthetics on the ends of my legs means that I no longer just slide out of chairs. “Kerrass has used it against me on a couple of occasions. And still, again, there have been occasions where people take advantage of it to make my life difficult.”

She nodded.

“So I don’t want to ask you for help,” she told me. “I want you to make an informed decision and then decide what you want to do.”

“Do you need my help?”

“Need? No.” She thought about it. “Want? Yes, definitely. I need people I can trust as it seems that there aren’t that many of them.” She held her hands up to ward off the question. “Don’t ask me about who I refer to, but there are several people that have let me down recently. I mean… nothing compared to the number of people that have let you down but still.”

I nodded.

“What’s going on Ciri?” I asked.

“Lots.” She answered cryptically. “Sorry, I know I’m being awkward and there is no one I would rather confide in, but I can’t because if you are the man to solve my issue, I need you to be fresh and unbiased.”

“Ah.” I said, “Politics. I should have recognised the stench of it.”

“Yes.” Ciri agreed. “There is a lot of it around. In short, you were tried and found innocent. We can now look everyone in the eye and tells them that you knew and know nothing about what’s going on and we can do that while telling the truth.”

“When you say ‘everyone’ you mean…”

“More people that I cannot tell you about. If you can just be patient for another couple of days?”

“What happens in a couple of days?” I wondered automatically.

“You will be able to walk just enough to get the job done, but not so well that people can downplay your injuries,” she answered promptly.

“Fucking hell Ciri,” I was appalled.

“I know Freddie. Believe me, but even as I sit here, some people want to downplay how badly hurt you are. We rushed things through and I am sorry for that. If I could only be your friend and adopted sister, then believe me I would be doing that.”

She sighed and leant forward again. “I am even being a bit cowardly coming here today.”

“Ok, that you will need to explain.”

She stared into space for a moment, getting her thoughts in a row and when she moved, she moved suddenly.

“You have two real options in front of you,” she said, resting her sword on her shoulder and gesturing with her hands. “The first is exile. Not a punishment exile but the simple fact of the matter is that the North is not going to work out for you if you want to be private. There are multiple places you can go with our blessing and I have lined up a number for you to choose from. First, you can go to Skellige where Cerys and Helfdan will look after you. You need to be anonymous if you go, so you will be Freddie the scribbler to them and you will be important, loved and powerful…”

She paused and looked at me sideways.

“I should also say that there is still no sign of Ariadne. We just can’t find her and we are running out of ideas there. But if you go, I know that there are plenty of women that would…”

“Don’t even say it Ciri,” I snarled. “Don’t even breathe it.”

She nodded, watching my face closely.

“Likewise, Toussaint has offered that you go and live there with similar offers of services that you can provide and… the other thing as well.”

I kept hold of my temper better this time.

“Then you will be Sir Freddie of… whatever you want to be. You will still be anonymous as there are still enemies out there that would be after your blood but Toussaint would love and protect you.”

I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and I think that Ciri could sense that.

“If neither of those suits you and you wish for a completely new start. I need new ambassadors for Zerrikania and Ofier. You would go and live the life of an honoured guest and…”

“Ciri…” I felt my voice rise in a warning. The suspicion was growing that the person sitting in front of me was dressed as Ciri, my friend and adopted sister, but really, I was talking to the Empress.

“You can do these things,” she told me, “and no one will blame you, least of all me and the people that care about you. But you cannot stay here as you are.”

I stared at her for a long time, her green eyes were hard.

“There is another option isn’t there.” It was not a question.

“There is,” Ciri admitted. “The other option is that I reward your loyalty, injury and powers know what else with work, enemies, duty and… battle I suppose is the word that I am working towards.”

I thought about it.

“What about Emma? And Laurelen for that matter?”

“Emma is staying here. We need her.”

I nodded and I was surprised about how much my next question hurt.

“More than me?” I wondered. I didn’t want to ask it but it rather occurred to me that if I didn’t ask the question, then it would fester in the back of my head.

“She can do things that you no-one else can,” she told me. “I want you, but if you can’t, or won’t, and as I say, no one would blame you if that was the case, then I can find someone else. I don’t want to but…”

The words were left hanging.

“Then I will stay,” I told her.

“You can go back to hating me if you wish.” She told me as she climbed to her feet. “I mean to make you powerful Freddie, but I couldn’t bring you to court for you to turn me down in front of everyone. That would be catastrophic.”

“I can imagine,” I told her. I mean I couldn’t but even so.

I think she saw that as she looked down at me.

“I will let you get back to your exercises, Freddie.”

I levered myself to my feet before a thought occurred.

“Ciri?”

She turned back.

“Are you really looking for Ariadne? And if you are, do you mean to make her a scapegoat for everything that…?”

I watched a little bit of Ciri’s soul die in her eyes and her gaze sank from mine.

“I am truly sorry,” she said before realising that her words would generate horror. “No no, Freddie. Not about that. I am sorry that I have made you distrust me that much.”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Ariadne is as much of a victim as everyone is. She is also as much of a hero as you are, Emma is, Kerrass is… There is so much heroism to go around that there is an idea floating around the court at the moment that we need to invent a new honour to recognise the people that were involved in this. There is almost as much heroism here as there is guilt.”

She sighed.

“But I cannot deny that it would be easier for everyone if she stays lost and you find another bride.”

“I won’t,” I told her.

“I know that,” she smirked. “I know that and you know that. But it would make life easier for a lot of people, me not least.”

“When did it become my job to make your life easy?” I wondered with no small amount of bitterness.

Her gaze hardened.

“As of a few moments ago when you made your choice.” She told me.

I nodded.

“I will see you in a couple of days Freddie,” she told me. “And in the times to come, you and I will laugh about all of this bullshit.”

“Will we?” I wondered. “Flame but I hope so.”

And she was gone.

So I had to prepare for a coming court visit and none of it was under my control. The entire process has happened to me before, but my injuries meant that there was a new level of horror involved which meant that I could not move too much under my own steam.

The tailor came first, almost as Ciri left, he came in with his piece of knotted string and the clerk that was there to take notes and make sure that everything was carefully noted down. I feel sorry for that tailor as it was clear that we were both under orders and that his work was largely pointless. I don’t think that either of us saw the best part of the other that day.

From his perspective, my new presentation suit was only going to be worn once. I knew it and he knew it. Why only once? Because I was still recovering. Do not kid yourself dear reader, but not only was I dealing with the loss of limbs but long-term privations, sickness and injury can do things to a man’s body. As can the recovery from that instance. I was still struggling to put on weight and what energy I was taking in was being devoted to relearning how to walk with my new prosthesis. I still got tired easily, I still got sick and fell into fainting spells. I would regularly need to stop and vomit as I tried to eat too much out of a misguided attempt to take on the weight and recover faster.

Listen to your doctors. They know more than you when it comes to this kind of thing.

And none of that involved my recovery from the mental stresses of everything. The best that could be said about that was that my relatively recent history in Toussaint and with everything meant that I now had the language to deal with all of that as well as the techniques and skills to calm myself down. Also, Samantha was experienced with dealing with me at my worst and we had an existing shorthand on how to deal with all of that.

But I missed Ariadne fiercely. At some point, our link had been cut off and although I screamed into it, there was nothing there. I didn't even have the faintest sense of her and it would send me to weeping more days than it would not.

They say that when you are in the depths of the frost you must keep moving forwards because to stay still is to freeze to death and that was what it felt like. So do not assume, despite my attempts at humour and my descriptions of cards and dice and things, that life was going well.

So the suit was only going to be worn once. Therefore the tailor thought that the effort was beneath him and he was probably right.

I had no say in what I was wearing at all and I was, frankly, disgusted and furious with what the suit entailed. I was wearing an outfit of military cut and the sleeve of my left arm had been folded back on itself to display my missing arm.

It was not a uniform, but it evoked that feeling. I was angry and I let the poor man have it. But he was under orders and so was I, so I would wear the suit with its absurd threading and cut. It made me look like a scarecrow. A hobbling scarecrow or some kind of constructed… monster made out of wood and lose bits of cloth and flesh. I was a horror show made to frighten children. I could almost hear people pointing at me and telling children, “Don’t go to war or you will come back looking like that,” and for all, I know that was the point.

But most of all, I didn’t and still don’t think I deserve the military air. I am and remain, a scholar. Occasionally I am a courtier and I hated this austere attempt at making me a military hero.

But everything in court is a statement. Everything has a purpose and what I was going to be wearing was one of those statements.

As was my hair that was tied back and on the morning of the day itself, the fact that a barber arrived gave me a very peculiar shave. The man was amongst the best in Novigrad as I had gone to him for the shave that I had received before the day that was supposed to be my wedding day.

But this time he shaved me so that it looked as though I had tried to shave myself and given my lack of arm, it meant that my beard was uneven.

Looking back, the artifice was obvious. They were making it look as though I had dragged myself from my sick bed to attend the court. As was my duty.

Which was largely true and was kind of what I was doing. The fact that all of these professionals had been involved to aid in the same artifice would have been funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

The morning dawned. I rose early to bathe and have a full breakfast. There was something herbal in that breakfast although I don’t know what it was. Something a little bit extra to give me some energy and to take some of the pain and discomfort away. I suspect Samantha.

The lady herself came and gave me a huge hug before I got changed out of my normal clothes and said nothing before fleeing. Father Anchor also came and solemnly shook my hand without saying a word.

“It feels like you’re all saying goodbye to me,” I said, trying for a joke.

“End of this phase,” the priest said. “This small domestic haven.” Then he grinned. “This small domestic haven surrounded by bloodthirsty Skelligan barbarians in one of the most famous inns and taverns on the face of the continent and increasingly becoming on first-name terms with some of the movers and shakers of that continent.”

He was right, it was kind of funny.

Tulip also hugged me but then I was given over to the tailor, the hairdresser and their various assistants to make sure that I looked properly… I don’t know… Skeletal?

There was a whoosh in the backyard that I recognised as a transport gate being opened and I know that a few people used it in the meantime before it closed.

It took a long time for me to get dressed and it was astonishingly tiring. There had to be breaks several times for me to sit down and get my breath back as even standing for long periods seemed to take it out of me. I felt like a baby, having people talk over me and move around and just manhandle me into this and that. I hated the entire process and I may say that I made the people that were there work for it.

I was nearly done though when Lady Yennefer knocked and came in. She was wearing the courtly version of her normal black and silver outfit. She always knocked when she was coming in. She would knock and then enter regardless of whether or not I was ready for her.

“How do I look?” I asked her. Trying for levity and failing miserably.

“Absolutely awful,” She told me. “Which is part of the point isn’t it.”

“What point?”

“I don’t know,” she began. “But I suspect that people are being shown just how much of an effect this has had on you and that you are not, after all, relatively unscathed from your brother’s actions.”

“Who would think that?” I wondered.

“Anyone who dislikes you or has something to lose I suspect,”

“Huh.”

“This is not one of the little, almost friendly courtrooms that you have been in before. This will not be Skellige or Beauclair. This is going to be the Imperial Court. You have some skill in this arena, but it is just enough to get you hanged.”

I nodded, accepting the point.

“You will have friends in the room,” she went on with her briefing while they finished arranging things to their satisfaction. “Not least, the one in charge of it. But be careful.”

“I will do my best.”

Suddenly Yennefer smiled at me. A rare occurrence which astonished me.

“Having said that,” she went on, “today is your day. Not the day you wanted but some people are going to be angry after today and you should enjoy it.”

“Are you going to enjoy it?” I wondered as I straightened up and leant on my canes.

“Some of my enemies are getting their noses tweaked today. Damn, straight I’m going to enjoy it.” Her grin turned predatory.

I took a couple of deep breaths and looked around the room.

“I’m never coming back here, am I,” I said.

“You may.” She replied. “You will need a staging ground.”

I looked at her sharply but she was turning away. She gestured at the wall and made a series of gestures. I had seen those gestures before and gripped my cane tightly so that they didn’t get blown away. When the black, swirling vortex appeared I stood before it, suddenly nervous.

“Do you need help?” Yennefer asked.

I shook my head and shuffled through.

I came out of the gate in a quite pleasantly appointed private study. I had not been in the room before but it would have seemed that I was the last person to arrive.

As I say, it was a nice room. There was a hearth at one end that was burning away merrily. The wooden floors were covered with thick rugs and the walls were covered in tapestries. That was where they were not also covered in shelves with scrolls and books and all of the related paraphernalia. There was also a small table that was arrayed with a variety of drinks and decanters.

Framed on one of the walls was a pencil sketch of the Empress. I had never seen it before.

As I say, it seemed as though I was the last one to arrive. Lord Geralt was there, standing at the drinks table and he seemed to be acting as something of a host. He looked up to see Lady Yennefer enter the room before he poured her a small cup of something and raised his eyebrows at me.

I shook my head. I wanted to make sure that I was sober. I longed for a drink though. The same kind of desire that you can almost taste and just as that was in my throat, I rather thought it would be better if I didn’t drink. If I needed a drink that badly, then I shouldn’t have one.

The people that I noticed were Emma and Laurelen. Emma looked like a ghost, frighteningly pale with her hair pulled back from her face leaving the rather unfortunate impression that her head was a skull. She wore a long, completely enclosing grey dress with a ruff around her neck. There was no ornamentation on her at all but I rather suspected that the cloth would be fairly expensive. She looked… faint and I thought I could see her trembling. She rushed over to me but stopped just short.

At that moment, she reminded me of Tulip. She had stopped even trying to talk fairly recently but she was developing a very expressive face. She was asking me if I was alright.

“If I can keep my feet,” I told her. “I will be fine.”

Lord Geralt brought over a chair and positioned it behind me while Emma helped me settle down into it. I didn’t need her help as the manoeuvre was becoming increasingly practised and familiar to me, but it rather felt as though she needed to help me.

Laurelen watched. She had an attitude approaching frustration, reluctance and anger. She saw me looking and smiled unhappily before shaking her head.

She wasn’t angry with me for which I was grateful.

There were two doors in the room and there was a guard at each of them, both of them in the black armour of the Imperial Guard.

“Welcome to the royal palace of Vizima.” Yennefer said, carefully setting aside the cup that Geralt had handed her.

“Can we get Emma and Freddie something to eat?” Laurelen wondered. Again, there was an edge of frustrated anger in her tone. “I rather think that they will need it.”

Geralt and Yennefer exchanged nods and Geralt went to one of the doors and spoke to the guard who then stepped through for a moment before returning.

As is true with all of these things, we had been told to hurry up and wait. Some pastries were brought. They were undeniably delicious and again, I felt the benefits of the herbal additions that had been put in my breakfast. I was dimly aware that I was going to pay a price for what was going on later. But for the right here and right now, I didn’t think it mattered.

We made small talk. We were in the wing of the palace that was set aside for ambassador and bureaucrat meetings. It turned out that we were in the very room where Lord Geralt and Lady Yennefer had once arranged the rescue of the Empress.

Laurelen finally admitted that she was annoyed that Emma and I had been dragged out here before she, Laurelen, thought that we were ready for it. Yennefer told her that that was the point. It had the feel of an argument that both of them had gone through several times and that there was nothing that either of them could do to address it further in either direction.

Lady Yennefer told me that there was still no sign of Ariadne and after that, she and Lord Geralt regaled us with some anecdotes about what had been going on in Toussaint since we had last visited. It was pointless stuff. The language of people that were waiting for something momentous to happen. Small stories that make you laugh but not too much. Asking and mentioning old friends but not going into too much detail in case you are about to get interrupted at any time.

The food turned to ash in my belly.

In the end, the other door was opened wide.

Emma was pale as a sheet and I didn’t feel that much better as I climbed back to what I am still learning to call ‘my feet’. Lord Geralt walked alongside me as I went through the door. He did his best in pretending that he was there to be my companion but it was not lost on me that he was positioned and ready in case I should fall.

Emma walked behind me. Openly trembling and holding onto Laurlen’s hands so hard that Laurelen’s hands turned white.

We emerged into a covered walkway and walked around the small garden. It was snowing in Vizima. The courtyard was surrounded by soldiers and servants were running around although I noticed that they stopped and made way for our small party.

We came to the large door that I took to be the entry into the throne room and again, guards on the door told us to wait. Yennefer looked unsurprised.

I turned to look at Emma, shivering but I didn’t think it was with the cold.

“Look at us,” I told her. “What would Father make of us now?” I tried to put humour into my voice and I thought I was rewarded with a small smile.

“He would be proud of you both,” Laurelen said.

“I never met the man.” Lord Geralt said in his raspy, deceptively warm voice. “But any Father would be proud.”

“You never knew our Father.” I joked and this time I was sure that Emma smirked.

Carefully to not unbalance me, Emma hugged me.

“I wish I could hug you back,” I told her. “But I might fall on you and crush you.” I was trying for lightness but she nodded and pulled back.

“Later,” Laurelen said.

There was another pause.

Lady Yennefer tilted her head to one side and nodded to the guards on the door.

“Here we go,” she said as the pair of them heaved the door open.

I have been in the throneroom of the royal palace in Vizima before. A large, open room that I found to be quite empty and echoey. I was never in the room when Foltest was King but according to witnesses, he liked it that way, preferring a martial air and not having too many places where people could huddle together in clumps to plot treason. Apparently, that is a direct quote.

It is a place of echoing footfalls and ringing voices. It was a very cold room when I visited it last. Some small changes had been made. The lilies of Temeria were back on the walls alongside the Golden Sun of Nilfgaard and the decor was a mixture of the two colours. The royal blue of Temeria and the black of Nilfgaard.

The room has been immortalised in paint on multiple occasions so I won’t describe it in detail. A large hall with pillars holding up the roof. A semi-circular raised area with the throne at the centre is at one end with doors past it that lead further into the castle and the great towers that lead up to the royal suites and various other rooms.

And as I shuffled in, I wondered if even at the height of King Foltest’s reign, the room had ever been this full.

The first task was to get to the central avenue so that we could walk towards the throne. The court did not step aside for us and they watched as we walked forward. I went slowly, leaning on my one with my right hand which was already aching. I wanted to stride forward and the need to do that was strong in me, but long experience with the practice steps had taught me that that kind of overconfidence would be punished by my rebellious limbs.

The room was silent. The bottom of my cane rattled on the tile floor. Emma and Laurelen walked beside me as Lord Geralt and Lady Yennefer vanished off somewhere.

Everyone turned and looked at us. And the sounds of that movement were deafening. The sounds of armour as those men, and a growing number of women, who wore armour to these kinds of courtly occasions clanked and rattled as they turned. Not just that though, but the footfalls of everyone as they shuffled around to look at us. The sounds of thick dresses and petticoats scraping against the floor and each other. All of it conspired to amplify each other into a cacophony of movement.

There were murmurs and gasps as well. Men and women speaking behind shielding hands to each other, bending to whisper small observations and witticisms. Some of it would be friendly to us, outrage on our behalf, astonishment at our appearances but others of it would be mocking, joking and teasing our weaknesses.

Like the desire to stride forward, injuries be damned, I also wanted to look around. I wanted to note those people that were laughing and those people that were being supportive. I also wanted to look for friends that I knew must be here. Sooner or later, there must be friends in the throng.

But like the urge to stride forwards, I knew that this would be a mistake. I needed to keep my eyes on what I was doing, concentrating on what was happening lest I trip over the flagstones and tiles. They might look flat and level to the naked eye but I should tell you that that is not the case for a person that is relearning how to walk.

So I focused on what I was doing. All the while, I knew exactly what I… What we looked like. We looked like a trio of people that were beaten. We were moving forward as though we were on our way to our eventual deaths. Our heads were bowed, shuffling forward as though we were reluctant to end up where we were going. We must have looked awful.

To my horror, I even had to stop for a breath and as I did, I glanced at Emma who was also head down, all but shrinking from the people around us. Not all that long ago, she would have been able to walk into a room like this one with the sure knowledge that most of the people there owed her money. And therefore she would have walked in, head high, daring any single one of them to meet her gaze.

Laurelen’s gaze was no higher. She was watching the pair of us. The woman that she loved and the man that she claimed as her brother and so she also looked as though she was sharing our defeat. I took a breath and walked on, forcing myself to take the next step and the next step. The precarious moment when I had to move my cane and rest on my feet alone with my balance being so precarious.

Then we came to the end of the avenue. This, at least, had been carpeted and the three of us formed up there with Emma and Laurelen forming the points of the triangle behind me. We looked up and we could see the throne at the end of the avenue in which the Empress was sitting.

She was wearing armour.