(Warning: Some lewd and potentially offensive jokes.)

“So,” I told Kerrass as we rode north. “I think you should talk to her. Write her or something.”

“When are you going to leave this alone Freddie?”

“Mmm, never.” I told him. “Besides, after all the fun that you had at my expense over the Ariadne thing, I think I deserve some payback.”

“For the last time,” he said. “It's not up for discussion. She's sixteen years old.”

“She's nearly seventeen, going on a hundred and thirty four.

“But she's only been conscious for sixteen years.”

“She's also a Princess, although technically a Queen by now, and was forced to mature faster than anyone has ever done. Look, I don't understand why you're finding this difficult.”

“Don't you? Do you really not understand why this is so difficult for me?”

“To be fair,” Sir Rickard, who was riding on the other side of us, “I don't entirely understand any part of the situation. Can someone go through it for me.”

Kerrass pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

“Here it is,” I explained to the knight. “Kerrass here, has been in love with the woman that has been called Sleeping Beauty for over a hundred years.”

“I thought he'd only been alive for the last ninety odd.”

“No, I mean that she's been called that for the last hundred years.”

“That would make more sense.”

I was really coming to enjoy the dry humour of Sir Rickard. He was still all but indistinguishable from his men. The only badge of his rank was the signalling horn that he wore on a strap over his shoulder. Other than that, he rode in his shirtsleeves like his men with his hair long and his armour in a bag. Also, his equipment was a little better quality although not by much. I know that he paid for a lot of his men's equipment out of his own pocket, insisting on the best bows and weapons that money could buy. He would take his men into Oxenfurt and buying weapons according to their own preferences. He carried a heavy broadsword and a shield without ornament and his bow was a recurved thing of beauty which he spent hours caring for.

It was a much slower journey than the one that we had taken when we had first met. That time we had been riding south towards my families castle with breakneck, almost reckless speed. We had commandeered horses as went to maintain our fast pace and had eaten in our saddles. I had been in a state of grief, all but falling off my horse when spasms of grief would overcome me without warning and we hadn't really gotten the chance to get to know each other.

Now though, Sir Rickard was fast becoming another friend.

He had sixteen of his bastards with us and they rode easily in front, behind and off to one side in a formation that I doubt is in any of the military hand books. I know that there were a couple of outriders on either side as well as an advance scout and another man bringing up the rear that would, in theory, warn us about any followers and any advance attacks. The rest of them rode with an easy, relaxed posture. Their swords were in scabbards at their stirrups and their shields were attached next to it. I had seen how fast these men could go from a relaxed posture to being fully armed and ready for a fight.

Instead they rode with their bows cradled in their arms as though they were cradling their children. Each horse had an arrow bag of no less than a hundred arrows on their opposite stirrup from their swords and shields.

I had been surprised as to how many arrows each man had wanted, when I had seen them earlier they had had relatively small bundles of arrows, but this time Sir Rickard had insisted that the men equip as though they were heading to battle. I had asked him about that and he had simply asked me how many arrows a fully trained archer could fire in the space of a minute. Then he had asked me how many decent fletchers there were with Sam's forces.

Then he told me that most military long-bowmen traditionally expected to carry a couple of hundred arrows into battle. Then he had asked whether I could fit that many arrows into a normal hunting quiver.

I had left, admitting that I didn't know that much about warfare. He had laughed, admitting that he didn't know that much about history either so that made us even.

But other than their weapons, they wore no uniforms or armour. Riding easily in their shirtsleeves and their trousers. They traded jokes and abuse with each other, calling of names and insults was common. Some men smoked, another man was singing gently with astonishing craft and a voice that rasped with age and a pitch that was pure and unwavering.

We rode easily, stopping often and avoiding winding ourselves or our horses. We wanted to be ready for anything as there were still regular reports of bandits in the countryside. I even know that we were mistaken for a band of bandits at one point and I had to exert my fragile authority. In the end though there was a line of armoured men facing the line of grinning bastards before both sides decided that it would be better to walk away and live another day.

When we stopped, a couple of the men who had been poachers would set traps and we managed to live off the road fairly well. When the night fell we would gather, sentry's would be sent out and hid in the undergrowth to protect us from whatever might be out there and we sat, the men off to one side and Sir Rickard, Kerrass and I nearby in our own little clique.

The first night I had tried to mix with the men, share some drinks, play some cards and tell some jokes and stories but I had felt...uncomfortable and out of place until Sir Rickard had come to collect me and take me over to where there was a smaller camp fire that he had built next to his own bedroll where he had a pot of tea brewing.

“They don't want us to be the same as them.” Kerrass had been off somewhere training. Working his own sword forms separate from the rest of us. “Don't take offence.”

“Why?”

Rickard grinned. He has this scar across his cheek that always makes him look as though he's sneering except when he smiles which knocks a clear ten years off his age. Most of the time he comes across as this kind of hardened, grizzled veteran of many campaigns but it's easy to forget that he's only a couple of years older than me.

“I read your book.” he said, gesturing for me to join him. He poured me a mug of the bitter soldiers drink that they all seemed to like and passed it over as I settled in. “I thought it best to know something of the family that I would be working for.”

“Oh yes, and what did you think.”

“I think that you're a little naïve with your class politics.”

I laughed at him. “Thanks a lot.”

“Don't get me wrong. I think it's admirable a lot of the things that you say. I agree with you on a good chunk of it. The vast majority of the noble-class are absolutely worthless scum and could do with fighting a decent battle on the front lines of the pike regiments. Or failing that, a day digging latrines, shovelling muck out over someone else's stables or my personal favourite which is listening to the wailing of those people that have lost someone to the various wars, famines and diseases that nobles simply ignore from the safety of their homes.”

“I sense that there's a but coming.”

“And there is. There is one place where men like to be separate from their ruling classes and that's in the army.”

I said nothing, just sat and drank my tea.

“Men like knights and officers to be separate from them. Above them somehow. They want to look up to them and think that, no matter how much they might hate their knight, that that same knight is different somehow. Blessed is the word.”

“Why?”

“Interesting question. Soldiers are the most superstitious bastards on the continent. More than sailors, merchants or farmers. And just as much as the soldier has a lucky dagger, a lucky rabbits foot or their lucky arrow. They like to believe that their officer is a man apart. That he has been blessed, consecrated and set apart to do better things. That way, if he is a better man, then he will be able to lead them to safety.”

“You once told me that leadership was easy. Just pick some simple rules that men could follow easily.”

“That's right. Also, set high standards and meet those standards yourself. In short, never ask a man or a subordinate to do something that you wouldn't do yourself. Also, give credit where it's due. I mean there are some refinements as well but that's just about the long and short of it.”

“So why do the men need their officers to be apart from them?”

“Because in being apart, they are special. They are lucky. They lead charmed lives and will always, always bring them home.”

“That sounds more like trust. That they trust you to do those things.”

“That's right. But why do they trust me?”

“Because you are lucky.”

“Correct. I'm the luckiest cunt on the face of the planet.” He said it gloomily. “I swear, if I'd known what was going to happen, that Lord Natalis was going to knight me in return for saving his life I would have run a mile instead. Bastard.”

“You never told me what happened.”

“That's because, in all truth, I don't really know myself. I was just a common soldier.” He poured himself another drink, topping it up a little from a hip flask which he offered to me. I declined. “They used to call us The Harriers in Temeria. Our job was to give the enemy headaches.”

“This all sounds very technical to me.”

He laughed.

“No, what I mean is, we would sneak round and fire a bunch of volleys of arrows into unprotected flanks before legging it. Or we would make ourselves a big and tempting target to try and draw out the enemy and make them expose themselves to a waiting cavalry charge. In short, if there was a nasty job where they needed some hard fighting and creative thinking it was our job to do it. The Redanians called the same job “skirmishers” while the Kaedweni referred to us as “mounted infantry.” Lightly armed and armoured bastards who can move with great speed and do any number of things, from destroying siege equipment to disturbing an enemy shield wall.”

“How do you do that?”

“Oh you'll be surprised. There aren't actually a lot of uniforms on a battlefield, a good chunk of the skill of being a soldier is knowing who's on the other side and who's on your side. A lot of it is in the recognising of the standard issued equipment, but anyway.

“I once had to sneak right round an enemies lines and then came up through their baggage train. A knight thought I was being cowardly and pushed me into line. There were a few dozen of us and because I was then in the ranks, I could tell the people around me that the people coming up were my mates and then they could be pushed through to join me.

“So there we stood, in the middle of our enemies lines watching our own soldiers marching towards us in good order. We waited to meet them. I caught the eye of a soldier who knew me and gave him a little wave. He saw me and passed word to his sergeants who called the charge. As he did so, we turned and started hacking away. The enemy shield wall shattered like glass.”

He chuckled at the memory while I did my best not to look appalled.

“But anyway, we could all ride so that we could get about the battlefield as quickly as possible. The enemy were falling back and we were getting a little too far back from our own lives for comfort so the call was given and we started to ride back to our own lines.

“Now, the thing that you have to remember about Constable Natalis is that he's a very sensible commander. He's not like the Foltests or Henselts of the world in that he likes to command a battle from a hilltop so that he can see what's going on and make proper and informed decisions. When to charge, when to fall back, when are the forces beginning to bend, where is our line going to break, where is their line going to break, and so on. That's not to say that he won't get his hands dirty when he has to. He knows the value of being a fighting general but he only commits himself when there are no more orders to be given. When the reserves have been committed, the archers have run out of arrows and it's getting to the point of it just being brutal and hard hitting.

“So we were fighting against the black ones. It was the last war, shortly after Foltest was killed and we weren't doing well. Not well at all. This must have been, just before the winter where Radovid invaded Kaedwen.”

I nodded to show that I was up to date with wherever he was.

“We were retreating north. The Black ones had crossed the Yaruga and nothing we could do was stopping them. The problem was that Foltest wasn't there to call up the nobles so the nobles were just fucking off and taking their troops with them. The only people left were those of us that had nowhere else to go. Not gonna lie, more than a little tempted to go myself.

“It was getting colder. The vast majority of the army was fleeing north. Those of us that managed to keep our discipline had stayed back as a rear guard. Natalis had stayed with us as well. Both because of the kind of man that he is and also because we were the only troops that might actually listen to him rather than just throwing our weapons down and running for it.”

“We went forward. Aiming to snipe at the vanguard. Running backwards when the cavalry tried to mount a charge. We weren't doing anything other than slowing them down as their armour was far too thick to properly penetrate and they had gotten wise to our tricks. We were slowing things down but only because they had had to advance their heavily armoured troops to the front to prevent us from picking them off. But someone in their command structure had gotten clever. They advanced to behind the heavy troops and when we started our own volleys, they answered with a bombardment of arrows and crossbow bolts.

“All that we could do was to find what cover we could and hide, taking cover behind the tiny shields that we had been issued, and making ourselves as small as we possibly could.

“Survival was a lottery. Those of us that lived, didn't do so because we were better than those who died but because we were luckier.

“Then the enemy commander showed that he was really clever, the heavy ranks opened and the cavalry charged.

“Slaughter isn't the word for it. We broke, because of course we did. At best, we were light infantry. The lightest of chain mail and our shields weren't going to stand up to a broadsword impact, let alone one carried by a cavalryman.

“Natalis charged with his escort. I don't know if you know about the Temerian order of battle but the way it works is that the Lord General travels with the standard. Heavy knights surrounding the army banner with halbards and all of the nasty tools that military minds can consider. There weren't many of them but when those bastards charge, you know about it.

“But our opposite numbers knew about it too. They saw the General's banner coming for them so they ran through us, hacking and slashing as they went, but then the enemy missile troops started to change their targets from us to Natalis' people.

“It's not that they were poorly armoured. Nor were our earlier efforts so bad that we couldn't have effected the black ones but there's a difference between shooting at advancing soldiers with lightish bows to sustained volley fire from trained long-bowmen. We had damaged the Nilfgaardians and they couldn't advance without caution. The sheer weight of fire from the Nilfgaardians meant that Natalis' men started to fall. Including the banner bearer.”

Rickard sighed and poured himself another mug of the strong herbal drink. I wasn't the only man that was listening to the story and it was beginning to feel as though it was one of those, often told stories, that men love to listen to.

“Soldiers are a funny lot.” He said after a while. “And I was no different, back when I fought on foot rather than from horseback. Most of us didn't sign up to the army because we felt some sense of patriotism or honour. This is the standing army that I'm talking about now, not the levies or the various guards of the various Lords.

“We're talking the proper army. You don't do that kind of thing for the love of country or because you feel like you have a calling. You do it because you don't have a choice, most often because you have to either join the army or starve to death, or go to the penal colonies, or jail or the hangman. Men join the army when they're at their lowest point of life but then they are given their equipment, taught how to use it and then there's a steady torrent of abuse thrown at you. Your country hates you, your people hate you, often even your lords hate you.

“You quickly learn that there's no-one that you can depend on, other than each other and so, you learn to depend on the man next to you. Even if you hate each other, you depend on each other for survival. You have pride in each other and the fact that no-one else would do this fucking job but us. The symbol of that is the flag.

“If you ask the average soldier why they're fighting and you would get a variety of answers. Their country, won't even come into the top ten most common answers. The top three will be the money,”

He counted them off his fingers,

“Their mates,”

Another finger,

“And their flag.”

A third finger.

“Flags do funny things to soldiers and when that standard fell under the weight of the number of arrows, you could audibly hear an army groan. No-one gave an order but suddenly, we were running towards where Natalis and his men were falling off their horses. As is often the case, a lot of the men were un-hurt by the falling arrows but the horses weren't so lucky.

“And the arrows were still falling.

“We ran in, our numbers dwindling, many of us gave up and were already sprinting for the safety of out own lines. Many more were dead or dying but then there were about half a dozen of us that were amongst the General's party. We found the flag and hoisted it back up. A buddy of mine called Lorick waved it around in an effort to tell our side that we were still alive and that we needed help. One of the knights insisted that he was, and I quote, “too important to die,” and fled leaving us there. I took great delight in seeing his body later when he had been ridden down. We lost another man then as the last of the arrows fell as they'd stopped shooting.

“We could feel the ground shaking which meant that the cavalry was coming back. We found the general under his horse. His armour was good enough that he was essentially unhurt but he couldn't get out.

“There were four of us left including Lorick who was waving the flag. The rest of the flag party were down, dead, dying or fled and I saw that we wouldn't get him out from his horse.

“So I picked up one of the axes that they used to protect the standard.”

He chuckled suddenly. “I've still got the axe, it's back at the castle. Absolutely ludicrous it is. I've tried using it in the practice fields and I can barely lift the damn thing let alone use it effectively. But I was terrified and angry at the fact that the stale-mate had been broken and that we were on the losing side. I didn't care about the general but those fucking cavalrymen were going down.

“I don't remember much of it. I remember screaming in terror and swinging that axe wildly. When the cavalry had passed, some of them dismounted and came at us on foot. The prize of taking the enemy standard as well as the enemy general, one of the few men that the north still had that knew when to fight, when to retreat and how to win. Him and Lord Roche were the only real leaders we had left by that point as the rest had signed up with Radovid.

“Idiots.

“Guess who Radovid put in the vanguard, every time he attacked someone else. Prove yourself faithless and no-one will ever trust you again.

“But the prize of the enemies banner would have been too good to give up.

“Lord Natalis, I still can't call him John even though he tries to insist every time I see him, says that, as my remaining two comrades dragged him out from under his horse, I was screaming at the enemy to come on. Begging them to come and die by my hand. If you let him, he will tell you stories of the dozens of men that I killed that day and how I made the ground soggy with the enemies blood. He says that when he was freed, he and the others joined me and about how, three Temerian harriers, the constable of Temeria and the banner bearing Harrier routed the enemy. He goes so far as to say that the rest of them were just trying to keep up with me.

“Heh,

“We didn't route them. They were cavalry and not very good at fighting on foot. What had happened was that a bunch of our own cavalry, finally decided to do their fucking jobs and mounted a rescue party.

“Another piece of learning for you Lord Frederick. Infantrymen hate cavalrymen and vice versa.”

“Aren't you also cavalry now?” I enquire innocently.

He stared at me for a long time. “As you're a friend and your sister saved me from ignominy, I will refrain from killing you for that. I ride horses to get about. But I dismount when the fighting starts.”

“Fair enough,” I chuckled.

“As I say, I don't remember much of it. I remember that Natalis had to insist that the three of us should come with him and that the cavalry were not to leave us behind. We'd lost another man in the fighting. We were dropped off with the army, and the three of us wandered round in a daze. We found the remains of our unit, those who hadn't come with us towards the flag party and we told our story. It wasn't until two days later before Lord Natalis found the time to “reward us.”

“My fellows were promoted to Sergeants and I was knighted. At the time I remember being honoured. Now?”

He sighed.

“Despite everything that's happened. Despite the increase in status and the ability to tell people like Lord Robart to fuck off and not have to worry about the flogging afterwards. Despite meeting your family and the Lady Shani. Sometimes, I wish he'd just given me a sack of gold and made me a Sergeant.”

“Why?”

“Because now....I'm not a common soldier any more. I'm never going to be one of the lads again and they won't accept me amongst them. I can't go drinking or whoring with my mates. I can't go through life depending on being told what to do. I'm not one of them any more. Luckily, they think I'm lucky and so they follow me where I lead them. A fact that never ceases to astonish me.”

He grinned at me sidelong. “Don't tell them I said that.”

“I won't”

“But I'm not one of them any more. But neither am I one of your lot.”

“My lot?”

“Yeah, don't get me wrong. I like your family for the most part. Lord Samuel's a bit up himself but your sister's decent enough. She pretends not to notice that I check to see which knife and fork she's using before I select my own cutlery from the positive arsenal of silverwear that's put before me. I think she's even considering asking me to stay on as captain of the guard when Captain Froggart retires. A position which I never thought I would achieve when I ran away from the watch to join the army.”

“She did mention....”

“And it is tempting. But I'm not one of you. I study every day, but I don't know how to bow, I don't know the proper way to talk or how to behave. I'm never gonna marry some lady and go hunting and keep dogs and falcons. I know nothing about art or wine or etiquette or any of the other things that you're supposed to be good at if you're a lord.

“So I'm not a common soldier, but nor am I a lord of men. I'm caught in the middle.”

“You sound a little bitter.”

“Sometimes,” he mused. “Sometimes when I hear a song being sung in a pub or I see a campfire with a group of men sitting round it. Like that one over there.” he gestured.

“But that's not the point.” He said after a while. “The point is, soldiers are soldiers. In the same way that you will never be a farmer, or a tradesman. You will never be a soldier. Don't try to be or they will resent you for it.”

“Not to argue the point.” I said, “But I have a good relationship with many of the men back at the castle.”

“You do. But those men have known you since you were a boy. They're good men, all. But you are lord of the manor. They like you because they see you working hard and because you talk to them rather than at them. You take care of your own shite. As I say, Leadership. Set the standard and meet it yourself. When you wake up, you get up and train hard. You see to your own equipment, take care of your horse and get involved in castle life. That might seem like a low bar to you, and it is, but a surprisingly large number of your class....our class....don't meet that standard.”

I spent a long time thinking about that over the march. Looking at my interactions with the servants and the men-at-arms in a new light.

I spent some time over the next few days watching how Sir Rickard interacted with his men and found that I was actually quite surprised. He hardly gave any orders, indeed, he hardly interacted with them at all other than to occasionally thank the man that brought him a cup of tea or his share of the evening's rations. He would occasionally call out for drills and when they men did train then Rickard worked just as hard as the rest of them. He practised his shooting, sword play and horse-work along with the rest. The only difference seemed to be that when the entire thing was over and everyone stopped for the night, he would go off to his own camp-fire and the men would go over to theirs.

He would arbitrarily pick a time and go out to check the sentries though. Sometimes in the middle of the night where he would gather up his sword and have a wander around to see if he could find his own sentries. It seemed to be a game between him and the men. If they could challenge him before he saw them then they would consider themselves to have won a point.

I asked him about this as well, a couple of days north of Coulthard castle and he rubbed his chin.

“The lads know their jobs,” he told me. “Why would I try and tell them how to do it when they already know it. They know what happens if I catch any of them shirking so....” he shrugged.

But after a while, I did begin to see his loneliness, more than I had previously thought possible, I found myself hoping that he and Shani manage to get it together. Two intensely lonely people, in positions that they shouldn't be doing, the one because women are generally not allowed to become accredited doctors and the other because he was common born and shouldn't be allowed to be a knight. I hope that the two of them manage to come to some kind of agreement as I think they would do well together.

But we travelled slowly, taking our time. Our plan was to travel along the main northern road as far as Blavikan before we set off east, following the line of the river up and into the mountains to where the old Kalayn lands were. We travelled easily as well, stopping off at various way posts to collect the news and the dispatches which is where Kerrass received the message that had caused so much amusement between Sir Rickard and I.

It was a long letter and although I didn't get to read it, I did get to see that it was written in a flowing hand, a little more angular than the more modern styles of penmanship and that the letter bore the seal of the Southern Kingdom of Dorn.

My entertainment started the morning after he had received the letter as I watched him take it out of his saddle-bags and examine it for a long time, as far as I could tell he hadn't broken the seal. He sat and stared at it for a long time. He was sat in front of a fire, his breakfast untouched next to him. He had cleaned himself up after we had spent a bunch of time training before sitting down to stow his gear when he produced the scroll. There were several times where he looked as though he was going to hold it out towards the fire but, at the last second, he pulled himself back. Finally though, after staring at the seal for a long time, he broke it with his thumb and read the contents quickly.

He didn't get to finish it though as it was shortly after this that The Sergeant of the bastards. A huge Skelligan man named Padraig, called out that it was time to mount up.

Just as another aside, calling him a Sergeant is doing him a disservice. The way Rickard treats him is a bit closer to a second in command.

But I watched Kerrass over the course of the day and I could feel my amusement growing. Periodically he would reach out and touch the part of his jacket where I had seen him stow the message. I managed to contain my mirth until Kerrass, Rickard and I were sat around the camp-fire that night after doing some training and having something to eat. Our habit was that we would sit together, Rickard was usually reading something as he was stubbornly trying to improve himself. At the moment he was reading a book on the history of Temeria.

It's very bad of me, but I had to force myself not to help him with his reading as he still has to track the words with his finger and is often sounding out the words as he reads them. He tells me that he can read military despatches easily where they're deliberately written and worded so that imbeciles can understand them, his words, but some of the works of the poets escape him. He tells me that one of the first things he had to do upon being made a knight was to learn to read and write, an activity which he had considered a waste of time as he could have spent that time killing Nilfgaardians.

But there we were, sat around the fire, Rickard reading, myself making some notes while Kerrass stared into the flames, when I could no longer resist it.

“So how's the Princess?” I asked Kerrass, doing my best to look all innocent.

“What?” he looked startled and I could no longer help myself. There was no holding it back any more and I started to laugh. “Admit it Kerrass, you were thinking of a small woman with thick blonde hair and blue eyes weren't you.”

He glared at me. “If you're going to be in one of these moods then I'm going to go off and sleep somewhere else.” So saying he gathered up his blanket, took some firewood and started his own small camp a little distance off. My giggling didn't subside though.

“What was that all about?” Rickard asked, marking his place in the book he was reading with his thumb.

“He got a letter from “Sleeping Beauty” yesterday, in amongst all the despatches.”

“Oh. You mean the one that you and he....”

“Woke up from the curse yes.”

“The one that he.....”

“That's the one. Despite his best efforts, she's decided that she likes him and wants to see him again. He is resisting.”

“Why?”

“Because he likes her back.”

Rickard's face creased in confusion.

“That makes no sense.”

“I know,” I told him laughing. “That's why I'm having so much fun with it.”

“You're a bad man,” Rickard told me.

“Yes,” I admitted, “but to be fair, he was the one that set me up with an elder vampire,”

“So, just to be clear, your vengeance for him setting you up with a gorgeous, immortal vampire woman, is to tease him about, and set him up with, a woman who is declared the most beautiful woman in all the land.”

“Pretty much, you wanna help?”

“Holy Thunder, yes.”

So the following day we started off. Just innocent questions, little needling points and questions. Apart from anything else, it was a way to pass the time. We were travelling up the main road so there wasn't a great deal to do other than to watch the scenery go by. The bastards did their best to look villainous and scare the shite out of passing merchants and farmers which I should have been outraged at, but I couldn't help laugh at. But it was also a little heart-warming how they all stopped, spontaneously and without orders given to help a tinker get a new wheel onto his wagon. Also the way they would form up into perfect military order whenever there were other soldiers on the move.

Then they would leer at some perfumed nobleman's wife and her calls of outrage would set the men laughing again. The mood was infectious and it was hard not to enjoy myself.

“So, hang on, let me see if I've....” Rickard scratched his head for the effect. He had asked all of these questions multiple times but kept on asking me to go through it. “She fancies him?”

“Yes,”

“And he loves her?”

“Yes.”

“Then am I being really stupid?”

“Undoubtedly,” Kerrass intoned with dire overtones to his voice.

Rickard and I ignored him.

“Get together with the girl, bang her brains out, get it out of your system, and hers, and then move on. Or, if that actively makes the problem worse then give it up as a bad job and settle down with the girl. I don't understand the problem.” Rickard declared.

“The problem is....”

“Is what?” Rickard did his best to look innocent. “That she's just too good for you?”

“She's a Queen.”

“So? Adds an extra thrill to proceedings.”

I was enjoying myself. Rickard had a gift for getting under Kerrass' skin when he put his mind to it.

“But I'm a Witcher.”

“So?”

“So.....”

Rickard made a pretence of considering it. “No, I still don't get it. You like her, she likes you. Make with the fucking. And always remember that you have to screw her till her ears bleed.” He accompanied the joke with a pelvic thrust.

I groaned and slapped him.

“You don't understand. She will need to marry.”

“So?”

“And produce children.”

“So?”

“And I can't do that for her.”

“So?”

“So I thought that that was quite an important step.”

Rickard considered.

“No, I'm pretty sure that you can marry the girl.”

Kerrass looked at him, somewhat aghast.

“What?” Rickard had been reading my book on the law. “She's the Queen right? So her word is law right? So she says she can marry whoever the hell she likes. Also, if the person she chooses to marry happens to be a Witcher then that's her decision and anyone who doesn't like it can fuck off.”

“But then her neighbours will invade.”

“No they won't.” I told him. It was my turn to join in on the argument now. “They're not going to invade. What is there to gain other than the ire of the Empress. Remember that Princess, sorry, Queen Dorn is close friends with the Empress now. If someone invades then all she has to do is to retreat to a border fort and wait while the invading army starves to death in her kingdom that is mostly still covered in blade vines. Then the Empress turns up with one of her southern armies who are bound to be getting a bit bored by now and be looking forward to a stomping and then it's all over.”

“But the Queen would never agree to that. She would owe even more to the crown.”

“You're thinking like a man Kerrass. If that happens she gets what she wants out of the situation which is, one less enemy on her borders.”

“I still can't give her any children.”

“But you can give her orgasms though right?”

“N....what”

“You nearly said no.” Rickard pointed and laughed.

“She needs to provide her Kingdom with an heir.” Kerrass insisted. We were getting to the stage in our entertainment that he would lose his temper and storm off.

“Yes.” I told him. “Yes she does, but there are ways and means of doing that nowadays. She could choose a consort. Or marry some idiot to get her pregnant, then get the Empress to order her “divorced” which the Empress, who's facing a similar problem, would undoubtedly do and then the problem is solved.”

“But she's sixteen.”

“So?” Rickard again. “I lost my virginity at the age of thirteen. One of the older boys in the gang decided that it was time I became a man. The lads spent a day picking pockets for the purposes of buying me a night with Sally.”

“Sally?”

“Local prostitute, she was like an elder sister to all of us really. I think she must have been in her late teens or early twenties.” His eyes unfocused as he stared off into the mists of memory.

But I was morbidly fascinated with this.

“Good memories?”

“Best twenty three seconds of my life.” Rickard told me happily. “It was over so quickly that she took pity on me and gave me another go half an hour later. I'll never forget it. The first few seconds of thinking that there was nothing to this “sexing” lark and that I could carry on pounding away for hours. Ten seconds later I was just holding on for dear life trying not to disappoint her. She was good to me though.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died. Got her throat slit seven months later by a customer for saying something that he didn't like. We always told her that she was pretty enough to go and work in one of the proper houses in Vizima but she didn't want to go. She wanted to look after her old man. A drunken idiot who drank away every penny that she earned. Git.”

A sudden flash of anger crossed the face of the normally relatively placid man. “But we weren't talking about me, we were talking about Kerrass and this “Sleeping Beauty” That I've heard so much about.”

“Look,” Kerrass tried to make his voice a little dangerous. “Just drop this topic of conversation would you.”

Sir Rickard and I exchanged glances as we pretended to consider it for a while.

“Nah,” I said.

“This is way too much fun”

“She's only sixteen.” Kerrass protested again.

“Nearly seventeen.” I pointed out....again.

“And I'm pushing a hundred.”

“You're talking to the man that's about to marry a nine hundred year old vampire.” I pointed out.

“Yes, but to be fair to Kerrass here. That's not a good point.” Rickard put in. “I've met your betrothed and she is a lot better looking than Kerrass is.”

“That is a good point.”

“Look,” Kerrass decided. “It's not going to happen so just drop it.”

He kicked his horse into a canter and went up to join the advance scouts.

This was the pattern for a lot of the time that it took us to head north. Rickard and I tormenting Kerrass as we travelled before Kerrass would take his vengeance out on us when we stopped for the night and we trained.

It was a good few weeks.

“So what is his issue?” Rickard asked me one night before we settled in for the night. “I genuinely don't get it.”

I thought about it as I poked the small fire that we had set up with a bit of twig before checking to see where Kerrass was. “It's complicated.” I told Rickard. “You've read my accounts on the subject right. About what happened between him and her.”

“I have. Don't get me wrong, it sounds all kinds of fucked up.”

“It is, and it was. But I think it's complicated. He loves her. There's no doubt in my mind about that. I don't think there's a day goes by where he doesn't think about her in some way. But there's also a reason why he instantly dropped everything to come chasing round the continent with me in a, probably futile, effort to find out what happened to Francesca. Yes loyalty to me is part of it but it's also an effort to keep himself away from her.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Rickard shook his head in disbelief.

“I think there's a lot going on there.” I continued. “The Princess once told me that he's the only person who has ever treated her like a normal person and she loves him for it. She knows about all of the horror and she knows about everything that Kerrass did for her and she loves him for it. But when he looks at her, he sees everything he ever did wrong, or everything that he feels as though he allowed to happen to her.

“The other thing about Kerrass is that he has a martyr complex a mile wild. He blames himself for every evil thing that has ever happened in his life along with every bad deed that he has ever performed. While at the same time, he is unable to see any of the good that he's done. So the other reason for staying away from the girl, sorry, the woman that he loves is that he doesn't believe that he has any right to being happy.”

Rickard stared into the flames. “Damn,” he said.

“Pretty much.” I agreed. “Everything he says about him being older than her, along with her needing heirs and her deserving better than him is true and she knows that. But he's trying to make that choice for her which she is rebelling against.”

“Will he break and go to her do you think?”

“I don't know. I hope so. Even if it is only for a little while. Both of them are very damaged souls and they might be able to help each other out there. Plus,” I chuckled at the thought. “I don't know if you've met her.”

“I haven't,”

“But she's very determined. It might get to a point where Kerrass doesn't have any choice in the matter.”

“Serves him right.”

“And that's if the Empress doesn't get involved. The Empress' knitting circle is increasing in size, lots of powerful and important women getting together and realising that they have more influence than they previously thought possible. The world is not going to be the same after this. Not for anyone.”

“No bad thing in my book.”

“Possibly not. But still.”

“How far have we got before we get to your brothers lands?”

“We should be reaching the border in a few days where the main road goes up towards them. The castle itself is supposed to be up among the foothills of the mountains.”

“You ever been there?”

“Once when I was little. I don't remember much of it though as I was five. I remember it being a dark place and spending most of the time there being afraid of things. We weren't there long and I get the feeling that we only went out of some kind of sense of duty but that no-one involved wanted us to stay there for long.”

“What's the terrain like?”

“Rocky, you're up amongst the foothills of the mountains up there. Sheep and goat farming country. There might be mining deposits up there but from what I understand, my Great Grandfather on my mothers side wasn't that keen on getting in the dwarven or magical expertise that would have been needed to find whatever ores or deposits that there might have been up there and so the place has generally fallen on hard times. I get the feeling that there are a few villages there that are mostly holding on through sheer stubbornness.”

“Lovely. Wooded or open?”

“I heard that it's wooded. It's up near the mountains, miles away from any kind of easy route to get decent quantities of lumber down from the hills so I can't think that there would have been any kind of serious deforestation happening.”

“Mmm.” He picked some left over rabbit out of his teeth. We had plenty of rations but the men did their best to live off the land wherever possible, shooting rabbits as we rode and setting traps around the camp for any other stray game that might be picked up. The skill of the bastards was astonishing and there was rarely an evening went by where we were unable to supplement our rations with something a bit more exciting. “What are we likely going to be going up against?”

“The job is two-fold for us, for Kerrass and I I mean. The first job is to clean out the castle. A lot of really dark stuff happened up there and we need to make sure that the remains are put to rest and whatever ghosts and spirits that are flying around are put to rest.”

“You mean destroyed.”

“Yes, unless we can figure out a way to give them the rest that they need. But the other reason that we're going is to see to any remains of the cult that the Kalayn family were part of. From what Cousin Raynard told us, the cult had been falling on hard times, with the older generation dying off and the younger generation beginning to lose interest. However, the very fact that Raynard himself managed to be produced as a devout worshipper of the crooked man by this area suggests that the cult itself is not....entirely dead. So we want to go up and see if there's anything still going around up there and if they might have been involved with Francesca's disappearance.”

“How likely is that to be a thing?”

“We don't know. So we're going to look.”

“Makes sense. Who is the crooked man?”

“Again, I have to ask. But you've read my work on the matter right?”

“I have, and with great interest. But lay it out for me anyway.”

“As best as we can understand the crooked man was an old pagan deity. The kind of spirit where farmers and things used to make sacrifices to him in an effort to make up for bad harvests, diseases in the cattle and things like that. They called him the crooked man of the mound. Crom Cruarch. However the name seems to have been caught up with something else. The historical worship of Crom Cruarch is relatively harmless farmer superstition whereas the cult was dangerous so Mark thinks that one of two things have happened.

“The most likely thing that has happened is that the original cultists realised that things were happening when they slaked their unusual and awful lusts. Then they had a look around for whatever cults or other religions that they could find and adopted the first name that they liked the sound of. This would mean that what they're actually worshipping isn't Crom Cruarch or at least, not the original version of him but they have given their new....deity that name. This seems the most likely explanation as all the cultists that we have heard about so far have been nobles of various different varieties and it seems difficult to believe that they would deliberately choose an old religion of a group of farmers.”

“So they made contact with a power, tried to figure out what, or who it was, and then just picked the first name they liked the sound of.”

“Pretty much.”

“Nobles.” Rickard's voice dripped with scorn.

“I tend to agree. But the other possibility is that the figure of Crom himself has changed in some way. That what we know about him is incorrect. This is by far the more terrifying of the possibilities, however unlikely.”

“Why unlikely. Isn't one spirit or “power” the same as any other?”

“It would be, but the symbols this cult use are the denial of the natural order. Crom was a God of the harvest, or at least that's what we think he was. Also, Crom has his own symbol, and we know what he looks like. He looks like a foul misshapen lump of a man, a kind of limping hunchback. It's entirely possible that those ancient villagers saw some kind of creature with some kind of power. Not unlike a Godling. Then, when they mistook it for a God, then it behaved like a God in turn. I can't answer for that, it's just a theory, although in dong so he would be very similar in appearance to the Nilfgaardian “Rumplestiltzkin”. Regardless, he wasn't a very nice creature. The villagers were supposed to sacrifice their young to the creature. Baby's at first but later it became lambs and other small animals.”

“Still sounds pretty unpleasant.”

“Oh don't get me wrong, blood sacrifice is still awful but in this case, the rites don't track. Crom worship was about the sacrifice of the one for the good of the many. A child or three in return for a bountiful harvest for all the surviving children as well as the rest of the village. What we saw was the sacrifice of many to slake the lusts of a few and to empower.....something. Not for the sake of sustenance out of some kind of misguided desperation but to slake lusts and desires and the need for taboo. The cultists belittled and tortured those that they saw as being lesser beings than themselves.

“Both religions were bloody and unpleasant but the one is not the same as the other.”

Rickard grunted. “They both sound pretty bloody and unpleasant to me.”

“Who do you worship?”

“Me? I don't really know. Like most soldiers though, I suppose that if I follow anyone it would be Kreve. I like Kreve, he's a remarkably un-complicated God.”

“That doesn't surprise me. I'm told that he is the God of Soldiers.”

“Mmm,” he grunted. “The God of fighting, decisiveness, risk-taking and and defence. What's not to like? But still, I'm not that religious. It's not that I don't believe it's just that it's really hard not to pray when you're under heavy fire from an enemy, or you have to charge the breach of a fortress or....”

“I get the picture. My tutor once told me that it's the same reason that Melitele is so popular. It's really hard for a woman to not blaspheme when she's giving birth so it helps if she has someone to blaspheme against.”

Rickard grunted his agreement.

We spent the next few days climbing as the road started to rise up towards the mountains. We had travelled alongside the river since Blavikan, there not being that many ports further up river which meant that the possibility of catching a barge up river was impossible. The roads were also, not the greatest quality being as most of the roads were simply there so that people who lived further inland towards the mountains, could come down towards Blavikan and the road in order to get to other, more civilised areas. The roads to get over the mountains into Kaedwen were easier to use a little further north so most merchants and serious travellers went that way rather than trying to pass over the mountains.

So the thing that we were using to travel was becoming less of a road and more, what would charitably be called, a track. You know the kind, with wheel ruts down either side of a central grass line that went down the middle. We travelled with the river on our right. We could see the odd fishing boar as well as an occasional, rather optimistic ferry crossing that looked unused to us and the southern banks of the river were well covered in farms and small villages.

North of the river though, civilisation was a lot sparser in it's coverage of the countryside. There were villages and farms but they were ruined or deserted as often as not. There were still men working in the fields but a lot of the ground had been abandoned to tall grass and wild-flowers. In comparison though, the game was plentiful and we lived well.

Although the war was now long over and the resulting wave of famines, diseases and banditry had all but died out, we could still see small groups of bandits here and there but they were small groups, no more than three or four desperate men who had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. And for whom there was no other solution other than to flee into the countryside. But they didn't look that frightening to me and the bastards didn't even twitch when the brigands came nearer.

Something else had stolen over the bastards. Although we were eating well and still taking our time in the growing heat of early summer, a sense of uneasiness began to creep over us. The men rode with bows strung and arrows nocked. That might not sound like much but you have to bear in mind that these men could draw and knock and arrow to a bowstring in a fraction of a heartbeat. In nocking the arrows they had saved themselves moments, not even that but they rode, like that. Eyes scanning the undergrowth and the treeline for any signs of enemies.

“What's that all about?” I asked Sir Rickard who still rode as though he was relaxed and enjoying himself. It was a lie though. He was just as tense as his men but he was hiding it better for their benefit.

“Mmm?”

“Why are they all on edge so much?”

Rickard looked around. “Tall grass, near a river, no common folk, plentiful game. Why is there no-one living out here?”

“Because most people have gone to where they might get some more money out of things. Because they can't make crops grow. Bandits? Any number of other things.”

“Precisely. There's no-one out here. There has to be a reason so we're ready for those reasons.”

Kerrass chuckled at the conversation. I was used to his changes and his sudden adjustments in his gear and equipment for completely arbitrary reasons so it was almost a surprise to notice that he was wearing both swords now whereas he'd only been wearing his steel sword up until quite recently.

I laughed aloud at myself.

“What?” Rickard asked me.

“City boy, last person to notice.” I said pointing at myself.

Rickard grinned in response.

We came to the fork in the road that Sam had told us about in our lest letter. The....okay the “path” went off to the left and that's when the climbing really started as we headed into the treeline. I saw Rickard Nod to the Sergeant who barked out a couple of orders and most of the men dismounted and headed into the undergrowth. A few were left to lead the horses along the path but there was no way that we would be able to ride. It was slow going and what had been a relatively pleasant journey so far turned into a slow going trudge. The ground was loose with scree and the trees closed in around us. At one point, Kerrass tugged on my sleeve and pointed, just in time for me to see and Endrega worker slipping off between the trees.

“Lovely,” I commented.

The other thing that contributed towards our sinking mood was the fact that it had started raining. The slow, kind of early summer, late spring kind of drizzle that left us feeling wet and grumpy. We slept carefully, propped against the evergreen trees on beds of needles that were surprisingly comfortable when you spread a blanket over them. Conversation became shorter and more to the point as well although there was some amusement.

Sir Rickard had decided that it was time that he wrote his first letter to Shani. It was an agonising process, although I had a slow suspicion that he was stringing it along deliberately in an effort to entertain Kerrass and I along with the rest of his men. Asking for suggestions as to what he should say and what he should write, various lewd things were suggested along with some occasionally, surprisingly sweet and sentimental lines that would have brought a tear to my eye if it hadn't immediately been followed up by some kind of joke.

As we climbed we were hailed from the treeline by a young man who looked as though he had been camping there for several days.

“Lord Frederick.” He shouted from his post. “Lord Frederick.” I looked up and recognised Sam's squire. I'd only met the lad a couple of times. Since Sam's inheritance of the Kalayn estates he had warrented a proper, full time squire and had been presented with one by the Redanian court.

I should talk about Sam's position a little bit so that people are up to speed. Now that Sam was a Lord in his own right, rather than “just” a knight, it was considered a little bit....off colour for him to still be serving in the Redanian client military on the grounds that, and I quote, “We don't want the common folk thinking that it's regular for the proper nobility to be serving in the military do we.”

If you're imagining that sentence being spoken in tones that would cut glass then you are doing a suitable imitation of how Sam claimed that the news was given to him. After that he had been given a squire from the more remote parts of Nilfgaard. I understand it was some kind of “cultural exchange” so that men of the south could find out what it's like to live in the North and vice versa. It's a nice idea in theory as it's a lot harder for me to hate Nilfgaard now that I've got to know a few of them. So if the future nobility of the North and South know each other and get on reasonably well then there is less likely to be future conflict.

Also it meant that both sides had hostages in the event of their adversaries getting a bit uppity.

Sam still served but he did so under his own heraldry and devices rather than in the more general forms of Redanian colours. He finally resigned in good order shortly after the Empress was crowned so that he could properly look after his own lands.

The Squire's a nice lad named Johann who, I suspect, is a little too interested in women and wine than he is in martial prowess, and rather likes the ideal of reading poetry to pretty maidens from underneath their balconies while sitting astride his noble steed. In short, he likes the romantic ideals of knighthood rather than the realities and I once teased him by asking him what he would do after declaring his undying love to the maiden. He seemed a little mystified by this as, as far as he was concerned, there was nothing more to it. He would declare his undying affection for the lady and then she would reciprocate “with ardour.”

I checked. He didn't really know what “Ardour” meant. In either his own language or in ours.

Still, he's clever enough and Sam was telling me that he was, much to his chagrin, beginning to find the lad irreplaceable. Apparently Johann has the head for figures and bureaucracy that Sam himself had always struggled to achieve. The kid was thirteen years old and I liked him a great deal. I thought it was doing Sam some good to be responsible for a young persons development.

“Lord Frederick,” he crashed down through the undergrowth towards us, announcing his presence for miles around.

“Easy Johann.” I told him, “Where's the fire?”

“What? Oh.” He grinned sheepishly at his enthusiasm. “Sorry, it's just it's been really boring waiting for you up here.”

“It was very nearly, very exciting.” Rickard said, approaching with a smile and a certain look of admonishment.

“Sir?”

Rickard kept eye-contact with the poor kid.

“Not now Jenkins.”

Jenkins was one of the bastards. One of those men who had been heading for he hangman's noose for the murders of multiple people when the recruiting Sergeants had been getting a bit desperate during the last war. According to the gossip amongst the bastards, he had killed four people after he had found out that his wife had been cheating on him with them. He had then presented the removed sexual organs of her former lovers to his wife before asking if she was satisfied as, apparently, she enjoyed the drama of it all. She had married Jenkins because he could provide for her but he was neither particularly handsome or adventurous. One of the ladies complaints was that she could never tell whether or not Jenkins even loved her and upon this rather....extreme....display of jealousy, she had settled down to the life of a soldiers wife.

I met her. A fairly nice woman in all honesty but a shameless flirt. She had come to live in the castle and worked in the kitchens.

For me I found Jenkins a fairly charming man, endlessly funny and able to converse on a variety of topics with some skill but every so often he got this gleam in his eye that suggested that he was considering removing your scalp.

He also had an odd sense of humour. As demonstrated by the fact that he had snuck up behind Johann with his short, wickedly sharp dagger and was just poised to slit the lads throat.

“Sir,” Jenkins complained. “He made so much noise sir that I thought....”

“I know Jenkins but....”

“Can't I....”

“Not NOW Jenkins.”

Jenkins sulked off. I wasn't entirely certain that he was joking.

“It's always best to announce yourself properly.” I told Johann. “Especially when approaching a nervous, heavily armed and experienced band of soldiers.”

Johann swallowed nervously.

“Yes sir. Sorry sir.”

“It's a learning point son.” Rickard added. Kerrass was standing staring into the trees. He had his medallion held in his fist.

“Johann, do you know Sir Rickard of Temeria?”

“I don't sir,” the lad saluted with precision. Sam had always liked a particularly crisp salute.

“Sir Rickard, this is Squire Johann of Nazir, my brothers squire.”

“What's the lay of the land, Squire Johann?”

“Sir, The land is heavily wooded for another couple of miles before beginning to open out into a flatter area where there are some farms before the land starts to rise again towards the mountains.”

“Any risk to the order of march.”

“Not that we've seen sir. There are some small colonies of Endregas that our men have been hunting and there are rumours of Elves further to the North. I can't answer to that though sir.”

Rickard nodded, his manner becoming more military. He turned to call for his Sergeant.

“Who's here?” I asked the lad as Rickard started calling off some orders.

“Other than your brother sir? We have twenty men at arms on loan from the Redanian guard sir. Father Danzig has brought a half company of church soldiers from Tretogor and Knight Father Trent has brought a small group of men from the order of the White Rose.”

For those of our readers that might be from the South, as I understand that a number of people from the southern part of the continent have started reading the Oxenfurt magazine, this is how religion works in the North.

I can already feel Mark wincing.

I stress that this is just an overview and is not meant as an exhaustive list but I do think it bears repeating in case any of our Nilfgaardian readers are reading this and saying, “but that's madness.”

Well, you'd be right but I won't judge.

Whereas in the south, the Church of the Divine Sun has, just about, absorbed and assimilated all other religions apart from some very old, local pagan Gods and Goddesses into the worship of the Sun. The North has done things somewhat differently. The South is mostly Monotheistic, the North is Polytheistic in that we have lots of different Gods. That might not be apparent from what I've been writing as my family and the area around where my family lives is almost completely covered in the worship of the Eternal Fire.

The Eternal Fire has learnt from the Church of the Divine sun and has followed the same model by agreeing with a lot of the local religions and getting them to sign up saying things like “Yes, but don't you see? That means that essentially you're following the Eternal Fire,” and then pretending not to listen to any objections.

But unlike the south, there were still a lot of Gods here first and they had centralised and organised. The Eternal Fire is a relatively recent God, only having been founded at the founding of Novigrad whereas other Gods and Godesses have been around a lot longer.

Melitele is the oft-mentioned woman's God. Goddess of fertility, motherhood, harvest, nature, abundance, peace, Love and Marriage. If there's one God-head that's going to be around long after every other one is disappeared it will be Melitele. Almost, but not quite, exclusively worshipped by women she is at her most prominent in rural areas. Used to also be called Adala in Temeria, I don't know why.

Freya is, essentially, the Skelligan version of Melitele but I would advise you not to confuse the one with the other as Skelligans get quite protective over their Goddess and regard her as being a different entity. They also add that her spirit animal is a cat. Which possibly says something about the nature of cats.

I won't talk about the Lionheaded Spider here.

Each of the local areas seems to have their own Gods and Goddesses. Many are recognisable as being different aspects of the same being, for instance, Verna, Melitele and Adala. For a long time, religious scholars believed that the newly emerging power of “The eternal Fire” was simply an aspect of Kreve, but it was later proven to not be the case.

Which brings us to the reason that I'm talking about Kreve today as he, and his worship come up quite a bit in the next story.

Kreve is much older than the Eternal Fire and much more, extreme in their views. That might come as a surprise to people who went through the Witch hunts but it's true nonetheless. He is the Sky Father and the Lord of Thunder, his symbol is that of a lightening bolt. He is quite an expansive God and would be described as loving decisive action, energy, spontaneity, resourcefulness, expansion and the defence of ownership.

Worshipping Kreve is a remarkably simple affair as his only discernible commandment is that his followers should fight evil wherever they find it. What is defined as evil tends to be up to the definition of the local government of the area which is why Kreve tends to be quite popular with Kings and Lords of men. The first people to acknowledge the existence and the divinity of the Eternal Flame where priests of Kreve. Indeed they thought that the Flame might be an aspect of Kreve which was later shown to be inaccurate, however the influence of Kreve on the early church of the Eternal Flame is prominent.

Both churches have an order of knights which serve as their military arm. The Eternal Fire had their “burning rose” and Kreve had their “White Rose.” The church has been overtaken in Redania and the surrounding areas, by the Eternal Flame. This thanks to the patronage of King Radovid but you can still find Kreve worshippers in the armies of the nations and his worship is a lot more widespread in Kaedwen, Aedirn and Southern Temeria.

The main enemies of the church of Kreve are anything that doesn't adhere to “civilised society” and “the proper order of things”. As examples, they don't like unassimilated non-humans. Non-humans that live in towns and cities that contribute to society are fine though. They also don't like magic users as they were thought to be outside the settled order of things. If you want to look up more about the historical actions of the church of Kreve then I refer you to the books “The extermination of the Vran” by Sir Wilhelm Dothir and “The Aelirenn rebellion” by Tomas de Sande.

They also tend to give their priests, military ranks in an effort to show how much they are “warriors in the fight against evil.”

I used to really look down on followers of Kreve. From a certain standpoint they are relatively good people, their objectives are good in that all they want to do is to fight against evil but I always had problems with the fact that their fight against evil seemed to define evil as being anything that was different from human society where human society was defined as being the average kind of society of the northern Kingdoms. In doing so they were significantly responsible for the final destruction of the Vran and also a significant reason for the endangerment of the Elves.

Oh, and they also persecute magic users.

Once again, I notice that they don't really care about the dwarves and the Gnomes as those two species have the good grace to stay below ground and out of the way.

But now I'm not so sure. I look at the Cult of the Eternal Flame and I kind of see the sins of the past being reflected in my own religion. Again I see magic users and non-humans persecuted to the point of endangerment. I am well aware that the Eternal Fire Cult was driven to those extremes by other factors but at the same time, I look back at Kreve's worship and start to think that my former condemnation of their actions is a bit “dirty pot calling the kettle black”.

I know that the road to the Frost is paved with Good intentions and that there is no excuse for some of the evil actions that the followers of Kreve did. But the Eternal Fire does seem to have been following their lead and I no longer feel that I can just condemn the worshippers of Kreve quite so vehemently.

I have, also, now met a lot more worshippers of Kreve and as has so often been the case I find that I am less able to hate, now that I know the human face underneath the cowl.

Johann led us further up into the trees. He did have a horse with him and there is no more perfect description of his character other than the fact that he mounted up and tried to ride up the slope before realising how hopeless this plan was, giving up and leading his horse up like the rest of us.

Sir Rickard looked at me and had to hide a giggle behind his hands.

Kerrass was walking along with a vacant expression on his face, head tilted to one side as though he was listening for something although he didn't once tell us to quieten down. He had his medallion clenched firmly in his fist.

We came to the top of the ridge where the path then led downhill into a bowl of, to be fair, rather picturesque land. If you ever have romantic ideas about what it would be like to try and settle some kind of unsettled frontier, then that's what it looked like. It seemed to be a land of valleys and hills, topped with large piles of stone. Huge trees were everywhere and a gentle mist seemed to roll off the mountains and to fill the valleys and the dells. You could see farms at various intervals where they had cleared small patches of land from the all consuming forest and there were several small villages where smoke could be seen rising from chimneys. It looked, it looked idyllic and unspoiled. Even though I knew that people had been living in this part of the world, probably longer than they had been living around Novigrad and Oxenfurt.

“Is it always so misty here?” Kerrass asked Johann.

“Couldn't say sir,” Johann was still enough of a product of his upbringing that he was a little put out to be addressed so familiarly by Kerrass, even though the two had met before. So he took refuge behind formal military language. “There is often a mist last thing at night as the land cools and again first thing in the morning but the sun often burns it off.”

“Mmm,” Kerrass grunted and went back to staring into space.

“Something?” I asked him quietly, wandering over.

“I don't know, maybe. There's a large amount of background magic here. That, in and of itself is not unusual, or at least, not unusual enough to cause comment but the fact of what we know used to happen here?” He shrugged and pulled a face. “I hope it's not telling.”

As we climbed down into the valley and we were able to mount our horses again, I saw the Kalayn family castle for the first time in what must have been years.

I had only been to these lands once before when I was young, maybe four or five when our two families were relatively friendly with each other. Before Cousin Raynard had got his hooks too far into Edmund. I remember staying here for only a couple of days and not liking it very much. I remember it being cold and dark and a general kind of oppression to it all. Since then though I had found out a lot about what had gone on in Castle Kalayn and I now wonder whether modern knowledge has tainted past memories.

But now, I looked up and saw it above us.

It was indeed dark, remote and almost austere in it's appearance. I wasn't as big as Castle Coulthard or Kaer Morhen. But then I don't think it was meant to be. If it was a military outpost it would have been the kind of watchtower or fortified position that was meant to hold the enemy up. It was high up the beginning of the mountains and I suspected that the views from up there would be spectacular so I imagined that it's builders had constructed it so that the occupants could keep an eye on things. It was certainly not the kind of a place that would hold or house an army and I definitely had problems imagining that it would be big enough to be some kind of royal residence. It would be far too much hard work to get any kind of luxury up the path towards it, apart from any other reason.

However I could imagine it being the kind of place where a small, but elite force spent their time, marshalling and sallying forth to patrol a large swathe of countryside, where it could protect and monitor a mountain pass before other, easier, routes were opened up.

I certainly struggled to imagine how you would set about taking the place easily. We could see the path to reach it snaking up around the mountains, sometime with steps cut out of the rock to facilitate but the path was narrow, far too narrow for anything wider than a small, two horse wagon. It was the kind of place where military men say things like. “Give me a score of good men and I could hold that place through an invasion of the Gods.”

They probably could to, even though it now, had no real strategic significance to speak of. I tried to imagine where you would site siege engines, getting anything more than the most rudimentary battering ram up the slope would be all but impossible. Siege towers woud be a laughable thought. I could only see one direction where you could get ladders up against the walls and to get there you would still have to climb the path.

“I would climb.” Rickard had guessed my train of thought. “It's a beast, there's no doubt about that but you're not thinking about one military advancement that we've made in the mean time.”

“Which is?”

“Modern War-bows.” He told me. “A couple of dozen good archers up on that plateau up there,” he pointed, “and you could rain arrows down on any defenders coming up through the pass. Then anyone defending the gates would also have to be careful to avoid getting skewered.” He grunted as he worked the problem. “It was an all but impregnable place. Now? It would cost the attacker, a lot, but the attackers would wear the defenders down eventually. I also struggle to see where the defenders would store any supplies for a protracted siege. The gap works both ways. A couple of dozen attackers could block anyone trying to get out, just as easily as the defenders could block anyone trying to get in.”

I nodded and looked at the castle with new eyes.

Sam had ordered a much more temporary residence built. A large hall patterned after the long houses of the Skelligans and made from the local wood. He had wanted to just move into the castle but several people, including Kerrass had told him just how bad an idea that was going to be. So instead he had the hall built as a place to receive visitors and as a temporary residence. It was situated on a field at the bottom of the path that led up to the castle. There were several other small buildings that had been built for the use of guests, they were no more than small, huts really, more like permanent tents.

Sam had told me that they were big enough for a bed, a fire and a place to get cleaned up if you had a bath running. He was still struggling to get to terms with the common folk on Kalayn lands though so he had warned us, in advance that he was modelling the residence on military lifestyle, in that you were expected to take care of yourself. There were a couple of pages and squires to run messages, there was also a cook that Sam had kidnapped from Coulthard castle but generally, you were expected to pitch in with chores.

His first letters had commented that he was finding it refreshing but later missives suggested that he was beginning to get a little bit tired of this and was looking forward to some creature comforts.

He came out to greet us as we rode up. Shaking hands with Rickard and Kerrass before enveloping me in a bruising bear hug.

Rickard turned down the offer of one of the huts saying that he would prefer to camp with his men. Kerrass and I were shown which huts we would both be sleeping in and it was made clear that if the weather became unsuitable then we would all be welcome to shelter inside the hall itself.

We made appropriate noises and scattered to stow our gear. The bastards made some noises about looking for some food and checking to make sure that they wouldn't be hung for poaching. Sam laughed and told them that there was plenty of game, indeed that one of his major exports was going to be deer skins and meat but that there were several nests of Endregas and Arachnomorphs around so that they should be careful where they step.

The Sergeant made note of this before heading off.

Sam had given me a hut with a writing desk in it. I didn't know whether to be annoyed or amused at being so pigeon holed. Flattered I guess, to be known so well by your big brother. Kerrass and I collected Rickard before heading back to the hall where Sam enthusiastically introduced us to the other men who had come here to help him with the ghost problem and to help root out whatever leftover cult influences there might be.

There were indeed a good half company of Redanian regulars camped outside the hall although the other half of them were out on patrol inside the “Kalayn Province” in an effort to convince the locals that the new Lord of the Manor was concerned about their safety and security. They were led by a Knight Lieutenant Sir Kristoff Lennox. Sir Kristoff was a cheerless man who looked old to be a Knight Lieutenant to me which suggested that he was not that important or lacked the money or rank to progress. The army had been downsizing in recent times though so there was also the possibility that he had taken a reduction in rank to stay on in the armed forces. Maybe he was unhappy at home or something. Regardless he was an older man, in his late thirties or early forties who kept his head all but shaved clean. You could see the reflected firelight in his scalp. He was sat at a table and doing paperwork as we walked in and rose to have his hand shaken and accept a salute from Sir Rickard. He then excused himself and returned to his reports.

Father Trent of the Eternal Fire came bustling up next.

What can I say about Father Trent? Calling him a new breed of priest is a little bit of an unfairness to him as he had been serving with the church for many years when I met him. He had joined a monastary at an early age in a similar pattern to Mark, in that his parents had wanted to guarantee their place in heaven and so had sent one of their sons to serve in the church.

Unlike Mark, however, his family had not seen his appointment as a political opportunity and they had then considered their obligations fulfilled and left him to it. He had toiled away as a lay brother before eventually becoming ordained as a priest in, his words, a remarkably unremarkable church in a wholey unremarkable town. He told me that his entire job was keeping the different factions within his little town from each others throats while, on the side, doing his best to see to their immortal souls.

During the madness of King Radovid he had kept out of it, having seen plenty of goodness in non-humans and “magical or suspected magical folk,” before coming to the conclusion that people were people no matter what size, shape, race or talent was and that they were all as equally awful to each other as they ever would be.

However this cynicism hides the soul of a true diplomat and he was able to broker a situation where the more extreme servants of the church would be able to come to his little flock and he would be able to maintain the peace. His town was one of the few, in Redania at least, where the locals did not live in fear of the Inquisition and that was largely due to the efforts of Father Trent.

He later admitted that it got dicey a few times where he was forced to protect a local alchemist in his basement while a couple of the more forceful Inquisitors searched the town for the woman's whereabouts but that everything seemed to come right in the end.

Now, the more modern church tended to use him when they needed to work with other parties or other religions and he was a fine choice for this delegation.

After the introductions he expressed pleasure upon meeting me and I told him that I was pleased to meet him after hearing so many nice things.

However two men were stood behind him in the long, red trimmed black robes of the Inquisition. They weren't wearing their hoods though so, on balance, I suspected that I wasn't going to be dragged away for burning immediately. One was tall, aristocratic features with his dark hair tied back into a queue while the other was a much shorter man, bald with a trim of white hair around the back of his head that he had cut short. I automatically assumed that the shorter, older man was the “nice one” and the taller aristocratic one was the “nasty one,”

“Lord Frederick,” Sir Trent blushed a little as he realised that he had been ignoring the two men for some time. “Allow me to present Inquisitor, Father Hacha,” he gestured at the smaller man, “And Inquisitor Father Dempsey,” He gestured to the taller man.

“A pleasure I told them both.” I couldn't decide whether I should offer my hand or not when Father Dempsey astonished me by grinning hugely.

“I offer you my hand sir,” he said, “just to save us all some confusion.”

“Thank you,” I told him, taking his hand and shaking it firmly.

“A genuine pleasure to meet you,” Dempsey continued.

“Thank you,” I said again before turning to Father Hacha who also held out his hand, looking at me strangely. He had this strange way of staring at you as though his eyes seemed to boggle out of his face. You could see the white's of his eye, all around the Iris.

I just need to talk about this.

I've known a lot of people that claim that they can tell a lot about a man by the way that he shakes your hand. More than one person has told me that the correct way to make a good first impression is to shake the man's hand firmly while looking him in the eye. Then, that there is no need to maintain contact for any more than a couple of seconds, certainly no more than is required to talk about the initial exchange of greetings.

There is a problem with this though which is that everyone knows that this is the correct way to shake your hand and therefore that's what everyone does.

But I digress.

There are other things that can be said about the art of shaking someone's hand. Make sure that your hand is dry as there is nothing worse than a clammy handshake where you have to wipe your hand afterwards but another thing is to make sure that your wrist is also firm as you can grip perfectly well but if your wrist is limp then that can give the wrong idea.

I don't know what the wrong idea is but apparently it gives the wrong one.

Warriors tend to grip each other by the wrists. Apparently the logic is that if they grip you like this it shows that you don't have a hidden weapon somewhere. A largely pointless gesture as this, right handed grip, only occupies one hand and you could easily do some horrific murder with the other hand.

However, one of the more interesting things about handshakes is the way that a certain kind of people use their handshakes to try and exert dominance, the one over another. You can do this by gripping the hand and squeezing it. I've never been certain what this proves but people try to use it all the time on me. I never get into a contest with them as it always seems a little pointless and eventually just relax my hand and let them get on with it.

The other famous one is where they tilt their hand over onto one side so that their hand is over the top of yours. I'm told that this is exerting dominance by showing that they are above you in some way.

Not only did Father Hacha do this but he also squeezed my hand and wouldn't let go.

“Yes, a pleasure,” he said as he held on. “A pleasure although I can't say that I entirely approve of your recent adventures.”

“Oh?” I carefully managed to extract my hand from the man's grip.

“Yes,” Your handling of the Sansum affair could have gone a lot better if you ask me?”

“Really,” I made no pretence of hiding the fact that I needed to massage some life into my palm.

“Yes, you could have done things a lot better if you ask me. Nasty business to be sure but that doesn't change the fact that you and your, companion....”

He managed to make the world sound like an insult. It wasn't lost on me that Fathers Dempsey and Trent had both shaken Kerrass' hand whereas Hacha did not. There are some people that are just born to piss you off I find and when that sort of thing happens, the best thing to do is to just hold your nose and jump in with both feet.

“....murdered a churchman and a number of holy knights.”

“Not that there was much about them that was holy,” Kerrass commented to Sam and Sir Rickard but his voice was pitched to carry.

“Well,” I told him. “We did what we felt we needed to do in the heat of the moment.”

“Yes well,” he sniffed in a way that managed to convey just how much he disapproved of our actions. “Not how I would have done it.”

“How would you have done it?” I asked politely, the question that he was so obviously begging to be asked. I was also having to be really careful not to laugh aloud. Father Dempsey was stood behind the other man and had comedically rolled his eyes before miming Hacha's voice with hand puppets.

“Well, I would have taken the matter to the proper authorities of course. Taken it up with the church hierarchy.”

“Yes,” I told him. “I have heard this criticism before. In the time that it would have taken us to reach the proper authorities, more people would have been murdered, more young men would have been abused and still more would have been radicalised.”

“That doesn't change the fact that you killed a priest when it was not your place.”

“Who's place was it then?” I demanded, feeling myself getting hot. “We were there, we had the tools and the capability. The rest of the church had done nothing, whether because they didn't know there was a problem, or because they had other things on their mind.”

“Or because they didn't care.” Kerrass spoke.

If anything, Father Hacha's eyes bulged out of his skull even more.

“Now you listen here, you filthy....”

“That's enough,” Father Trent spoke up. “These men came here in an effort to try and help deliver these lands and their people from evil.”

“That's as maybe, Trent” Father Hacha spat. “But you cannot melt ice by hitting it with more ice.”

I felt my hackles rise a little bit more. I was still a little sensitive to being called a heretic and a blasphemer given that the last person to call me that had tortured me, and felt the need to defend myself.

“I take it that you do not approve of Kerrass and myself.” I told the Inquisitor who was getting far too puffed up for his own good. “Well I will tell you that you can shove your disapproval up your ass for all I care.”

“How dare you sir?”

“How dare I?” I was suddenly reminded about the long ago scene outside our families castle when Sir Robart had got all red-faced and angry in the face of being challenged by people he saw as being lesser than himself.

A small part of me wondered if Robart and this Hacha were related in any way. “Where were you, sir, when young boys were being raped and tortured? Where were you when good, honest, flame fearing men and women were being burned at the stake for no crime other than keeping a recipe book of herbal potions in an effort to protect the people under their care from sickness and death? Where were you?”

“I...” But I was still angry.

“Why didn't we go to the church authorities? Would they have done something or would it all have been carefully brushed under a rug. The knights moves somewhere else and put on a shorter leash. They were churchmen themselves and in my experience the church protects their own so why would this be any different. We killed them because they needed killing and the way people, especially other church men seem to get up in my face and beat their chests with their righteous indignation. I swear that if another priest tries to tell me that I'm an evil heretic and sinner for killing heretic sinners who committed greater sins than some monsters that I've met, I swear I'll kill him as well.”

The statement shocked a number of people, myself not least.

“You wouldn't dare.” Hacha struggled for breath in the face of my blasphemy. Danzig looked equally as shocked despite his firm support of a lot of what I had said.

Father Trent tried for diplomacy. “Now Lord Frederick, there is no need for that. Your brother Mark will be outraged that you could express such a statement. You run the risk of damning your soul to all...”

“Nah,” I told him, My own shock at my own level of leftover anger from the incident with Sansum was leaving me now. “Mark will be cross and will yell at me for a while. But he's yelled at me before and I'll live. But still, the self righteousness of some people. I apologise Father Hacha but you weren't there. You didn't see what those men did to children. To children Father Hacha.”

I shook my head.

“I know and have known many good and holy men that are members of the cult of the Eternal Flame. Yourself, doubtless one of them. But I keep hearing about these atrocities, similar to what I saw down in Lyria. It's enough to make me convert to Kreve. At least their atrocities were committed years ago rather than months, or weeks in some cases.”

“And we would be proud to have you.”

I had diverted the conversation as I had seen another man coming up behind them all. A tall man, made bulky by the fact that he wore armour underneath his robes of office.

“Knight Father Danzig of Kreve.” He said, pushing the Eternal Fire delegation aside and seizing my hand and shaking it hard and with enthusiasm. “For my money you did very well in Lyria.”

He had a large, expansive and booming voice.

“It's just a shame you're marrying a vampiric, magic using harlot.”

I felt the outrage climbing up my throat before I realised that he had just winked at Kerrass and Rickard as he shook their hands in turn.

“Funny guy.” I told him. “I'll tell her you said that.”

“Please do.” he told me.

“I should also point out that she is currently working towards being baptised into the church of the Eternal Fire.” I told the assembly. “Thus probing that she is just as holy as anyone else. Also, that she prefers the worship of the Eternal Fire over the worship of Kreve, given Kreve's proven dislike of magic users, and I wouldn't want to disappoint her.”

Danzig lifted his hand to his heart.

“Oh, you wound me Lord Frederick, you wound me. But I suppose I deserved it. Here let me get you a drink.” He steered me past the, now bickering, Eternal Fire contingent. Sam had gone off somewhere and Danzig beckoned Rickard and Kerrass to follow.

We sat at one of the long wooden tables that Sam had had placed within the hall. Someone brought us a large jug of the frothy ale that Sam liked to drink as well as some cups. Danzig poured.

“Don't let the Flamers get to you.” He told me with a grin. “They're actually really good at what they do.”

“Really?” I was still smarting a little bit and wondering whether I was going to get through the coming few days without accidentally murdering another churchman.

“Yes, he may not look it, or sound it but Father Hacha is the best investigator I've seen. Not so good with the interrogations but he can walk into a room and tell you what happened there. I've seen him pick out a guilty man from a line-up of people that he's never seen before based on what the guy was wearing. Dempsey's a gifted interrogator. Rarely uses tools or implements but somehow manages to get information out of even the most stubborn person. Just, makes them his friend and they tell him anything.”

“What about Father Trent?” Rickard asked, eyeing the man a little cautiously. “Without being too obnoxious, some of my men will object to being preached at.”

Danzig laughed. “I know the type. If Trent had gone into the civil service he would have been a diplomat. The kind of man that you send to finalise trade deals. Now he spends most of his time arbitrating between the different factions within the Eternal Fire hierarchy. He's far too busy to go around preaching all the time though so I don't think your men have much to worry about.”

“What about you though?” I couldn't hide the suspicion in my voice. “With all due respect, the priesthood of Kreve is not known for it's tolerance.”

He laughed again. He was a hard man to dislike but I was doing my best.

“Not an unfair criticism.” He said. “I'm a simple man Lord Frederick. I like to find evildoers and hit them with my mace, or my sword, or my axe, or my....well, I like to hit evil. Does that make me shallow?”

“It might.”

“Well, regardless. I'm a simple man. I was a soldier. I fought on the front lines between Kaedwen and Redania when Radovid crossed the mountains in an effort to unify the north. I hated him for that, far more than I hated the Nilfgaardians and so I joined the priesthood. I wanted there to be less moral quandaries there, less questions, more simplicity.

“Luckily I found it.”

He took a long drink of ale and refilled his cup.

“I liked your more recent story Lord Frederick, the one about your destruction of those knights. If I had been born in a different place, I could easily see myself being caught up with a group like that. The search for meaning and a sense of belonging is sometimes an all-consuming thing so that when someone offers you that, the temptation is to jump in with both feet.

“I was lucky though. The man that recruited me was a good man and I am forever grateful that he didn't take advantage of my “wide eyed naivete.” He taught me to look deeper, to look past the surface and see what could be seen.”

I took a deep breath. “I hope you will forgive my nervousness Father Danzig. But my best friend is a Witcher, my fiancee is a Vampiric Sorceress and my elder sister is in love with another Sorceress. As I say, Kreve has his reputation though so I hope you can understand my feelings.”

“Absolutely.” Danzig responded. He sighed and stared at the three priests of the Eternal Fire. “I won't deny that there's some darkness in the past history of the church of Kreve. The Elves might have started the genocide of the Vran but we finished it for them and then started in on the elves ourselves.”

“I'd heard that it was, by no means certain, that it was the elves that began the destruction of the Vran.” Kerrass piped up. He was still peering into space with his medallion held closely but he was listening.

“That's as maybe. I'm not a student of history or archaeology, but that doesn't change our role in those deaths.” Danzig said. “And yes. Our distrust of magic is....pronounced. But our first duty, our most important duty is the destruction of “evil”.”

He held his hands up to forestall my comments. “I know, I know that the term “evil” is subjective but at the same time....I like to think that “good” people are people who contribute to society or go out of their way to not be part of the problem. If you don't want to contribute something then you should go elsewhere. If you want to be isolationists then you go for it, so long as you don't bother other people.”

“What if other people are bothering you?” Rickard asked.

“Then I'm afraid that that's what the law is for. For me though, the person that was there first has prior claim.”

“The dryads of the Brokilon would tend to agree with you.” Kerras muttered.

“SO they would.” Danzig grinned. “Look, that's why the church hierarchy argues about such things. But in the meantime, fortunately, there are plenty of murderous bandits, monsters and scum-fucks that roam the roads and by-ways of the Continent for me to practice my craft on.”

He turned back to me.

“I won't deny, Lord Frederick, that there are plenty of people in our priesthood that would condemn you, your sister and her....lover?” he lifted his voice in a question to see if he was using the right term of address, he subsided when I nodded. “your friend and your fiancee to to torment and death. But for the younger generation, I may say that we share your definition of monster and evil. My master gave me some of your earlier works as a gift, and I make them required reading for my squires. I think there's some interesting moral discussion in some of them.”

“I suppose that that's close enough.”

“Can I ask some proffessional questions?” Danzig asked.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Dealing with what we have here? What are we going up against. Lord Kalayn tells us that there might be cultists, spirits and Thunder only knows what else. Could you break that down for me?”

His manner had changed from genial soldier to attentive man of action.

“I don't know yet.” Kerrass responded. “It's too early to try and guess. I want to go and have a look first before I start saying what's going on. I suspect that there will be ghosts and spirits of the angry variety. Maybe some un-quiet dead. That kind of thing. There is a very strong back-ground magic aura around here and that will have an effect.”

“But you don't know what the effect is?”

“No, not yet.” Kerrass sighed and finally let go of the pendant. “I won't lie. It's all a bit....nebulous and wishy washy. We know there was a cult. We know that they did a lot of horrific things to a lot of innocent people. We also know that the cult were using rituals and holy symbols that, over time, would effect the flow of magic and channel that flow of magic into doing some horrific things.”

“That sounds like a bleak picture.”

“It is. Don't get me wrong. Dealing with the potential spirits in the castle is only one of the reasons as to why I'm here.”

“You want to know if the cult has anything to do with the disappearance of Lady Francesca?”

I winced and tried to hide my discomfort behind a mug.

“Pretty much.” Kerrass said, glancing at me out of the side of his eye. “The cult must have had a reason to set up their headquarters here. I want to know what that is. But if anyone has a motive for causing the disappearance of Lady Francesca, then it's the cult.”

“Mmm.”

Father Trent had given up on the other two Priests of the Flame and came over to join us. Danzig poured him a beer and the two men clacked the rims of their cups together in a silent toast.

“So, Are we mounting an expedition up to the castle tomorrow,” Trent asked.

“I don't see why no....”

“No,” Kerrass interrupted. “No, no expeditions. I want to go up there and have a look around myself first.”

The churchmen looked at each other a bit concerned.

“Uh, no offence Master Kerrass but shouldn't we....”

“No,” Kerrass said firmly. “This first one I do by myself. Don't worry, there will be plenty for the priesthood to do later.”

“But,”

“We do what the Witcher says.” Sam had come over. “It would be a mistake to hire a proffesional and then not listen to what he says.”

He spoke with a voice of authority that I had not heard him use before. It suited him.

“Freddie,” He tapped me on the shoulder and beckoned me to follow him, taking me off to a quieter corner of the room.

“How you doing?” he asked me.

“I'm fine.”

“Freddie,” He glared at me.

“I said I'm fine.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Then can I admit that I'm not?” He asked.

I looked at him and felt a little bit of shame. I hadn't noticed how tired he looked. Bloodshot eyes with huge black bags under them. He was pale too, greasy hair and he looked as though he had put on a bit of weight.

“Dammit Freddie, we lose Dad, Edmund and then Frannie in a year. Suddenly I'm the lord of this Flame forsaken hell-hole.”

I sat him down and poured him a drink.

“I thought it was quite pretty.” I tried for a lighter tone but Sam wasn't taking it.

“The peasants hate me.” he said after taking a long drink. “Not that I blame them, the Lords Kalayn haven't treated this place well, but no matter what I try I can't seem to get through to them. Now it turns out that Mark is dying of some kind of....heart thing and very soon, I'm going to be named Baron Coulthard as well as Baron Kalayn.”

He sighed.

“Mum's gone, Emma and I were never as close as you two were and now....Dammit Freddie, you know that this stuff is hard for me.”

“I know Sam.”

“So then you go and get your self tortured by some psychopaths. Just....Just be careful would you.”

“I will.”

“I'm just not sure I could be the only male Coulthard.”

I nodded. “You know I have to look for her though right.”

“You mean Francesca?”

“Yes.”

“I know. And I applaud. Out of all of us, you are the one that can look freely. I'm not trying to get you to stop but....That was not a great plan you had with the knights of the flaming cock rot or whatever their names were.”

“Oh I don't know, it worked didn't it?”

“I'm serious Freddie.” He snapped. “I need you alive. I need you alive. I get that you need to do this but you need to remember who you are now. You are no longer the estranged youngest son of a minor lord. You are a mover and a shaker. A powerful important man and you are also my heir. So if anything happens to me then it's you that's going to be Baron Coulthard, Kalayn and Angral from what I understand. So....Look, just be more careful would you.”

“I'll try.”

He smiled. And I answered with a smile of my own.

“Now what do you need us to do here?” I asked him