(Disclaimer: Freddie expresses some views about politics and politicians in this chapter. Just for the record, I don't agree with a lot of what he says and what he says does not reflect my personal politics. However I would remind people that Freddie lives in an Imperial absolute monarchy, where he gets on with said monarch on a personal level, which has severely influenced his thinking)

So, next on our list of tools that a Witcher uses along with the follow up question as to whether or not they are the thing that makes a Witcher.

Let's talk about the signs.

I promise, I swear that all of this has a point and that I will get to it eventually. I swear that this is true.

Although a small part of me can't help but entertain himself at the prospect of the Magazine editor over at the Oxenfurt gazette quietly tearing his hair out at all the comments and letters of complaint that he must be getting about this. “How dare this Professor of Oxenfurt try and teach us something about Witchers?”

Heh, You brought this on yourself Mikael and you know it too.

But seriously though. I Promise that there's a point to this.

So let's talk about signs. All six of them.

Yes, you read that right. There are actually six signs although most people only know about the five most common ones.

So what are the signs?

In broad and simple terms the signs are very basic spells that can be cast with the aid of a gesture, or series of gestures performed with at least one hand, although it can be amplified if you use both hands during the casting. I'm not sure as to the magical science of this and there are much better academic works on the subject should you want to pursue things but my understanding is that it works like this.

Magic exists all around us in a flow, a lot like the flow of water or the movement of air. What Magic users do is to tame this force, indeed, “force” is what they call it, and shape it to their own will. Most people are unable to do this although my understanding is that anyone, with sufficient training and practice could probably light a candle in return for the discomfort of a substantial nosebleed. Before you all rush off and try to learn this I would say that you need to be taught this skill and that prolonged use of it, even if you have been taught will result in you dying of a stroke.

What a “talent” for magic use is is the ability to channel, shape and control this force without dying. It sounds simple but that really is the basis of it. The talent does tend to run in bloodlines but that, in and of itself, is problematic as the long term use of magic will render a person sterile. Yes, I know that there are proven exceptions to this rule but in this case, the exception proves the rule.

The way that these magic users shape the magic is with gestures, words and rituals. I have heard it said that these gestures and things are merely aids to help the mind and body work in the right way in order to shape the magic in the require way. I cannot answer for that, all I know is that those people that have used magic in my presence, Kerrass, Ariadne and the rest, have spoken or gestured and the effect happens and certainly the lady Yennefer of Vengerberg was scornful when I mentioned this theory to her.

So what are Witcher's signs? In short, they are the most basic of basic spells. Stripped down to their barest components and adapted for fast casting, single handed casting and combat applications. How do Witcher's do it? My understanding is that, as part of the mutation process, the Young Witchers are mutated in order for their bodies to be able to tolerate the force moving through them. A Witcher can be as magically talented as I am when they go to the school and I am as talented as a brick. But, after mutation and suitable training, they will all be able to use the signs.

So what are they?

The famous five first, in alphabetical order:

The Aard sign: A blast of air, either in the form of a wave in front of a Witcher, or in a circular pattern spreading out from the Witcher itself. If you want to see what it looks like, find a pond or pool of still water. The first is like placing your hand gently in the water before violently and quickly pushing the palm of your hand forwards causing a wave to form. The other way is that if you drop a stone into the water and you see the ripples spreading out from where the stone fell. Those waves are the effects of the Aard sign and believe me when I say that it's like being buffeted by the strongest gale, amplified by a factor of ten. It's designed to knock a man from his feet and daze even large creatures. I've seen it send a troll staggering.

The Axii sign: A charm that you place on your opponent. It comes in two forms and practice means that you can cast it on multiple people or even convince the target to do what you want. The first and most basic form of the sign dazes the target for a short while. The second and more powerful type causes the person to become a friend or ally for a period. Kerrass dislikes using this sign as he says that everyone is different and therefore the time that the person spends under the influence of the sign is variable from as little as a second or two up to several minutes. Either way, it is a mistake to depend on it. According to Kerrass that is.

The Igni sign: By far the most famous sign. Probably because it is the most striking visually. After all, what are the most famous spells? Even the most utilitarian and studious mages know how to throw fire and call lightening because without which, how can they call themselves magic users. Put simply the Igni signs either conjures a steady stream of burning sparks that cause the target to catch a light. Or it is a wave of flame, not unlike that wave of air caused by the Aard sign.

The Quen sign: A golden shield that protects the caster from the first strike that the shield sustains. Either protecting the caster himself (not herself. Witchers are only male and females who could cast such things would never stop at so basic a level of effect. Sorceresses, according to my experience, are like that. Yes, including you Ariadne) or forming a globe around the caster although this form requires constant concentration.

The Yrden sign. This is the sign drawn on the floor that creates a magical trap that can make time move slower for the target. To my mind, although it requires careful preparation, this sign is by far the most powerful.

So those are the five signs. Yes there is a sixth and I haven't mentioned it before because like many, or so I understand, I got it confused with the Quen sign. This is called the Heliotrope sign. Kerrass tells me that this is the most advanced sign of the lot which is why it is so rarely used. It requires the use of both arms which you cross in front of you which will cushion whatever blow that you are about to receive. It was designed out of the occasional need to protect yourself from sudden and unexpected magical attack when all other tricks have failed or have been made redundant. For example, when you have given up your swords and you only see the blow coming at the last second. In theory you can throw up your arms and protect yourself from the incoming attack.

It is not a perfect defence as it only cushions the blow rather than stopping the blow completely as the Quen sign would. It is the last shield of the last resort.

Kerrass does not approve as he would claim that if you are going into a situation where such a trick might be required then you should have your sword drawn and your Quen sign cast. You should have your exit routes prepared and your traps and bombs ready. He claims to have only used it on a handful of occasions during his long career and tells me that it is a weakness to rely on it. That it is not an adequate replacement for good and proper preparation and scouting.

There is also the rumour of another sign called “Somne” sign. I don't know what this is and other than what it's called I haven't been able to find any other reference to it. Kerrass claims to know nothing about it and I've certainly never heard him talk about it or use it in any way. From the philological aspect of things, the name of the sign would suggest that this is something to do with sleeping but this seems to be too powerful an effect for a simple sign so maybe it's a modification. Possibly something that the Griffin school played with as a variation on the Axii sign.

So those are the signs. Are they indispensable? If you take them away, is a Witcher still a Witcher?

I would argue that the signs hold a similar status in a Witcher's arsenal of tricks and tools as his swords. Again, they are weapons. You use different ones in different situations. Some monsters would ignore them completely, some would be devastated by their effects. But a good Witcher would still be able to take down their targets if you took away their signs.

So no, I don't think of the signs as being indispensable. Important? Yes, but no more so than anything else that we've talked about or are going to talk about.

-

First, before we go further, a word about politics and the skills required to survive in the courts of the land.

There are several things that I need to be grateful for. Things in my life that I never really got the chance to sit the person down and give them the gratitude and thanks that they deserve. I would like to take this opportunity to thank one person that I might have mentioned in the past but at the same time, I know that I've never really talked about here. In this case, the person that I want to talk about is a man called Professor Laurence Tidesdale. What he was a Professor of, I'm not quite sure. I know for a fact that he was never accredited at the university of Oxenfurt and I have, in the past, wondered if this was one of those things that people do to make themselves seem more attractive to prospective clients.

Not unlike the Witchers with their “magical” swords.

But I owe this man a lot and it would be fair to say that I owe him my life. That is not an exaggeration either. He didn't teach me how to fight, nor did he teach me how to think. He had nothing to do with my education on history or geography.

What he taught me was the skills that one needs to be able to survive in court.

These skills have many names, heraldry being a surprisingly useful one. The coat of arms the banners and a couple of small facts about the person that those flags and colours are attached to. Etiquette is another. It is important to know when it is acceptable to blow your nose and wipe your mouth on the table cloth or a napkin. Whether to throw your left-over meat bones over your left shoulder or your right shoulder for the dogs. These are the important things and it's not really an exaggeration to say that these are the things that can save your life.

The art of negotiation is another important skill, sometimes called the art of compromising and the art of diplomacy. When I talked to Kerrass about this kind of thing he told me that he thought of such things as haggling. That's not the entirety of the truth but it's close enough to cause confusion as that's what you're doing. Finding the different red lines that no-one wants to cross while at the same time finding compromises that would make every body happy.

This is not easy.

Now....

The world is full of people that employ these skills on a daily basis. They are the courtiers, the diplomats and the courtiers of the land. They are the scribes, the merchants, the civil servants and the politicians. They are the people that work behind the scenes that make sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. I will be the first to admit that they are not entirely successful at this but for the most part, these people do incredible work in circumstances that are often less than entirely ideal. Think about it. The Monarch of your local area, no matter what title that monarch holds, lets call them the feudal lord, suddenly gives an order or makes a declaration. That declaration might be something small such as the possibility that there is going to be some kind of festival at the end of the week, or that they intend to make a small pilgrimage to a local shrine where St Thingamy took a shit or something. It is then the task of these people to make that happen with a minimum of fuss.

Now that's a relatively small thing but imagine if someone declares that he wants to host a jousting tournament on their lands and that he wants to put up significant sums of money as prizes. The courtier can't say no. They can advise as best they can but they can't say no. So now they have to organise the thing and find the money for it from somewhere.

Now picture it being from a lord with a royal title. A King or Queen who is a little eccentric who declares in a loud voice that they object to onions and as such, they never want to see an onion ever again. Anyone who produces an onion in their presence will be punished, severely.

But what about all of the farmers in your country that are no longer allowed to grow onions. What about that entire crop that they are about to harvest that they now have no market for. Let's make it worse, if the land that you work for doesn't grow onions then they must have been getting those onions from somewhere. Somewhere who, possibly, is a little cross at the fact that they are no longer selling you onions and now has their own economic problems as they have grown all these extra onions that they don't know what to do with and can't sell. So how are they going to get that money?

And you, as a courtier, have to make all that happen with the minimum of possible fuss.

Now throw into the mix the fact that you are surrounded by other courtiers who are also trying to do their jobs at the same time. Jobs which are often in direct contradiction of yours. You are still trying to convince the Lord that onions have all of these extra health benefits and are actually really good for you. That, although he might not like them personally, you think it would be unfair on all of his subjects, that make their living off onions, for him to make the growing or possession of onions illegal as well as potentially damaging for the local economy.

Meanwhile, the man in the next office over is grinning from ear to ear as he has another idea. He has found a supply of beets from a different place and is trying to get your Lord to agree to a substitution. He argues that the onions could all be swapped for the beets relatively easily. That they have just as many health benefits of onions and that the economy could therefore be saved while at the same time making friends with your local, beet growing, neighbour. For all you know, he may be right but you also have a sneaking suspicion that he is being paid off by the beet growers to get this agenda into your Lord's hands. Also, if he manages this then there is a good chance that he might become more powerful than you and then.....

I hope you can see where you are going.

The thing here is that Lords need to be advised by lots of different people in order to make the proper decisions. Which means surrounding yourself with lots of different Lords who often don't agree with each other in order to make a better decision.

But for the guys that are there, in the depths of things, trying to make the world a better place by willpower.

Those guys? Those guys are the unsung heroes of the modern age.

You want to know why the world is at peace at the moment? Tales tell of the actions of those conspirators that arranged matters for Radovid the Stern to be assassinated on the bridge. But the real hero of that story is whichever diplomat and courtier got into the ear of the Emperor and convinced him that it would be a good idea. Convinced him that the continued warfare was damaging to his own economy and would render the North useless to him should his inevitable victory actually succeed.

But in modern society there is a bit of an unfair tendency to look down on the men and women that perform this task. Courtiers tend to be treated like the lowest form of parasite. Cowards who would do anything to whore themselves out for a bit more influence or possibly just a touch more wealth. Men in armour sit around army camp-fires and wish the worst kinds of death on courtiers telling each other the things that they would do to any such person if they managed to get their hands on them. People with their rapiers and sabres strapped to their sides while wearing fashionable fencing doublets sneer as a civil servant runs past on some kind of vital errand. Women scoff when they receive marriage invitations and promise their parents that they would sooner end their own lives or elope with some peasant than they would marry a courtier.

As I say, I've heard courtiers and politicians belittled as cowards and snakes. As worms and parasites that aren't worth the effort that it would take to tread on.

To be fair, I can understand why as well. This is because all of the work that a knight or a soldier might do. All the fighting, all the blood and sweat and tears that they have poured into fighting their battles. All of it can be undone by a courtier who decides to. Which, again, is what happened at the end of the most recent war.

Let's not take anything away from the achievements of the Redanian led forces of the North. They had an impossible task that they achieved with bravery, skill, cunning and grim determination. Historians are beginning to be scornful of these achievements, pointing out the geography of the matter. About how Radovid snuck over the mountains into Kaedwen in order to absorb those forces into his own. About how he hid behind the Pontar and drew the enemy forces into a stalemate battle. I strongly suspect that these historians are missing the point, or that they are trying to butter up the Nilfgaardians by saying that they deserved a better victory over the north.

None of these points are incorrect. For all his faults though, Radovid was a military genius and he fought Nilfgaard to a standstill. Yes he used the river and the marshes and the fact that Kaedwen was vulnerable and the fact that my father was a patriot and wanted to help equip his troops. But if he was foolish or cowardly as some have claimed then he would have done all of those things before fleeing north to ask for sanctuary from Kovir and Poviss.

The armies of the North fought damn hard. DAMN hard and I, among others, think that it's a bit of a shame that their efforts are being papered over by historians who want to be nice to the Nilfgaardians. Would those soldiers and knights have won in the long run? I am not a military specialist, neither a general nor a tactician of any level although, personally I doubt it. I think that, in the long run, Radovid would have retreated, burning everything behind him to make the conquering of the North a poison pill that Nilfgaard would have been unable to swallow.

But that's just my opinion. If you want to read an in depth discussion of the matter then I can recommend the text by Sir Johann Rottinger who once served in the Temerian forces as a commander of the infantry. He didn't fight in the third war due to the fact that he had lost an arm and his jaw in the second one but he acted in an advisory category. He analyses the war from both sides and it makes for fascinating reading. I recommend him because he is definitely not an armchair general. He knows what he's talking about and as such, I think that his opinion is more reliable.

But I'm getting sidetracked.

Remembering what Sam said about a soldier's pride. They absolutely believed that they were going to beat Nilfgaard. They had to, that was their job and if they lost confidence then they would definitely have lost the war. They were all ready for a fight, for some decisive battle in exactly the same way that it had at Sodden and Brenna and then....it was all over. Redania had surrendered and when they found out what had happened, that they had been “betrayed” by a few conspirators and courtiers, spies and assassins....

Of course they hate courtiers. They look at the courtier and see an ambitious man, pushing their own agenda in an effort to get rich and to get their friends and family rich. That they would rather hide at court than pursue the proper manly arts of fighting and jousting and hunting. They would rather learn etiquette and such like, and how to be two-faced and lie to another man's face while thinking of something else.

I once overheard a hypothetical debate at university between a “courtier” and a “warrior”. These debates were really staged conversations. Two people would be given opposing points of view and told to argue their case as part of a competition. The audience would then vote on who won with the winner gaining a prize. I remember this one being particularly hard fought and quite bitter even though the warrior side won by a considerable majority.

The warrior said, and I'm paraphrasing as I didn't really note the conversation down as I was too busy trying to chat up a girl at the time,

“My job is honest. I am a warrior. I say what I mean and I mean what I say. I do not hide behind flowery words. I am honest, upfront and dependable. You would say one thing and mean another, you talk behind your hand to other people and lie at every turn in order to get what you want. You have a hidden agenda and gobble up everything you can and flee behind people like me when you have been caught out in your lies. Your entire job is to serve up horse shit and tell everyone that it's the most gloriously sweet honey-cake that you've ever seen. You would even eat the horse shit cake to prove your point.”

The courtier thought about it for a moment and said.

“Yes I would. Yes I would eat the cake but that is my job and it is by my job that you have food in your belly. It is by my job that you can afford the steel to go into your sword and the metal to go into your armour. It is by my hand that your children are fed and your parents are protected. You stand and defend us from our foes it is true but I defend you from everything else. It is I that ensures that the money is spent to irrigate your fields and repair your roads. You fight your wars to the south but it is by my hand that Temeria doesn't turn on us, that Kaedwen does not come over the mountain and that Kovir and Poviss remain quiet behind their border. All the while I have to deal with people who say one thing, mean another and who can never, ever be trusted. Let us return to your horse-shit cakes. It is my job, my task in life to eat those cakes and compliment the baker on their scent, texture and flavour. I must wax lyrical on the virtues of horse-shit cakes and tell everyone that I wonder why no-one has ever put horse-shit in a cake before.”

I, like just about everyone, voted with the warrior as his morals were simple and uncomplicated. As I have matured out on the road since then though I have had occasion to change my mind on occasion. It's not as cut and dried as that though. Both sides have virtues and considerable problems.

Returning to my tutor, I remember asking him why I was learning these “courtly” skills when I would be better served out on the practice fields with Sam, trying to improve my sword work.

In a moment of rare honesty Professor Laurence told me that “Being a courtier is like being a fencer. You are always thinking about where to stand and trying to get everything from your opponent while at the same time trying to get everything from him. You are always looking for an opening, trying to guess his intentions and read what he is about to do or say and how you can turn that to your advantage ready for a killing stroke. And all the time, you are looking for more and more opportunities to make the bastard bleed.”

He was right. I never took to the class at the time as, like with so many other things, I lacked the context that was needed in order to make the lessons stick.

But out on the road with Kerrass I have had need to fall back on the skills that Sir Laurence taught me and they have saved my life when I've listened to those instincts and threatened me when I have not.

For those people interested. I'm told that Edmund ignored these skills, Mark didn't need them, Emma was a master at it although she pretended to not be very good which kind of meant that she took the lessons to heart a little too much. Sam didn't see the point as he was always going to be a soldier and I suspect that Francesca would have outstripped us all.

They have certainly came to my aid many, many times on the road with Kerrass where I have been able to talk some noble or other into giving us a contract when he would have otherwise given the job to his men or some passing knight Errant who would do the job for free. I have also negotiated beds from innkeepers who wanted to turn us aside because of the colour and shape of Kerrass' eyes. I have also been able, on many occasions, to translate the various parts of “noble speak” that we occasionally get subjected to meaning that Kerrass has been able to stay calm when he would have otherwise lost his temper and murdered some people, or get angry when he would not normally have realised that he was being mocked.

But back to the matter at hand.

The first thing we did when we saw the castle and realised the kind of nobles that we were going to be up against when we went down into the town and castle, was to turn aside into a small copse of trees so that we could be hidden from view. Taylor and I then got changed into what Kerrass called our “glad rags”, me to look more like a young nobleman and Taylor to look more like the young servant that he was pretending to be.

The idea that we were going for with Taylor was that he was a lesser noble to myself. Either a bastard cousin of some kind or possibly a younger son of some knight that lived on my father's lands. He wore a simple doublet and boots and carried his sabre at his side. He looked odd without his uniform or his bow near to hand. He had entrusted both to Rickard before he left.

We rode slowly on the grounds of the suggestion that I was far too important to have to rush around. I sat straighter in my saddle and turned my nose up at everything ever so slightly. The precise tilt of the nose raise is a careful consideration. It is far too easy to go too far up and descend into parody.

And so, what some courtiers refer to as “The Game” had begun. From this point on it would be a mistake to assume that we weren't being watched, weighed and measured. I put it to Kerrass that he should think of this as like being behind enemy lines, or walking through the monster's den.

We rode our horses slowly down the road as if we didn't have a care in the world. Right down the middle as well, expecting other people to get out of our way except in one case when a farmer was manipulating a wagon of some kind with the aid of a particularly stubborn looking donkey. He humbly begged our pardon and asked if we would allow him to use the road and I allowed it with my best condescendingly gracious expression and a small, negligent wave.

I had the almost overwhelming urge to punch myself in the mouth.

As we got closer to the buildings we came across our first guardsmem in the uniform of the Cavills who had formed a checkpoint across the road. It wasn't much, just a building with a weapons rack outside. A table and some chairs at which a pair of guardsmen were playing dice and drinking. One of the guardsmen stood up and swaggered over to, presumably, enquire as to our business. He had a smile and a sneer for me as I took out a handkerchief to guard myself against the obvious stench that was permeating the air. I gestured with a grimace and Taylor rode forward to politely enquire if Lord Cavill was home and whether or not he was receiving guests.

The guard did his best to be rude and exert some authority so Taylor slapped him.

“HOW DARE YOU SIR?” He demanded loudly causing everyone to look at us in surprise. His words fell to a hiss as he snarled continued things into the plainly astonished and angry guard. They were exactly the kind of thing that a young noble who is rather too full of himself would say to some upstart guard who thinks that he's more important than he is.

You might be wondering what the point of this little pantomime is. Well, it's all part of “The Game”. What we were putting across was the fact that we felt as though we were better than the average guardsman. I have no doubt that the guardsman was trying to put us in our place and had been chosen for his belligerent and unpleasant nature. From the perspective of the guards, this was an effort to see how we would react. If we had allowed ourselves to be cowed by this lowly guardsman then we weren't that important. If we were merchants then they would have wanted to see how desperate we were to sell our goods.

This is what it is to be a courtier. To discern meanings within meanings within meanings. To put your point across without giving too much away. I will admit to the fact that it is, occasionally, fun to utilise these skills to get one over on people and to puncture the pumped up self importance of ignorant pricks. But it is no way to live. After a while, I find it exhausting to always be suspecting that there are ulterior motives behind every action and that every word spoken, every gesture and movement is carefully planned and refined.

Taylor kept up a constant barrage of abuse and insults at this poor unsuspecting guardsman who was getting angrier and angrier than ever until, at exactly the right moment, Taylor released the poor bastard with a well timed “I demand to speak to your superior.”

The guard stalked off, clearly wishing some kind of gruesome and horrible death on Taylor and the pox on Kerrass and I.

Poor lamb.

The guards corporal came out and introduced himself which is when Taylor kicked it up a notch.

“A corporal, A CORPORAL? I DEMANDED TO SPEAK TO YOUR SUPERIOR NOT SOME JUMPED UP.....”

He went on from there and I'm not going to waste the paper on saying, in detail what he said next. Not least because I wasn't really listening. The best way to pretend that you aren't listening is to not be actually listening. Instead, I sat quietly on my horse giving it some commands through my knees to make it seem as though it was shifting restlessly while I took out my dagger and started cleaning and trimming my nails with it.

This is actually a lot more difficult than it looks so I was actually doing nothing of the sort but from a distance, that's what it looks like what I'm doing.

Why clean, or trim your nails with a dagger when you've got perfectly good scissors and clippers to do that kind of thing for you? It's utterly impractical, just showing off and an intimidation trick and I will hold my hand up to that. Because that was precisely what I was doing.

Eventually the corporal beat a red-faced and strategic retreat in the face of Taylor's arrogant verbal assault and produced a Sergeant.

Taylor changed tack.

For the record, Taylor was being at least as good at this politics lark as I am.

“Ah Sergeant, at last. A man that I can deal with on a more equal footing....”

You see what he did there. He complimented the Sergeant, put across his (Taylor's and therefore my) impatience but still managed to suggest arrogance and that the Sergeant was still beneath him and that Taylor was absolutely justified in talking down to him, and the corporal and the guard before him.

The Sergeant said something. Probably insisting on the formality of following some kind of rule which caused Taylor to erupt into fury again.

“What? WHAT? I demand that you.....”

Which was my cue. I sighed, put my dagger away and urged my horse forwards.

“That's enough,” I snapped at Taylor. “Sergeant.” The man who was getting increasingly red faced turned to look at me. I was using my best, educated and trained melodious “Charming” voice.

“Please forgive me for the rudeness of my man,” I made my voice harsh and violently gestured that Taylor should fall in behind me. “Have no doubt on the matter but he will be punished for his insolence in the face of men who are just trying to do their duties.” I made my voice melodious and charming again. “I humbly ask that you forgive any insult that you feel that you have been dealt and that you leave it in my hands.”

“Yes...well.....”

“Rest assured,” I carried on, arrogantly ignoring the fact that the Sergeant had started to speak. “That I will apologise to your master, Lord Cavill, in person and arrange for some kind of compensation for you and your men.”

I bowed, as if that was the matter fulfilled and made to urge my horse past the check point as though everything had been sorted out. Kerrass' face was impassive which normally meant that he was struggling not to laugh.

I'm much better at reading his facial expressions now than I was when we first met.

Taylor scrambled his horse into line behind me as I rode slowly and steadily towards the main gate of the castle.

“Sir....SIR,” The Sergeant ran to catch up. “Sir, we haven't....”

“Haven't what?” I asked, all arrogant courtesy.

“We need to.....I mean to say....”

“Is Lord Cavill not at home?” I enquired before turning back to look up at the castle parapet where the flag was high, if limp, and thus signalled the Lord's presence.

“No, it's not that it's just.....”

Now here's the Sergeant's problem. He could not let me past unchallenged and he still needed to exert his authority over us. If he just let us past then it showed his men, the watching villagers (if any) and his superiors that he could not be trusted with the duty that he had been given. But I was already past his check point. But I was, very probably, someone important. Remember that I hadn't yet given my name and for all this poor Sergeant knew, I was a powerful somebody of influence who could have him killed or bring down his master's displeasure on the poor man's head.

“I need you to state your name and business.” He finally managed to get out.

“What?” I demanded looking offended and the Sergeant made a manful effort towards not flinching. He almost managed as well.

“Did my man not inform you as to our business?” I asked after a suitably dramatic pause, turning a baleful eye on Taylor who did a good impression of flinching from my gaze.

I heard a small and stifled mewl from Kerrass. He was doing his best to wear his guise of bored and stoic Witcher, Impassive observer of the world but he always enjoyed these small displays. Especially when they took on the form of a pantomime the way that this one had.

“Uh, no he didn't” The man visibly deflated in relief.

“Very well then,” I drew myself up. “My name is Lord Frederick Von Coulthard, Count of Angral.” Yes I was taking a title that I didn't yet have the rights for, but the betrothal deal was done and we were going to be married. I also didn't think that Ariadne would mind if I used the title to get my way into things that might help people. “With me,” I went on, “Is Master Witcher Kerrass of Maecht of the Feline school. And Young Master Taylor, my squire.”

It should be pointed out, again, that Taylor actually has a few years on me.

“We are here to discuss matters of the security and safety of the common folk with my cousin, Lord Cavill.” I said in my grandest and most self-important voice.

Note the use of “Cousin” when talking about Lord Cavill. It is true that most of the nobility of the North are related to each other but as far as I know, I am unrelated to that particular branch of the nobility. But the term of “Cousin” suggests kinship amongst us all and implies a closeness and common ground that we have with each other that is not shared by all of our subjects.

Having declared my business, I turned my horse and continued on my progress towards the castle.

We had gone several steps before the Sergeant stopped us again.

“Uh, we need to examine your goods.”

“We have no goods.” I pointed out reasonably. “As I am not a merchant.”

“Your belongings then. Lord Cavill's orders.”

I frowned. Time to exert my authority. “You're not going through my personal things.” I declared in outrage. “I am visiting my cousin and have nothing to hide from him. You may take the matter up with him if you like?” And I haughtily turned away.

“Lord Cavill isn't receiving visitors.” was the last gambit that the Sergeant tried. “He has suffered a recent tragedy and as such, he has isolated himself.”

“Ah,” I said. “In which case I should offer my condolences.”

“He is not....”

“Outrageous.” I exclaimed. There is really no other way that you can describe the way that I was talking. “I come to warn Lord Cavill of a danger that hangs over his people and you try to turn me aside.” Time to put the poor man on the spot. “Are you suggesting that Lord Cavill would rather be kept in the dark about the state of his subjects? Are you suggesting that he would not put aside his grief in order to see to the security of his realm and the well-being of his people? Are you saying that he isn't fit to carry out the duties of his rank?”

The Sergeant's eyes edged towards the corporal and the other men who studiously avoided his eyes. The corporal just shook his head and shrugged.

You see, what I had done was this. If the Sergeant insisted on keeping me at the checkpoint then he was agreeing with my suggestion that Lord Cavill wasn't fit for office and was neglectful and lazy. But if he let me through then he was disobeying his obvious orders to keep all visitors away and to inspect their goods before confiscating a few items to show their, and therefore Lord Cavill's dominance over the area. If we had played according to our role then we would have probably gotten through after a nice small bribe of some kind which would have provided beer money for the guards while also giving them the feeling that they were superior to us and us, the feeling that everyone wearing a Cavill uniform was more important than we were.

But in turning it back on him, it meant that he was now trapped into either letting me past or implying that Lord Cavill was a dangerous and neglectful buffoon who deserved to be stripped of land and title.

For those people who would like to know. The correct counter to my move is to politely inform the upstart facing you that the Lord is indisposed with his council at the moment, that he “is not currently holding court” at the moment and that the guards do not know where he currently is, or that the Lord is unwell. But that if we wished, we could wait in the local inn or tavern until a message could be got to Lord Cavill notifying him of our arrival.

If he had been trained a bit better or, as I suspect is more likely, had more experience with dick-heads like me, then this is what he might have done. Instead he withered under my question and waved us through.

That is how “The Game” is played. I will admit to enjoying it in small doses and when there is a legitimate reason for it such as deflating a self-important prick or belittling an ass-hole. In this case, we were pursuing the evil fucks that liked to victimise the common folk and maybe took Francesca from us and so I felt that the skills deserved to be used.

If you feel disgusted by all of this then do not be dismayed. Yours is the reaction of the “good and straightforward” person. Any uneasiness would come from a secret suspicion that such skills are sometimes necessary in making the world go round. If it sounds fascinating or exciting then you might want to consider a career in the civil service. Just make sure that you pursue such a career for the right reasons.

I won't go into every interaction that we had as we rode into the Cavill's castle.

Heh, accidental alliteration.

If I did go into everything that happened, you would still be reading this in a month's time. And then, only if you did nothing else other than to sit and read what I'm talking about. It was constant as we walked our horses, not dismounting because the road was muddy and walking through such things is for lesser people than us, past the people and the various astonished guards and up to the castle.

The castle, as I said was a former military outpost. We were heading towards that part of Northern Redania where the paths through the mountains mean that we were on the border with Kaedwen. King Henselt was not alone in being an aggressive King of Kaedwen and there were regular sorties and raids into Redania from the eastern Kingdom. The method of dealing with this was the creation of “The Marcher Lords”. These were a series of Northern Barons who were given charge of a military outpost type of a castle as well as a garrison and almost complete autonomy to run their lands the way they wanted. That way, the Northern border was protected so that the regular army could concentrate on protecting the Pontar valley from Temerian, Aedirn and Kaedwen again's various ambitions.

I don't know why Kaedwen has always reared militarily ambitious kings. Perhaps it was something to do with the desire for better arable land and being close to the trading centres of Novigrad, Tretogor and the rest. I don't know and I will leave that question to wiser heads than mine.

As I say, it was a military building first and you could still see the original layout of the fortress in the separate courtyards and the firing steps. That even on the walls, archers could still shoot down into the press of the men if the courtyards themselves were breached and that wasn't counting the keep itself.

The keep was originally quite small, short, squat, grey and drab. The kind of place where you could only imagine that you would spend your entire life being cold and damp. But since then, the keep had been modified. You could see the places on the walls and some of the original out buildings where they had been taken down to rebuild some new buildings and to expand the keep. The roof of the keep had been rebuilt completely using sandstone rather than the dull grey granite and slate and you could also see the more modern red fired tiles that made up the rooftops.

I don't want you to think that this was a sign of neglect. Rather it was the sign of an old-fashioned fortification being changed into something else when it was no longer required for it's original purpose. There was also a small chapel that had been built that took up a part of what would once have been a killing ground inside the walls.

We pushed our horses past the constant stream of common folk that were carrying goods in and out of the castle. I was reminded of Kerrass' story about infiltrating a castle by simple virtue of carrying a bundle of firewood and having his hood up. The people looked tired with empty eyes, far too many of them looking just a little bit too thin. Baggy, old clothes.

We were well above the famine line that the last war had created. The local area was well able to look after itself with crops and the like and although they may have felt the pinch from army foraging parties when the regiments were marching to the front as well as the royal foragers who stripped the countryside of grain and other goods, there wasn't the rampant loss of life here. The fields had still been planted and the livestock was still relatively cared for. Especially as the countryside had now had several years to get over the famines and recover.

But there should no way have been enough of a problem that would contribute to the.....to the listlessness that we saw. These people were beaten down, tired and resigned to a life of hardship. It had not even crossed their mind that there might be a better life over the horizon. Normally you see this kind of thing in places where there is heavy banditry, which we had seen no evidence of, or a feudal lord who is ruling the place with an iron fist, charging high taxes and brutalising his people

I found myself beginning to dislike Lord Cavill. It wasn't just the state of the castle that was increasingly covered in greenery that invading forces could use to climb up. Nor was it the remodelling of a grand old fortress, nor was it the arrogance of the guards who had tried to shake us down on the castle gate as well, or the treatment of the common folk. It was the greenery and the state of the castle and the attitude of the guards and the treatment of the common folk.

Again, I don't want you to think that this is unusual. To varying degrees, this kind of thing can be seen wherever you go on the continent. I have seen these signs in the southern parts of the Empire as well as up in Northern Redania and Kaedwen and everywhere in between. Sometimes the blame can be laid at the feet of the church or overzealous churchmen. Sometimes it's because the local lord has been forced to raise taxes for some kind of local works such as irrigation channels for the fields.

But when you put these things together it is nearly always because the Lord likes his comfort and doesn't want to be bothered with the everyday business of running his lands. He wants to keep his hands clean. This wasn't the worst I've seen. I have seen far, far worse closer to my families estates because there, the Lords and Ladies are much closer to Novigrad and Oxenfurt so the same amount of land is often, also, supporting a town house and the extravagant parties that are expected of them. But instead of investing in commerce or investing in the improvement of their lands and people like Father did, they just squeeze the common folk for that little bit extra which is why it doesn't work.

The subtle and not so subtle powerplays were still at work. We were kept waiting for someone to come and take our horses away to the stable and we still had to carry our own goods into the castle. I know that Kerrass actually prefers to do it that way and I would certainly have no objection, in most cases, to carrying my own gear on the grounds that the average servant has approximately seventy three more important things more important to do than to look after uninvited guests. There is also the ever present danger that a light fingered servant might rifle through your belongings.

But that wasn't the point. Busy servants I can understand but we were deliberately kept waiting. I know this because the liveried servants, the groom and such like, were lounging around, playing dice and smoking. It was the common folk that were under fed. The liveried men were slovenly, unwashed and unmaintained. A sneaking suspicion, later proven to be false, began to form in my head that somewhere there would be some other kind of servant. A more, elite kind of servant that only attends on the Lord himself and his most favoured guests. These servants would be almost exclusively female, beautiful and would either be wearing not very much or would be almost completely see through.

I firmly admonished myself to keep a tight grip on my temper.

We were again kept waiting before someone arrived out of a side door to offer us the formal hospitality of the house. The hospitality of bread and salt was duly offered, the proper words were exchanged and we washed our hands and face before being shown to our rooms. The man who came to see us in this way did have the grace to apologise for Lord Cavill's absence but that “certain matters” were keeping his attention elsewhere. I commiserated of course and told him that I was at Lord Cavill's disposal if there was anything I could do to help with whatever problems were weighing on his mind. The servant took this with as good a grace as he could manage before handing us over to some more servants.

We were shown to our rooms which involved another power play as we were shown to rooms far to small for my station. A legitimate insult to me as even if I wasn't pretending to be a more uptight nobleman than I actually was, this was still little more than a servants room. I won't deny that I've slept in worse and been happy with it, but not when I've been travelling so openly as the son of a Baron and especially not as a Count. Future Count or not. I let Taylor argue the toss for a while and eventually he brow-beat the poor servant into obedience. The servant in question seemed to be of a lower status than the groom and the men-at-arms and I suspect that he had been ordered as to exactly how to treat us.

We moved to better quarters and settled in. Taylor sleeping against the door, at his own insistence despite my suggestions to take another room or at least sleep in the chair, Kerrass in another room and I settled down to make some notes and change for dinner. It's also another common trick for people to try and interrupt you while you're still changing for something and then pretend to be insulted when we weren't ready to receive the person in question. I sent Taylor out to see what could be seen and to see if he could make any friends. I doubted it as he had been throwing his weight around with giddy abandon but these are the things that you need to try.

Sure enough, we ended up being kept waiting for several hours before a servant came to enquire if Lord Frederick (notice the lack of titles) would care to attend upon Baron Cavill at his earliest convenience. It is the very height of bad manners to turn down such an invitation and as I was already waiting for them I declared, in a loud voice, that the sooner I could speak to Cousin Cavill then the sooner we could put an end to this threat that promised to swallow the entirety of the north.

It was probably a faint hope that such declarations would do any good other than to cause some gossip in the servants halls but even that kind of thing can have it's uses.

We collected Kerrass on our way down to the main hall, at my insistence I might add so that I could “have my professional consultant on hand so that the right honourable Lord Cavill would be able to hear about the threat from a suitably learned source,” and we were shown to the hall entrance.

There we were told, in excruciating and condescending detail, about the protocol that was expected at these kinds of things before the doors were opened and we were shown into what passed for the court of Lord Cavill.

The first thing that hit me in the face was that there were no women there. That says something. Both about the company of people that I was going into but also about me. That the first thing I notice is that there weren't any women.

I suppose that I've been lucky in that I've been surrounded by some amazing women in my life which is why this stood out so much to me.

But here's another thing. I'm told that, even in the older version of Nilfgaardian court, where women were expected to be seen and not heard. Where they dressed, deliberately, in drab colours in order to fade into the background in order to escape notice, the women still played an important role. Their job was to remember everything that their husband had forgotten. It wasn't a formal thing, nor was it a skill that was trained into them from a young age where their tutors and nannies told them that they would, one day, be a walking diary and notepad for their husbands, but that's what they were.

In the north, women are, or rather were since the various wars have done a considerable amount to cull the male population meaning that there is actually a much larger number of women fulfilling the courtly roles, the ornaments that hung off their husband's arms. Where the Northern Lords were expected to be masculine and wear martial clothing or hunting attire beneath their expensive robes and badges of office, the women became a way of showing off their wealth, wearing the jewels and the expensive dresses as well as looking as young and beautiful as possible which was another way of exhibiting the man's wealth and prestige.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

But here there was none of that.

I felt like I was twelve again. The first time that I had been invited to join the “men” after dinner rather than having to go with the women as was proper for my childhood. Lots of men standing around smoking and drinking and eating food. Talking about self-important little things with their self-important little smirks and talking down to everyone and about everyone.

It was a courtroom as well. A large hall, obviously converted from something else into it's current form. Lord Cavill stood before a chair that I might as well call a throne. It wasn't as richly carved or decorated as any of the thrones that I have seen but at the same time, that was clearly what it was.

I'm struggling to describe the place.

Ok, here's a thing.

There are two major, socially acceptable pastimes for gentlemen of leisure in the north. By “Gentlemen of Leisure” I mean those men who have enough money provided for them by their beloved families and their domains, so that they don't really need to work particularly hard for it. But also that they don't really have a need to go to court. Your find these kind of people are generally in their middle age, already married having provided for the succession with a number of children. Have a wife that they are fond of and a mistress that keeps them happy and they are either before the period where they have to arrange marriages for their children, or after it and their children are betrothed, or married already. Then, after they have done their tasks for the day they go on to their hobbies.

These hobbies are either War, or Hunting.

These two things can be broken down of course. The hobby of war might be to collect paintings of battlefields or collect armour and weapons from various places. They might put all their efforts into training and equipping their personal men at arms or they might collect books and accounts of battles long past before getting their friends round to argue about how they would have done it differently if they had been commanding the forced of Blah in battle against Thingy on the field of Doo-dah. I've seen some men who collect wooden carvings of soldiers where they put them on tables that have been carved into the shapes of famous battlefields to aid in these discussions.

Notice that I haven't said that they spend their time actually training in the yard. Such men tend to be of the school of thought where they learned to fight in their youth and either consider themselves to have learnt everything that they need to know, or have admitted that age has rendered them unable to carry out any but the most basic of martial manoeuvres and would be forced to send their sons should the Crown actually call for aid.

The other hobby is that of hunting in whatever form it takes. My father was a good example of this. I would flatter him to say that he did more work before he would start the pursuit of his hobby than others and I would also suggest that he had more taste, but I may be a little biased there. He would certainly do things like getting out of bed before dawn so that he could “exercise the dogs” if there was an important visitor coming or taking the hawks out last thing at night. He used to say that he would often receive an insight while out on his hunts, a solution to a problem that he had been puzzling over in the same way that I used to get the answer to a question while down the pub or had woken up with an essay solution in the early hours of the morning.

Such men tend to have stuffed animal heads on the walls along with racks of antlers and maybe the hide of a particularly rare animal. There would be bear skins on the floor and trophies displayed prominently in various places.

I am struggling not to be too condescending here. This is all perfectly normal and is only two of the more acceptable ways for a nobleman to spend his time. I would remind you that learning or “Bettering one's mind” is not as socially acceptable in the upper tiers of “polite society” although that is certainly what I hope to be doing with my time when not seeing to feudal duties or lecturing at Oxenfurt.

But, as I say, hunting and war.

What I'm going to call Lord Cavill's throne room, was buried in both. It was as though there were two separate and much larger rooms worth of furnishings and decorations in this place. A hunting room and a War room but someone, presumably Lord Cavill, had taken both rooms, thrown everything in them into this room and then shaken it before hanging the pictures and setting up the weapons displays as close as they could to wherever they had been left.

The effect was more than a little overwhelming, an assault on the senses as the smells of metal polish combined with the smell of those chemicals that they use to preserve stuffed animals combined into a heady and potent brew.

I saw bears heads, deer heads, a Griffon head and a Wyvern head alongside suits of armour, spears and swords strapped to the walls that also obscure paintings and tapestries that overlapped and obscured each other, the colours often clashing and causing the beginning of a headache to cross through my skull. The effort that it must have taken to get everything in there must have been extraordinary but it also meant that the room seemed a little off centre. That the effort to get them all in meant that the biggest and grandest things had to be shoved aside to squeeze in a couple of smaller ornaments.

If Lord Cavill had been intending to throw me off balance then he did his job well.

The men were of a similar kind of mish-mash of styles and outfits. Some looked as though they had just walked in from the practice yards, complete with sabres and Long swords at their waist while others looked as thought hey had just jumped off their horses after a hunt, mud splatter still covering the side of their trousers and boots although the cynical part of me noticed that the mud wasn't all pervasive enough to still be caked on or to stink, more a kind of artistic smear.

But, again, it was those people that were trying to do both at the same time that were making my eyes ache. The man who was wearing an arming jacked but also wearing a hawking glove stood out. The man leaning against a boar spear while wearing a stripped down version of plate harness.

And over all of this there was also the sound, smell and sight of rambunctious hunting dogs around the place, one of which was sleeping, sprawled out, next to the fire as well as a pair of hooded hunting birds on a stand near the “throne”.

In a move that must have surely been rehearsed, the entire room turned to face me, looking down their long nose at my courtly attire that wouldn't have been out of place at a more “dressed down” kind of affair in Novigrad but it left me feeling rather overdressed here. I found myself wondering whether or not someone had told the assembly whether this was my preferred form of dress and as such they had deliberately dressed like “men of action” in order to intimidate me.

I don't know. I doubt it though on the grounds that these people looked as though they meant it.

In these cases when you find yourself over, or under, or inappropriately dressed for the occasion, the correct response is to ignore everyone's attire and attitude and pretend that everyone is just dressed normally. Tell yourself something like “It is a man's words and deeds that are important, not what he looks like” and stride forward, head held high, shoulders back and meet your opponent.

Notice that I didn't say enemy.

So I strode forward, Kerrass behind me and slightly too my left. I wore my eating knife as well as my dagger at my waist but compared to some of the others, I was woefully under-armed. I spotted the man that I had been told would be Lord Cavill at the far end of the room and started towards him with the long, purposeful stride that I hoped would convey that I was a man of means and purpose.

Lord Cavill was an oldish man. I would put him at being maybe a decade older than father was when he died which means that he was around sixty. Despite this he still looked hale, hearty and healthy although I thought he looked a little pale with black shadows under his eyes which suggested that he hadn't been sleeping well recently. He had a small shock of white hair which he kept reasonably short but he had somehow managed to avoid going bald. He seemed to be a little on the edge of things, watching the room and I certainly felt myself being appraised as I approached. He was wearing hunting garb and had a sword strapped to his side with a smaller dagger on the other side. The handles were worn and he looked as though he knew how to use them. Certainly the calluses that covered his hand suggested that he had some skill with them. He was wearing a tunic in his own colours trimmed with Gold and silver thread which was the thing that made him stand out more than anyone else.

It was another jarring effect. In every way that everyone else seemed gaudy and overdressed, Lord Cavill seemed almost underdressed but there was no doubt as to who he was.

That's another skill that they teach you when you're learning to be a courtier. It is vital to be able to read a room when you enter it in order to be able to tell who is in charge and who the important people were.

I was intercepted by one of those people as I walked across the floor.

This man, who I took to be Lord Cavill's younger son was around my age, maybe a year or two in either direction and he was huge. Heavily muscled and he moved like he knew how to use it. He was wearing his family colours but he was also one of those men that was wearing an approximation of plate mail. By which I mean that he wore a breastplate, arm and leg guards as well as pauldrons. But he was lacking in certain areas meaning that it wasn't quite full harness. He wasn't wearing a gorget for instance to protect the neck and his boots were not armoured, nor was he wearing gauntlets.

Also, normally when you can't have full harness on you certainly have a second layer of protection, commonly chainmail underneath the bits of plate that you can afford. He was not wearing such things so I guessed that the armour was more for show than for utility.

Unlike his father he wore a broadsword at his hip despite it being bigger and heavier. He was tall, just short of six foot by my estimate, reddish blonde hair that I'm told is generally called “Strawberry blonde” and blue eyed with a square, handsome face, a large chin with a cleft down the middle and high cheekbones. He had a way of looking at me that made me dislike him instantly. I was working really hard to keep an open mind about his father and the rest of the castle but I decided that I was safe to dislike this man regardless of what was going on.

He reminded me of Sir William the Ram from the incident with Tom the troll. Strong, handsome and although he might not be completely without intelligence, he had that confidence that meant that few men could stand up to his skill with weapons and he knew it, that he was pretty and he knew it. But also that he was rich and he knew that too.

I could just tell that he thought he was better than I was and I felt myself bridle as he took on the aspect of every bully that I had ever known.

For bullying was exactly what he had in mind.

Now.

I'm going to sink back into courtier style commentary here as I talk about the way that this works.

What he did was stand in front of me so that I would have to walk round him to get to Lord Cavill. So that was precisely what I did. Without missing a beat, I just adjusted my line of march so that I moved round this tall wall of muscle.

So then he moved into my path again.

So I went back and moved back towards the line that I had first been walking down. So of course he moved back into my path again.

Now, to the vast majority of people, whether you are a merchant, farmer, noble, student, chef, servant or the proverbial butcher, baker, candlestick maker. You know that what he was doing was trying to pick a fight. From his perspective he was this huge, musclebound man with a large sword strapped to his side, breastplate polished enough so that I could see myself in it and now some little lickspittle courtier was walking through his domain to try and say important things to important people as if he was more important than I was.

But from a courtier's perspective, you have to take into account the very real possibility that there was something else going on here.

This play is actually quite common. You see it a lot in the more Northern and frontier bound Kaedwen castles or, so I'm told, out in the Skelligan isles where the entire ritual is a way for the stranger to prove themselves worthy of the assembled men's time. It's a way of testing the interlopers mettle and to see exactly how he is going to behave. In short, it's a way to assess the new man's behaviour and reason for being there.

It's also quite a dangerous play, not for the observers but for the man sent to pick the fight as there are any number of ways that this could go wrong.

As we shall see.

But for this reason, in circles of courtier training, this gambit is sometimes referred to as “pawn's sacrifice” named after the chess piece.

I looked up to see what kind of man that I was dealing with and smiled my best, polite but kind of insincere smile. I also put as much world weariness into it as possible in an effort to put across the idea that such things were beneath me.

Which they are.

The man looked down at me and literally, puffed out his chest. You could hear the leather straps of his armour creaking under the strain.

I smirked, looking to either side and then moved to go past him again.

There was absolutely no expectation that he would do anything other than move to step in my way again. I knew this but the movement gave me a chance to look past him at the face of Lord Cavill so that I could see what his expression was. Was he even watching this display? How was he standing? Things like that. I had looked to the side to gauge the feel of the room. Were people smiling? If so were they smiling at me, at the man standing over me or were they smiling at the situation as a whole.

All of these things told me something.

The other people in the room were watching the entire thing in the same way that you or I might watch a piece of particularly entertaining street theatre. Whether that be an absurdly incorrect street corner philosopher, a sleight of hand magician or a puppet show. There was one small group of young men, maybe three or four of them to my left who were smirking at me and clearly anticipating my discomfort while looking forward to watching their friend smash my face in which was clearly the expected outcome.

Lord Cavill's face was interesting. The most dangerous possibility for me was that he wasn't watching and wasn't interested. This would mean that the man in front of me was either acting alone or had been put up to it by someone else. If Lord Cavill was not involved then it would have been essential that I play it cool and not react with anything that might have me thrown out of the castle. The advantage to this would be that if things went too far then I would have been able to appeal to Lord Cavill to extricate myself from the situation.

Fortunately for me. This was not the case. Lord Cavill was indeed watching proceedings with interest, his eyes glittering in what I took for wicked amusement and a small amount of malice although I couldn't tell whether or not it was directed at me, Kerrass or the giant standing in front of me.

I decided that Lord Cavill had put this person up to this in order to test my character.

The entirety of that exchange and my thinking process had taken maybe four seconds. Lord Cavill had made the first move in our little game and it was time for me to make my answering move.

I looked up at the man in front of me and smiled.

From my end the problem was that I had an objective. I needed to speak to Lord Cavill. But this person was in my way and was attempting to provoke me into some kind of aggressive gesture. Ideally he wanted me to either insult him, physically attack him, to challenge him to a duel or to give him an excuse to challenge me to a duel.

The problem with any of these things was that I was under hospitality and so, if I did any of these things then I would have been the one to break hospitality and the guard could, at best, throw me out or, at worst, have me executed for committing a crime.

In Skellige, I'm told, the correct thing to do would be to punch the man in the face and deal with the consequences later. I'm told, having never gone to Skellige that the men out there, and indeed the women, respect that kind of thing and I would be welcomed with open arms. Here though, things were a bit trickier.

Fortunately for me, hospitality is a shield that protected us both, so I could use that to defend myself.

“Forgive me,” I said. The opening words are all important. By saying this I was putting him into an artificial sense of superiority. My tone of voice was chosen to let him know that I was anything but sincere in my apology. “Forgive me,” I said, “But I need to get past you to the other end of the room.”

“Oh, of course.” The giant said slapping himself on the forehead. “Silly me. Then you should go ahead.”

I nodded as though that was the end of the matter and went to move past him.

Neither Kerrass, nor I, nor anyone else in the room was surprised when he moved to block my path again.

I sighed, trying to sound exasperated and put upon. I didn't need to try very hard.

“Would you excuse me please sir?” I asked him as politely as I could manage.

“Why? What have you done?”

There was some scattered tittering of laughter. I decided to smile along with the joke while promising myself that vengeance would be as swift as I could manage.

“I meant,” I began, “I meant, rather that you were in the way.”

“Oh, I see.” He drew it out. “Again, how silly of me.”

I tried to go past him again. Again he stepped in front of me. Time to bring things to a head.

“Will you let me past?” I asked.

“No.”

“May I ask why not?”

“You may ask.” A child's response, punishing me for my civility and again I smiled as everyone laughed at my discomfort.

“Very well,” I put just a hint of the fact that I was beginning to feel bored by the entire thing now. Mostly in an effort to move things along to the next step. “Why may I not move past you?”

You may notice that I have not yet told the brute that I need to get past him to talk to Lord Cavill. This was entirely deliberate on my part as that is the trump card in my hand.

“Because I don't like your face.” He sneered down at me.

“Well that's a shame.” I responded. “It is the only face I have.” I wanted to look around to see if my joke had landed with anyone that was watching but it would be a mistake to take my eyes off the man in front of me.

“It might be the only face you have, but I still don't like it.” He told me, he was frowning slightly, a little annoyed at something.

“That's a shame for you. But I don't see why that should prevent me from moving past you.”

“You can't move past me because I say so.” He snapped. “Your face is ugly and I will not abide it travelling any further into this room where you will pollute the air with your appearance.”

I nodded to myself. The idiot had made his mistake.

“Because you say so?” I asked. I put a hint of warning into my voice while also doing my best to leave out the threat.

“I do. The room will be markedly improved by your absence. You are a weak man sir, weak and foolish and stink far too much like a woman. We are real men out here and have no time for your courtly slights and fanciful ways. Men like you are more woman than man and we want no part of it. Be off with you,” he told me, waving imperiously as he did so. He almost leaned forward expecting a slap, or some other formal declaration of a duel.

I suspect I disappointed him. “Very well,” I said before turning. But then I stopped, and tilted my head to one side as if I was thinking. I wasn't, the play had already been set in motion. What I was doing was assessing the mood of the room and, as I hoped, the mood had shifted a little in my favour. Not because they like me more than the buffoon but because it had been taken that little bit too far.

“Because you say so,” I mused turning back to the oaf. “Because you say so. Not Lord Cavill?”

“Well I....”

I pulled myself up to my full height. “You dare speak for Lord Cavill?” I snarled.

It was a courtier snarl though. It was still measured and enunciated properly but now there was a little more teeth to it.

“Well I...” He began again.

“My name is Count Frederick von Coulthard of Angral.” I said in my best oratory voice. “I came here to inform Lord Cavill of matters regarding the security of his realm and the safety of his people. I was summoned to this room by himself on this matter.” I paused to let these words sink into the waiting ears of the room. No-one was even pretending to ignore us now. “Who are you to stand between Lord Cavill and his royal, no, his divinely appointed duty?”

The moron bristled. I still wonder whether or not he realised that he had been set up for this fall. Because this is the threat of being the pawn in this sacrifice. If it turns out that the man that you're bullying has more influence, rank or pull than you do then you run the risk of being, at best, embarrassed in front of everyone.

Or, at worst, you can look forward to your public disgrace followed by exile before the man that you bullied spends a certain amount of time destroying you. There is also the threat that the person that you are bullying is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing and could kick your ass. He hadn't got it though and opened his mouth to retort.

“That's enough.” Lord Cavill spoke finally. “I believe that this jest has gone on too far.”

The giant closed his mouth with a snap. Thus proving that the habit of obedience runs deep. Then he opened his mouth again as though it had decided, all by itself that the brain was out for some reason. That it's last orders were to continue to insult me. Then he frowned.

I had to fight, really hard to suppress a smile as you could almost see the thoughts crossing his mind. 'But, but you told me to insult the shit out of this man.' You could see him wanting to complain. Followed by a 'And I haven't even gotten to the really good insults yet, such as questioning his manhood or calling him a silly sycophantic lick-spittle,' followed by a 'No, you know what? Fuck it. I'm in it now.'

During this thought process his mouth opened and closed several times, his brows furrowed and you could see these thoughts thundering across his brow.

Here is another tip. If you know that you're not a courtly person, if you know that you're a fighter, soldier or knight and that you value honesty, truth and plain speech. Then ensure that you only travel to courts where you will be surrounded by friends. If you are forced into a situation where this is not the case then take a friend with you. A translator if you will, who will be able to help you through the more nerve-wracking feats of etiquette and protocol.

Also, ask questions. The herald who stands by the door is there for precisely this reason along with the master of ceremonies who will tell you where to stand, who to speak to and where to look. But above all, be polite, always look a person in the eye, shake hands firmly and do not presume. The secret of the matter is that those of us who have been trained in how to do it and how to think all twisty like courtiers are. We secretly admire you for your forthright speech and honest approach. So wear that attitude like a shield. Laugh at yourself, grow a thick skin and point out to a person that you are slightly insulted by what they've just said. But otherwise get out when you can.

Kerrass claims that I am a fighter. Rickard agrees, as do several other fighters such as Sam and Father Danzig of recent memory but that doesn't mean that I could be a general of a battle, nor could I fight in the battle line or march solidly into enemy fire. I would be cut down and rightly so. So acknowledge your skills. This is not your battlefield, it is ours and it is easily as deadly as yours is.

Depending where you go of course. King Radovid's court was famously very small and absolutely deadly, as was Emperor Emhyr's court. King Foltest liked a large and bawdy court providing that they didn't speak ill of his daughter or his sister/wife or any of the other subjects that he got testy on. For which he employed people to inform strangers to the court what these things were.

But I'm getting off topic.

I had just begun to feel sorry for the brute in front of me. Just for a split second as he had been thrown to the wolves, but he didn't know that he had been thrown to the wolves and genuinely thought that he was in the right. And he was getting angry now.

“This....this thing isn't worthy to.....” he began.

I laughed.

Things had come to a point in our courtly battle now. I had taken a beating in the early stages of the matter, despite the fact that that had been my gambit, before I had turned the matter around and scored a significant point. The judge had ruled the fight in my favour but my opponent was not yet done and felt that the judge's decision was unfair and intended to kill me. So now, I had to kill him first and I had to do it brutally and utterly without compromise.

If I hid behind Lord Cavill then I would be seen as weak. Not just to my opponent, but to the assembled people as well as Lord Cavill himself. This is another difference between courtly combat and fighting in the field. In the field, mercy is seen as a virtue whereas in court, mercy is a weakness to be exploited and is nearly always a mistake. It's one of the reasons that I don't like to employ these skills and why I didn't want to follow one of Father's many plans for my future, that of being a courtier. I found that I always wanted to let the opponents off easily and my tutor told both me, and my father which resulted in him being fired, that I lacked the heart for the work.

At the time, I was heartbroken as father was angry for a long time, but, looking back, I think that that was the nicest thing that any of my tutors ever said to me.

But now, I needed to destroy this man. It wasn't that hard. I was already quite angry at the way that we had been treated as I had a job to do and these people were doing there best to delay us. I reached down into my chest to find the molten core of rage that had taken up residence there. I had only recently discovered that it was a thing, over the last couple of days but it was there now and nothing that I could do could dislodge it. So I determined to use it. I reached down towards it and....

I laughed.

“Forgive me.” I said, smiling through the chuckling. “I had not realised that we were talking in jest.” I turned towards Lord Cavill. “The fault is entirely mine, Lord, as I was unaware as to the local humour, customs and matters of protocol.”

Was there a flicker of emotion in his eyes? I couldn't tell. I was too far away and I didn't know him well enough to guess as to what might be going on in his mind. I didn't have time to spend though and I turned back to my immediate opponent. Lord Cavill was a future problem.

My opponent still had his mouth open as if to say something so I jumped in. There was absolutely no way that I could allow him to get the upper hand. I had the floor now and I needed to keep it.

“Where I come from, a bit further south in Redania, it is customary to refrain from playing pranks on new members, or visitors to the court until their immediate business is concluded and the person is a bit more known to the people assembled. The reason for this is that it is considered extremely rude to interrupt someone on serious business. Also, there is a risk of offending someone so the jokes, jests, pranks and japes are generally left until later in the acquaintanceship.

“So I entered with proper deference and humility towards the Lord of the domain,” I spun on my feet, also displaying a small martial movement as the technique that I used was one that Kerrass had taught me. I thought it was time to show the watchers that I was possibly a little more dangerous than I looked. I bowed deeply to Lord Cavill, who hadn't moved and continued my speech, “with an aim to concluding my business as quickly as possible so that I could move on to meeting some of the excellent and noble people here assembled.”

I had moved a little way away during this speech, moving around to attract people's eyes and become the centre of attention. When you are destroying someone you need to do it as publicly as possible. It also meant that I could survey the room and begin to gauge how I stood. They were certainly enjoying the spectacle, other than the small group of my opponents companions who were staring daggers at me. One of them was looking thoughtful.

“Had I known,” I went on, “that here, the jests are offered first, before business then I might have stepped forward a little more brashly,” time to turn up the heat a little, “maybe with a little more discourtesy and I would have told the idiotic fool in front of me that he smelled like something that I would scrape out of my horse's hoof in order to prevent it from spreading some kind of infection.”

There was a little bit of laughter. Now the technique becomes knowing when to switch from the angry jester back to the courteous courtier.

“I would have pointed out that he was so ugly that when he was born, everyone was concerned that the baby must have come out backwards.”

A little more laughter.

“So ugly in fact that the servants used to hang a steak around his neck so that the dogs would play with him. I would have told him that he didn't need to work so hard at his weaponscraft, that all he needed to do would be to show his face and that the enemy would run away screaming. I would have told him that he needs to pay the whore's that he frequents at least ten times their usual rate. Both for agreeing to be in the same room as him, but to try and do anything with the shrivelled manhood that is displayed before them. Then they have to not laugh at what they are shown before agreeing to never speak of it to anyone else.”

He was becoming an agreeable shade of pink now, time to move in for the kill. Again that flare of pity and I forced myself to squash it.

“A man so repulsive, of appearance, prowess and intelligence that his own father is forced to pay a dowry for him, rather than expecting one in return.”

There was no doubt about it. The room was cackling quietly now. He was about to explode in apoplectic rage when I changed my tone back to that of genial, calm and courteous courtier.

“But of course, all of these things are jests and I hope that I have not offered insult or offence, either to you, sir, or to this house by offering my own personal little attempts at humour.” I bowed.

There was a little more laughter and a few comments of “Well done, well done. Good show,”

My opponent looked around in shock at the people watching before storming from the room in a cloud of black rage. I bowed to Lord Cavill in exactly the same way that Fighters at a wrestling tournament bow towards the judge and waited for him to nod before I continued my approach.

I felt dirty. The gambit that I had used was an old one, there is no denying that and it has been used all over the continent many many times, both in reality but also in fiction and I was more than a little astonished that it worked. But then again, the set up to the situation was equally as old and the player so obviously out of his depth that I felt secure in my counter. I already had the excuse of “just jesting” and they couldn't argue against that because to do so they would have needed to point out that the person who had had a go at me would also have been at fault.

The correct counter to my gambit depends on where you are. In Skellige you would just offer insult upon insult to each other, even resulting in blows if necessary as the drawing of weapons in the mead-halls are forbidden on pain of a painful death. Then the hosting party will break in and the two insult throwers will embrace, often in genuine eternal friendship.

In most courts, experienced players of the game will realise that they have been thrown to the wolves and will withdraw gracefully with some form of public apology and a pretence of ignorance at the visitor's status, an excuse of fatigue or excessive alcohol as well as a lack of understanding regarding the Lord's instructions.

Thus telling both the Lord and the visitor who it was that was responsible. Then there is often a more private assignation for a more extensive and heartfelt apology at a later date in order to sore up the lost face and esteem. This is done, even if you intend to destroy your former opponent at a later date. It's just the cost of doing business.

This man had simply stormed off. Possibly in thwarted rage. I guessed that he had been promised violence and the opportunity to punish an upstart little courtier and he had been thwarted, not just by me but by the man who he owed fealty to.

He was the very image of a man who was playing to rules that he didn't understand, so, he shouldn't have been playing.

I felt sick and wondered if I could persuade Lord Cavill's servants to run me a bath in order to get the skuzzy feeling off my skin.

But, a courtier's battle is never done. Time for my next opponent.

I turned and walked towards Lord Cavill, bowing again.

“I take it that the honoured gentleman has duties elsewhere Lord Cavill.”

Lord Cavill raised his eyebrows. “I certainly hope so Lord Frederick. I hope that he has found some kind of duty that takes him far away so that he can think about what he has done and how he can do better next time.”

He gestured and a chair was brought so that we could sit close to each other.

“Having said that, Lord Frederick, I do hope that you will not think too harshly of my son. We...”

“Your son?” I sputtered in shock.

“Yes. You are surprised?”

I looked into the eyes of the man I was sat next to. “May I speak frankly sir?”

His eyes glittered oddly.

“Please do.”

“Then I hope that you won't find this too insulting but, I am a trained courtier since a fairly young age and although I do not use these skills often.... I have seen that happen in several courts over the years....” an exaggeration. I have seen it happen twice. Once was in a provincial Nilfgaardian court when a knight took it upon himself to challenge a Skelligan visitor and the other time was when someone pulled the same trick when I was accompanying father on a business trip. The Skelligan broke the Nilfgaardian's nose, cheekbones and several ribs before he was pulled away by his own chieftain. Father accepted being the butt of everyone's joke and then spent a not small fortune on ruining the life and fortune of the man that insulted him. “... and such a thing never ends well for the person in your son's position.”

Lord Cavill stroked his chin in thought. “True, but my son needs to learn some humility and also to know when he is beaten.”

“May I say that it is a harsh lesson and one that he might struggle to learn given his advanced age. I was taught such things when I was younger than ten and your son....”

“Is in his late teens. I am aware of the problem but my son needs to learn quickly as there are several lacks in his education.” He sighed and wiped his hands across his eyes and I wondered if the fatigue that I saw there was a pretense or genuine. “We have suffered something of a disaster you see. My heir died recently.”

My response was instant and well trained.

“I am so sorry Lord Cavill, I was completely unaware of the circumstances and were things less urgent then I would excuse myself to leave you with your grief.”

He waved his hand in dismissal.

“My house has not been lucky with my sons. The young man that you just schooled was my fourth son, his mother long dead unfortunately. The elder sons were lost to the War with Nilfgaard and a disagreement with King Radovid at court which meant that he was sent to Temeria when the plague was ravaging the countryside. Now my third son is dead on the road with only a couple of my guardsmen returning to bring me the news in the last couple of days and so... all my hopes for the continuation of my line rest on the remaining son. The son who was allowed to study chivalry and weapons. Not that he took all of the lessons to heart of course. Specifically the one's about honesty and humility”

“Would my Lord take it amiss if I said that this was a common fault amongst those men who follow, or claim to follow the code of chivalry?”

He smiled a little.

“He would not. Indeed I took some heart from your recent works on the subject Lord Frederick. Yes, I know who you are and I know your recent activities in Toussaint. Might I say that your actions did you credit on the road regarding the holy sect that existed in Lyira and Rivia?”

I felt myself stiffen and admonished myself to pay better attention. I had caught myself beginning to relax and I needed to be on top of my game.

“Thank you.” I stuttered a little. “You are one of the few that feels that way.”

“Yes, well. People have a knee-jerk reaction to offending the church in any way and it is making the holy men of the continent over confident in their affairs. Someone needs to remind them that they are still subject to royal and feudal law as well as the laws of common decency.”

“Not a fan of religion then my Lord?”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. I was fascinated by his eyebrows. Large bushy things that seemed to move independently of the rest of his face. By far the most expressive part of him.

“I think that the world would be a much better place if they all followed their own rules.” He said. “The reason that the nobility can buy our way into favour with the churches is so that we can have time to get on with our other duties whereas those others that cannot afford such considerations must worship and work to achieve the passage into an agreeable afterlife. I didn't make those rules, the church did. If I get to an afterlife and it turns out that the priests lied to me then I shall be angry indeed.”

He sniffed hugely in an eloquent expression of disdain and an adequate demonstration of the fact that he was coming down with a cold.

“So yes. There are a good number of problems in the world that could be solved if the various religions of our lands confined their attentions to the care of our immortal souls and leave the rest of us to get on with the important jobs of running the rest of the world. Things like your Bishop Sansum happen when those religious people decide that they know better about the rest of the world than the rightful rulers of it.”

I was fighting to not like the man. He was charming and his way of speaking drew you along with him.

“Still,” he said suddenly jerking himself out of his thoughtful gaze into nowhere. “You didn't come here to talk to me about my spirituality. You told everyone that you have come here to discuss a possible threat to my people and my lands. If so then it's best that we begin talking about although I warn you that if you were just lying in an effort to get in here and gossip then things may go badly for you.” He smiled as he said this to take the sting out of the words but I felt the threat all the same.

“Have no fear Lord Cavill. The threat is genuine and I have brought my Witcher comrade who can tell you some more about this.”

“The inestimable Witcher Kerrass I presume,” Lord Cavill held out his hand to be shaken which Kerrass dutifully took. “Of the Cat Witcher school no less. Tell me, how are your psychosis faring?”

“Tolerably Lord Cavill.” Kerrass showed his teeth. “I have not felt the overwhelming urge to murder anyone since earlier this morning.”

“Good good. Please forgive my lack of humour. As you may have overheard, things are not entirely well with my household at the moment.”

“You are forgiven.”

I managed to avoid looking at Kerrass although in comparison to my many acts of exertion, including asking Ariadne to marry me and standing and fighting a dragon.....avoiding looking at Kerrass given the grating tone of voice that he used as he said that, ranks right up there.

Lord Cavill looked up at Kerrass for a long moment before turning back to me.

“Do you mind if I call over one of my advisors Lord Frederick? If this is something that involves the two of you then I think it only prudent that we get his opinion?”

“Of course.”

Lord Cavill looked over into the corner of the room and beckoned. I looked and a man disentangled himself from where he had been leaning against the wall and watching the room.

My first thought was that he looked like a priest.

The second thought was that I started to admonish myself for not noticing the man earlier. One of the tricks of being a courtier is to spot the dangerous men in the room when you first enter it. They are the “wall-flowers” that are standing, leaning up against the walls and surveying the room. Just watching and listening.

As an exercise while I was being educated in this kind of thing I was told to just stand up against the wall and to say and do nothing and to find out what I could see and hear. It was educational. Not one person came and introduced themselves to me and I heard so much gossip then that I was entertaining Emma on the various topics for months afterwards.

They might not be important people in and of themselves but they are the people that are called over, as had just happened with lord Cavill and are asked for their report. They are, quite literally, like spies that are set against the rest of the court and report to their masters.

He walked through the crowd and I watched how people, almost without paying attention, seemed to just melt out of his way. As though people just felt a shiver down their spines and as such just edged sideways until they were no longer going to be an obstacle for this man.

He wasn't tall, or particularly imposing. Short, well groomed grey hair sat atop a pale face. He didn't look particularly old, I think I would place him in his forties although I am well aware that when it comes to magic users, an attempt to guess at a person's age is largely futile.

I, for instance, am engaged to be married to a nine-hundred year old woman.

I occasionally tease her for being a cradle snatcher.

But I digress.

He had a lined face and I saw frown lines as well as smile marks in the corner of his eyes. He also had a long, almost hooked nose as well as the high cheek-bones of one of the noble-houses although I couldn't tell you which one to look at him. He wore a black robe that looked, as I say, like the cassock of a priest with the accompanying cowl that, fortunately, he had the hood down.

I saw that his fingers were stained with ink.

I shivered when he approached.

“May I introduce you to Phineas Torlane. My friendly local mage.”

I rose to my feet and bowed before offering my hand to be shaken. The mage smiled and I will admit that the smile seemed genuine and charming. Where I had expected a cold and clammy handshake, his grip was warm, dry and firm.

“Lord Frederick, it is an honour to meet you.” He told me. Another surprise as his voice seemed to be a little higher in pitch than I had been expecting. “Might I trouble you for your autograph when our business is concluded? I will admit to being a bit of a fan, as well as rather in awe of your bravery.”

“Certainly. My bravery?”

“Of course. Marrying an elder vampire. And one with such a history as well. I have followed your work with interest since it's inception and did some side-reading on the topic of the Spider-Queen of Angraal.”

I noticed that he pronounced the name of the place correctly. Actually surprisingly rare.

“A brave man indeed.” He finished.

“Phineas came to us seeking refuge during the Witch Hunts” Lord Cavill told us. “I had already fallen into disfavour with Radovid regarding his dependence on the eternal fire and as such Phineas had seen my lands as a potential refuge. Not incorrectly as it happens. Pull up a chair Phineas.”

As we shuffled around I managed to sneak a quick look at Kerrass.

Kerrass was fiddling with his medallion. And staring at a point directly above the mage's head.

“Now,” Lord Cavill leant forward before abruptly leaning back. “Sorry, sorry, I'm forgetting my manners, have you eaten, had anything to drink?”

“I'm fine thank you.” I answered quickly. The mage was staring at my chest, just below my collarbone.

“Very well. Then shall we take it from there. What brings you to my castle?”

“Well. Are you aware that my brother Samuel von Coulthard is now Lord Kalayn and has taken over stewardship of Castle Kalayn?”

The mage didn't twitch but Lord Cavill shifted a little in his seat. Suspicious? Too early to say.

“We were aware.” Cavill answered. “I had intended to offer an invitation for him to come and stay after he had had time to settle in a bit. I am well aware that he must have a lot of work to do to set that particular corner of the country to rights.”

“Indeed and it's part of that action that brings me to your door.”

“Oh?”

I glanced sidelong at the Mage who had barely moved since sitting down. It was oddly offputting which may have been the point after all. I shifted in my own seat and resolved to put all my efforts into concentrating on Lord Cavill. Kerrass would have his eye on the other man.

“Indeed.” I told him. “You told me that you have read my travel journals?”

“Oh yes.”

“Then you will know about the cult that Uncle Kalayn was involved with?”

“Yes, dreadful business.”

“And you will also know about the disappearance of my sister, Lady Francesca von Coulthard.”

“Yes. My condolences.”

I felt my body move in discomfort despite my determination to give nothing away. “You will forgive me my lord if I do not accept your condolences until it is certain that there is absolutely no hope left.”

“Of course, of course. My sympathies then?”

I bowed from the waist. “Those I will take with my gratitude.” I cleared my throat. The universal signal of a man who wants to move on from the current topic of conversation and start to discuss something else. “Kerrass and I were always going to travel to Kalayn lands to help him with the investigation into the cult as well as to help him with any supernatural side effects to the cult's activities that might have sprung up in the mean time.”

“Were there any?” The mage moved suddenly and started to speak.

There is a particular kind of street performer that likes to stand perfectly still in an outlandish costume. You can walk up to them, shout, wave, jump up and down until they feel that it is appropriately amusing and they reach down and tickle you or knock your hat off or something. They were extremely trendy in Oxenfurt when I was younger and I have never jumped so high as when I was jabbed in the ribs by one of these people. My mood was not lifted by the fact that Emma and Sam, who were with me at the time, found the whole thing absolutely hilarious.

You know those people? Living statues they call them. This was exactly like that. Fortunately Kerrass was there to protect me from my own startlement.

“Oh yes.” He said. “Spectres and Wraiths of many kinds. Ghosts, poltergeists, disembodied souls, weeping corpses as well as good old fashioned hauntings by unhappy dead people before they choose which particular kind of angry spirit that they become. As it was, we were cutting it fine before the situation became worse, but it is not unusual when dealing with places of that kind. The human sacrifices are never happy at being sacrificed and get angry at the slightest provocation.” He sniffed, a mimic of the way that Lord Cavill had sniffed earlier. The word is derisively. He sniffed derisively. “Can't think why.”

Lord Cavil smirked but the mage returned to his impression of a carving.

I then gave a fairly short account of what had happened since then, our actions to protect ourselves (although leaving out specifics of how we protected ourselves. I'm not that stupid. Fairly stupid but not that stupid.) I told them that we had hurt the enemy but that we had not completely destroyed the enemy and that now, we were hunting for them to do our best to ensure that they would not grow again somewhere else or terrorize any more people.

Lord Cavill listened carefully. His eyes had taken on a strange kind of, unfocused look as he stared into space, not paying attention enough to take anything else on. When I had finished he continued like this for a little while before there was a large inrush of breath and he seemed to stretch as though he had just woken up from a nap.

“Fascinating,” he said. Something about the way he said it made my heart sink. He was already dismissing out concerns. “Fascinating situation.”

He furrowed his brow for a moment before shaking his head. “Phineas, do you have anything to add?”

The mage did his trick again, of suddenly coming to life despite all other evidence saying that he was just some kind of Golem or automaton. “No, I don't think so. A fascinating case though, certainly some magical curiosity about the spells or the alchemy mixture that must have been used to compel these men to attack and terrorize their own homes. Also those effects that the garrison suffered. Fascinating stuff.”

He literally stroked his chin when he said this.

“Fascinating.” The mage said again. I don't know whether he was echoing Lord Cavill or whether it was the other way round when it came to the use of this particular piece of language. It could have been pure coincidence of course but I don't think so. The intonation and tone that was being used was a little to close to each other to be entirely coincidental.

But I doubt it.

“But unfortunately for me, my area of expertise is not in the direction of alchemical effects or perception altering. If your brother is interested I can contact a couple of my former colleagues in Kovir and see if I can find an expert for him?”

“He may be interested but if you cannot help me then my intention is to head further North and inquire as to whether or not anyone else might be able to give me any information.”

“I see. Well, I shall write to your brother and see if our services might be useful to him.”

“What is your area of expertise?” Kerrass asked.

He said so sharply. This would not be the first time that Kerrass' lack of courtly training has been so highlighted in my mind. His sudden suspicion was pronounced and, not for the first time, I had to force myself to not glance in his direction reproachfully.

The Mage didn't even flinch. “It's technical.” He told us.

“I am no laymen on the subject.” Kerrass insisted.

“It is also confidential.” Lord Cavill cut him off. “I hope you understand but one of the few things that we have that we might be able to use to turn the fortunes of our house around is the skills and knowledge that our friend Phineas here might be able to provide. I hope you will forgive our refusal to comment. It is not malicious I assure you.”

I nodded my acceptance of the point. Of course I didn't accept it, as I say, not that stupid. By some margin it was the most suspicious thing that we had encountered and you can bet your ass that I was itching to find out what our friend Phineas the mage was up to. I would have liked to be a little less blunt however.

Most mages in modern times are either involved with the Lodge's efforts to integrate themselves into life under the Empress or are living in the North under Kovir and Poviss. Not quite trusting that the Empire, or the countryside in general is yet at the stage where they will have gotten over their anti-magic prejudices.

So to find a mage being openly used as a court mage is unusual. I am aware that my sister is all but married to one but I would point out that Laurelen lived in secret for many years and it is only because of circumstances that that situation has become public knowledge.

Laurelen is very much the exception that proves the rule nowadays and, almost because of this, I find that it highlights their attendance when I find them in other places.

“So that's our situation, Lord Cavill. That these things, these men are somewhere in the countryside is, unfortuantely, the case. We have scouted out the area and we know that their central base is not on Kalayn lands.”

“They would need some kind of a base?” Cavill asked.

“Oh yes.” Kerrass responded. Again taking the lead when I would have preferred to be a bit more....circumspect. “Their equipment and belongings would be impossible to house or maintain without some kind of substantial base to operate out of.”

“What are you thinking?”

Kerrass opened his mouth to answer but I jumped in with both feet before he could answer.

“It's impossible to say.” I said. “We know that the base would need some kind of extensive alchemical lab as well as a forge and stabling. We were thinking of some kind of cavern system or a derelict castle of some kind. Maybe a substantial camp out in the wilderness or even several such bases. We have heard that there is an elven community somewhere in the area...”

“Pah,” Lord Cavill sneered. “Runaways and fugitives mostly. Certainly nothing as large as a Scoia'tael commando and support.”

I laughed at his suggestion, trying to show that I shared his scorn. “I agree. Certainly nothing that would support this kind of enterprise but, even if they have moved on by now, their leftover camps might be enough to house something on the scale that we fear.”

Lord Cavill nodded before scratching his chin.

“Well, I can absolutely understand your concern Lord Frederick, and indeed I share it....”

Here it comes. The dismissal that we had heard so often over the last few days. “Not our problem” was the response of so many of the lords and ladies that we had spoken to and that was when they were able to receive us or comment at all. Of course they used much more flowery words than that however.

I won't bore you with the full write-out about how things went from there. I asked questions and Lord Cavill parried every attempt that I made to try and probe his business to see if there really was anything else going on. He did so in exactly the same way that I deflected every attempt he made to try and discern what the motives and attempts that the Coulthard trading company would be making over the coming year. Along with what I knew about the comings and goings at court as well as Sam's intentions regarding his land and whether or not Sam was betrothed or not yet.

If there is one thing that I have inherited from my father when it comes to matters of commerce it is the ability to know someone that my family would be interested in trading with. Normally I would offer a letter of introduction to anyone who I thought might be able to offer our enterprises something but in this case there was something here that I didn't like. The ham fisted attempts at courtiership that I had seen despite the keen mind that I saw lurking behind Lord Cavill's eyes. The bullying as well as the willingness to humiliate his son in public. I didn't like this man and there was something about his mage advisor that made my skin crawl. It was a hard won lesson that I need to learn to listen to these instincts, back in the beginnings of my journeys. But I never failed to listen to them now that I was used to them.

“So, really.” Lord Cavill was speaking. “Thank you for bringing this situation to my attention Lord Frederick but I will admit that I don't really think that we have anything to worry about. The men that I have here, as led by my son, are more than capable of dealing with any threat that might arrive short of a foreign army.” He laughed and leant forward in an effort to include me in the gag. “If the third Nilfgaardian guard came to take over the province then I think we might struggle with that. But from what you're saying, I don't think we would need to worry about a group of bandits with some magical or chemical support.”

He smiled.

“Failing all else, Phineas here will be able to help us should anything come of it.”

I sighed. I was pretty sure that I had the place now. That if I wasn't sitting in the middle of the enemy camp then I was certainly dealing with a significant figure in the enemy ranks. But I had no proof. Maybe, Kerrass had seen something that I hadn't but it was just as likely that he felt the same way. What I needed was an excuse to look around and see if there is anything else that I could unearth. I was trying to work my way around to something that would give me a way to express my fatigue, or some kind of desire to bathe, or have a decent meal or something that would let us stay in the castle for a night or two, but then Lord Cavill gave me a gift.

“Perhaps.” He said, seeming to think about it although I guessed that he had already made a decision about this a little while ago. “Perhaps you might want to spend the night with us Lord Frederick and then you can inspect the guards in the morning.”

I was elated. “Are you sure,” I heard my mouth saying without input from my brain. Automatically running through the niceties. “I wouldn't want to be an inconvenience.”

“No, indeed. It might do my son some good to see how a real lord behaves.”

“Thank you. I won't lie but I could do with a bath.”

Lord Cavill laughed and we started to make arrangements. As it turned out, the Younger Lord Cavill was the Captain of his Father's guard. Previously this had been a more ceremonial appointment but now that he had been thrust to the point of being his father's heir. He had had to take over some more responsibility and step up to learn governing. A task that he wasn't taking to. I agreed that we would stay for two nights. In the morning we would watch the guard train for a while before making a more formal inspection. Then, in the afternoon we were invited to join Lord Cavill on a hawk hunt to provide some pigeons for dinner that evening.

I didn't sound entirely unpleasant and I begged leave to return to our rooms to clean myself up ready for the feast that we were promised for that evening.

Truth be told, the food wasn't that bad. Some of the politics that were discussed were a little close to the bone though. There was a strong anti-Nilfgaard sentiment in what was being talked about which left me with the overall impression that I was being mocked. There was also an overwhelming feeling that if King Radovid had survived then he would have eventually defeated the Nilfgaardians (who were referred to as “The Black Ones” throughout the evening and other derogatory terms that would go with this. Crows, devils, that kind of thing) But the food was good, plenty of game meat which is not unusual but I was left having to work at not thinking about all of the farmers and common-folk that had suffered to make this meal possible. There was certainly no indication that this was a special occasion so it was reasonable to assume that they ate like this every evening.

We retired to a separate room where, again, I was struck by the absence of any women amongst the assembled folk. This was a man's castle it would seem. We talked about nonsense and pointless things. I listened to people telling me that “if only Radovid had listened when we.....” and “If Radovid had actually had the courage to.....” and “If only the north had fallen in line behind us when.....”

It was a little dispiriting to have to listen to it over and over again. I was reminded of listening to the rebels in Angraal. These people had no idea about the logisitics of the thing. They assumed that if the banners were raised then it was the duty of everyone to drop what they were doing and march to war. What those self same knights and soldiers were going to eat, wear and carry, let alone how their injuries would be cared for, was simply not accounted for.

I was forced to admit that if the countryside had been stripped of everyone then yes, we could have fielded enough raw manpower to turn aside the Nilfgaardian offensive although I managed to avoid agreeing to the suggestion that we would have been able to hold our own against any Nilfgaardian offensives.

The problem there being that the Nilfgaardian army would have been properly supplied and maintained.

I'm not a military strategist but I often wonder if, despite his madness, Radovid was aware that he was merely biding his time until the other Nilfgaardian armies could come north and that he, himself was working towards some kind of truce so that he could rebuild and take the fight to Nilfgaard at a later date. I don't know but I do know that what these people were suggesting was all but impossible and that even if we had done what they were suggesting and, by some miracle, defeated the Nilfgaardian armies on the field. Even if we had managed all of those things then the country would have been decimated by famine and disease afterwards. Then the Nilfgaardians would have simply walked over the Yaruga and the Pontar without pausing to notice whatever it was that they walked over.

I pleaded fatigue and went to bed early. I was amused when a young maid turned up at my door to see if “there was anything that she could do for me,” the suggestion being rather blatant given that she was barely wearing anything. The poor girl was plainly terrified, as well as being far too young, and I turned her down as gently as I could with the insistence that I was promised to another and would not betray my betrothed.

Also, something about the way that she stood shivering in the hallway made my stomach turn. Taylor told me that he would take care of the matter and draped a blanket around the poor girls shoulder and escorted her back to the kitchens where, he told us later, she was accepted back into the pack by the head cook.

The following morning we rose late. It would have been against our established character to get up and train as would normally be our desire so I took the opportunity to sleep late and eat a large breakfast before dressing and wandering out to the practice yards.

It took me ten minutes. Ten minutes to find the proof that I was looking for. Ten minutes and then, everything that I had, all of my focus and concentration was taken up simply making sure that I didn't give away what I had seen.

Lord Cavill came out to meet us. Taylor was behaving like my shadow, following from a short distance, arms behind his back and walking up and down like a slightly disapproving servant, Kerrass looked bored and I was left with the task of maintaining a stream of conversation with Lord Cavill.

It was intensely dull and banal. Talk of which merchants provided the armour and how his castle blacksmiths worked night and day to properly be able to turn out enough weapons. I was invited to examine some of the weapons that they had and dutifully picked out a couple of samples in order to give them a bit of a wave around.

They were alright I suppose. But I've walked through a dwarven smithy.

Then there were some of the private weapons. That we saw before we were invited to see some drills. Some one on one fighting, some two on one fighting and some small scale skirmishing.

Which was when I saw it.

It took everything I had not to yell out. Everything I had not to charge across the field and grab the offending article and wave it around for everyone to see. Instead I had to nod and smile and let my eyes slide on to the next detail so as not to give everything away.

Then we watched the parade.

Where Lord Cavill the younger. The prize bullying fucker walked at the head of his men with armour and sword at his side along with Father Gardan's axe resting on his shoulder. That axe, looted from the body of a good and holy man, even if I don't follow his religion. Looted from a fallen veteran of the war against evil, I saw it. The butterfly pattern blades distinctive and glittering in the sunlight. The rage that I had spent some time fighting down crystallised into a point. A bright and glittering jewel in my head so that it washed everything else clean. I felt an awful calm settle down over me as everything else went away and it seemed to me that the axe floated in front of me.

Mercifully, the garrison was not that large and I didn't have to pretend that I hadn't seen it for long as they left on their various patrols.

I joined Lord Cavil for a small luncheon before we departed on our hunt. Kerrass looked at me oddly as I spend some time scrupulously checking my horse equipment to make sure that it hadn't been sabotaged like father's had been. It seemed important to me that I checked for some reason.

It was a fairly successful hunt and we came back with enough for the evening meal where we talked about the same things that we had the previous day.

Over and over again.

Thank The Holy Fire that Father had seen to my training. Thank you Proffessor Tidesdale for teaching me the skills that I needed and thank you Emma for insisting that I continue with my lessons rather than sacking them off for something more interesting. Without these things, I'm not sure I would have made it through the night without committing murder. As it was, I was certainly far too quiet and, of all people, if became Kerrass that stepped to the fore, turning on the charm and telling many small and amusing stories about his life on the road. I laughed in all the right places and winced, suitably comically, when the story was embarrassing to me personally, much tot he amusement of the assembled.

Lord Cavill tried to persuade us to stay another day. I felt that he wasn't entirely sincere and was giving the invitation for the appearance of the thing rather than due to any real sentiment. But I could genuinely plead that we needed to move on and to follow our duties elsewhere.

We slept and rose early. There was no attempt to send me a girl that night.

We were two hours on the road before Kerrass turned to me.

“So that was the place.” It wasn't a question.

“It was,” I answered. “The axe.”

Kerrass' eyebrows rose in question which was when I remembered that he hadn't met Father Gardan. He nodded when I finished my explanation.

“What did you see?” I asked him.

“The sword play. Those men in the courtyard were either the riders themselves or trained the riders. I don't think that they house the hounds in that castle, but Lord Cavill's in this deep.

“It's here.” Taylor added. “The kitchen staff told me that they send castle supplies off to a place to the south east. An abandoned mine apparently.”

I nodded. “Then there we have it.”

“We should leave the road.” Kerrass said. “The axe might have been a foolish mistake, or it might have been a deliberate trap. Either way we should leave the road and head off before looping back to Sam and friendlier terrain.”

I nodded. My crystallised hate and fury was still there, the day after it had formed. It had buried itself deep in my chest.

It felt good.

-

(Disclaimer: During the writing of this chapter, the Witcher TRPG was released which has established a couple of things in canon that I was unprepared for. The majority of it doesn't really effect these stories but the writers have established that although the TRPG is possibly unconnected to the books, they were written in partnership with CDPR and as such, they are canon within the games. The vast majority of this has no effect on these stories. They certainly haven't specified what happened to Ciri or anything, indeed they seem to have gone out of their way to provide alternatives for how the world changes depending on what you did during the first two games.

For the uninitiated, the Tabe-top game is set between Games 2 and 3.

But there is one thing which is that the Cat keep of Witchers is now defined as having been a roving caravan of no fixed abode. For the record. I think that this is quite an interesting idea and if I had known then I think that I may have run with this, but my mental image of the Cat keep as being a series of fortified caves is too entrenched in my own mind now, to change it so I will be sticking with that idea despite whatever may come up in future supplements/games.

I suppose that this technically makes these stories “AU” but....I care not.

As always. Thanks for taking the time to read

Spike)