Entry 143

So that was my stag do.

Again, I am writing this down so that I won't forget it all. So that there is a record of the things that I have seen and done… Mark possibly doesn't want me to do this all because then there will be a record of everything that we did. But at the same time, I want to remember and if I have anything to do with the matter, then no one will ever read this.

It is now two days later as I write this and I may admit that I am still recovering from everything, much to the amusement of Emma, Laurelen and Ariadne. Despite there being two Sorceresses in that particular trio, they refused to do anything to alleviate my symptoms of having overindulged that day. Once upon a time, I would have considered myself an able partaker of alcohol but now, I ache in places that I'm not supposed to ache in and am sore in other, entirely pleasant places to feel sore in.

The first guests are leaving today having taken the time to recover. The Empress is heading off back to Vizima to make sure that no one has burnt the place down in the meantime (her words) and to put things in place to make sure that everything will be ok for when she comes back for Ariadne's party. Hugh and Evran are also making noises and Helfdan, the only one of us that seems to be not too the worse for wear, is wanting to be back at his Queen's side.

Strange sounds are coming from my digestive tract and my headache is now at the stage where I can see rather than wonder if I need to come up with some way of moving around.

Kerrass is also fine or pretending to be. He has a potion that means that he can get rid of the effects of alcohol but apparently, there is a price to be paid for this as well so he does look a bit green.

The day did start with a disappointment though. Mark is feeling a little weak at the moment and wanted to save himself for the actual wedding day itself. So although he couldn't take part in some of the more physically active things that Kerrass had planned, he did agree to join us for dinner that evening.

Where the dinner was going to be taking place, had not been made clear to us.

But we all dressed and met together for breakfast that morning which almost had the feeling of a war council. The temporary friendships that had been formed the previous evening were still in full effect and it did my heart good that Hugh and Evran had been accepted by the greater whole and the Skelligans in particular given that Evran was a musical soul.

Chireadean was laughing and joking with the Toussaint Knights as I came down, discussing wine that he served in his tavern and surprising Gregoire in particular with his breadth of knowledge. Breakfast was a very carnivorous affair. Big meats with lots of bread as well as jugs of water that were only lightly mixed with wine. Kerrass wanted us to be good and hydrated as we set off doing whatever it was that we were going to do.

There was laughter and a relaxed atmosphere that made me feel… at home. Something about the presence of friends will do that.

Kerrass was making the last few arrangements before we were all due to meet in the courtyard outside the castle but he came in briefly, practically bouncing with glee before he came and whispered in my ear that he wanted to talk to me outside.

Some good-natured cheering and jeering followed me out of the room as Kerrass escorted me to the entranceway to the castle where I was surprised to see Ariadne there, dressed in what is called a "day dress". Angral is in the middle of preparation for the harvest that they are expecting to be fairly bountiful this year and given that she is going to be away for part of it, Ariadne is trying to be particularly hands-on with this part of the preparations for everything that is happening at the moment. She wore a long grey, hard-wearing smock that wouldn't be out of place worn by some village matron, although it was made at a slightly higher standard and was more hard-wearing. It was dirty and dusty. She had her hair tied up and well out of the way while there was a smudge of dirt on her cheek.

Not for the first time, I decided that although I loved her when she is wearing all of her court fineries, her hair done up and her make-up properly applied. I thought she looked just as beautiful to me as this, if not more so.

But then again, I have also thought the same when she has emerged from a day's work in her lab, or when she is dusty from work in the library. Or wearing a cream travelling dress, or a black one, or one of the light summery dresses that she had worn to greet and unnerve visitors in the summer. Or one of the dark and sinister ones when she is making a point.

I am a very lucky man. I approached her and she smiled, the glint of mischief behind her eyes and her smile. We hugged and shared a brief kiss before Kerrass teased the pair of us.

"Oh put him down," he told her. "There is work to be done."

"You are right." She admitted, making a play of breaking away from me reluctantly. "Although, in a short while, you would need your silver sword to break us apart."

"Or a bucket of water." Kerrass mused.

"Having said that," Ariadne turned to me, pushing me away as I tried to brush the smear of dirt away with my thumb. "There is indeed work to be done at home so I will make this brief."

She grinned at me.

"I do believe that I am the only person assembled, other than Kerrass, who knows everything that is going to happen with you and your friends today. Indeed, I helped to arrange some of it."

Kerrass cackled and Ariadne shared a smirk of conspiracy with him.

"So I want you to know, that not only am I alright with everything that has been arranged for this couple of days."

"Because it will last a couple of days." Kerrass put in with a giggle. Ariane glared at him.

"But that I actively encouraged it." She continued. "There are other days of greater joy ahead of us, and although I know that you are a man of principle and that you have thoughts about this kind of thing when it comes to the activities that men have in store for their stag dos. I want you to know that you have my blessing for it. Indeed, I know what is coming and I am looking forward to discussing it with you, at length when you are done. And if I find that you have stinted yourself, then you should know that when my time comes, in a week, I will not."

She grinned at me evilly before leering suggestively.

"Not only that, but I will require there to be tales of how you outperformed all of your friends."

She looked sidelong at Kerrass before a sudden new burst of mischief crossed her face.

"In fact, on that regard and given that there is a book running amongst certain circled, I have absolutely no guilt at all regarding cheating."

She pulled me close and muttered something in my ear. A dart of arousal shot through me and I felt my manhood twitch in much the same way that it had when I had first met a succubus.

"What the fuck was that?" Kerrass appeared slightly outraged, but I rather think it was mostly a pretence.

"A minor form of what I am saving for our wedding night." She told us both. "I know that you have been concerned about too much alcohol, dancing and food being in place to properly enjoy our wedding night. So I have taken the matter into my own hands and… taken some steps."

Something in the way she smiled then, with her only occasionally displayed filthy sense of humour, sent another jolt of arousal through me and I almost reached for her. She saw it and winked.

"Enjoy yourselves, gentlemen, I await the reports with interest."

She turned away and waved her hands in the air until a gate formed and she stepped through with it.

"That was mean," I said.

"What?" He asked, "Letting her know what was going on?"

"No…" I winced, "not you. What she did."

Kerrass laughed. "The lady is certainly determined and she didn't want your morals or opinions getting in the way of having the time of your life."

"The time of my life would involve her," I told him as I did my best to think of something non-sexual. Like cabbage.

"True," Kerrass told me before sighing. "There are some times," he admitted. "That I envy you."

Then he laughed.

"Not often, but sometimes."

"Says the man who is in love with, and loved by, literally Sleeping Beauty."

He laughed, another hopeful sign for the future rather than getting angry at the joke.

"Now fuck off." He said. "There are still some last-minute things that I need to sort out."

I rejoined the company and my discomfort soon lessened at the sight of Thorvald telling the story of Kerrass, Ciri and I attacking a Nilfgaardian sea-going vessel, again. Ciri was melting with embarrassment while Hugh was declaring, loudly, that that couldn't have been me because I was a well-known chicken. There were protests on both sides of the debate until Chireadean had the bright idea to ask Ciri herself what she remembered. She admitted that she had been climbing in front of me and hadn't seen much of what I had been up to. She did admit that she did see me on deck eventually though which seemed to confirm both sides of the discussion.

Eventually, though, Midday came around and we were all summoned out to the courtyard where we found our horses lined up in front of us. Each of them had been saddled and prepared with various bags and bundles on the back. Emma, Laurelen and Mark were all out watching as we walked up and into the sunlight while Kerrass grinned, all but dancing from one foot to the other.

"Now then." He told us. "Here begins the day of celebration and the day where we celebrate one of our numbers and commiserate his passing from the land of bachelorhood to the realms of the married."

Svein, Hugh and the two Knights of Toussaint jeered.

"Some of you know small parts of what is to come." He told us all. "And although none of you knows everything. I charge you again to not spread the word of what is to come to others, and especially to our guest of honour."

There was more jeering, only now it was more addressed towards me.

"The only thing that you have been told to bring with you," Kerrass went on, "Is your personal weapons. Should all go well, you won't really need them but even so…"

He grinned evilly.

"But I invite you to go to your horses and inspect those goods that have been tied to the saddle."

We all started to move forwards.

"Most prominently, you will find a large water skin that is full of purified water that I got Lady Laurelen to purify this morning. I encourage you all to remain hydrated as otherwise, we have a long day ahead of us and you might not make it to the end. Barring our industrious cardinal of course..?"

Mark got a cheer as he lifted a hand in benediction. The traditional two fingers lifted up with the pinkie and ring finger tucked into the palm and the thumb held wide. He did it with a very solemn face and although there was nothing in his posture and his expression that spoke of humour, I could tell he was trying not to laugh.

"But the first person to drop out of the proceedings will face forfeits."

"What will the forfeits be?" Ciri asked with a grin.

"They are many and varied." Kerrass did his best to intone it with dour vocal stylings.

"You haven't decided have you." Rickard grinned as he yelled it and people started to laugh.

"THERE ARE MANY DIRE CONS… There are many dire consequences." Kerrass finished.

There were more jeers. I was already enjoying myself and the day was only just beginning.

"Now, Mount up." Kerrass went towardsBaby, his old black horse.

We rode out in a single file. I was towards the back half of the group, sandwiched between Sam and Ciri. It made me think of the group of kids and students that always hang out at the back of the class to tease each other and mock the teacher or the professor at the front. Better-natured jests to be sure, but the jesting was there.

Ciri looked like a woman that was having the cares of the world lifted from her shoulders, she started the process yesterday, shedding her Imperial persona along with the severe dresses and the formal style of speech. She had already spent a whole bunch of time adjusting her language towards the swearing and profanity-laden style of speech that she generally prefers over the rest.

Sam had appointed himself my nursemaid. He was already checking that I was alright with everything and that I was bearing up alright with everything that was happening. We were about halfway out of the castle when I asked him if he had been put up to the role, causing Chireadean, who was riding behind Sam, to snigger. Sam tried to act aloof and admitted that it was Emma that had set him to the task to make sure that I was alright through everything.

I will admit to not being entirely sure what to make of that before I convinced myself to see it as the loving gesture that it was and to get over myself.

We rode out of the castle, at first we were all trying to maintain a false air of dignity and sombre duty but it wasn't long before the competition restarted as to who could belch the loudest. It seemed that there were two sides to the matter, the side of the bastards, including Chireadean, Padraig and Rickard.

Also, Carys had attached herself to the party although I don't think anyone invited her. And tellingly, no one told her off or told her to go elsewhere so…

And the other side was the Skelligans. Hugh and Evran were co-opted onto the side of the bastards and it seemed that the competition was fierce until Guillaume mockingly chided them taht this was behaviour reminiscent of children. To which there was some general sniggering, reminding me, again, of students attending a lecture by an unpopular lecturer. We were just passing the main gate when Gregoire held his hand up and let out a belch, the size and sound of which left me feeling as though there was some kind of earth-moving cataclysm that was taking place.

He raised his hand in the traditional gesture of acknowledging the victory.

Old Captain Froggart appeared with a parade and led the men in a salute and a cheer before the man himself stole up to my horse and tucked a bottle of something expensive looking underneath one of the straps. I don't know what else is going to happen, but I rather suspect that I am going to be drinking the alcohol that I have been given from now until the day that I die.

We were halfway down the avenue outside the castle when Ciri suddenly held up a hand for attention and let out a belch which sounded as though her soul had left her body.

"No fair," Rickard protested. "We have to declare you the winner because otherwise, you will have us all killed."

"Not entirely innaccurate," She mused before giggling and raced off to charge up and down the fields for a bit while Kerrass was still doing his best to maintain an attitude of careful dignity.

There were lots of moments like this. Some of which I try to hold onto desperately so that they don't slip too far from my memory. I remember Sam trying to play the "pull my finger" prank on me to make me laugh. This worked until Guillaume, who I was pretty sure was feigning innocence, pulled Sam's finger, only for Sam to let out a relatively feeble-sounding fart.

Evran started a song, leaning back in his saddle and plucking away at his harp while he sang this filthy song about a milkmaid and her efforts to do… something that I wasn't entirely clear on. But the verses all told about the new problem that she had to overcome and the chorus was all about the lewd acts that she had to perform to overcome the problem.

In the oldest form of their game, Hugh was outraged at his friend's impropriety in singing such a song before the Empress of the continent before it was pointed out that not only was Ciri singing along but that she knew all the words.

Then Evran swapped to another filthy song about a pair of Nekkers and their similarly filthy exploits as we rode along.

I was embarrassed, amused and having a great time.

We rode out of the castle and started to head South along the road that led further away from Oxenfurt and I found the sense of mystery deepening. There was nothing in this direction, leastways, there was nothing that would fit with my normal perceptions of what would constitute a stag party. In that direction, there was only farmland, some of the industrial centres of our lands and the hunting reserves.

I could not imagine what was in our path until Kerrass turned us towards the hunting reserves. Hugh, Evran and the Bastards all knew where we were going then and started to crow in delight, filling in Gregoire and Guillaume as well as the men of Skellige who were equally delighted at the prospect of what was to come.

A little way further down the road, where Evran had run out of verses about the dirty nekkers and had started singing about the lusty troll instead. Odd that there are so many of these kinds of songs, we started to enter the trees and the bushes of the still carefully maintained hunting reserve. Emma is a falconer for preference but she still takes her guests hunting when the need arises which is not entirely rare. There is a couple of newer villages now where the hunting apparatus is maintained, the falcons, the dogs and where the woodsmen and the gamekeepers live.

But set up near the entrance of the hunting preserve was a large pavilion that Kerrass led us towards and gestured for everyone to enter where we found that a large lunch had been laid out for us.

"Kerrass," Sam protested. "Not that I'm telling you that you're doing it wrong or anything but… umm…. If we're to hunt, surely something lighter would be more appropriate if we're going to be running through the swamps to…"

Kerrass was laughing, and so was Chireadean who I guessed to be in on what was happening during this part of the situation.

"That is true," Kerrass said. "But it also strikes me that some people have more of an advantage over others in what is to come. Therefore, there is a need for certain handicaps to… even the playing field as it were. We start by eating too much food for a proper hunt."

He gestured to the grinning servants who started to serve up an increasing pile of stodgy, heavy, meaty foods but Kerrass held up his hands to forestall Kar's obvious intention to begin a food fight.

"Seriously though folks, don't make yourselves ill. We have a long way to go today and it is a long time before we are going to eat again, so do not stint yourself. You will need your strength." As he said that, he walked over to where the Servants were arranging the food and picked himself up a large steak, placed it on one slice of bread, smeared it with mustard, added another slice of bread and then proceeded to eat it, with bloody juices running down his chin.

We didn't wait any longer and attacked the spread with a vengeance, eating until we were stuffed.

It was good, soldiers food. By which I mean it was well cooked, simple and there was plenty of it. Sometimes, I have a taste for the finer things in life, well-seasoned and spiced cuts of meat in a spicy, savoury and sweet sauce but there are other times when I just want bread, butter, juicy meat, gravy, some hard cheese and maybe some fruit to clean my throat out if I am feeling particularly extravagant.

This was the second of those.

It is a taste that Kerrass has given me over the years, carefully cultivated with the same skill that I imagine he devotes to his herb gathering.

So it was a good gathering. Other than a couple of people there, all of us had been through hard times in the past. Either serving as soldiers or having remembered being poor and having to go without at one time or another, so there were no complaints as we sat down to eat. There was still some teasing though. Chireadean and Carys both got some teasing about the fact that they were Elves and as such was supposed to have a more refined palate.

That could have gone badly as Carys nearly took offence before her husband Padraig put his hand on her arm and Chireadean rose to the challenge, pointing out that they did indeed have a more refined palate than "you savages" but as they were eating to honour my company then they thought it a grave insult to point out that the food was plain and boring. He went on to suggest that we should blame Kerrass for choosing this particular menu.

He later admitted that he had been involved in sourcing some of this food so that the castle Kitchens didn't have to be employed on the matter which he and Kerrass were aware that I would probably become aware of.

When we were done, Kerrass took us outside where, in the meantime, there had been a series of small tables laid out for each of us. On top of the table or leaning against the table, were a series of objects. As well as us, there were also a group of gamekeepers that were watching with amusement and excitement.

On each table was a large, heavy, hunting crossbow along with a quiver of ten bolts. A very sharp hunting knife and an empty jug. Propped next to the table was a large spear and a coil of rope was set up on the floor. As we examined our own, and each other's tables, one of the gamekeepers was rolling a large barrel into place. Looking behind him I could see that more barrels were waiting.

"First of all," Kerrass began, "I will say that I am pleased that each of you followed my instructions when it came to bringing some form of weaponry with you. However, those things are needed for later. As such, I would ask you to deposit your arms with these gentlemen who will guard them both against your enemies and each other so that there can be no accusations of interference."

We all wondered but did as we were told. There was quite a considerable collection. Chireadean's Elven Glaive lay next to Rickard's broadsword. Gregoire's huge sword was propped next to Cary's daggers while Padraig's huge, monstrously heavy sword lay next to Evran's crossbow.

My spear and dagger were left next to Kerrass' two swords and crossbow. I would have wondered at the symbolism but I was too busy wondering what we would all need weapons for later.

"Now," Kerrass began. "If each of you could stand behind one table."

We all did as we were told, some of us having arguments as to who would be standing next to whom and again, the comparison to a group of children was large in my mind.

"The lady Emma has given me some dire news." Kerrass began with suggestively horrified expression. "She has informed me that some of the supplies have gone astray in preparation for the coming festivities and as such, she has asked me if I could do anything to help."

That was a joke, I knew it, Kerrass knew it and I imagine that everyone else there knew it as well. But it was just as easy to see that Kerrass was going somewhere with this.

"Now, being short of funds," he went on, "and knowing that I was to be joined by such excellent and noble company, I thought that we could all do something to help out the Coulthard family when it comes to this kind of thing."

There was some generalised kind of murmuring and cheering.

"So…" Kerrass went on, unable to keep the humour out of his voice any longer. "Here is the game. The gamekeepers insist that there is a plentiful game inside the preserve, isn't that right folks?"

The various gamekeepers made some affirmative noises. They were still grinning from ear to ear.

"And because it's Freddie's party, and the term "Stag do" keeps coming up, I thought I would make it appropriate. Therefore, you will take hold of the tools that have been provided in front of you and you will use them to fetch, either a boar or a deer from inside the preserve."

Thorvald had picked up one of the spears with a certain amount of relish before he frowned.

"This spear is unbalanced," the old man said.

"That's funny," Kerrass' voice was dripping with sarcasm and amusement. "Because I remember being very specific regarding the instructions when it came to the manufacturing of these spears. Also the crossbows."

Helfdan had taken a crossbow and was sighting down the line looking thoughtful.

Ciri was grinning.

I picked my spear up and gave it a test thrust. I didn't think it was too bad.

A couple of people were picking up the implements and were starting to move towards the woodland but Kerrass wasn't done.

"I'm still not finished, kindly return to your tables."

He waited until they all came back. Kar slunk in, as he had gotten the furthest, to a chorus of jeers and catcalls.

"First of all though," Kerrass went on, "You should all know that later, after the activities of the day and the early evening are concluded, we will be eating some of the finest food available in this part of the world and afterwards, we will be having a considerable, amount to drink. The person that comes in with the least game when the horn is sounded will be paying for Freddie's meal this evening. And a person that doesn't bring in anything at all, will be buying the first round for everyone."

"Now it's getting interesting," Ciri called too much laughter.

"What happens if Freddie is the one with the least game?" Sam asked with a calculating tone.

"Or doesn't bring in any game at all?" Rickard was doing his best to sound innocent.

"If you are thinking of any kind of measure to interfere in each other's hunting." Kerrass said, then you should know that this kind of thing is strictly encouraged."

Just about everyone laughed.

"Also…" Kerrass went on. "In all seriousness. If it is Freddie, which I doubt by the way given who taught him to use a spear and things…"

Rickard jeered.

"And given the fact that Sam and I know these hunting grounds better than any of you." I put in which, although it made Sam laugh, everyone else looked thoughtful.

Kerrass continued.

"It is Freddie's party and he is the guest of honour. Therefore, he will be exempt and the next worst person will pay the forfeit."

"Hardly seems fair," Ervald grumbled.

"I assure you," Kerrass was grinning. "We will have plenty of opportunity to amuse ourselves at Freddie's expense in the times to come."

There were general noises of anticipation. A kind of rising Oooohhhhhh noise.

"One last thing," Kerrass said. "You might be wondering why there is a jug on the table in front of you. You will kindly come to the front here and fill up your jug from this ale barrel." He picked up his own jug.

I winced, I began to see where this was going. While the others, including Kerrass, were queuing at the barrel of ale, which Svein tested and named it fantastic causing Chireadean to preen a little, I sidled over to Kerrass.

"Ale and sharp weapons?" I wondered. "You once told me never to fight or hunt while drunk."

He chuckled. "I know but this is going to make it more fun."

"Kerrass." I tried to make my voice sound dire with overtones of warning.

He laughed at me.

"Ariadne and Laurelen are watching everything through a scrying spell. If anyone is hurt then they will be transported out instantly, but if everyone feels as though there is some real danger, then it will add a little bit more spice into proceedings."

I laughed with him and went to collect my jug full.

"Return to your tables when you have your jug," Kerrass shouted as people stood around.

The atmosphere had turned a bit giggly by then. People were chuckling with each other and there was a sense of people looking forward to having a great time.

"Right," Kerrass said. "The rule is, that you can only enter the hunting ground after you have consumed your entire jug of ale, turning it upside down to demonstrate you completing this task. When you return with a piece of game, you must then consume another jug. The men hereabouts will ensure no cheating on that score, won't you fellows?"

The gamekeepers grinned with the look of men that were entertained by the prospect of "punishing their societal betters.

"Before we start though, any more questions?"

"Can we use horses?" Hugh wanted to know.

"No, we must do this on foot," Kerrass told him.

"Any other rules?" Svein wanted to know, he was grinning nastily and I wondered if he had already decided who he was going to sabotage and arrange the victory of.

"None." Kerrass said.

I frowned as a thought occurred to me. "No other rules?" I checked.

"None," Kerrass said, looking at me with a glint in his eye.

I looked around the little clearing that we were all standing in. Everything that was here was at Kerrass' design and I wondered if there was a clue here.

"In which case?" Kerrass began. "On your marks."

We had to stop to instruct Kar to refill his jug after he started early.

"On your marks," Kerrass began, lifting his jug to his lips, "Get set."

The bastard made us wait.

"GO," he shouted.

I have certainly seen ale drunk tidier. The stuff fountained out of the jugs onto the faces of my closest friends and if I'm honest, I would suggest that although a good amount of the liquid ended up in the bellies of the assembly, there was more than a fair amount of it that ended up running down the faces and into the clothing of the people around me.

I took my time and watched as my friends darted into the woods.

Ciri had also noticed that there were no other rules and finished her ale in a quick, but contained way. Then she wiped her lips on the back of her sleeve and vanished in a green flash. She had only taken the rope and the dagger.

A couple of the others protested this but… I didn't really think it mattered. I would have been genuinely astonished if the reason that some of us didn't get any game to bring back was that Ciri had already brought most of it back for us.

I even had a sneaking suspicion that one of the reasons that I could expect to be alright was because Ciri would kill or injure something so that I could get an easy kill. It sounds like the sort of thing that she would do.

The first person to hit the tree line was Kar. The man moved like lightning. The second was Carys who, despite technically not being a friend, or male, and being my guard, had decided that she was taking part. The fact that Kerrass had no extra tools for her spoke volumes. She had simply stolen the long knife from her husband's table and done it anyway.

There had been plenty of extra jugs though which I guessed, correctly, were there for the gamekeepers to enjoy with each other.

Helfdan had left the crossbow behind, taking only the spear and the knife. Kerrass had started off the drinking at a quick pace before slowing down. Hugh and Evran had left together to combine forces I assume. I could see other people doing similar things. Guillaume and Gregoire had protested the fact that they were supposed to drink the ale rather than a good wine for the purpose but they did it anyway, complaining all the time.

I waited until the end. Thorvald watched it all happen. He watched as Sam, Svein and the rest went into the woods before finishing his jug and then chose a footpath that seemed to him as being the path least travelled. I grinned and took my time finishing my ale, being careful not to waste even a small amount before I calmly and carefully place the jug back on the table, upside down as was the rules before I approached the gamekeepers and asked where I was most likely to find any kind of game.

They laughed and gave me some directions. I thanked them all and set off at a relatively calm jog.

I was not the first one back with a piece of the game, but nor was I the last by some margin. To no one at all's surprise, the first person back with a large deer was Ciri, she had slit the deer's throat with the dagger and the thing had just collapsed in front of her where she tied it together by the hooves and dragged it back with her deceptive strength. She was sitting on it while she consumed her second jug of ale at a more leisurely pace. I was more surprised to see that the second person back had been Helfdan having dragged a large boar back from wherever he had found it. He was standing, gossiping with Ciri about this or that.

Wealthot, one of the other Wave-Serpent crewmembers had been next and greeted me with a raised jug in a toast. Wealthot claimed that he had just been lucky, complimenting me on the state of the family's hunting preserve stating that all he had to do was to stick out his spear and the game all but ran onto it. The boar in question was relatively small though so he was determined to go back into the trees to collect more so that he wasn't letting everyone down.

I had found a boar too. There was no way I was going to get close enough to a deer to be able to take it down with a spear, but I knew how to use a spear and knew how to take down a boar with it and that was what I had dragged back, tying the feet with the rope. I sat with Ciri and Helfdan while we waited for the others to come back, which they did in ones and twos.

Kerrass arrived with a large stag across his shoulders which he dumped before downing a jug quickly and getting back into the trees. Padraig arrived with a boar across his shoulders shortly followed by Carys, who not only had killed a dear with the dagger, but carried it across her shoulders as well.

That woman baffles me. She's tiny. Slight and skinny but she hefted that deer around without apparent effort. Not only that but she also had a pair of rabbits tied to her belt.

Sam arrived as well while I sat and gossiped with Ciri but Helfdan was climbing to his feet and I decided that I needed to make a better showing than that. Not only this, but I was having a lot of fun.

I took my time with the second entry into the hunting ground. I was two large jugs of ale down despite the masses of food that I had eaten and i was very very aware that things might go wrong. Somewhere I could hear Gregoire shouting about something. I headed in that direction until I could hear the frustration in his voice and decided that there was nothing to worry about.

I found Thorvald struggling to tie up his boar so I bent and helped him to tie the hooves together for better leverage.

Ervald was struggling with his crossbow to hit a group of deer and cause any real damage so I flushed a pair of them out towards him and he brought one of them down with a look of relief. I didn't stay to help him tie it up though as that seemed a little bit too charitable.

Serve the bastard right for bagging the most desirable woman in Oxenfurt. I mean… I would say that Ariadne is more beautiful and far better suited to me, but those old bitternesses are the ones that die harder.

On the other hand though, he was the man that I was most concerned about coming back with nothing to show for it, so I was being generous really.

It's all so…

I wish I could put into words, those memories of that day, and that moment in particular. There was further joy to come but I wish I could properly convey the sense of fun. I am writing this so that at some point in the future, I might be able to come back here and read what I have said so that I could relive, even in part, some of the memories that are from this time and place. Or in my more… arrogant moments, wonder if I could use this as a mounting block to be able to write some memoirs. Not that anyone would be interested in such things but in those moments when I imagine my portrait in the halls of the university I wonder if people might be interested in such a thing.

But now that I come to write about those moments, I struggle to convey the… the joy that was there that day. The sense of camaraderie that came out of it. At various stages I remember looking at the faces of the men, and the women because there were two women there, and thinking that these were my closest friends. That I loved each and every one of them. Even those men that I didn't know as well as I would like among the bastards and Helfdan's crew. Even them, I knew that if I had a need then those men, and women, would come if I called.

And that I would go if they called.

Even though i am perfectly aware of how easily friends can drift apart. How duty, circumstance and distance can all conspire to drive us further and further apart from each other. Even though I know that to be true from my own experiences, I cannot deny that as I crawled through the undergrowth while trying, vainly, to drunkenly sneak up on a deer, with Svein on side of me and Guillaume on the other. I became convinced that these people would be friends from now until the end of my life. We… all of us… would look back on this day and remember the party that Kerrass organised for me and remember it as a good day.

I wish that I could convey that. I wish that I could put those feelings and those memories into words but the truth is that there is just too much there.

I could tell you about how Hugh saved Helfdan from a charging boar. Hugh was drunk by this point, as were most of us except for maybe Helfdan himself, Kerrass and the two Elves, so being drunk, Hugh was determined to get a kill with the crossbow.

Like the spears that Kerrass had adjusted so that they were just slightly off, the crossbows had been modified as well meaning that the bolt would be sent just off target.

Someone else, we don't know who had startled a boar out of a thicket. Helfdan was bent over a kill of his own so his spear was fouled in some entrails which he was struggling to free. As he is sometimes wont to do, he was becoming increasingly frustrated and as such, he didn't see, or hear the boar until it was nearly on top of him and goring him. Hugh spun and driven purely by instinct, he aimed and fired his crossbow. The bolt struck the boar in the side of the head, killing it instantly.

The boar still ended up falling on top of Helfdan and pinning him to the ground. Although I knew that there was no one in any real danger, the rest of the partygoer's didn't and as such, Svein and the other Skelliggans declared that Hugh was now one of them and embraced him as a brother.

I remember Guillaume and Gregoire, who had continued to disdain the ale despite consuming a truly heroic amount of the stuff, had chosen to work together in the hunt, same as they would on the road and they were doing really really well.

So Kar, Ciri and Evran between them conspired to keep stealing their kills. I don't know how it worked, or how that particular trio managed to confer to the point that they managed to arrange this particular conspiracy. But arrange it they did and it was remarkably successful. Especially given that neither Gregoire nor Guillaume managed to figure out what was going on. They were complaining about it and demanded of Kerrass to know if there was some kind of… game stealing ghost in the woodland, all the while the unholy trio were sitting on their growing pile of carcasses and cackling at the two mystified knights.

That was not the only strange alliance that cropped up. Sigurd the fury was working with Sam and despite Sam's drunkenness, they were communicating with grunts, whistles and hand gestures. They had it down as well with almost military-style precision. They would be completely out of sight of each other and one of them would perk up at a noise before giving instruction to whoever was near.

The Elves worked together and no one saw either of them in the trees except when they came back to dump off another kill, clean themselves up and have another beer. Padraig and Svein had decided they were related in some kind of distant way and as such, they were a team that I would be terrified to see on the battlefield. Rickard just worked steadily and alone while occasionally lending his aid to others. Everyone had tales about how he would just appear out of the undergrowth to help someone or to steer some game this way or that way.

Looking back, it is a little easy to remember that Rickard used to be a common soldier and was well used to living off the land. So it isn't all that surprising that he was able to do so well in this particular venue. I teased him a bit about a misspent youth and he suddenly looked all defenceless before Ciri stood there and pardoned him formally and with all of the power of her Imperial rank. She made him kneel in front of her to his embarrassment and much hilarity before she took back her sword and knighted him again with Helfdan as a witness and declared that he was absolved of all past crimes.

Then shen finished it off by baptizing him with a jug of ale to Chireadean's protesting screams.

It might have been the alcohol but he looked honestly moved by it before he started to tell stories about his ways as a common soldier and being sent out to forage. About tricks that he had learned from Dan the poacher and about times when he had lifted front eh royal Temerian forest.

Once he had started talking, it was honestly hard to get him to stop. It was like listening to him confess as though he was confessing to a priest. He looked so relieved about all of that.

Later, he admitted to me that it had been praying on his mind. He told me that it had been something that, even though Foltest was dead. Even though he knew that there was no one around that could prosecute him for his relatively minor crime of poaching. Even though he was technically a noble himself and with powerful friends of his own. It was one of those things where he still felt that urge to look over his shoulder. Was still worried about the falling hand of the guardsman and he was absurdly pleased that Ciri had pardoned him, even while he laughed at the acknowledged absurdity of it.

That Helfdan had seemed so serious when he witnessed it as a Jarl of Skellige, Ambassador to Nilfdaard from Skellige and Imperial Admiral which seemed to convey some kind of extra status that I didn't entirely understand but that leant the entire thing a kind of extra weight which he appreciated.

In the end, no one person completely failed to bring home any kind of game at all which, I was honestly pleased to see. Given Sigurd's status as only having one arm and some of the lack of experience in the hunt that some of the others had, I was honestly worried about that as I didn't want anyone to be humiliated when it came to my party.

I needn't have worried though.

In the end, Thorvald came back with the least game. He had gone into the hunting ground at a fairly sedate pace and had come out, after a while with a boar. Then he had taken the boar and just found a comfortable seat to sit on while he slowly, but steadily, drank his way through the ale stocks. He offered advice and feedback on various things but otherwise, sat there and drank.

The winner with the most game returned was Chireadean and Carys. In the event of people worked together, Kerrass decided that there would be a situation where we added up the entire haul between them and then divided that haul by the number of people in the group. So Carys and Chireadean were tied with her deferring to him as the winner. Again, there was cheering and things done but looking back, I am not as surprised by this as I was at the time. The long and short of the matter was that those two, Like Rickard, had had to survive on their wits and off the land. Sneaking food and supplies from people that were looking out for them.

So Carys stepped aside as she confessed that she shouldn't have been there in the first place and Chireadean was made the winner.

Rickard came in at second place with Ciri coming in third. There was some jeering that Kerrass didn't come in first, given all of his Witcher senses but given the good grace, he took all of that with, then I rather think that he had set some of those things aside to let someone else win.

I came in around the middle of the pack. I was pleased with that result and didn't think that Father would be too ashamed of my efforts, wherever he was at the moment.

As we were done, we stood around for a while and had some of the small snacks that were laid out for us as we waited for whatever it was that Kerrass had in mind for us next.

We were not kept waiting that long as Kerrass walked up with a massive grin and was accompanied by a hooded figure who turned out to be Laurelen. She wandered over to a pair of trees and started doing magical things to them.

There were words, handwaving and all kinds of things. We watched for a while before we turned back to Kerrass.

"What have you done Kerrass?" I demanded and he laughed at me.

"Leave your hunting gear here please and if it would please you to arm and armour yourselves."

"Kerrass," I warned but he just cackled at me.

It took quite a while and the sun was sinking well towards the horizon as we worked. Guillaume and Gregoire took the longest, They were used to helping each other into and out of armour and it became clear that those of us that were dressed in lighter armour would just get in the way, we all settled back to watch. Sam and Rickardjust put a breastplate over a chain shirt and the Skelligans put on their raiding gear.

There were some more hearty drinks put out to take the edge of the buzz of the alcohol that we could all feel and there was a sense of pending excitement. Lauralen finished what she was doing and stood back with a nod to Kerrass.

"What's going on Kerrass?" Ciri asked.

"I will tell you." He promised. "But first…"

He fled through the magic portal.

The rest of us milled around for a while after that before Sam stood up and walked towards the portal.

"Curiosity is going to be the death of me." He declared loudly. "I want to find out what is going on and if that Witcher can answer me then…"

And he stepped through.

"I will admit that I too want to know what is going on," Guillaume commented jumping up and down to settle his armour into place.

"And I refuse to allow all of these noble people to think that us mere civilians don't have it in us." Evran declared with a poke of Hugh in the ribs. He laughed and ran through the portal. I pretended not to notice the way he scrunched up his eyes in anticipation of the pain as he ran through. Hugh was close behind him.

After the first few people stepped through the portal it became more of a tide. Some of the alcohol effects had worn off with the exertions and the food but there was still enough of a buzz there to make us feel giggly and unruly as we stepped through the shimmering dark pool of nothingness.

"Good Luck" Laurelen whispered to me as I walked through.

I found myself in another woodland, not that dissimilar from the one that I had left. But what differences there were, were stark and pronounced. The woodland that we had left was carefully maintained and regulated for the purposes of hunting. This woodland was… I suspect that my memory of that time and that place is a little bit tainted by what was going on and who those woods belonged to but at the same time, I cannot deny that words like "Neglected" and abandoned sprung to mind. There was a wildness to it that only comes from people not really caring about the land and the trees. There were borse and thorn bushes everywhere which is often a telling sign. ivy and vines too which were climbing up the trees on their way towards strangling them.

We stepped out to find ourselves in a small, natural clearing. Across the top of the clearing there was a large tarpaulin that had been stretched to provide some form of shelter and the appearance of some kind of command tent. There was a table in the middle with a map spread out across the middle of it. There were also a couple of other trestle tables with the now recognisable signs of large jugs of liquid and several wooden cups. There was also several small platters of various cooked meats and pastries. Nothing too heavy.

I was not surprised to find Maleficent standing at the table, stuffing herself with all of the meats that she could find.

Kerrass called us all over and his attitude was a serious one but with just the edge of mocking to it.

"Alright," He began. "Is everyone here? Good good. Gather round gentlemen,"

Ciri coughed loudly.

"And ladies." Kerrass finished off.

"Thank you," Ciri said to a certain amount of giggling.

"We have had the competitive part of the day under our belts. We have eaten and we have drank, and later there will be time for some debauchery."

"I always enjoy that bit." Svein declared with a laugh.

"Careful." His brother chimed in. "Unless you want your wife to find out."

There was more jeering as Svein visibly paled in terror.

"So now…" Kerrass gave a false glare to the giggling assembly who quietened down and did our best to look chastened. "Now is the time for the mischief."

"This is a map of a manor house." Sam had wandered over to the table and was inspecting the map that had been stretched out there.

"Why yes." Kerrass tried to look innocent and failed. "Yes it is."

"Who's manor house is it?" I glared at Kerrass suspiciously.

"Gentlemen and Ladies." Kerrass did his best to try and maintain an air of dignity. "I wonder if you would all like to join me on a raid. A pillaging even. That is a map of the Manor house of Sir Robart de Radford."

Rickard gave an astonished bark of laughter before clapping his hand over his mouth. Sam looked as though a light of joy had been lit behind his eyes while Ciri's shoulders quietly shook with the mirth inherent in that statement.

"Who's Sir Robart de… whatsit?" Svein asked Padraig.

The Sergeant of the bastards looked appalled and began to answer before Kerrass did it for him.

"It is said that you can know the quality of a man by the quality of his enemies." He began declaiming in an ostentatious voice. "And Freddie has had a few really good ones over the years. Sansum, Lennox, the one that we call Fuck-Face. But it might be said that there is one whose name sends a shiver of fear down Freddie's spine."

"Yeah," I said, "A fear of being unable to contain myself."

"A man who," Kerrass spoke over the growing hilarity, "Might even be properly and better labelled as Freddie's nemesis."

"Flame help me," I muttered.

"A man who we are going to have some fun at the expense of tonight as the sun begins to set."

"Tis is all very well." Sam was frowning, looking suddenly sober. "But I didn't think that murder or pillaging was going to be part of the days' festivities."

"I too, will not be a party to that," Guillaume said.

"That is not what is happening here," Kerrass told them.

"Why not?' Svein rumbled. "Such a thing is perfectly acceptable at a good wedding." The Skelligans all laughed and I saw that even Guillaume cracked a smile at that. I think we had needed the humour in that moment.

"What is happening here is mischief," Kerrass told them all. "No more than that."

Guillaume nodded and seemed satisfied with that, but Sam was less convinced. "Then why did you tell us to bring weapons?"

"Because Robart has a habit of hiring mercenaries to do his bidding," Kerrass said, there was a bit of an edge to his expression that suggested that he was beginning to be concerned that he had made a mistake. A concern that I was beginning to share if I was honest.

"Look," Kerrass said. "I am not expecting any trouble. Robart is not anywhere near his home at the moment being in Ard Carreigh trying to make waves in court with his Father, trying to turn things towards his own thinking and away from the increasing popularity of the Coulthard family. The man spends all of his time there, or in Novigrad or wherever his duty might take him. This is his house though and he is duty-bound to keep it. There are some servants to be sure, but it might tell you what they think of him that I was able to get this map of the place by simple virtue of asking for it and promising mischief being done.

"But this is also where Robart keeps his less than savoury resources. Mercenaries he hires to cause mischief and attack Coulthard wagon trains tend to use this place as a base."

"That's true," Rickard spoke up. "We've known about that for a while, but the proof is a problem and he works for the High Sheriff of Redania. So it is also hard to get someone to inspect it without warning Robart in advance."

"He also keeps his ill-gotten gains here," Kerrass said. "As well as any loot or cargo that those mercenaries have stolen. And occasionally, according to the servants, he keeps his mistresses here, or the women that the mercenaries have captured."

It was at this point that the last of Guillaume's doubts were visibly put to rest. Say what you like about the flower of Toussaint knighthood, but tell them that there is a damsel in distress and they will burn the world down in order to rescue them.

"The weapons are for the mercenaries," Kerrass said. "Should there be any. They are also to make it look like it's a genuine bandit raid and to cause a certain amount of damage. The servants know we're coming and I trust them enough that they won't have let anyone know or given us up for what we are about to do and I have no doubt that given that we are sticking it to an enemy…"

"I like this plan," Ciri said. "Robart is a snake. He even tried to petition for my hand in marriage and sent a most insulting letter when a courtier of mine turned him down for me. I won't repeat what he said but… I would take no small delight in his downfall.

"There is also another factor here." Ciri went on. "Sir Robart is known to be massively corrupt. We have known this for a long time and there has, up until now, been no way to prove it. We know he has confiscated goods under the pretense of those goods being so-called "Contraband" but then those goods have gone missing. We believe among other things that those goods have been used to line Robart's pockets. We also believe that Robart has taken steps to bribe people with these goods and do other, many and varied things to secure his place in life. Including extortion and blackmail."

She paused and thought a bit.

"If you like, you could consider yourselves all drafted into Imperial service so that we can search the place, interrogate the people involved and then find any proof of his misdeeds."

"I am excited by this plan and this new spin on things," Rickard said. "I'm also excited about nailing the little fucker to the wall."

"Will it work though?" Sam said, examining the map. "He's wriggled out of this kind of thing before and he will, doubtlessly, do so again."

"He could very easily throw his servants or any mercenaries that are here under the applecart," Hugh told us all, his legal training coming to the fore. "He could easily argue that he had no awareness of what was going on in his manor house. My understanding is that he spends most of his time at court and that he can therefore suggest that he didn't know what was happening here. He could blame the servants that are here or the mercenaries that have used the place as a base."

"They will argue against it." Helfdan mused and I had a little giggle to myself. Of course, Helfdan knew about the legal wranglings of the continental courts.

"And then he will point out that his words count better in the law." Rickard finished. "I think it would make a good excuse for the High Sheriff to get rid of him though." He made his voice posh and arrogant. "How can we expect you to protect our lands when you can't even protect your own?"

"Also…" a slow smile of amusement spread across Ciri's face as she moved back from being the Empress into being the mischievous woman again. "If there is any mischief done while we are in there, then that too can be blamed on any mercenaries that are there. I would prefer not to blame the servants but mercenaries that are willing to work for de Radford? They are fair game to my eyes." She considered this matter a little further before she drew herself up to her full Imperial height.

This despite the mud, grass, spilt wine and grease stains that were smeared up and down her shirt.

"I am well pleased with this plan. Let us be about it."

Just for a moment, the Empress had been in the little clearing and you could see the effect that that had on the group. Especially people like Hugh who had only met Ciri the previous day and had not had the chance to meet the Empress herself.

"I have no objection to this japery," Gregoire grumbled. "My insides are beginning to complain at being subject to the Northern piss that you all seem to like to drink and I could do with taking a watery shit on a villain's bed."

"It's true." Guillaume agreed, seeming unsurprised with his companion's coarseness and vivid imagery. "He does enjoy doing."

"However, some of us are quite… I'm going to say unique looking." Gregoire grumbled. "I mean, Guillaume and I are wearing shiny metal armour and we did not exactly travel north discreetly. People will know… this Robart will know what has happened today and he will know who did it."

"Will he be able to prove it though?" Rickard commented. "Speaking personally, I hope he accuses me. I would take great delight in calling him out for the liar that he is and spitting the bastard."

Sam certainly seemed to agree with that.

"I also have experience with Sir Robart the fuckstick." Evran said, looking a little pale. "He was most offended when my wife chose me instead of him and occasionally, she will tell stories of his offensive and awful advances that he made, and things that he did in the belief that he was entitled to do them. I have not challenged him to a duel because he would beat me and we both know it which is why… anyway."

"I would gladly serve as your, or your wife's champion." Guillaume declared with a certain amount of relish."

He was not the only one. This was certainly news to me that Evran and Robart had been romantic rivals even if that rivalry had been one-sided. I had not met, or even heard of Robart until he had turned up to accuse me of Fratricide.

Evran looked over at the Knight from Toussaint with a grateful eye. "That is not my concern although I am grateful for the offer. I defeated him a long time ago and although I don't go out of my way to rub it in his face. I do enjoy the look he gets when he thinks that's what I'm doing."

There was some chuckling at that.

"My point is more this." He went on. "Many of you are experienced fighters and leaving aside my horror that the man that I once had to protect from being beaten up by sperm…"

"They were street toughs." I protested. "I was drunk and could barely stand."

"And how old were they?" Hugh asked with a smile.

"They were fourteen." I insisted. That was a lie, they were around twelve but I was so drunk that I could, in no way defend myself from the street kids going after my money pouch. My friends rescued me and have never stopped teasing me about it since.

"But…" Evran said. "I am not skilled at that line of work and I do not think I could fight a man."

"It is no dishonour to admit when your strength lies elsewhere." Helfdan declared to much affirmative nodding.

"I will be your shield." Guillaume declared.

Evran was visibly moved by the effort.

"These things are not unfair," Kerrass said. "However, first of all. Later, when we get to the debauchery part of the evening. I expect to be told the story about Freddie being beaten up by children."

There was some general laughter.

"Secondly." Kerrass went on. "Robart is a well-known coward and liar. He has told far more prosaic lies about the people in my hearing before now. Including that Rickard assaulted his mother and that Sam has leprosy so that his dick fell off. According to Robart, Freddie has already organised all the nations of the North to deliberately target him and his family."

"Is that not what he's done?" Ciri teased. "Cintra and Nilfgaard over here."

"Skellige," Svein shouted to which the other men roared.

"Temeria," Rickard agreed.

"Ok that's enough," I said, waving them down.

"I think I've got a cousin from Kaedwen," Hugh began. "Does that count?"

"I would say it does, looking at Freddie's face." Kar was laughing.

"So even if, he delivers physical proof that we did what we are going to do. Not only will no one believe him. But a large number of people will applaud our efforts."

There was a pause as various people mulled this over.

"I'm on board with this," Ciri told us all. "Consider yourselves all pardoned in advance."

There was some laughter.

"Ok then," Sam nodded. "So what's the plan? I'm feeling a little too drunk to come up with anything clever."

"Svein?" Kerrass said. "You are the only general amongst us."

"Hardly that." Svein protested.

"And yet you are the war chief of the Black Boar," Helfdan told him. "Being called a General is about right."

Svein unhappily stepped towards the map. "I need a drink." He declared and his brother fetched him one.

"Right," He began before belching and wiping his chin. "Right." Then he nodded, before turning to Rickard.

"Pat tells me that your scouts are the best in the world." He told the Temerian knight.

"I don't know about the best in the world." Rickrd started taking his shinier bits of armour off with a sigh. "And I don't take sole credit for that. Padraig here owns a good amount of that responsibility. But they're pretty fucking good."

Svein nodded. "Scouts out then. Kar?"

"Boss?" Svein's brother was grinning nastily as he took out a stone and applied it to the edge of his dagger.

"You report to this man now." Svein pointed to Rickard before turning back to the Captain of my castle guard. "Kar knows the kind of thing I'm looking for and wants to know. So keep him near you, but check your money pouch afterwards."

Rickard grinned. "I know the type. Right then lads." He addressed the half a dozen of so of the bastards that he had brought with him. "We've got work to do. Chireadean? You wanna come with."

"Oh undoubtedly," Cireadean commented, transferring his sword so that it was strapped across his back. "It will be good working with you again."

Carys looked at me plaintively and I laughed. "Ok, you can go play," I told her. She gave a very un-Carys-like little squee of joy before bouncing off after her husband."

"That means that you are going to have to keep me safe," I told Kerrass.

"I'm sure I can manage." Kerrass was pouring a drink. He looked relieved about something.

We were back to waiting for whatever it was that was going to happen. Guillaume, Sam and Gregoire all did some warm up exercises in their armour. I did some stretching and took the opportunity to take on some liquid that wasn't too alcoholic. The Skelligans mostly did a whole bunch of weapons maintenance along with Evran and Hugh.

Rickard came back after about an hour.

He looked disgusted.

"Honestly speaking. "He told us. "We could probably walk up and just knock. There is almost absolutely nothing going on there that will prove a problem for the people standing around this pavilion. They have lookouts posted that are playing cards and another of who is asleep. The gates are open enough that your boy Kar was able to just walk in with a bundle of firewood and no one noticed. He said that someone was having sex out in the courtyard and didn't even look up as he went past."

There was some laughter at that.

"All told I think we're facing about fifteen to twenty mercenaries and another… maybe half a dozen servants. The servants don't need to be worried about. Those that we saw were old and beaten down looking. They know that their master isn't going to turn up in the near future and it's just as clear that they hate him and the people that are hanging around at the manor house."

"Why don't they just leave?" Sam asked.

"Where would they go?" Rickard replied quickly.

"What's the terrain like?" Svein asked.

Rickard spent a little bit sketching out tree and bush cover on the approach and marking the points on the map where sentries and mercenaries had been seen. He had already put his men in various places where they could keep an eye on things in case stuff started to change. Svein was nodding and rubbing his chin while he looked at the map.

Then he slammed his hand on the table making us all jump. "Is this a trap? He demanded. "Are we being lured in?"

"No," Rickard said. "For my money, he is just that arrogant and doesn't believe that anyone would have the temerity to raid his home. Having said that, I have set lookouts and the Elves are doing a quick scout along the road to see if anyone is coming or waiting. I've told them to be back before nightfall."

Svein nodded and examined the map again before shrugging.

"Fine then." He said. "I'm very tempted to say that we just all walk in and let the thing play out. But given that I, for one, am looking forward to the promised debauchery later, then I suppose that we had better be careful."

He turned back to Rickard. "Can your men get to the sentries?"

"Easily." Rickard made a face as he spoke.

"Then your men take the sentries. Skellige takes the gate when the signal is given, until the heavies ." He pointed at Gregoire, Guillaume and Sam, "can arrive and move into the courtyard. Evran will stay as part of a lookout team along with Thorvald to report if anyone tries to escape."

He looked around.

"When the courtyard is taken we will signal and then, apart from Evran and Thorvald and say one lookout Rickard?"

Rickard nodded.

The rest of us close in. Climbing over the walls or getting through the entrance. Once we're in the courtyard we'll reform from there. But it looks like a stable, a couple of outhouses and warehouses and then the manor itself. I don't see this as being too difficult to clear out."

We all nodded.

"Who do I go with?" Hugh asked. "I have only fought in anger to defend myself until a watchman could come and rescue me."

"We could do with some legal advice in the compound," Ciri said.

"Follow behind the heavies," Svein told him, "And wait outside the gate until the all-clear signal is given."

"Right. What will the signal be?" Hugh looked nervous and I don't blame him.

"I don't know." Svein stroked his chin in thought. "I was going to go with something like screaming 'ALL CLEAR' myself. Keeps it simple."

There was some laughter at Hugh's sheepish face.

"Freddie and Kerrass, coming with the Skelligans I think. Scouts watching the walls for anyone who might be trying to escape. Swallow, as our most mobile, can I persuade you to troubleshoot?"

"Who's Swallow?" Evran wondered.

"I am," Ciri commented before nodding towards Svein.

Evran looked appalled. "Are we really going to risk the Empress of Nilfgaard on a prank?"

"The trick would be trying to stop her," Svein told him.

Evran was… perturbed by this.

"Can we try and take them alive though?" Ciri asked. "I have no objection to this adventure but at the same time, it will be easier to deal with all of this if we have them alive to be able to testify and speak to all of the things that various people have been up to."

There was some general nodding.

"Let's not risk anyone's lives though," Kerrass added. "If it's the choice between one of us and one of them then I say that the other one gets it for interfering with some people on official business."

"I can go with that."

"Ok then," Svein said and started pointing at the map as to where wanted everyone to go.

We moved off to our deployments after one last toast.

Kerrass groaned after along moment as we moved through the woods.

"Are you alright?" I asked him.

"Honestly Freddie. There was a moment there where I thought that everyone was going to turn down the fun. I thought that was going to ruin your Stag party as I misread the entire…"

I clapped him on the shoulder.

"It's alright now Kerrass," I told him. "The hunting was fun and although I am a bit nervous about the debauchery, I can certainly enjoy some food and drinking."

A sly smile spread across his face. "Oh Freddie, you have no idea what I have in mind for everyone."

I laughed with him. I felt a rush of arousal through me and my manhood throbbed.

"That spell of Ariadne's having an effect." Kerrass grinned at me.

I took a few deep breaths before I nodded and we carried on to where we were heading.

It was not a complicated plan and there was very little to go wrong. It did not go perfectly, but it also did not go spectacularly wrong. No one was hurt. The only people that got injured really were the mercenaries that were supposedly going to be on the watch. The two men playing cards looked up and automatically went to draw weapons and had to be rendered useless. They weren't knocked out or anything but there was a scuffle that could probably have gone better. There were some other cuts and bruises but nothing worse than that.

As for the courtyard. A couple of the mercenaries came out of the buildings drawing weapons and were expecting a fight to happen but then they kind of looked around to realise that the majority of their fellows were already either restrained or were in the process of surrendering.

Then Guillaume and Gregoire showed up with the armour crashing around.

And that was that. It was all over with astonishing speed. I didn't even exchange blows with anyone.

It was oddly disappointing. I mean, the logical part of me was pleased given that I had had more than a little bit to drink and as such, it wouldn't have been wise for us to fight, but even so.

There is something about Robart that just… sets me off. I don't know what it is. More rational people than I have argued that he has done plenty to earn my enmity. And he has, but no more so than many of the other people that have annoyed me or aggravated me over the years. But there is something about Robart that just makes me want to plunge my thumbs into his eye-sockets and tear off his genitals.

I don't like it. I rather think that I should be above such things. But there is something about him that just makes me want to smash his face in. The last time I saw him was when he was sitting on his horse outside the gates of Coulthard castle demanding that I turn myself in for summary execution for treason and murder.

I recall laughing at him.

But that has not been the end of his interactions with us and although I've seen him, less than a handful of times, his presence in the family… narrative I suppose, is pervasive. There is rarely a month that goes by when Emma doesn't hear about some effort from Robart to undermine the family in some way. We have evaded his efforts so far on the grounds that nowadays he is… somewhat beneath us. But that doesn't mean that he can't make friends with other people that agree with him.

He will never be the mastermind of our downfall, but he might get together with the people that do. In the cold light of rational thought, he runs the risk of becoming a scapegoat himself. If the plot doesn't work then he will be an easy and obvious person to use as a scapegoat. His enmity with us is well known.

But I hate that man. I remember wishing that he was there and was disappointed that he wasn't. To this day, I have a standing challenge against him to a duel and if/when I finally clap eyes on him I will have no hesitation in calling him a cowardly piece of filth until he fights me.

But as soon as the mercenaries were rounded up, that was just about it. One of the Bastards, a young lad called Perkins who is no longer that young if I'm being honest with myself, headed off to the campsite to let Maleficent know that all was clear. The plan was that Maleficent could send messages to the authorities that things had happened and that they could then send some independent adjudicators to verify and catalogue all of the things that we find.

Because we did find an awful lot.

We found several crates that were labelled with the trading symbols of the Coulthard trading company as well as several others of those people that Emma refers to as "The noble competition". We also found several pieces of artwork that were hidden away in dark corners of the cellar rather than being displayed in the open where anyone could look at it.

Which left us thinking that this almost certainly meant that they were stolen.

We also found a couple of young-looking Elven women that made Carys violent enough that her husband had to catch hold of her in order to prevent her from murdering the prisoners. He convinced her that she was the only one that could convince these women that nothing bad was going to happen to them and that they were rescued but… it was a close-run thing there. I am glad that he succeeded. I would not have been pleased if things had become a murder.

But after that, we started to have fun. The process of having fun began when Kar found Robart's wine cellar.

I went to have a look at it later and it was by far the heaviest door in the place, with the largest lock. Which possibly says something about the man that we were dealing with.

Unfortunately, Kar was too drunk on the ale that the mercenaries had been drinking to be able to properly open the lock. So we opened it by virtue of a Large and aggravated Gregoire. He had taken a taste of the ale that we had already confiscated and loudly declared that he had only thought that he had disliked the ale that was provided for us before the hunt. But this stuff tasted like someone had not only pissed in it, but also shit in it as well.

I did confirm for myself that the ale was not brilliant.

But Gregoire, devoid of something to drink after being frustrated by his own desire for some violence was feeling sullen, angry and disappointed. So he was easily persuaded to apply his weight, strength and a blacksmith's hammer that we found in the middle of the courtyard.

I do not often feel sorry for inanimate objects but that poor door never stood a chance.

I was unsurprised that the wine in the cellar was broken into two parts. One part was what Guillaume disgustedly referred to as cheap piss. While the other half was "exceedingly good vintage". Needless to say, there was more than enough of the stuff there for us to enjoy ourselves on the better quality stuff…

Although Gregoire, Guillaume and Chireadean all winced at the way the Skelligans would hack the neck of the bottle off with an axe before lifting it to their lips and then drinking the entire thing at a swallow.

… and then we went out into the rest of the Manor house to explore, have fun and see what we could steal.

I was feeling vindictive and as a result, I went in search of Robart's study. I had a bottle of wine in hand, opened for me by Sigurd in the Skelligan fashion, that I was taking relatively small swallows from in recognition of the quality of the vintage. I wanted to see if there would be any believable proof that would be there that we could use against Robart himself. I agreed with Hugh that it was extremely unlikely that we would find anything that could not easily be blamed, but Robart, on either the mercenaries or the servants, but a man can hope.

Sam had beaten me to it. He was already drunk and was sitting, crosslegged on the floor before a fire that he had built in the grate of the room where he was feeding papers into the fire after reading them.

"They're his diaries," Sam told me with an expression of disgusted glee. "I checked their spines for anything hidden and there's nothing there. Just a lot of pretentious bullshit about how you ruined his life."

"Me?"

"He is quite insistent," Sam told me. "I saved you this one." Passing me up a volume that he had left open next to me.

Holy Flame but it was self-pitying drivel of the worst kind. It would seem that everything, as Sam had claimed, was entirely my fault. Everything. I even flicked through the volume to see if this was an isolated chapter and it wasn't. Oh my word it wasn't. Apparently, it was my fault that the Empress had declined his most charming advances. As had the Queen Regent and a couple of other people.

Apparently, he had even proposed marriage to Emma at one point which was not something that I had known about before reading that particular entry. I found that I wasn't entirely convinced of this and found myself wondering if part of the entire problem was all in Robart's head.

Now that I am sober and less angry I am also left feeling a little bit… sorry for Rob…

No… What am I thinking. The man's a snake and one day I hope to be there when he gets stepped on.

Sam and I had a grand old time checking the records before burning them. Sam got bored after a while and wandered off to see what kind of mischief others were causing but I have a fondness for paperwork and a hatred of Robart so I didn't stop as I fed book after book into the flames.

Heh. Good times.

I normally work to preserve books when they are being damaged, but in this case, covered in Robart's scribblings, it was like putting things out of their misery.

When I came out, the authorities had turned up and were interrogating the mercenaries while the terrified servants looked on. Svein had tried to ply them with drink but the matter wasn't helped by the fact that the mercenaries kept threatening the servants with painful retribution should they tell the authorities anything.

The fact that all this was doing was digging the grave of the mercenaries for themselves was not lost on me, if nothing else.

We still found plenty of stuff. Ciri stole the weathervane by virtue of teleporting up to the roof and levering it free. Svein relieved himself in the roasting ovens. Gregoire toor the master bedroom apart as though he was looking for things that were hidden and came out with a necklace that he was going to present to Anne and a fairly decent quality rapier that he was going to give to his step-son.

Rickard, who has his own history with Robart was practising his archery on a portrait of Robart that he had found. He and Evran had set the thing up and put it onto an archery target and were taking turns in firing arrow and crossbow bolts into it along with Bones, the old Field medic of the Bastards. They had a scoring system going on and more and more people were being drawn into the contest. It was actually quite a central thing.

Kar found the strongbox full of money. Some sacks of various coin denominations as well as several deeds to various lands and properties throughout Novigrad and Ard Carraigh. Hugh got really excited about this particular load of paperwork and insisted on saving it from the fire. I argued that if we threw it on the fire then there would be little to prove that Robart actually owned any of that and then we could…

I didn't get any further before Hugh gave me a withering stare.

"Freddie," he said. "I love you like the little brother that I never had. And if I ever want to know about history, or travelling through the Empire, or geography or monsters, I would come and ask you all about it. But if it is something about legal matters, then I am the expert here and you need to keep those papers out of the fire. In fact…"

He snatched them from my hand and took them with him to the leader of those people that had come to clear things out. Who also got really excited.

I never found out who it was that defecated in Robart's bed. Gregoire claimed innocence despite his earlier threat on the grounds that it actually took quite a long time to get out of all the armour in case he wanted a shit and he wouldn't want to bother with it. Nor did I find out who pissed in the clothing chest. I do know that the Carys took a knife to all of the remaining portraits that were in the place. She was still angry at the recovery of those captives.

Helfdan did very little. He sat in the courtyard, He had found a book that he wanted to read in what laughingly passed for a library in Robart's house. I think there was maybe a shelf of books but Helfdan had found something worth reading there and he sat with a bottle of the wine that someone had handed him and read while also watching the shooting competition.

It turned out that the highest point value was assigned to shooting Robart in the balls.

My favourite thing though, the one that I am intrigued by while also not wanting the answer. Was when Sigurd appeared from the depths of the manor house with a smile on his face and straightening his clothes.

"He's not going to find that in a hurry." He told me with a horrible smile. "And he will always wonder where the smell is coming from." And then he walked off, chuckling to himself.

All of it was accompanied by laughter, singing and general frivolity. I walked from group to group, chatting, drinking and having a good time. I would have been happy if that was the end of the night but then the sun went down and Maleficent arrived in the courtyard and took Kerrass aside.

For his part, Kerrass had moved through all of the partying with the air of a benevolent host. He had spent time at the archery show with his crossbow and put two bolts into the painting. One into both eyes which, although it didn't score very highly, was certainly enough to show off his talents. He went climbing over the place with Ciri, claimed the souvenir of one of Robart's boots…

Why his boots? I have no idea but Kerrass found it amusing.

He drank from a bottle of wine that was offered to him and he also helped direct the authorities in the direction of those pieces of contraband that we had found. All the way through, he seemed to have the air of someone that was remarkably unsurprised by everything. As though he knew what was going to happen and what had happened. And for all I know, that is precisely the case. I began to wonder what he had been up to all of that time that he had been out and about in the lead-up to all of this.

But whatever it was, things here at the estate of Sir Robart de Radford were clearly about to come to a close.

Grinning like the cat that got the cream, Maleficent arrived and said something to Kerrass who nodded. He took one look around with the air of someone who was trying to imprint the memory into his brain so that it wouldn't be lost elsewhere before he started moving around from one group to the other telling them that it was time to bring things to a halt and that we would soon need to be departing.

It took time and Kerrass certainly didn't seem to be in any particular rush. The archery thing came to a close and there was a final tallying up of points. Ciri was not the only person that had taken a souvenir that is bound to cause Robart some annoyance. There was a brief discussion as to whether or not we should burn the entire complex down but in the end, we decided against that because…. How were the authorities going to be able to properly investigate the place if we had burnt it down? And also, why would the mercenaries, who would end up being blamed for this entire thing one way or another, burn down their home and their source of income?

So instead, we took it in turns to piss against the wall, and have a last mouthful of wine before we smashed the remains of the wine cellar…

At first, Gregoire and Guillaume were horrified about that until Sam pointed out that the vintage was either not worth keeping or too good to be left in the hands of one such as Robart. This mollified the pair of them a little

When we were finally done. Maleficent did the whole, magical handwaving thing and a portal appeared in the gatehouse of Robart's estate and we walked through.

At first, I don't mind admitting that I was a bit disappointed with what I saw. We came out in the backyard of the Rosemary and Thyme. I knew that there was a planned evening of food, drink and something nebulously referred to as "debauchery" but the thought of such an evening spent at the R&T with Professor Dandelion and Master Chibay was a bit underwhelming. I mean, we always stay at the R&T and the thought of spending my stag evening there was, to me, the equivalent of spending a midweek evening there.

And after the other activities of the day, the hunt and the mischief, I was rather disappointed to learn that this was all that there was to it. I shouldn't have worried though.

We came out to find Professor Dandelion waiting for us and we were ussured into the building where there was a room set aside for each of us. There we found that there was already a hot bath, heated by virtue of one of the hot rocks that Kerrass gets so smug about sometimes. I assume that Professor Dandelion got someone else to do it or something. But we all bathed and found that our clothes had been removed to be replaced by more fancy clothing.

There was a bit more wine but it was heavily watered down by this point. After we were done, we all met in the main room where Professor Dandelion handed us a series of masks. He made a big show of it and also a big show of telling us that our weapons, armour and other gear would be kept in the R&T for us until we came to collect it.

Then he made a joke about how if we didn't go and get it before the wedding, then he would have absolutely no guilt at all about selling the stuff.

It took us all a while to gather, after all, some people take longer to get dressed than others. We were all dressed formally and immaculately. Kar, for one, wondered whether or not he was allowed to keep his clothes and sell them given how much they must have cost to make.

Ciri told him that he looked very dashing. He did too which was even more distressing to my eyes.

More than one person was reluctant in setting aside our more traditional weapons for the night on the town. Novigrad does have something of a reputation after all. We were allowed to keep eating Knives and small daggers. I, for one, certainly kept my boot knife.

There were a couple of surprises in the assembly. I was left wondering how, whichever Tailor Kerrass had arranged this with, had gotten the measurements for Gregoire and Guillaume in particular as those men have a size and musculature that other men find intimidating, but their clothing fit them like gloves. And although I have never been attracted to the male, both of them looked amazing.

Kerrass was also, unsurprisingly dashing in his Dark Blue doublet and of all people, it turns out the Svein brushes up really really well. Unlike the two knights who have the huge frames necessary to be able to live and work in full plate and chain mail harness, Svein gives an impression of being larger than he actually is. To see him, you wouldn't notice him really until he turns towards you and smiles so that the full force of his personality strikes you in the face.

Rickard looked a bit uncomfortable in all of the finery but after a while, as he became more used to it and more comfortable, that discomfort kind of went away and he seemed to grow into his clothing.

As for Helfdan? Helfdan looked comfortable in his clothing. He wore it moderately well and stood with his hands clasped behind his back which I began to take to mean that this was his traditional courtly attitude for when he was at the Imperial Court.

The others fell into the middle of this spectrum at various stages. Kar felt like a peacock and regularly said so, but I secretly think that he was enjoying himself. Hugh and Evran are both used to wearing suits like these but I rather got the impression that both of them were unused to wearing suits that were quite this expensive.

When Ciri came down from the room that she had vanished into she was, likewise, dressed as a young man. Her hair had been done up and tucked under a hat so that no-one could see what colour it was. She was wearing a jacket and a pair of tight trousers with ties down the side. The Empress is a slight woman at the best of times and I suppose that it

is true that at first glance, she could be mistaken for a boy or a young man. But if you looked closely, she was not really hiding her femininity and the juxtaposition of the traditionally male courtier attire, and the woman wearing it made the entire thing devastatingly attractive.

Ariadne's spell triggered as I looked at her again and I had to turn away and breathe deeply to get myself back into control.

She saw my reaction though and smirked at me with a wink before she wandered over and stood next to Helfdan, who seemed to be the only person unaffected by her arrival.

"Where is Carys?" Padraig asked, plainly disappointed at not seeing the outfit that his wife had chosen.

"She had other duties," Ciri told him without offering anything else.

Padraig opened his mouth to ask more before Kerrass cleared his throat.

"Gentlemen." He said, ignoring the fact that Ciri was not such. "Now that we are all here and properly prepared for the evening I draw your attention. We will be departing from this place and attending the Passiflora where we have the run of the building. There, food and drink will be brought and we will eat, drink and make merry until the small hours of the morning, and long should the chance arrive."

There was some more laughter although a couple of people, including Sam surprisingly, looked a little sheepish.

"However, there are some rules," Kerrass said. "During the walk to the passiflora, please do not stop or separate yourselves from the group. Nighttime in Novigrad can be an interesting place and although it is not as terrifying as it was under the rule of Radovid, it is far from the nicest place to spend an evening. So I must insist that we all move together. I will lead and Sam has volunteered to be a rear guard to ensure that no one gets left behind.

"Other than an effort to look nice, the reason for our disguises are, I hope, self-explanatory but I will go over them here again anyway. Many of us have enemies and if word got out that the Empress of the continent, the Lord Kalayn, the Jarl of the Black Boar were wandering the streets…and they are not alone in their notoriety in the party. But if someone realised what was happening, then not only our lives would be in danger.

"Don't get me wrong, It's not that I don't like our chances against a group of back street hoodlums. But things here could escalate and I don't want Freddie's big night to be spoiled."

"I rather felt that there would be another bigger night coming up." Someone quipped. I think it was Rickard.

"Yes, but this is the one that I am in charge of," Kerrass replied. "And when we get to the Passiflora, kindly stay there, there is more than enough entertainment in that place so we don't have to wander off looking for more. Come daybreak, my duty is done and I will divest myself of responsibility for the lot of you, but until then, caution is better. Am I clear?"

There was some generalised nodding.

"Any questions?" Kerrass asked.

"Ummm." Rickard raised his hand, looking a little bit sheepish. "While I know that many of us are unmarried and that many more of us might not care. The Passiflora is famous for a reason and I, for one, might not wish to partake of all of their entertainments out of… you know… desire to remain…"

There was some good-natured mocking noises which caused the Temerian to redden.

"It is a valid point." Guillaume snapped and people subsided. "Although I have repeatedly been told that I am welcome to look, but not touch, I can appreciate my Temerian friend's concerns and applaud him for sharing them."

The mocking subsided. At first I was concerned that, again, Kerrass had misjudged. But he was grinning slyly.

"Have no fear gentlemen." He told us all. "I have taken steps and no one will be pressured into doing anything, with anyone, that they would not otherwise enjoy or find palatable."

There was some kind of general amusement.

"Other than Freddie of course." Kerrass finished. "It's his stag party and I have every intention of amusing myself at his expense all night."

There was some laughter then as Kerrass led us all out into the night. He beckoned me up to walk with him.

"You doing ok Freddie?" He checked. "Not too much?"

We shared a grin.

"I wish Mark was here," I said, looking back at Sam who was trading dirty jokes with Hugh and Evran.

"He will be meeting us there," Kerrass told me, clapping me on the shoulder. "Presuming his health hasn't worsened of course. He won't be partaking in the debauchery of course."

"Of course."

"Having a good day?" Kerrass checked, suddenly looking nervous.

"Better than I thought possible," I told him.

He laughed and put his arm around me. We walked like that for a good couple of dozen metres, laughing and singing as we went.

We must have made a funny sight as we walked through the streets of Novigrad. Over one of the canals that allowed the river to flow through the city before passing the market square, up the main street and on past the main square, now devoid of the bonfires upon which so many people had lost their lives.

Some of us are giant in stature, some of us small. Some of our masks hid huge bushy and wiry beards but some of us were clean-shaven. From slight body types like Ciri up to huge, muscled men like Guillaume and Gregoire. We walked like we owned the street and in the right then and right there of the matter, we did. Jokes were traded, and songs were sung. Svein especially made some sounds that were akin to some kind of sea shanty that even Rickard and Sam joined in on.

The nightlife was doing me proud as we walked through the streets. I laughed when I saw Ciri being accosted by one of the many sex workers that were out on the street that night, promising her that she would be a man by the morning light.

We stopped at a street show for a short while as Helfdan was fascinated by the artistry that the puppets exhibited as a male puppet complained about the infidelity of his puppet wife. Thorvald insisted on buying us all a piece of street food that the seller described as "meat in a bun". He and Gregoire were the only people that consumed the stuff down to the last crumb, the rest of us disposed of it in nearby refuse heaps or gave it to one of the many beggars that, unfortunately, still sit by the side of the road in the hope of getting some small money or scraps from the people that pass them by.

To me, it was greasy, overly flavoured nonsense that burnt my tongue with the spice blend, and yet, at the same time, it seemed oddly bland to my taste.

But eventually, we came out and onto the plaza that houses the Passiflora. Novigrad's house of pleasure. You only go there if you can afford it and generally, you can only be let in if you have a specific invitation to do so. I have been here before. Kerrass has taken me there twice on various times that we were passing through Novigrad and I went once when I was a student. That first time I think the lady in question took pity on me and both of the other times, the ladies were astonished at these unwashed vagabonds on the invite list and then were even more astonished when they found out who we were.

I have good memories of the place though although I was nervous about what was going to happen tonight. The building was well lit and there were already sounds of music and laughter coming from within. There was a brief dangerous moment as we approached. There were a few, disgruntled-looking customers of the place that were disappointed that they weren't being allowed in. One of them tried to warn us that the place was booked in advance for a private party and then those same disgruntled men started to get rowdy at the fact that Kerrass led us past the crowds and into the building itself.

Now I knew, in advance that the Passiflora is not just a brothel. I knew that the place catered for private pirates, Gwent tournaments and even, according to rumour, this was where the assassination of King Radovid was planned. But even so, I was surprised. The main hall was made up of one huge table which was set for all of us there. Some servants were standing along the sides of the wall, dressed as appropriate and amazing smells were coming from further into the building.

Kerrass had stopped after the entrance hall as we were all divested of our boots and had slippers placed upon our feet. Something that Svein teased us all for before his own feet were seen to and he was forced to admit that the slippers were particularly soft on his toes. But Kerrass stopped and ushered me to go before him

As I entered the room I was met by the ballistic catapulted hug of Brother Mark. He was still wearing a cassock but it was his dress-down cassock. One that I actually hadn't seen him wearing for quite a while as normally he has to wear his full Cardinal's finery so as not to upset the visitors that hang upon his every word, or the servants that follow him around and write down his thoughts in case they get turned into a new holy scripture.

He dreads that idea.

But at the same time, it was as though I was seeing my brother, my real brother, for the first time in ages. Some coincidence of alcohol and the heightened emotion that was running through the day left me feeling a little vulnerable to what was happening and it seemed as though Mark had come back to me. He still seemed frail and the strength in his arms was a false one as he soon released me and then had to lean on his cane to greet Sam and a couple of the others that he knew or recognised.

"You look well," I told him when I finally got the chance to speak to him in a quieter moment.

"Not gonna lie, Freddie, feeling pretty good."

"Is this alright though? I didn't think you would be able to make it."

He snorted at that. "Freddie, there is no way. None, that I was going to miss your second biggest day. And when your biggest day comes, if the Hierarch himself demands my presence he can excommunicate me for all I care. I will be there. I might be sitting in a chair with a blanket while I drool gently into the carpet, but I will not miss that for the world."

Something in his words and the way he said them caught at me a little and I hugged him close again.

"Just so we're clear though." He told me. "Laurelen is coming to pick me up when it comes to be time for the "Debauchery" to start. There are lines that I would prefer not to cross, I hope you understand."

I nodded.

"I'm staying for that bit though." Came a booming voice as Father Jerome came to my side. "Always enjoy a good bit of debauchery myself. Never miss it."

There was some generalised laughter.

We were served drinks by some of the servants and it was not lost on me that the servants in question were attractive young ladies. There was an edge lacking in them from the normal outlook of the ladies that normally work in the Passiflora, there was less overt sexuality in their dress or their actions. I didn't pay any mind to it. They were just attractive enough to keep my mind on the fact that debauchery was coming , something that I was still a bit nervous about as to what Kerrass might have in mind, but I was not overwhelmed by it.

After a short while, an older lady that I recognised as being the Brothel Madame and manager came to us all and started gently pushing us towards the table where we were sat into specific places and dinner was served.

Pride tells me that I've had more pleasant dining experiences but right now, at the time of writing, I would struggle to tell you what they were.

The food was plentiful, full of flavour and they took their time to bring that food out to us. I can understand the occasional need to eat quickly and to get through all the courses and things when it comes to state occasions and family meals if there are other businesses that need the time of the diners. I can also understand the desire in those, more professional, establishments when they are trying to get people through as quickly as possible, so no sooner have you finished one course than you are getting the next course shoved into your face for you to get through as quickly as possible so that they can get you out and the next person in.

But here, they took their time. Sizzling platters of meat and vegetables were brought out to us in strange and wonderful sauces that tickled the taste buds. Roast platters dripping in gravy. Plentiful, freshly baked bread and pots of butter so that we could either smear the bread into the butter or dip it in the gravy. Fruits, Cheese and all of it came coming out so that we could savour each mouthful without feeling overwhelmed or overstuffed by it. It was a long and lovely meal.

And all the way through it, people were telling stories about me. Some of them were teasing. Some of them made me blush. But not one of them made me feel as though I was being bullied. They were all complimentary. And Kerrass directed the assembly with skill and finesse. Calling on one person if he felt that the mood needed skewering with a funny story or bringing the mood down with a serious and admiring story if people were getting too giddy and possibly heading towards offence.

Kerrass told the story, again, of our first meeting. But this time, he gave me the credit for lifting him from a state of depression so that he became determined to live again. Mark told the assembly about the first time that I had flummoxed him in a debate about holy scripture. Sam told about how he had watched as I humiliated Robart in the doors of our castle gate, about how the man had threatened me and I had, in turn, made the idiot Knight piss his trousers in fear.

Gregoire rose to his feet and gave me all of the credit for the fact that he was now married to the woman that he loved. Genuine tears of gratitude stood out in his eyes and I had to run around the table to hug the huge man before they spilt.

Guillaume repeated the story about how he and I, along with Ariadne, rescued Lady Caroline, and presumed heir to Toussaint's ducal throne, from the Witch of Lynx Crag. Thorvald told of my heroism as I charged up the beach against the ice giants.

Rickard recounted the speech that I gave on the island of mists which put the steel into the surviving bastards and Elves that had made that last, desperate run while Ciri told how I had had the temerity to stand up to the Empress of the Continent and told her to get her head out of her arse.

Hugh told the story about how I had stepped aside when the woman I loved had chosen him instead. He spoke with tears in his eyes and a small amount of pride as he apologised to me again for breaking my heart but that he was just unable to deny how he felt for her. He told the assembly of how much he admired me for that choice and that decision and the grace with which I had dealt with the entire situation. He hoped that I forgave him after all this time. I told him to be silly and that of course I forgave him. That I had forgiven him a long time ago.

Jerome told a story that I could not remember. Apparently, I had prevented his little shrine from being robbed when he, Jerome, had been asleep and Kerrass had been out on some errand or another. Some robbers had come and I had seen them off.

Kerrass told about my embarrassment in the face of the Succubus which brought the conversation back around to amusement and laughter again, a much-needed diversion.

As we finished the food though, the chairs were moved back and the musicians came in. As did the girls. Again, there was a more subdued feeling to the ladies that were present and there weren't as many of them as I was expecting. They came in and danced with those that wanted to dance and sat with those that just wanted to sit and drink. We talked, laughed and sang for a long time. Some people played dice, some people indulged in cards. And everywhere I looked there were my closest, dearest friends, laughing, joking and speaking with each other.

It was… magical. And the night still wasn't over.

Things built slowly towards their… heh… climax.

I remember thinking that the feel of the room was changing when Ciri took her jacket and hat off and so allowed her longish hair to hang free. And with the bulky jacket no longer an obstacle, even though she was wearing a very male-cut shirt, there was no longer any hiding the fact that she was a woman.

After that, the feeling of the women and the servants that were coming into the room started to change. They were all wearing masks and although their clothing could still, at a pinch, be described as "servant wear" there was definitely an edge to what they were wearing that made it look a little closer to…

It was more sexual.

The laughter in the room started to shift and change. It was less innocent, more… raucous. Nothing too offensive and nothing that was going to worry anyone or offend anyone, but there was a new feeling to it that left me… heightened. I was more and more aware that the waves of feeling that were rushing through me were increasingly sexual. But I could almost hear Ariadne's voice in my head telling me not to worry and to just enjoy what was happening to me.

Mark approached and took Kerrass and me aside.

"I think it's time for me to go." He told me with a smile that was warm, friendly, a little mocking and even less sad.

"Are you sure?" Kerrass said. "You will be missing out on some entertainment?"

Mark laughed. "I am sure." He told us both. "It would not be a form of entertainment that I would enjoy and although I wish you all well of the evening, especially you Freddie, it has never been to my taste. And I am tired. Thank you for letting me share this with you, Freddie." He told me and I saw the first formation of tears in the corner of his eye.

"No Mark." I embraced him. "Thank you. It would not have been the same without you."

We pulled away before we could embarrass each other even further.

"Make sure Sammy behaves," he told me before he went with the Madame into the back room. I saw Kerrass' medallion flicker a moment and I guessed that there was some kind of teleportation effect. Kerrass looked at me for a long time and I saw him give a signal towards the madame, something about delaying matters for a bit.

He wasn't wrong. My mood was not irretrievably destroyed, but at the same time, I was not feeling entirely brilliant about it. I love my brother very much and I dread the day when I realise that he has gone. Not least because I kind of think that he will just sink into himself. His body and things will carry on for a while and he will keep moving around, talking and the like, but I am increasingly worried that what will happen is that I will look up and realise that the man, the brother I love is simply not there anymore.

So I did retreat into myself for a while.

Fortunately, the love of some good friends and a magically enhanced sense of eroticism were not something that could be denied. I got into a small drunken debate with Guillaume and made some plans for the future with Ciri about ways that I could help her regarding the Witcher schools. I planned some things with Helfdan that I can now no longer remember and traded jesting insults with Sam, Chireadean, Hugh and all the rest.

By now, there were plenty of extremely beautiful women that were in the room with us draping themselves over the men that were there assembled. Not all of the men I noticed. It is easy for my sober brain to realise what was happening now but at the time I didn't spot the pattern of who had a woman or two sat across their laps in that the married, or all but married men in the room had friendly attention, but little to no physical contact with the women in the room.

But first needed to come my ritual humiliation.

Kerrass called for silence and a clearing in the middle of the room appeared.

"Freddie." He said gravely, the dire effect of his voice only slightly ruined by the ever so slight slur that had entered his voice and the bottle of apple spirits that swung from his fingers. "Freddie, it is time."

Sam and Rickard appeared from nowhere and hauled me to my feet before dragging me across the floor and sitting me down in the chair. I didn't fight too hard. I had been part dreading, part anticipating this moment and again, Ariadne's spell activated and I felt the excitement shoot through me regarding what was about to happen. Made worse by the sounds of my friends and compatriots beginning to jeer and shout encouragement.

Like the ringmaster that he was, Kerrass held his hands up for silence which fell eventually.

"Now something needs to be said. Seriously, folks, I need to tell you something. Before we set out this morning, the lady Ariadne who is well aware of the character of the man that we are all celebrating. She took certain steps to ensure that none of his silly morals was going to get in the way of his having a good time tonight."

There was some general laughter at my expense.

"Therefore." Kerrass went on. "I am forced to take certain steps so that he enjoys the entire experience rather than… Letting things go too far."

There was some more jeering. I felt a couple of strong sets of hands grab my hands and I was bound to the chair with bonds of velvet.

Just for a moment, I thought of Sansum but then the spell triggered again as I realised the softness of the bonds meant an entirely different kind of torture and just as suddenly as the image came, it fled again.

"But I also urge you not to think too badly of him." Kerrass went on. "Freddie's self-control is powerful, but he is not without limits and those limits have been substantially reduced tonight. So do not think too harshly of him."

There was some more laughter and some whistling.

I saw him give a signal and the lights in the room dimmed and we all fell into silence. A woman came, she was tall, and blonde and wore a mask while she wore an elaborate green dress.

And then she started to dance, accompanied by some music that I think Evran was involved in, I couldn't be sure because the woman was mesmerising. I couldn't take my eyes off her and even more than that, I didn't really want to either. The knowledge that I didn't have to, ran down my spine and right into my groin. She danced in a way that I had never seen before and I do not think that I have the words to describe it here. She danced towards me, getting closer and closer as she did with every movement that she made. And as she got closer, the less and less clothes that she seemed to have on. She had blue eyes that seemed to draw me in so that although I was aware of her beauty and her, almost flawless, physical form I was drawn in by those eyes. I could only admire the rest of her when her movements took her eyes away from mine.

The cliche is that it was over too soon and although that is true, it also felt as though the dance lasted for years. Beautiful was not the word for it. I don't know where Kerrass, or the Madame found her, but she was neither lewd with her movements, nor was she shy. There was amusement in her eyes. She knew exactly what she was doing and knew exactly what effect she was having on me. There was also a certain curiosity in the depths of those eyes as well as a hint of enormous promise.

By some artistry that I didn't understand and don't really want to, she ended up almost astride me. Just an inch or two from sitting in my lap, but still not touching me. Then she leaned forwards and whispered breathily in my ear.

"I will be waiting for you." She told me. I could hear the smile in her voice and the sheer erotic promise in her voice was something that I had not felt since I had slept with a Succubus. But what the Succubus did with magic and being, this woman did with skill and artistry.

She climbed off me and bowed to the rest of the audience and left with a wave to everyone else and wink at me through the white and gold domino mask that she was still wearing.

I watched her go and it was with a sigh that I felt the tension in the room dissipate.

"Fuck me," Someone muttered.

"No thanks." I'm confident that this was Ciri. "You're not my type."

The laughter that followed allowed that erotic tension to leave the room fully.

Kerrass came back to the stage and bent behind me to undo my bonds.

"Did me proud Freddie," He whispered as he did so. "I know that our game is long over and that you won. But you still did me proud."

I just sat there, still dazed with everything that I had seen and felt.

Kerrass had to help me back to a seat at the edge of the room.

"Gentlemen and ladies." He addressed us all as he walked back towards the focal point of the room. "It is with that show that I declare my duty as best man done for the evening. From here, I will take up my duties of generalised support that the groom will need up to and including on the wedding day itself. But for tonight, I deem my task completed."

There was some generalised moaning before Kerrass laughed and raised his hands in denial.

"But that doesn't mean that the night is over." He told us all. "I will now hand you over to the good Madame of the house." He gestured and bowed to the lady that took the floor.

The Madame of the Passiflora is a legend in her own lifetime. I know that she's not the owner of the building but I am aware that she is famous for her gifts and skills in running the place.

"Thank you Master Kerrass." She bowed. She never curtseys, she always bows. "And I must say that it is an honour to serve such dignified and noble guests. I hope that the entertainment so far this evening has been satisfactory.

My friends and I roared our approval which she took with a smile.

"Good." She said. "And now I must tell you that the building itself is paid for and booked until two of the clock tomorrow afternoon according to the cathedral bell. So you are welcome to stay, or to go, whenever you wish up until that point. You may stay longer than that if you wish but that is when I will start charging you."

She said it with a smile and I wasn't the only one that laughed.

"Further to this, the ladies that are provided here are also paid for in advance. However, I must add that we are a house of consent, and if the lady decides that you are not for her, We expect her word to be final."

There was some murmuring of agreement to that.

"Further to this, however, although some of you are known to me, some of you I only know through the intelligence gathered by Master Kerrass. Therefore for some of you, I have been unable to tailor your experience this evening. So for you, please partake where you will. But for others of you, including the guest of honour, I have special entertainments that I will address directly. But for now, I bid the musicians to play and for wine to be served. Enjoy yourselves, gentlemen." And she bowed and as she did so, the music struck up again.

She came to me first and approached.

"I have it on good record that you will want to enjoy the party a little longer." She told me. "So when you are ready to leave, simply speak to one of the people serving the drinks or the food," She gestured so that I knew who she meant, "And they will take you to your room. I am also told to tell you that you may enjoy some of the coming displays."

I laughed with her and demanded that she join us all for a drink or two. She agreed and the party kicked up a notch.

The number of ladies joining us seemed to increase, all of them wearing masks that seemed to go with the costumes that they were wearing. All of them were undeniably beautiful women but again, I noticed that they were only really using their most blatant sexual tricks on certain people. I couldn't figure out the pattern and eventually gave up trying to spot it because I was already rather drunk and the libido spell that Ariadne had used on me was preventing some of my higher thinking functions.

I was left to wonder what the Madame meant by "displays" though.

And then abruptly, I understood and looked at some of the other women with curiosity and interest.

I had forgotten how tiny she was. A tiny little woman, impossibly slight and delicate. Since I had last seen her she had taken on the pale pink skin tone of a Skelligan rather than the pale, blue-white that she had when I first knew her. Her eyes were still impossibly dark and her hair might as well have been black, still long and straight in a way that simply cannot be conceived by anyone else without long periods sitting in front of a mirror with a comb, a brush and various hair care chemicals.

In this case, though, she was wearing an interesting gown that was tied together at the waist. She told me what the gown was called later but I cannot remember what it was now. Timobo, Timono… Something. Anyway, the way she wore it, even though I could see little to no actual flesh at all, it looked as though one sharp tug would bring the entire thing off. Her hair was, likewise, tied up in a display with a single stick. She wore a thin veil that did nothing to hide her eyes but the rest of her face was covered in a fan that was fluttering as she walked in.

It took me a while to recognise the Yukki-Onna, the Frost-Giant's daughter as she walked up to Sigurd the Fury, her husband, where she snapped the fan shut and just tilted it towards him while looking down, pretending to be shy.

Sigurd, who I had not spoken much to throughout the day, to my shame, gazed at his wife in adoration before he abruptly seemed to realise that he could move and stood up, scooping his wife with one arm, to which she squealed in enjoyment.

"Sorry boys." He said. "More important things to do." He left at almost a flat run towards the private rooms. There was a lot of laughter in the company, especially amongst the Skelligans but I rather thought that Guillaume and Sam looked embarrassed.

A dawning suspicion started to come into my mind. I looked at the assembled ladies present. Many of them were courtesans employed by the Passiflora, some of them I even recognised from previous visits given that the Passiflora believes in quality, not quantity. But their clothes were decidedly more demure than they had been on my previous visits while still being more sexual than might be worn in the salons of the court. They were also considerably more… I don't want to say upmarket, but they were definitely better made. These were the dresses that you could expect ladies to wear, rather than the erotic parodies of such fashions that Courtesans often wear.

Evran was sitting on the stage, playing away with a couple of the other musicians and I realised that there had been a tall, thin blonde that had been pouring his wine for a long time while she had been sitting watching him play.

I looked again and I saw Chireadean, face first into a large lady's cleavage and I recognised her as Chireadean's wife. He once told me that he likes his women to have a cleavage you can drown in and then I realised what was happening.

I was not the first to realise it as I certainly noticed that Svein was looking around expectantly, examining each new woman that came through the door before a small flash of disappointment crossed his face. Gregoire was also watching the door with a sly smile on his face, obviously also enjoying what was happening.

Then it became clear that there had been some thinking about who came out of the back of the Passiflora in which order. As there were some of those women that I would have recognised easily, which meant that the game would have been given away.

Hugh's wife came out. She has a larger frame now than she did when we had known her as students. She was tied into her dress, looking like a million crowns and her eyes glittered with amusement and mischief as she snuck up on her husband and flirtatiously reached around and ran her hand across his chest. He, at first carefully removed the hand and turned to remove the hand politely with the words "I'm married" obviously forming on his lips before he realised that he was staring into the laughing eyes of his lovely wife in a corset. Before he laughed and kissed her soundly.

Yngvild, Svein's wife, came out then. A large woman in body and spirit, easily recognisable by the braids in her hair and the way she spoke to her husband, yelling at him for being found in flagrant poses with ladies of the night. He responded to guard his honour automatically before he realised what his wife was wearing.

Her outfit was one of the more risque outfits that the assorted wives and partners that were showing up were wearing and by Flame, she wore it well proving that a body that can wear full armour well can also wear the most wonderous gowns. Kar was gaping at her openly despite the women that were sitting on either knee.

Dr Shani arrived, much to Rickard's astonished delight. My friend had been feeling a little bit low as Shani had been called away on an emergency of some kind, which now obviously turned out to be false, and he had not been looking forward to returning to a cold bed. She came in, looking as amazing as only she could, wearing a strapless dress with a long skirt and obvious stockings. She was wearing a fox mask to go with her short, startlingly red hair. She hugged me first and wished me congratulations before kissing Rickard soundly with a whispered promise that I deliberately didn't listen to and then she went off to chat with the others that she knew. Including, as it turns out, the Empress of Nilfgaard.

Rickard noticeably relaxed when that had happened.

I saw Kerrass sitting at the side of things, looking on proudly and I raised my glass to him in a toast at all the things that he had arranged.

Lady Vivan du Launfal arrived in the company of Lady Anne du Gorgon. A woman that I would have recognised in Sackcloth. The two of them were dressed in the style of Toussaint Courtesans and they looked amazing. Lady Vivian's mask was that of a bird and as I looked over at Guillaume, I think it wasn't till then that he realised what was happening.

For a clever, well-educated man, Sir Guillaume can be awfully stupid sometimes. But he looked over at his wife and saw her there. At first, he didn't recognise her before he realised who she was giving the most iconic doubletake that I have seen on the face of a man that I have ever seen. Then his eyes hooded at the sight of what his wife was wearing, or not wearing as the case may be before he registered the mask and he just seemed to melt, rushing over to her and taking her in her arms to a general chorus of "aww" and laughter from the assembly.

Looking over at Gregoire, I knew that he, at least, had been well aware of the plan, and looking over at Anne, I realised that she was almost certainly one of Kerrass' co-conspirators. She winked at me from behind her tiny, pointless, domino mask on a stick and I decided to have some fun at Gregoire's expense.

I went over to her, pretending to be smitten as I declared her loudly and gravely, to be the most beautiful woman there and asked her how I could possibly persuade her to join me in one of the back rooms. She caught my mood almost immediately and flirted back at me with outrageous comments and laughter as most people caught onto the performance.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view. Gregoire saw through us both and declared that the lady had already been claimed and hauled her back to sit on his knee as he spoke with Thorvald on some subject.

There was a lot of laughter then and the evening began to have that feeling of coming to a point. Sigurd had already taken his wife off to the more private back area and Guillaume had followed shortly after with a more than willing Lady Vivian in tow.

The evening had become my favourite kind of party. All of my friends there, even the female friends which would have been unheard of without the little subterfuge and pretence. All of them sitting in a room, eating drinking, and laughing together. I saw Shani speaking with Hugh's wife in the corner like the old friends that they were. I saw Ciri, Kerrass and Svein talking on some subject that I didn't catch. I saw Sam discussing something important with Rickard while Chireadean sat nearby adding occasional comments before plunging his face back into the giggling cleavage of his wife.

Then Carys came. She wore… I suppose that it was technically a dress. Suspended from her shoulders by two, absurdly thin pieces of material, it was cut low with a slit that went to her naval and the skirt was short. How she moved in it without showing the room more than she wanted to, I will never know and I'm not sure that I want to. It would be like seeing behind the curtain at the stage magic show. Her hair was done and her mask was affixed firmly to her face. Her pointed ears blushed scarlet as she walked out, plainly terrified and shy while also being utterly determined.

Padraig, Rickard's Sergeant, had been speaking with someone and had been another one of those men that had determinedly turned away all romantic advances from the women around him. One of the bastard's tapped him on the shoulder and the huge Skelligan turned and his mouth fell open.

Then he dropped to his knees. This gesture and his delighted astonishment banished Carys' shyness and fear as she walked over to her husband. With him being on his knees she had to bend slightly to kiss him before wrapping her arms around him, he picked her up to much cheering.

Given Cary's history, that was an astonishing act of bravery. There are many things that I have been involved with or part of during my journeys but if one of them is that I have helped that lady banish some of her demons and find love, then I am a proud man.

That seemed to be the climax of the evening. Not a decided one or something that had been set out on purpose. But that was the big moment. After that, people started to drift out with their chosen partners. Guillaume and Vivian had left fairly quickly as I think she was a bit uncomfortable with some of the things that were happening. After that though, there was a delay as everyone enjoyed themselves. I know that Chireadean's wife took the extremely drunk Elf off to bed with a laugh. It always mystifies me how that Elf, who is not a young guy and has owned several taverns now, is still so poor at holding his liquor.

After that, it became clear that Padraig and Carys could no longer keep their hands, or their eyes off each other and were informed that they needed to take it to a private room before someone tossed a bucket of water over them.

Things plateaued for a while after that and my memory of general circumstances starts to feel a little bit patchy.

I remember looking up at one point and realising that Ciri had left the room. I have no idea if she left in the company of someone, male or female, I just looked up at some point and realised that she wasn't there anymore. I know that the Passiflora is more than capable of catering to men and women and employs people of both genders. We were surrounded by women but that doesn't mean that she couldn't have whispered discreetly into someone's ear and made alternative arrangements for herself. But knowing Ciri a bit better now, especially after that long day and night, I am also aware that she enjoys the romantic company of men and women and that she was kind of looking forward to the "debauchery". Now I admit that this was before any of us knew what Kerrass was referring to when he said that but even so.

I remember seeing Helfdan off and being surprised by his choice of partner. The theme of the evening, such as there was, was that people were going off with either their own partners should they already have one, or with people that seemed close to their partners. So I expected Helfdan to go off with one of the dancers or someone that might have been closer to the quick and athletic frame of the Queen of Skellige. But instead, he chose a tall, older, dark-skinned and darker-haired woman that towered over him and was half again as wide as he is. She wasn't fat but she had a stature that dominated and he was very shyly holding her hand as he came to bid me a good evening.

The lady herself seemed as bemused as I was and gave the impression that she hadn't expected to be chosen that night, least of all by someone as elevated as the Black Boar himself. But that didn't change the fact that she gently took him with her and into the back rooms of the Passiflora. I was sitting near Svein at the time and he must have sensed my surprise. He had Yngvild sitting on his lap and they were passing a large goblet of wine backwards and forwards between each other, spilling half of it down each other and making comments about having to lick it off each other later.

I digress.

"I have found it easier." He commented as she giggled at him. "To just never be surprised by his choices when it comes to this kind of thing."

"I am just surprised is all," I commented.

He laughed. "My Lord Helfdan is a rare man on so many levels."

"Yes, I remember." I had heard this speech before and wanted to extract myself. Svein had the feeling of a man who was launching into an often repeated speech about Helfdan's romantic choices. I certainly seem to have recalled being told something similar when we had travelled together. But Svein was in full flow, with plenty of beer in him, full of good food and the woman that he loves sitting on his lap looking, in his words, ravishable.

She told him that he could try if he likes and there was a distinct challenge on her face.

"Most of us men have preferences." He told me. "We fall in love with the woman but we are attracted to the type."

"Oh?" I wondered, realising that I was trapped, trying to catch the eye of a serving person.

"You, for instance, like your women around your own height. A little taller or a little shorter doesn't matter which but a tall woman or a really small woman would never interest you."

"I agree." I said, "Never gone for dwarven women myself."

Yngvild laughed. I think she was much less drunk than her husband and was enjoying watching his interplay with other people.

I really must make an effort to get to know her better.

"You like them slim but with something to hang onto," Svein wasn't done, "You like long hair which is perfectly sensible in my opinion. And you like them to tend towards the warrior build."

"How about you?" I wondered.

Yngvild turned to look at her husband with an expression of interest.

"I like women that look as though they can kick my ass." He replied easily.

Yngvild nodded in agreement before her eyes narrowed.

"Could?" She wondered. "I would,"

Svein either pretended not to hear her or ignored her.

"Helfdan… He's not a virgin and I know more than one woman that has come out of the room that they've shared walking with a limp and a satisfied smile. But he sees the woman, not the body."

Yngvild nodded in agreement.

"Rare man that," Svein said. "Not many can separate the one from the other. Goddess but I love that man."

His wife and I both agreed with him as I topped up the cup that they were sharing.

I spent some time with Hugh, Evran and their wives. Shani came to join us bringing Rickard with her and he just sat there, also a little drunker than the women were as Shani was showing him off and talking about how amazing he was.

Rickard mostly just kind of sat there, looking gently bewildered at the fact that the woman that he loved was showing her off to her friends.

But it was at this point that I saw Kerrass relaxing with one of the other workers. Rickard and I were sat together passing a bottle back and forwards while Hugh, who has lost his tolerance somewhere, dozed gently and Evran was plucking at his harp while the women were gossipping.

Rickard was watching more than I was and he noticed Kerrass with a smallish blonde woman that was sitting with him. They were stretched out on a couch while Kerrass watched the assembly with a gentle smile on his face while he stroked the woman that was half next to him, half on him. She was resting her head on his shoulder while he had his arm around her, occasionally looking up to check on him.

Even despite the mask that she still wore, she was astonishingly beautiful.

"Is that who I think it is?" Rickard asked me.

"What who?" I saw who he was pointing at. "That depends," I commented. "Who do you think it is?"

"Is that Sleeping Beauty?"

I laughed at him, a bit harsher than I meant to and he glared at me.

"Answer me this," I told him. "Who is the most beautiful woman in the room right now."

"Well, obviously Shani." He replied promptly and without subterfuge. She heard and laughed delightedly. "But other than that, they all have different qualities. Svein's wife is a powerful, beautiful woman but I would find her a bit intimidating. The Empress is very beautiful and is made more so by the scar and…"

"I'll stop you there," I told him. Kerrass had scooped up the blonde who wrapped her arms around his neck and they kissed before Kerrass carried her out of the room.

"If that was Sleeping Beauty." I went on, "Then there would be no doubt in your mind. Absolutely none, as to who the most beautiful woman in the room was."

Rickard stared at me for a long time. As did Shani and Hugh's wife who I still sometimes feel a pang for and I returned all of their gazes. Evran's wife scoffed, good-naturedly to be sure but…

"And not a single person," I went on, "including the ladies who are all beautiful in their own right, would deny it."

"You're exaggerating." Hugh's wife, Donna said.

I shook my head. "Not even slightly."

Shani looked thoughtful. "That poor girl." She whispered.

The evening went on.

Abruptly, Svein decided that he had had enough and tossed his wife over her shoulder in the stereotypical pose of the Skelligan raider carrying off his plunder. She protested and struggled but even I, who doesn't know her very well, could tell that she was actually rather delighted at this turn of events. Donna declared that it was time to take Hugh off to bed and the two of them laughed and hugged me good night.

"I never apologised to you," Donna told me.

"What?"

"I knew that I was breaking your heart when I went with Hugh." She told me. "I knew it but…"

It is the oldest wound that hurt the longest.

I took a deep breath and decided to be the bigger man.

"You were right for each other," I told her. "Do not be sorry. It made me who I am today. I love Ariadne and I have no regrets…" I considered. "Well, not about that anyway."

She laughed, as I had intended her to. Hugh hugged me as well and whispered a thank you in my ear. I have no idea what he was referring to but I took it anyway.

Sam left with a dark-haired girl. She had long hair that fell to just above her backside. She was tiny with a freckled face and she had a carriage and an attitude about the way she moved that lifted her into being truly beautiful.

"This was a good day," he told me as he held a giggling and playfully squirming girl against himself. "You know that you now have a high bar to set when it comes to my wedding day?"

"I will remember," I told him and he, like Svein, picked the squealing girl up and carried her off. Again though, she wasn't squirming too much or in such a way that there was a danger that she would fall.

I finally decided that it was time for me to leave when Gregoire and Anne came to say good night.

"Have you had a good night?" Gregoire asked.

I smiled at the huge man who, much to my surprise was looking nervous as Anne waited for him.

"There is only one day that might beat it," I told him. "Time will tell of course, but I think that today is going to count as being among the best days of my life."

He nodded, looking surprisingly relieved.

"I was worried that I might not be welcome." He told me.

"In the name of the Flame why?"

He suddenly looked very young. "I am not used to having…" He sighed. Turns out that Gregoire is an emotional drunk. "I am not used to having close friends. Guillaume is one, but having another?" A tear ran down his face and I hugged him. What else was I going to do?

He pulled back.

"I owe you a lot, Lord Frederick." He told me. "You gave me the courage to finally…" He looked over at Anne who was looking radiant.

"At most I gave you a little push," I told him. "But you had to walk the walk and do as you did."

He nodded. "I will look forward to seeing you marry the love of your life." He told me before walking off and trading places with his wife. They reached out towards each other and touched briefly.

"Did you have a good night?" Anne asked me.

"I did," I told her. I was having to focus on my breathing. Ariadne had chosen this woman for me once and had chosen well. It was time for me to find the room that was promised to me.

"Good." She looked a little smug. "I am glad."

"You helped Kerrass with this?" Suspicion crept into my mind and she laughed.

"I did. Kerrass knew that you wouldn't want to make your friends feel uncomfortable but he also knew that it wouldn't be a stag do without certain debauchery. He came to ask me for advice on how to set it all up and I told him to go to Ariadne and we arranged it all between the three of us. I had to show all the women what to wear and how to dress and things for this kind of party as many of them were a bit too stuffy for it."

She laughed at a couple of memories. "Poor Vivienne." She said, "But I think it was worth it. That elf was surprisingly knowledgeable about these things while being very shy about her own dress."

"Did she tell you her past?" I wondered.

"No?"

"Then I will not ruin your night," I told her. "Did you have a good time?"

She laughed in delight. "I did, I met many people that I would not have met otherwise and made many more friends in circles that I would never have dreamed possible. I made friends with a woman from another plane of reality, whatever that means, and I am now firm friends with a Skelligan battle maiden. Who would have thought it?" She cackled in delight. "Also? if I have anything to say about the matter," She looked over at her husband who was fidgeting shyly. "My night is not yet over."

I laughed with her and we hugged.

"Thank you." She whispered in my ear. "Thank you for everything."

"And thank you for the same," I told her.

She looked at me oddly for a couple of long heartbeats before she took her husband by the hand and the two of them walked to the back of the building.

I stood after that for a long moment as I looked at the remaining company. There were not many of them now, the inveterate drinkers and those people that were gossiping like the old friends. Thorvald and Jerome sat and played dice while they discussed philosophical questions that neither of them would have been able to discuss otherwise. Rickard and Evran were chatting amiably while their ladies had not lessened up gossiping and I wondered how long it would be before the surface tension of that would dissolve and they would depart. I could see that one of the bastards that I couldn't identify had fallen asleep on the bosom of a particularly endowed lady of the night and that she was stroking his hair. The image looked so maternal that I found it touching.

I realised that the night was over for me then as I stood and looked at the lot of them. I felt a sense of pride and fondness for the people that were still here, and fondness for those people that had left. They say that family are the people that you are born with and your friends are the family that you choose. I had never felt that that was particularly true, but here I was. I loved those men and those women and I swore to myself that I would never be apart from any of them. That they, and I would be friends from now until one or other of us was no longer alive.

I bid Rickard and my old college friends good night while whispering to Shani that she should take her man to bed and that she was leaving him out. She looked guilty for a moment before she looked over at Rickard who was watching her in plain adoration before she blushed.

Shani, on one hand, the most worldly and the most chaste woman that I know, blushed. Will wonders never cease?

The others all promised me taht I would see them in the morning as I was suddenly nervous that I wouldn't see them again but they reassured me to the contrary.

Jerome and Thorvald barely looked up as I bid them good night and I laughed as they took up a different argument as I went.

I walked to one of the servants that were standing at one of the doors waiting to see if any of us needed anything else to drink and I told them that I was done for the night. They nodded and put the jug of wine that they were carrying down on a nearby table before she beckoned me to follow. I was led through a long corridor of rooms, wood-panelled and well-lit by lanterns and torches. It smelled of flowers and that, accompanied by the sounds that came from many of the doors on either side, gave the dim light a romantic and secretive air. I was never able to sneak around into a lover's bedroom while I stayed with their family but that was what I felt like. At the end of a corridor, I came to some stairs and I was led up them as well. I heard some people talking in one room and another room which had very loud and obvious sounds of female pleasure coming from it. I felt myself smile and wished whoever it was on the other side of that door luck.

I was led to another flight of stairs which we climbed. There were two doors at the top of it and I was pushed over to the left. The servant knocked on the door and a woman called from inside for us to enter.

I did as I was told.

To say that I entered a luxurious room that seemed tailor-made for love would be an understatement. It was almost too much for me to take in with my already love, sex and attraction-addled brain. Some of it can be laid at the feet of Ariadne's spell but some of it was almost certainly about what had been going on around me all night. There is only so much that a man can do while he is surrounded by all of his friends being affectionate and loving with each other, some of whom you have been more than attracted to yourself.

Inside there was a large table which had various light refreshments on it. I saw Grapes, cheeses and small biscuits as well as some other berrys and things. There was a roaring fire with a rug placed in front of it. Several large chairs that, would not have taken too much imagination to be able to use sexually were placed to take advantage of it. Sitting in one of them was the blonde dancer who was now wrapped in a robe that, despite being opaque, clung to her body in suggestive ways. As I walked in she was placing a bookmark in a volume that she set aside.

There was a large, comfortable-looking bed and rising from it, a little sleepily but also seductively was a red-headed woman that stretched in a way that shot straight past my brain and into something primal deep inside me.

I stood in the doorway in a state of shock while the redhead climbed off the bed in a way that I have never, ever seen anyone climb out of bed. Most people, including me, do so in a dazed kind, sleep-addled stupor. That she did it gracefully and sexually, made the back, scholarly, part of my brain decide that she must be another kind of dancer. The pair of them stood in front of me, smiling with amusement, welcome and a little bit of mischief.

They knew exactly what they were doing.

"Welcome," The redhead said. "Before we start we are bid to pour you a drink." She went over to the table and poured water and wine into three cups, one of which she handed to me and the other she passed to the blonde before she took the third for herself.

"And then," said the blonde, pulling a sealed scroll from the table. "We are told to give you this message."

I took the scroll, a little numbly from her hand. How does a woman make passing you a message suggestive in some way? I don't understand it but she managed it.

I examined the seal, red wax with the sigil of a spider on it and felt myself smile before I broke the seal.

"Freddie," it said.

"A lot of work has been done by several people to arrange your evening. I am privileged to be one of them. Just in case you have forgotten what we spoke about this morning. Not only am I happy for you to partake, but again, I remind you that we are not married yet. Not only am I willing, but I was also actively involved in arranging this and I mean to take full advantage of our unmarried status when my time comes. Anne and I chose these two women carefully. I promised them both that you would ensure their pleasure and that you would make the evening fulfilling for them, as well as for yourself.

I trust that you will not make a liar out of me.

Yours, in just a few short days even.

Ariadne.

PS: I liked the redhead."

I smiled at the imagery that the letter conjured in my head, even as emotion and arousal flooded my system. I rolled the paper up and placed it in one of my pouches.

"So…" The Blonde began. "Several people that we have met, have boasted of your capabilities."

The redhead laughed in amused delight at the challenge in the blonde's voice.

"Where would you like to start?" The Blonde put her hands on her hips in an attitude of challenge.

I do not mind admitting that I looked both of them up and down before I took a good couple of gulps of wine.

"I think." I told her, "I think I would like you to finish your dance." I told her.

She laughed in delight as the redhead took me by the hand and led me to one of the chairs.

I am fortunate in my life to have known several nights of unbridled eroticism. Nights where I learned the differences between making love and having sex and what those differences were. Sometimes even with the same partner.

I have also written, often about the great love and affection that I have for those people that work in the oldest profession. It cannot be an easy job and I can easily imagine how that line of work could be horrific, dangerous and distasteful. There is much to be said about the fact that no one, not one person, no-one has ever woken up their parents to tell them that they want to be a sex worker when they grow up. People are driven to that work.

But I have found genuine kindness in that world. I have known affection, respect and… joy there. And if the future version of me, or whoever is reading this, will take anything from that, then I would tell people to take that in kind.

That night was purely erotic. There was no love because that needed something that wasn't there. Nor was it just sex because it lasted far longer than sex does even while sex was involved.

They would both admit that they too, with their consent, had had spells cast upon them and that there were "herbs" in the wine that the Blonde had brought with her given that she came from Nilfgaard originally.

It would seem that no expense was spared.

These things were enhancers and heighteners.

The closest in my experience was a night with Saffron. After Saffron's and my immediate hunger for each other had been depleted, but her spell on us both was driving us, there came a night where was just spent time driving each other to higher and higher heights of pleasure and… well… ecstasy. She taught me things in that little hut on the hillside and I was a more than willing student. I used all of those lessons and much more on those two wonderful women, the redhead and the blonde.

They never told me their names. They refused and told me that if I ever found them in another house of pleasure again, they would refuse me as this night was supposed to be special to me, and to them. They made me call the redhead Ruby and the Blonde made me call her Grace.

It was a special night, one which I cannot imagine will be equalled again in my experience although Ruby let slip that the reason why a red-head and a blonde were chosen was that Ariadne had decided that I wouldn't be allowed a brunette as she wanted to coral that image in my head.

We loved each other, dozed, loved and moved with each other all night and in the morning, they walked me down to the entrance where my friends were waiting for me. They kissed me farewell and went back inside before I turned back to the cheers and well wishes of my friends.

And just as we all came together, we started to drift apart.

We all trooped down to the Rosemary & Thyme for breakfast and some rest. Ciri left almost immediately, hugging various people farewell before hugging Kerrass and me with a promise to see us both soon. Then she stepped out the back where she presumably vanished in a flash of green light.

Hugh, Evran and their wives stayed for something to eat and then left. Shani went with them as she needed to get back to Oxenfurt to deal with the never-ending queue of patients that were waiting for her.

It was made clear to me that I would be staying in Novigrad overnight to rest up, something for which I was grateful given that I was increasingly exhausted.

The Skelligan contingent loudly bade us farewell to meet Dreng at the docks for the late afternoon tide. The remaining Bastards, Sam and the Knights from Toussaint would be travelling back with us to Oxenfurt where Gregoire and Guillaume would travel with Vivienne and Anne back to Vizima where they would rejoin the Imperial party.

I retreated to my room for a nap in the afternoon and rose for a bath and an evening meal where I found Ariadne waiting for me. We embraced fiercely and told each other how much we loved each other many times. She asked if I had had a good day and I told her that I had with much joy before she grinned slyly and asked if I had a good night.

I told her that it had been the best night of my life and at the time, I absolutely meant it although given some time I wonder if that was the immediacy of the memory. Time will tell though.

She told me that my response was fascinating before she leaned close and whispered into my ear.

"In just a few days," She said, "I will make that night seem dull and boring in comparison."

Then she made me sit there and join my remaining friends for a meal before she returned to… wherever she was supposed to be going that night.

The following couple of days, we travelled back to Oxenfurt. I may have complained once or twice about how we could have been teleported back to Oxenfurt but Kerrass just laughed at me. We bade farewell to the Knights and their brides before we turned for home and as I watched them go, I realised that that had been my stag party and I wept with the bittersweetness of it. Bitter because it was over but sweet because of the love and joy that I had felt.

Ariadne has promised me that she will do her very best to ensure that that long weekend spent in the company of the people that I love, will happen again and that she aims to surpass it in the future.

I cannot see how she will manage that. I owe Kerrass so often and for so much. I remain hopeful that one day, I will be able to thank him properly by performing the same duty for him. Sam and Rickard are on our side and Ariadne has promised to help as we work on him, and Sleeping Beauty, before we are done.

Entry 144

I am very hungover this morning. Not just from the alcohol that I have consumed over the last few days, but also from an emotional hangover. I have felt and done so much over the last week or so that it leaves me reeling a little bit. I know that, traditionally, the stag and hen parties… why those animal representatives I wonder?... I know that it is traditional that they all come the day or so before the wedding itself but I cannot imagine how that would be a good idea. I am so exhausted now in body, heart and mind that the thought of a wedding on top of all of that is just… I cannot even conceive of how that would be done.

All that I could do today is to take this diary out into the sunshine and work on it with a bottle of heavily watered wine next to me, and a small package of cheese next to that and that is how I intend to stay for some time. I know that Emma is concerned about me and has sent a revolving queue of people to come out and check on me to make sure that I am ok before becoming reassured that I was found and just a little bit… washed out.

So far an embarrassed Sam, an amused Kerrass, a resigned Rickard, a dutiful Mark and a Laurelen who freely admitted that she knew exactly what was going on in my head and had told Emma that. But Emma could not be turned aside from her concerns.

I don't mind. I am enjoying just sitting here in the shade while the castle moves around me, doing all of the things that the castles do when they are gearing up for something big and important while I just rest.

The wedding preparations are now at the stage where the wedding just needs to happen now. To my eye, things are as prepared as they are going to be. I know that people like Emma and the people doing the organisation will always find something to quibble over and something to adjust to try and find the optimum arrangements for this and that, but we're as ready as we can be now. The Imperial Inspectors will be coming a few days vefore the Empress herself is due to arrive so… things are on hold there.

And I cannot help but notice the storm clouds gathering out to the West over to the sea. The promised storm is coming now and I can almost feel it building in the air. I am not the most experienced weather watcher that I know but even I can see that the storm is coming and that it's going to be incredible to see.

As I sit here, I don't know whether to pray that the weather will blow over and that nothing will change, that in just under a week, Ariadne will be my wife and we can be… wherever the fuck we want to be or whether or not I want the weather to break so that we can enjoy the day and the night without swimming in our own sweat.

Well… my own sweat. I'm not entirely convinced that Ariadne sweats. I'm pretty sure that she can, I just wonder if she occasionally forgets.

The women of the castle are gearing up for the ladies' version of the stag do. I have no idea what is involved in that and given everything that we did in mine, I doubt that I would have room to complain about it if they told me that a dozen strapping men were going to turn up in Ariadne's bed chamber and…

I don't want to think about that.

The point is that I don't think I could object if that's what they end up doing. I don't think it's entirely likely but knowing that Lady Maleficent is a significant part of the organisation at that particular party has Emma in particular feeling quite nervous. I told her that she doesn't need to worry as Maleficent and Ariadne are both known to play for both teams as it suits their tastes, that Laurelen is going as well and that Lady Eilhart is known… statistically speaking, to generally prefer women in that I know of only one confirmed male that she has taken to her chamber. So it might not be a dozen strapping men but it might be a dozen strapping women.

The fact that my sister looked contemplative at these suggestions was… telling.

In the end, though, I decided that it might be a dozen strapping people of both sexes and wandered off before anything could be said further.

I understand that the plan is that the ladies will all arrive at Coulthard castle before there will be some kind of teleporting round-robin where they will pick up various people including the Duchess of Angraal and some others before they will all go… somewhere.

I have no idea where and I'm not entirely sure that I want to know.

Right now, I just want to sit here and snooze. In fact, I think I am going to set aside my diary and do precisely that.

Entry 145

It is now all but certain that the weather is going to break before the Empress departs from Vizima. As I sit in my chosen study and look out of the window, I can see people scurrying this way and that way working to secure the tents and pavilions. Things are moving into storage areas so that they can all be protected from the coming storm. There is an almost impossible pressure to the air now to the point that significant numbers of the castle are struggling with debilitating headaches. Captain Froggart is the worst affected by this and has stepped aside a little while we wait for things to pass.

As I write this, the original date for the wedding itself is six days out. The Autumnal Equinox. The weather will break either tomorrow or at the latest the day after. The Imperial party wasn't intending to leave Vizima until four days before the wedding and they will have better weather watchers than me own nose for the weather. The deal is done. The wedding will be delayed until after the storm has passed.

I am alright. I didn't think I would be but I am alright. The realisation hit me this morning and I will admit to having a little weep of disappointment before I contacted Ariadne who was thinking the same thing. We wept together for a little while and then we… just got on with things.

But now I am alright. It means that I won't be worried about sweating through my special day and worrying about having to peel my wedding clothes off myself when it is time to go to bed. It will mean that we will be able to breathe and not struggle with the heat. I am… it is the right thing to happen.

I am alright. I might not be later, or tomorrow, the day after that, the ladies will be off having their own forms of debauchery and Sam, Kerrass, Rickard and I intend to get drunk together while Mark looks after us all and makes sure that we don't get out of hand.

Heh.

Entry 146

Lady Maleficent is unhappy. She arrived today to, in her words, "stretch her wings" and came to talk to me.

"To think that I nearly ate you." Was her opening gambit.

"To be fair," I replied. "You hurled me into a ruined tower and picked me up by the throat so that I nearly choked to death."

"Yes." She perked up for a moment. "Yes, I did do that didn't I."

I said nothing to that.

"Are you alright?" I asked after a while.

"Funny," She said after a while. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

"Why?"

She considered. "I don't know, it just seems as though that's the kind of thing that you're supposed to say at this juncture."

I stared at her for a long moment before sitting in a nearby chair.

"You know something? For an older, almost ancient and powerful dragon. You are bad at telling me what you are thinking."

She stared at me, her mouth hanging open in horror and rage.

"Or feeling," I suggested.

Her mouth snapped shut for a moment before the rage started to come back into her expression.

"If you…" She hissed. "If you hurt her. If you harm her or break her or…"

I held my hand up to stop her and much to my astonishment, it worked.

"Is this the, 'If you hurt my friend, I'm gonna kill you speech?" I wondered as innocently and as neutrally as I could manage.

Her rage vanished. In every way that Ariadne sometimes struggles to exhibit emotion, I have found that Maleficent has no difficulty at all in demonstrating exactly how she is feeling at any given time.

She turned away.

"Just in case it hasn't been said before," I began carefully. "Or just in case it needs saying again to you. I can make no promises about the future. I can promise that I will do my best to make her as happy as I can. I will work at it as much as I am able, but I cannot promise much more than that. I love that woman, fangs and all and I am just as afraid, if not more so, that she will break my heart as you are afraid of me breaking hers."

"I know…" She said. "It's just that…"

"I also…" I interrupted. "Just want to put it into your mind as to how she would feel if any of my friends or family gave that speech to her."

"Such a thought would be laughable." The scorn dripped off her words.

"Would it?" I tried to put some teeth into my voice. "My friend is a Witcher and my adopted sister is the lady of Time and Space. I am friends with two, no… three members of the Lodge of Sorceresses. And as you are demonstrating, threats do not listen to rational thought."

She shut up for a long moment after that.

"She would be furious and offended." She told me.

"Yes, she would." I agreed.

"It's just…"

I stared at her for a moment as she shifted uncomfortably, looking at me sidelong.

Then I recognised it or rather thought I did.

"Holy Flame," I breathed. "Are you jealous?"

"She sat down on the floor and put her head in her hands.

"I'm sorry." She sobbed.

I took a deep breath. I wanted to be angry. But I was also aware that Ariadne and Maleficent were old friends and that alienating Maleficent before the wedding day was not… politic.

"Look." I began carefully. "I know that you and she have been lovers in the past and I know, believe me I know how wonderful she is but… She has chosen…"

She laughed at me.

"I'm not jealous of you being able to have her. I'm jealous of her having…" Her mouth snapped shut and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Wait, what?" I finally managed.

Then she was on her feet and striding backwards and forwards while swearing in a language that I'm pretty sure the human throat cannot form.

"She and I have hated each other for centuries. We were rivals at a time before either of us even dreamed of having two legs when four or eight seemed far more logical. I had wings and she had fangs. I could breathe fire and her bite was death. Our magic warred across the heavens and… Powers but it was glorious. I hated her then and she hated me and our rivalry is one which the Elves still tell stories about.

"And then she was imprisoned and I felt bereft. But now she is back and I missed her and we are friends and I have never seen her happier. She is not the woman she was. She is better, more intelligent, more charming, funnier, smarter, more powerful even. You did that. She loves you so much and I… I love… I am a dragon and people wonder why I hate these human shapes, but I cannot stop wearing them. By my rotten eggshell, I want to hurt her and the best way to do that is to take you from her. But I won't because she is my friend. I look at you and I see why she loves you even while I detest the emotion and…

"Who would be human?" She laughed bitterly.

She paced for a moment and I watched, very aware that I was dealing with an upset dragon.

"I love her." She said. "I hate her and you were the one that made her… That is what I am jealous of. I want you to come with me. Make me better in the same way that you made her better. Love me."

I chose my next words very carefully."

"I'm not going to do that," I told her. "And you don't want me to do it either."

"No, I know." She sighed. "But I want my own version of you. I want my Freddie, not hers. I want mine."

I took a deep breath. I gauged that the worst had passed.

"He will come," I told her. "Or she, or it or whatever you choose. They are there."

She laughed. "I'm a dragon. I am not good at being patient."

"Sam is still single." I pointed out. More to lighten the tone than anything else.

"Yes." She agreed, "but there is a reason for that."

"Oh?"

She shook her head. "He wouldn't want someone like me. Not like me, not a strong woman. If he wants a woman at all he wants someone biddable to… He is a very old-fashioned man your brother. He wants the marriage I am sure but he does not want the wife and sooner or later, every woman that goes near him realises that."

She sighed.

"I'm sorry." She said carefully. "I feel like I am losing my best friend and my greatest rival at the same time. I had hoped that Enid might take up some of the slack in that regard but she never comes out of her precious valley of Flowers anymore either."

"You are not losing your friend," I told her. "Marriage is not death. She will still be there and she will still be your friend if I have anything to say about it. The "lover" thing might need some discussion but at the same time, I would need to talk about it with Ariadne and… well… I could just be in the corner, quiet as a mouse, you would never know that I was there while you…" I leered with an exaggerated eyebrow.

She protested at my filthy human mind but she laughed as well making me feel better about it.

"No promises though," I said.

She nodded.

"Please don't tell her about this." She asked me, not looking at my face.

"I'm sorry," I told her. "But I'm definitely telling her. Honesty and trust go both ways."

She nodded unhappily.

"You should tell her," I told her. "Go and tell her now. Tell her that I sent you and then tell her everything."

She looked at me out of the side of her eyes with the kind of suspicion that you see in cats when they think you are trying to steal their favourite toy.

"When did humans get so wise?" She demanded.

"Humans?" I shook my head. "No. Me, however? I have my moments."

She nodded and just left. Walking out somewhere and vanishing in a flash of magic.

Later that evening Ariadne just sent a single phrase through our link.

"Thank you." She said.

It still hasn't started to rain

Entry 147

I am trying not to look too much into it.

The heavens have finally opened and the wind is picking up. I was outside as I often have been over the last few days, not for any particular reason but I enjoy being outside and I was listening to the wind pick up and watching our guests arriving. There is an area in the inner courtyard that Laurelen, Ariadne and a couple of others have arranged to be a permanent transport gate for incoming guests and I was watching as they all arrived. Kerrass has made himself scarce as apparently, Sorceresses make him nervous and I can absolutely understand why.

Ariadne arrived this morning along with Maleficent, the two of them walked arm in arm with their heads together laughing and giggling like old friends. They came with the delegation from Angraal, the Duke and his wife who will be staying from now until the wedding day itself. The Duchess is going to the hen party and the Duke will be joining us remaining men as we keep ourselves company. They were going to be here for the wedding anyway and were just deciding to have a bit of time away from things.

The party of them came through the gate and the first roll of Thunder happened in the distance.

I am trying, really hard not to read too much into it.

Emma received the Duke and Duchess along with Mark. Sam is training with his men because soon he won't be able to and I am just staying out of the way.

Lady Metz arrived with Lady Merigold. The two of them stepped out of the portal looking insanely beautiful between them. I know neither woman particularly well but I daresay that they are both extremely beautiful women. They arrived before Lady Metz looked at the sky before making a face of disgust and the pair of them vanished indoors. According to legend, Lady Metz is a creature of comfort and dislikes being outside in the elements. She famously claimed that the dampness in the air makes her hair look all frizzy which seems to be considered a fate worse than death.

There was a delay before Lady Laux-Antille arrived which is the only one of the old Lodge of Sorceresses that I have not met at all. I only know her by reputation as being passionate regarding the education of the next generation of magic users and that it was she who spear-headed the recovery of the library of Saffron, Pula and Sally.

I look forward to meeting her and discussing that project which I understand is still ongoing. She arrived and pulled her travel cloak around her and hunched her shoulders as she fairly sprinted inside.

Lady Eilhart arrived next and I swear, I SWEAR that I'm not going to read too much into it but I'm also going to swear that this happened should anyone ask me in the future. The gate appeared, she stepped through and looked up at the sky just as the rain started to fall. It was one of those rains where you get a few fat droplets of warning before the downpour starts to happen. It was the kind of rain where puddles and pools of water form almost instantly.

She looked up, grimaced and then a shield of faint blue-white light appeared over her head which the water struck and started to run off. And as she did so, the lightning flashed and as she started to walk, the thunder boomed.

I swear that that is true and I promise. I PROMISE that I am not going to read too much into that.

I stayed where I was. I was well sheltered and wanted to see what happened next while I write in my diary. Besides, I had no desire to throw myself to the wolves just yet.

Lady Vigo and Lady Yennefer arrived together. Similar to Ariadne and Maleficent, they arrived arm in arm. But the difference between the women was pronounced. Some of the women had run inside with all due haste and propriety. Lady Vigo was one of those. Lady Eilhart had made a display of magic to keep herself warm and dry.

Lady Yennefer was wearing a rain cloak and the water just ran off the hood and down the back of the cloak as she walked into the castle.

That seemed to be the end of the matter although I waited for a while and decided that I couldn't put it off any further. The Wolves are waiting.

Entry 148

As times go, it was relatively painless. More formal than I might have wished to be fair but… even so. It would seem that the entire Lodge of Sorceress meets in full so rarely that when they do, there is so much gossip to share and so many old debates and arguments to take up that they can barely keep from the situation.

There was like, a small core of us, standing off to one side who were the magically…. If I was going to be diplomatic I would say that we were less than gifted in that regard. But Emma, The Duke and Duchess of Angraal, Mark and myself were stood and sitting there like a set of lemons as we watched the other women gossip and have fun together as they argued that black was white, up was down and about the possibility that everything was an illusion generated by some extremely powerful mage that we could not possibly comprehend.

The Duke of Angral in particular had a kind of glassy depression in his eyes as he listened to some of this.

There was some special confusion though when Ciri came over and introduced herself to the Duke and Duchess. She had teleported straight into the castle itself, circumventing the rain. The Empress was wearing a fairly simple dress and her hair was done up nicely, but she was in her friendly Ciri persona really while she discussed things to do with the fluid nature of time and the bendable possibilities of Space.

She instantly charmed the Duchess of Angral, linked her arm through the other woman's and dragged her into the conversations. Emma didn't fare any better as Laurelen realised that she was neglecting her, all-but wife and also dragged her into the conversation leaving the men together.

"Lord Frederick." The Duke of Angraal asked me in a small voice. "Are they always like this?"

"In my experience," Mark joined the conversation. "Yes, they are."

"But that's the most powerful woman on the continent asking my wife questions regarding her favourite filthy romances."

"She does that," I commented. "The Empress is a complicated woman."

The Duke looked at me strangely.

"I will be honest Lord Frederick. I had always assumed that you exaggerated your accounts of the Empress when it came to her character. I thought that you were building her up as part of some kind of political ploy or to ingratiate yourself with her."

"I am not the perfect narrator," I admitted. "I have obscured names and things before when politics have made it necessary and out of deference to the memories of some of those that have died. Truth is sometimes harmful in ways that we cannot comprehend and wouldn't notice until we are quite far down the rabbit hole. There are other times though when people who were there read the accounts and would be angry with me if I told lies or obfuscated matters. I understand that Ciri is one of those people."

The Duke needed to be found a chair to sit down in.

"You call her Ciri?" He whimpered.

I could not stop myself from laughing at him.

"Lord Duke." Mark joined in. "I would be astonished to learn that by the end of this weekend, your wife is not also on first name basis with the Empress of Nilfgaard and that the pair of you, and your children, will be invited to present yourself at court for more than just the ritual stuff. Whether you want to or not, you have just become powerful on an Imperial scale."

"Flame," he muttered.

"Welcome to the family," I told him.

We spoke a bit more. Apparently, his children were angry with him as they were not going to be at the wedding. They had complained loudly at not being able to see Aunty Spider getting married but what with all the dignitaries that were going to be there, it would mean that the possibility of child-based mischief born out of boredom would cause an international diplomatic incident. I sympathised and told him that we would have a party when Ariadne and I took up residence in Angral.

He was a little mollified about that.

After that, we were all seated for dinner and I was pleased to find myself seated next to Lady Laux-Antille. Another ridiculously beautiful woman who doesn't wield her beauty as a weapon in the same way that many of the other Sorceresses do. She is undoubtedly stunning, but I get the feeling that she doesn't care as much about it or that she simply forgets. She also has an occasional habit of hunching her shoulders and drawing herself inwards when she is unsure of her footing. A habit she picked up after she was imprisoned by Radovid apparently.

But we talked for a long time about the necessities of education. She was just as pleased to properly meet me as I was to meet her and we talked for a long time about this and that and the other thing. In total, the academy at Aretuza had managed to salvage approximately a third of the great library of the non-humans when measured by quantity. There were some efforts and ideas that might salvage more but that could go either way. Now it was a case of reading it all and cataloguing it. Next would be a decision-making process to see if anything needed to be hidden away.

I expressed my discomfort about hiding away knowledge and she nodded.

"I agree." She told me. "But we found in one of those books, scribbled in the margins somewhere, the precursors to Nables formula for blasting. Not the formula itself, thank the powers, but one of my alchemists thinks she could use that formula to extrapolate something that might be, kind of sort of kind of like…" Her words trailed off.

"I don't like it." She said. "But it's like Witcher mutations. What if a Radovid or a de Aldesbourg or a Vilgefortz or an Emhyr or a Henselt or a Falka gets a formula that can level mountains?"

She shuddered. "That's why people like me don't make decisions like this."

"Who will make that decision?" I wondered.

She shrugged. "I don't know but it doesn't need to be made yet."

I nodded.

The conversations and discussions were still going strong into the early hours of the morning which was when I chose to go to bed. Ariadne kissed me on the cheek and hugged me before she rejoined a conversation with Lady Metz on the possibilities of using Spider webs to be able to communicate long distance. Something to do with, I quote, "The Wave-Forms of Sound being transmittable along a silken thread."

I left before my headache got any worse, taking a cup of tea up to my room.

I have the urge for some peace and quiet and to listen to the rain.

Entry 149

Well…. They've gone. So many people from the castle turned out to watch them go. The Lodge of Sorceresses, the Duchess of Angraal and my sister. All of them stepping through a portal to… Flame knows where. I have no idea and judging by the expression on Maleficent's face, I'm not sure that I want to know either.

There is now a strange feeling of emptiness in the castle. My ears almost feel as though they are ringing with the utter lack of sound that is happening right now. I can feel the silence.

It's not silent of course, the rain is still hammering against the shutters and the windows and the roof and…

It's not often that I think about the guards on watch but there are some places on the castle wall where it is impossible to stand a watch without just… standing there. And I can't help but think about what it would be like to stand there, in the open, with the rain drumming off your helmet. I mean, I know that they always wear padding and things but even so, that's gotta… resonate or something.

Rickard tells me that in this kind of situation, leather hoods are much more useful. Leather hoods and oilskin cloaks. I can see the need.

The castle is quiet. It is like the held breath before the charge. Still no news on when the wedding is going to take place. Still, no news and I have absolutely nothing to do.

On the other hand, Kerrass has resurfaced now that the Sorceresses have gone. Marching into the hall for lunch as though he had never been away. Sam, who had likewise made a big show of coming back, took the opportunity to tease him about it but Kerrass just raised an eyebrow at him.

I had been sanguine about the delay and, to be fair, I still am really. But I feel as though my life is on hold and I want the entire thing to be over now. I want it to be done. Whatever is going to happen now, I want it to happen so that I can get on with things. Whether I am Lord, diplomat, advisor or Professor. Whether I am some combination of all of them and still figuring out what the ratio is. Or do I want to get on with being a husband first and enjoy finding my feet in that role?

Even while I am not looking forward to our first married argument.

The advice about never sleeping on an argument is something that we've talked about and have agreed to implement whenever it comes up. Apart from anything else, she doesn't sleep and I won't have anything to immediately get up for, so we can easily take all the time that we need to sort ourselves out when it comes to that.

I just want it to start now.

I'm going to find Kerrass and challenge him to a game of cards. We've got the castle to ourselves after all. Maybe we can rope the Duke into it and have some kind of tournament while he is here. I know that Mark and Sam both play. I have my suspicions that Mother is a secret card shark. I don't play but fuck it, I am willing to learn right now.

Entry 150

The ladies have come back and I took great delight in enjoying the state that they were all in as they came through the transport gate. Some looked serene and unruffled, almost as though they hadn't been away. Notably, Ariadne, Lady Yennefer and Lady Eilhart were among this number. Some of the women were supporting each other and suffering from some kind of pronounced exhaustion. My sister and the Duchess of Angraal were among those ladies.

Kerrass, rather unkindly, suggested that they were hungover but I don't believe that my sainted sister would succumb to something like that.

Everyone else was somewhere in between with Maleficent notably radiating a kind of smugness. There were more moments of reunion, hugs and various things. Ariadne was leaving again although she had decided that she was going to come back the day before we were due to be married. The delay was not expected to be too long, only a couple of days and with everything being on hold she thinks she might as well be here with her friends and loved ones.

The Duke and the Duchess are just going to stay now for essentially the same reason.

The other Sorceresses made their excuses and tottered off, most promising that they would be coming back with the Imperial party.

I might be imagining the speed with which they all left, but there seemed to be undue haste about the entire thing. When my friends had left, there was a reluctance that was pervading the entire thing, but it was almost as though the ladies couldn't wait to get away from each other. I didn't know what to make of it and spent some time checking to make sure that Ariadne was alright.

She reassured me that she was and when she eventually got annoyed with my insistence on repeating the question she told me that what I was sensing was the problem of your closest friends also being your closest competitors.

When I collared Emma for a report while Laurelen was gleefully bringing her a hangover potion, she told me taht there was a feeling to the entire thing of a group of swordsmen, all waiting for the other to flinch first.

She refused to tell me what had happened over the time away though as she was still processing it all.

Laurelen is not as immune to my determined questioning however and said something about an "Elven spa day in the Valley of the Flowers" whatever that means.

The Duchess spent the rest of the day walking around in something of a daze.

Dinner tonight is going to be a quiet thing where most, people are going to be brought food in their rooms.

Entry 151

Well… plans are finally being made. According to Laurelen and Ariadne, the rain is going to peter out overnight or maybe tomorrow and after that, the worst that can happen is some scattered showers, whatever that means. In the end, though, the wedding is going to be delayed by maybe five days. If anything, the local population see that as a good thing. I know that the inns in Novigrad will not be complaining as it means that they will be groaning with guests during the delay. As well as many of the roadside inns and the inns of Vizima, full of the guests that will be travelling with the Imperial party.

Our guest rooms will be full of guests who are due to arrive. People whose journey was already underway or people that were already here. Mostly friends of Father's or business partners of Emma's. Not anyone that I am particularly friendly with but people that

So we're going to have dinner on the night that we should have gotten married. A nice, informal, not really a party. Some of the more perishable food items that are determined to not make it to when we are actually going to get married now can be eaten and a good time will be had by all. Mother is in her element and it is good to see her bring life into the castle along with Emma.

There is a particular breed of these old family friends that remember Emma when she was a baby and are therefore struggling to accept Emma's authority in the castle itself. It seems that things are easier when there is a certain distance in the matter as well as a letter and an official seal to be able to hide behind. And it is these guests that Mother is better able to handle than some.

I can now see the wisdom of Emma insisting that Mother attend. I had been sceptical given Mother's history but as is so often the case, sister knows best.

Ariadne has taken over that room that is going to be "The wedding suite". She claims to have gotten plenty of rest and is set on arranging matters to her satisfaction. We have reiterated to each other and the watching and listening people that we have waited for so long, a couple of days longer delay will not be too debilitating.

We have taken several long walks together. It is still raining but we have wandered the halls and the gardens, along the walls and through the courtyards and things. We have yet to find a spot that feels like "ours".

It feels a little bit unreal that the two of us will be married shortly. We don't touch each other anymore. The nearness of it all means that… we feel as though we are on the edge of a cliff. We have spoken about this a little so I know that she feels the same. We are on the edge of the cliff and it would not take much to send us tumbling over the edge of… desire or whatever it is that we are teetering on the edge of.

I love this woman and every sidelong glance, every small smile and moment where we almost reach for each other and turn aside are a moment that I cherish. If anticipation is the first course of pleasure then by the Flame I cannot wait for the main meal.

Kerrass and Sam both, insist on making jokes on the matter. Jokes on the edge of just… the two of us should just run off and give into things. The tension is palpable for everyone else that can see us, hear us or even get anywhere close to us.

Eventually, though, it gets too much for the pair of us and one or other of us will flee to calm down. Ariadne is making use of Laurelen's lab for reasons of her own. "Private projects" apparently and I have no idea what that means. Although the sly looks that she sends my way and Laurelen's giggling…

Other than that though, there is a general sense of frustration in the air. The weather breaking has helped. I no longer feel as though I am pulling my clothes away from my skin anymore. Captain Froggart has resurfaced and is back to drilling the men on their salutes and their ceremonial duties. Rickard is doing the same but for some of the more military aspects of things. I don't think that the engine crews have been this well drilled since Father departed.

But there is this sense of things. People are snapping at each other and waiting.

Kerrass is walking around as though someone stood on his tail. Emma is walking around with a furrowed brow. Mother is having to act as a diplomat between Emma and all of the other relatively minor dignitaries that are staying in pavilions or guest quarters.

There is a thing where they are wondering why they are not allowed to stay in the castle itself when the higher dignitaries are going to be delayed by several days so why couldn't they be housed in the better guest rooms? I am pleased to leave that diplomacy to someone else.

Mark has retreated to his rooms, coming out for dinners and meals and things but he tells me that he is conserving his energy. Father Jerome and his wife seem unaffected but that is a mixed blessing at best as he comes out and starts to offend people.

Of all people, Sam seems to be taking the delay of the wedding the hardest. Stamping around and snapping at people. He tells me that he wants to be heading back North. That the feeling of being under Mother's authority again is not something that he is enjoying. He insists that it is not me, or Emma and that he cannot begrudge the delay or be angry about it. He knows that it's neither my fault nor the fault of anyone else. But he is stymied by the thought that he should be doing something else. Something more important, something more… defining I suppose. He feels as though he is regressing in some way. Back to that feeling of being under other people's authority when he is used to being a grown man who can make his own decisions about what he is going to do at any given time, rather than at the beck and call of someone else's authority.

I cannot say that he is necessarily wrong in feeling that.

The other day Mother told me to do something. It was something minor, off-hand and something that I am convinced was nothing that she did deliberately but it was something that made me incredibly angry.

She told me to fetch her a drink. I was say, reading a book in one of the main drawing rooms. It was before dinner at that point of the day when people were generally out and about doing their own thing. Either in their rooms preparing for dinner, out in the yard clearing up some of the debris from all of the storms that had been happening or otherwise just lounging around the place waiting for something to happen.

Mother was doing something. Like me, I think she was reading something and she finished her cup of coffee, something that she was developing a taste for. And she told me to fetch her another.

I was sat, my feet stretched out in front of me in that muscle-cracking point that is, at the same time, luxurious but not the sort of stance that can be maintained indefinitely. I was reading one of those books. I had read it many times before. I do not doubt that I will read it many times again. It is about the history of those early days of Redania. Written for someone who has a passing interest in the subject. Not a serious academic work but something that… It's a gateway text. Written to get someone to be interested in the subject and make them go out to find more on it.

I love it, one of those books that I always find fascinating and always enjoy. It's the kind of book that I read when I find myself needing to reignite my interest in this or that or the other thing.

I cannot deny that I was reading it for something to do. Something to pass the time. Kerrass was snoozing, also rebelling at the forced idleness. Ariadne was obsessing over the fit of her wedding dress so she had teleported up to Novigrad to harass the innocent dressmaker and I was reading my book.

And Mother held out her cup without looking up.

"Freddie." She said. "Fetch me another."

Now. I need to remember that she was actually closer to the coffee pot than I was. We were both reading, and neither of us was obscured or tied up in any way.

It was an interesting moment and I have spent some time since considering the matter.

I wanted to rebel. I wanted to yell that she was not the ruler of my life and that if she wanted another drink then she could damn well fetch it herself.

I also, nearly, went the logical route. Pointing out that she was closer to the pot than I was. That I didn't want a coffee and as such, there was no need for me to do that and if she wanted a coffee then she would be better off making it herself when I would, undoubtedly, do it wrong.

I resented it hugely. Given that I also knew that when I was younger, I would have leapt to perform even the smallest chore that my mother would have asked for in the hope that it would carry me through whatever it was that I was doing otherwise.

It was just…. One of those things. It was a declaration of her authority over me. I wanted to point out to her that I was a grown man and I was not going to run around after her or do the small chores that she wanted me to do because she couldn't be bothered. I was not going to run up to her rooms to fetch her embroidery or to pass her that book or to… do any number of things that she wanted to be done that didn't warrant the calling for a servant when a handy child was nearby.

It was the exertion of authority. One of those small actions that people who have the power, do to those people that don't, is to remind them of exactly who was in charge. I recognise it because I have been trained to recognise that kind of play, the same as Sam, Emma and Mother undoubtedly have.

I even don't think that she did it maliciously, or with intent to offend or to exert that authority. I think it was habit. I think it was simply the fact that she, Mother, was sitting in the castle drawing rooms, her castles drawing rooms, with her friends. Her youngest son was nearby and she found herself with an empty cup. There were no servants nearby and the habit of authority is just as ingrained as the habit of acting under that authority.

So she automatically expected me to leap to her every whim.

I made her the drink and then left the room. It took me a solid minute of sitting there deciding what to do about the situation before I rose to my feet and moved.

I did consider rebelling or putting her into her place. I nearly called her out on her actions or her behaviour. But then I considered as to what good it would achieve. Would it offend her, upset her, or otherwise cause a ruckus only days out from my wedding day? What good would it actually achieve to test my authority in our castle against hers when she would be leaving shortly thereafter anyway? I rather thought that all it would achieve would be to humiliate one or both of us in front of other guests when we have bigger and better things to organise.

So I made the drink and then left so that it wouldn't become a habit.

But that was the kind of thing that was happening and we were all dealing with it to varying degrees. Emma and Mark were unassailable in their authority. One is the Mistress of the castle and Mark with his lofty position within the church with his guards and servants. But both of them found themselves in the presence of Mother and other people that remembered both of them when they still needed someone to come and wipe their arse after they'd been to use the chamber pot.

So it is true that Sam and I have taken the brunt of most of that. Sam, who is used to being the Lord of his domain now, was being consigned to fetching and carrying. It is no wonder that he spends increasing amounts of time with his men in the fields beneath the castle where his authority remains absolute. He doesn't even have the advantage that I do of being the reason that all of this is happening in the first place.

So I cannot blame him.

I want this to be done now. This is beginning to grate on me and I am not the only one that is becoming frustrated.

Entry 152

I should have been married today.

It is the Autumn Equinox today. Now that there is not going to be a wedding on the same day, some of the decorations that we would normally have been replaced with standard decorations. Pumpkins and the like. Sheaves of corn have appeared on door jams.

There is going to be a large dinner for the guests and Emma is paying for a feast to be prepared for those staff, guards and soldiers that won't be able to be at the dinner themselves. Men and women of all races are still here because they have been preparing for a wedding that is still several days off as I write this and she feels, not incorrectly, that we should do something to show our gratitude for them taking the time.

So there is still a little bit of a party atmosphere about the castle today as everyone gets ready for what we are going to do next.

Today is bittersweet for me. The skies have all but cleared, just wisps of cloud that shoot across the sky in the breezes that drive them. The sun is not too hot, the air smells fresh and there is a nice smell in the air.

Today would have been a good day to get married.

Everything is in place and there is a small, treacherous part of me that says that we could get married right now. Indeed, that same part of me is telling me that I should get married right now. But Ariadne has waited this long for proper legitimacy and as such, I can't deny her that.

Also, it would very likely be literal suicide as the insult to the Empress would be, potentially, catastrophic. Even if Ciri would probably be quite understanding.

So Ariadne and I have mostly spent the day together and other than the two chaperones that have been following us around, we have largely been left to ourselves. My fingers have itched to take her hand in mine.

We have walked, and talked and in the odd torment of being so close to each other and not allowed to touch. I have watched my own reactions with interest and concern. I am not fascinated by traditional female features. I don't know if this is because the thought of touching her breasts or her bottom or running my hands up her thighs is too overwhelming. But I find that I want to stroke the side of her neck to where it meets her shoulders. To run my finger along her collarbone. I want to feel the bottom of her rib cage on her side before her sides meet her hip. I don't know why that particular curvature is so fascinating to me but I long to feel that.

We sat together and ate a small lunch in Mother's old rose garden. It's more of a herb garden now. We sat and spoke of little, unimportant things. We reminisced, talking about what I thought when I saw her for the first time. What she thought when she saw me for the first time. I told her when I realised that I loved her. She told me when she realised that she loved me. We went over my wedding proposal and I teased her about how she had looked, hiding behind a bush as though the ring was about to explode. We giggled when I described her as looking like a cartoon mouse, with huge eyes and trembling as she waited for the trap to spring on her.

She got her revenge by teasing me about my face when I finally realised that people were congratulating me on my engagement to her rather than about my finalising my Professorship with the University. It seems so stupid to me now that I might have seen it as something other than what it was.

We both giggled at the memory of the Empress as she realised what had happened.

We talked about small things and big things. We joked and laughed and wept a little too at the unfairness of our happiness being deferred because of politics. We practised our first dance together and exchanged stories about my stag party and her hen party including an incident where Francesca Findabair, the Queen of the Elves, Duchess of Nilfgaard and the most beautiful woman on the continent, had smeared her face with berry juice from the desert.

We spent a lot of time just looking at each other.

And the day has passed like that. When I haven't been with Ariadne, I have had a solid stream of people coming to check whether or not I'm alright. Kerrass and Sam have both been hovering to make sure that I wasn't going to go crazy with it all. Emma has given me a signal that I can use so that if it ever feels overwhelming, then she can distract everyone and I can make my escape accordingly. Mark is not all that well at the moment and is struggling to form words but when he looks at me, there is a softness in his eyes that brim with sympathy.

For some reason, that is worse.

We are going to have dinner and then I intend to get drunk tonight. Not catastrophically drunk, but certainly drunk enough that the evening will pass relatively easily.

I'm fine. I insist that I am fine and will continue to insist that I am fine. I just… I just wish that today had gone the way that it was supposed to have gone.

Today was supposed to be my wedding day.