"Cahir, good to see you alive," Fringilla says, smiling at her friend who is just entering the kitchen. He still looks a little worse for wear, but not much more so than the rest of the hansa. Considering the amount of her powerful party potion they all must have ingested thanks to the foolish bard, it is a frigging miracle they are already having an extensive dinner here at the moment. Must be Regis's tea. She will ask him for the recipe in case this happens again. Which is not very likely if she never lets Jaskier get anywhere close to a cauldron, but you never know, better safe than sorry.

Luckily, Cahir seems to have cleaned himself up more thoroughly than both Geralt and Angoulême as the sorceress cannot detect any remains of make-up or any other telltale remnants of his masquerade on the man that would give him away. So, the true identity of her tall, blonde female friend who, unfortunately, was called away early this morning on urgent family business, might stay a secret for a while longer. She smiles again. Dressing Cahir up as a countess was a lot of fun. It would be quite funny, too, to see the other hansa members' expressions on finding out that the Countess Ava of Corvo nero was none other than their Vicovarian friend. However, she promised not to say anything, and she always keeps her promises, even under torture. Well, it wasn't exactly torture, but Geralt tickling her mercilessly and threatening not to stop unless she revealed what she knows almost amounted to torture. Her stomach muscles are still aching from the fits of - involuntary - laughter. However, she prevailed. Wherever Geralt got the notion from that she might be in on Cahir's secret, she has no idea. He is a clever man, though, a lot smarter than many give him credit for, and, with his heightened Witcher senses, extremely perceptive. On the other hand, he might just have used it as an excuse to make her scream with laughter. Before doing some other, far more pleasant things to her ...

"Hm," Fringilla's former superior mumbles in response to her greeting and slouches down on the last unoccupied chair. Maybe not fully recovered from his hangover after all? Regis must have come to the same conclusion as he, taking one of his hands off the peacefully dozing Geraltine, fills a mug with the last remainders of his special tea and wordlessly passes it to the newcomer.

"Do I have to?" Cahir asks, holding the cup in both hands and grimacing at its lukewarm content. Regis nods authoritatively. The young knight sighs, lifts the mug and starts to drink with obvious disgust.

"Hey, what's that?" Milva suddenly points at Cahir's hand. There is something on one of his fingers, something that shines in the flickering light of the candles, something that was not there before and looks suspiciously like- Her eyes grow wide. "You didn't get engaged or married last night?" she inquires incredulously.

Cahir almost drops his mug of tea. Shit, he totally forgot about the ring. Jaskier's wedding ring.

"Fuck my old boots!" Angoulême exclaims, jumping up from her chair and falling all over herself with excitement. "Who's the lucky girl? Do I know her? One of the Baron's daughters? Spit it out, Nilfgaardian! Now!"

"I'm not a Nilfgaardian," Cahir, only just so having recovered his wits, tries to stall. It is what they expect him to say anyway, although it lacks the usual bite. With not a clue what else to say, he throws the bard an imploring look. Jaskier is never at a loss for words and a genius at improvisation, he must come up with something to get him, no, them out of this pickle, even if it is utter rubbish. Improvising is what the bard is best at, isn't it? He said so himself back in Oxenfurt when Cahir was on the run with Yennefer, half a lifetime ago. Well, his improvising got that one elf dead then ...

"Tsk, where are your eyes, girls? This is certainly not a wedding ring for a Baroness, nor for anybody else. It's not even gold but cheap brass." Jaskier rolls his eyes at the women's allegedly silly idea while, under the table, removing his own matching brass ring from his finger and putting it safely into a pocket. "However, I, Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, know exactly what it is." He stands up and bows with a flourish but does not continue.

"And, what is it?" Geralt grunts, fed up with the bard's theatrics.

"It, my dear Witcher, identifies the lucky winner of the most honourable honour that the Duchess of Toussaint, my Little Weasel, can possibly grant. As, whoever finds this brassen ring in the grape punch is entitled to - tantara!" He bows once again, slowly, this time to Cahir, the alleged lucky winner, "- is entitled to plant a new grape stock in her personal vineyard which then is ceremoniously named after the happy finder. This year's grapevine, the very first in a long line yet to come, will have a terribly long and complicated name, poor thing ..."

Gods, that is the shittiest bullshit story Cahir has ever heard. After a brief moment of surprised silence, Angoulême breaks into raucous laughter, Fringilla begins to giggle like a ten-year-old schoolgirl and Milva makes sounds somewhere between the two while Regis chuckles amusedly and even the Witcher starts to grin. They are not buying the bard's fabrication? Obviously they are. Cahir sighs with relief and gratitude. That went better than expected, thanks to Jaskier's ingenious inventiveness and presence of mind. He could kiss the man. No, better not ...

Cahir's gratefulness runs out just a few days later anyway. He can even pinpoint the exact moment of its abrupt end to the minute. The exact minute, or rather minutes, when he, under the applause of a huge crowd of Toussaintois nobility and the keen eye of Duchess Anna Henrietta has to dig a hole in the earth of the castle's vineyard, plunge the bottom part of a grapevine into it and cover it up with earth again before solemnly proclaiming that from now on and forever, its name will be Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach and that he swears on the heron to protect his namesake with his life. Which again elicits a thunderous applause from the onlookers while the whole time he wishes nothing more than for the ground to open up and swallow him, or, even better, swallow the bard who has gotten him into these cringeworthy circumstances in the first place.

Maybe telling the truth would have been less embarrassing? After all, he could have blamed it on the punch ...

Be that as it may, from this year 1267 on - the third year of the reign of Her Enlightened Ladyship Duchess Anna Henrietta - the famous tradition of the grapevine naming has been established in Toussaint. However, none of the vines has ever received a longer and more complicated name than the very first one.

The end