The huge black stallion neighs and shakes his head as the witcher enters the stable. Eskel slowly approaches the horse and reaches out his hand. The muscles on the horse's neck and back tremble under his touch. The stallion snorts and tramps. The witcher makes a low, soothing sound and slowly strokes the shiny fur. He stands like that for a long while, lost in his thoughts, steadily swiping his hand through the mane and back of the horse. Finally he makes a sigh, pats the horse on the neck.
"We're going back to the road. You've grown fat here, you rascal", he murmurs.
The horse raises his head from the bucket and snorts, as if he understands the witcher's words. Eskel smiles without humor.
"Don't look at me this way", he says, turning away to grab the saddle laying on the chest by the wall. "I know it was cozy there. It was for me too".
He places the saddle on the horse's back and fastens the girths, but his mind is still elsewhere. Normally there's another horse in this stable, a gentle, obedient mare, who always neighs as she sees him. Early in the morning he saw Wszebora leading the mare out of the stable. She went towards the road that lay by the village. He knew he would probably never see her again, so this was the picture that would etch itself in his mind - an upright figure of a woman on a horse's back, calm and gracious, bright and shiny in the blue light of the dawn.
Eskel puts two big leather bags on the horse's back, ties them to the saddle and checks if the bindings are firm. He unhooks one of the lapels and looks inside the bag. There's some dried meat in it, a small roundel of cheese, some vegetables and a small canteen filled with water. It's not much, but he's embarrassed anyway. He didn't want to take any of this, but Wszebora stood in front of him with her arms crossed and a heavy look in his eyes for so long that he relented. What she didn't know was that he left a purse filled with coin on the table after she had left. In that purse was not only his payment for the cockerel, but also all of his savings. He knew her well enough to know that she would be offended with the money, but he didn't really care. After all, he still had his pride - as a man as well as a witcher. He couldn't have left without making up for their trouble somehow.
He hooks the lapels back and looks around. He realizes his swords are still inside the hut, so he comes out of the stable. As he strolls through the yard, something catches his eye. He stops and squints his eyes. Floundering in the tangled thicket that covers the fields behind the village, there's a woman in a white dress. He cannot see her face, but her bright, smooth braid tells him it's Cudka. He watches her for a while, lost in his thoughts. She goes away from the village and towards the forest. She has a small wicker basket in her hand.
The witcher frowns. He casts one more brief glance towards the hut, where his swords are waiting to be taken. Finally, slow and a little hesitant, he follows the pale figure across the fields. The dense thicket of grasses and herbs engulf him to the waist. The flowery field smells and shines intensely in bright sunlight and his medallion quivers just a little. The dense thicket, still damp with the morning dew, rustles and whispers as he makes his way through it. The girl is already at the edge of the forest and vanishes in between its green shadows. When he reaches the same place, there's already no sight of her between the trees. He slows down and then stops and closes his eyes to focus. It seems to be quiet, but his elevated witcher senses soon pick up the muffled sound of crackling and ruffling. He slowly goes on. To him tracking this bright-haired girl in that dark, slumbering forest is like following a small, glimmering fish in a black lake. She appears and then she vanishes, luring him with tiny sounds and glimmers. Eskel follows her for a while, going deeper and deeper into the forest. A thick, damp darkness engulfs him more and more as he goes. There is nothing but the rare sounds of rustling and screeching. For a moment he regrets not taking his swords with him. Many things could be lurking in those bushes.
Finally the shadows thin out just a little. The tree trunks are now spotted with sunbeams. The greenery that surrounds him is more emerald than brown and gray. He makes a few more steps to realize that he's standing at the edge of a small glade, surrounded with a thick forest from every direction. On the other side of the glade he sees Cudka. Her back is turned to him. She kneels in the high grasses, with her wicker basket at her side. There are some fresh herbs in it. He stands like that for a long while, watching the girl. She's still unaware of his presence. Finally he enters the glade. The sound of his footsteps makes her twitch and she looks over her shoulder. At first there's a look of surprise on her face, then fear, and finally - a panic-struck despair. She narrowly gets to her feet and starts to move back, hunched over, with her eyes wide open and her face deathly pale. Eskel can hear the flutter of her heart. He raises his hands in a gentle, soothing gesture.
"I don't want to harm you", he says quietly. "Don't be scared".
Cudka gulps loudly and takes another step back. Her breath is quick and shallow. She keeps glancing around, as if she's looking for a way to escape. Eskel stops and puts his hands down.
"I won't harm you", he repeats. "It's not why I came here".
She doesn't believe him. Her gaze is full of distrust. She's curled up and completely still, like a mouse in front of an owl, ready to flee at any moment. There's a small herbalist knife in her quivering hand. Eskel wonders briefly if she would try to stab him with it if he came nearer. He doesn't want to find that out, so he doesn't move. He puts his hands up so she can see them. He tries to make no abrupt movements that would scare her even more.
"I have no weapon with me", he says, his voice calm and slow. He raises his hands a little higher to show her they are open and empty. The glance she casts him is quick and alert. He waits, still and patient.
Finally she raises her gaze and gulps again. Now that she sees he's telling the truth, she draws a deep, hoarse breath and tucks a lock of hair away with a quivering hand.
"What do you want from me?", she asks so quietly that he hardly hears her, even though he stands so close. For a moment he muses on the right answer, weighing the words in his mind.
"I know that you have a secret", he starts hesitantly. Cudka bows her head and curls her back, as if there was an accusation in his words that weighed her down. She's silent for a long while. When she finally speaks, her gaze is fixed on the ground beneath her feet.
"If they know, I'll be gone. They will banish me. Or hang me".
"No one will know", he promises. "Nothing bad will happen to you".
Cudka doesn't answer him. All she does is cast him a brief glance. Her gaze is uncertain and glassy and her breath is wet.
"All I want is to talk with you. I want to know what… who you are. Not a human, right?"
He tries to make his voice calm and neutral, but she still shivers, as if he shouted at her. She drops her knife into the grass and tightly clasps her hands in front of herself. She raises her eyes to him, slow and hesitant, and she shakes her head just a little.
Eskel nods his head. This time it is Cudka who breaks the heavy silence looming between them.
"I prayed to the gods that you didn't notice that I'm… Different than…", she stops and averts her gaze again, biting her lip.
"You healed the wounds that were infected with a cockerel's poison. It takes advanced magic or alchemy to accomplish that. Many druids and sorcerers, who study healing spells, would not succeed. But you did. You saved my life and I wanted to thank you for that", he says quietly.
She's silent again for a long while. Her gaze is fixed somewhere distant. She clasps her hands tightly and she seems to be thinking hard. Finally she blinks and turns her gaze to the witcher.
"I didn't want to help you", she whispers with a purplish blush on her cheeks. "It's a witcher's job to track and hunt creatures that are foreign to men. And me…", she stops and gulps loudly. "But I thought that maybe you wouldn't realize that I'm not like the others. That maybe the gods would have mercy on me and you would go your own way".
"I will", he assures her quietly. "I'm ready for the road. Tonight I'll be gone. I'm sorry I disturbed your peace. It's not what I wanted. I'm sorry".
When she raises her eyes to him, her gaze is heavy with sorrow and tired.
"I didn't want to help you", she repeats dully, barely making a sound. Her gaze is hollow and distant. "But Wszebora had pity on you. She didn't want you to die under our roof, shaking with fever. What was I supposed to tell her? That it was better for the witcher to die, because if he lived, I would perish? That my blood is not like hers, not like any man's?"
At first her words are muffled and faltering, but as she speaks, they bulge with the fear and grief she's been hiding for so long. She speaks faster and faster and her voice becomes sharper and shrill. She clenches her hands into tight fists and stubbornly fixes her wide open eyes on the witcher. He endures this despairing, mad gaze and doesn't avert his eyes. Her voice is almost a squeal at this point and finally it breaks, the last word dies out on her lips. She's silent for a moment. She blinks and then suddenly she starts to sob.
Eskel waits patiently, not saying a word. After this violent outburst she quickly calms down and her cries dissolve into a quiet, hoarse weeping. She wipes her face with her sleeve and there's something vulnerable and awkward in this gesture that makes her look like a child for a moment.
"Can you tell me what you really are?", he asks her quietly.
She lowers her hands and looks at him. Her eyes are tired and resigned.
"I don't know", she says, helpless, and turns her gaze to her feet.
Eskel frowns.
"It's not what you really look like, is it?", he tries again. He watches her cautiously, but there's something to her that he doesn't know yet, something that makes this riddle impossible to guess.
She nibbles at the frayed edge of her sleeve, not raising her gaze to him. She bites her lip.
"I… don't know. I've never… I don't know. My papa knew", she finally mumbles with hesitation.
Eskel goes back to the conversation he had with Wszebora. He recalls what she said about her brother. He came back to the village with a child and didn't want to tell her where it came from. He didn't say a word about the girl's mother. He died many years ago.
"What did your father know?", he asks.
Cudka slowly lifts her gaze and fixes it on the witcher. Now her eyes seem different - sullen and cautious. For a long while she looks into his face with sharp insistence in her gaze and with her brow furrowed, as if she searches for something in him. He lets her do that, even though he's certain there's nothing good to be found in his scarred face. Finally her gaze becomes softer. She straightens up and nods her head just a little, as if she's made her decision.
"I'll tell you my story, witcher", she says quietly and slowly. "My papa wanted this story to be buried with him. He warned me not to tell anyone. But I think that maybe you really don't mean any harm. You'll be gone soon. And it's hard for me to keep silent for so long".
She looks around, unsure. She fixes her gaze on a small, mossy boulder on the other side of the grove. She walks over to it and sits on its edge. Eskel follows her and sits down nearby, under an oak tree. He props himself against the tree trunk, folds his arms over his chest and fixes his eyes on the girl. She casts him a brief glance, visibly ashamed. For a while she's quiet, tugging at the loose thread in her sleeve. The grove is silent. Tall grasses glisten and ripple in the sun that's just come out of the clouds. Somewhere in between there's a cricket. Finally Cudka starts to talk.
"One time my papa was coming back to the village. It was dark and he lost his way. And the wolves came for him. He ran from them, but the forest was thick and the wolves were rabid and hungry. He knew his end was coming, so he called for help. And a lady came for him. She scared him even more than the wolves that'd chased him. She was strange, but beautiful all the same. The wolves fled from her and my papa watched… rapt and frightened. That lady led him to the village, but when he looked over to her, she vanished like a sweet dream. Papa couldn't forget her. He kept coming back to the forest until he met her again. He found her. Since then she always waited for him to come. He told me that she was the fairest creature he'd ever seen and everywhere she placed her feet there was blooming and flushing. And one time he needed to go away from the village for a while. Many moons passed before he came back. When he did, he went to the inn to eat and rest. There were some boys sitting at the next table. Papa heard them talk. They talked about a nymph or an undine the'd found in the forest behind the village. They talked about how they'd snatched her in a net and tormented her. He didn't say a word. He just went to the woods.
He wandered for a long while, calling for her, but the forest was silent. He didn't find her. He wanted to come back, but then he heard a baby crying somewhere in the thicket. He found a cave and his lady in it. And a baby with her. He sank to his knees, overcome with dread, because she was half-dead already. She told him that the baby is of his blood. She told him that she'd waited for him at the edge of the forest and that's where they found her. That she didn't fight back, because she didn't want them to find the cave and the baby. And then she died".
Cudka stops her tale for a moment, lifts her gaze to the witcher.
"My papa worried that if anyone ever knew I'm not of a human womb, I would be harmed. He took all he had and went to the pellar. He asked for spells and enchantments. He wanted to protect me from people. To raise me among them".
She takes a deep, raspy breath. Her voice wavers a little.
"Papa guarded this secret the best he could. He didn't say anything to anyone. Not even to his own sister. Only when the fever claimed him and he knew that his end was near, he called for me and told me everything. He made me swear that I wouldn't ever tell this secret. He told me that if I did, people would hate me and hunt me. So I didn't tell. Ever. To anyone. I lived well. And then you came, witcher".
A silence falls upon them. Cudka is hunched over, with her eyes cast down, picking at the hem of her dress. The witcher broods.
"You mother could be a nymph, maybe a naiad. But as far as I know, they do not tend to get involved with humans", he mumbles, lost in his thoughts.
More often they eat humans or kill them, but that he doesn't say out loud.
Cudka nods her head a little, but doesn't raise her gaze. Her long, slender fingers still nib awkwardly at the fabric of the dress. The witcher rises up and looks towards the village that's hidden behind the forest. Then he fixes his gaze on Cudka.
"The pellar's charm may dispel over time, you know that? The pellar's magic is very simple. They don't have much magical power", he says, frowning a little. "Truth be told, it surprises me a little that the spell holds on for so long. Maybe that's because it was cast when you were little and your own powers weren't developed yet".
Cudka raises her gaze to look at him. She listens to him, completely focused on his words, and when he finishes, she gets sad.
"I know that", she says sullenly. "But maybe I am not so different from other folks. Maybe even without the magic they wouldn't know".
He doesn't answer. Instead he watches her and broods. Cudka rises from her boulder and looks for her wicker basket. Having found it, she looks towards the village, and then to the witcher.
"I have to go back. Miron is surely hungry".
The witcher nods his head.
"Yes, let's come back", he says.
They go into the forest in silence. She walks in front of him and from time to time she looks over her shoulder to check if he still follows her, because she cannot hear his footsteps or the sound of his breathing. He stays a little behind on purpose. He knows she's still a little afraid of him and doesn't want to make her uncomfortable. And apart from that, going behind her allows him to watch freely. He walks slowly and gazes at her, lost in indistinct thoughts.
Now that he knows her secret, he sees more. In the cool, brownish green shade her dress and hair seem so bright as if she gleamed with her own light. Her long braid rocks gently to the rhythm of her steps. The golden strands of hair glisten like a precious pendant. Her plain dress seems to be lighter than it normally is. The dewdrops that cling to the hem of that dress look like glitter. As he watches the girl, he knows that all these things he sees are just his imagination talking, as now he knows that underneath all that plainness there's something extraordinary and mysterious.
But there are also other things he notices, ones that are not made by his imagination. Cudka's mere presence seems to wake the forest from the shade and the silence. As she walks by, the plants and herbs shake off like cats woken up from a nod. Their damp leaves stand erected and the stalks reach out to her, touching the hem of her dress. There's a delicate aura to her, gleaming and swirling around her small frame, similar to the one that lingers over the bonfire in the night. Cudka is like a sun in this dark forest, bright and warm. As the witcher watches her, there are vague memories coming to his mind. A pale figure of a woman, moving away to the red edge of the forest. Eyes watching him, one pair pale, sharp and calm, and the other one yellow, filled with anger and contempt. A sack filled with money, falling to a table with clamor. Bright ribbons tied to the bundles of herbs, blending together into a swirling blur. A desperate sob of a woman, coming to him from very far. Blood on his sword. There's a sudden feeling of anxiety he cannot explain.
When they reach the edge of the forest, Cudka stops and covers her eyes from the sun with her hand. Squinting, she looks towards the village. In the light of day she's just an ordinary girl again, dressed in a dress that's too big for her, with scars from the smallpox on her face. She turns to the witcher and looks at him hesitantly. She gulps loudly, clearly not sure what she ought to say. He comes closer.
"Take care of yourself",, he murmurs, looking at her cautiously. "And tell Wszebora your secret".
She averts her gaze to the side, but nods her head a little. For a while they stand in silence. Finally he nods his head as well.
"Good luck", he says.
He wants to leave, but she grabs his sleeve in a sudden, awkward gesture. He stops. She looks at him with seriousness in her eyes.
"Thank you, witcher", she mumbles, letting go of his hand.
"You have nothing to thank me for", he replies quietly.
"You didn't hurt me, you didn't spill my secret, even though you could get a coin for that".
Eskel is quiet for a while.
"Take care of yourself", he says at last.
Cudka looks at him for a while longer and finally she nods a little and without a word more she goes into the meadow, towards the village. Eskel watches her as she flounders through the dense thicket with a wicker basket in her hand. The odd feeling of anxiety still lingers in the back of his mind. When she vanishes between the huts, he slowly turns to the fence, where his horse is waiting. He takes the rest of his belongings and goes to the road, not looking back anymore.