A Scholar's travels with a Witcher

by Spike368

Sent out to gather the knowledge of the real world. A young scholar from the University of Oxenfurt finds a wounded Witcher on the steps to the inn where he was staying. So he starts gathering the material for his journals. Rated T for language I will be publishing this story on Royal Road /profile/349358

131. Chapter 131

(A/N: This chapter has been a long time coming and I'm sorry for that. I promise that I'm not running out of steam or thinking of quitting. There has been a lot of LIFE happening recently that has kept me from my word processor and then still more LIFE that has kept me away from the story. Nothing bad per se, family and friends are still ok which is more than a lot of people can say.

And then it turned out to be the longest chapter... possibly ever. Which further contributed to delays due to editing and a determination to get it right. Thanks for your patience.

WARNINGS: Descriptions of corpses and brutal injuries. Discussion of sex work, the sentiments in which I took from a documentary I once saw on the Porn industry some years ago.)

It took me more than a minute to realise that Captain De La Tour had stopped speaking.

It almost felt like he had stopped in the middle of a sentence and it took me a while for my mind to catch up with what he was saying.

I had been staring at the table without blinking. Just staring into space. A habit that has got me into trouble before now when I retreat inside myself to think. In this case I was lucky. I was staring at the silver goblet that I had been drinking from. Specifically I had been looking at the corner of the base of the cup. It was an old cup, rather tarnished by much use and I got the feeling that it was old. Really old. Possibly one of those cups that had been found in a cupboard somewhere when the Knights first arrived at the villa and started to convert it for their own use. I found my mind wandering into the realms of the imagination, where I wondered who had drunk from the cup before. It didn't look fancy and it rather struck me that Sir Crawthorne had been the kind of man that had insisted on drinking from the correct cups, the most perfect glasses and properly carved goblets.

Yes, they all make a difference. I have seen books in Toussaint, dedicated to the proper size, shape and thickness of the glass, silver, tin or wood in the drinking vessel. With literally different volumes devoted to different drinks.

I'm not making this up. The treatise on white wine alone came in three different volumes.

So it took me a while before I realised that, the reason that my mind had the opportunity to run down this path of distraction and imagination was because the Guard Captain had stopped talking.

He was not in a good way and I wondered how long it had been since I had last looked at him. He was sat, both hands on the table, curled into fists. His jaw was clenched and working, his eyes wide and unhappy. I had already known that he was tired but it rather seemedd as though he had been wearing a mask of formality and etiquette since I had come into the room. And, for some reason, that mask had been torn away.

I looked over at Syanna who was watching the Captainn closely, frowning a little. I could not tell if she was concerned or annoyed. Or both for that matter.

Very suddenly, he looked up as if startled. "Forgive me." He stuttered out. "I need a moment... I need."

He rose and walked over to the window.

I was watching. Syanna almost reached for him as he passed her chair. Almost. She was really really close to it. It would have done a lot for their relationship if she had. But instead, she just watched as he walked over to the window and looked out.

I could feel a similar urge to move myself now. There was a jumping movement in my leg. An urge to dance, skip and run. There was so much to take in here. The walls were literally covered in the stuff after all. Covered in it. Maps of the villages and the parts of Beauclair that the Watchmen had chased Jack through. The maps of the Watchouse that the beggar had approached to bring notice of the death of someone and then the site where the body had been left.

The table as well. Mountains of paper and it all started to get too much. It felt like a mountain that was beginning to topple over and bury me under all of the rubble.

The sheet in front of my eye line was a description of the things that Miss Donnet, the bookish girl that wanted to be a nun, had on her at the time of her death. It wasn't much. She had a small ink pot and a quill which I found that I approved of. Any scholar should always carry around a quill and some ink or a piece of charcoal as well as something to write on. She also had a rabbit's foot for luck and a few coins.

I started to wonder where her diary had been. I felt sure that she must have had one. A journal of some kind to note her thoughts in.

I felt myself teetering on the edge of the gulf. It was like a hole that I was wobbling on the edge of. The cliff that you could fall off that seems to sing to you. To seduce you into getting closer and closer to the edge of it. To look over into the abyss. That was what it felt like and I didn't want to go there. I didn't want to but I wasn't sure that I could keep myself from tumbling down.

But it was so familiar down there. So very familiar down there. Attractive even. I didn't want to go there. I was afraid of it but at the same time... It was attractive to me. There was something there that I wanted.

What did I want?

I jerked to my feet suddenly, pushing the chair back and I started to pace. I think people started to talk to me but I was ignoring them. Not intentionally but...

What did I want?

I wanted to dive into the abyss. I wanted to... But...

I frowned and stopped dead in my tracks.

"The thing you have to remember about Jack." I said, slowly at first as the thoughts started to resolve themselves in my head towards some kind of logical order. "The thing you have to remember about Jack, is that he is a being of patterns and rules."

"How does that help us?" Syanna wanted to know. Not unreasonably.

I stared at her for a moment. Her question had diverted me from my thought process. The urge to run and jump around was back in my feet again.

"I... uh..." I closed my eyes as a moment of dizziness struck me. "I need a moment to... There is a lot here... I need to... uh... I need some air. I need to talk to Ariadne and Kerrass."

I rolled my shoulders. The tunic and shirt was feeling tight again. Why wasn't I comfortable in these clothes anymore? Why couldn't I settle?

I fled. Snatching the door open I all but ran out the door and through the hall, past the startled Knights and squires and trainees. I was out the door in a flash and found myself trembling just outside.

I looked left and right. Unsure about what to do next I decided that real Witchers always turn left in a maze and so I went left, half walking, half jogging round the manor house until I came to the training stables. I found a fence post and leant on it with my hands, leaning forwards, bowing my head as I sucked in the smell of horse manure.

Then I laughed at myself. Why here? Why had I wanted to come to the stables.

"Freddie?" Ariadne's voice, but it startled me as I spun round. She was close to me, just outside of arm's reach while Kerrass was still jogging up. He had one of the bundles from his horse under his arm.

"Flame," I breathed as I fought for calm. Kerrass was watching me carefully.

"Freddie," Ariadne said again, taking a cautious step towards me. "I know that you said that you would help. But if you can't do it. If you need me to, I can have you back in Angral faster than..."

I waved her off. My sense of calm was slowly coming back although I couldn't have told you why. Nor could I explain it to either of them.

"I'm afraid." I told them. "Why am I afraid?"

I realised that I was starting to tremble with something very similar, very close to what after battle reaction felt like.

"You are getting used to things." Ariadne ventured. "You are finding things difficult that used to come easy to you. It's assailing your sense of self and your sense of... purpose I suppose."

I nodded. It all made sense I suppose although I wasn't entirely happy with that assessment.

"You want to help. You want to be useful. You want to find the patterns and the rules and things but you are out of practice is all." She went on. "As I've said before, the brain is a creature of habit. It is no longer used to... asking questions and following through on things. You just need to get back into it is all. Be gentle with yourself."

I was nodding along. The soothing words were a balm but... Something was missing from it. I wasn't happy with it.

"I think he's sword shy." Kerrass said, his harsh words cutting through the spell that Ariadne's words covered me with. Tearing the blanket of comfort that she was trying to lay over me and I looked up into his eyes that were boring into me.

"I don't understand." Ariadne said.

"When I was learning to fight." Kerrass began. "The realities of the situation is that people get hurt. Injuries happen. There's no way that you can avoid that. But the very first thing that you do after you have been injured is to put the sword back into your hand and get back into training so that the fear of the pain of the accident doesn't hold you back."

Ariadne's eyes sparkled.

"You do the same thing when people fall off horses." Kerrass went on. "You fall off and then, if you are uninjured. The first thing that your horse-master teaches you is that you need to get back on the horse and ride around the field to prove to yourself that you can do it and that you won't fall off."

He stopped looking at me and turned to Ariadne. "You are correct. He should be gentle with himself. But I think we've made a mistake. Right now he's struggling, aren't you Freddie?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

"Well I think that we made a mistake in helping him. The damage that has been done to him has been by his mission to find Francesca. There have been other little missions and quests and things but his... but our... failure to find Francesca is, essentially, his first failure.

"I think that Freddie needs a puzzle. I think he needs a mission or a quest or an adventure of some kind. I think that... what I should have done all the way back. After he had agreed to renounce the search for Francesca, or maybe earlier, I don't know. But I think, I should have found him a nice little mystery to solve.

"A wrong to right. Something he could look back on and say... "I did that. I solved that problem, I rescued those people. I helped kill those monsters". Becuase now that he is in a place where he is confronted with the prospects of another investigation, where he has to hunt the bad guy and save some people. Not helped by the fact that the bad guy is something that he has faced before and... did not do great."

I couldn't put it into words then and I still struggle with it now. But what he was suggesting, felt right. There was a feeling of correctness about it. Ariadne had been right too, but Kerrass had added the icing on the top that completed the cake.

"I'm going to venture a theory." Kerrass suggested. "I am not the only one that thinks that Freddie has looked better, this morning, than he has for weeks. Not since Brenna even. Am I?"

Ariadne was looking at me thoughtfully.

"You are not." She decided, nodding.

"So I think," Kerrass went on. "I think that he wants the puzzle. He wants to throw his brain into some kind of mystery and his mind has reacted. He's been more dynamic, stronger, more passionate. There is no way that Freddie would have given Emma and Mark, and the two of us for that matter, the drubbing that we deserve as recently as even yesterday.

"Fuck." He chuckled. "I still don't think you would have beaten him in the duelling square, but I think you would have done a lot more to put the shits up Raoul if he fought you this morning."

Even Ariadne smiled at that prospect.

"What you're afraid of." He pointed at me. "Is that, like with Francesca... you will fail. Or that like the last time you faced Jack, or someone wearing his face, you will become foolish and do something stupid. Because what you did last time was really fucking stupid."

I could feel myself calming down. Kerrass was right but...

"That's it." Ariadne said as she glanced back at me. It was odd being discussed by the two people who I'm closest to in the whole continent. A weird feeling. I almost felt as though I was interrupting something or intruding. I felt as though I should go somewhere else and leave them to it. "That's it, but I wonder if there's something else." She looked between the two of us. "Freddie? What were you thinking about just before you came out here?"

I thought back. "I was standing on... I was standing on the edge of a cliff... No... I was on the edge of a hole. A deep, dark hole that was trying to suck me into it. A deep, horrible hole that was filled with horror."

"But..." She prompted me.

"But I wanted to go down there. I was attracted to it. There was something familiar to it, something that I was drawn to it."

She nodded in satisfaction. "You are correct Kerrass. I really should have seen it and I'm sorry Freddie, I really let you down there." She said it in the same way that I might order a round of drinks at the bar in a tavern. "But what he's afraid of is sinking into the same levels of obsession as he did with the search of Francesa. It's not the failure..."

She looked back at me again where she saw something that I wasn't aware of.

"Alright, it's partly the fear of failure." She admitted. "But I think he's afraid of the obsession. I think you've quite enjoyed having a mind free of that kind of darkness, haven't you Freddie. Even when it is debilitating. Even when stumbling around in the light is the most painful, uncomfortable and terrifying thing that you might have experienced."

I nodded. "That makes sense." I admitted. "I don't want to get involved in this if it leads to some kind of massive run of things where I become obssessed and lose myself. I don't think I could get out of it again."

Kerrass nodded. "But it's not like last time." He said. "You are not alone. We know that there is a danger. You even knew that there was a danger this morning when you demanded that Ariadne accompany you everywhere. You knew that there was a danger and you took steps to overcome. I am with you as well and neither of us will allow a situation where you can get into trouble. As for violence? Even if, as I suspect, you would fight better now than you have done for months. You are stood next to a Witcher and an Elder Vampire. Fuck, if someone tried to get at you, Sir Guillaume is practically vibrating with the desire to do horriblr violence to miscreants on your behalf."

He considered that. "Hell, I kind of want to see that man in a rage to be honest. It would be terrifying."

He turned back to me. "This is a good thing Freddie." He told me. "It's a good mystery. There is no personal stake like there was last time. Emma and Mark are safe. At the moment, this is a series of murders. Monstrous, horrible murders. But murders nonetheless. We can investigate some murders Freddie."

"And rapes. Don't forget the rapes." Ariadne reminded him.

"I did not mean to leave them out." Kerrass told her.

I was shaking. Left over come down from the burst of panic and fear.

"So what do we do now?" I asked, teeth chattering.

"Well first." Kerrass put his bundle down and opened the top of the bag. "First you're going to take off that damn stupid Toussaint cloak. You need a proper cloak on to keep you warm after that shock."

He pulled out my old fur-lined travelling cloak.

"You haven't looked comfortable all day." he told me. "Get that round you instead."

I did as I was told and, not gonna lie. Smelly, fur lined oil skin though it was. It felt soooooo much better.

"Then," Kerrass went on as he packed my, ridiculouslyimpractical now I was looking at it, sky blue cloak into the bag in a way that would scandalise the tailor that made it for me. "We are going to go inside and do what we came here to do. Ariadne will keep an eye on you because even though I would gamble that you are stronger than you think you are, you are still not as strong as you should be. And then we will investigate these crimes and give the bastard who is doing this a good sound kick in the balls."

"What if it's Jack?" I asked. "I heard a number of things in there that suggested that it might, indeed, be Jack."

"Then we'll kick him in the arse as well,"

"Before we kick him in the balls?" Ariadne wanted to know, her head on one side as she examined the prospect.

"Naturally." Kerrass decided.

My old cloak did feel better.

Ariadne would later tell me that, as I walked back into the manor house. Kerrass watched me move for a moment before nodding to himself.

But now I had a new problem. The collar of this shirt was ridiculously tight.

We walked back through the din, which seemed a little bit more subdued now although that might have been my imagination, and back up to the room where we found the Knight Commander, Guard Captain and Sir Guillaume waiting for us.

"Have you quite finished?" De La Tour snarled.

I blinked at him.

"We spend days asking for your help to be ignored and insulted. And now, we finally get you out here and suddenly you can't listen?"

His face could really turn a remarkable shade of purple.

"People are dying out there Lord Frederick." He all but screeched that last. With an added little sneer when it came to the word "Lord"

I could dimly sense Syanna opening her mouth to speak.

I closed my eyes. "You're not going to let him get away with that are you Freddie?" Kerrass seemed to whisper behind me.

The flame that had been born inside my chest that morning swelled.

"I am reminded of a story." I said. "It was a story that I heard quite recently and I have used this story before to illustrate a point. But it also seems to have a certain, fitting application here."

I walked in and poured myself a drink.

"The Prophet Lebioda and Kreve the Sky-Father were playing a game of Dice Poker. It was a simple friendly game. Nothing at stake, no money, no souls, power, influence, magic... Nothing at stake. Just a game of dice between two friends."

"I don't see what this has..."

"It all comes down to this last throw of the dice." I told him, putting some steel into my voice to overwhelm him. "The Sky-Father picks up the dice and throws them onto the board. They rattle around a bit but eventually come up with a low straight. Five dice, one through five. The Sky-Father is pleased. He looks up at the Prophet and grins at him. There's only one possible dice roll that can beat that and they both knew it."

I poured Ariadne a drink as well, taking it over to her before raising my eyebrows at Syanna and Sir Guillaume before pouring them a drink as well. I continued to talk.

"The Prophet picks up the dice. Closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before casting the dice into the tray. The dice bounce around a bit and they come up a jumble. Two, two, three, Six, Six. The Prophet is not entirely pleased. It's a good roll. Two pair, but it won't beat a the Sky-Father's hand. The Prophet picks up two of the dice. Says a little prayer to himself and tosses the dice into the tray.

"The Sky-Father and the Prophet watch carefully. The dice tumble around, bouncing off each other and rolling around the mouth of the tray until finally coming to rest. The Sky-Father's dice now read, Two, Three, Four, Six, Six.

"The Prophet laughs. Knowing that he has won but the Sky-Father is not done. The Sky-Father raises his hands into the air and the heavens darken. After a little while the heavens open and a deluge of rain falls from the sky, flooding the place where the game is taking place. A small rivulet of rain water carries one of the Sky-Father's dice away. Specifically one of the sixes.

"The die is swept down the torrent into the nearby river where if floats for a moment, bobbing along on the surface of the current before a huge fish leaps from the depths of the stream and swallows the die whole. The fish struggles now that something is stuck in it's gullet before yet another miracle happens. A huge bird soars in the air and sees the struggling fish. Quickly, it swoops low and scoops the fish from the water intending to eat it, taking it back to the birds nest.

"But the fish is still struggling in it's claws. It gets loose and falls to the ground, a short distance from where the Prophet and the Sky-Father are watching. The Fish lands and the force of the impact jerks the die from the gullet of the fish. At first, the die spins through the air before bouncing off a rock, off another rock, off the edge of the playing board before landing in the scoring tray.

"The Sky-Father grins up at the Prophet. Now his dice read the required numbers for the winning hand. Two, three, four, five and six. This means that the Sky-Father wins and he screams in triumph.

"The Prophet looked up at the Sky-Father and stared him straight in the eyes. "Do you wanna play dice?" He asked. "Or do you just wanna fuck around?""

I sat back in my chair.

De La Tour was staring at me, moustache bristling, eyes boggling a little bit.

"It is known, by everyone in this room, why I couldn't come here before now." I began again after a moment, taking a small drink to wet my throat.

"I am injured. It was only last night that I fought a trained Knight and I have bruises and stiff muscles. It is also known that I am suffering from... something. Everyone here is also well aware of what Jack means to me. Both personally as he was here when I lost my sister, even in a bastardised, stolen state. And proffessionally. Which is why you wanted me here in the first place.

"So, Captain, you know why I left the room just now. You probably recognise it. A man such as yourself will have seen those kinds of reactions before. So you know what just happened. You may even have felt it yourself. So... Knowing all of these things. Knowing how difficult it is for me to be in this room and discuss these things with you. Knowing all of these things I am forced to ask a question."

I looked him straight in the eyes and did not blink.

"Do you wanna play dice? Or do you wanna fuck around?"

I leant back and took another drink.

"I don't have to stay here and listen to this..." De La Tour turned for the door and stomped towards it.

"Actually you do." I told him, putting my drink back on the table. "People are dying out there Captain."

Cruel? Yes. Undoubtedly. But the fight back has to start somewhere.

He stopped, just short of the door and lifted his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose and I instantly felt guilty.

Instantly. On the spot even.

Why?

His hand was trembling. There was something else going on here that I didn't know.

He stood like that for a moment before his hand fell to his side where it hung limply.

If you are ever privilidged to see a proud man pulling themselves together. Always, and I do mean always, take the time to properly appreciate and respect the effort that it takes to do something like that. Speaking as someone that has had to pull themselves together a lot recently, it is hard as fuck. It takes a lot of energy and can leave a person feeling run ragged after it's all done.

He straightened himself up. Largely by effort of will as far as I could see, before shaking his head, as if to shake himself loose of some leaves that had fallen on his head. His left hand lifted to the sword pommel as he did an about face so smartly that it might have cut paper, before marching towards his chair which he sat back down. A movement that he carried off so perfectly that my old etiquette professor would have been proud.

"You are correct." He said, a little stiffly, but I put that down to his hiding amongst the formality of the situation rather than any kind of lingering anger. "I apologise Lord Frederick. I was at fault and allowed my temper to speak for me."

"It is I that should apologise." I told him. "I too, allowed my temper to get the better of me. This is a thorny subject for me and I am angry. Not with you but with those people that prevented me from helping. Believe me when I say that I am not done with those people yet."

He nodded.

Fortunately, he seems to be the kind of man who is quick to anger, but also quick to admit when he has been wrong in the past. Another thing that, when you find it, you should take the time to respect it.

I also resolved to take the time to talk to the good Guard Commander about whatever it was that was bothering him.

"So Commander," I turned to Syanna who was trying not to laugh. A bit unfairly if you ask me. "How can we help?"

"Simple really." She said, losing some of the formality. "Do we have a Jack problem or not?"

Kerrass snorted.

"There is definitely a Jack Problem." I told her. "But there are definitely arguments on both ends of the scale as to whether or not it's a supernatural one or not."

"What do you mean?" It would seem that Captain De La Tour, was back to being all business again.

"From the account that you have given me. There are several points that would show that Jack was here in all of his glory. The flashes, the little salutes, the supernatural, but limited speed. The staying just out of reach but still giving the chasers the impression that he could be caught if they just put their mind to it a little. All of those things would be hallmarks of the Jack entity."

"So it is Jack." De La Tour breathed.

"Mmm Maybe." I told him. "The problem being that there are several ways that, everything you told me, could be replicated by someone who isn't Jack."

"In what way?" Sir Guillaume asked.

"Off the top of my head? Training. Magic of the more normal kind. Proper scouting and planning."

"Alchemy." Kerrass put in as he scratched his nose. "Some of those feats could also be performed by a Witcher or some of the other more humanoid creatures."

"Such as?"

"Vampires for one." Ariadne said. "I might have forgiven the Knight Commander for her actions regarding Dettlaff, but it is more than likely that many will not agree with me. Especially those that might have worked with, or for Dettlaff in the past. They might have heard of Jack and seek to emulate that in order to obscure their own presence."

De La Tour seemed to relax a little before tensing slightly and differently, more towards the shoulders now.

"But that shouldn't be a sole prognosis." Kerrass said. "Any number of shapeshifters could do all of those things. A Doppler, for instance, although if that were the case then I would suggest that the Doppler in question is being coerced in some way. Rape and Murder goes against what Dopplers believe in."

"There are exceptions to that though aren't there?" Syanna wondered.

"There are always exceptions." Kerrass told her. "Also Incubi?"

"What are they?" Sir Guillaume asked.

"The Male side of the Succubi species." Kerrass told him. "Much rarer, much more solitary. Where a Succubus thrives on multiple partners, Incubi stay with one, generally female, partner until that partner dies. Typically of old age and physical exhaustion with a smile on their faces. Then the Incubus moves on. No-one knows how you get new Succubi or Incubi. But they could do what you describe."

Kerrass stroked his chin.

"I find it particularly interesting that no-one has yet heard this Jack like figure speak yet. That might tell us something." Kerrass folded his arms.

"Why?" Syanna wondered.

"Freddie can tell you more on that."

Everyone turned back to me. Kerrass had been calling everyone's attention to him so that they wouldn't see that I was having a little shake and a little panic after the small confrontation with De La Tour.

"The thing you have to remember about Jack." I told the room. "Is that Jack is a creature of habit." I sighed and turned to Ariadne. "Is there any way that you can check how Laurlen is getting on with bringing my book?"

She nodded and a vacant look came into her eyes.

"She has just arrived back in Beauclair and is on her way now. Maybe ten minutes?"

I nodded.

"Obviously I have more questions." I told the room. "And I would be stunned if Kerrass and Ariadne don't have a similar number of questions. But there is a Jack problem here."

Syanna and De La Tour nodded. Guillaume shifted a little.

"I think that there are three possibilities here." I went on. "The first possibility is that Jack is here in all his power and all his glory for reasons of his own.

"The second is that the same thing is happening here that happened last time. Elements of Jack's power have been infused in someone. Whether deliberately, accidentally, willingly or by force and that that person is rampaging. There could be any number of reasons as to how or why this has come about. But gut feeling, I think that this is the least likely scenario. I can't confirm that though."

There was more nodding.

"The third possibility is that there is a copycat out there somewhere. Monster, mage, trained or other in order to be able to do the things that you describe."

"How do we tell the difference?" Not an unreasonable question from Syanna.

"We identify the pattern." I told them. "As I say, the thing about Jack is that he is a creature of habit. He has rules and laws that he chooses in advance and he sticks by them to the utter degree. He will not deviate from them at all."

"What do you mean?" De La Tour asked.

"Jack is a nigh Godlike entity." I told him. "I am not exaggerating in that. One of the things that you have to remember is that, in the closing stages of Francesca's disappearance..." my fists clenched involuntarily and I had to squeeze my eyes shut as an image of Francesca hugging me ripped through my brain.

"In the closing stages of that." I began again, only a heartbeat or two had passed. "Lady Yennefer performed a summoning ritual. That ritual is one of the most powerful rituals of it's type. It was dangerous and there was all kinds of things put in place to prevent Jack from escaping when he turned up. It's the kind of thing that is used to summon Djinn, Hym, Elemental spirits and all of the other different kinds of things that people mistake as being called Demons. The ritual was, technically, illegal and was only performed after permission was sought and granted by the Empress herself as it was one of those instances where the knowledge would be used for the good of the state rather than the good of the individual."

There was more nodding.

"That ritual was keyed to Jack and was the most powerful ritual of it's kind. It was performed in a place of power."

De La Tour frowned in question.

"A mystical convergence of the lines of force." Ariadne had seen the frown too. "A place where a Mage could feasibly draw more power and make their rituals or spells all the more powerful."

"I see." De La Tour nodded.

"It was performed by one of the most powerful Sorceresses on the Continent." I went on. "Something that even Lady Vigo and Lady Eilhart would agree. Not least because she defied the Lodge on several occasions and survived."

"I wouldn't want to fight her," Ariadne put in. "And I've been practising my craft for over nine-hundred years."

Syanna and De La Tour took that in.

"All of this was in place and Jack found it funny." I told them. "He took me from that ritual circle and moved me between worlds. A feat that was confirmed by the Empress as she recognised the place to which I had been taken. He brought me to him. According to Lady Yennefer's work on the subject, Power and refinement on that scale is the kind of thing that they teach apprentices in Ban Ard and Aretuza, simply doesn't exist. It's the kind of power that people ascribe to Gods and Goddesses. If Jack wanted us dead. We would be dead. He wouldn't even blink at the matter.

"The reason why he doesn't is because of the rules."

"What rules?"

I laughed. "Unfortunately, they change according to the mood that he's in at the time."

Syanna laughed. "If he wasn't so terrifying, I do believe that I would like him."

I winced a little. "I would be lying if I said that he wasn't likeable. Terrifying, but likeable certainly."

"So why are there rules?" Syanna asked after the short burst of chuckling that came after that.

"Jack sees himself as having a purpose. How true that is is unknown as that same purpose seems largely self-appointed. He sees it as his job to remind people that there are dangers out there. He has described it as being the fear in the darkness, the fear of the unknown. He would claim that this fear is vital because without fear of the unknown then we wouldn't be cautious. But that is his job, his task and his purpose. It is his entire reason for being.

"He once told me that when primitive humans huddled in caves and told each other stories about the thing that waited in the darkness. The thing that they were talking about, was him. He is the unknown thief and assassin watching the house that makes people lock and bar their doors and windows. He is the thief, rapist and murderer that waits down the dark alleyways that mean that people walk home at night in groups, down the well lit avenues. He is the enemy soldier that makes generals post proper sentries. He is the monster or bandit that waits in the woods off the side of the road.

"He is the reason that you never, ever leave the path."

Syanna and De La Tour absorbed that in silence.

"So that's what he does. Periodically, when people are becoming that little bit too arrogant, that little bit too confident for their own good, then Jack will appear. He will then kill five or six vulnerable people, most often women or children, and then he will leave while officials and law enforcement are scrambling to catch him."

"With all respect to him," Syanna said carefully. "How can you tell him apart from any number of other similar murderers?"

"There are several signs to look for." I answered. "The first is that he obeys the rules of the time and place that he is in. So for this world, he would be happy to use certain tricks of a magical nature. He would be a skilled swordsman. It has to be believable that he could be an ordinary man. Even if his capabilities are extraordinary.

"He has a type of victim. Chosen at random in advance... Ah, here we go."

The doors to the room opened and Syanna's new page showed Laurelen in. She was carrying a large book with wooden covers and a red leather spine. She came over with a slight smile.

"The unedited reference version." She told me. "As ordered."

"Thank you." I told her with an answering smile.

"It should be said," she commented. "That I had to club your publisher over the head with it and run before he would let it out of his sight."

"I can imagine." I chuckled. My publisher is of the view that as soon as the words are delivered to him. Then they belong to him. Therefore, any book that he prints, belongs to him and he only grudgingly sends any royalties or author's copies to his writers. Having said that, he is scrupulously fair and I've never had a problem with him. I am told that this makes me lucky in my publisher.

There was an awkward moment.

"Well I should be getting back." She said turning for the door and I watched her go.

"Give me a minute." I told the room.

"Lord Frederick."

"Just a minute." I chased after Laurelen who was just on the landing outside as I caught her.

"Listen," I began... and completely forgot what I was going to say.

She stared at me with amusement in her smile and sadness in her eyes.

"It's alright Freddie." She told me. "I agreed with Emma and Mark." She shrugged. "We were wrong. You still look a little weak to my eyes, but you seem better than you have since Yule." Her smile retreated a little.

"I feel better." I admitted. "Something to get my teeth into."

"I know." She sighed and rubbed her brow. "I can't speak for Mark. But your sister loves you Freddie. Very much. She lives in terror of losing you before your time, given your life path and choices. She just wants to protect you."

"I know." I echoed her. "And that's why I'm not screaming and shouting. But even knowing me a little bit would tell all of you that this would be how I would react."

"I know that too. And although I knew what was going to happen and warned Emma that that would be the case... We did it anyway."

"And that's what's pissing me off." I told her, feeling my own rise in anger before sighing to try and dismiss it. "Look after her though, would you?"

"I will do my best."

There was another awkward pause.

"Do you need a hug?" I asked.

She laughed. "I thought I was supposed to be the one comforting you."

"eh." I shrugged.

"Then I will take a hug." She said.

I hugged her tight for a moment before we both turned away.

"So as I was saying," I went back in towards the book. "Whenever Jack decides to manifest. He will deliberately choose a type of victim. Our supposition is that it gives the authorities a kind of hope, for him, Jack, to dash. When he was the Temerian Strangler," I opened to the correct page. "He would choose young couples that were out courting. As was the fashion at the time, the boy would escort the girl home to their place of residence. Then, just after the girl had entered the home, Jack would appear and strangle the boy to death with a braided silken rope in view of the girl looking out the window. That time, there were five deaths before the killings stopped and it is also why Temerian casual male fashion has high, stiff collared coats and shirts."

I turned a page.

"He also manifested in Ban Ard very shortly after the University was founded. His target there was first year lecturers. He would wait until the Professor in question had served at the place of learning for a year and then they would turn up dead with their hearts carved out with a bladed weapon and a strange rune carved into their forehead. He killed four victims that time and it nearly brought the nascent university to it's knees. There were rumours for a long time that Oxenfurt arranged for the matter to take place given the rivalry between the two schools, but that was... dispproved."

"What was the significance of the rune?" Sir Guillaume asked.

"Hmm? Oh, there wasn't any. It was just a weird symbol. As far as we can tell, it has never been used before or since. It has the same mystical significance of a the splattered shape of a squashed fly."

"Are you sure?"

"The Lodge of Sorceress say so. As does the Hugh-Priestess of Melitele and the leader of the Druids in Skellige." I told him.

"Why so few victims?" De La Tour was frowning. "For a Godlike entity, he seems to have limited himself to extreme levels."

"We don't know," I told him. "But the theory is this. We hypothesise that he kills enough to make it clear that the authorities will not catch him and cannot catch him. He gives them a type of person for them to protect. The new Professors, the courting couples. Then he vanishes, leaving people thinking that he could still be out there and that there's nothing that they can do to stop him."

"Lovely."

"Another sign of Jack's presence is the presence of the name "Jack". No matter where he goes or what he ends up doing, the name of the anonymous predator is always some form of Jack." I turned the page. "Using the previous examples. The Temerian strangler was nicknamed "Dancing Jack." After his habit of doing a little jig in order to taunt the people coming after him. The Ban Ard example was called "Stupid Jack" by those who were trying to belittle the effect he was having on the locals. Until the man who called him that was the last victim.

"This goes on and on as well. Your own Jack was called Laughing Jack due to his laughter as a taunt. When he was in Oxenfurt in order to deal with some copycats, he was called Jumping Jack due to his ability to leap tall buildings and literally jump across the river when his capture seemed inevitable. So that would be something to address. In the gossip or taverns or signposts. Are people starting to refer to this killer as Jack yet?"

"Why "Jack"?" Syanna wondered.

"No-one knows. Least of all him. According to him, he actually hates it. He would prefer to be more anonymous and faceless."

"Interesting."

"It seems that this often comes about because of local concerns. It would seem that, in an effort to reduce or even mitigate the fear that his presence generates, authorities and those people that are responsible for communicating things to the public, wish to define Jack. The first part in doing so is to give him a name, for better or for worse. Why that name is always some form of "Jack" we don't know."

Syanna grunted unhappily. "Gaspard." She called and the young page entered. "I want a message sent to my sister. She is to monitor announcements and rumours for use of the name "Jack." She is not to surpress it, but rather to get hold of it and find out where the name is coming from."

The young man nodded and bowed out of the room.

"Not a bad idea but I will admit that it's possibly a little pointless." De La Tour commented. "There are a lot of people who know that there is something out there that looks like Jack and people are already talking about that."

"I know." Syanna admitted. "But even that will tell us something. It will also tell if people are using the arrival of Jack in order to undermine other things."

"Valid point."

Syanna grinned. "What other similarities are there Lord Frederick?"

I thought for a moment. "As I say, Jack operates under a set of set of self-imposed rules. He sets them himself and does not deviate from them. We have identified this as a form of personal honour."

"Honour?" De La Tour was outraged. I didn't think it was at me directly but he was certainly angry. "Killing and raping women is honourable."

"We're not going to get into the argument of what is honourable and what is not." Syanna quickly overrode him. "That is a fun debate when I've had several glasses of wine and I'm dealing with courtiers, but I'm sure that we can all appreciate that that is a never-ending debate. You were saying, Lord Frederick."

"If honour is a self-imposed pattern of behaviour then yes, I think he is honourable. If he is delayed by someone and prevented from getting to his target, then he kills them quickly and cleanly. He does not allow them to suffer. If a person challenges him to some form of duel, then the duellist is often humiliated and scarred in some way, but frequently, that kind of display of courage and... well... honour, will result in the fighter surviving. Often with some kind of scar at best, or missing a limb at worst.

"He always salutes his opponents. Some people might say that he is tormenting and taunting his opponents but a salute is still a salute. These gestures appear genuine. Whether tipping his hat, bowing or saluting."

"Anything more practical?" De La Tour wondered.

"He always dresses the same way." I told them. "His suits and coats are of formal cut for the time and place that he is currently occupying. He would be able to walk into any ball and no-one would even notice. They are always black with an occasional inlay of red. However, there is always some kind of tunic of white on the torso. Sometimes it is just plain white, sometimes it is patterned to look like a rib-cage. Again, we don't know why.

"And he always, always, wears an absurd hat that resembles a chimney on top of his head. It's probably a long shot but there might be some mileage in finding out if anyone has ordered a formal black suit with white tunic from your tailors. The people of Toussaint like colour so it's not entirely out of the realms of possibility."

Once again, Gaspard was summoned, instructed and dismissed.

"How does any of this help us?" Syanna wanted to know. "I've no doubt that it does, but how does it help us?"

"As I say, the key is to identify a pattern. If it's just random killings of opportunity, then it isn't Jack. If there is a motive outside of that pattern, then it isn't Jack."

"What do you mean?" I was beginning to get sick of that question.

I checked the book index for the entry on copycats and turned to the relevent page. "Ah yes, here we go. There was an instance of a series of similar killings in the Hengfors league sixty years ago. Someone was killing courtesans and was doing their best to make the killings as gruesome as possible before extracting the hearts and leaving them in the hands of the victim. To all intents and purposes, these killings looked like a series of Jack killings.

"After some investigation though, it was discovered that the killer was one of the guardsmen for one of the Princes of the league. One of the Prostitutes had a bad case of the pox and had slept with the Prince who had since passed it onto the other ladies. Turned out that the Prince had ordered the killings to happen. The pox was a rare strain and as such, could be proven to be from him and if that had happened then he would have been disgraced in the eyes of his peers, his wife and his mistress. It would all get very political. And it did as well when the story came out."

"So if there is a connection between the victims that is not surface level... Then that would tell us that Jack is not our killer?" De La Tour asked. "And if it's anything else then we are dealing with some form of copycat?"

"Correct."

Silence fell for a moment. Then I was astonished as De La Tour started laughing. And I mean really going for it. Syanna turned to him after a moment, honestly worried which seemed to make him laugh all the harder.

"You make it sound so simple." He laughed.

Syanna joined him in a chuckle before, never one to do things by half, Guillaume's own laughter boomed out around the room like a roll of thunder.

We let the laughter go on for a while before it died down. Damien had to take a handkerchief out in order to mop his eyes. "Damn me." He said. "It's like knowing how the conjuring trick is done."

"Do you have any idea where to start?" Syanna asked me. "We've all been looking at this stuff for the last four days straight and my eyes are beginning to feel as though they're melting."

"This is where Kerrass steps in. He knows a lot of this stuff, even as he doesn't really know about a lot of the examples and he is twice the investigator I am." I told them.

"Selling yourself short again Freddie." Kerrass said. "But in this case, I think that it's a little obvious. The answer lies with... I forget her name. The Courtesan. Flower of the Night."

"Why?"

"Because the other three girls are... just that." Kerrass said. "Girls. Young, virginal, beautiful people. Probably virgins. Definitely so in one case. In all three cases, their virtue is protected and guarded, somewhat fiercely. In one case, the case of Miss Donnet, by themselves, but in the other two cases, by their father figures. So Flower of the Night is the odd one out. A respectable plyer of her trade I have no doubt. But she is no virgin."

"So it's not Jack then." The relief in De La Tour's voice was prominent. "There is a break in the pattern." He literally sagged in his chair.

"I'm sorry." Ariadne surprised us all by speaking up. "But there is a pattern."

She looked at the rest of us. "You're all thinking like men. You're all thinking in terms of descriptions and attributes that they all have in common. In what you see and in how they are described. The connection is in the behaviour that they exhibit and the choices they make.

"You cannot tell me, that a single, attractive bar maid in a tavern on the main road into and out of Beauclair, would be virginal for long unless she wanted to be. She was literally allowed to walk home by herself. Therefore I would suggest that she could walk to work and that few would note her passing. If she wanted to have a boyfriend, a paramour or some other kind of hidden lover somewhere. A woman like that? She would have had one."

Kerrass saw the pattern. "The same with Lady Marie I suppose. A spoiled girl like that. If she really put her foot down and decided that she wanted this boy or that girl to be her lover, or even fiancee. Then her father would soon acquiesce. I have no experience of the matter myself but I have seen that daughters tend to wrap their father's round their fingers rather easily. Especially younger daughters."

The atmosphere turned gloomy again.

"The pattern," Ariadne told us, "is not that these women were virginal. It was that these women had a habit of rejecting people. We know that Miss Donnet rejected all who came. We know that Miss Appoline was in the regular habit of turning away romantic advances."

"Flower of the Night kept her own books and was exclusive enough to choose her own clients." Kerrass agreed.

"And Lady Marie was steadfast in turning away all suitors and allowing no one suitor to gain a hold on her." De La Tour said. "So it is Jack."

There was some more silence.

"Speaking personally," I tried. "I think it's too early to try and say whether it's definitely Jack or not."

"But the supernatural abilities Lord Frederick." De La Tour began.

"Forgive me Captain." I began. "But I am well aware of the power of suggestion in the minds of people. In the same way that the people of the North saw strange eldritch monsters in the bodies of men with hooked, impractical, cruel weapons and strange, flapping cloaks. I would also suggest that your men see Jack in every shadow."

De La Tour really is not good at hiding his emotions.

"So," Guillaume spoke up. "It seems to me that the question is simple. Is this a revenge fuelled spate of murders by a madman who has been spurned too many times and has finally cracked. Only to summon or communicate with something that is beyond his capabilities for powers that we cannot imagine."

"Jack doesn't make deals for this kind of thing." I said. "Speaking from personal experience, he cannot be summoned and what would he make a deal for."

"He dealt with you." Syanna argued.

"For the fun of it. Because he found it funny at the time. You don't summon something like Jack. You run from it. I've gone over that ritual so many times, the ritual and everything that came with it. The fact that I survived with my body intact, let alone my sanity..."

"Which is dubious." Kerrass muttered.

"... Is a minor miracle." I finished.

"Is it possible though?" Guillaume was insistent. "Could someone summon Jack and get him to do something. Persuade him or..."

I sighed. "It's possible I suppose. But extremely unlikely."

He nodded.

"But its still a simple question." He said. "It's a madman who has been spurned by all four women who is on a rampage. Whether fuelled by vengeance, madness, opportunity or whatever. Or it's Jack in one of the many ways that he manifests."

"That would seem to be the case." Syanna agreed.

"Excellent." Guillaume bounded to his feet. "Then the solution is simple. We approach the friends and family of each lady and get lists of the people that they have rejected. We bring all four lists into one place and see which people they all have in common. If there is no-one, it is Jack and we can start worrying about that. If there is someone then he is our suspect."

He looked around us all.

"As plans go." Kerrass began. "I've heard worse. Often from Freddie."

"I still think that Kerrass was right. Flower of the Night is the loose link in the chain." I said as we all started standing up. I tugged on the collar of my shirt again. The cloak had helped but I was still uncomfortable.

"More than likely." Kerrass agreed. "If only because her madam, Madame Isabelle was it?"

De La Tour nodded.

"Madame Isabelle is more likely to have kept notes." Kerrass finished.

"I would be interested in knowing who it was that attacked Lady Marie that caused her father to start sending guards with her wherever she went." I added.

"That too."

"Right." Syanna said, taking charge. "It's mid afternoon now. May we assume that your party is coming with us Lord Frederick?"

I nodded. "It seems easier. I am in this now and as has been made clear, we come as a trio. It seems easier to do it that way rather than you trailing up to the palace or back here to ask me, or us, questions about this or that when you find something. Or don't find something. Or whatever, and want to know if it's a valid point."

Syanna nodded. "Guillaume, you know the people to ask so I'm sending you to Fox's hollow. Find a list of people that Miss Donnet spurned. Do it confidentially though. The rest of us will stop at the Cockatrice and ask the same questions as we would need to go over the bridge to get to Beauclair anyway."

"I, too, would rather stay at Lord Frederick's side." Guillaume said unhappily. "I rather feel that I owe him."

"I think we can manage." Syanna smiled at him. "Catch us up from Fox Hollow, we are likely to be at the Cockatrice for some time as I would imagine that Master Kerrass will want to examine the ground."

Kerrass nodded.

"If we've already gone." We will have gone onto the Belles first to catch Madam Isabelle before they get busy, presuming they open tonight, and then moving onto Lord Trastamara at his Beauclair residence. But I would be confident you can catch us before then."

Guillaume nodded. "Then I shall arm myself and set off directly." So he said, before putting actions to words and marching from the room.

"He does cut to the heart of the matter." Kerrass commented.

"Guillaume is many things." Syanna said. "But there is no-one better at cutting through the bullshit. Apparently, his wife regularly takes matters of court to him to get him to boil it down to simple speech, down to the basics of the issues. Guillaume would never admit it, or even be aware of it really, but he is far more clever than he puts on and the pair of them make a formidable team."

De La Tour grunted his agreement. "That pair are going to shape Toussaint one day."

"Not if I get there first." Syanna argued, winking slyly at De La Tour.

We were all climbing to our feet and sorting out our clothing. De La Tour and Syanna were straightening sword belts while Kerrass reattached his own sword harness.

"Before we set off Knight Commander?" Kerrass began. "Is there somewhere more private for Freddie to change?"

"What?" I like to think that I didn't look entirely stupid as I exclaimed that. But I would be lying to myself and to all the people reading this.

"You can't go out into travelling taverns and speaking to people who work for a living, looking like that. I mean, come on Freddie. You look ridiculous."

It's strange how the senses work. It's also strange as to how you can get used to the most bizarre things. It had been made clear to me when we were setting off to come to Toussaint, that we would be given clothes for the many parties and entertainments that we were expecting to be part of. This as part of our status as "honoured guests".

As honoured guests, Emma had been very firm in telling me that we were expected to wear these, doubtlessly very expensive gifts so as to not insult the Duchess. That one time where Emma and Mark had gone to dinner in the reserved clothing of the North not withstanding.

So as a result, I had become used to the strange colourings and the eye-watering colour combinations that Toussaint preferred. I had sweated into silks that I wouldn't have dreamed of wearing to even the fanciest parties in the North and I had blewn my nose into a scrap of cloth that was probably worth more than a considerable amount of my wardrobe.

And I had become used to it.

The common folk of Toussaint were a little more subdued. They dressed practically more than fancily. They still wore a little less clothing than we do in the North due, I think, to the hotter weather in the South. And they aspired to the fancier clothing and brighter colours that the nobility wore. But even so, Kerrass' point was not invalid.

Up until that point, I had been wearing a White shirt with a bright red tunic with golden patterning on it which had been picked out with various small jewels. My trousers, although made for the warmth, were a deeper, almost forest green and the cloak that Kerrass had already taken off me had been tailored to my shape in such a way that it meant that it showed off these, otherwise dubious, colour choices.

Syanna looked at me and smirked. "I had not thought of that before. Very well, we shall wait outside. I suppose you are prepared."

"As a matter of fact I am." Kerrass said to me, pulling out my old shirts and leather armour from his bags.

"Armour as well Kerrass?" Ariadne wondered. I couldn't quite tell if she approved of Kerrass' decisions.

"We are going out there." Kerrass began, "into a place where people are already angry with Freddie for not helping when he had first been asked. You know, and I know, that he had nothing to do with that. But will the average man on the street? Also, we're hunting, at best, a skilled fighter who is pretending to be Jack."

He lay the armour out with a flourish.

"I'm wearing my armour and not the ridiculously showy thing that I've worn to a couple of feasts. I would say that you need armour as well, but then..."

"Elder Vampire." Ariadne nodded, agreeing. "Then I shall wait outside in order ot preserve Freddie's modesty."

"Thanks for that." I told her, pulling off my boots.

The feeling of being in my old clothing, the travelling clothing that I had worn and had been adding to since I had first set out on the journey with Kerrass. It was...

It was special.

It was like... Ok.

You know that feeling where it is really cold and you're about to crawl into bed. Even if there's a fire in your room, you take your boots off and the rest of your clothes. But then you crawl under your familiar blankets and wrap them around yourself, maybe to have a nice little wriggle as you burrow further in. That comfortable feeling of returning to a homely place where you feel safe and warm.

It was like that. My old cream coloured shirt with some of the stains that no amount of cleaning have ever quite been able to get rid of. My leather trousers that have been patched several times. The leather coat, actually the newest addition to my ensemble as it was made from sealskin from the Skelligan isles. Leaving it with a patchwork between brown to a deep, almost blue, shade of black.

My wrist bracers were the oldest. Hardened boiled leather with metal reinforcements. I had bought these particular bracers in the winter after my first year on the road. I had had them made to special order, to fit me and only me and they all but guardeneed that anything short of a direct blow with a heavy blade or axe, then I would still have my hand attached. I might have a broken wrist. No armour is absolutely effective against all possible things, but Kerrass had advised that the biggest danger to a spear fighter was the glancing blows against the forearms.

Everybody has particular items that they insist on. Things that they cannot do with out. Where they will buy the best possible items, damn the expense. I would settle for any different kinds of shirts, a cloak needs to be waterproof first, warm second although they often go hand in hand, while the ability to look good and stylish are a distant way down the list. Trousers are the same. But there are two areas that I will never scrimp on. Two areas where I will go to the best makers and manufacturers that I can find, be measured, poked, prodded and spare no expense.

The first is boots. There was a reason that I had insisted on making sure that I had worn my own boots to come out here, even with all the rest of the gaudy stuff. I don't care about dyes or colouring. Shoes are fine for parties or dinners or things. But a good, comfortable pair of boots are worth more than their weight in gold.

Take it from a man who has suffered through walking around in shitty boots.

The other area that I will not scrimp on is wristguards. There are a few nightmares in my life regarding physical injury. There are the obvious ones such as the loss of sight or the loss of genitalia. I mean those are the things that everyone is afraid of, I don't care that they might claim otherwise. The genitalia one is just one of those primal things for me, as it is for most men I would imagine. The sight one is also pretty obvious. But my other nightmare is the loss of a hand. How could I work without a hand. I mean, yes, I am dominent with my right hand so there is that. But I use both for reading. My left hand steadies paper, quills and inks. I couldn't fight without one hand which means that I need both hands to be able to defend myself. Eating, drinking and touching the people that I love. None of which I could do without both hands. Not properly anyway.

Losing my right hand... well that just doesn't bear thinking about. I literally just shuddered as I tried.

So wristguards are a vital piece of equipment. Kerrass feels similarly about swords and the other tools of his trade. For obvious reasons. He shares my thoughts on boots but he would add that a properly tailored and chosen sword belt or weapons harness in order to be able to carry everything that you need. Something that will sit right on your body without cutting into any parts of you. That won't be too tight, or shift around too much when you move. That won't cut of circulation while still holding everything that you need in the right places so that you can get at it at a moments notice.

I must say that he has a point about this too. The only things I really need at a moments notice are my weapons or my eating knife. The tools of my trade are often in a pack somwhere, so it's only my money pouch and tinder box that are on my person at all times.

And my method of contacting Ariadne of course. That doesn't leave my person and no, lesson learned, I'm still not going to tell anyone where I keep it.

Or what it is.

So I dressed in my more familiar shirt, trousers and armour. It felt a little odd but it was a familiar oddness. I recognised it. It was the oddness of setting out after a long period. I had felt the same after that first winter and after all those times where I had had an enforced delay in the journey but had strapped myself in and gotten on with things again.

I felt better.

More comfortable.

I had changed shape a bit. Lost some of the muscle in my shoulders and arms but I was confident that I could get that back in the spring when the weather brightened up and allowed me to exercise more. The same with the fact that I had put some weight onto my legs and around my stomach. Small changes. The rich food of Toussaint, warring with the weeks where I hadn't been eating properly in the middle of the depths of illness.

I kept my dagger where it was though. Wearing a sword is still a matter of status and for now, a dagger would suffice.

Kerrass bundled up the other clothes, again with an attitude of utter carelessness. Just rolling them up and jamming them into the bags that had transported my travelling gear while I was finishing pulling my leather hood into place.

A good hood falls into the middle. Not as important as boots or wrist guards but more important than trousers. A good, properly cured, light archers hood will keep the rain and sun of your head while keeping you warm in winter and cool in summer. You just have to be careful to keep from falling too far forwards and covering your vision, or falling too far back and not doing what it's supposed to.

When I left the room, Syanna didn't notice. De La Tour's eyebrows lifted a little while Ariadne walked over to me, looking me up and down.

"I thought so." She said as she brushed something from my chest before she stepped backwards and examined me with an odd expression in her eye. Then she did the most Ariadne thing that I could think of. She realised something and frowned as she tried to assess the thought that she had had and examine it from all angles. Then she dismissed it so that she could take it out and look at it later.

Then she nodded to herself.

"Very well." She told me in her matter of fact voice. "You once told me that, one day, you actively desire me to bring the Evil Queen dress, persona and things into the bedroom for our mutual pleasure."

"I did."

She nodded, not changing expression. "One day." She told me carefully. "When all of this is over. I am going to have you wear this for me. Adventurous Freddie is something that... does things to me."

Again, the reactions of the other people told me a lot. De La Tour reddened in embarrassment. Syanna laughed aloud.

Kerrass remained impassive and looked unsurprised.

"I might even." Ariadne went further. "have to arrange something where I could be rescued by adventurous Freddie and seek to reward you for your gallant efforts."

She considered this thought for a moment as though she was deciding whether or not there was anything else she needed to say. Then she nodded as though she was satisfied before she firmly took my hand and we moved out of the building.

Syanna followed, not bothering to hide her amusement.

We left the building, pushing through the throng who were a little bit more subdued than they had been when we arrived. Leaving me to think that they had been putting on some kind of show. Our horses were brought out for us and I swung into the saddle. A move which I had performed hundreds of times before and will, doubtlessly do many more times yet in the future before the world comes to it's end. But this time the horse shyed away from me. Much to Kerrass' amusement.

"It's not used to this new, more confident Freddie." He told me. "Be scared, nervous and frightened."

"Fuck off Kerrass." I sighed as I finally got in the saddle. "Flame but I miss Cassie." referring to our own horses which were still up in Angral where we had left them for the winter.

"And I miss Baby." He agreed. "But I would still take my old saddle over this."

The banter lifted my spirits again, just a little bit. Distracting me from the fact that I was riding out again with my old armour on.

According to the grooms that Syanna was questioning. Sir Guillaume had armed himself with customary speed and had been riding out at the gallop earlier. As our little group rode out, we entertained ourselves for a bit with the theory that he was riding so fast in an effort to get out and get back with as much speed as possible.

"He is an odd duck." Syanna admitted. "I am grateful to him. Along with Lord Palmerin and Captain De La Tour. We would not have gotten as far as we have with the Knights of Saint Francesca if it hadn't been for Guillaume. In theory, he is everything about Knighthood that I hate. But he is brave and noble and caring. His temper is as huge as his sorrow after he does something wrong.

"He answers yes ma'am, no ma'am and no task is too big or too small for him to undertake. He has cleaned out stables, cooked, cleaned and sharpened weapons. His work in the fields was something to see as he laughed and joked with the men and the women next to him. Nothing was beneath him and in doing so he led by example and made it impossible for any of the others to complain at the way that we handled them and expected them to behave. I honestly believe that he would die for me and for the Knights but, I can't understand why."

"He is Toussaint." De La Tour answered. "He hates what Toussaint has become. Just as he can't see the problems with it. He longs for the old storybook ideal while also seeing all the flaws in that system. He longs for the old, but realises that the new is necessary. If the Knights Errant had had more men like him then none of this would have been necessary."

"Wouldn't it?" I wondered. "I get the impression that he was shocked into his current behaviour. He could have gone the other way really easily."

"The love of a good woman can do that to you I suppose." Syanna was thoughtful.

We moved off at a more leisurely trot into the middle of the afternoon. Moving past the workers in the fields

Something was bothering me and it was a while before I could figure out what it was. I moved my horse up so that I could ride next to Captain De La Tour.

"Captain?" I began carefully.

"Lord Frederick." His response was a little too formal for my taste.

"I thought I had been clear on this Damien." I tried. "Freddie, for friends and colleagues."

"I apologise... Freddie. I will do my best to remember." His face reddened a little for some reason that I couldn't quite identify.

"That's not what..." I struggled. "Look, are you alright. You seem... unhappy is the wrong word. You look... Fuck it."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise and, I hoped, amusement.

"You look." I took a deep breath. "You look as though you're on the edge of losing your temper, bursting into tears, flying into a rage and just riding off at a moments notice. If I shouted suddenly I would not place money on which of those things you would do. So I ask again, just as carefully, are you alright?"

"What?" He was appalled. "I... I'm fine of course."

"Yeah." I let the skepticism show in my voice. "I say exactly the same thing in exactly the same way when people ask me that question."

"Lord Frederick... Freddie. I assure you that I am quite well."

I stared at him for a long time. "One of the interesting things about travelling with a Witcher," I began. "Is that no matter how stoic he might like to think himself, sooner or later he will just start to talk. Sitting beside lonely camp fires while you are saving your money by not sleeping in inns and eating what they, laughingly, call stew. You set a few traps, drop a line into the stream to catch a fish and buy a couple of loaves of bread at the market. A bottle of something strong and throat searing from a passing peddlar and some turnips, carrots and wild garlic from the local fields and woodlands. Taken as tax for the last contract trying to cheat us out of some fair pay."

"Is there a point to this Lord Frederick."

"Hush. I'm getting to it." I told him. "All of that is the foundation of a good night on the road with a Witcher. You sit there, passing the bottle bacwards and forwards, listening to the trees and the water passing by and eventually, no matter how private a man he is, or how much he values his privacy. Eventually he will start to talk. Most of it is nonsense of course. Talk of politics, guessing about the characters and the appearance of people that we've never seen, let alone met. The less enlightened conversations along the lines of which of the Lodge of Sorceresses would be better in bed. Girlfriends and lovers past, present and hopefully future. Monsters that we've encountered, food that we've had, people that we've fought and beasts that we've run away from.

"But sometimes, in the middle of all of this, the Witcher will start to tell you about his process. It's not a one way street of course. Kerrass has taken some of my own investigative techniques from researching the history of places and has used them to great success on the path. But every so often, something will come out where you find out something useful. In this case, whether or not someone is lying."

Captain de La Tour's eyes boggled and he opened his mouth to start speaking but I refused and talked over him.

"It's a really useful skill." I said. "Especially in the profession of a Witcher. You come across all kinds of people who want to hid things. People who are getting rid of a troll because they want to mine the ore out of a troll's home. Women who want a Succubus killing because she is sleeping with their husbands despite the fact that they beat their husband with a broom handle and the Succubus is offering comfort and affection where there is none in the home. Men who refuse to accept that the reason that the wraith is actually the spirit of the girl that they spurned all that time ago. That refuse to believe that her death, as well as all the deaths that have come since then can be lain squarely at their feet.

"What's interesting though. Is that some people lie unconsciously. Because they themselves refuse to accept the truth, even when it is obvious to those arround them."

"Are you calling me a liar?" Damien asked, his face reddening again and his moustache twitching.

"No." I said. "Your eyes did. I asked what was wrong, a simple question and then, all of a sudden, for the brashest, most direct, honest man that I know. Except maybe Sir Guillaume. You paled before reddening. You started to sweat and then your eyes would not settle. They were darting around as you looked at nothing in particular. As though you were looking for answers that you could not recognise. Or if you were looking at memories that you could not classify."

He said nothing and seemed to calm. He was taking this better than I had when confronted with the same things.

"So I ask again. Are you alright?"

He twisted in his saddle to look behind him to where Syanna was gossiping with Ariadne about something.

"I am thinking that it is time to retire." He told me.

There are things that you expect to hear and then there are those other things...

"What?" I asked, rather stupidly. Even for me.

"This thing with Jack." He said slowly. "I think it's too much for me. I don't know what to do. I don't... It's too much. Give me a human opponent. Or a non-human and I can deal with that. I know how to fight that. Give me a group of smugglers that are trying to sneak Toussaint wines through the docks for lower prices, or sneak in Fisstech and narcotics through that same. I can deal with that. I know how to do that. A group of bandits in the woods. I know how to isolate them. I know what rewards to offer and what... things I should do. I know how to cordon off an area, scout out a location. I know how to cut off supplies and... How do you deal with something like Jack?"

He laughed and there was a brittle edge to the laughter. "Fuck Freddie. I even know about Centipedes and Kikkimores. What the fuck am I supposed to do about Jack?"

I stared at him. "Damien." I said. "Even at his worst, he will behave as a man."

"But he's not a man is he. He is... other than that."

Tears began to fall from his face. "And I thought we were supposed to be looking after you?"

"You are. But we look after each other. That's what it means." I sighed. "Where is this coming from Damien?"

"I just... I don't think I can do this. I would do anything for the Duchess. I would do anything for Toussaint. Dying is easy and is the very least of the things that I would be willing to do. I would kill for Toussaint. I would torture men for Toussaint to find out what they know. There is nothing that I wouldn't do for Toussaint but... I can't do this. The world is changing. When I started out on the path to knigthood, life was simple. Bandits were terrorising the village. There were insectoids in the fields. Giant man-eating plants. Boars and panthers and the like. Nothing too worrying. They were still things that you could fix by hitting it with your sword and stabbing it with a dagger. But now... We have vampires coming out of the mists. We have cults summoning sinister beings from other realms of existence and killers that laugh as they wield their swords with inhuman swiftness. Where armour is nothing to them and no matter where you go or what you do, they will always always find their way through to destroy us."

I let that die away for a moment after he had finished. The words echoing into the trees before I tried to let it down a bit.

"Not used to being afraid are you." I commented doing my best to add some dry humour to the matter.

He looked at me sharply.

"Look." I said. "This is what we are for. This is what Witchers are for especially. You said that you know how to deal with the giant caterpillars and the Kikkimores. Where did you learn to deal with that?"

"Lord Geralt taught me." He admitted after a moment. "I hated that man when he first arrived."

"I read the account as written by Professor Dandelion."

Damien smirked. "Be careful not to mention him in the Duchess' presence. I still think she holds a torch for that man."

We rode in silence for a while. Damien was obviously wrestling with his thoughts a little. He looked as though he was on the verge of panicing. So I tried something different. A different approach.

What would I want if I was in his place. Because I was becoming increasingly sure that what I was seeing was almost a mirror's image of some of the things that I had been through. So what would I need? What did I need to do? The danger was that I would very possibly drive him away and that was the last thing I wanted.

I found that I wanted to help him, that I needed to help him. So, time to work the problem. When had Damien stopped being the relatively genial man of action? Slightly overwhelmed by his surroundings but with just enough of an air to suggest that he was absolutely aware of what was going on. Just enough of an attitude that he was laughing at himself as much as everyone else was laughing at him.

Then he had changed. He was hiding behind honour and respect. He was on edge. Instead of the comfortable man who was at peace with the decisions that he made, at peace with the fact that there were certain lines that he could not cross and that there were always going to be jokes that he would not understand. That Syanna would always make jokes and he could escape by virtue of simply stomping off in a different direction.

He was... prickly. Sharp edges. Hard and brittle. The unfortunate thing about being hard and brittle is that there is always a danger that you could end up shattering.

So we were at that point where we were riding through the woods on the outside of the estate that housed the Knights of Saint Francesca. Kerrass was in front as was his habit. Damien and I were in the middle with Syanna and Ariadne bringing up the rear. My measurement for whether or not we're in danger is Kerrass. If we're in a risky area then Kerrass moves and rides a little differently. He crouches a little bit in the saddle as though he's ready to dive into the gallop or dismount at a moment's notice. He wasn't doing that. He was sat up, looking around himself in the manner of a man taking in the sights.

The ladies behind us were gossiping like old friends. Giggling about something. I know that it's increasingly fashionable to suggest that women don't giggle like that. But that would be a lie and we all know it.

But to look at Damien, he was darting glances about himself, his hand was constantly jerking towards the hilt of his sword as though he was getting ready to draw it.

He was afraid.

"What are you afraid of Captain?"

He eyes jerked up to my face.

"We're riding through, possibly, the safest place in Toussaint. The Knights of Saint Francesca are just a small cry away. We have a Witcher in front of us. A vampire behind us who could pull the spine out of just about any other threat on the road. The Knight Commander, whatever else we might think of her, has spent time living with bandits and knows woodland and undergrowth better than most. We are as safe as we are going to get. Alertness is one thing. But you're afraid. You actively seem as though you're afraid. So what are you afraid of?"

I don't honestly think anyone had ever asked him that before. He frowned and turned his gaze inwards. "I don't know. But I am aren't I." He shook his head. "All the more reason for me to retire."

"I don't think so." I told him. "All the more reason to move forward. Fear makes us cautious. Fear makes us careful. Once we understand what it is that we are afraid of. Once we know the risks and know what is going on in the world, then the fear goes away. Knowledge denies fear."

I gestured. "Kerrass taught me that. Fear is an instinctual process. It is born out of our primal and primitive past. But you and I are not primitive. We are educated men. So if we are afraid of something. Then we classify it. Quantify it and tame it.

"I was terrified of Ariadne when I first met her. And with good reason, even she will admit that. The Spider-Queen of Angraal is a figure of terrifying legend to the people in that corner of the world. They scare children to sleep with stories of the terrors that she inflicted on their people.

"Don't get me wrong. I am a historian and I know that history is written by the winners. So I knew that a lot of those stories would have been made up by those people that wanted to de-legitimize her rule. But even despite that. What she did was horrible.

"And she is an elder Vampire. One of the most powerful beings on the face of the Continent. And a Sorceress. I am a good, flame fearing man. She is everything that I was taught to fear. She is a monster and a magic user. She terrified me and it took everything in my power to just be able to spend time in the same room with her.

"So I had to work at it. Bit by bit I had to work at it to get over that fear. I started with education. I learnt everything I could about Vampires. I learnt about Bruxae, Alps, Katakans, Fleders, Nosferat, Garkain and Plumard. I hunted down books on every subject under the sun. Not that it's a competitive field but in the list of experts on Vampires, then I might come up in the top lists behind the remaining Witchers and the Vampires themselves of course.

"Knowledge defeats fear. So the next thing that got to me was the history of the lady herself. All history is written by the winners. We spent a lot of time dealing with that. Talking over the past events. What had happened, why it had happened and what that looked like. Neither she, nor I, will deny that some really dark shit went down back there and back then. Not least because Humans didn't know what Vampires were and Vampires didn't know what humans were. Learning that they were thinking and feeling beings like the rest of us and that they were thinking and feeling beings like the rest of them. That was tricky.

"So here we are.

"So since then it has been about the two of us getting used to each other. Not just our characters but also my bodies instinctive, bone deep terror of what she is. The bone deep fear of the predator that she is. But we have found that, once that has been taken into account. We can ride it out. That over time, my body and instincts will get used to her and then realise that there is nothing to fear from her. It is hard and we work on it all the time. It is the main reason that we are waiting to properly love each other physically. Yes, there are the societal problems of not doing things until marriage. Problems that we both need to address and live with. But there is also the dread of how my naked body is going to react in the presence of a naked vampire.

"The simple truth of the matter is that she isn't human and while my brain might accept that, my body struggles. But I'm getting better. Whereas when we first met, Kerrass had to bully me to spend time with her. Back when she was just a young unmarried woman and I was just a young, unmarried man. Before I had become famous and before she was even Countess. Back when my father was still the Baron, before Jack and Francesca and all of that. A young, pretty woman in a light dress and a young man in smart atire going for a walk in a garden.

"Possibly one of the most terrifying times in my life. And now I am marrying that woman."

I shook myself.

"But I have gotten off topic. What I am trying to say is that fear can be conquered. There is a trite little cliché here somewhere about how you can't be brave without fear. But you know that speech, probably better than I do. I can easily imagine a situation where you have been working with a young guardsman and had to deliver that speech. So why won't you take that advice on your own behalf. Why won't you cut yourself the same amount of slack as you would give one of those young guardsmen?

"What are you afraid of Captain?"

"I..." He shut down.

"Lets try it a different way. Work into it. Is this a thing that has been coming on for a while?"

He thought for a while before nodding.

"Ok. So when did it start. Work into the story. Work up to it."

We rode in silence until we reached the tree line. It was as though the pulled a lever somewhere in him and he took a deep breath.

"We thought that the beast of Beauclair was just a normal killer." He said. "A brutal one, a horrible one to be sure. People were complaining that they had seen something monstrous but, of course, we didn't believe them. I mean why would we? The problems of Toussaint were simple. Bandits were our issues at the time. Bandits, the insectoids that we hate and depend on at the same time, (Freddie: Apparently Kikkimores especially give something off in their secretions that interact with the soil in Toussaint to make the earth particularly good for growing grapes.). There were Slyzards up in the mountains and a few other flying things that meant that the bandit population was kept down. All of them were problems that could be cured by hitting them with various metallic implements."

We laughed.

"Then Geralt turned up. Milton de Peyrac Peyran and Palmerin de Launfal who were both at the height of their powers, had knowledge and experience of Lord Geralt from previous interactions. They arrived in all the pomp and glory of the Knights Errant at the time while Lord Geralt looked like a vagabond. He arrived and, on the spot, slew a giant. Guillaume will be able to tell you that story as he saw it. A giant that had been plaguing Toussaint for years, if not generations and Lord Geralt rides up and shoots it in the eye with a tiny little crossbow so that it falls dead at his feet.

"Then the bastard proceeds to figure out the patterns of the killings, all still in the first day of his arrival, before identifying who the next victim would be. He didn't save Sir Milton but he gave chase to the killer and fought with him which was more than the rest of us had managed. Me with the entirety of the city guard and the entire order of the Knights Errant put together. In one day, less even, Lord Geralt had made a mockery of everything that we had done.

"I hated him. He then went round, almost literally cleaning up Toussaint. He fought in the Tournament, lifting the curse from Lady Vivienne at the same time. His fight with Sir Gregoire was something to see. He was like nothing we've ever seen before. He just worked at it. He didn't boast about his actions or his deeds. He would just... do the job and move on.

"He got paid. No-one was going to say that he didn't charge for his services. But even that was against everything that we believed at the time. You don't charge for your services. You get rewarded by a grateful Duchess. Or a grateful... whoever it was that you have rescued. There was, at the time, literally an office in Beauclair that monitored the behaviour and actions of the various Knight Errants and the more work that they did, the more they got paid. The more bandit outposts, the more random monsters the more... The more people that they save. Word would get back to that office and then the knight would be rewarded in money, titles and song.

"Even that, the Witcher turned down. Taking the money instead and reinvesting it in the vinyard that the Duchess gifted him with. Which, in and of itself, was a scandal. On the grounds that Corvo Bianco is an ancient vinyard of old reputations and quality. To be given to an outlander and a filthy mutant as well. That was unheard of. Then the Witcher took that place and made a profit with it. It's more profitable now than it has ever been in the past. That says something. I'm not entirely sure what it says.

"He wins the tournament at the time. He rousts out the majority of the entrenched local bandit groups. He rids the heights of the Slyzards. And all the time he was doing that, his competence threw the rest of us into disarray as he showed us everything that we were doing wrong.

Then he started to get down to it. He found the plotters. Syanna said that her group waited for a while in the hope that the Witcher would leave and when he did not. They took some steps. Exploiting all the holes in our defences. All of the things that we took for granted. Things that we took for strength while Syanna knew them to be weaknesses.

Geralt found them. He found that the most famous and trusted vintner in the realm was selling off the most prized wine that we have, in order to make a bit of money on the side. He found a treason that none of the rest of us new about when another famous and powerful landowner was plotting against the Duchy. All of it under my nose and I hadn't seen it.

"He found everything. I had been forced to admit that he had arrived and more than earned the money and the rank that he had been given. Detllaff offered his ultimatum to us all and then... Geralt makes his recommendation to the Duchess and she... And she just... ignored him. Mocked him even.

"I remember that moment like it was yesterday. Dettlaff had given us three weeks to produce Syanna. I wanted to turn her over to him. Geralt recommended the same. Fuck, even Syanna wanted to talk to the vampire and was willing to die, if necessary, to prevent Dettlaff laying waste to Toussaint. She is different now, but even then, she loved Toussaint.

"But the Duchess made her decision and nothing that anyone would say would deter her. The only person that stood up to her was Lord Geralt. He was the only person that saw that and fought back and we nearly killed him for it. You ask Palmerin about it next time you see him. Palmerin nearly drew his blade on the Witcher in the Duchess' presence.

"I watched and I was appalled at the lack of respect that Geralt showed the Duchess. But then another realisation hit me. Geralt was right. He was the only person that was standing up to the Duchess. That showed respect, not scorn. I should have been the one to insist on that point. I should have been the one that insisted that Geralt was right and that we should do what the expert said.

But then, of course, the screaming started."

Damien didn't say anything for a while.

"That was the beginning of the night of the Long Fangs."

"When historians start to look back at this era of history they will say that Toussaint changed that night. A thing that had begun with the arrival of a Witcher named Geralt was solidified during the Night of the Long Fangs. That slow, inertia that was began with a professional showing us all what it was really like to be a professional at anything that came to a head that night.

"I had made my peace with Lord Geralt. I had accepted that he was, indeed, Lord Geralt and I had apologised, admitting to him that I had been wrong in my opinion of him. But I had not truly grasped what it was that I was wrong about until I went down into Beauclair that night."

We rode in silence for a while.

"The memories come at me in a jumble." He said. "I remember heat, horrible heat and that smell that can never quite be forgotten. Burning flesh that smells so much like roasting pork that it leaves you feeling hungry. I remember the smoke blotting out the stars and the leathery sounds of wings that beat with a horrible rhythm along with the drum beats of my men's boots striking the cobbled stones as we pounded over the bridge and into the city itself. All of that and it was nearly over before it began.

"In the opening moments, a Katakan slew two of the guard with a single swipe of it's claws. It didn't even notice the armour that it tore it's way through. Faster than a Witcher's blade and two men were dead.

"Another swipe of a claw and another man, a good man who had served at my side since the beginning was disembowled, screaming horribly as he held his own guts in his lap, frantically trying to fit them back in the tear that the Vampire had made.

"But the Duchess had ordered us down into the city and so it was that we went down into the city. I lost another man to a female Vampire. She just appeared behind him out of nowhere, naked and terrifying. She grapsed hold of his head and twisted before biting down into the exposed neck. I swear that he was still alive and looked at me with fear in his eyes as she began to drain the blood from his corpse.

"I actually managed to strike her. I actually managed to land steel to vapiric flesh. She certainly screamed but … I don't know, if she was human then I would have said that she screamed in shock and surprise more than pain. The kind of thing where some of the more uppity Knights are shocked that anyone would dare to strike out at them.

"She came at me then and for the first time in my life. The first time ever, I found myself retreating. I couldn't face this. Here was an enemy that I couldn't defeat by hitting it with my sword. That was the first time that I really felt what fear was. I have been afraid before, of course I have. To say otherwise is a ludicrous proposition. But it was always a fear that I could fight back against. Fear of someone bigger, more skilled or more... powerful than myself. Such fear is always overcome the same way. Step up, move properly and keep swinging. But here was a thing that I couldn't fight.

"But the strange thing was... I don't know why I'm telling you this. The really strange thing was that as I looked at her. A naked woman, maybe a few more ridges across her brows and some extra protrusions around her ribcage. Obviously elongated claws and teeth. But the strange thing was that as I stood there. Looking at this woman, covered in the blood of one of my men. I realised that she was beautiful. She screamed and all I could do was stand there. I froze. I think she smiled at me as she approached me which is when I got this."

He gestured at the claw makes that scar the side of his face.

"The way she moved, it might as well have been a lover's caress before she laughed and leapt off to cause more chaos."

He sighed.

"That moment rocked me to my soul. Lord Geralt would later tell me that the purpose of that night was to cause as much destruction as possible. Tying herself up with me and my men would not have fulfilled that goal and as such, she would have moved off to set more fires without really thinking about it. But that moment of terrified eroticism broke my mind. She laughed I remember before leaping off into the smoke and the flames that singed my brows and burned my throat. But I swear that, had someone not held me back, I would have gone after her.

"So, believe it or not Lord Frederick, I can absolutely understand your terror in the face of the monster that you love."

I grinned at him. "How did you survive?"

"My Sergeant saved me. He grabbed me and shook me. There were only four of us that had survived from my initial squad by that point. He decided that the Vampire had done something to me. Some kind of mezmerising power that had held me still. Some power that meant that I was still in her power.

"In all fairness, I don't actually know if that is true or not. I cannot bear to ask Lord Geralt as to whether or not vampires of that type have that kind of power. I don't know which was worse. The first option where I was not strong enough to throw off the Vampire's power or the alternative. That I was overcome by the raw, primal beauty and horror that I was enthralled by. I find I do not want to know the answer."

I closed my mouth, open from almost reflexively giving him that very answer.

"But my Sergeant took me in hand and dragged me away. There was a burning house where we broke down the door to get the family out and sent them to the palace. There was another street that was blocked by a burning wagon. Blocked by some of the more intelligent monsters to hem the people in. We linked up with another squad and tried to set up a bastion in the market square. It's almost a straight line from there to the palace and we rather thought of ourselves as some kind of beach-head. If we could keep the creatures out then we could be a rallying point for guard survivors as well as a central point for the people to get to and be directed towards safety.

"For a while, it seemed to work as well. I began to come back to my senses. We directed Crossbowmen to keep the roofs clear. We fought and even killed some of the monsters that I now know to be lesser forms of the vampires. The Fleders and the Plumards.

"And then the Katakan came. Smaller than a giant it was but more powerful. It hit harder, moved faster and had a primal intelligence behind it's eyes. It tore into us as though we were barely there. Crossbow bolts bounced off it's skin. Halbards glanced off it's back while swords and axe-blows barely slowed it down. And what injuries we could inflict on it did not seem to last as the skin started to close over those self-same injuries.

"Men were dying. Looking back, we had put everything in one place. We had been lulled into a false sense of security. Basic level tactics, we had been herded all together and now they were setting about destroying us with ease.

"I tried to lead them through the arch and back towards the palace. It was a retreat. I knew it and they knew it too. We were defeated by the monsters and there was nothing we could do to stop them. We go throught he arch and we some three more of the female... Bruxa I think they are called and I remember shuddering in terror.

"The bank was there, the Dwarf in charge, a detestable creature despite the fact that he saved us that day, opened his door and called us in. We stood there in the bank's entry way as the bank gaurds used their dwarven build crossbows to drive back the enemy. I don't think we killed the Katakan but we drove it back at least, in search of easier prey we think.

"The smoke was thick. My men were dying and I was shaking with the fear of the entire thing. We barricaded the doors, shuttered the windows and resolved that we would sell ourselves as dearly as possible. A ridiculous, childish oath. We could no more protect ourselves than a toddler could stand before a charging boar. But it was an oath given and we were determined.

"And then out of the smoke came the Witcher and I realised how awfully we had erred. He came with his silver sword in hand, pale from the potions that he had drunk and with his strange, bookish friend that the Duchess seemed to know so well. A man who had walked through the fires of Beauclair and didn't even seem to be armed. We saw him toss something aside which one of my men claimed to be the head of the Katakan before the pair of them, quite calmly actually, asked about Syanna's location. They gave us some advice about how to fight the vampires. Geralt left us some blade oil to help us fight and then he just... left.

"We manned the barricades, letting in the townsfolk that we could and when we felt confident enough, we made a break for the palace. But we soon found that it was all over by that point. Geralt had found Syanna and had taken her to confront Dettlaff and, surprisingly true to his word. Dettlaff called off his followers."

We rode in silence for a while. It was an interesting narrative to hear it coming from that perspective. I knew the story of course but the changing in the perspective seemed to make it new in some way.

"That was the night that taught us that there were some things that we simply could not control. Toussaint was polarised that night. There were two camps, two schools of thought. The first, which I belonged to, was that we needed to adjust our thinking. That Lord Geralt, Detlaff and Syanna, between them, had shown us that our society was not as... secure as we liked to believe it. That our people were not all guarenteed to be honourable. That the Knights had lost many of their virtues. That we had become arrogant and secure in our safety. In the belief that we could not possibly be betrayed. That monsters did not exist in the night and that the bandits were relatively small in number and easily dismissed and defeated when in actuality. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"We wanted change. We wanted to adjust things. It had been made clear to us that there were things out there that we could not conceive of. Magics that would destroy us as easily as breathing that a brave heart and a stout sword could not possibly hope to overcome. That we, as a society, needed to adapt or die.

"Unfortunately, we were in the minority. Men like Crawthorne, Morgan and the majority of the Knights Errant refused to believe that the problem was as deep as that. They had been outside of Beauclair at the time and although I will admit that they came back with all the speed that they could manage, they did not see it. They did not feel that fear. The fear that I live with every day.

"To them,... They wanted to believe that if they had been here then the Vampires would have been driven off. That it was the weakness of men like me and the weakness of my guards that meant that so many had died. They refused to admit what would have happened. It was that arrogance, the besetting sin of our people, that almost led to our destruction.

"I was demoted and moved aside. Those of us that I agreed with warned that it would happen again and again and again until we took steps to address these faults were all shuffled aside. Sir Guillaume and his wife, who had both seen it first hand, were made into ambassadors and left. Palmerin believed that the problem was in the scattering of the Knights Errant. There were just a few. Men who had seen Lord Geralt in action and we found ourselves assigned to border posts or, in my case, my duties were reduced to almost administrative ones. I paraded.

"But then it happened again didn't it." He sighed.

"Jack." I guessed.

"The very one. Another otherworldly, magical entity that made mockery of us. That didn't even bother tearing through armour. He simply found the gaps."

"Where were you the night of the Fish-Market?" I asked. "I don't remember seeing you there."

"I was part of the logistics." He told me with a sad smile. "It was my job to make sure that the people stayed inside. I had to announce the curfew and the Lockdown. I had led the customs searches for your sister and was preventing anyone from leaving. Important jobs to be sure but the Knights Errant wanted it all for themselves. They didn't want me, a jumped up, common-born, hedge Knight to take any of the glory. I read your assessment of what happened that night. The way that they were goaded into the position that they were in. That they had to reclaim their honour and that was all true. But they didn't want to win the new way. They wanted to win the old way. With shining armour and bright swords. With honour and courage. That was the thing that you missed. They needed to prove that the old way was still relevant. Was still valid and that they could keep Toussaint free and clear of the dangers of modern tactics."

"And then the Fish-Market happened.

"And then the Fish-Market happened. It is an unpopular opinion but I honestly believe that that night saved Toussaint. Twice, in short succession, the old ways failed us. The old ways lost your sister. As the Duchess says, to this day, they made a liar and an oathbreaker of the Duchess. And then, after we lost your sister, the fish market happened.

"Where was I? I was commanding the relief force. The Palace guard, the dock gaurds. We were all at the palace waiting to be given the orders to come forth. It was a theoretical position at best. There was no way that we were ever going to be called forth. We were the escorts of the physicians. We were the... gesture, to say that we actually had people like that.

"We all knew it too. The fighting elite of the Imperial Guard. The Witchers and the Knights Errant. If we had to go down there then we were all fucked anyway. We escorted the surgeons as we waited for news to come from the Lodge of Sorceresses. I listened as they told us what was happening. I waited off to one side. I sat and closed my eyes as I listened and I prayed.

"I have never prayed harder than I did that night. Never harder. I pray, there is no such thing as an Atheist in armour. But that night I prayed harder than I have ever prayed to anything. I prayed that I would not have to go down there into that cauldron of death as I listened to the news, the death toll rising. The court groaning with the news of every Knight Errant dead and the sheer number of Imperial casualties. I prayed that I would not go down there.

"I remember shaking with the fear. I had moved off so that people wouldn't see it. I was trembling, sweating underneath my armour. I kept seeing that Katakan coming through my men, with the crossbow bolts bouncing off it and the halbards being swatted away as if they were nothing. I kept seeing the horrible smile of the woman that haunts my dreams even today. Both the horrifying and erotic sort.

"And I prayed that I would not have to go down there.

"To this day, I am prepared to swear that I did not hear it when the news came down that the Witchers had caught him. I swear I didn't hear the order that it was all over and that our people were going to escort the surgeons and healers down to see what could be done.

"According to witnesses, I saluted smartly and marched out to follow orders. The first I remember of that night was when I stood in the Fish market and I wept. Both for the loss of life and because I had not been there for that. Whether those were tears of sorrow or tears of relief?... Again, that is something else that I simply do not know.

"And now Jack is back."

I was astonished as his voice shook. "I can't do that. I can't do it Freddie... I can't. The Long Fangs broke me. I can't go through another night like the Long Fangs and if I can't serve the Duchess in a time like that then I don't deserve to...

"What the fuck am I doing here Freddie?" He begged.

I sighed a little. "Believe it or not." I began carefully. "I am relieved."

"What?"

"Yeah. You've just proven that under the gruff manners and the steadfast expressions and the refusal to bend away from formality. You have just proven that you are human after all."

It was interesting to watch his face. I don't think he could decide whether to be angry or whether he should laugh.

"How do you really feel about the Knight Commander?" I asked. Yes I was distracting him. But also finding a way through to him.

In case you are wondering what I could possibly have been thinking of at the time. Specifically I was thinking about what Rickard and company told me when I was having a similar crisis in Northern Redania. Looking back it had been good advice, unfortunately, I hadn't taken it far enough but that was my problem not Damien's problem.

"What?" He looked shocked, as though I had slapped him. Which I had really, just not in the physical sense. "What has that got to do with anything?"

"How do you really feel about the Knight Commander?" I asked again. "This is just you and me here at the moment. Kerrass in front of us doesn't care. Ariadne is keeping the lady herself occupied so that she's not listening to us." I deliberately left out the part where I was pretty confident that Syanna knew more about how Damien felt than the good Captain did himself. "So how do you really feel?"

"I... I don't know."

"You know how she feels about you don't you?"

"Yes." He admitted. "She is hardly subtle. She rubs it in my face at every available opportunity. That, when she is not arguing with me about nothing in particular."

I grinned at him.

"Sounds like foreplay to me."

His eyes goggled, appalled at what I was suggesting.

"But seriously, how do you feel about that?"

"I... I hate her." The statement lacked in conviction.

"No you don't." I told him. "Not even remotely. I think you hate the idea of her."

"Now is hardly the time to be giving me advice on my romantic life. Lord Frederick."

I laughed at him.

"Why not?"

"We are hunting a murderer. I have just admitted how..." His words stopped. As though he had run into a wall.

"That's not what I'm doing." I told him gently before a thought crossed my mind. "Although, I will admit that most of the advice that I have ever received about my romantic life has happened in high stress situations. I mean, I literally met her when I was dying of the awful poison that was turning my insides into a paste. Even the advice that I am going to give you now, I was given when I was losing my mind in Northern Redania. Again, poisoned, running from combat to combat. On the edge of losing my mind. But that's not... Anyway."

I turned back to him.

"How do you feel about her. Really. What do you think of her?"

"I think she is is someone trying to be better." He told me. "I think she has been through a lot, but that doesn't excuse what she did."

"Forgive me Damien, but that last sounds like a rehearsed line. Like you say that to everyone who asks you about this kind of thing."

"She is... She is trying to be better. I feel... I feel sorry for her. She is fighting against the established order of things and no-one is helping her. But on any given day I don't know which Syanna I am dealing with. The refined, sharp, cutting lady of the court. Or the common woman with the crude wit that likes to drink heavily and get laid. I can't keep track of it and it's so... frustrating and..."

He petered out.

"Exciting?" I wondered. "Then why do you help her?"

"I am ordered to." He told me. The sternness of his rank re-surfacing to the fore. "The Duchess wants this to happen and it is my duty to see that through."

"I'm going to call you out on your bullshit again here, Captain." I beliberately used his title. "You are the Captain of the guard. You barely need to acknowledge each other's presence. But you help her at every step. And if you really hated her. You could also use your position and influence to make her life hell. You are the Captain of the guard, why are you not pushing to expand your influence. Guards like yours are often responsible for patrolling the roads, monitoring the borders, hunting bandits and isolating monsters. But you keep your men, almost rigidly, within their jurisdiction. It could almost be said that you are giving Syanna enough rope to hang herself with. But you are also supporting her in what she's doing. Why is that?"

"You are making me uncomfortable Sir." He said stiffly. "The Duchess wants her to succeed. I want her to succeed."

"Why?"

"Because she deserves to succeed. People mock her and tease her and put her down. But she has worked for this. None harder. She deserves it."

"You're proud of her." I accused.

"Yes I am." He admitted after a while.

I gave him a bit of a rest. We were riding through the woodland that surrounded the headquarters, waving to the Knight guarding the place as we went and emerging into the afternoon air. Turning our horses heads back the way that we had ridden that morning we rode easily. There was a new, more frantic atmosphere to the surrounding area. Kids were frantically having as much fun as possible before night began to fall. Adults were still working at the steady pace that only villagers and farmers are able to keep up for any particular length of time before slumping into exhaustion. But all the time that they were doing that, they watched the sun fall steadily and carefully. Measuring the distance between themselves and safety.

"People are afraid." Damien said. "Four deaths. I hate myself for saying it, but only four deaths and people are running for cover." Scorn and shame mixed in his voice.

"That is another sign that it might be Jack." I admitted. "It;'s not the number of deaths that is the problem. It is the fear that comes with it. It is that fear that is built upon by less scrupulous people to justify greater evils. To bring in controls that would otherwise be considered barbaric and tyrannical. Fear of a faceless, remorseless killer."

"But more people are killed by bandits every day."

"Yes. But then people lie, forgive me, people like you tell them that there are bandits in the woods and they accept that. They don't like it but they take that in. Bandits, everyone knows what bandits are. Several, grim, dirty, ugly men that steal and murder and pillage because they can't be bothered with any kind of real work.

"But Jack. Ah, Jack is the faceless Killer. What is he doing? Why is he doing it? Who is he? What is all this for? Will I be next? Will it be a friend of mine or a loved one or even someone that I don't like? Will it be that girl that I bought an apple off yesterday that smiled at me even though I didn't have the courage to ask her name. That is Jack. The mystery, the question that he poses. So even if he isn't there. Even though the chances of us being killed by him is, franky, so small as to be ludicrous. The mystery inspires the fear. The unknown is what terrifies us.

"That is the power of Jack. Even though, most frequently, he manifests as a man. An extraordinarily talented man to be sure. But a man nonetheless. Five deaths. Maybe six, and he will flee back into the imaginations of the people that he's terrified. And his impact will be felt for centuries to come."

"Do you think it's Jack this time?"

I sighed. I had been deliberately avoiding the question. "It's too early to tell. I'm a scholar and a historian. In this case, if it is Jack, then I am not his type. The worst that he can do to me is kill me in order to get to his target and I find that I am no longer afraid of that."

I chuckled. "Probably not the best way of looking at it all but there you go."

It was my turn to feel gloomy and reflect on what was happening to me. But this time, I saw it coming. I realised that I was descending into maudlin thoughts. I knew that I was brooding on illness, relationships with family and efforts to hurt myself and do myself a mischief. So I took the steps to force myself from that mental path.

"I think that you and Syanna are made for each other," I told him.

"What?"

"No, let me finish. I think that both of you are working your way into a centre, a centre that you share. You are the common born man, risen to knighthood. Everything that you have, you have had to work for. Your knighthood, the acceptance of your peers, your arms and your skills. Your deeds were hard fought and hard won. But that will never be enough. Not for your Duchess whom you love, nor for your fellows who will always look down upon you for your common birth.

"You are an intelligent man, even if your education might be lacking..." I held my hand up. "That is not an insult. Some of the cleverest people I know were lacking an education while some of the most mind-bendingly naive, ignorant and stupid people that I've ever met, had access to the best teachers in the face of the continent. You are intelligent but uneducated. Having said that, you are aware of the faults in your society. You can see the gaps and the arrogance and the way that people treat each other. Not least because you are one of the people that has been mistreated. So instead of serving Toussaint, the way it is, the nation that it is, you serve the ideal that is Toussaint.

"You serve that. The land of milk and honey. Where men are handsome, work hard and are noble of thought and deed. Where women are beautiful, also work hard and hold a Love in their hearts regardless of station or deed. You believe in the Knightly virtues and you can see how they would build a better place, even when so many people corrupt those virtues and try to turn the office of Knighthood into something that it is not.

"You see all of that and you work, you fight desperately for that Toussaint. The storybook ideal even though you know, in your heart of hearts, that Toussaint can never be that Toussaint. But by the Gods you intend to work as hard as you can to make sure that it is as close to that as it ever can be."

I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes. He was taking it in and could obviously agree with a lot of what I was saying otherwise he would have rebelled against it by now.

"Now let's look at Syanna. She is everything that you are not with one exception that we will get to. She is nobly born. Indeed, she is born higher than anyone else can be in Toussaint. She is educated, skilled and talented. She had a doting sister, servants and probably even paid for friends. She was surrounded by everything that Toussaint is supposed to be.

"And she hated it. I only know some of the official lines but my understanding was that she did everything that she could to act out. Knowing that she was the less popular child she soon realised that she was always going to come off worse against her sister and so she acted out more.

"I can relate to that.

"So eventually, she was thrown out. Beaten, probably raped and abused, by the very Knights that she had been taught to believe would come to her rescue. So she, too, sees the holes in Toussaint. She sees the gaps and the injustices and yes, she reacted like the angry child that she had been and yes, she made some catastrophic errors. What was that error?"

I pretended to consider even though I knew the answer.

"She loved a vampire and expected that vampire to react as though he was human. Now all of Toussaint, including you, hates her for everything that she is not. Despite all of this, she still loves Toussaint. She still wants the Knights to be the shining paragons of virtue. She, like you, still wants to believe that Toussaint can be what children all over the continent believe that Toussaint is. And she is fighting to make it that. Despite all the people that told her that she couldn't do it. That she shouldn't do it. The people that hate her for her part in the night of the Long Fangs. She is struggling to make Toussaint a better place. A place that she can be proud of.

"Because she, like you, is intelligent enough to know the difference. To see the difference and the huge gap between what Toussaint is and what Toussaint could, and should, be."

I stopped talking for a moment and took a breath before continuing.

"The two of you are working towards the same goal. When I first met the pair of you and she told me her plan of seducing you. I told her that you hated her. I was right too. Then she said that the thing that the two of you have in common is that you both Love Toussaint. That is because both of you are Toussaint and whether or not you like it. When you look at her, you see Toussaint. You see the Noble born woman who is persecuted and, she will hate me if she hears me say this, needs a bit of rescuing. From herself if not from any other. You see her and you see someone who is struggling to redeem herself. Someone who is working so very hard to be better and to make Toussaint better. What could be more Toussaint than that?

"And she looks at you and she sees the good and noble man. A Knight by virtue of action and deed rather than by right of blood or coin. A man who is devoted to his nation and his people. Who will go to any length to serve them both. Again, what could be more... Toussaint than that?

"And you both love Toussaint."

"Then why is she so cruel?" He wailed. A much more serious cry of despair and pain than he had given at the feast and I considered my answer.

"I used to think that I know very little about women." I told him. "And it's true. I do know nothing about women when they are romantically connected to me. But here?" I shrugged. "The answer is obvious sir. She loves you and thinks you are too good for her. She is trying to drive you away because she thinks she doesn't deserve you."

He gaped at me.

"I mean," I continued. "I don't know that. But I'm pretty sure I'm right. But even if that wasn't the case, and this is why I started talking to you like all of this in the first place. It's also the advice that a much wiser, much more experienced man than I am, gave me when I was distraught with everything that was happening."

"Kerrass?" He wondered.

"No. A Temerian man, knighted on the battlefied by Constable Natalis by the name of Rickard. Currently serving as the head of the Coulthard house guard. He told me this before he took that post. He is a good man and a good friend to me. Saved my life more times than I care to think. You'd hate him."

He grunted at that.

"He told me." He said. "That I needed to talk to someone. That I should talk to the woman that I love about my problems. I did and it brought Ariadne and I all the closer together. I already loved her and she me. But of all of the things that have nearly gone wrong for the pair of us. The problems have always come up that we didn't talk to each other about what was happening. But, inevitably, when I told her about the problems. All the ugliness that I felt and the horror that infested my mind. Then not only did she help me, not only did she advise and council and help to ease the problem. But she loved me all the more for it.

"So that's my advice. Talk to the lady. She is your friend as well as your colleague. I can tell, you snipe and bicker with each other but I guarentee that she would die for you and you feel the same. I can tell. Talk to her. Do it at a time when you are in private and she doesn't feel the need to perform for an audience. Fuck, do it now. I could do with some time with Ariadne anyway.

He looked me in the eye for a while. Then, abruptly and suddenly, he turned his horse and pulled alongside the two women, Ariande rode up beside me.

"Matchmaking Freddie?" She wondered.

"I like to see people together." I admitted.

"You're just an old fashioned romantic aren't you." She accused with a smile.

"And you love me for it."

"It's only one of the reasons that I love you." She told me as she looked back. "They have their heads together. They are talking quietly."

"I bet you the lead in our first dance that they beat us to the marriage bed." I told her.

"No bet."

We rode in silence for a bit longer, both of us desperately trying not to look behind us to see how the two of them were getting along.

"So who's your next target for coupling up?" Ariadne wondered.

"To be honest," I began carefully. "I have not been that successful in the past. So far my only success stories have been matchmaking Dr Shani with Sir Rickard. That went fairly well and mostly, that went well because I got Emma involved. The next target is the same as the first target. Back from when I first noticed my overt desire to see my friends and loved ones getting together."

"Kerrass and Princess Dorne?" Ariadne theorised.

"The very one." I agreed. "The problem being that Kerrass is the one that needs working on. She's already there. Already bought into it but Kerrass?" I shook my head.

"Don't worry about it." Ariadne said. "We put them in the same room together for a prolonged period of time at a suitably romantic juncture and let nature take it's course."

"When did you have in mind for that?"

"Our wedding of course. I have it all planned out."

"That's a little sinister my love. Not going to lie."

She shrugged. "But I think you are a little harsh on yourself. You have been successful in two other major situations in getting two other couples together."

"Oh?"

"Well first of all, you gently persuaded Jarl Helfdan to finally make his intentions plain to Queen Cerys."

"I had nothing to do with that." I told her. "I think it's much fairer to suggest that Svein and Hjallmar had that well in hand before I got anywhere near that."

"Once again, a little harsh on yourself."

"So who's the other couple?"

"Why you and I of course."

"I seem to remember having very little to do with that as well." I said after considering her words for a moment.

"It takes two to dance Freddie." She said. "And two to make a romance."

We rode for a while through the gently rolling farmland of Toussaint.

I have an almost overwhelming urge to wax poetic about the place. The drive to talk about rolling fields and little streams and rivers that feed into the greater one. Streams that move too fast to be able to properly freeze over. I want to talk about the way that the ice glittered in the weak sunlight and the way the ice seemed to hang in the air and shine.

But there are better poets and artists than I that have already done more than their fair share of making sure that the continent is already well aware of just how beautiful Toussaint is. We rode gently but with purpose. Mostly, we were taking our time so that Guillaume could catch up. But we soon came to the bridge that the Cockatrice is situated on.

The Cockatrice is a tavern that had been known to me from my previous visit to Toussaint as I had gone out her to get properly drunk a couple of times. It is a nice place and the drink is certainly palatable. It is as powerful and profitable as it is due to the fact that it's on one of the main bridges that takes you into Beauclair itself and as such, just about all travellers that come from the mountain passes that are coming to Toussaint and Beauclair with business have to go over that bridge.

There are plenty of other inns and taverns in Toussaint. Some of them have better food. Some others have better wine and beer. Some have better beds. Some few have all three but none would be able to say that they are in a better location. And speaking as a traveller myself, when you are coming in after a long journey with several nights spent by the side of the road, eating whatever you can catch for yourself and setting a watch for fear of bandits and monsters, you are not looking for much in the way of luxury. A clean bed, a cold beer, some hot food that you haven't had to cook for yourself, a kind word from a pretty barmaid, or barman if that's your taste, and a small gossip with the landlord. That's all you want and the Cockatrice provided all of that.

It's a rowdy place as well. Many of the field-workers go there before returning to their homes and it is one of those plaaces that epitomises the general rules of "work hard, play hard," that Toussaint feels so strongly.

But the one thing that it does have going for it is it's fish chowder. I'm not going to lie, that stuff is worth the price of admission in and of itself. The Barman claims that it is world famous and although I am a little convinced that he might have been exaggerating in that regard as I certainly don't think that the greater people of Zerrikania particularly care about the chowder in the relatively small Duch of Toussaint, it is certainly famous throughout the continent.

And it deserves that reputation.

The place also has something of a macabre reputation as the third victim of the beast of Beauclair was found entangled in the nets that are used to capture the fish that go into the chowder. There is a certain kind of person that is fascinated by that kind of thing and people come from all over the continent to see that and to see the place where the famed Monster Hunter, Geralt of Rivia, was forced to take action.

According to what I've been told, there is a steady stream of well-wishers, visitors and other tourists that make the trip up to Corvo Bianco to meet the man himself and to bask in his fame. To the point that the estate was forced to hire some guards to protect the place. Not from the visitors as you might think. But rather in order to protect the visitors from the temper of the Lady of the manor.

But I digress.

The Landlord of the Cockatrice has capitalised on the macabre nature of his inn and now runs tours. He has employed a minstrel who will do a tour of some of the more gruesome bits of history of Toussaint. Out of curiosity I went on one, long after the events that are depicted here and I found the minstrel to be so offensive and wrong that it was actually quite funny. He dressed in what children's puppet shows think of as being a vampire's costume and he spoke with a blatantly false but kind of sinister accent. He then led us round Beauclair showing the sights of the Beast's attacks as well as some of the, what he called, "Highlights," of the night of the Long fangs.

He also gave tours of the fishmarket and the sights of the Laughing Jack killings but he did so in such a laughably inept way that I found it funny rather than offensive.

The tour came to a conclusion at the sight of the killing beneath the Cockatrice where we were all then encouraged to go and have a drink and a bowl of the famous Chowder that had led to so grisly a fate.

I entertained myself for the entire thing by correcting historical inaccuracies. The Tour guide had an interesting response to this as he seemed to suggest with rolled yes and long-suffering sighs that I wasn't there and I couldn't possibly even begin to comprehend the levels of detail that this man was divulging to us.

But the beer was good, the chowder was delicious and the innkeeper was suitably mortified when I walked in and he recognised me.

But that late afternoon as we all trooped in, he didn't know me at all. We dismounted at the small stables where a groom came to look after the horses. I was still studiouly ignoring both Syanna and Damien's interactions with each other. I rather think that they were being professional and calm but as we trooped towards the entrance of the inn, Syanna walked next to me and gently pushed me with her shoulder. When I looked at her she just winked.

"Thank you." She mouthed.

I nodded as we reached the entrance to the inn.

I know that these essays, journals and articles are meant to be regarding Witchers. Or at least, that is how I have justified their existence to my publishers. It has been noted that they no longer, entirely, fulfill that function and that is a criticism that I am more than aware of. These works have become more... a series of travel journals where I recount the adventures that a person can get up to when you go travelling with a Witcher on the roads of the Continent.

I have also been accused of romanticising Witchers to a rather extreme amount and that is true. It has also been said that, as a result of my works, the tolerances for a Witcher have been increased and people are much more trusting and accepting of the tall men with yellow eyes and two swords than they ever were in the past.

This is incorrect. In more civilised lands then that might well be the case but in the average town or village, Witchers are still treated with, at best, distrust and disdain, while at worst, outright hatred.

I have lost count of the number of times that Kerrass and I have been told that our money is no good and that there was no room at taverns and inns which, even to my eyes, are falling down and deserted. We have had stones and dung and worse thrown at us to walk on past.

And it was in this attitude that I was unsurprised when we walked into the Cockatrice to ask the questions that we had. Syanna led us into the inn and the people there did that familiar dance of local people the continent over who see and hear strangers coming into what they see as their territory.

Talking stopped. People turned in their chairs to examine the newcomers, someone in the back of the room coughs. It's always the same no matter where you go. In those places where people are playing instruments in order to lead some kind of dance, there is normally a few, discordant sounds that signify the band coming to a halt, always ending in some kind noise that sounds like a fart.

Syanna acted like she didn't care. Just moving past us towards the bar. Damien lounged in the doorway while Ariadne was still coming in. The atmosphere was increasingly tense as someone shouted. "Finally taking this seriously are you, Bitch."

Syanna spun, eyes flashing. Damien stepped away from the door and it wasn't until this point that Kerrass stepped into the room. People actually called out to him and cheered his arrival. The returning cheer evaporated like a block of ice thrown into a furnace as Kerrass snarled at them.

"Did someone just insult my friend?" He asked quietly.

Instantly, on the spot, the atmosphere of the place changed.

"Master Kerrass." The innkeeper exclaimed happily. "We haven't seen you since..."

"That's not important." Kerrass hissed, his rage on display.

I know Kerrass well and I was perfectly aware that the anger was a pretense.

"Who insulted my friend?" He demanded and the inn's patrons flinched back. "We come here in an effort to stop the monster terrorising the countryside and this is the thanks we get."

"Master Kerrass, Master Kerrass, please forgive us. It is simply a matter that..."

Kerrass spun on the poor man.

"It is not me to whom you should be apologising." He said.

The innkeeper nodded. "Forgive me Ma'am." He turned and bowed low to Syanna. "The company still mourns the loss of our beloved Appoline. Please accept my humblest apologies. A bowl of Chowder and a cup of wine each?"

Syanna nodded. I don't think she cared really and would have let the matter drop. But when a person offers you a bowl of the Cockatrice' chowder. You say yes.

The innkeeper scuttled behind the bar and brought a bottle and a tray of cups over to a table, from which he evicted a number of patrons.

I wondered if the man who had insulted Syanna had been sitting at that table.

"They will bring the chowder over shortly." The Innkeeper said. "Now what can I do for you?"

"First, Adam I have no doubt that you know Knight Commander Syanna as well as Captain De La Tour. But may I present my friend and companion, Lord Frederick Coulthard of the North and his fiancee Madamoiselle La Comtess Ariadne Du Angral."

The man's eyes widened at the title from Ariadne but he seemed to take the rest of it in stride. "My Ladies. My Lords." He sketched a half bow from the waist as he poured us some of his... excellent wine. Although I will say that the wine that they use to purify water in Toussaint is better quality than some of the stuff that has been served at some noble tables in the past.

"Any friend of Master Kerrass is a friend of mine." He said. I noticed that he had the proper twisting technique as he finished pouring that meant no wine was wasted.

"Adam de Guy here," Kerrass began. "Is the latest in a long line of Adam de Guys who have kept the ownership of the Cockatrice going since the first Adam de Guy had the inn built and nailed the head of the Cockatrice over the door."

"A Cockatrice that later turned out to be a fake." Adam agreed with a chuckle before he became sad. "Now I need to find someone to carry it on as I doubt my son is going to be interested now that Appoline is no longer with us. He loved that girl."

We all toasted the dead girl in silence.

"Are you taking up the hunt?" Adam asked Kerrass.

"Not really." Kerrass told him. "It's more that Freddie and I are offering a different perspective. The hunt is still being led by the Captain of the Guard and the Knight Commander."

The Innkeep nodded.

"I don't know what I can tell you then, other than what you already know."

"That's alright." Kerrass told him. "I would like a guide to take me to the site and to lead me down the path that she took. It's a long shot but I might see something that other people might have missed. But what we're really here for is to see what the connection between the four victims might be."

The innkeep nodded sadly before taking a deep breath, steeling himself for the unpleasant part. "What do you need?"

"Freddie?"

"We're looking for a list of people that Appoline rejected." I said. "We know that she was guarding her virtue carefully."

"Aye, she was a good girl." Adam said. "Although I rather think she might have preferred to guard her virtue a little less carefully, but she didn't want to upset her da you see. It would have broken his heart I think."

He took out a cloth and blew his nose noisily. "Not that losing her has done the job any less efficiently."

"Well, we will ask him the same question. We need a list of people that might have tried to... take her virtue. Either forcefully or as part of some kind of marriage negotiation. Both friendly and aggressive."

He stared at me for a long time as I carefully reminded myself that uneducated does not mean stupid and that this man was a famous card player.

"That's a long list." He said finally, "and it includes most of the people in this room."

"As much as you can." I said. "It's important."

"What are you going to do with this list?"

"How we investigate..." Damien's temper flared but Syanna put her hand on his shoulder, restraining him.

"We're going to catch the bastards that killed her." I said slowly, looking the man directly in the eye.

He nodded. "I think we can put that together."

"No-one is in any trouble." I told him. "But give us as much information as you can. How aggressive they were, how serious they were. All that kind of thing."

"I can do that. We can get it together in a bit."

"In the mean time," Kerrass finished his drink. "I will go down to the river and have a look at these tracks. Freddie?"

I nodded and rose.

Damien and Syanna waited with Ariadne for the list as Kerrass and I were led down to the river by the young son of the Innkeep who Kerrass seemed to know quite well. He was a good lad and he seemed to be going through that part of adolescence which meant that everything was an excessively emotional drama. I couldn't really blame him in this instance but even so, the stammering and the tears and the large mournful eyes became grating after a while.

I have a whole new perspective on how my parents saw me when I was that age.

We walked down the river bank for a while, Kerrass occasionally stopping to look at the ground closely.

Now I stress that I have no idea when this happened. Kerrass would later claim that it was at one point that I was climbing down from bridge and the road, to the banks of the river. There was a slope, kind of picked out by some stone steps and some wooden ones but some of the going was fairly steep. I have no doubt that the young lady Appoline would have made the trip easily and on any other day, I would have done the same. But something was getting in the way of my moving easily over the land.

It turned out to be my dagger that was still strapped to my side in the same way that you would strap a sword to it.

Way back in the mists of time, when this record of Kerrass and my travelling together, I asked Kerrass about why he carried his sword on his back rather than at his side like everyone else. He claimed, and I believe him, that it was a matter of habit. That the simple fact that that was how he had been trained to carry and draw his sword meant that he found it natural. That he honestly thought it was strange that other people carried their weapons at their sides.

So he had no answer to the reason as to why Witcher's carried their swords on their backs but we came up with some theories and I was later forced to agree that there was some truth to the supposition. Witchers often have to travel over rough terrain. Climbing down into sewers to deal with drowners and the like. Climbing up cliffs to get to Wyvern and harpy nests. All the while, having your sword clanging and swinging around at your side is simply impractical. Apart from anything else, the blade striking the stone of the cliff would have made the matter impractical.

I found this out first hand that night.

There were other reasons as well, arguments for balance and the like.

At some point that evening I had to turn sideways in order to properly descend the bank in order to get to our destination and suddenly, the blade at my side was uncomfortable. It got in the way of where I wanted my body and legs to move so, angrily and on instinct, I moved the dagger round to it's old position across my belly.

I cannot tell you how much better the world felt when I finally managed to get that sorted out but it was only a little while later when I noticed that I had done it all. It was just one of those things that you do subconsciously. Ariadne has a term for it. She called it a moment of unconscious competence.

But there was still something wrong. There was still something missing that I couldn't quite identify that left me feeling off centre and out of focus. The same feeling that you might get if there is a small stone in an otherwise comfortable boot. Occasionally, I would try and figure out what it was that was missing but nothing ever occurred.

Kerrass moved carefully along the river bank, bending down to the track often with a frown and a look of concentration.

"How are you holding up Freddie?" He said, straightening up after one set of tracks with a look of disgust on his face. "You doing alright?"

"I'm not doing too bad." I said. "There were some bleak moments back in the Chapterhouse but I seem to be getting over the worst of it now."

I thought about it. Taking a bit of time to examine my own thought processes. A habit that is beginning to become increasingly easy. "Gotta admit." I said after a moment. "It does feel good to be doing soemthing useful rather than moping around and getting in people's way."

The young lad looked at me appalled but I ignored him.

Kerrass grunted. "It's a tricky balance." he admitted as his eyes wandered over the ground. "I speak from personal experience of course. But on the one hand you need to be occupied enough that your brain isn't just resting on it's arse and having room to just stew in it's own juices. But on the other hand, high stress can mean that you don't notice it when you are getting sick. It's a tricky business finding the right kind of balance."

"Any tips?"

"Goddess no. Plenty of things not to do of course. Over-dependence on a God like figure who believes that the struggle is part of worship is probably not the best case forward for you."

We both laughed. The lad had clearly decided that we were both insane.

"I would also say that you need to be careful with your consumption of certain things." He went on. "Alcohol, Fiss-tech, women, work, religion. All of that can be a crutch so learn what your limits are."

I nodded. All of that made sense.

"Also, anyone that says that your problems are punishments for perceived sins gets to be punched in the face. I know that you like the worship of the eternal Flame but some of those bastards will chew you up with that kind of thing. So be careful."

I nodded again. "Any more advice?"

"Oh, loads of it. Be careful of stillness and quiet. It's relaxing, don't get me wrong, but it also gives you room to think that, all due respect, someone in your position doesn't really need. It can give the mind room to grow and brood on unhealthy things."

"So no more solitude in the chapel then."

"Solitude in the chapel is fine providing you get skilled enough to remove yourself from that position when you realise that your brain is going to dark places. Or take someone with you, fuck Freddie, you're a rich man. Hire a chaplain who's job it is to monitor you when you get into those places to make sure you don't go mad. Just be careful that he's someone like that... fellow in the North with the wife rather than some fuck like Sansum."

"So noted."

"Also, think about hiring a minstrel of some kind. Someone that you can order to play you something cheerful when you're feeling low in order to force your mood into better directions."

"I will think about that."

"That's Appoline's cottage there." The lad pointed. Obviously disgusted that we could be talking about things like this when the lvoe of his life had so recently been killed. I mock, but the kid was obviously upset.

"Right." Kerrass said and walked up and down a bit. It really wasn't that far between the inn and where the cottage was.

"Are you going to help him?" The Lad asked me.

"Nah," I told him. "Witcher's work best alone."

"But it's getting dark." He said. "He might need help."

"Trust me wen I say, that the best thing we can do to help him at the moment is to stay out of his way. Witcher's have been doing this for a long time after all. And they can see in the dark."

"What really?" Despite his broken heart. The kid was still young.

"We can." Kerrass said. "But that doesn't mean that we can't see what isn't there."

"Too many people have been up and down here?" I guessed.

"Yes and no." He said. "There is that problem but all that has done is flatten the grass. The cold has made the ground harder than stone and there's nothing to see here. Nor is there any blood though."

"What does that mean?" The lad wondered. I was not far off wondering myself.

"It means that she wasn't clubbed unconscious." Kerrass replied. "Or it means that she didn't come here by this route. I think she did though. I think she was grabbed over by that rock."

"Why?" The kid asked.

"Freddie?"

"Because someone could hide behind it." I said. "It's still not conclusive over what happened."

"What does conclusive mean?" The lad asked.

"Why don't you explain it to the lad." Kerrass told me, "while I go and talk to Appolline's father and see if he has any more names to add to my list."

I kept the young man back and took him down some exciting new linguistic pathways while Kerrass went to the cottage to discuss a few things. When he came out, he came with an older man who hobbled off towards the inn as Kerrass came back to us.

"Right. I think it's time for me to see where Appoline was found." He said.

It was not an easy route to find the way as we had to climb over a wall, and a fence before going through another field to get to the place. The field was not easy to traverse either, still organised into rows of canes with dead vines, frozen in the cold. I had wondered if we might find any signs of passage in the area but that was a remote hope as the sun was setting. It would seem that there were plenty of areas where the canes and the withered vines had been damaged by passing animals and the like. So this was nothing new.

I was feeling a little discouraged. I had not expected us to find something. It had been a remote chance that we would find something useful. Indeed, I was more than a little bit convinced that the crime was being solved back at the inn, or that the process of that being solved was happening back at the inn. But even so, it was that sinking feeling that we were chasing a dead lead. I didn't like it. But that is the way of things when you are hunting a monster.

Even if that monster is of the non-magical variety rather than the creature or magical entity kind of monstrous.

The young man came to the corner of the fields as marked by a meeting of two stone walls and a fence. We could have found it though. It had become, almost a shrine of kinds. Several wreathes of holly had been laid there along with several candles that had been lit. There was a small box of candles nearby and I think that I won the lad's heart as I bent and lit one. Kerrass was more practical, sniffing the air and moving around a bit looking at the ground before his face twisted in disgust.

"Anything useful here is long gone." He decided.

Then he drew one of his many knives and chipped away at the ground for a little while in all three parts of the ground where he dug up a little bit of the soil and rubbed it between his fingers before sniffing.

Then he nodded in the deepening gloom.

"Back to the inn I think Freddie." He said and led us there unerringly.

"You know this part of the countryside well then Kerrass?" I noted.

"Yeah. The Empress wanted us all to be staying at the palace when we were here but several people, including Lord Voorhis and the Duchess thought that it would be unpolitical when the quarters there were mostly reserved for visiting dignitaries. Client kings and the like."

"I rememeber."

"So Cousin Geralt told us all to come down to Corvo Bianco and sleep there. It was not hard. I think Yennefer was a bit dismayed at all these Witchers invading her home but she seemed to reserve most of her ire for Lambert who was moaning all the time due to Lady Metz being housed elsewhere."

"You know Lord Geralt?" The lad whispered in awe, his eyes wide.

"Yeah." Kerrass grunted, winking at me. "The white haired puke owes me 20 crowns at dice."

"Cor."

"But yeah." He turned back to me, "When you get more than a couple of Witchers together in one place, all you can do is train, play dice and Gwent and talk about the old days. Periodically Yennefer would throw us all out so she could get some peace, and so she could gossip with Keira and Triss. We would all troop down to the Cockatrice and do our best to damage his ale and wine stocks while kicking his ass at Gwent. We failed, he's actually really good at laying them down, even if he is found of the Skelligan faction."

I laughed as I felt was my duty. The younger lad was looking at us both as if we were crazy.

Again, for the record, I am not the hugest master of Gwent, I always rather felt that time spent playing was time that I would better spend reading. But, during my time in Toussaint, I have dabbled with the Skelligan faction. To address the controversy, I don't really see the problem with them. It is just as easy to say that you want a traditional tournament, or ban this faction or that faction. There are closed deck tournaments and another interesting varient which I have seen in Oxenfurt is a varient on the rules that bans weather cards. So if you don't like the Skelligan faction. Just don't use it. It's not that hard.

Personally, I found the Skelligan faction a little too dependant on luck. Even more so than your standard game of Gwent. It's a deck of gambits where you can build several gambits into the deck that would reap high rewards. But if you don't get the cards out in the right order, then that can leave you crippled. I especially found them vulnerable to the Northern Realms and Nilfgaardian decks with all the spy cards flying around.

There is something to be said there although I don't know what it is.

We got back to the inn shortly just as the sun was dipping over the western horizon and again, I felt grateful for the fact that I was wearing my own clothes with my own travelling cloak. I will take comfort and utility over fashion any day of the week.

The inn was loud and full of light. Syanna and Damien were looking a little harried while Sir Guillaume and his squire had turned up and were taking a heartening drink. There was no way that we could deny some more of the, genuinly delicious, food that was on offer. People were still being active in the pursuit of such things, yelling out names and descriptions of people that either Damien or, now that he had arrived, Guillaume's squire carefully noted down.

"What did you find?" Syanna quietly asked.

"Not a great deal that I suspect you don't already know." Kerrass told her. "I am pretty sure I could point to the place that she was jumped."

"How do you know?"

"It was the only place on the track that someone could hide from someone carrying a torch. Say what you like about riverbanks, but they are often rather devoid of cover. Beyond that, time has not been our friend. She was taken from there and my guess is that she was killed where the body was found. There is blood and other... fluids that soaked into the ground there. But that still doesn't tell us much. The warmth of her blood did melt the ground a little before it froze again but there are so many tracks around the place that there is nothing there that could be useful. The tracks could just as much be from the people that found her as from whoever killed her."

Syanna nodded before sighing and shrugging. "Ah well. We knew that would be a long shot."

"We did." I commented. "I take it you had more luck."

"Yes, much more luck. Far too much luck. So much luck that it's probably useless. Guillaume is better and we might find something if we put the lists side by side."

"Let's not do that here though." Sir Guillaume had been listening while watching the crowd. "These people are ready to murder anyone that even hints at being the person who took their beloved Appoline from them."

It was a fair point. Despite the volume in the room, the people were angry and sullen. As we listened a few of the regulars were talking to Captain De La Tour and Kerrass both, saying things like "Just a moment in the room with him, that's all I ask, just a moment."

"We can probably talk Madam Isabelle into lending us a private room." Syanna commented. "From what I understand, business is right down in the city after dark."

"Would we not be better waiting until we have all the lists?" Sir Guillaume wondered. "After we speak to Lord Tratamara about suitors for his daughter we can take it all back to the palace or the guardhouse and examine all the leads there."

"In theory." I said, "But speaking as a researcher, it's far better to have an idea of what we're looking for before we start having to sift through far too much information. I don't know how long your list was Sir Guillaume but from the sounds of it, this one is going to be huge. I would expect Flower of the Nights lists of clients and rejected clients will be similarly huge."

"And Marie Tratamara was going to be quite a catch." Syanna added. "Not only was she beautiful but charming, elegant, well educated and the youngest child and daughter of a filthy rich, devoted Father. Her list is not going to be small."

"True." Guillaume began to nod. "However it is most interesting to me who it was that might have assaulted the lady in such a way as to cause her father's over protectiveness. Surely that is the biggest lead."

"It might be." I came back into the conversation. "But that can be misleading as well. It would be a mistake to assume that the two are connected."

"It is also true to say that his daughter's good name is all that matters to the man now." Kerrass added. "Grief can do unpleasant things to people and he may deny that such a thing happened, or that he might give a false name in order to besmirch an enemy. Such things are well within the characters of good men when they are grieving. We have to assume that our reception will not be rational. We must also be careful not to suggest to the man that we may have a suspect, or that any of the people on the list that he would be providing might be a suspect."

"It might be worthwhile," Syanna plucked at her lower lip in thought, "if we spoke to whoever her regular chaperone might have been instead of, or as well as, Lord Tratamara."

"Are we done here?" Kerrass asked. "I just heard one man call out "That bloke with the red shirt," as someone we should consider as a suspect."

"Probably."

Sir Guillaume made a speech. I couldn't have done it. Nor could Kerrass or any of the other people with us. It was the kind of speech that men make on battlefields in order to get people to stand in the way of enormous odds without flinching. It was a long speech, with flowery romantic language, talking about the goodness in the hearts of the men and women of Toussaint. About how he was proud to bear arms in the name of the people of Toussaint and about how his oaths mean that he loved each and every person there. About how he respected their courage and their passion for victory, care and about their longing for Justice.

But then he pivoted to tell them that this justice was his first concern. It was actually a speech about leaving the work to the proper professionals. A speech about staying at home and letting the Knights of Saint Francesca as well as the city guard and the Witcher here present, do their jobs.

And here is the remarkable thing about Sir Guillaume. No-one told him to do it. No-one ordered him to do it. Syanna didn't give him a nod or anything. We were rising to our feet and on our way out of the door with a few coins passed to the landlord in order to pay for our food and drink when we realised that Sir Guillaume was no longer with us.

Instead he had stood up and "Begged for the attention of the company." Just one of those things. He had seen the mood of the people, he had felt the mood of the room and had realised that we had roused up their spirits. That the fact that we were taking them seriously meant that they were getting angry and that that anger would soon be directed at someone or something.

If he was any other man I would have guessed that he had a number of speeches ready and waiting depending on the right circumstances. I hope that he will not take offence if he reads this when I say that the speech was also quite manipulative. He acknoweldged their anger, fear and resentment that the death of one of their own had happened. He acknowledged that he felt the same way which made him to be one of their own. Then he reminded them of all of their virtues because he told them all that he knew them all to be good and honourable people. While doing all of that, he reminded them about the virtues of mercy, compassion, and not leaping to conclusions.

Then he promised results.

As we left, the people there were no longer murmering their dissatisfaction as to the inaction of the people in charge. Instead, they were talking about Sir Guillaume and the Knights of Saint Francesca. "Good man that," and "We can rely on them," were both comments that I heard as we left.

But here's the kicker. The thing that separates men like Sir Guillaume from people like you or me. He genuinely felt all those things. He genuinely believed them and that belief and the honesty of that kind of thing meant that it swept up the people as well.

"Good speech." I told him as we mounted up.

"What speech?" He wondered, his face a mask of confusion.

I shook my head and walked away, catching Syanna's bemused smirk out of the corner of my eye.

We collected Ariadne and started to ride through the deepening gloom towards Beaclair itself. Now that I was outside of the protective bubble of the palace, it was easy to see the changes that had taken over the countryside. Gone were the regular groups of farmers or townsfolk walking the tracks and the paths. There were no longer heavily wrapped young lovers walking together, heads close together giggling at some kind of private joke.

Instead there was a sense of watchfulness. Of waiting and fear. Captain De La Tour led us with Sir Guillaume along side him as we rode along the banks of the river to one of the lower gates. We passed a couple of groups, large groups of armed men that were walking to and fro in the streets. They parted for us with gentle bows of courtesy but I cannot have been the only person that heard the whispered and muttered comments as we passed. As they complained to each other about the fact that still nothing had been done and that "decent folk can't walk abroad anymore."

One brave soul heckled Captain De La Tour from the safety of numbers. Wanting to know when he was going to catch the bastard.

This is not something new to Kerrass and I, we have heard this sort of thing before. Normally when we discover that the problem is not what the local populace thinks it is and are therefore seen to be wasting time on other, less important things. Normally the best thing to do is to ignore these shouts. There is a trick to it however, the trick being to know when the shout is just someone wanting to make some noise, or when the shout is someone who is really, genuinely angry and is coming to start a fight.

So we just walked on. As did Syanna, and Sir Guillaume.

Damien turned and shouted. "When I can stop wasting my time arresting you lot for trying to take the law in your own hands. I see you there Thom, hiding behind the miller. You want these things to stop? Then stop wasting my time."

The group walked on with more sullen whispers.

The gates to the city were closed but upon seeing and recognising Captain De La Tour, the gates were opened and we entered Beauclair properly.

I want to state for the record that I had never been to this part of Beauclair. Not because I am ashamed of going to the Belles of Beauclair as I feel that I have more than made my stance on such establishments plain. I have nothing but respect for those ladies and, I understand, gentlemen that ply their trade with the use of their bodies and have many fond memories of visiting such places and the ladies that I have known in those self-same establishments.

But I had never been to this particular place.

The reason for that is simple, which is nothing to do with my engagement to Ariadne although I feel as though that is the reason that I should be giving. The reason is a purely practical one. Which is that the Belles of Beauclair is situated down near the docks of Beauclair and as a result, to get to it, you have to go down the hill from the palace. When I was last in Beauclair and was going out and about in the city, my aim was to get so ridiculously drunk that I could not possibly remember what was happening and there is a certain amount of practical logic that occurs to the drunken mind that might not occur to the sober one. That logic being that if I had walked down the roads to find another way of drowning my sorrows then, sooner or later, I would have to walk back up the hill in order to get to bed.

Where that logic falls down of course is that if I had spent the night in the Belles itself then I would have been able to stay there to my heart's content.

But the last time I had been in Beauclair, I had spent most of my time in the drinking establishments, of which there are many, that were closer to the palace itself. Which had the added convenience that I could start drinking all that much earlier in the day.

But for those people that don't know anything about one of the most famous brothels on the face of the continent, a place that is mentioned in the same breath as the Passiflora in Novigrad. Then these are some of the things that you should know. It is situated down near the docks and the lower markets. The kind of place where servants go to buy the fruit, vegetables and, most commonly, fresh fish from the incoming fishing vessels. The place is a normally thriving area with ships unloading and loading. Rowdy fisherman and sailors milling about and enjoying the short period of shore leave that they have to be able to take advantage of. Servants heading to market as I said, sellers and buyers as well as those special kinds of Lords and Ladies who like to think of themselves as being "men or women of the people" because they occasionally like to go down to the rougher areas of town and buy a round in a couple of pubs.

For those people wondering, the reason that they get away with that and don't just get their throats slit is because everyone knows what will happen if anything happens to these nobles. Which is that the Watch, guard or whatever would descend on the place in a tide and then all manner of normal life in the area would just stop.

If they went at night then that would be a different matter but I'm getting off topic.

The Belles of Beauclair was originally just a kind of dockside Brothel. The same as you would find in any number of places. Kerrass enjoys the company of the women in Crippled Kate's in Novigrad on the grounds that they treat him normally. Just like any other punter. But also because they can keep up with him when he decides to start drinking properly.

The Belles was a place like that. Rooms and girls hired by the half hour. Booze a plenty before turfing you out in order to make room for the next customer. But all that changed when Madam Isabelle took over the establishment.

Her ambition was simple, she wanted to create a place where people, not just men, but people could take some time to relax in the company of beauty. Whether that was the female of the species, or the male. But also culturally. She wanted the best food, the best art and the best music to be played there, before, should the lady or gentleman wish, the customer could be taken upstairs for the evening to continue in private.

She paid for the education of the girls, she put the process of choosing the clients into the hands of the girls themselves (the boys came along later). She no longer paid the workers by the customer, but more as a percentage of the amount of money that that worker brought into the belles. Which meant, the richer the client, the more they spent on food and wine and lost at dice and cards, even if the girl never took the client into a bed chamber, she would still get a cut of that kind of profit.

Madam Isabelle was not the first properietor to make some of these changes. The Passiflora hosts card tournaments and dice tournaments. The House of the Night in Vizima had long been operating on serving their clients with the most beautiful women and the finest food and drink. All over the continent, brothels have started changing their names from the more derogatory term of Brothel to the more mysterious versions of "Bordello's" and the like.

But what Madam Isabelle did was bring a lot of those things together and she was certainly among the first to spread the profits of the other elements of the business, gambling, food and drink, into the pockets of the sex workers.

She was phenomenally successful and as of time of writing, she was still not done. Anne and the Late Flower of the Night, were among the first that were properly educated and trained to be able to accompany noblemen to more formal parties so that travelling merchants would not have to go to the Duchess' ball by themselves. The fact that they could then be engaged for further services was unimportant. The number of such women was increasing and I am informed that there are a growing number of young men that fulfill the same function for widows or ladies who's husbands are elsewhere but still need an escort to certain things.

All with the utmost discretion of course.

The success of the venture also means that Madame Isabelle is expanding into the nearby buildings in order to expand the dining facilities and kitchens. She said, that although she could appreciate some bawdy humour, food fights and loud noises as much as the next brothel owner, she felt that there was a need for a quieter, more romantic dining experience for those clients that simply wanted to eat dinner in the company of a beautiful companion. A little bit of romance, even if faked and bought with money, can be a powerful thing.

After that, she intended to expand the gambling side of things and I have no doubt that she will not stop there.

If the Duchy of Toussaint is ruled from the palace of Beauclair then I have no doubt that, given time, the docks will be ruled from the Belles. The powers of Beauclair are aware of this and Captain De La Tour maintains a watchouse nearby. Commander Syanna is even rumoured to have an office in the building although I never had the nerve to ask her if this was the case.

But where I might have expected loud noises and revellery, even in this, the early part of the evening, I was sadly disappointed.

The streets were all but deserted. People were hurrying to and fro with the speed of fear. They moved quickly, came wide around the corners so that they couldn't be jumped by someone hiding out of sight. They were always looking at the roof tops and all of them, absolutely all of them, had their hands inside their cloaks and coats where it was easy to imagine that they gripped the handles of long knives and daggers. As we rode into Beauclair, we even saw a guard patrol that was far larger than the pairs of men that I had seen in the city earlier and on previous visits.

Damien's mouth twisted in distaste.

There is no missing the building of The Belles. It's a huge thing right on the docks. It was an old building that has been converted to look like a swanky manor house from the outside, draped in red flags and bunting which, now, hung limp and forlorn in the night air. Where there should be fires and torches and light everywhere, the building looked all but deserted. The windows were shuttered and the door was closed.

There were things going on in there but this was no longer a thriving centre of commerce where people go for a bit of entertainment at the end of a long day.

Captain De La Tour called over a couple of watchmen to guard our horses which we tied to the railings outside while Syanna pounded on the door. It was a long while until we were let in.

And then we discovered the real reason why the Belles of Beauclair has managed to attain the status that it has. Which is that Madame Isabelle genuinely cares about the people in her employ.

We had gatecrashed a wake. The contrasts were striking. On the one hand this was a bright and cheerfully appointed room, but someone had draped all the artwork in black cloth. Torches and fires danced merrily in the sconces, hearth and baskets that lined the walls. But Empty vases and a deserted stage told a completely different story. And the largest collection of beautiful people that I have ever seen were gathered round a table with forlorn faces and plain clothes, many of them openly weeping on each other's shoulders.

I was just getting through the process of taking all of this in when someone slapped me across the face.

"I see how it is." A female voice hissed. "It takes a nobleman's daughter to get you out of your bed and offer your aid. A bed that I made for you. A nobleman's daughter. Far more important to the likes of you than a common whore or a fisherman's daughter. Where were you when..."

I was blinking the flashing lights from my eyes and I saw a woman in front of me with her hand over her mouth, tears streaming down her face.

"Where were you?" She sobbed. "Where were you when my flower was having her guts torn open and her innards being spilled forth. Where were you when..."

"I didn't know." I tried to speak into the gap. "I swear I didn't know."

"Bullshit." She snarled through her tears. "You tell yourself the lies that you want to tell yourself if it helps you sleep at night. How could you not have known, how could you not know?" The anger faded to a wail of grief.

Ariadne came to my rescue and did the one thing that, I imagine, none of the rest of us would have taken into account. She took the angry, weeping woman into her arms and just held her.

I was struck dumb with the force of it and, yes, the shame that I felt. She was right of course. I should have known. I really should have known.

"Not your fault Lord Frederick." Sir Guillaume put his hand on my shoulder. "Not your fault."

"I know." I told him. The fire that was burning in the depths of my chest flared up again and I looked up at Kerrass. "I know it wasn't my fault."

Kerrass wouldn't meet my eyes.

The woman, Ariadne and Syanna stood talking for a little while before the woman nodded and came to stand before me.

"I am sorry Lord Frederick." She said formally. "I...I just..." Tears stood in her eyes again. I took a leaf from Ariadne's book and took her in my arms.

"It is I who am sorry." I said. "The fault may not be mine, but the shame surely is."

She waited in my arms for a couple of heartbeats before she pulled away and nodded.

Madame Isabelle is a beautiful woman. North of thirty I would think but there was no way of guessing her age. There was an aristocratic cast of her features that left me thinking that she might have some noble blood in her somewhere. A noble bastard result of some knight taking his ease in a brothel possibly, but I didn't ask.

Her dark hair is turning grey at her temples even though she looks too young for that to be happening. She was wearing a relatively plain dress at the time. A dark one of mourning, but she moves with a dancer's grace and a slight limp although I never knew where she got the limp. Rumour has it to be anything from repeatedly kicking a violent patron to being the injury that prevented her from serving in some nobleman's household.

She has a sharp gaze and I would warn any that might consider it, to not try and cheat either her or any of her employees. I could well believe that this was a woman that held most of the secrets of Beauclair in her bodice and also found myself wondering if she was in the employ of the ducal court yet. Or if not, how long before she would be.

"How can I... How can I help?" She visibly forced herself to calm. In many ways, she reminded me of the way that Ariadne does that. It was curious, watching the same process of hiding extreme emotions behind a mask of calm and formality.

She had shifted her treatment of us I think. We had stopped being intruders and people to her, instead, we had become customers. Only this time the customers were trying to right a wrong.

"We need a room." Syanna stepped forward. Taking charge again. "A private room with a large table and chairs."

"Notepaper," I added. "A hide or a slate if you don't have it or can't spare any. Something to write with."

She nodded. "All of that is easy to lay our hands on. Anything else?"

"Yes," Syanna said, stepping closer. "We need Flower's client list. Who she accepted but also, in particular, who she declined."

Isabelle frowned in thought. "We should speak privately. Such information is guarenteed as private."

Damien and Guillaume both opened their mouths to speak but Isabelle held her hand up. "I am perfectly accepting of the probability that her killer is in those lists somewhere. Indeed, it seems rather obvious that that be the case. However my name and my house stand surety for the discretion of all my girls and boys. I am sure that some among you would have cause to agree to those kinds of measures."

"I cannot speak for any else here that might have... enjoyed your services." I told her. "But my reputation is not something that I care for that much. Especially when it comes to the lives of people that I might save otherwise."

Madame Isabelle looked at me for a long time.

"But you are a rarety sir." She told me. "And, if I may be so bold, political, mercantile, military and other alliances do not depend on your reputation where they would for some of my clients. Some of my clients have marriages that would be dissolved if it were found that one, or other, of the participents were unfaithful in matters of the erotic."

"Are you saying no?" Syanna wondered with just a hint of steel in there.

"No." Isabelle replied. "But I do want to know how the information will be used. And... I will not allow my copies of the lists to leave these premises."

Syanna nodded.

"We cannot allow you to know the identity of any of our suspects however." She countered. "I know you Madam. Your wrath is feared in Toussaint and not without reason."

Madam Isabelle's eyes flashed before she calmed again. "Follow me please."

She led us through the building and up some stairs, the sounds of gossip started up again as we went out of sight from the main room. Eventually we came to a large room with something that would pass for a banqueting table in the middle of the room with several chairs around it.

"We use this room in order to teach some of the youngsters how to properly wait at table." Isabelled told us. "I can fetch you some paper and charcoal to make notes but before I bring you the records, you will explain to me how you intend to use them or I will see them burned."

Syanna looked at each of us.

"I will not remind you that what is said here needs to be kept discreet." She told the brothel keeper. "As your discretion is obviously legendary. However it does."

Isabelle nodded.

"We are following a lead that Lord Frederick has led us to." Syanna said. "The being Jack chooses his victims arbitrarily. Who they are is unimportant to Jack, it is what they are that is important. We believe we have found the arbitrary connection between the four dead women."

"So it is Jack." Isabelle breathed.

"Maybe not." Syanna said. "Lord Frederick explains this better."

Isabelle turned to me.

"There are," I began before having to clear my throat. "There are a number of instances in the past where people have used the legend of Jack to hide their own crimes. There are other factors here that would suggest that what is happening here is not the work of Jack. Just as there are factors here that would suggest that it is. But short of catching him in the act... What the Knight Commander is saying is that there is an arbitrary connection between the four victims already. However, if there is a more human connection, a more human motive, then it is not Jack and we might be able to catch a killer."

Isabelle nodded. "Can you give me an example?"

"Certainly. How many would you like?"

Kerrass groaned. "Don't get him started Madame, we will be here all night."

She smirked at that.

"Very well." I considered. "Let us say that Jack is killing priests of... Saint Lebioda. If there is no connection between those priests then it is the work of Jack. If, however, the priests turned out to have been trained at the same seminary where one of their classmates died in a rather specific accident... then there is a real motive that connects the priests and that makes it not be Jack."

"I see. So how does it affect me?"

"The "Jack" pattern." I said. "Is that all four women were selective with their affections and had a habit of rejecting romantic advances. The first, because her father wasn't ready to let her go and she still honoured her father's wishes. The second because she was uninterested in such things and wanted to be a nun. The third." I gestured at Madame Isabelle, "because she was good enough at her job that she could afford to choose her clientele and the last because... we think... her father wasn't ready or willing to accept suitors on her behalf. So all four women were selective with their affections, if they gave them out at all."

Isabelle nodded.

"However, if it becomes clear that all four ladies rejected the same person then we have a motive that has nothing to do with Jack and this becomes a copycat series of killings."

She nodded again.

"We have the lists of those men and boys that were rejected by the first two victims. We hope to narrow the field of suspects using your records and then we will take the results to Lord Tratamara."

Isabelle nodded. "You could tell me who you suspect and then I could check the lists to see if that name..."

"Come on Izzy." Syanna groaned. "We are not... What did we say downstairs. We are not going to give you the names of any potential suspects for you to pursue on your own. If you don't want to help us then that is fine, we will leave. But I would remind you that no matter how powerful you are or think you are, no matter how many friends you have at court or how much dirt you have on powerful people. You exist on sufferance."

The words landed in the room like a hammer striking an anvil.

"I know this," Syanna went on, "because you have nothing on my sister who chooses her Lovers with greater care than you can imagine. Nor Captain De La Tour here as he is far too annoyingly incorruptable to use your services or to be ashamed of the matter if her did. Nor do you have any dirt on me."

Silence fell as the two formidable women stared at each other.

"We are trying to catch, either, a killer... or an extradimensional entity of fear." Syanna went on. "You can help us. So we are asking for your help. You can help us or not, but do not... bargain with me."

Isabelle rose. "You are right of course. Nor will I admonish you for your threats. I spoke out of sorts as my grief is all to raw. I hope I have not ruined our friendship Sylvie."

"Ah Izzy." Syanna laughed as she moved round the table and hugged the other woman. "You are grieving. I am sorry for forcing the issue."

The two women embraced for a short while before parting.

"I will fetch the papers." Isabelle said, "And I am aware that making threats is tasteless, I shall offer rewards. If the killer is human and you can catch him. Each of you have a night here on the house, full treatment."

We looked at each other for a moment as she moved to the door.

"I cannot speak for the others." I said. "But if I come back here, I would properly pay for any services I received.

Isabelle looked at me, her hand on the door handle before she turned to Ariadne. "You are lucky in him,"

"I agree." Ariadne told her.

Isabelle turned back to me with a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. "When your wife brings you back here... for a birthday or anniversary gift or something." She told me. "Then I shall remind you of what you just said. And yes, your betrothed is well known to me and there is a reason why she came to me to engage Anne's services."

She turned back to Ariadne. "The cost of which will be removed from your tab."

Then she left.

Kerrass and I turned to look at Ariadne. I cannot speak for Kerrass but my mouth was hanging open.

Ariadne was unashamed. "I told you before Freddie. Sometimes a Vampire has needs and when I seek to meet those needs, I engage the best. Novigrad or Oxenfurt are too close and I would be recognised, Vizima means that I might meet someone, but this far away lends a certain anonymity which is useful."

I stared at her for a moment before blinking and shaking myself.

"Lets have a look at these lists." I said.

"How do we do this?" Guillaume pulled over a chair, reversed it and sat down.

"Take it from someone who knows." Kerrass spoke up from where he was making himself comfortable near the door, "and from someone who has been in this position before. We do this however Freddie wants to do this. On a horseback? Call for a knight. In the lab? Call for a Sorceress. Against a monster? Call for a Witcher. Finding patterns and details amongst mountains of insignificant details? Send for Freddie."

"You make it sound romantic." I told him as I sat in the middle of the table.

He shrugged. "Tell me I'm wrong?"

"What do we do while you're looking?" Syanna asked, looking resigned.

"It might be useful." I began, taking the rolls of parchment from Guillaume and unrolling it to my right. "To ask as to how Nightflower went about choosing who she took on as clients, and how she rejected those people that didn't suit her... criteria? I think that's the best word for it."

I set to work. The list of suitors regarding Miss Donnet of Fox Hollow was considerably shorter than the one from the Cockatrice regarding Appoline.

"Talk to me about Fox Hollow." I said absently as I started reading both lists at the same time.

Yes it can be done. Don't ask me how though. It was a skill learned over time in the libraries of Oxenfurt academy and in various places on the road with Kerrass and I can only say that it took a long time to get that skill into place. One day, I just realised that I had several texts open in front of me and that I was taking in the information from all of them. I will say that it only works if all the texts are regarding the same thing.

"What would you like to know?"

"General stuff. How well off are they are they... are they a community or a collection of individuals."

"They're more a group of individuals." Sir Guillaume took up the account. "They are a small village, relatively speaking, that makes it's living off the river. The loading and the unloading of stone from the quarry mostly as that's the closest harbour area for the stone to be placed on barges."

I nodded. I knew this stuff already but it helped give me the character of the names that I was looking at.

"It was taken over by bandits at one point." Guillaume went on. "Happened back when the quarry was cutting down on production due to the presence of some local monsters. So some of the villagers wandered off to find other work and the bandits drove off the remainder. Then Lord Geralt came along, killed the monsters and drove off the bandits meaning that the villagers could come back. I judge that it would be a community with the next generation. Those kids, which included Miss Donnet, were fairly close-knit. Prophet only knows what's going to happen to them now."

"And the Cockatrice is one of the centres of commerce in Toussaint." I said as I looked at the much larger list. It was not a question but Guillaume answered it anyway.

"Yes, that's right."

"How easy would it be to come across Fox Hollow randomly?" Kerrass wondered, asking the question for me.

Guillaume scratched his chin. "You would struggle to get there unless you had business at the quarry." He eventually decided.

I rolled my shoulders as I sat. I was uncomfortable again, something missing. I wanted, or needed a weight at my shoulder and I didn't know where that weight was. Or what it was. I blinked and shook my head.

The door opened again and Madame Isabelle walked in with a large tome under her arm that I recognised to be some kind of ledger format. She handed it to Syanna and opened it, showing the Knight Commander how it all worked.

But I was lost in the lists so I missed the conversation that followed which Ariadne recounted for me later.

"How did Flower of the Night choose her clients?" Kerrass asked.

Isabelle sighed. "Ok, let's just make a couple of things clear about the way that the business works."

She settled into a seat. "Or at least, how it works in my particular corner of the world. I agree with the saying that no-one in their right mind, no young girl or young man, wants to make their living by being a sex worker. There is a small period of time where young girls, especially when they are on the poorer end of the economic scale, might be able to see the romantic side of things. Seeing the finery and the makeup and the loose hair. They might see the men courting the more wealthy courtesans and that might spark something in their souls.

"But as soon as a young person realise the truth of what's actually involved, no-one wants to make a living of being a sex-worker. The realisation that you will be hired and then not really have a choice about who you give your body to is a hard one. Finding out that your virginity has a price is one of the worst things that can ever happen to anyone. It, forever, soils your relationships with other people. Especially romantic relationships, knowing that what you would have given to someone who you love and who loves you back is now being given to the highest bidder is something that can never be walked away from.

"And those people that come to it later in life often find that their memories of young and innocent times are tainted. Women in our line of work, men too now that society is happier with that kind of thing, tend to die young and die hard. The best places can hire an alchemist and a surgeon to examine for disease and the like but many can't. I can provide an education for my young folk, but many can't. Disease is rampant, abuse is rampant and there is always a risk, always a risk no matter how often we inform people differently, that a client believes that the use of a body for sexual purposes means that they can use that body for whatever they wish. Beating with a stick for instance."

According to Ariadne, the only people uncomfortable with this speech were Guillaume and Damien. Ariadne knew all of this of course and so did Kerrass who has regularly claimed that there have been years where the only kindness he had received needed to be paid for. Syanna didn't change her expression either, which speaks for either her history, or her self-control.

"So no-one comes into this life by choice is what I'm trying to say to you." Isabelle went on. "But after a while, what can come into it is a certain amount of job satisfaction. Physical pleasure comes and goes. A skilled worker can trick a body into a state of arousal and orgasm without enjoyment coming anywhere near the act. After a worker can achieve a certain amount of Job satisfaction from taking a client and reducing him, or her, to a puddle of sexual gratification then that can even become enjoyable it can become... fun.

"Normally this happens when a client is both caring and skilled. And after a while, an experienced and skilled worker can tell after a few moments of conversation, whether a person can fall into these categories. Also for the record, the vast majority of my girls and boys would much rather caring over skilled, any time.

"Now I can see you growing impatient and that is fine. I can understand that. You are wondering what the point is. Flower was one of the best girls that my line of work has ever seen and will ever see again. Leaving aside her physical attributes which were not inconsiderable, she had the best instinct for people that she would be compatible with. Her looks, skills and temperament soon meant that she was in demand which soon meant that she did not have to take anyone and everyone.

"She also had the best... She found enjoyment in her work. If you could create a person in a mages laboratory and have them fashioned to be the ideal sex-worker then you would have come up with Flower of the Night. She liked doing this job. True, it had made her rich, but she liked it as well. She could have retired years ago but she didn't. Not only because she liked it but because she wanted to help those workers that came after her. She was one of my investors. She had the looks, the attitude, the character, the mood, the bearing, the enjoyment and her body and mind were an instrument that she could control in every circumstance.

"So she could afford to choose who she wanted. She had regulars to be sure... You will have been told that her training and looks meant that she could pass as a noble lady."

There was some nodding around the room.

"Well she would also choose people based on who she felt deserved it. I could see no pattern to it. She took clients once and then never again. She took regulars. She took clients from all walks of life. From the lowliest farmer all the way up to the highest Lord. She takes frightened young virgins as well as old widowers who miss the company of women in their lives. She claimed to be able to walk into a room and choose potential clients from the lineup and I absolutely believed her.

"But no amount of money would persuade her to take a client that she turned down. I once had to hire guards to prevent a visiting Northern Lord from setting his guards to take her away with him in order to make her his wife or mistress. She was having none of it though and eventually we had to call the guard."

"I remember that." Damien said.

"Who was it?" Kerrass wondered.

"He's long gone. Tailles, his name was from Ellander. Uppity little puke here for the tournament."

"So she was arbitrary in her choices." Kerrass said. "Did she ever explain this choice or that one?"

"She would just say that this one or that one felt wrong, or felt right. It seemed like an instinct of some kind. She even once said that she was wrong for one person but recommended another worker that would be right for the client. That is how Lord Frederick over there got Anne. Flower said that Anne would be better suited for Lord Frederick."

"Interesting." Kerrass said.

I was deep into the lists so I didn't hear that part. Later, much later, I would be told about that interaction and shiver at how close the two of us came.

"Who's this?" I asked Guillaume was sat next to me watching me as I pointed at a name. "Terrence the bargeman."

"He's a small boat owner." Sir Guillaume told me. "He works the river ferrying goods up and down. Merchant goods, that kind of thing. Has an inflated sense of his own worth."

"He's on both Appoline's list and Miss Donnet's list. Offering Marriage."

"He has decided that he needs a wife, but is obsessed with looks only which makes him superficial. Or at least that's what Master Donnet tells me. Apparently he's offered marriage to all of the young and pretty girls around Toussaint that are near the river."

"Is he a client of Flower of the Night?" I asked Syanna who was near the ledger.

"He's not in the book." She said.

"He could never afford Flower. I doubt he even knew of her existence." Isabelle said. "He comes in occasionally but is only after something attractive to vent his lusts on. Flower wouldn't have even looked twice at him."

There was some small conversation while I looked for my next possibility.

"I think it's time you leave us Isabelle." Syanna said as she steered the Ledger round until it was in my line of sight.

Madame Isabelle frowned a little before her face seemed to relax and she nodded before rising. "I will have someone send in some watered wine."

I'll be honest, I didn't even notice her leave.

"Who's this person?" I asked. "A Knight with a lion on his shield and on his armour?"

"Sir Jean de Carnier." Guillaume answered. "He is known for being remarkably randy and is famous for a number of mistresses, but I had not heard of him taking it to heart whenever he was turned down and always made sure that any resulting liasons are looked after. His wife is considerably older and, as far as anyone can tell, well aware of his liasons."

"Where is he at the moment?" Kerrass wondered.

"He commands the Garrison for the Northern pass." Syanna responded, making a note of her own. "I don't think he's the right kind of fit for this but I will have someone check that he's always been there."

I had started scanning the ledger that Isabelle had brought in.

"Hey Sir Raoul's in this ledger." I exclaimed suddenly and the fantasy ran off in my imagination. Sir Raoul the White being disgraced, clapped in irons before being publicly dragged through Beauclair in his shirt sleeves as his air of arrogance is beaten down by the thrown eggs and otherwise rotting produce. "Wouldn't it be great if it were him?"

Then I sighed.

"It won't be though. That's too easy. Not on either of the other lists anyway."

"It is a nice thought." Syanna agreed.

We spent a couple of hours like that, poring over the three lists, occasionally running off on flights of fancy as we found some form of corroboration in one list that wasn't in another. Theories would be suggested, discussed, dismissed and then we would go on to other details. It was hard work and un-satisfying. Part of the problem was that, especially in the lists coming from the Cockatrice, there was no real identification. No names to go with the faces. A knight who had a helm with a red crest could have been any number of people. As could "A merchant with the face of a warthog" was another.

The list about Miss Donnet was much more useful. If the visitor came from out of town then, in the manner of all small villages and towns, the people there kept a close eye on them and watched them intently. Their names were discovered and the details were carefully kept. As Guillaume had said, it was not a town that tourists or visitors to Toussaint would go to unless they absolutely had to. It was a place of merchants and fishermen.

There was lots of names common to the two lists from Miss Donnet of Fox Hollow and Miss Appoline of the Cockatrice. Most were easily identified as fishermen or barge people that made their living from the river and would therefore run into both women. But none of them would have had the kind of skills that would be needed to take down some of the trained swordsmen that Lord Matamara had at his disposal in order to protect his daughter. That was one of the few things that we knew the person that we were looking for, if it wasn't Jack, had to have. They had to be athletic and skilled with the blade.

If it wasn't Jack.

But it would inevitably turn out that someone in that line of work would not be in Flower of the Night's ledger. So the only way that she could have turned down such a person would be if he had propositioned her on the docks or when she was passing through in this direction or the other.

There were also quite a few people that both the Belles of Beauclair list had in common with the Cockatrice list. Men who had the wealth to spread around in the Belles but also liked a pretty face at the inn. These were generally merchants who were arriving after days, weeks or longer on the road with only donkeys, guards and whatever for company. They get to the cockatrice and see a pretty face and then ask to sleep with it. Not ideal behaviour, but certainly understandable. There was also a large number of people who were looking for official mistresses. Men who got their rocks off in the Belles and would literally tour the countryside in an effort to find pretty faces, hoping to dazzle these women and girls with extravagent gifts and flowery words. Promises of the ability to provide for the girl...

"Until they got pregnant," Syanna said darkly,

… and family. Often these were young, strapping older sons who had inherited struggling lands and who the younger and prettier brides could not be found with sufficient dowrys to be able to prop up the ailing holdings. As a result, they found themselves married to older widows who came with proper amounts of money. Again, an understandable motive, even though it was far from ideal.

This was the particular route of enquiry that gave us the most progress and it was this list of enquiries that gave us our most promising suspects.

There were men who, presumably and from the testimony of Guillaume, had heard of the beauty of Miss Donnet and had approached her father regarding "coming to some arrangement." Apparently these men were either merchants or nobles or Knights or sometimes a combination of all three. All of them local enough to Toussaint to have heard about Miss Donnet's beauty. They would have approached Miss Donnet with an offer of a library that would dwarf anything found at a convent and tutors that would expand her horizons. When Miss Donnet gave the expected answer, they would appeal to her father. The Father would also react appropriately and the person would move on.

Guillaume's exhaustive knowledge of the heraldry of the travelling Knights and nobles came to our rescue, as did Captain De La Tour's knowledge of the men that made their money through trade. Enough so that there were actually several names that appeared on all three lists.

But we were still not hopeful. The hour was getting late and we had already resolved to speak to Lord Tratamara in the morning. After all, his daughter had only died the previous evening and would be dealing with the invading army of well wishers that would have arrived at his house. Not exactly the best time to be dealing with a Witcher and the Captain of the Guard turning up.

But neither were we quite willing to give it up and head for home yet so we sat around and talked about what we had found.

There was also a dread that none of us had articulated up to that point. That dread was that it was now night time. If "Jack", whether supernatural or copycat, was going to strike again then it was going to be soon.

There were patrols out. The guards were in the streets and the Knights Francesca were in the countryside. We knew this. But there was a, not small, part of us that was also waiting for the alarm bells to start ringing.

For myself, I mostly was just listening to the discussion. Looking back, I don't think I had made my mind up as to what was going on. But I felt wrong. Something was missing and I had no idea what it was.

I was trying to practise the self-examination that I had been told was necessary. That looking at the self which would mean that I could tell, or guess, what was going on in my mind so that I could properly manage my mood and see if I was making myself ill. None of those signs were showing though. My breathing was regular, I wasn't light-headed, my pulse was regular if just a little bit fast which could easily be put down to a generalised excitement.

But something was missing. Something was off. I felt unbalanced and I couldn't figure out what it was.

The discussion had come back around. We had a list of suspects that we would be taking to Lord Tratamara in the morning. One of the problems that we were running up against was the swordsmanship thing. A problem that was best brought together by this small speech from Captain De La Tour.

"The problem is that there are only a couple of these people, only a couple and I believe none of them. There are only a couple of these people that have the skills to see off that many armed guards. Like Sir Guillaume, I too, know the men that were guarding Lady Marie, skilled swordsmen all, even if I disagree that any of them would make good candidates for knighthood. But they were skilled professionals at that. It would take a master swordsman to be able to off-handedly kill one of them, let alone several, with an added chase, then to kill and rape a woman before escaping through the city away from pursuing guardsmen.

"So the only way that it could be any of these people is if they had been training, in secret, to a level that belies their physical appearance and conditioning. Then they would have to become consummate actors in order to be able to convince people that they don't have the skills. That suggests a level of planning apart from anything else that I don't think any of these people are capable of."

And that was our problem in a nutshell. We had suspects, nearly a dozen of them in fact. But none of them inspired confidence and when I came back to the conversation again after trying to figure out why I was feeling out of sorts, they had returned to the topic.

"There are only four names on this list that I think are good candidates." Damien was saying, "and I firmly believe it's none of them."

Syanna sighed and I guessed that this was not a new conversation.

"Well lets go through them again." She said.

"The Merchant. Velles. The man that claims to have fought at the Line in Vizima."

Sir Guillaume shook his head in disbelief. "If everyone who had claimed to fight at the line in Vizima had actually been there, then it would have been a bigger battle than Brenna and Sodden combined."

"Still it's possible." Syanna picked at her lip. "He moves well enough, he still has swordsman calluses."

"But he was injured." Damien said. "Injured enough that he is not still in the armed forces and none of the captives that were taken that day were treated as kindly as the Emperor might have wanted. And such a man, if he fought at the line, would be in a place of high honour somewhere."

"Records were lost." Syanna argued.

"We're hung up on this subject of the Line." Kerrass said. "I agree though. He is military, or former military, and his skills might be enough for a short engagement. But regardless of any injury, he is not a young man and what has been done here needs vitality and strength. That requires training, a lot of it, and merchants simply do not have the time. He is definitely a merchant right?"

"He is." Damien sighed. "And known to us. He's known for trying to shave things on the wrong side of legal. Not quite a smuggler but certainly the kind of man my people and I keep an eye on. I don't like him for this though"

"Who else?" Syanna asked.

"Are you alright Freddie?" Ariadne whispered in my ear.

"Yeah," I murmered back. "Just feeling, a little off balance is all. Feeling... wrong. I can't get my brain to think straight. Not comfortable in my own skin."

"It's been a long day." She nodded. "Nearly time for you to get some rest. You've done really well today though."

I nodded and frowned again, paying closer attention.

"Sir Jean de Carnier." Damien said. "Good swordsman."

"But not that good." Guillaume said. "He would give a good report of himself to be sure but against more than one of those guards?" He shook his head. "There are only a handful of men in Toussaint that could have taken those guards."

"Oh yeah?" Kerrass wondered with a smile. "Such as?"

"Well you, for one." Guillaume grinned. "Colonel Duberton of the 4th who is still here after all. Me for another."

"Gregoire could do it." Damien said nastily. "And he's on these lists."

"I don't buy it." Syanna said, shaking her head. "Remember that Gregoire is a huge man. His frame alone would dismiss him. Witnesses describe a slender fighter. And the wounds are precise strikes. Gregoire is a master because he knows how to use his size and strength. Not everyone can do what he does or fight the way he does. Why would he use such strokes?"

"I know." Damien sighed. "I know. Like Lor... Like Freddie with Sir Raoul, I just want it to be him."

"Sir Morgan could and he still has the conditioning for it." Guillaume went on. "But he's not on these lists at all. And lastly we come to Lord Alain."

There was some nodding round the table. Alain de Moineau. The man who was married to Kerrass' lover. The man who, after talking with him for a few minutes, made Ariadne want to take a bath. The man who epitomised everything I hate about the physically beautiful and arrogant.

"The man is slime." Syanna declared. "And yes, he could do it. In fact, he would be my first suspect out of this lot."

"He is on all three lists." Guillaume said unhappily.

"He is. But he doesn't seem to care. He was not insulted when either Appoline or Miss Donnet said no. It was just a... He would settle for something else. He's a quantity over quality man."

"Why does he look elsewhere?" Ariadne asked curiously. "His wife is more than beautiful."

"It's his way of keeping score." Guillaume said unhappily. "I never found out why. He always needs the finer things in life. I agree with the Knight Commander. I don't like him for this. He is not short of admirers and why should he be. He is rich, handsome and I understand he can be charming if you can go for that kind of thing. This... This speaks of anger and hate to me."

"I can easily believe him to be the kind of man that molests a young Lady Marie at a party." Damien opined.

"So can I." Syanna said before shaking her head. "We will see if he has alibis but then we have to be careful. Out of everyone, he could duel his way out of this the most easily."

"What do you mean?"

"By some margin, Alain is the best duellist in Toussaint." Guillaume said. "There are better than he on horseback and if we were both properly armed and armoured on the battlefield, I reckon I could take him. But on foot, in the dueling circle, that man is unbeatable. The Knight Commander is right, we must be discreet in enquiring about him."

"So we're back here then." Damien said to the room. "We don't like our suspects, or it's Jack possessing someone else again. What can we do against that..."

We didn't find out what "that" was as the door opened to admit a guardsman who whispered in Damien's ear.

The Guard Captain paled.

"There's been another one." He said, rising to his feet.

We gathered our weapons and rose.

I allowed my body to take over a little bit as we filed through the building. I just let myself move in the pack, following the others along. The adrenaline had surged and I was ready for what I could see, or would see. I was taking in details, small things that I could already guess to be the case. Little bits of reasoning that would be registered for later.

The movements were quick but not urgent which meant that whatever had happened had already happened. People were calm which meant that Jack was not prowling the roof tops. If it was Jack, then he had already found his victim and moved on. No point rushing, take it slow. But that wasn't really where my thinking was.

Not really.

Instead, I was trying to nail down where the rest of my brain was. Trying to figure out the feeling of wrongness that had only increased since I had been told about this change. Adrenaline had spiked, I was undobutedly going tos ee something gruesome. There was a threat in the air and I was preparing myself. But for what?

And why was I so uncomfortable?

We left the Belles and I was able to, at least, register that the workers were huddled together, eyes looking out at us were huge and shining in the fire light. One or two of the olde women were holding the youngsters that looked so young that it was off-putting.

I climbed into my saddle and turned my horses head to follow where I was being led.

The night was cold. I remembered that as I rode along behind. I was dimly aware that we were being escorted and that we didn't... rush through the city. We took our time. We trotted the horses. No more than that. Not really. I was dimly aware of the logic. If the Knight Commander of the Knights Francesca and the Guard Captain were seen to be rushing around then that would cause a panic.

But I dismissed it from my head, an automatic, mechanical, response.

Why was I feeling so uncomfortable? I felt, almost light with the way I moved and sat in the saddle.

We rode up through the city at a reserved trot. Up the slope and along the road. Still a short while before true midnight if I was to judge. It was freezing cold, cobble crackingly cold. The air was still and painfully quiet to a degree that I had not heard since... Since I don't know when. I could literally hear a baby in one of the nearby houses being quieted by her mother. I know it was a girl because the mother called her "Darling Daughter."

The moon was clear and the stars glittered down and as we rode up through the city, I could hear the world seeming to come to terms with itself behind the sounds of hooves striking cobbles and the guttering of fliaming brands. It was a breath, a moment of clarity as the city seemed to take things in. As though Beauclair was a living breathing thing that was listening to itself. The same way that you sit awake in bed, trying to figure out whether the noise that woke you up was part of a dream, or if there really is an intruder coming to slit your throat.

We had wasted a lot of time sitting in the Belles trying to figure out the puzzle. There would be some recriminations for that later I had no doubt. Where we would be forced to explain to some people, maybe many people, why we had spent so much time chasing down a lead when it might not have been a lead after all.

If it was Jack.

The streets were not deserted either. There were guardsmen on the street and I noticed, with something of a smile, that the way had been cleared for us. Small groups of people, all armed, all wearing arm bands of different colours which left me feeling... a little amused to be honest. They were there in groups of people between four to maybe a dozen. If it was Jack, then Jack would make mincemeat of any number of people optimistically armed with cudgels.

To be honest though, the same could be said if the "imposter theory," came to be the true one. A proper, trained swordsman, would cut his way through an angry mob like those. Killing one, injuring another in the first pass and then drawing them out in order to pick them off one by one. Groups like that, they're more of a danger to each other than they would be a danger to the person that they're facing.

They glared at us balefully although none of them dared to shout out at us. Glares yes, shouts... No. The silence was too oppressive for that. The dread was too real.

We rode up through the city, past a checkpoint that was opened up for us as guardsmen stepped aside. Further up.

I had a brief chill as we turned towards where the cemetry was where my final confrontation with Jack had taken place all that time ago. Not something that I particularly wanted to think about. Not that sense of symmetry.

I had another brief flinch of amusement as I saw that we were avoiding the alleyways that would have cut our journey time in half. We were riding in the open. In the wide streets.

Finally, we came to that part of Beauclair that, I understand, is the oldest part of the city. The fact that I don't know that for sure is a little bit disappointing given my chosen profession, but that is the way of things I suppose. Not really getting the chance to do the things that you would really be interested in doing.

But it was that part of the city that gives the meaning to the term "Rabbit's warren." Where buildings had multiple levels and there were bridges and walkways everywhere. During the day you wouldn't even notice that you were passing under this or that, but at night, with what I now knew, the entire area had a sinister kind of feeling to it all.

It was towards where one of those archways were formed, that we were led. A line of guardsmen kept a line so that people couldn't pass into what I assumed to be the crime scene. A useless gesture, there was no-one arround that was trying to get into it.

Some of those guards dismounted and took our horses so that we could walk to the mouth of the little, artificial tunnel.

One of the guardsmen was young. Not nearly as young as he looked that night. He was pale, shaken and trembling slightly, his teeth chattering in the cold. Damien clapped him on the shoulder in passing before turning with Syanna to talk to the Sergeant in charge. Kerrass took a torch from one of the guards and led me past the line.

It became necessary for us to watch where we put our feet. There was so much blood. I have, literally, been in slaughterhouses where there was less blood than this.

The thing being that in actual slaughterhouses, they try and save the blood for other uses.

A little way into the alley we found her. She was, or had been a tall woman. The tatters of a red dress were about a slender frame. Her body was broken and torn. Her insides were tossed about the place as though they had literally been torn from inside her before being thrown about negligently. I saw it all with a detachment as I looked at the woman's face.

Her hair was dark, a little too dark I thought but that might have been a trick of the firelight. The upper part of her face was mangled, her eyes had been put out and it looked as though someone had made an effort to scalp the poor woman.

I didn't recognise her immediately although there was a glimmer of something there that tugged at the memory. Something about the mouth which almost looked untouched. Tongue, jaw and the like were all intact although I rather thought that she had a tooth missing.

She would have had a pretty mouth.

Not that I could really get too close for fear of stepping on something and ruining the site.

"What do you think Freddie?" Kerrass murmmered to me.

"I don't know." I told him. I could feel myself frowning as I thought. "I really don't know I can't... I'm struggling to get my mind to work here." I thought I could hear an insect buzzing and swatted next to my ear, disturbing nothing but air.

He straightened and led me a little distance away. "Look at me Freddie." He instructed.

I did as I was told.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"I feel wrong." I told him.

"Do we need to get you back to the palace? Are you having a..."

"No, it's not that. There's something missing." I frowned as I tried to explain. "I keep going for something and it's not there. If I was having an incident, I would be struggling to breathe. I would be light-headed and dizzy or my legs would be made of jelly. That's not what's happening. I feel, off balance. I feel... I feel as though something's missing and I couldn't tell you what it is. So I keep trying to look around and see what's happening. To let my brain think about the problem and I can't. Every time I reach for a logical path of thought I just can't quite get there. I feel as though I need to anchor myself and I don't know how. The way you settle your weight before a fight. I need to anchor myself before making the thoughts and I don't know what I'm missing."

"Breathe Freddie." He told me.

I smirked. "The smell is rather..."

"Just breathe. Look around and take it in. Damien is getting the report. Wait here."

He left. Heading over to where Ariadne was standing at the mouth of the alleyway with the horses.

I turned back and surveyed the scene, trying, really trying to see what I thought I had got a glimpse of. There was a lot here. A lot for me to see and I needed to take that in. Things for me to see and to understand and every time I reached for it, something was missing.

Syanna approached my shoulder.

"Well this is a fucking mess." She commented.

I grunted.

"Damien is getting the full story now. It would seem that there's a tavern on the upper level. Someone who had headed out to vomit their guts up heard a scream that was suddenly cut off before they heard, and I quote, "sinister laughter". Correctly, they called for a guard and they found this."

I grunted again.

She sighed. "There's something written on the wall." She told me. Someone passed her a torch and I shook myself, following her to one of the walls of the alley.

The torch glistened off smeared writing from a dark liquid. Droplets had run down the wall from excessive amounts. The writing was crude and badly formed.

WHAT DO YOU THINK FREDDIE? HA HA HA HA.

I felt my lips pull back into the beginnings of a snarl.

"I need some air." I whispered, "I need to think."

"Freddie. Lord Frederick." She began. "Help me out here. I really need something that I can..."

"I just need..."

"What do you need? Prophet's ballsack, what do you need and I'll get it for you."

"I don't... Flame but this is frustrating."

"Do you need some medicine I can get..."

"NO." I snapped. "I just need to find..." I shook my head.

"Freddie?" Ariadne was there, careful and supportive but that wasn't what I needed. Not what I wanted.

There was a clicking noise, sounds of metal scraping against itself followed by another click.

"Freddie?" Kerrass called.

I turned and caught the thing that he threw to me.

And suddenly, everything was right in the world again. My ungloved hand closed over the cold metal. It was off balance for my grip, and I spun the long pole so that the blade glittered in the torchlight. It no longer felt ugly, not ungainly as when I had fought Raoul. The spear spun in my hands and I heard myself chuckle as a cramp that I hadn't noticed in my hands disappeared. It was as though the cold of the metal scoured away a scuzzy feeling and I felt... clean.

"Your hands have been clenching with your frustration. As though you were trying to grasp at something." Kerrass said.

I spun the spear again, running through some basic maneaouvers. It felt so good. Better than the weapon had felt in my hands for so long.

I grinned and held it to the firelight, examining it again as though it was new.

"There's my Freddie." Ariadne breathed. I looked up at her and I saw an expression that I hadn't seen in a while. Her mouth was hanging a little open, her eyes were hooded slightly and she was smiling.

Hungrily. She was smiling hungrily.

I returned the smile. The spear fell, sliding through my hands, so that the butt rested on the floor and I leant on the solid weight, hooking my left hand in my belt.

"Lord Frederick we... uh..." Syanna.

I spun on her abruptly as everything, suddenly, came straight in my head.

"It's not Jack." I told her. The certainty suddenly sure in my soul.

"What? Why?" She asked, startled.

"How do you?" Damien began coming up behind her.

"This is too crude." I told them, leading them back to the alley. "This is... This is too... brutal, too unrefined. It's a sledgehammer to Jack's rapier. It's... tacky. Classless. Look."

I led them to the body.

"This was done quickly. Her insides were flung every which way because it was done quickly, frenzied."

"The killer was rushing." Kerrass agreed.

"Why would he rush?" Damien asked.

"Exactly." I told him. "That's the point. The killer was rushing, because the killer was afraid of being caught." I said. "Jack would not care. He would not be afraid. He is the thing that people are supposed to be afraid of after all.

"I bet that she," I gestured to the poor woman, "whoever she was, was taken elsewhere and brought here. That," I pointed to the head injury, "is to disguise the blow to the head that she took to knock her senseless. The reason that her lower face is uninjured is because it was covered. She was gagged. Then the site was staged, quickly and carelessly. She was brutalised before, in the middle of that, the gag was removed and she screamed."

My mind was on fire as the realisations hit me one after the other.

"The killer knew where the watch was and that they wouldn't have long. They mutilated the corpse and fled before the watch could get here."

"The writing?" Damien asked.

"I don't know." I said. "It would need to be tested. But I bet that the killer knew that they would have to stage the scene in advance of the killing, so they also brought another blood source and painted the writing with it."

I let that sink in for a moment as people stared at the writing.

"This was staged." I said. "You're looking for a copycat."

"What about the magical effects, the leaps and the vanishings?" Damien protested.

"I can't answer for that." I told him.

"I have some ideas." Kerrass suggested.

"But this is not Jack." I told them. Ariadne would later claim that I was almost hopping with excitement. "This is a copycat with some kind of other motive.

Syanna breathed out. It looked as though she had been holding that for a while. "A copycat." She sighed. "Well that makes it easy. Thank you Lord Frederick. I think we can all breathe a bit easier now and..."

"No you don't understand." I told her. "The danger is still real."

"What do you mean?"

"Jack hates copycats. We need to catch this killer sooner rather than later. Because if we don't, Jack will notice. Then he will come here and he will teach everyone the difference between a copycat." I gestured at the alley. "And the reality of what it is like when Jack comes a calling."

(Again, I just want to thank you for your patience on this one. This chapter has long been anticipated by many, including me, and I've struggled to get it to a stage that I'm happy with it. I'm still not entirely happy but they say that these things are never finished, only abandoned. Switching to a different word processor next time as this one hasn't been fulfilling my needs for some time so hopefully that will make a difference.

In the meantime, the world is still on fire with no signs of that fire going out yet. So please be safe out there.

Thanks for reading.)