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

143. Chapter 143

(A/N: Some advice as to diet is given in this chapter. I have no idea how accurate it is and the stuff was written for amusement rather than anything else. Sorry if it's horrifically wrong)

Things are never simple.

Kerrass would disagree of course. He would argue that sometimes things are very simple. You see a monster, you hunt it, you kill it, you move on. But that statement is one of those things that he and I are simply never going to agree about. Kerrass finds those things simple because he is a vagrant. Of no fixed abode. I don't mean that as a bad thing, and having shared that lifestyle with him occasionally over the last few years, I can admit that the lifestyle certainly has some attractions to it.

The ability to stop what you are doing, put it down and move on without a backward glance is a seductive thing. See the monster, hunt it, kill it and not worry about the repercussions. After all, what kind of repercussions can come to you in this particular case. Imprisonment? Fines? Executions? All of which can be overcome with the presence of a particularly fast horse, ability to leave everything behind at a heartbeat's notice, or a willingness to travel overnight through terrain that the people chasing you do not wish to follow you down.

You would be surprised how many town guardsmen will steadfastly refuse to follow a fugitive into a sewer, or a swamp, or through a monster's tunnels. Even if they, and you, know that the monster is dead. In some cases, it is even true that some particularly superstitious village militia won't even follow you into a patch of woodland if it's dark.

So for Kerrass, life is often very simple. Because he doesn't have to stay around and deal with what comes afterwards. He can kill the monster and begone. Even if that monster is a nobleman's son.

But I can't look at the world in the same way that he does, and to my mind, things are never simple. Never. I cannot help but look at the situations that we leave in our backtrail as we turn our horses backsides to the towns and villages behind us and imagine what is going to happen now. The angry spirit of the dead girl that Kerrass has fought in a circle of purple, magical lights might have been destroyed and her spirit banished into whatever world comes next for those poor souls.

But in the meantime, we have often had to ask a mother if the girl had a lover? Or ask the local mayor if there had been anything going on with the girl. And then we have to pressure them into finding out the truth. When we find out that the girl was forced to go to the local lord in order to pay for a sack of grain. Then she becomes pregnant as a result and becomes shunned, by the same village that she saved, for bearing a child born out of wedlock.

True story.

So what happened to that village after we dragged all that back into the light? For them it happened five years ago. But what about the young man who has become tall and strong now, but remembers his parents teaching him to hurl abuse at the big sister that he loved. What about the baker's son who had loved the dead girl and didn't understand why she had been unfaithful to him. What about the Aunt, who had believed her sister when she had turned away a weeping teenager because of the disgrace that had been lied about.

What happens then?

Nothing is ever simple.

The area around Oxenfurt is still reeling from the events that occurred around my father's death. The lynch mob that had taken the perpetrators of those awful crimes and had them burnt on a field outside of the city. The fact that so many people had ignored so much horror for so long because it had been done to people that they had considered beneath them.

With the rebirth of the Princess, Dorne is a proper country now and the fact that it is still mostly forest means that the price of lumber in the Southern Empire has plummeted. A recent assessment of the matter that Emma showed me said that the entire population of wood cutters in The Empire could descend upon Dorne and still not make a dent in the land clearance that needs to be done there. And the fact that woodworkers are taking the thorns that came from those old vines and turning them into small weapons, is also taking certain parts of the world by storm. Bladewood they are calling it. The Dwarves are up in arms about it because apparently it is much cheaper to produce than steel, is lighter, holds an edge better, and there are thorns from the depths of the woodland that are longer than the zweihanders of the Nilfgaardian and Redanian Landsknechts.

The village of the Unicorn is all but dead. Our travelling companions in Skellige are now powerful men and women.

On and on it goes.

Life is never simple. And although it seemed like years since I had been hauled out of my bed in order to assist with the investigation into the matter of Lady Duberton's death. It was actually still the same day. And although I felt as though I was stumbling round with weariness I forced myself to continue for no other reason than I could not have done otherwise. Even though, as Ariadne had said, I was exhausted in body, mind and soul. Where other friends that knew me well, or not so well for that matter, were describing me as being grey, or green, around the edges. I still had a long way to go before I could find my bed.

Not all of it was the fault of circumstance. Some of it was a fault that lies inside my own head. There was still so much information coming in. So much that I wanted to know, that rendered it impossible for me to get any proper sleep. I don't know if this happens to you so I will try to describe it.

If there is a problem in your life and you have spent all your waking hours working on the problem. We will go with a light-hearted option here as it is also obvious to me that my last record was rather… bleak. Imagine that you are in love with someone. That you are obsessed with them. You don't dare go anywhere near them because, what if they reject you. You think of ways of starting conversations. You try to find out what they are interested in to see if the two of you have anything in common.

Your friends and family tell you the same thing over and over again that the solution to your, at this stage, rather sweet crush is to simply go to the person that you have been admiring and to ask them out. Invite them out for a drink. Invite them to a party, take them to a play, or invite them for a walk in the gardens.

So you accept that. You accept that, sooner or later, you will need to express your interest to the person that you have fallen in love with from afar. But now, you have a different problem. Now you have to figure out how to talk to this person when they are not surrounded by their friends. It is going to be hard enough risking the ridicule of the object of your affections without also risking the ridicule of the people that they surround themselves with.

So now you are scheming again. How are you going to arrange the perfect moment to strike and then, what are you going to do when you get there? How can you make it appear as though it's some kind of accident. How are you going to make the other person feel as though your entire life isn't going to end if they turn you down. How is all of that going to happen?

I have played this game. Friends of mine have played this game. I have coached friends of mine through it and been coached by friends through my own crisis of romance.

And then, you finally screw up your courage to ask the question. It is the ultimate moment. You have been building up to it for a period of time that feels as though you have been working on it forever. And then…

They answer you.

Then there is a moment of… well it depends on what the answer is doesn't it. The only time that the answer to that moment lived up to my wildest expectations was when Ariadne took the engagement ring from my hand and put it on hers. That expression of terrified hope that was on her face is still one that I take out of my memory occasionally and examine it when I need to cheer myself up.

But most often, it has been an anti-climax. The person has agreed to the drink, to the walk, to the whatever and then there is a moment as we walk away from each other where, all that build up, all that thinking and all that anticipation of whatever is going to happen next has nowhere to go.

But your body and your brain don't know that. It just keeps spinning. Sometimes in joy at the fact that they said yes. Or in sadness if they said no. Sometimes in anger if they just laugh in your face. Or in confusion if they tell you that they want to but can't.

This happens to me, or rather it used to happen to me after exams. When I had been preparing for, building up to, the exams for ages. Working at it, studying with friends, quizzing each other. Really trying to nail down what it is that's going to happen. And then comes the ultimate moment. Sitting in a hall with a number of my peers as we answer the questions. The only sounds being the scratching of quills on parchment, the occasional heavy footsteps of the examiners walking in the corridors between students that are frantically trying to get the knowledge that fills their heads down in a coherent pattern. All of that and the sound of your own breathing and heartbeat.

Then comes a moment where you don't know what to do with yourself. Where you are still frantically trying to fill your mind with the answers to questions that you cannot guess. Where you look at your day and think. "What do I do now?"

This is the reaction that my family are worried about when Kerrass and I finally stop travelling together. That there will come a time where I am still trying to travel with Kerrass, wondering what he's doing, what he's fighting and so on. And it is that impulse, that would mean that even though I was still sick, even though I was as tired as I've ever been due to the exertions and weakness that my illness had left me with. Even though Kerrass was safe and the villains were in the process of being brought to the justice of Toussaint.

Even though all of that was the case, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. I had too many questions. I would want to pace and more around and shout at people. It was going to be interesting to see if I could even sit still long enough to eat something. Although the fact that I had enough brain power floating around to realise that I was hungry was an encouraging sign.

We couldn't stay in the grave yard though. Ariande was concerned that it was too cold for her invalids. Her invalids meant Mark, Kerrass and myself.

Emma scooped Mark off and the pair of them went with Laurelen back to the palace. Kerrass was a slightly trickier proposition as the magic that was knitting his body together was still working it's… well… magic. Ariadne told us that the spell required her to be in close proximity to Kerrass for the immediate future, closer the better although they wouldn't need to sleep together in the same room or anything. Adjoining rooms would be perfectly adequate. Something for which I found that I was absurdly pleased. Neither of them would betray me but that was where my brain went at first.

So before she went back to the palace to coordinate the various manhunts that were going on, Syanna ordered a covered wagon to come and take the three of us back up to the palace. We would then join her there.

Kerrass protested at this, he declared that he just needed to "Walk it off" or whatever that meant but Ariadne was having none of it, threatening to spell him if it came down to it, pointing out that he would not have the strength to resist her if that was the way things were going to go. It said something about his mental and physical state that he did not protest this too much.

Syanna left, Palmerin stayed and commanded the guards and other Knights that were preventing Kerrass from being swamped with well-wishers and people who would be saying things like "I always knew you were going to win." And "The man was a scumbag. I always said so, a scumbag." I was grateful to him for that, I don't know how Kerrass would have taken that.

He was going through his own thing anyway. Someone had brought him his sword which had obviously clattered off some stone when Alain had sent it sailing through the air and he was taking a whetstone to the edges. It was a fruitless endeavour to my eyes as it would clearly need the attention of a proper blacksmith, even despite it's meteorite nature.

But it gave him something to do while we waited. His forehead was creased in thought.

Ariadne and I stood together as I was feeling more than a little emotionally fragile myself. We didn't want to talk too much. I don't know why but certainly from my perspective it was something to do with the fact that there were a lot of people watching and I wanted some privacy for what I was going to ask next.

So Ariadne and I stood together and said nothing. Ariadne occasionally frowned in concentration as she maintained the healing spell on Kerrass that was returning him to health and strength.

Alain had been taken away. Lord D'Alambourd had gone with him, partially as acting as Alain's appointed friend and representative but also because I think he wanted to watch the final disgrace of his tormentor. I can't say that I blamed him.

The wagon finally arrived, Palmerin shook hands with Kerrass and myself, expressed his private joy that things had turned out the way they had, kissing Ariadne's hand as was proper before turning to make his own way to the palace.

When we had all settled into the wagon, Ariadne firmly instructed the driver that he was to drive slowly and carefully and do his best to avoid any potholes in order to avoid jerking Kerrass' frame. Which seemed like the best place to ask my question.

"So how is Kerrass? Really I mean." I wondered as we all settled in. Ariadne had commandeered all the cushions that were in the wagon and instructed Kerrass to place them around himself.

"You understand that I can hear you right Freddie?" He wondered.

"I can." I retorted. I could not help but grin at him. It felt so good to just be able to bicker with him as we had been able to do. So soon after I had all but given him up for dead. "But I decided that your judgement as to your own capabilities was not entirely trustworthy given recent events and as such, I am asking the professional."

Kerrass opened his mouth with a quick retort at the ready before he stopped, tilted his head on one side and nodded.

"No that's fair." He said before turning to Ariadne. "So how am I? I am feeling stronger by the second."

"That is because you are getting stronger." She told him. "The spell will be done with your outward appearance and musculature relatively quickly, although I will admit that your ear will never fully regrow."

"Darn." He said. He seemed more amused than I would have expected at being permanently disfigured. He certainly took the news far better than I would have in his place. "I can still hear out of it though."

He placed one hand over the uninjured ear in order to test that before nodding.

"That is to be expected. The spell will cause a certain amount of regrowth although you may notice some lacks in certain registers. Certainly during the first stages as well as your inner ears are still recovering from the damage that they took during the duel. But if you truly want the full range of your hearing back at some point in the future, you should start saving for a Magic user to regrow you an ear and have it reattached. I understand that that kind of thing is quite expensive."

"Can you not do it for me?"

"Maybe, but my rates are quite high. I am also rather busy at the moment with other projects and learning how to regrow parts of the body from scratch is a bit beyond me. Regenerative healing is a useful skill that I have made it my business to learn."

I could not understand why she was looking at me at the time that she said that.

"But regenerating bits that have been completely cut off is both more difficult and requires a completely different set of skills. It is more alchemical in nature, or so I would think, just putting my mind to it now. I think you would be better off asking Laurelen for that kind of thing. She would certainly be able to point you in the direction of a proper professional."

She considered for a moment. "I really should think about how such a thing would be done though." She was looking at me again before she shook her head.

"Reknitting the torn muscles is relatively simple healing magic however. It took longer to heal your arms in the North because the healing had already started with your alchemical efforts and your natural body's healing efforts. Muscle is, at the same time, more complicated and much simpler to reconnect than bone. And again, I don't think it's possible to understate how lucky you were that Laurelen and I were on hand as quick as we were. So your physical strength will return relatively quickly and you could expect to be at your normal strength levels by later on this evening. That is not to say that you should just go running around off your own efforts however. Your gut injury is far more complicated."

"How so?"

"A human's digestive tract is a complicated series of organs, nerves and chemicals. Those things have been pierced, cut, fried on hot metal, cut again and then contaminated with all the other chemicals and stuff that is in your belly. As a result, some bits of your stomach are still not where they should be and there are still some bits of your own digestive process that are trying to poison you from within.

"Yet again, I must tell you that you are a lucky person. If you were not a Witcher, then some of those toxins would have succeeded in killing you. But a Witcher's metabolism and resistance to poisons, acids and the like will simply be absorbed and moved on. It will not be comfortable though."

Kerrass squirmed in his seat.

"How so?" I wondered with morbid fascination.

"Try and imagine the worst attack of gastric distress that you have ever experienced and then triple it." She told me before brightening. "It will in fact, be a lot like that time where you were having your insides liquified by Spider Venom. Remember how awful that was for you and how you spent a lot of time excreting things that were quite disgusting."

"I do." I said, looking at Kerrass with a mixture of amusement, sympathy and horror.

"Well it's going to be a lot like that." She told me before turning back to Kerrass. "I am going to give you a list of foods that you are not allowed to eat as well as another list of foods that you should actively pursue in an effort to make things easier on your bowls. You will not enjoy this process as it is all but certain that the stuff on the list of things that you are not allowed to eat will be among your favourite things."

"Sounds horrifying." Kerrass commented.

"As yet, you have no idea." She told him. "In the meantime, the only pieces of advice that I have for you are these. Sit on soft cushions. Never trust the urge to break wind, it will often be far worse than that. And finally, do not strain when you feel the urge to use the toilet…"

"Why not?" Curiosity really is going to be the death of me one day.

"Because there is a real possibility that he will shit out part of his Colon."

"Lovely." Kerrass said, squirming again.

"You really should think of some of the repercussions of your actions in future." Ariadne told him. "Healing does not just include taking some potions, binding your arm up, or being off your feet for a few days. Sometimes the healing can manifest in other, far more uncomfortable ways."

Then she began to smile, viciously and nastily.

Kerrass stared at her for a long time.

"This is revenge isn't it." He said with a slight smile.

"You do anything quite so foolish again and I will do more than enjoy your discomfort." She told him. "Freddie loves you and therefore, I love you. But he is my first, second, third and fourth priority over caring for you. Your healing is going to be uncomfortable. There is nothing I can do about that. It was going to be uncomfortable anyway. But you upset Freddie like that again? You do anything quite so foolish as that… again. And I will go out of my way to make your healing more uncomfortable. Have I made myself clear?"

I thought she spoke in a surprisingly sweet voice given the context.

Kerrass and she locked gazes for a long moment before Kerrass turned to me. "I deserved that." He said before laughing and wincing at something and staring off into space in thought.

I took Ariadne's hand and squeezed it.

"A little harsh?" I wondered of her.

"Only if you look at it with any kind of understanding from his point of view." She told me. "I can understand why he did what he did and if that was the only consideration then that would have been fine. But in doing so, he risked you as well."

"Only this morning you were telling me to look at things from his perspective. You said that his actions were inevitable."

"And they were." She told me. "And you needed that speech then. I, however, am protecting you now that the crisis is past."

"I don't understand." I moaned.

"I do." Kerrass said, refocusing his eyes. "And she's right. If I follow correctly, she was right this morning in what she said to you, and she is right now as well. I did not think about how my actions would affect other people and that is what she is telling me. I could not have done anything other than what I did. But I should, also, have been more considerate as to how it was going to affect everyone around me."

He shook his head before going to stare off into the distance again.

"I have been travelling on the road for so long. I have, only twice, found someone to love and therefore had others to worry about other than myself. The Princess needed protection, but I would be lying to you and myself if I said I only did it for her. It would even be true, as I admitted at the time, that she would have been horrified for the things that I did in her name. And now I find that I have almost a family of my own that has taken me in when I wasn't looking for it. That is… new to me. I am not sure that I like it."

"You do." Ariadne told him.

"Yes." He admitted after a moment. "I do. I was taught to depend on myself and only myself. That there would be no-one coming to my aid as I fought the monsters in the holes and the caves of the world. Now there are, and it never occurred to me that I would be hurting them by continuing to live my life the way I always have. Huh. Something to think about."

We rode the rest of the way to the palace in silence, Kerrass staring out of the gap in the covered wagon, watching the streets go by.

I was watching Kerrass when he climbed out of the wagon. I rather thought that, even in the small amount of time that it had taken us to get from the Graveyard up to the palace, he was feeling stronger still. But he visibly, and consciously, made the decision to take his time getting up off the cushions and climbing down the stairs. Ariadne and I were about to head out into the palace when Kerrass called us over as he walked, slowly and carefully over to a bench where he wanted my help to get the sword strapped to his back.

"I want to feel like a Witcher again." He told me.

"What is the real reason that you called us over though Kerrass?" Ariadne wondered in a calm voice.

Kerrass laughed. "I have a message for Freddie and I suspect, for you too." He said.

"What message?" I wondered.

He grinned, he seemed to be expressing emotion a lot more since his near death experience.

"The Goddess says hello." He said.

"Really?" I wondered. "Tell her that she can get fucked."

Kerrass chuckled. "And she said that you would say that. She also said that that was kind of the idea. And that this time, you should bring Ariadne with you."

"You're not jealous?" Ariadne asked, surprisingly calmly given that I was spluttering with rage.

"No." He sighed and tugged at his harness straps to settle them into place. "You won't have seen her, but she was in the crowd. She was next to my head when you caught me Freddie."

I nodded. That made a certain amount of sense.

"She told me that you were right about the thing that I've given up on." Kerrass told me. "And that, despite your hating her, I should follow your example more closely when it comes to my religion in that your actions are far more immediate and determined. She told me that this was why she would offer you her blessing if you want it. And also that I should ask about what I have given up on."

He seemed to square his shoulders a little, as though getting ready for a fight. "So what have I given up on Freddie?"

"Are you sure?" I asked him.

"The Goddess was pleased with what I did today. She was pleased with what you told me at the end, that I should go down swinging and make him work for it. But she told me that she has been angry with me recently which is when she told me that you know why. I do not want my Goddess angry with me, Freddie."

Ariadne nodded. "Sounds wise."

"So what have I given up on?"

"Princess Dorne." I told him. "You love her, you know that. She loves you. You know that too. You have been running from your feelings since we left this place last year. You should go to her and you should not give up on your own happiness. Even if it must wait a year or two for her to… I dunno… age a bit. Do what she needs to do to secure her Kingdom."

Kerrass nodded, again, calmer than I expected.

"I do not know where to begin with that." He admitted.

"It starts with a conversation." I told him. "A letter maybe?" I checked with Ariadne.

"She will be at the wedding." Ariadne said. "As part of the Empress' entourage. You should write to her that you will see her then, so that you might converse and discuss matters properly."

Kerrass nodded.

"Then I will do that."

He nodded again as though making a final decision and set off marching towards the palace gate. There was a slight limp to his step and I looked in askance at Ariadne.

"Those bowel issues are making themselves known I suspect." She said with a smile.

I laughed,

"So what do you think?" She asked as she linked her arm through mine and steered me to follow Kerrass. "Should we take the Goddess up on her offer and accept her blessing?"

I stared at her. "Surely you can't be serious? The last time I went near that woman, that... thing, she all but destroyed my mind and my sense of self."

"Yes." Ariadne agreed, "but for two points. The first is that I think you needed the shock of what she told you and what she did to you. I think that much of that is still going through your mind and that you should not discount what she had to say quite so easily. She could have done it gentler but for the fact that I don't think that that is in her nature, or that you would have listened to a gentler version."

"And secondly."

"When offered, even though it is not a religion that you follow. Is it really wise to turn down the blessing of a Goddess? Especially when offered freely?"

I don't know." I told her. "In this case, it might."

"Besides," she went on. "This time, there would be someone with you."

"There was one last time as well."

"But that person was not me. And it might be an experience."

"We will talk on this later." I have been told by married men that this is sometimes a necessary tactic. If there is clear sign that the other person in your life is determined to have their way, or thinks that they are in the right when you are less convinced, then sometimes, all you can do is put the matter off to be discussed at a later date.

It was dark now and we moved slowly as we moved through the courtyards of the palace. Part of that reason was that Kerrass was moving slowly and with pronounced care. Could he have moved faster? Probably, but he was taking his new vow of taking more care of himself to heart and the exaggerated lack of speed seemed to be part of that. The torchlight guttered and we were occasionally forced to stand to one side as groups of guards or Knights were rushing this way or that way. The Palace guards were augmented by the black armour of the Imperial forces again which was telling me something.

I was tired and anticipating the prospect of my part of all of this nonsense being done. If they had managed to turn one of the conspirators then there was an almost certainty that they would have what they needed. I looked forward to a long bath, followed by a nice meal followed by the kind of pleasant slow collapse into bed of the man that knew that he didn't have to get up in the morning. You know the one, where you want to try and enjoy the process of falling asleep.

The night air smelled good, burning lamp oil combined with the smell of damp and coming rain and I felt really really good.

We were shown straight into the main centre of the investigation where only that morning, before Kerrass' idiocy had even been a part of his imagination, we had sat and talked about the death of Madame Duberton and where we were going to head to as part of the investigation now. It seemed like a long time ago now.

I had expected the place to be a hive of activity, people rushing in and rushing out and shouting with each other. Much like it had when we had first turned up to the headquarters of the Knights of Saint Francesca.

But it wasn't. There were considerably fewer people in the room for a start. Syanna was there and was sat, happily, discussing things with Lady Tonlaire and a couple of other courtiers. One of which I knew to be the herald and the other I didn't recognise. There was also an armoured and visored pair of Knights on the door.

Other than that, the only difference that I could see was that someone had propped a large chalkboard on one of the walls. On which was written a series of names. Some of which had been crossed out.

Syanna saw us first.

"Lord Frederick." She exclaimed with a happy smile, leaping to her feet. "You know the Lord herald don't you?"

"We have met but only briefly." I said, shaking the man's hand. "Your servant My Lord."

"No no Lord Frederick. I am at your service," the older man said with a smile. Shaking my hand. "I understand that I have you to thank for all the excitement in the courts recently. That business with Sir Gregoire and the Courtesan. Quite entertaining."

"If costly." Lady Tonlaire was smiling. There was a set to her features that suggested that she was happy, but confused with it. As though that happiness was a new sensation to her and she didn't really know what to do with it. "But without that action, I would not be here now to enjoy the downfall of so many terrible idiots."

Syanna laughed at that. Like her sister, Syanna is a beautiful woman, but I always thought her a bit hard. But now, in her triumph, she suddenly seemed dazzling in her beauty. It was as though her face had become alive and she positively shone with joy.

"So many idiots." Syanna said happily. "I too am enjoying some of their downfalls. But let me finish the introductions before we all go back to basking in our victory. Lord Frederick, Madame La Comtesse, Witcher Kerrass. It is my honour to present Lord Mathieu Devereaux. He is the high Prosecutor of Toussaint and will be putting together the trials of those people that we have captured, or are capturing as we sit here and speak."

She looked over at the messenger that had just come through the door and passed her a piece of paper. She opened it and read it. "Hah." She said with delight and leapt towards the chalkboard before crossing another name off. "Sir Costeau is now in our custody." She crowed before clasping her hands in joy..

"Lord Frederick." Lord Devereaux seemed a dour man, old before his years and I don't think he would be cross with me if I said that he seemed to stoop in a recognisable way to me. It spoke of many hours sat crouched over a book, peering at the contents. But he smiled as he shook my hand, kissed the air above Ariadne's knuckles although I noticed that he kind of had to steel himself to do so, and finally shook Kerrass' hands with unalloyed delight. "And Master Kerrass. Thank you sir. Thank you. You have made an old man very happy."

Kerrass raised his eyebrows.

The older man sighed and winced a little in remembered pain. "The former Lord Moineau decided to seduce my wife. The prospect of sleeping with a heroic young Knight was more appealing than sleeping with an old-before-his-time Lawyer. And he did it because I was dealing with a land dispute between a friend of his and someone else. Then he broke my wife's heart when he ridiculed her in public after the case was over. I couldn't duel him of course as I barely knew which end of the sword to hold and so I had to console my wife in private while pretending to be unaware of why Alain and his friends were laughing at me behind our back."

"Will your wife return to court now?" The Herald asked.

"I doubt it. She will be too afraid that people will laugh at her. She stays on our estates now." He told us. "We understand each other. There is affection there, but the love that we both hoped for has passed beyond us I fear."

"There is time yet." Syanna said as she came back to the table. "Especially now that her tormentor is almost certainly going to hang."

"I will speak with her." Lady Tonlaire told the other man. "Woman to woman. From what I understand, the Empress is trying to change how the world views service and the virtues of those that serve."

"I thank you all." Lord Devereaux said.

"Before my fiancee almost kills himself with questions." Ariadne jumped into the conversation with both feet. "I must ask if dinner can be ordered as both my charges need something to eat."

"After the afternoon that they've had, I'm not surprised." The Lord Herald harrumphed. I had never before heard someone speak in a Harrumph before. I wonder if you can train someone to do it.

Syanna laughed and called in a servant. She seemed to be laughing a lot at the moment and I didn't want to take that away from her

"I'll have…" I began but Ariadne cut me off.

"Lord Frederick will have whatever red meat that you have roasting with some thick gravy, whatever green vegetables that you have available, bread, butter and plenty of all of it. No cheese however."

"What?" The herald looked horrified whereas Syanna was amused.

"The Witcher will have some chicken, preferably a breast, with some mashed carrots and swede. He can have the innards of some soft white bread and may drink a cup of milk for refreshment. It is vital that no seasoning at all be applied to either the meat or the vegetables."

The herald was aghast. For such a thin man, I would not have taken him for a foodie.

"Further to this." Ariadne went on. "Neither man is to be brought any food whatsoever without consulting me first. Lord Frederick can eat what he likes for the rest of the day but I am to be consulted for his three main meals. Kerrass is forbidden from eating anything other than what I say."

I was bemused. Kerrass was appalled and as the servant left, Ariadne spun on him. "Consequences of your actions." She told him.

Again, Syanna laughed, her mild laughter turning into a loud guffawing when Kerrass nodded meekly and went to sit down.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"More than half the prisoners that we want have been caught and taken into custody." Lady Tonlaire said while Syanna recovered her composure. "Lord Velles was most co-operative and is under guard in one of the guest rooms as well, away from the cells where the other people are being kept."

"There is some concern that he would not survive being amongst the other prisoners." The Lawyer said. "Personally, I would say that it would get rid of a lot of problems if they did. But in the meantime?" He shrugged.

"What have we learned?" I wondered. I suddenly felt quite weak and found that Ariadne had pulled over a chair for me to sit on.

"Not much." Syanna told me as she recovered from her fit of the giggles. "Names mostly at this stage. I want to get them all caught before we start to really get on with the interrogations. We need to prevent another Jack attack tonight otherwise all of this is going to be for nothing."

I nodded. I was fading and I could feel my brain and thought processes retreating from me. I sat and waited for the next questions to occur. "So Velles has confessed?"

"He has." Syanna said. "He almost seemed proud, if a little resigned. He's trying to make out that he was acting for the benefit of Temerian trade concerns and that Queen Anais will be angered if he is inconvenienced. That the new regime in Toussaint has made it difficult to get their proper trading done."

"Has it?" Ariadne wondered.

"No." Syanna said. "What it has done is meant that Temerian merchants can't smuggle as much across our borders under the guise of everyday trade."

"The problem with the matter…" The lawyer began. "Is that he is, or rather claims to be, a Temerian national and as such, we can't just hang him."

Syanna waved her hand in the negative. "Even as we sit here speaking, my sister is writing to the Temerian Ambassador to demand that we be allowed to try Lord Velles in our courts and with our laws. They might have a Queen and we only have a Duchess, but we are still of equal standing in the Temerian court. Even if Queen Anais denies the request, the legal concerns would carry on for years and the Empress will almost certainly come down on our side. The man confessed after all and the Empress has views on rape and murder."

A thought occurred to me. "If you do get into too much trouble with the Temerian court, then you could do worse than speaking with Emma. She is friends with the Temerian Chancellor's wife and has them both up to the castle for tea whenever the Chancellor is in Novigrad addressing trade concerns."

"Good to know." Syanna said. "But I don't think it will come to that. Anais is certain to be as horrified as anyone about what has happened here."

"How are the other prisoners doing?" I wondered as Ariadne poured myself a cup of something hot and steaming. I looked for Kerrass who was over lying, stretched out on one of the softer couches which suddenly seemed like a really good idea.

"They are fine." Syanna said.

"They're not fine at all." Lady Tonlaire said. "They are too calm. They should be outraged. They should be trying to bluster their way out of whatever mess that we've got them in. They should be whining and shouting. They are not, they are waiting."

Something tickled in the back of my brain although I couldn't tell what it was.

"They are in shock." Syanna told her. Desperately trying to hold onto her triumph. But I could tell that she wasn't quite happy with it. "They're in shock. They didn't expect that they were going to get caught and now that they have been caught, they don't know what to do with themselves."

"I'm sorry." Lady Tonlaire shook her head. "I know that I am the new child in the class, but I don't agree with that for a moment. One of the things that Lord Frederick…"

"Freddie, please." I said from my position seated at the table with my head in my hands.

"What?" She asked, shaking herself out of her current train of thought.

"It's Freddie to the people that I work with. "Lord Frederick to enemies or people that I don't know."

"Huh." Her eyebrows raised in surprise. "Does that mean that I'm promoted?"

"Time will tell." Ariadne told her. "It can vacillate depending on his mood."

"Noted." She considered this for a moment or two before shaking her head. "One of the things that Freddie has said over and over is that these conspirators are clever people. Lord Velles is hiding behind attempts at diplomatic immunity and the, from what I understand, huge trading power that Temeria has when it comes to the selling of Toussaint wines abroad. So there are two factors here… The first is that the other conspirators would know that there is a real possibility that there is a weak link somewhere and they will have a plan to get rid of that weak link when they eventually fold."

She looked at Syanna significantly. "Lord Velles is under guard isn't he?"

"Significant guard yes."

"Because if he is kept in some guest quarters, Lord Frederick's sister has proven that not all of those guest rooms are entirely secure."

"We know about all of those passages now after Lady Vigo went through the palace with the proverbial fine toothed comb and…"

Lady Tonlaire was warming up to her subject now and waved this off. "So they would know that there is a possibility of a weak link in their chain somewhere. But they would also know that there is always the possibility that they would be caught. We have them now because, frankly, we were cleverer than they were. But they knew that this was a possibility. They had to. SO what do they have in place to stop this. What do they have ready to be in place should it all fall down around their heads. Because they will have something. Even if it's not a very good something."

She sighed as she seemed to run out of words.

"It's not an invalid point." Kerrass said from his couch.

"It's not." The herald agreed.

The lawyer looked thoughtful, while Syanna tugged at her lip unhappily.

"To be clear." Lady Tonlaire said. "We've not done anything wrong, we have made no blunder. I think, I agree, that they are beaten. My question is, do they know that. And if they don't?"

"What do they know that we don't?" I finished looking back up.

Silence fell on the room for a long moment.

"Fuck." Syanna said. "We're back to reacting again aren't we. Fuck."

She picked up a cup and threw it at the wall before laughing bitterly. "Prophets but I am such a cliche when I get angry. I need something to hit or," her gaze became contemplative. "Or something to fuck I suppose."

"I'm injured." Kerrass complained.

"I'm too old and remember you as a baby." The herald smiled. "It would be strange."

"I am married." The lawyer said, a little bitterly. "And although my wife has not always been faithful, I will not betray her in the same way."

I was too busy enjoying the attempt to lighten the atmosphere to see where this was heading.

"I would offer to lend you Freddie." Ariadne said calmly. "But he takes pride in that kind of thing and he is too tired and sick to properly perform."

"Hey." I protested.

"Call me a liar Freddie."

She wasn't wrong.

"Fair enough." Syanna said. "How about it Lady Tonlaire. You fancy a go? The table looks sturdy enough."

The lady in question was clearly astonished at the way the conversation had shifted. "I… I'm not sure it would be appropriate." She spluttered. "And… I must confess… I do not find the female of the species interesting in that way."

"I do." Ariadne said, still with an infuriating calmness.

The room went deathly silent for a moment. Speaking for myself, my imagination was running away with me as Syanna made a play of considering the prospect.

"Nah." She said after a moment. "It would send the wrong message if I got involved with another Vampire."

"It would seem a bit distasteful." Ariadne agreed.

"And given that Damien is still dealing with Leblanc, I guess I need to find something to hit."

She pulled herself together and back into seriousness.

"Ok," She said. Going and picking up the broken cup before she poured herself another drink. "What are they going to do? What's their plan? No idea is too stupid."

"Having Velles killed." Lady Tonlaire answered promptly. "If he is removed then that is a lot of their justification for it. If they can get some poison in him or otherwise debilitate him? If they can portray him as mad or some other way. As it is, they can just claim that he is foreign and therefore not to be trusted but at the same time…"

"I need to stay here," Ariadne said. "but if I can recommend Lady Laurelen examine the man to see if he has already been poisoned. She is more skilled in such matters than Lady Vigo. If all else fails, I can take Kerrass and we will go together."

Syanna scribbled a note on a piece of card and passed it to a servant who scurried off.

"Anything else?" Syanna said.

"Last ditch attempt on the Duchess, or another target?" The herald said. "The resulting arguments about succession would last for months, if not years and would almost certainly involve an Imperial intervention. After that, the conspirators' imprisonment would be prolonged, delaying the trials which would give relatives and friends the opportunity to bribe, engineer and politic their way to freedom."

"My sister's protections are vast and varied as it is." Syanna said. "Since the first time that Freddie suggested the possibility that my sister might be the ultimate target, her guard was increased. Her food, drink and clothing is all tested for poisons and she wears gloves. Her maids are highly trained by the Imperial intelligence service as a gift from the Empress and the guards that Damien and I have placed on her room are amongst our most humourless and utterly lacking in Imagination. She is as secure as I can make her without locking her in a box and burying her in a ditch somewhere."

"That's… a bit extreme." The herald had paled.

"Not all that long ago, I planned to send an Elder Vampire against my sister in order to kill her." Syanna said reasonably. "Before that, I had considered many other schemes and since our reconciliation I have worked to plug those gaps that I found when I was looking. Which include gaps that I only knew about because I grew up in the palace itself. Any more ideas?"

"They know, that we know, that Jack is more than one person now right?" I wondered.

"I have no idea." Syanna said. "Other than Velles who has only really had time to give us a list of names and to admit some of his own part in what was happening, we have not had time to question any of them." And the people that would be doing the questioning have been busy with other duties or are busy rounding up the last of the conspirators."

I nodded at that.

"Then there could be another Jack attack. If there is someone that we haven't caught yet. Or if there is a decoy or something."

"Who would do that?" The lawyer was appalled. "They would then be the scapegoat for everything."

"Someone could be forced." I suggested. "Or the other thing is that they wouldn't need to even do very much. Just make it clear that Jack is still out there and to be feared before vanishing somewhere. It could be a flunky or a hireling or…. Any number of things. Then our existing prisoners will argue that they had nothing to do with it, that Velles would say anything, would implicate anyone in order to save his own neck and on and on it would go."

Syanna listened carefully. "So we must keep the Jack watch up." She said. "Lovely, people are going to love that."

"Only until we are certain that we have everyone." I told her.

"And when is that going to happen?" She said with a resigned smile. "Alright, what else?"

"They could frame you." I added. "If everyone suddenly starts arguing that this plot was your doing."

"That might work." Lady Tonlaire suggested. "After all, your recent attempts against the crown are still in a lot of people's memories."

"Including yours?" Syanna grinned nastily. "But why would I have worked so hard to catch them?"

"When you were given no choice by the pressure of the court." I said.

Syanna sighed and visibly set aside the scorn. "Important people wouldn't believe it. They would know."

"And," The herald spoke up, "they will have possibly forgotten just how irate your sister gets whenever your loyalty is questioned."

Syanna laughed at that. "She does get cross, doesn't she." She sighed. "I think that's the least likely. They could try it, and I suppose that a few people would believe it. But I must admit that the people that would stir up that kind of thing are among the people that we've arrested."

"True." Lady Tonlaire admitted. "And my husband is neutralised on that count as well which robs that courtly faction of their leader."

"So what else?"

The conversation went on like that for a while. Each of us adding things and ideas. There was a break in the conversation when Guillaume and Gregoire came back like conquering heroes."

"We have properly got Alain." Guillaume said. "The names that Kerrass gave us of some of Alain's staff and groundskeepers that would be more than willing to testify that he is a villain. We also have some more names…"

"I hope that you've…" Syanna began.

"We've already sent out some people to get them arrested." Guillaume said.

"How did it go otherwise?" I asked.

"Boring." Gregoire told me. "I was looking forward to some righteous violence but everyone was overjoyed to see us. And those of Alain's guards that are under suspicion surrendered without a fight." He sneered at that and the good natured laughter that his words enjendered. "I thought there was supposed to be some good fighting with all this "Being a hero" nonsense."

"Sometimes." I told him. "But I have to admit that the main reason for being a hero is that we get the best women."

"There is truth in that." He admitted.

Ariadne smiled at me.

"And so you are victorious." Guillaume greeted a Kerrass who had climbed up to meet the two Knights. "I will admit, I was not sure that I would see you again."

"You nearly didn't." Kerrass said. "He had me, I will not deny it."

"It's true." I added, "blade through the gut and everything."

"Alain's weakness was always that he insisted on playing to the crowd." Gregoire said. "Over and over it was that that meant that he was not as good on a horse as he could be. Insisted that the horses looked pretty and that his lance was properly festooned with ribbons. Which meant that he turned away from proper… Ah well. I would have liked to see him piss his trews in fear though. That must have been something to see."

"It was." Syanna said.

"No word from Captain de La Tour then?" Guillaume was scribbling some new names on the chalk board.

"Not yet." Syanna said. "I would expect something any minute."

We filled the two men on what we had surmised about the state of the prisoners and they offered some other solutions. Gregoire was of the opinion that the prisoners were shocked. That they simply could not conceive that they had been caught and so were frozen by it.

"The argument has more merit than you might think." Guillaume said. "I have rousted several bandit groups that were led by a nobleman in disguise who was using the bandits to impact his neighbours trade goods and to supplement his excitement and other appetites. They were always baffled and outraged at the fact that I insisted on arresting them and ignoring their demands that I unhand them at once. Then they would kind of freeze in outrage."

Syanna grunted at that.

It was clear that we had run out of ideas about what could possibly be keeping the prisoners so calm though. The Herald informed us that he would arrange a large part of the morning's court for Syanna to announce and explain the arrests and then he retired. The lawyer was not far behind him. He told us about the need to start early on getting ready for all the public trials that were bound to come up after that.

Lady Tonlaire stayed. I think she was enjoying seeing the other side of things now while Guillaume interrogated Kerrass about the duel and everything involved.

Gregoire sat in the comfiest seat he could and went to sleep. For a moment there, I found pity for Anne. Gregoire snores. And I mean like a tree saw.

The room slowly sank into silence then. It took a long time and my cutting off all the conversations that were still taking place there, is being a little bit unfair. There was still a lot of talking. A lot of moving around. But none of it gives any insight into the minds of the people at work that you don't already know. None of it was new or groundbreaking. A lot of it was gossip or going over old conversations that had already happened elsewhere. So it seems rather pointless to go through them all word for word.

Guillaume spent a long time analysing the duel with Kerrass. I don't know if this was cruelty or kindness on Guillaume's part as the two men went through it. Kerrass would later claim that it was useful to happen as it further emphasised to him just how much he was outclassed by the other man. They sat and talked about every move, every countermove and every gambit. There was technical language there that I did not understand and had no frame of reference to go through. It was… kind of boring to try to listen to. I imagine that it's much the same as how it sounds when a complete novice, or someone who is completely uninterested, tries to listen to two high level card players talk about what they can do with their decks.

Lady Vivienne came to join us after a while. The Duchess had retired early, looking forward to the morning's court as I suppose she had every right to. So Lady Vivienne came down to spend a bit of time with her husband. Not that the two of them spent any actual time together. They seem to be the kind of couple that are content so long as they can spend the time in the same room. Lady Vivienne sat and talked with Ariadne about things.

What things? I'm afraid I'm going to be very stereotypical here and say "feminine things." They talked about dresses, fashions and makeup. They talked about our coming wedding and their wedding that had taken place a couple of years ago. But not about the bits that I was interested in. They talked about flowers, types of flowers and their arrangements as well as the particular kinds of perfume that each of these flowers would put out. They talked about those bridal traditions that I had no idea even existed. Things like the fact that Ariadne had to wear something that she had borrowed from a friend or relative. I have no idea why.

But it went on and on to the point that eventually I kind of drifted off into other thought processes. I did briefly wonder if part of the reason that they went through all of that stuff was due to the fact that they were trying to wind me up in some way.

Kerrass' and my food turned up. His plate was as uninteresting a pile of mush as I have ever seen when it comes to food in Toussaint. The food of Toussaint is almost universally delicious, if a little over rich for my taste. It's the kind of thing where, after a short while of it, you find yourself longing for some simple meat, vegetables and gravy.

When you are out on the road and eating the substance that you optimistically call "stew" that was made from whatever trail rations that you have left as well as whatever herbs and vegetables you have been able to forage from the side of the road, you pray for this kind of well cooked, carefully seasoned, meal. But after a certain time spent eating as a guest of the highest court of Toussaint, I would have cheerfully taken a bowl of stew and a loaf of hard trail bread any time.

Kerrass' plate was a disgusting looking mush of vegetables that had been mashed together along with a plain chicken breast. The entire thing was covered in a white sauce that Ariadne frowned at until it was clear that it was merely milk, flour and a bit of salt.

Kerrass looked at it, looked at my plate, looked at his place and then, with the expression of a man who was on his way to sacrifice himself to dark gods so that other men don't have to. He took up a fork and started to eat the food.

After his first mouthful, he wore an expression of a man doing what he has to do.

My food was delicious. Red meat, onion gravy, white bread, butter, green vegetables. I could feel my body taking in the goodness from the meal. I could literally sense all the goodness being sucked out of it to the point where I was forced to slow down with the eating so that I could enjoy what was happening.

Ariadne just watched the pair of us eat with a smug expression on her face.

The biggest component of the sinking mood was Syanna though. When we first came into the room, she was animated, happy, laughing and cheerful. There was a stream of messengers and guards that were coming in to talk to her, pass messages to her and give her updates. At first she was happy with each message. She would thank the messenger graciously and every so often she would get up and walk to the chalk board where she would cross a name off the list or she would add another name in a sorting order that I did not understand. When we first saw this she would give a little exclamation of joy before she would return to whatever conversation she had been part of up until that and picking up where she left off.

But as time went on, the stream of messengers became less and less. The names that were being crossed off were becoming fewer and fewer and Syanna's mood was dropping further and further into the gutter. At first she became less and less gracious to the messenger. Then, as they became less frequent, she would look up when another came through the door, only to let her smile fall as it became clear that the messenger was for someone else, or didn't carry the message that she was waiting for.

About the time that Kerrass' and my food turned up, she stopped even trying to be part of the conversations that were happening around her and started pacing the room, slowly, with her hands clasped behind her back. Every so often she would stop in front of the chalk board and examine it in detail before she would do something with it. She might move a name from one column to the next column before changing her mind and moving it back.

Then she would make an effort. She would ask a question, crack a joke, demand of Ariadne as to when she would get an invitation to the wedding, tease Guillaume or Lady Vivienne or make fun of some foibles of her sister.

Then she would stop, her face would fall gently into contemplation rather than humour or even anger. And then she would start to pace again.

And gradually, one by one, we all ran out of things to talk about and instead, we were all just watching Syanna pace.

After a bit longer, it even became clear that there was a pattern to what was happening. She would pace so far in one direction before stopping and peering at the wall. Then she would turn and pace back the other way. She might stop any of her journeys from one end of the room to the other to suddenly turn on one of us, opening her mouth as if to answer a question and we would all lean forward in anticipation of whatever words or orders would come forth. Then she would stop, tip her head on one side, shake her head in the negative before resuming her slow trudging from one end of the room to another.

The silence became so oppressive that Gregoire woke up.

So oppressive that every time I yawned, I felt embarrassed for the sudden noise in the deepening gloom and weighty sense of anticipation.

Syanna's armoured footsteps echoed on the polished wooden floor, her armour rattling with every stride. Then she strode to the chalkboard suddenly and picked up a piece of chalk and viciously underlined Raoul Leblanc's name several times with enough pressure that the piece of chalk broke.

"Where the hell is he?" She demanded of no-one in particular.

I only narrowly avoided asking who "he" was. Guillaume was much smarter than me.

"It could be taking time." He said.

"How long does it take to ride to the Leblanc estate?" Syanna demanded of him.

"From here, riding hard and straight with a small number of men, it would not take him long." Gregoire said. For those wondering. It was about here that I realised that everyone was talking about Captain de La Tour.

"But he stopped to marshall troops." Guillaume said. "He detoured to headquarters to find troops. Marshalling and equipping them would have taken time. And he would have wanted to make sure that everything could happen when the duel was taking place.

Syanna nodded. Everything that people were saying made sense.

She turned to Ariadne "Could you use your magic to… I don't know… look to see what is going on?"

"The correct term is to "scry"." Ariadne told her. "And such things are far from certain or confident in their accuracy. Also, I will need some components that I don't have to perform the ritual that I know. Which include Fifth Essence."

"What's that?"

"It's an essence of certain magical beings." Kerrass said. "You harvest it from Fiends and is also a byproduct of certain Alchemical processes but the generation of which is random and isolated. It is one of those elements of magic that are more chaos than art or science."

"It is rare," Ariadne said. "And rather expensive."

But Syanna was waving the pair of them off. "Yes yes." She said. "I take your point."

And she resumed her pacing.

It was in this way that I learned that the room was six of Syanna's paces wide, by a little over fourteen paces long. A little over because the progress was impeded by the presence of a drinks cabinet on one end and some other kind of dresser on the other.

I was dealing with my own conflict. The conflict being that my body was clearly exhausted, but my brain refused to allow it to rest. Every time that my body would just be on the verge of nodding off, or putting my head on the table in front of me, my brain would fire another dose of the stuff that Ariadne calls "Adrenaline" into my system. I would straighten in my seat, shift my weight around a bit and then peer around myself to see if I had missed anything. The noises of those movements echoed in my skull hugely and reinforced my embarrassment.

And still we waited, listening to the sounds of Syanna's feet falling on the ground and the jangling of her armour. The time stretched out in front of us and behind us into an endless procession and again, I could feel it tugging at me. The attraction of wrapping a blanket around my shoulders and wriggling down into the warm embrace of the bed that would welcome me in the same way that a mother hen welcomes home her chicks.

Or I assume that's what she does.

And then I realised that the pacing had stopped.

Syanna was standing in front of the chalkboard. I tried to remember the last time that some messenger had come through the door to make a change. I tried to remember what that change was.

But I couldn't. It seemed too long ago.

Syanna reached out and picked up a piece of chalk and rolled it around her fingers before very slowly, reaching forward and circling Sir Raoul Le blancs name. The scraping of that chalk as she circled the words seemed to echo loud in my mind. A far more pleasant sound than that of nails on a board, but the effect was exactly the same. It drew the attention of everyone in the room. It sucked in the sight and the mind until we were all just watching her hand as it held the chalk and it scratched round Sir Raoul's name over and over and over again. It stopped, near where she had begun, at the end of the name where she did a little squiggle that anyone who uses chalk regularly would recognise as the full stop or period at the end of the writing. Then she lifted the piece of chalk off the board slowly and let the hand holding the chalk fall down to her side as she continued to survey what she had done.

Then, after a long while, she placed the chalk back in the groove.

"Come on." She decided. "I've had enough of sitting here with my thumb up my ass. To horse gentlemen."

Sir Guillaume and Sir Gregoire had been waiting for something like this since she had stopped a little while ago. They were up and out of the chair in short order and heading for the door, strapping sword belts and things to their waists as they clattered out the door.

Syanna approached me.

"Freddie." She said carefully. "I wouldn't ask, because you look like an undercooked egg. But…"

"I know." I said.

"It's just that… You have a habit of seeing things that I miss, or noticing things, or thinking in ways that I do not have the expertise or manpower to deal with."

"I understand." I said, pouring myself a cup of coffee and drinking it down in one.

"And you have a way of needling people that would make it…"

"Relax Knight Commander." I said formally. "If I can help. I will."

She put her hand on my arm in thanks. "I promise." She said, forcing a smile onto her own face. "I will drown you in courtesans. You will have so many tits in front of your face that you won't know what to do with yourself."

"I can think of a few things." I said. "Sleeping for a start."

She forced a laugh as she peered at Kerrass who was climbing to his feet. "I wasn't going to ask Witcher, given what I hear about your recent injuries. But I would be lying if I tried to claim that you wouldn't be useful."

Kerrass looked better. He still had the greenish purple glow that was dancing round him as a sign of the magic that

was still knitting his body back together. But he moved with his old energy and grace as he climbed out of the couch.

"Am I well enough to go?" He asked Ariadne.

She shrugged. "The ride there is going to be far from pleasant for you. I might suggest an extra cushion or a few layers of sheepskin to soften your saddle."

"In which case…" He said turning back to Syanna. "Just you, try and stop me." He said. "The man himself might be getting whatever's coming to him. But Lady Moineau's death was part of a greater plot. And the people responsible for that still need to pay."

Syanna nodded. "But you will behave under my orders. No more foolish and noble gestures that will endanger everyone."

Kerrass grinned at that before nodding. Syanna turned to Ariadne.

"Lady Ariadne, I would be grateful if you could come as well."

"If you mean to bring Freddie and Kerrass then you would struggle to stop me. Apart from anything else, I need to stay near Kerrass in order to maintain his healing."

Syanna nodded and led us out of the room at a fast pace. Fast enough that we had to scramble to keep up.

I was unsurprised to find that our horses were ready and waiting for us when we got to the courtyard. We mounted up after Kerrass discovered, much to his disgust, that the gag about padding his saddle was not that much of a gag after all. Gregoire and Guillaume had already mounted up and had commandeered a dozen palace guards as well as another half or dozen or so Knights of Saint Francesca and there were more rushing over.

"I'm not waiting." Syanna declared. Now that she had made her decision, she was determined to do what she needed to do about it. "You two," she pointed at a pair of lighter armoured guards. "Ride to Headquarters and bring as many as are left to the Leblanc estate. Bring Lady Caroline herself if it means that her guards come with us."

There was some exchanging of glances.

"And find out when Damien was there and how long ago that he left." The two men raced off into the night.

Others in our party were busy lighting lanterns and torches. The main roads of Beauclair and Toussaint itself are well lit. THe cloud cover and the damp made it so that we would get no light from the moon or the stars…

People in the cities always mock those things where people talk about getting their way forward from the light from the moon. They say "How can the moon be bright enough for a man to see in the pitch darkness of nightfall." To which I would wonder if they have ever actually been out there in the middle of the night. When the air is clear, the moon is bright and well over the half moon. It bathes the world in a soft silver that is easily used to travel. I wouldn't want to move through thick woodland while that sort of thing is going on, but through lanes and well known tracks? No problem.

Ariadne helped by raising her staff in the air which gave off a pale green light. It might have been a bit sinister given the fact that it was green rather than the yellow orange of flame. Or the fact that it was the spider part of the carving that was glowing. But we were travelling with the highest lawkeeper in the land.

Also, the bit that I found sinister was the fact that she didn't have it with her when we stepped out of the palace and into the night air. Ariadne's staff is one of those mysteries about her that I keep meaning to ask her about and then I forget until she's not around. But when she is there. I always have something on my mind.

Syanna rode to the front of the group and turned her horse so that she could face us all.

"I wish I could tell you what we're expecting." She told us all. "But the truth is that we just don't know. There are a range of possibilities including that when we get there, Damien has caught all the people that are there and is just making sure that they are all secure. That one thing or another is delaying him and when we get there, he's going to smirk that annoying smile of his and say something like "Oh, you were worried?" If that's the case, I reserve the right to smack the shit out of him for worrying me."

There was some laughter. And to be fair, her impression of Captain De La Tour was rather good.

"But the other extreme of the possibilities is also true. That the reason that we've not heard from either him or the people that went with him, is because Lord LeBlanc has captured them and is holding them against their will. That what we are riding on is a rescue mission. Or…"

She bared her teeth in a snarl.

"Or, we are riding to get our revenge for the murder of those Knights and guardsmen."

There was some murmuring.

In the meantime. I expect you to watch each other's backs. Expect ambush. Expect traps and expect them to sneak up on us. Seconds to me are Guillaume and Gregoire. But if Comtesse Ariadne, Lord Frederick or Witcher Kerrass order something, or shout a warning, then I expect you to do what they tell you to. Clear?"

There was one of those affirmative choruses that seems unique to military people about to set out to do something violent. Mostly, made up of people nodding and saying "Aye." But there are other noises in there as well. Including more than one "Fuck yeah."

Syanna didn't wait to hear what everyone was going to say. She just turned her horses head and steered us out of the courtyard, down the path and across the bridge into Beauclair itself.

After our earlier conversation, Beauclair was still in a curfew lockdown in preparation for the possibility that Jack might still be out there and on the loose. So the streets were deserted. I had the strongest feeling of deja vu as we rode and it occurred to me that it was only this morning that we had all ridden out in an effort to try and solve the murder of Madame Duberton. It seemed strangely surreal to me. We even took the same route through town in order to get to where we were going.

There was more noise now though. I mean, yes, there were more horsemen in our party as we rode forth. But there was more noise coming from the houses and inns that we passed. We might have been under curfew but the gossip had gotten out that the watch and the Knights had arrested a whole heap of people. And so, there was almost an air of celebration in the air. We heard sounds of raucous singing coming from one tavern. Another larger house had some genteel music playing. A burst of laughter came out of an open window, echoing strangely in the torchlit streets and one, more private house had a carriage outside and open window from which issued the unmistakable sounds of a man and a woman enjoying each other's presence.

We did not ride too quickly. There was a sense of withheld speed. As though this was a long distance race rather than a sprint. A slow trotting more than anything.

The guards on the gate were ready for us and the gates opened as we came into sight. Meaning that we didn't have to stop which was better for everyone involved I think. I am not sure that anyone would survive Syanna's wrath that night. She was making the best of it. She was cracking jokes and answering questions and making the speeches. But she was on edge and there was no mistaking that. There was a set to her shoulders that I had not seen from her before.

Her humour was that little bit darker and she was a little bit more prone to snapping at the people around her.

Guillaume rode at the front of the procession with Syanna behind him. THe huge form of Sir Gregoire brought up the rear, a massive, domineering weight that followed behind us. Reassuring in his solidity as we headed out into the night.

There only seems to be one road in and out of Beauclair when these important missions are concerned. We rode past the olive trees of Corvo Bianco and came to the bridge of the Cockatrice. The Inn itself was closed for custom although there were some lights on behind the shutters and no noise came from within. We turned and rode on, deeper into the countryside, past the road that would eventually lead down to the Headquarters of the Knights of Saint Francesca and as we did so, it started to rain. Just a gentle drizzle, far from the torrential downpours that I have weathered in the North. But there was a biting cold to this rain. As though it was made up of tiny little needles that were driven into the flesh.

I have no idea if I felt it worse than anyone else, it certainly felt as though that were the case and I pulled my cloak that little bit tighter around me. The falling water was not quite enough to threaten the torches though and we rode on. The hooves of our horses began to splash as we rode through the slowly forming puddles. THe ground was too cold to properly absorb the water and for some reason, it occurred to me that this would be miserable weather to have to fight in.

I did not ask how far we still had to go although I desperately wanted to know the answer. I felt like a child that is halfway through a long journey, wondering whether or not he would be shouted at for needing to relieve himself yet.

Out of nowhere, Kerrass pulled his horse to a stop. Fortunately, it was a horse that had gotten used to him, even if it had been loaned to him out of the Ducal stables. So the horse didn't rear, or protest over much. But we were in the middle of the column and so it bunched up.

A strange thing happened to me then. I was riding along, minding my own business and slipping into the gentle dream state of the experienced traveller. It's kind of a fog that wraps around your brain like a blanket when this happens as you watch the road and world roll by under your horses feet. I shouldn't have been in this state really, but again, I was tired, sick and it was dark. There was the smell of burning oil in the air and even though we were moving at the pace of a trot, I was actually finding it kind of restful. I have been more tired, and I have been more sick, but there was something going on about that particular combination that was conspiring to make the circumstances feel even more soporific.

But Kerrass tugged on the reins of his horse and that jolt did something to me then. My spear was out of its sheath, the two halves of the weapon were slottied together and I was off my horse and looking around for enemies. I don't remember the process of moving from one state to the other. I just seemed to blink and there I was.

I hadn't been travelling ready like that. My spear was in it's pouch next to me on the grounds that there were Knights and guards around me so that I would have plenty of time to get my spear out. And it seemed almost like an insult to those fine men and women. That I was suggesting that they wouldn't be good enough so that I, a scholar and a guest of their hospitality, might need to arm himself in order to protect himself. It felt a little bit rude, as though I would be calling their competence into question.

But there I was, the trained habit of being ready for a fight whenever Kerrass reacted in such a way.

Ariadne dismounted as well and put her hand on my shoulder. "Freddie?" She prompted. "Deep breaths now."

I was sweating and shaking, breathing far too heavily.

The head of the column had ridden back. Guillaume and Syanna carefully ignored the state I was in.

"What's…?" Syanna began.

Kerrass waved her into silence. Drew his sword and stepped beyond the circle of light. He visibly and audibly sniffed the air before bending over and examining the ground. "This way," he called.

"What?.." Syanna said again but Guillaume quietened her.

"I did some work with Lord Geralt in the early days of his living at Corvo Bianco." He told the Knight Commander. "Sometimes Witchers see, smell or hear things that the rest of us miss and it is always, always best to just let them get on with it and follow from a distance."

Syanna nodded. "Gregoire, command the column." She said. "Guillaume?"

Ariadne shook my shoulder. "Come on Freddie. I need to stay near Kerrass anyway. And keep breathing deep."

Kerrass led us over the land and peered into a small ditch for a long moment before turning and gesturing to us to move up.

"There," he pointed at a black shape. You could see it from where it was breaking the flow of the stream that was running across the stones and the dirt at the bottom of the ravine.

Guillaume sighed and passed me his torch before jumping down the low bank and into the stream.

Yes, he did that in his full armour with his sword drawn. These Knights of Toussaint are a breed apart.

I passed the torch back and made to help Ariadne down who gave me a look as she simply jumped herself. I shrugged and climbed down after.

"It's Thierry." Guillaume said as Syanna joined him. "Shot I think."

"Shot. Kerrass confirmed. "Bodkin arrows so they could get through his armour." He pointed at the holes.

"I know it's not." I said, "but bandits?"

"No." Guillaume bent next to the young soldier's body. "But that is what they will say and that is what we are meant to think. His money pouch and sword are taken. But they have also taken his messenger pouch. He was one of the messengers assigned to the Headquarters."

Syanna's face was bleak. "Damien must have commandeered him. The real message would have been in his head anyway. Ass of leather, head of Gold."

"Also," Guillaume said. "There are no bandits in these woods. We have spent a good amount of time making sure that these fields are clear of…"

"There are more tracks." Kerrass called from the bank. "He was thrown into the ditch after they were done with him."

Syanna nodded. His horse is, even now, probably on it's way too Headquarters."

"Poor kid." Guillaume sounded like he was on the edge of tears. "Useless with a sword but he was desperate to serve. You could give him the grumpiest, most stubborn horse or mule and it would dance for him."

"Bring him back." Syanna said. "We won't leave him here in a ditch. He will be buried as a Knight."

Guillaume picked up the young man easily and cradled him as you would a child, lifting him out of the ditch before climbing out.

"Do you know where the attackers went?" Syanna wondered of Kerrass as we moved back to the column.

"They were waiting near the road." Kerrass said. "I think he tried to ride on while he bled out so they came after him to clear up their mess. Then they will have returned to their post I think. I could know more if it was daylight and…"

"If we had time." Syanna finished. "They were waiting for him."

"They were." Kerrass confirmed.

There were some groans from a few of the guards and Knights that were waiting for us back at the road when they saw Guillaume's burden. The body was draped over one of the horses and we rode on.

"Are you alright Freddie." Ariadne checked with me.

"No." I said, fighting down the last of the shakes and the juddering breaths that I was taking. "I shouldn't have come."

"You would have fretted at the palace." Ariadne said. You would have made a mess of yourself waiting behind. Here, you can see what is happening and take it into account. I would not have let you come if I thought you were a danger to either yourself or to us."

That was not as reassuring as she might have thought it was, or she had meant it to be.

We rode on but there was no way for me to get back into my former travelling state approaching the dream state that I had had before. My head was fizzing and I found that if I didn't concentrate on it, my breathing was trying to climb back up to the rapid state that it had been on before. It was a constant effort to keep my breathing calm.

I had not put my spear away. Instead, I cradled it in my arms. It was almost certainly making things inconvenient for the troop as a whole. But no-one complained. Make of that what you will.

The ground started to rise a little as the road started to incorporate a series of bends in the road as we moved around small hills and mounds that formed the foothills of the mountains that surround Toussaint on every side and create the pocket of weather that is so beneficial to the growing of the vines. The road became less well travelled and less well maintained. The column slowed down to a walk so that the horses could find better footing so as not to break their legs by accidentally stepping in a pot hole or a wagon rut.

You want to know another sign of a realm or a lord that cares about his lands and his people. Examine the quality of the roads. Even in the poorest realm that I've ever been to, if the Lord or Lady cares, then there is some effort to repair the state of the roads in order to make the lives of the people passing through easier. Whether that's the addition of stones to the road, the filling in of the ruts and and the holes or whatever. Proper roads means that wagons of goods can make their ways easier. That herds are easier to… well… herd and that trade is easier to move.

Badly maintained roads are the sign of people that don't care so long as the money continues to make its way through. They don't care about the ease of travellers or their farms and villagers.

The care for roads is not a thing that anyone is ever going to sing songs about. It's not something that anyone is ever going to get romantic about. Nor is anyone going to win any awards, be given more estates or win plaudits at court. No fair maiden will be seduced by the presence of a smooth road nor will a male suitor be excited by the prospect of a daughter of a man who knows how to fill a pothole. But you see these benefits in how happy travelling merchants are to visit the area, whether farmers and villagers get a grimace on their face whenever they have to move from one town to the other. Or when a nobleman's servants make a face when they have to transport the lady "to town".

It's the difference between visiting a friend in the next village being a thing that can be done in an offhand afternoon because you have nothing to do, versus having to plan the excursion like some kind of wilderness expedition days, or weeks in advance.

And these roads were not great. Not that I needed another reason to despise Sir Raoul, but there it was and I used it to keep myself going forwards.

I felt like there was a moment of crisis coming. I had no idea what it was but I felt as though I was climbing a great hill. That there was an obstacle that I was desperately working myself towards being able to get up and climb over. I had no idea what this hill was, or what the obstacle was going to be. It was as though I was building something up in my head, some kind of barrier, a wall that needed to be knocked down and that after that, everything would become easier again.

I could feel it ahead of me, looming over me like some kind of great darkness or a weight that was piling high on top of my shoulders. A net that was tying me up and tying me round, threatening to drag me to the ground.

I knew that I would break through it. I knew that. But at the same time… I dreaded that moment where I would have to force myself to break through that ordeal. I dreaded it. I was scared of it and I didn't know what form that was going to take or how I was going to manage it.

The column shifted from the road, some orders had been passed that I either didn't hear or that I was too far into my own head to properly take into account. We were ordered off the road and into a small group of trees. Word was passed down that we should dismount, rest the horses and drink some water from the bags that had been tied to everyone's saddle bags.

I had no idea that they were there. Come to that, I had no memory of putting my armour on either, or taking my spear with me. I wondered if I had gotten prepared like that to go to the duel earlier in the day and had just never taken it off. The day had begun to blur together for me and I could no longer think which way life was going to go.

The water from the saddlebags was very cold.

I was in the process of trying to untangle my own brain when I realised that Kerrass swas softly calling my name.

"Freddie?" He prompted. "Freddie, Syanna's asking for us."

He led me to the middle of the group of trees where there was a small, growing conference. Guillaume was there along with Gregoire and Syanna. They were talking to another Knight that I recognised as being one of the patrol leaders and instructors at the Headquarters when we went there. He was the older gentleman who had been watching the roads to make sure that the new recruits didn't get lost or utterly muck something up.

Like before, he was dressed in old, well maintained but dirty armour which I guessed he used in order to keep hidden. He seemed properly professional otherwise. His face was lined with age and with care. Where last time I had seen him he had seemed full of life and humour. This time he seemed… drawn somehow. Older than he had been before.

He also seemed to be angry.

"As it turns out." Guillaume told me as we walked up. "We're late."

"Very late." The older man said. "Where have you been? I sent the messenger hours ago. Even if you were delayed several hours then you should have been here during daylight." He was angry and trying to keep his voice down at the same time. It's an interesting trick and one that takes a certain amount of practice.

"Your messenger was killed." Kerrass said bluntly. I looked for Syanna and she was pacing back and forth a little way off, hands clasped behind her back. There was a nervousness to the movement, as though she was frantically keeping herself from doing anything stupid. The type of nervous movement where you are desperately trying to burn off energy before you explode.

"We found him in a ditch a little way back." Kerrass went on. "Shot out of the saddle."

The older man nodded, winced and shook his head. "Poor lad. Deserved better than that."

"They always do." Kerrass agreed.

"So they were waiting for him." Syanna snapped. "Much though I want us all to talk this to death. I am worried. Where is Damien? How long have you been here? What is happening?"

The older man scratched the stubble on his chin. "It's been a long day." He said. "The Captain… (Freddie: He pronounced it Cap'n), came in all of a lather and demanded that we all but empty the were not a lot of us in reserve, fifty or so but we followed him here."

"How long did it take to marshall?" Guillaume glanced at Syanna who had gone back to pacing. Guillaume seemed to have taken on the role of being in charge for a moment and asking the questions.

"Couple of hours." The older man said. "Getting everyone armoured up, equipped and so on. Getting the horses ready and…"

"Not unexpected." GUillaume reassured the man. "There have been worse numbers. So you set out."

"We did. One of the lads that came with us was recruited out of Leblanc lands and he led us here."

"Where's here?" Syanna snapped.

"A small patch of woodland." The older man said, "One of those places where the locals keep their pigs and hunt for truffles. From here the Captain sent out scouts to have a look at the area and see what could be seen."

"And what did you find."

"Not a great deal, seemed pretty simple really. According to the local lad, the locals tolerate Sir Raoul and his management of the area because he mostly leaves them alone to get one with things. As long as the lands keep turning out the money for him to be able to go to the tournaments, maintain his town house and so on, then Raoul is a happy man. It all falls apart when he comes home, which is not often. But that meant that we were not worried about the villagers coming to his aid."

He spat.

"The central manor house is separate from all the industry." He sneered at that, "But it's not a small building. It's old and has that look that it's been built up over the years rather than just having a new building built and knocking the old one down. Especially given that Sir Pisspot himself doesn't spend a great deal of time here. It's walled round of course…"

"Of course." Guillaume agreed.

As I may have written before, the history of Toussaint is that the countryside was carved out from the holdings of the local bandit Kings and warlords. The oldest bloodlines in Toussaint can trace their lineage back to this point so what you often find is that the really old buildings. Especially those buildings further from Beauclair, are also built like small fortresses. Some of the buildings that you go into were once, undoubtedly, barracks and stables are huge, even for noble houses. Thus to store all the mounts that the Knights and their forces would need in order to work at taming the countryside. In practice, what that means is that these manor houses became almost like mini towns. As the barracks and the huge, impractical stables become converted into civil buildings, guest houses, inns and whatever else while the nobility retreat back to the residence.

"And when we got here, the gate was open."

Guillaume nodded further. "So the manor is walled off from the outside. Lets work our way inwards. What's the surrounding area like?"

"Flat." The older Knight said. "A few roads and some open fields that apparently see use during market times in the spring and the summer, that house some sheep and the like."

"What kind of cover would that give us."

"Next to nothing."

"How far away is the treeline?"

"Close enough that we can watch them and move to intercept but too far to cover any kind of approach."

Guillaume nodded, pulling at his lower lip.

"Alright," he considered. "How big is the wall?"

"In different places, between twenty to thirty feet tall, apparently, some of it has sunk over time and is in need of repair. The step at the top is six feet wide."

"How do you get onto the wall?" Gregoire asked.

"From the gatehouses." The older man was a little bemused by Gregoire's presence. Obviously, he hadn't heard about what had been happening recently.

"And how many gates are there?" Gregoire wondered.

"Three. Two main ones let the road through that lead to the main courtyard in front of the manor house. And there is another entrance round the back which leads out to the herb and fruit gardens as well as the path that leads down to the stream which is used by the servants for laundry day."

Guillaume was nodding as he listened to all of this.

"Right." He said. "So you got here. What happened?"

"We used this area as a staging area first. We left the horses and things as well as setting up a road block in order to arrest Sir Raoul if he came up by the road. From there, groups went round the tree line to keep an eye on the different entrances and exits in order to block everyone in and to keep anyone from escaping. We had no idea how many people were in there when we arrived or what kind of armed resistance we would get. The plan was that at the signal, which was going to be a horn blast, the teams that we had watching the gate would advance and close those gates off to prevent escape. Then the Captain would advance with the main force, ride into the manor complex and start the search and the investigation.

"h place wasn't deserted or overly busy. The Captain's team went in, all quick and determined like and the last thing we saw of them was that the gate shut behind them. There were some sounds of combat that the rest of us could hear but it soon went quiet."

"What happened then?" Syanna seemed to have calmed a bit and reentered the conversation.

"Not much. When it became clear that the Captain wasn't going to come back out, I approached and demanded what was going on. A man that I don't know came to the wall and told me that Sir Raoul Leblanc does not recognise the authority of thieves and bandits. As a result, he refused to answer any questions, that my presence on Leblanc lands was a crime and that I should leave immediately.

"I sent two messengers, one straight away and the other later on. Beyond that, I have maintained a siege stance. We do not have enough men to attack as archers and crossbowmen have been seen walking along the top of the walls and we would be picked apart before we got there. We don't have ladders or any other kind of siege equipment so I closed off the exits and then waited for help to arrive."

Silence greeted that.

Syanna went to open her mouth but Guillaume beat her to it.

"No-one could have done otherwise." He said.

For a moment, it looked as though Syanna wanted to argue that, but then she visibly forced herself to calm.

"He's right. I'm not angry with you," she told the older man. "But I would dearly like someone to be angry at." She was shaking now… "Prophets… Stupid man, why did he have to…?"

"It was his job." Guillaume told her. "And Damien would not have asked anyone else to do something he would not have done himself."

"I'm missing something here." Gregoire was confused and I couldn't help but agree with him.

"I thought everyone knew." Syanna chuckled bitterly, her shaking hand rising to her forehead.

"Only in the Knights." Guillaume told her before turning to Gregoire. "The worst kept secret in the Knights of Saint Francesca is that the Knight Commander here has set her sights on the Captain."

"Oh." Gregoire said before clapping his hand to his forehead. "Oh. I thought that was just a joke to wind him up."

"It is." Guillaume said. "But sometimes, the truest words are spoken in jest."

Gregoire grunted at that before frowning. "But… doesn't he hate you? The loss of his men during the Knight of the Long fangs."

"He did." Guillaume said as Syanna returned to her pacing. "But for all of us that were there… that's not a dig at you my friend, I know that you left town after your defeat at the tournament and were elsewhere. But for those of us more aware of the inner workings. The night of the Long Fangs was a clusterfuck. Everyone was right and everyone was wrong. Damien and his men were caught between two terrible women and a vampire who had been treated badly. The only person that comes out of that night who didn't make a horrific mistake that cost lives, was Lord Geralt. Syanna should have realised how the vampire was going to react, but when she realised her mistake, she wanted to go and calm the Vampire. The Duchess should have listened to her sister and allowed that, a choice that Damien agreed with, but the Duchess was too overjoyed at finally being reunited with her sister that she wouldn't allow that danger to befall her."

"Even though Geralt had proven that I was a traitor and was planning her death." Syanna said from the sidelines "And Detlaff's mistake was falling in love with me. Even though I have it on good authority that multiple people told him, correctly, that I was nothing but trouble. We all made mistakes and it cost lives."

Gregoire nodded before smiling at the other Knight a little slyly. "What was your mistake?"

Guillaume smiled a little ruefully. "The same mistake as Damien's actually. And the Duchess for that matter. I was arrogant and thought that the Vampires that were attacking Beauclair were just simple monsters. I was lucky, Damien was not so lucky and lost men because of it."

He sighed.

"Those of us that have seen the two of them working together have hoped that their understanding of each other would grow. And more recently, it looks like the pair of them were getting closer." Guillaume shook his head. "What do you want us to do, Knight Commander?"

"I ummm…." She shook her head. "I think... " She shook her head. "I am not thinking clearly. What do we all think?"

"Raoul is many things." Gregoire spoke up. "But he is not foolish. He would not simply kill the Guard Captain. The retribution of the Duchess would then be certain. I would think that Damien and his men are captive."

"Would Damien surrender?" I wondered.

"He might." Guillaume mused, going back to pulling at his lower lip, a gesture that made him seem much younger than his years. "If it meant the guaranteed survival of his men. Raoul was waiting for us and Damien went into a trap. I do have to admit that what I would have done in his place is to try and break out. Neutralise as many as I can, tie Damien and his men up in the courtyard and then just break out with as many men as I could. I wonder why he hasn't." He turned to the older Knight. "How many people does Raoul have?"

"It's impossible to say for certain." Came the answer. "Enough to make an assault a costly thing. The walls are well lit, there are fires set in the fields. I don't think they're great quality, Mercenaries and militia men and the like,"

"So I would have broken out if it were me." Guillaume said. "He knows, that we know that he is guilty. So why does he stay put?"

"He is waiting." I said.

"What for?" Guillaume's retort was an obvious one.

"The same thing that the other captives are waiting for." Kerrass agreed. "Whatever that is. We need to get this solved, and quickly. Raoul has taken hostages."

Guillaume shrugged. "A man doesn't take hostages without wanting something in return." He turned to Syanna. "So let's go and ask him what he wants."

Syanna nodded shakily.

"Freddie, will you come with me?" Guillaume asked. "As a Northerner, a neutral presence would add weight."

"A hated Northerner." I countered. "And I am far from neutral."

"Maybe not, but your status as a foreigner lends you certain… Gravitas."

"Gravitas?" I felt my eyebrows climbing towards the top of my head.

"He can't just shoot you out of the saddle when you ride up." Guillaume told me. "If he did, then he would know that, for a start, The Empress would be more than a little peeved, which kind of prevents anyone from murdering you. So as a witness to his… his villainy. You kind of make for a good witness."

"Surely he wouldn't just shoot a herald or a messenger?"

"He might." Gregoire added. "He set people to shoot them down before when they tried to get out and warn us all that things were going wrong."

"Also, he has already taken lawful civil authorities captive in that he has already captured Damien and the rest in order to keep them locked up." Guillaume added with a grin.

These men of Toussaint are a breed apart. He was actively looking forward to some of my discomfort. He was enjoying the crisis and the possibility that there might be some violence to take part in.

I sighed, and not for the first time, I allowed the fatigue and the tiredness to wash over me for just a moment. I let myself feel the pull that was tugging my eyelids closed and to properly take in the fact that my mind was wrapped in a blanket of drowsiness.

"And when he tells us to fuck off?" I wondered, forcing my eyes open.

"Then, even in doing that, he tells us something about what we are dealing with." Syanna sounded hopeful. "I will admit it here, in front of you all but you should know that if you tell Damien that I said this before we are properly married then I will deny it and call you all liars and scoundrels. But if he hurts the man that I love then I'm…" Her humour tailed off as her hand came up to cover her mouth for a moment before lifting to her brow. "I'm not sure I can do this." She whispered quietly. Ariadne was there and placed her hand on the Knight Commander's shoulder.

Guillaume watched Syanna carefully for a moment before nodding. "Come on then Freddie, grab a torch and let's go."

You know how you start walking. You know how it just seems to automatically start when you have to move yourself from one place to the next. You know how it seems so effortless and automatic?

I had to concentrate to remember how to get moving. It was easier after that, but for the there and then of the matter…

I mounted up and took the offered torch from one of the other guards and Guillaume led me out into the gloom. He did not have a torch.

"No torch for you?" I wondered.

"No." He said. "I might need my hands free for killing people." He grinned.

"That is not encouraging."

We rode back to the road and continued along it. We came through and around the group of hills until we came to a natural kind of bowl between all the hills. They all seemed to come together to form a small hill in the middle. Not very large at all. The kind of rise that you can only see that it's there when you are looking at it from the outside. A horse would not need any kind of aid to climb to the top and a man would not get out of breath if he had to run up it.

At the top was the expected, formerly militarised, Manor house and attacked buildings. There was a surface level… attempt to keep the place, at least roughly militarised. There was a distance between the Manor walls and the other buildings so that you couldn't climb up the other buildings to get into the greater complex. There was also room so that archers and things would have a clean line of fire.

I was reminded of the Headquarters of the Knights when I went there. This was in worse repair, not as well maintained. That's the very word. It looked as though all the decisions about defending the place had been made many years ago so that all the more recent occupants of the building needed to do was to maintain what was already there. There was a worn in and worn out perspective here. There was a little bit of cover that was all but incidental. It was things like there being a wheelbarrow that had been left out. A wagon. Maybe if someone was able to convince that ox to stay where it was.

It left me feeling that a single man, being careful and stealthy, would be able to make it to the walls without being too badly hindered. But a man in full armour would find it all but impossible. Which is how the people of Toussaint think after all.

"Assaulting this is going to be tricky." Guillaume commented as we rode up the road towards the manor.

"I notice that you say "is going to be tricky" rather than "would be tricky". You already think we're going to attack this place?"

"I do." GUillaume said.

"Why?"

"Because if we don't, I dunno Freddie. There is something in my gut that tells me that if we don't do this now, then the bastard is going to get away with it."

I found that I agreed with him.

The feeling about the area was that it was a place of resting on its heels, depending on past glories. They weren't moving forwards or coming up with new ideas and innovations. Instead, they were just maintaining. They were treading water rather than choosing a direction and swimming.

And there were absolutely no villagers around at all. That was trying to tell me something although I couldn't think of what it was.

We got to the gate and it was shut. There was light coming from the top of the walls, so there were definitely people there although I couldn't see them. Some of the money that hadn't been spent on other parts of the manor had been spent here. The door was made of solid, seasoned wood, bound in iron from the look of it. There were no glimmers of torchlight that came from the edges or the bottom of the gate. The wall was in good repair, none of the splintered or crumbling stonework that is the sign of bad maintenance. This was kept clean and it was well maintained despite sinking in a couple of places. To my mind, this was the kind of maintenance that anyone could do but one day soon, if not on a day that had already passed, a proper mason would need to be brought in.

There was a large, flat, open area directly in front of the gate where the ground had been frozen hard. The light rain and the damp was getting into it a little but it was more a question of whether or not that new water would, itself, freeze over time.

I found myself wondering what the ground would be like to fight on.

"Sir Raoul LeBlanc." Guillaume called. "Come forth and treat with us."

"Who calls?" A voice came that I didn't recognise.

"I am Sir Guillaume de Launfal. Knight of Saint Francesca. Knight of Toussaint and I am charged with the keeping of law in Toussaint."

"We will send for him." Said the voice. I rather thought that I had been in Toussaint a little too long for the voice felt rude, uncultured and there was a dark accent to it. "Although I warn you that it is unlikely that Sir Raoul will come. He does not recognise your authority on his lands. Who is that with you?"

"He might not recognise it." Guillaume said. "But the Duchess of Toussaint does and she rules here whether Sir Raoul likes it or not. If he refuses then the Duchess will consider him to be in open rebellion against her and will act accordingly. My companion is Lord Frederick von Coulthard of Redania."

"I have heard of him." The voice said. "The Vampire whore's fool."

I laughed. There is only so many things that you can do in the face of such things.

"Tell me Lord Frederick." The man was angry at the laughter. I mentally dismissed him as being an idiot. If you are going to get angry about the fact that someone laughed at you insulting them, then you have no business insulting anyone in the first place. "How does it feel to bend your knee to the thing that killed hundreds. To bow before a monster and a demon that will steal your soul and everything that you care about."

"I wouldn't know." I told him. "I have only knelt to Ariadne once and that was because I could not put the ring on her finger standing. Otherwise, she would not permit me to kneel, she demands that I stand up and be proud. And I am proud for that matter. But to address your point. How would it feel to bow to a beautiful woman?" I pretended to consider the matter. "It would feel really good actually. Considerably better than having to pay for a woman to let you anywhere near her."

It was a cheap insult and not one I am particularly proud of. All I can say is that I was not having a good day.

"Or are you talking about someone else?" I wondered. "Are you talking about the Empress I wonder? Again, it was remarkably easy all things considered. And I would rather kneel to her than to the breaker of laws that you are trying to protect. Tell me, how does it feel to lick the boots of those that claim to be your betters? Are you not able to find any boots of people that are worth licking perhaps? Again, it's not really my thing but I would rather lick the feet of beautiful women than…"

"That's enough." Sir Raoul called from the top of the wall. "You are not at your best Lord Frederick." he called down in a companionable tone.

"What can I say?" I shouted up. "It's been a long day."

"Yes I can imagine." The two of us spoke as though we were old friends. "There is also the factor that your opponent in these matters is not the best opponent that you might face for such entertainments. But then again, I do not choose the Captain of my militia for his witty repartee."

"Just the quality of his bootlicking?" I wondered. "The proper texture of the tongue and the like."

Someone shouted in anger, but Raoul laughed. 'Ah Freddie." He shouted. "I really do regret that we could not have met each other in better circumstances. I really feel that the two of us could have been friends you know. We share a sense of humour. Maybe if I had been born a Northern Lord or if you had been born in Toussaint. Maybe we could have been friends."

"Believe me." I said, bowing from the saddle. "I have nightmares about such a possibility." I did my best to smile.

He laughed again, even Sir Guillaume chuckled.

"You see Lord Frederick?" Sir Raoul wondered. "You see what you are capable of when you have a proper opponent to face. Speaking of facing opponents, we have not had the news yet. Did your Witcher beat Alain? I have some money riding on the outcome."

"Kerrass was declared the victor." I said with no small amount of relish. There was more than one voice rising in shock and horror at that but Raoul's voice lifted in victorious laughter.

"I knew it." He yelled. "Oh, thank him for me would you? if you get the chance of course."

Notice the if.

"I will." I said, not bothering to hide my surprise. "You bet on Kerrass?"

"Yes. I rather thought that Alain didn't have the heart to carry it through against the Witcher. There are many things that make a good duellist and Alain certainly has most of them, I cannot deny that. But one of the things that he is lacking is heart to push through. He relies on his speed and his strength and his skill, which will carry him through against most opponents. But against someone with the skill of the Witcher? He would need something more. He would need heart. And that he doesn have. Your Witcher hated him, and rightly so if you ask me. I rather thought that hatred would carry the day. I am glad to hear that it did. I stand to earn quite a bit of money off the back of that."

"I will tell Kerrass. His wounds were severe and he will need to recover. Can he expect a share of the winnings?"

Raoul laughed again. He seemed to be enjoying the stand off.

"I think not." He said. "I need the money you see. I might pay for his healing if the final total turns out to be considerable. But now to business."

His voice became harsh and unpleasant.

"Sir Guillaume. Your presence before my door is harsh and unwelcome. You will remove yourself sir or you will suffer the consequences."

"I am here on behalf of the Duchess of Toussaint." Sir Guillaume said. "You are under arrest for taking part in the "Jack conspiracy" against the throne which also includes conspiracy to commit murder and various other crimes too horrible to name. You will open your gate immediately to place yourself into our custody. Your property will then be searched. You will also release those Knights and soldiers that you have taken into imprisonment immediately, having returned to them any belongings that have been taken. If one hair on any of their heads has been harmed, then the penalties will be harsh."

I couldn't see Raoul. But I could certainly hear him when he started to laugh after a long moment. "Is that all?" He asked incredulously before letting his laughter ring out into the echoing darkness. It wasn't long before his men and followers started to join him in the hilarity. Which he allowed to go on and on and on.

"Are you done?" Guillaume shouted up at the walls. "Come on Raoul, you are not a stupid man. You know which way the wind is blowing and you know which way this is going to end up. Open the gates, let your hostages go and we will find you a nice monastery somewhere to go and retire to."

"Is that it?" Raoul demanded, the edge of hilarity in his voice. "Is that your enticement? Is that your bribe to try and get me to do what you want me to do? An out of the way monastery. You are right Sir Guillaume. I am not stupid and I know exactly that, even if I wanted to go to some monastery to live out the rest of my life in… I dunno… contemplation, prayer and frantic masturbation. You and I both know that it wouldn't stay that way for long with me as an inmate. How long before the monks are mixing with the nuns? How long before the local women start to become pregnant and how long before I escape and come back to wealth and fame.

"No Guillaume, I think that you are many things but I do not think that you can promise me that. I think that I will be placed under arrest, imprisoned and then that you will find something, even if it is planted there by one of the agents that undoubtedly works for you that you have placed in my household. I think you will find something that will have me condemned. If I open my gates now and allow you access, how long before I am dead? Even if it is an accident in the cells."

Guillaume didn't react to that. He didn't even seem particularly unhappy about it.

"Are you suggesting that we would plant something in your holdings? He wondered of the wall. As I say, we couldn't see where Raoul was and as such, there was no way of guessing who we were shouting at.

"Of course I am suggesting that." Raoul answered. "Because there is nothing here to suggest that I have had anything to do with these most recent killings. I am innocent."

"We have witnesses." Guillaume started to sound bored.

"Bribed." Raoul answered promptly. "Desperate. Determined to take petty revenge on their betters. There are any number of grudges that would be revenged by my peers. Even if your accusations are above board, there are plenty of underhanded people that would go out of their way to see to it that I would fall. Tortured men will tell the questioner what they think they want to hear. Prisoners will say anything on the record if they think it will get them a lighter sentence. And anyone that is left… Well. I am a Knight of Toussaint. What petty accusations are they making. Would you honestly take the word of some foreigner over me? Some peasant or… worse… some merchant?"

"We have evidence." Guillaume shouted up before turning to me. "He likes the sound of his own voice doesn't he?" Guillaume muttered quietly.

"This is his moment." I muttered back. "He is showing off, carving out his place in history. He is not convincing us, he is convincing himself and the other people watching."

"Forged." Raoul shouted down. "Fabricated. Anyone can write anything down, or make anything or do anything that will make for "evidence." I am a Knight of the Realm of Toussaint. I was anointed by the sacred piss and stood my vigil by the holy shit pit. I said my oaths and I made my donations.

"Just out of curiosity though." Raoul called down. "Just so I know, what happens if I say no. What happens if I refuse to do any of these things. What happens if I tell you where to get off and that I refuse to acknowledge your prestige over me. What happens then?"

Guillaume grinned savagely. "Then we will destroy you."

"Oh?" Raoul laughed again, joined by the other men on the wall. "Whenever you are ready Sir Guillaume. When you are making your plans you should know that I am aware of the five man teams that are watching my other gates. I have experienced crossbowmen and archers watching all the approaches. You would need to advance over open ground to get to me and given that you have only just got here, you do not have the time to build ladders and my gates are more than capable of standing up to a ram."

Again, Guillaume said nothing.

"And further to that." Raoul went on, warming to his subject. "I also know that you have maybe thirty men with you. And although you, undoubtedly, have some formidable warriors with you, I outnumber you over two to one."

He laughed.

"Couple that with the fact that you have to know that the moment, the very instant that we see an attack forming up outside our gates, is also the moment that I start having my people slit the throats of some of the bandits that I have in my custody."

"Bandits? You are talking about the guard Captain of Beauclair and his men."

"They entered my lands without permission and undertook military action without my say so." Raoul answered promptly. Not for the first time while I was in Toussaint, I got the feeling that I was watching a piece of street theatre that was being put on for my benefit. That the words had been rehearsed and arranged in advance. It certainly seemed that no sooner had Guillaume said something than Raoul had the answer ready and waiting.

"I take it you have demands for the release of those people?" Guillaume asked.

"Come on Guillaume," Raoul sneered. It is a special type of man that can put a sneer into a tone of voice. It is the same tone of voice that says things like "Don't you know who I am?" and "You people,".

"Well what do you want Raoul?" Guillaume demanded. "You can't stay in your manor house forever. You can't hold those people indefinitely. What do you want?"

"I want an apology." Raoul said. "I want the Knight Commander herself to kneel before my gates and beg for my forgiveness before she resigns her office in disgrace. I want it read out in open court that the Knights of Saint Francesca have pursued a vendetta against the old elements of the Knights Errant in order to prove themselves better than we were. I want you all to admit that this Jack killer should have been caught days ago, that you knew who he was but protected him so that you could sweep your political enemies off the board. And when all of that is done, or certain guarantees are made so that I can believe that it is going to happen, then I might release my captives."

"It is my turn to rebuke you Raoul." Guillaume shouted. "We both know that there is more than one Jack figure. And that you are in the middle of the conspiracy?"

"Do we?" Raoul answered. "I can account for my whereabouts every evening that Jack attacked someone, so how can I be part of this conspiracy of yours. I cannot speak for everyone on my estates or my lands and if there is someone here that was part of such a thing, then I demand the power to be able to chase them down myself. But for me, I had nothing to do with it. There will be further proof the next time Jack kills. If you think you have us all, then where is Jack. And when he comes forth again, how will you pin it on us? If you have caught us all then Jack should be defeated should he not?"

He laughed.

"Let me tell you what is going to happen. You are not going to attack me. You do not have the authority to order such an action on your own behalf. I suppose that you could mount a single handed attack if you wanted to but beyond that, it will take more men and more equipment to reach me in here than you have. You must take my demands back to the Knight Commander and then, being weak, softhearted and selfish that she is. She will want to delay. It is well known that she loves the guard Captain because her tastes are well known to be crude and common. She will not risk his life. So there will be negotiation, there will be delays and as you go, more and more men of Toussaint will start to question as to what happens if it is them that the throne starts to victimise and whether or not the Knight Commander has what it takes to do the job she does."

"I will take your demands away." Guillaume said.

"You have until dawn to give me some timescales."

"Or what?" Guillaume demanded. "You kill a hostage?"

"You said that." Raoul really has an expressive voice. Now I could hear him grin. "Not me. Fuck off Guillaume."

Guillaume turned his horse away and I went to follow.

"Farewell Lord Frederick." Raoul shouted after us. "I look forward to seeing you again soon."

We were riding down the track carefully when I could no longer stand the silence.

"What happens now?" I wondered.

"Hmm? Oh," Guillaume sighed and scratched his forehead. "The truth, Freddie? I'm a little bit out of my depth here. Not two years ago, hells, not even a year ago. I would probably now be dead. I would have called Raoul out for the black hearted liar that he is. I would have hurled all kinds of insults and demanded that he fight me one on one for the safety of those men. I would have called him an honourless dog…"

"Which he is." I commented.

"... and I would have questioned his manhood and I would not have stopped until I ran out of breath. And if he did not come out to face me, then I would have dismounted from my horse and I would have taken my broadsword to the wooden gates that had been barred in the sure knowledge that my steel and righteous anger would not be turned aside."

"He would have shot you." I said after I got my breath back from just how angry Guillaume was.

"Yes he would have," Guillaume seemed to deflate. "I do not know what to think, Freddie. I do not know what I am afraid of. I do not know whether it's the fact that I was blind and now I can see clearly. That possibility is bad enough, but the other possibility is that there was once a world like that which I imagine. Where he would have come out to face me in honourable one-on-one combat. That we would be riding away with Damien and the rest and that we would have found proof that Raoul was part of the Jack conspiracy. Was it ever like that Freddie?"

"I don't know."

"Come on Freddie I mean…"

"No I really don't know. I think that there were times like that in different places in the world. I know that Temeria used to have a chivalric tradition for some time. I think you would recognise the Skelligan honour a lot more than either you, or they, would like to admit."

He grunted at that. "Back when I was a Knight Errant, charging around the countryside looking for wrongs to right and monsters to slay. Turning down propositions from maidens, and gentlemen too to be fair, I would hear about Knights that had been sent to go and deal with this place and that place. Men who were sent to clear out bandit nests and the like. Good men, proud men. And quite often we would hear the story about how they rode up to the bandit camp and challenged the Bandit leader. There would be stories about the huge Bandit and his armour draped in human skin and about the epic battle that took place between the two. All of this before the Knight would be slain by the brute. The brute that would often look like Sir Gregoire if I think back to the descriptions that I heard."

I waited for him to get to the point.

"Things like this." He went on after a moment. "Make me think that we were too harsh on those men. We used to tell each other that we would have defeated the black guard. That we would have triumphed more easily. That they just weren't powerful or skilled enough to make it happen. But the truth is that there was no duel. There was no battle. The Knight might have killed a few bandits before being dragged from his horse, or having his horse shot out from under him, and being pushed into the mud until he drowned."

"Even the mightiest man may be felled by a single arrow shot from the dark." I quoted. "And sooner or later, to the conniving man, it will occur that all men must sleep, and all men must eat. And if you want a man killed, there are far more efficient ways of doing it than using a sword."

Guillaume grunted unhappily at that.

"Raoul would never fight me." He said. "He knows that I would win and he will not want to risk it. We need anonymity in the Knights for that to work. We need people to be unaware of who we are and what we are capable of. So that we can fight and others can not know who we are. So they cannot plan for our presence."

I had nothing to say for that. Something was scratching in the back of my mind. An idea that I didn't want to look at. I had a sinking feeling that it wasn't a very good idea and that I would hate it when I realised what it was.

My headache was getting worse.

We came back to our little copse of trees and Kerrass came to take my reins and help me from the saddle. I was astonished and mortified to discover that I needed it.

"Deep breaths Freddie." He told me and I did as I was told until my legs stopped shaking from the exertion of keeping me upright.

Guillaume came for me and Kerrass led us both to where Syanna and the others were waiting. It was a little up a hill where a narrow, rock strewn path led us to the summit that was crowned with loose stones and a smattering of winter bare trees. I shivered as it reminded me of another hill that I had taken refuge on in Northern Redania.

I mean, this is the frustrating thing about it. The two hills were nothing alike. The one in Northern Redania where we had fought off the hounds of Lord Cavill had been a small rise in the middle of the valley. We had been doing that in the late spring dampness of the mountains. There the trees formed a pattern, here they were just… there. Too high for anyone to bother to go and chop them down for firewood.

But it was dark and I found myself looking for the mist that would be hiding the enemies that I was sure were going to come for me. I shook my head and rubbed at my eyes until the spectres of the past retreated far enough to see the other differences. Including the fact that we were not actually near the summit of the hill. We were just below the ridge line so that we could peek over the top of the line and see the Manor house of Sir Raoul Leblanc.

It was a good vantage point and I would later learn that it was one of those watch places that you can find around the countryside. A place for guards to watch the approaches for invading enemies or for shepherds to watch as many sheep as possible.

There was even a small stack of firewood and a flat area that had been burnt clear with a small circle of stones to show where we were supposed to build a fire. Someone had done that already and was heating a small cauldron of tea that was then being passed around. A sheepskin was arranged to keep the light from the manor house.

One of the constants of soldier life, apparently, is that there is always enough supplies for the soldier to have a mug of something hot and herbal.

Ariadne brought me a cup. When I took a sip it was more heavily honeyed than I would normally prefer it but there was a bitter aftertaste and rasp in the back of my throat that suggested to me that there were more herbs than just tea in the depths of my cup. I looked up at Ariadne and raised my eyebrows in question.

She nodded. "I will catch you." She told me.

I maintained long eye contact with her as I took as large a swallow as my throat could handle given the heat that was in the liquid.

"Well." Syanna demanded. "What did he say?"

Guillaume took a deep breath and pulled himself to attention before shrugging. "He said no."

Syanna's hand came up to her mouth as her eyes widened and began to shine in the small firelight.

"You were gone a long time for him to just say no." Gregoire commented, not quite perceptive enough, not quite knowing us all enough to be able to read what was happening.

Syanna turned away and fled into the gloom. Ariadne looked at me and I nodded, cradling my tea in my hand as Ariadne slunk into the darkness to go and support the distraught Knight Commander.

I could feel the false and herbal energy of the tea shooting through my limbs with a warm, rushing kind of sensation.

"He said…" Guillaume accepted a cup from the old Knight before ladling himself a mug full. "He said that if he sees us mounting an attack, or marshalling an attack, he will start killing hostages." He took a sip from his steaming cup, grimaced, spat and then took another swallow. It was not lost on me that he hadn't put any honey in the drink.

Gregoire nodded.

"I mean," Guillaume went on. "There was some other stuff as well. Some small insults and petty bickering. I agree with the assessment that there is something else going on here that I do not know or do not understand. But the long and short of it is that he said no. There are hostages in the Manor. If we go in in force then the hostages start dying."

"He gave us until dawn to answer his demands." I said.

"What were the demands?" Gregoire wondered.

"Does it matter?" Kerrass wondered. "He's playing for time."

A gloomy silence sank over our little council of war.

"So what's he waiting for?" Gregoire asked. "That's the key here isn't it. What's he waiting for? There is no way he gets away with this. No way that anyone is going to let him go, or is going to forget that he denied the Knights access to his person or his manor at the point of a swerve. What could possibly happen that could prevent him from a sudden stop at the end of a rope."

"Technically, he will be beheaded." Guillaume replied. "He is still a noble."

"You wanna bet. Five crowns says that even now, some clerk somewhere is destroying his writ and removing him from the records." The old Knight said. "It would be a good final insult if they stretched his neck. And I can think of few people that I would rather see that happen to."

"He thinks…" I began before clearing my throat. The tea was unusually bitter now that I was getting far enough down that the liquid was getting cooler. "He thinks that popular opinion will turn in his favour. He is hiding behind old laws and old traditions in order to justify his actions. He thinks that this is going to tie everything up in the Toussaint judicial system until either the political wind shifts or something else happens."

I finished the tea and poured myself another cup. I was utterly unsurprised to find that this cup was considerably less bitter than the last one.

"Like many of the people that disapprove of the new order in Toussaint, he has forgotten that these changes were ordered by the Empress of Toussaint. That if these orders are denied then the Imperial army might just turn up. That this is one of those areas that the Duchess is powerless in. The world is changing and men like Raoul are the last of a dying breed of men who are fighting against the fact that… soon, they will be extinct."

"All that is very interesting, Freddie." Kerrass was laughing at me. "And all of it is true, but there is something else here. He knows that he can't stay in there forever. He has to know that. I mean, even if there are supplies in there, how long can he last? It's not a big place and he has quite a few men with him. All of which will need feeding."

"And paying." Guillaume said. "Some of those men, at least, are mercenaries and I know that some mercenaries are honest men who are just doing a job. But those men struck me as the slightly more sinister versions of the breed. And such men are only happy to stay in place so long as the money keeps rolling in."

"And the women." Gregoire muttered darkly. "Money, food, wine and women. That is my experience of that type of mercenaries that are little more than bandits."

"There is a reason why mercenaries are generally not used to sieges." Guillaume said. "Even the most hard, honest mercenary starts to wonder why he is fighting if the money dries up. Holding the siege? Yes. A mercenary can do that. But being besieged?"

"If we had to attack? How would we do?" Kerrass asked. I was heartened by the way that he spoke. I noticed the "we" in what he said and how he would group himself up in with the rest of it.

"There's a lot of unknowns there." Guillaume said. "There are a good few of them and there is little to no cover between here and the wall so it would also depend on how good and how accurate the bows and crossbows are that they have. We have horses which means that we have speed, but that will only count for so much when it comes down to it."

There was some general shifting of weight.

"We don't have ladders or rams or any kind of siege equipment so we would have to get there and climb over the walls." The Old Knight said. I'm really sorry that I've forgotten his name but my notes are elsewhere as I write this chapter up and I'm afraid that I just can't remember. "There are places that we could climb over but it would be tough."

"Can we use some magic?" Gregoire said. "We have a Sorceress and a Witcher,"

"Not as useful as you might think." Kerrass told him. "And there is nothing there that would prevent the defenders from murdering hostages by the dozen while we still struggled to get through the gates. It would be better, and far more efficient to have strong men with big axes to take down the gates. And that is if Lady Ariadne is willing to use her skills in such a way. Large scale magic is not as discriminatory as we might think."

"As to the quality of men?" Guillaume was sucking at his lips. "Pound for pound I think we are better than they are. We are better armed and armoured and I would expect that we are better trained. In a stand-up fight then I would expect that we could take on two to one odds if not more. We will lose people though. Some of our folks haven't faced a man in anger. Some others of them are guards rather than soldiers. It will be bloody. In my mind, we need to find another way to do this rather than attacking. The loss of life, hostages as well as our side, will be significant."

There was some more gloomy nodding.

"Will he duel one of us for it?" Gregoire asked without much hope.

Guillaume shook his head. "Freddie and I talked about that as we came back. He's being stupid, but not that stupid. He knows something we don't, otherwise he would have fled already I think."

I nodded at that. "He is certainly the type of man that would flee when he knew the game was up. He will have investments abroad and will go and live in exile in comfort somewhere where money will go further than it does in Toussaint."

Gregoire was appalled. "Exile?" He shuddered, as did the older Knight.

"Better than death." Guillaume said. "It would be hard because I love Toussaint, but if it came to a choice between my wife's life and leaving Toussaint? There are some things that it would be worth. And Raoul hates everything. I do not think he would even hesitate if it came down to it. He is not like you or I Gregoire. He doesn't love Toussaint like we do."

"He hates it." I commented to some more nodding.

"But he won't duel us." Guillaume said again. He might… He might be able to take us with a lance and on horseback…"

"He is certainly getting to the point where he is better than me on a regular basis." Gregoire admitted.

"... But with a sword?.. And on foot?... He knows that either you or I could take him. And he is better than any of the other Knights that are here. And even if he lost, would he abide by the results? The man is part of a conspiracy to bring down the throne or reduce the Duchess' power and part of that effort was done by raping and murdering women. He would not fight us. We need another plan."

"Can we sneak in?" Kerrass wondered.

"It would be difficult." I told him. "The ground is open between any cover and the wall and the gates are shut. The interior is well lit and the watchers are alert and ready for it."

Kerrass grunted.

"It could be done." I said, If there was a misty night, or if there was a distraction or something." The scratching at the back of my head was getting louder. "But we would need more time to prepare.

"Time." Gregoire said. "Then time is the answer. How do we get more time?"

"We negotiate." Guillaume spat. "We play into his hands for now and we answer his demands. We prolong things and wait for him to slip up. We wait and make sure that we can neutralise whatever plan it is that he is cooking up and then we move on from there."

"There will be no negotiation."

Syanna had come back and she was terrifying.

There is a moment that I remember from back when Francesca had gone missing. It is one of those moments that sticks out in my memory. I wrote about it at the time but it was one of those moments that sticks out the most. It was not a moment of violence or a moment of the magic that was in the air, it was actually quite a simple moment.

I remember it clearly, standing in the Empress' study in the palace as she read through the final reports on the search for my sister and there came a moment where the Empress set the piece of paper aside and put her head in her hands for a long moment. Then she looked up and seemed to shake herself and move on.

I remember it so clearly and even at the time, even through my own grief, anger and despair at everything that had happened and was still happening, I remember realising that what I had just seen was a person giving someone up for dead.

It was a terrible moment. One of those moments that I look back on with great sadness. Seeing someone give up a friend for dead. I have seen similar moments on the faces of families when Kerrass and I are forced to return to the contract giver and inform them that there is no longer any hope and that the person that went missing is now dead. But that is never quite as bad because then there is a thing that can be blamed. A monster that can be pointed at and destroyed.

A body to bury.

But in that moment, when the Empress gave my sister up for dead, there was no body to bury, no monster to blame and no certainty as to what was happening.

This was worse.

I missed the moment that it occurred. I missed the moment of decision but I had no doubt as to what I was looking at when I saw Syanna that night as she came out of the darkness, Ariadne standing nearby.

She had given up the captives for dead.

How she had done that, I will never know. I don't think I could have done it. I don't think that I could do it now. If someone I loved, if Ariadne was taken, then I would do everything in my power to get her out of whatever situation that she was in and be damned to the consequences of anything, or anyone else. But that is also the reason that I am not the commander of some kind of Knightly order or general in some kind of army. I am grateful that I don't have to make these kinds of decisions. Because I am not sure that I could.

"We do not negotiate." Syanna said. "If the state, or the Knights, start negotiating with anyone that is willing to hold hostages or use blackmail. Then we will never stop negotiating with hostage takers and blackmailers. That is a cycle that never ends. Bastards all over Toussaint will think that all they have to do to get away with treason, murder, rape and conspiracy is to take a bunch of hostages and then we will bend over backwards to accommodate them."

She swallowed.

"There has to be a line and we have to draw it. We are drawing it here and there cannot be an exception. It will be much harder to do it down the line as people will say that we played favourites. And they would be right to say it."

She looked as though she had aged twenty years. She looked as though she was on the verge of passing out. She was pale and sweating. Holding herself upright by determination and an iron will that came from a place that I cannot even comprehend. Her eyes were sunken and shadowed she looked… She looked like a ghost as her armour shone in the firelight.

There was the sound of something roaring in my ears.

"Madame Comtesse." Syanna turned to Ariadne. "If I could prevail upon you to contact someone at Beauclair and tell them that I am ordering up reinforcements and that I want them tonight. Anyone that can be spared please. We still have some coming and we should set a watch for their arrival."

Ariadne nodded.

One of the things that was freaking me out was that Syanna was so quiet. She seemed almost like a Golem only made out of flesh and blood.

"Guillaume?" Syanna turned back to the other Knights. "I want a plan of attack. At most we can expect another twenty or so fighters to come up tonight and I want us to attack as soon as they get here."

Guillaume paled and nodded.

"Surely…" Gregoire was appalled. "Surely there must be another way."

"What other way?' Syanna asked calmly. "You tell me and I will do it. Tell me how we rescue those captives and…."

She swallowed and took a breath.

"Tell me how we do it. He won't come out to fight us. I couldn't take him as he is too strong for me. You and Guillaume could beat him but he won't come out to fight you. I heard you both admit it yourself. We can't use stealth to sneak in as there is no cover on the way up to the Manor house and so any force that would make a difference would see us coming. I have spoken with Araidne about the prospect of using magic to get the job done and she assures me that Magic will only take the matter so far forward. She can only transport one person into the courtyard at a time, such an action will not be subtle. She can't turn a big enough force invisible and even if she did that, what is inside the compound?"

I looked over at Kerrass to see that he was looking at the floor. The magic light was dancing around his body still, he was still healing. I could see no injuries and he was moving as he would normally, but if there was still healing going on, then there were still injuries somewhere in the middle of all of that. He was not an answer. And still my headache was getting worse.

There was an itching at the back of my head still and I couldn't figure out what it was. A thought was occurring, an idea but I couldn't reach it. In the same way that it is sometimes hard to reach an itch at the back of your throat without gagging.

"We don't know layout, terrain or deployment." Syanna was still carrying on. "Ariadne could bring us out of whatever magically induced… spell that she has us under in order to get the job done only to find ourselves surrounded by swords. So what do we do Gregoire? What do we do to save their lives and make sure that this shit never happens again."

She was just beginning to lose control of herself. Just beginning with it. A tremble in the hands, a wobble of the lips a rasp in the voice.

Gregoire stared at her, open mouthed and horrified.

"Tell me what to do." Syanna begged. You could just about hear the hysteria on the edge of her voice. "Tell me how to save the life of the man that I love and I will do it. Give me a different idea. Please."

Her lip wobbled, just a moment and then she closed her eyes and mastered herself. It was just a moment of weakness and she banished it with a will that was awe inspiring.

When her eyes opened, they were cold and hard again, steely and sure.

"We are going to attack because we cannot allow a delay. He has broken enough laws now that he hangs, no matter what the outcome. He is depending on us… on me… to be a bleeding heart, a weak willed person. He is expecting me to bow before his demands because he considers me weak. If we let him go, we are doomed.

"I am aware that I am condemning those other Knights and guards to death. Damien too." Her voice did not crack when she said his name. "But this is the life that we lead. They know that and we know that. There might be an argument to negotiate further if they were common folk hostages but they are not. They are military men. And I know that as I lead this attack, Raoul is going to stand Damien out on the wall where I can see him and he's going to slit his throat. And then he's going to say that I killed him.

"And he will be right."

"That's not true." Guillaume said. "You didn't kill him…."

I noticed the past tense already.

"You didn't kill him. Raoul did. And we will punish him for that murder."

Syanna nodded. "Thank you, Guillaume. I know that my sister will agree with you, as will the other philosophers and things. But I must accept the blame for this. I am giving this order knowing that it might lead to the death of those men. That is sometimes the price of things. My punishment if you like."

"Wait." I said quietly. "I have an…"

"Colonely Duberton warned me that this would happen one day." Syanna went on, not hearing me, but no-one heard me. "He told me that I would need to give an order that would end in the death of some of my people. I just… I didn't know that it was going to happen so soon, or that it was going to involve the man that I…"

She swallowed.

"We can't give up on them." Gregoire pleaded. The huge Knight sounded heartbroken. "There has to be something."

"What? He won't fight us, we can't use…"

"He'll fight me." I said, Louder than I thought it was going to be. "He'll fight me."

And just like that. My headache vanished as the thought in the back of my head, The itch that I couldn't identify was finally given voice.

Guillaume and Gregoire were stunned. Kerrass turned to me and smiled. Ariadne was out of my sightline.

"Freddie." Syanna tried. "I love you for offering, but you're in no shape to…"

I shook my head, throwing off her argument.

"He'll fight me. He won't pass up that opportunity. But here. He has proven himself to be dishonourable right?"

"Right." Guillaume agreed. "He has sunk pretty low."

"So if I remember this rightly, that makes him an enemy of yours. An enemy of ours. Which, in turn, means that we can use any tactics we like against him right?"

Guillaume nodded. "I don't…"

"Freddie has a plan." Kerrass told him. "It will be a foolish plan. It will almost certainly risk his life and if might end up killing him. But damn me if it doesn't often work."

"We can't…" Syanna tried. "I can't… Freddie, you were all but swaying in the saddle. You can barely stand. You can't take on a man like Raoul."

"That's not the point though." I told her.

"What?" She almost looked as though she was in pain.

Hope can be painful when it comes so soon after despair.

"I want to hear the plan." Guillaume said.

"So do I." Gregoire agreed. "This man arranged for me to become engaged to the woman that I have loved for almost my entire adult life." He grinned suddenly in a way that took years off him. "If he can manage that, this seems like a relatively easy task.

"Knight Commander." Ariadne said. "You should listen to what Lord Frederick has to say."

Ariadne was staring at me intently, her eyes shadowed with an emotion that I didn't recognise.

"But you'll be killed." Syanna said, pleadingly.

I laughed. I don't know where it came from. Kerrass claimed that it sounded like a Skelligan berzerker's laugh. "In his wet dreams." I told her. "But that's not the point."

Syanna looked at me for a long time.

"Tell me the plan." She said.

(A/N: A little shorter chapter this time. But it was cut off here because otherwise, it would have been twice the length and I want to keep the content coming on a more regular basis. Sorrynotsorry about the cliffhanger.)