Chapter 122: But you cannot melt ice by hitting it with more ice

I nodded and looked at the castle with new eyes.

Sam had ordered a much more temporary residence built. A large hall patterned after the long houses of the Skelligans and made from the local wood. He had wanted to just move into the castle but several people, including Kerrass had told him just how bad an idea that was going to be. So instead he had the hall built as a place to receive visitors and as a temporary residence. It was situated on a field at the bottom of the path that led up to the castle. There were several other small buildings that had been built for the use of guests, they were no more than small, huts really, more like permanent tents.

Sam had told me that they were big enough for a bed, a fire and a place to get cleaned up if you had a bath running. He was still struggling to get to terms with the common folk on Kalayn lands though so he had warned us, in advance that he was modelling the residence on military lifestyle, in that you were expected to take care of yourself. There were a couple of pages and squires to run messages, there was also a cook that Sam had kidnapped from Coulthard castle but generally, you were expected to pitch in with chores.

His first letters had commented that he was finding it refreshing but later missives suggested that he was beginning to get a little bit tired of this and was looking forward to some creature comforts.

He came out to greet us as we rode up. Shaking hands with Rickard and Kerrass before enveloping me in a bruising bear hug.

Rickard turned down the offer of one of the huts saying that he would prefer to camp with his men. Kerrass and I were shown which huts we would both be sleeping in and it was made clear that if the weather became unsuitable then we would all be welcome to shelter inside the hall itself.

We made appropriate noises and scattered to stow our gear. The bastards made some noises about looking for some food and checking to make sure that they wouldn't be hung for poaching. Sam laughed and told them that there was plenty of game, indeed that one of his major exports was going to be deer skins and meat but that there were several nests of Endregas and Arachnomorphs around so that they should be careful where they step.

The Sergeant made note of this before heading off.

Sam had given me a hut with a writing desk in it. I didn't know whether to be annoyed or amused at being so pigeon holed. Flattered I guess, to be known so well by your big brother. Kerrass and I collected Rickard before heading back to the hall where Sam enthusiastically introduced us to the other men who had come here to help him with the ghost problem and to help root out whatever leftover cult influences there might be.

There were indeed a good half company of Redanian regulars camped outside the hall although the other half of them were out on patrol inside the “Kalayn Province” in an effort to convince the locals that the new Lord of the Manor was concerned about their safety and security. They were led by a Knight Lieutenant Sir Kristoff Lennox. Sir Kristoff was a cheerless man who looked old to be a Knight Lieutenant to me which suggested that he was not that important or lacked the money or rank to progress. The army had been downsizing in recent times though so there was also the possibility that he had taken a reduction in rank to stay on in the armed forces. Maybe he was unhappy at home or something. Regardless he was an older man, in his late thirties or early forties who kept his head all but shaved clean. You could see the reflected firelight in his scalp. He was sat at a table and doing paperwork as we walked in and rose to have his hand shaken and accept a salute from Sir Rickard. He then excused himself and returned to his reports.

Father Trent of the Eternal Fire came bustling up next.

What can I say about Father Trent? Calling him a new breed of priest is a little bit of an unfairness to him as he had been serving with the church for many years when I met him. He had joined a monastary at an early age in a similar pattern to Mark, in that his parents had wanted to guarantee their place in heaven and so had sent one of their sons to serve in the church.

Unlike Mark, however, his family had not seen his appointment as a political opportunity and they had then considered their obligations fulfilled and left him to it. He had toiled away as a lay brother before eventually becoming ordained as a priest in, his words, a remarkably unremarkable church in a wholey unremarkable town. He told me that his entire job was keeping the different factions within his little town from each others throats while, on the side, doing his best to see to their immortal souls.

During the madness of King Radovid he had kept out of it, having seen plenty of goodness in non-humans and “magical or suspected magical folk,” before coming to the conclusion that people were people no matter what size, shape, race or talent was and that they were all as equally awful to each other as they ever would be.

However this cynicism hides the soul of a true diplomat and he was able to broker a situation where the more extreme servants of the church would be able to come to his little flock and he would be able to maintain the peace. His town was one of the few, in Redania at least, where the locals did not live in fear of the Inquisition and that was largely due to the efforts of Father Trent.

He later admitted that it got dicey a few times where he was forced to protect a local alchemist in his basement while a couple of the more forceful Inquisitors searched the town for the woman's whereabouts but that everything seemed to come right in the end.

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Now, the more modern church tended to use him when they needed to work with other parties or other religions and he was a fine choice for this delegation.

After the introductions he expressed pleasure upon meeting me and I told him that I was pleased to meet him after hearing so many nice things.

However two men were stood behind him in the long, red trimmed black robes of the Inquisition. They weren't wearing their hoods though so, on balance, I suspected that I wasn't going to be dragged away for burning immediately. One was tall, aristocratic features with his dark hair tied back into a queue while the other was a much shorter man, bald with a trim of white hair around the back of his head that he had cut short. I automatically assumed that the shorter, older man was the “nice one” and the taller aristocratic one was the “nasty one,”

“Lord Frederick,” Sir Trent blushed a little as he realised that he had been ignoring the two men for some time. “Allow me to present Inquisitor, Father Hacha,” he gestured at the smaller man, “And Inquisitor Father Dempsey,” He gestured to the taller man.

“A pleasure I told them both.” I couldn't decide whether I should offer my hand or not when Father Dempsey astonished me by grinning hugely.

“I offer you my hand sir,” he said, “just to save us all some confusion.”

“Thank you,” I told him, taking his hand and shaking it firmly.

“A genuine pleasure to meet you,” Dempsey continued.

“Thank you,” I said again before turning to Father Hacha who also held out his hand, looking at me strangely. He had this strange way of staring at you as though his eyes seemed to boggle out of his face. You could see the white's of his eye, all around the Iris.

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I've known a lot of people that claim that they can tell a lot about a man by the way that he shakes your hand. More than one person has told me that the correct way to make a good first impression is to shake the man's hand firmly while looking him in the eye. Then, that there is no need to maintain contact for any more than a couple of seconds, certainly no more than is required to talk about the initial exchange of greetings.

There is a problem with this though which is that everyone knows that this is the correct way to shake your hand and therefore that's what everyone does.

But I digress.

There are other things that can be said about the art of shaking someone's hand. Make sure that your hand is dry as there is nothing worse than a clammy handshake where you have to wipe your hand afterwards but another thing is to make sure that your wrist is also firm as you can grip perfectly well but if your wrist is limp then that can give the wrong idea.

I don't know what the wrong idea is but apparently it gives the wrong one.

Warriors tend to grip each other by the wrists. Apparently the logic is that if they grip you like this it shows that you don't have a hidden weapon somewhere. A largely pointless gesture as this, right handed grip, only occupies one hand and you could easily do some horrific murder with the other hand.

However, one of the more interesting things about handshakes is the way that a certain kind of people use their handshakes to try and exert dominance, the one over another. You can do this by gripping the hand and squeezing it. I've never been certain what this proves but people try to use it all the time on me. I never get into a contest with them as it always seems a little pointless and eventually just relax my hand and let them get on with it.

The other famous one is where they tilt their hand over onto one side so that their hand is over the top of yours. I'm told that this is exerting dominance by showing that they are above you in some way.

Not only did Father Hacha do this but he also squeezed my hand and wouldn't let go.

“Yes, a pleasure,” he said as he held on. “A pleasure although I can't say that I entirely approve of your recent adventures.”

“Oh?” I carefully managed to extract my hand from the man's grip.

“Yes,” Your handling of the Sansum affair could have gone a lot better if you ask me?”

“Really,” I made no pretence of hiding the fact that I needed to massage some life into my palm.

“Yes, you could have done things a lot better if you ask me. Nasty business to be sure but that doesn't change the fact that you and your, companion....”

He managed to make the world sound like an insult. It wasn't lost on me that Fathers Dempsey and Trent had both shaken Kerrass' hand whereas Hacha did not. There are some people that are just born to piss you off I find and when that sort of thing happens, the best thing to do is to just hold your nose and jump in with both feet.

“....murdered a churchman and a number of holy knights.”

“Not that there was much about them that was holy,” Kerrass commented to Sam and Sir Rickard but his voice was pitched to carry.

“Well,” I told him. “We did what we felt we needed to do in the heat of the moment.”

“Yes well,” he sniffed in a way that managed to convey just how much he disapproved of our actions. “Not how I would have done it.”

“How would you have done it?” I asked politely, the question that he was so obviously begging to be asked. I was also having to be really careful not to laugh aloud. Father Dempsey was stood behind the other man and had comedically rolled his eyes before miming Hacha's voice with hand puppets.

“Well, I would have taken the matter to the proper authorities of course. Taken it up with the church hierarchy.”

“Yes,” I told him. “I have heard this criticism before. In the time that it would have taken us to reach the proper authorities, more people would have been murdered, more young men would have been abused and still more would have been radicalised.”

“That doesn't change the fact that you killed a priest when it was not your place.”

“Who's place was it then?” I demanded, feeling myself getting hot. “We were there, we had the tools and the capability. The rest of the church had done nothing, whether because they didn't know there was a problem, or because they had other things on their mind.”

“Or because they didn't care.” Kerrass spoke.

If anything, Father Hacha's eyes bulged out of his skull even more.

“Now you listen here, you filthy....”

“That's enough,” Father Trent spoke up. “These men came here in an effort to try and help deliver these lands and their people from evil.”

“That's as maybe, Trent” Father Hacha spat. “But you cannot melt ice by hitting it with more ice.”

I felt my hackles rise a little bit more. I was still a little sensitive to being called a heretic and a blasphemer given that the last person to call me that had tortured me, and felt the need to defend myself.

“I take it that you do not approve of Kerrass and myself.” I told the Inquisitor who was getting far too puffed up for his own good. “Well I will tell you that you can shove your disapproval up your ass for all I care.”

“How dare you sir?”

“How dare I?” I was suddenly reminded about the long ago scene outside our families castle when Sir Robart had got all red-faced and angry in the face of being challenged by people he saw as being lesser than himself.

A small part of me wondered if Robart and this Hacha were related in any way. “Where were you, sir, when young boys were being raped and tortured? Where were you when good, honest, flame fearing men and women were being burned at the stake for no crime other than keeping a recipe book of herbal potions in an effort to protect the people under their care from sickness and death? Where were you?”

“I...” But I was still angry.

“Why didn't we go to the church authorities? Would they have done something or would it all have been carefully brushed under a rug. The knights moves somewhere else and put on a shorter leash. They were churchmen themselves and in my experience the church protects their own so why would this be any different. We killed them because they needed killing and the way people, especially other church men seem to get up in my face and beat their chests with their righteous indignation. I swear that if another priest tries to tell me that I'm an evil heretic and sinner for killing heretic sinners who committed greater sins than some monsters that I've met, I swear I'll kill him as well.”

The statement shocked a number of people, myself not least.

“You wouldn't dare.” Hacha struggled for breath in the face of my blasphemy. Danzig looked equally as shocked despite his firm support of a lot of what I had said.

Father Trent tried for diplomacy. “Now Lord Frederick, there is no need for that. Your brother Mark will be outraged that you could express such a statement. You run the risk of damning your soul to all...”

“Nah,” I told him, My own shock at my own level of leftover anger from the incident with Sansum was leaving me now. “Mark will be cross and will yell at me for a while. But he's yelled at me before and I'll live. But still, the self righteousness of some people. I apologise Father Hacha but you weren't there. You didn't see what those men did to children. To children Father Hacha.”

I shook my head.

“I know and have known many good and holy men that are members of the cult of the Eternal Flame. Yourself, doubtless one of them. But I keep hearing about these atrocities, similar to what I saw down in Lyria. It's enough to make me convert to Kreve. At least their atrocities were committed years ago rather than months, or weeks in some cases.”

“And we would be proud to have you.”

I had diverted the conversation as I had seen another man coming up behind them all. A tall man, made bulky by the fact that he wore armour underneath his robes of office.

“Knight Father Danzig of Kreve.” He said, pushing the Eternal Fire delegation aside and seizing my hand and shaking it hard and with enthusiasm. “For my money you did very well in Lyria.”

He had a large, expansive and booming voice.

“It's just a shame you're marrying a vampiric, magic using harlot.”

I felt the outrage climbing up my throat before I realised that he had just winked at Kerrass and Rickard as he shook their hands in turn.

“Funny guy.” I told him. “I'll tell her you said that.”

“Please do.” he told me.

“I should also point out that she is currently working towards being baptised into the church of the Eternal Fire.” I told the assembly. “Thus probing that she is just as holy as anyone else. Also, that she prefers the worship of the Eternal Fire over the worship of Kreve, given Kreve's proven dislike of magic users, and I wouldn't want to disappoint her.”

Danzig lifted his hand to his heart.

“Oh, you wound me Lord Frederick, you wound me. But I suppose I deserved it. Here let me get you a drink.” He steered me past the, now bickering, Eternal Fire contingent. Sam had gone off somewhere and Danzig beckoned Rickard and Kerrass to follow.

We sat at one of the long wooden tables that Sam had had placed within the hall. Someone brought us a large jug of the frothy ale that Sam liked to drink as well as some cups. Danzig poured.

“Don't let the Flamers get to you.” He told me with a grin. “They're actually really good at what they do.”

“Really?” I was still smarting a little bit and wondering whether I was going to get through the coming few days without accidentally murdering another churchman.

“Yes, he may not look it, or sound it but Father Hacha is the best investigator I've seen. Not so good with the interrogations but he can walk into a room and tell you what happened there. I've seen him pick out a guilty man from a line-up of people that he's never seen before based on what the guy was wearing. Dempsey's a gifted interrogator. Rarely uses tools or implements but somehow manages to get information out of even the most stubborn person. Just, makes them his friend and they tell him anything.”

“What about Father Trent?” Rickard asked, eyeing the man a little cautiously. “Without being too obnoxious, some of my men will object to being preached at.”

Danzig laughed. “I know the type. If Trent had gone into the civil service he would have been a diplomat. The kind of man that you send to finalise trade deals. Now he spends most of his time arbitrating between the different factions within the Eternal Fire hierarchy. He's far too busy to go around preaching all the time though so I don't think your men have much to worry about.”

“What about you though?” I couldn't hide the suspicion in my voice. “With all due respect, the priesthood of Kreve is not known for it's tolerance.”

He laughed again. He was a hard man to dislike but I was doing my best.

“Not an unfair criticism.” He said. “I'm a simple man Lord Frederick. I like to find evildoers and hit them with my mace, or my sword, or my axe, or my....well, I like to hit evil. Does that make me shallow?”

“It might.”

“Well, regardless. I'm a simple man. I was a soldier. I fought on the front lines between Kaedwen and Redania when Radovid crossed the mountains in an effort to unify the north. I hated him for that, far more than I hated the Nilfgaardians and so I joined the priesthood. I wanted there to be less moral quandaries there, less questions, more simplicity.

“Luckily I found it.”

He took a long drink of ale and refilled his cup.

“I liked your more recent story Lord Frederick, the one about your destruction of those knights. If I had been born in a different place, I could easily see myself being caught up with a group like that. The search for meaning and a sense of belonging is sometimes an all-consuming thing so that when someone offers you that, the temptation is to jump in with both feet.

“I was lucky though. The man that recruited me was a good man and I am forever grateful that he didn't take advantage of my “wide eyed naivete.” He taught me to look deeper, to look past the surface and see what could be seen.”

I took a deep breath. “I hope you will forgive my nervousness Father Danzig. But my best friend is a Witcher, my fiancee is a Vampiric Sorceress and my elder sister is in love with another Sorceress. As I say, Kreve has his reputation though so I hope you can understand my feelings.”

“Absolutely.” Danzig responded. He sighed and stared at the three priests of the Eternal Fire. “I won't deny that there's some darkness in the past history of the church of Kreve. The Elves might have started the genocide of the Vran but we finished it for them and then started in on the elves ourselves.”

“I'd heard that it was, by no means certain, that it was the elves that began the destruction of the Vran.” Kerrass piped up. He was still peering into space with his medallion held closely but he was listening.

“That's as maybe. I'm not a student of history or archaeology, but that doesn't change our role in those deaths.” Danzig said. “And yes. Our distrust of magic is....pronounced. But our first duty, our most important duty is the destruction of “evil”.”

He held his hands up to forestall my comments. “I know, I know that the term “evil” is subjective but at the same time....I like to think that “good” people are people who contribute to society or go out of their way to not be part of the problem. If you don't want to contribute something then you should go elsewhere. If you want to be isolationists then you go for it, so long as you don't bother other people.”

“What if other people are bothering you?” Rickard asked.

“Then I'm afraid that that's what the law is for. For me though, the person that was there first has prior claim.”

“The dryads of the Brokilon would tend to agree with you.” Kerras muttered.

“SO they would.” Danzig grinned. “Look, that's why the church hierarchy argues about such things. But in the meantime, fortunately, there are plenty of murderous bandits, monsters and scum-fucks that roam the roads and by-ways of the Continent for me to practice my craft on.”

He turned back to me.

“I won't deny, Lord Frederick, that there are plenty of people in our priesthood that would condemn you, your sister and her....lover?” he lifted his voice in a question to see if he was using the right term of address, he subsided when I nodded. “your friend and your fiancee to to torment and death. But for the younger generation, I may say that we share your definition of monster and evil. My master gave me some of your earlier works as a gift, and I make them required reading for my squires. I think there's some interesting moral discussion in some of them.”

“I suppose that that's close enough.”

“Can I ask some proffessional questions?” Danzig asked.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Dealing with what we have here? What are we going up against. Lord Kalayn tells us that there might be cultists, spirits and Thunder only knows what else. Could you break that down for me?”

His manner had changed from genial soldier to attentive man of action.

“I don't know yet.” Kerrass responded. “It's too early to try and guess. I want to go and have a look first before I start saying what's going on. I suspect that there will be ghosts and spirits of the angry variety. Maybe some un-quiet dead. That kind of thing. There is a very strong back-ground magic aura around here and that will have an effect.”

“But you don't know what the effect is?”

“No, not yet.” Kerrass sighed and finally let go of the pendant. “I won't lie. It's all a bit....nebulous and wishy washy. We know there was a cult. We know that they did a lot of horrific things to a lot of innocent people. We also know that the cult were using rituals and holy symbols that, over time, would effect the flow of magic and channel that flow of magic into doing some horrific things.”

“That sounds like a bleak picture.”

“It is. Don't get me wrong. Dealing with the potential spirits in the castle is only one of the reasons as to why I'm here.”

“You want to know if the cult has anything to do with the disappearance of Lady Francesca?”

I winced and tried to hide my discomfort behind a mug.

“Pretty much.” Kerrass said, glancing at me out of the side of his eye. “The cult must have had a reason to set up their headquarters here. I want to know what that is. But if anyone has a motive for causing the disappearance of Lady Francesca, then it's the cult.”

“Mmm.”

Father Trent had given up on the other two Priests of the Flame and came over to join us. Danzig poured him a beer and the two men clacked the rims of their cups together in a silent toast.

“So, Are we mounting an expedition up to the castle tomorrow,” Trent asked.

“I don't see why no....”

“No,” Kerrass interrupted. “No, no expeditions. I want to go up there and have a look around myself first.”

The churchmen looked at each other a bit concerned.

“Uh, no offence Master Kerrass but shouldn't we....”

“No,” Kerrass said firmly. “This first one I do by myself. Don't worry, there will be plenty for the priesthood to do later.”

“But,”

“We do what the Witcher says.” Sam had come over. “It would be a mistake to hire a proffesional and then not listen to what he says.”

He spoke with a voice of authority that I had not heard him use before. It suited him.

“Freddie,” He tapped me on the shoulder and beckoned me to follow him, taking me off to a quieter corner of the room.

“How you doing?” he asked me.

“I'm fine.”

“Freddie,” He glared at me.

“I said I'm fine.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Then can I admit that I'm not?” He asked.

I looked at him and felt a little bit of shame. I hadn't noticed how tired he looked. Bloodshot eyes with huge black bags under them. He was pale too, greasy hair and he looked as though he had put on a bit of weight.

“Dammit Freddie, we lose Dad, Edmund and then Frannie in a year. Suddenly I'm the lord of this Flame forsaken hell-hole.”

I sat him down and poured him a drink.

“I thought it was quite pretty.” I tried for a lighter tone but Sam wasn't taking it.

“The peasants hate me.” he said after taking a long drink. “Not that I blame them, the Lords Kalayn haven't treated this place well, but no matter what I try I can't seem to get through to them. Now it turns out that Mark is dying of some kind of....heart thing and very soon, I'm going to be named Baron Coulthard as well as Baron Kalayn.”

He sighed.

“Mum's gone, Emma and I were never as close as you two were and now....Dammit Freddie, you know that this stuff is hard for me.”

“I know Sam.”

“So then you go and get your self tortured by some psychopaths. Just....Just be careful would you.”

“I will.”

“I'm just not sure I could be the only male Coulthard.”

I nodded. “You know I have to look for her though right.”

“You mean Francesca?”

“Yes.”

“I know. And I applaud. Out of all of us, you are the one that can look freely. I'm not trying to get you to stop but....That was not a great plan you had with the knights of the flaming cock rot or whatever their names were.”

“Oh I don't know, it worked didn't it?”

“I'm serious Freddie.” He snapped. “I need you alive. I need you alive. I get that you need to do this but you need to remember who you are now. You are no longer the estranged youngest son of a minor lord. You are a mover and a shaker. A powerful important man and you are also my heir. So if anything happens to me then it's you that's going to be Baron Coulthard, Kalayn and Angral from what I understand. So....Look, just be more careful would you.”

“I'll try.”

He smiled. And I answered with a smile of my own.

“Now what do you need us to do here?” I asked him