Chapter 34: You are Lovers?

“What?” I blinked a couple of times to see if the picture of a Witcher holding a mud and shit encrusted boot towards me, as though it was a holy record was some kind of hallucination that I could wake up from.

“Pig shit,” Kerrass' eyes were blazing fiercely.

“Sorry Kerrass I don't...”

“Pig shit. There's a pig pen outside where the land lady keeps pigs.”

I blinked again a couple of times.

I am still a student. I have sat many exams and there comes a point in any exam, especially if you are sitting an exam in amongst a stream of other exams as for whatever sadistic reason the exam co-ordinators put all of your exams on the same few days when they had an entire couple of months when they could have set the papers, there comes a time where you are staring at the paper and at a particular question. You look at it and for whatever reason the question won't focus, you can't think of an answer and you reach through a fog of fatigue to get any kind of inspiration as to how you can answer this STUPID DAMNED QUESTION and then you can feel that part of your brain is saying “We know this. We know the answer to this,” and you reach for it, blindly and hopefully and then, like lightening from a clear sky, it happens. The dawn breaks and it's as though the holy flame itself reaches down and points to you and says. “Don't worry my lost pilgrim. I will show you the way,” and the answer crystallises in front of your eyes before a burst of energy (often with a split quill) means that you get the answer out and onto the paper.

I stared at the boot.

Slowly I raised my eyes to Kerrass.

We both moved at the same time, barging past the bemused watchmen and all but jumping down the stairs in our haste to get to the pig pen. Where we stood looking down at the piles of muck, dirt and crap and no amount of gold, jewels or art had ever looked so beautiful.

“He put the boots on to come out here whenever he had to bury something or get at something.” I said through gasps of breath.”

Kerrass nodded. “We're going to need some shovels.”

After shouting our excitement at the increasingly amused, Landlady we managed to gather that there was a shovel inside the outhouse.

Then there was an entertainingly frustrating few minutes where we tried to herd the pigs out of the pen. A chore for which a Witcher and a nobleman's youngest son are manifestly unsuited and we only got anywhere when one of the watchmen (the younger one on guard, not our escort. The lad had worked on a farm before running away to the city to find his fortune) and our fine lady host lent a hand and managed to get the pigs tied up well away from the pen.

Heedless of the dirt, stench and general filth, Kerrass fell to his knees with his medallion in hand and hunted over the floor of the pen until even I saw that the medallion jumped.

I needed no further encouragement and attacked the spot with my shovel. I was soon joined by Kerrass as we frantically and furiously started digging. I was giddy with excitement and I worked far too hard and far too fast quickly discovering that there is a firm difference between being in fit condition for extended horse-riding as well as fighting but it requires a different kind of fitness to shovel dirt. I also learned that there is a technique to it which I was lacking as I tried to lift too much and threw out a muscle.

Laughing at my discomfort the young watchman took the shovel away from me and got in the hole himself, our escort having gone off to send for more watchmen to help keep back the increasing number of locals who had come to watch the crazy Witcher and nobleman digging a hole in a pig sty.

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In the end what we were looking for was surprisingly far down given Edmund's inherent laziness but the three of us took it in turns with our two shovels. A couple of other Watchmen had joined the group by then and were keeping people back as the growing pile of dirt started to get higher and higher. I began to suspect that there was nothing there but Kerrass insisted that his medallion was still twitching.

It was Kerrass that found the box. Hard thrusts of his shovel into the ground were eventually met with a solid thunk. The ground was hard now and it took us a while to pull the box away from ground. The earth around it wasn't hard packed as it had obviously been dug and re-dug so we didn't really struggle all that much. But as we held the box aloft and moved it out onto the ground there was a general cheer from the people watching.

If there had been wine we would have toasted each other. Even the other watchmen were grinning at our find and I will admit that I was giddy with the joy of it. Finally a lead, something that I could use, to go further forward. But I hesitated at the same time. Did I want to open it? What if all it contained was another disappointment. I stared at it for a long time wondering what to do.

Kerrass crouched next to the box, with his medallion out and was examining the lock in great detail. All three of us, the Witcher, the young watchman and I were dripping in muck and the crowd was getting bored when, evidence that no cliché exists without some kind of burden of actually happening sometimes, a high, shrill voice was shouting.

“Stand aside, stand aside,” and Sir Robart de Radford the under-sheriff forced his way through the crowd to stand over us all with a look of glee. “Well Witcher, here it is then. Evidence of you and your young, noble patron interfering in my investigation.”

The crowd started to drift away a little faster. No-one wants to have been seen watching and enjoying something that might have been against the law and Sir Robart had brought several armed Watchmen with him.

“Sergeant?” Sir Robart called with relish.

“Sir?” A man stood forward. He was tall, missing an eye which he covered with a black patch and his armour looked rather battered. He looked...bored I thought, almost resigned.

“You will take the Witcher and the young gentleman into custody,”

“Sir?” Military men have changed the word “sir” into an entire language of it's own. I have heard it used to mean many and varied wonderful things. This particular time the Sergeant meant to say, “What?” as well as “seriously?” Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

“Arrest these men Sergeant.”

The Sergeant nodded and gestured. Two guards walked towards me. I looked at Kerrass and he shrugged. His sword and my spear were propped up in their scabbards against the outhouse wall and even if we fought there was still a cool dozen men, not including the filth encrusted boy who was watching with dawning horror.

“Charge sir?”

“Murder, interfering with an investigation, consorting with magic users and treason. That will do for now.”

I laughed as I held my hands out to the Watchmen who took hold of my arms to restrain me. They looked a little concerned and apologetic. I grinned at them to let them know I didn't hold it against them. “Treason. That's a bit of a stretch don't you think?”

Sir Robart started to walk towards me.

“You can get your barbs in now, murderer. You found this evidence, why didn't you come to the watch with it?”

I stared at him unbelievingly. “Well you're just too stupid to live. Did your mother drop you on your head when you were a baby? We'd only just found the damn thing and...”

Anger blazed in his eyes and he stepped into me and slapped me across the face. I've got better at taking a beating since I first met Kerrass. You roll with the punches to lessen the impact but here I was restrained.

“Sorry,” I said to him, “Sorry. With you it would have had to be your wet-nurse that dropped you wouldn't it.”

He hit me again.

“Ridicule me will you?” he whispered to me quietly. “Threaten me will you?”

“The watch was standing right next to us as we were finding the evidence that you had missed due to your ridiculous levels of incompetence you....”

He hit me again.

It's an odd sensation to hate someone. To really hate them and want them dead. I flatter myself that I'm a fairly good person and as such I try not to hate people but this man?

“Tell you what,” I said quietly before I spat blood out of my mouth from where his blows had caused me to bite my own lip. “Why don't you and me just go off somewhere, real quiet like eh? Me and my spear against you and your sword and shield.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because otherwise I'm going to scream about your cowardice to anyone and everyone whether they will listen to me or not.”

“You are assuming you will get a chance,”

“You going to murder me on the way to the prison?”

“If you try and escape then it won't be murder. Jumped up little sod like you from your stupid family who think they're better than everyone else.”

I laughed at him again. “So that's it. Father wouldn't lend you money.”

“Your jumped up little bastard of a father can rot in the paupers grave that...”

I surged upright and head-butted him under the chin. It was the oldest fighting trick that I had but it was still the best. I only just got him by the chin though.

He laughed at my gesture.

“I'm going to kill you Robart.” I hissed, straining at the men who held my arms. “I'm going to call you out and fillet you like the cowardly little fish that you are.”

“You will be dead long before that happens. In the meantime, lets see what you've been trying to hide from us shall we?” His grin of triumph was sickening as I was dragged over to the box,

“You, the disgrace in uniform.” Robart gestured at the young Watchman who had been helping us. “Open the box.”

“Don't do it,” Kerrass was standing upright and spoke calmly, clearly and so that his voice could be heard by everyone watching. “The lock is cursed and I have yet to figure out how to...”

“Cursed is it?” Robart was too far gone now. “How do you know this?”

“Really?” I bellowed. “Really? He's a Witcher you unspeakable stain of yellow bellied piss, it's his job to know this.”

“More likely that he cast the curse.” Robart shouted back. I gave up and decided that the man was mad. One too many insults, real and perceived had got to him.

“Open it,” Robart demanded of the young watchman again.

“Opening that chest without proper precautions will result in, at best, death.” Kerrass went on calmly.

“Open it,” Robart yelled.

“Don't do it,” The Witcher said again louder this time. “This is a warning, take it how you will but I am trying to save that Watchman's life. I will not be held responsible for...”

“BE SILENT,” Robart screamed. “You have no further place here Witcher unless it is on the scaffold or the pyre and as for you,” he turned on the hapless young Watchman. “I am already inclined to have you flogged for the disgraceful state of your uniform. Do you dare disobey a direct order from a superior officer at that. Not to mention a nobleman of long and proud lineage, unlike some I could mention.”

That poor young man. Poor man. He looked from Kerrass to Sir Robart.

Kerrass was shaking his head.

Sir Robart was practically vibrating with incandescent rage.

The boy looked at the Sergeant whose face was ashen.

“OPEN IT.”

The boy jumped at the outburst and quickly bent to the lock.

“Don't...called Kerrass who was suddenly struggling against the men holding him.

The boy reached out to the lock and touched it.

The flash was purple.

The boy's mouth opened in a silent scream as his entire body went rigid. His hand didn't move from the lock.

Then he started to shake, not in the natural pattern of someone shuddering or shivering but more of someone who's muscles were acting involuntarily but his hand never left it's contact with the box.

The guards holding me froze. Kerrass was struggling with his guards.

“Pull him away,” Kerrass shouted, desperately trying to get his hands free to cast one of his signs to knock the poor young Watchmen aside. “Pull him away or...” He slumped as someone hit him in the temple.

I wrenched an arm free as my two men were still frozen in shock, punched the other and dove at the young Watchman whose name I still didn't know and managed to make contact.

The pain was indescribable.

It felt as though I had been been dipped in liquid fire while all my bones had turned to brittle ice.

I blacked out.

There were dreams that went with the pain. Horrible dreams that threatened to suck me down paths of madness and fear. I have no words to describe them but as I sit here in the safe and warm, I shiver as I try to describe them.

I was a fly, mummified on a web waiting for the spider to come and eat me.

I was prey being carried through the sky in the talons of some enormous bird of prey.

I was being eaten by a horrific monster it's fangs tearing at my flesh.

For a moment I did not believe it when I woke up. My limbs were shaking uncontrollably and when I finally managed to open my eyes. I was strapped down on a bed.

My brothers bed in the room that he had rented.

I could hear people yelling along with a kind of general thrumming that set my teeth on edge.

I had also been gagged.

Odd that that last one would be the thing that I realised last.

But it wasn't the last thing, as I turned my head and spat out the piece of wood that had been wrapped in leather thonging a huge shudder racked my body.

“So,” said a woman's voice. “It's been a long time since I've had to sit next to your sick bed.”

“Emma?”

“Yep. Sure enough, I leave you alone for what? A day? And you're already putting your life in danger to save someone else.” she was mocking me but there was just an edge to the voice.

“To be fair, last time I left it was some months after seeing you before I put myself in danger.”

“True, but this time I get to slap the shit out of you for it.”

“Are you going to warn me in advance or...”

“No no, I already hit your head on the side of the door when we got you in the room so my vengeance is already sated.”

My head was a bit sore but separating this pain from all the other little pits of pain was something of, well, a headache.

“Are you going to let me up?”

“Not yet, I've been told that you have to stay there until the tremors stop.”

Just as she spoke another one of those massive shudders worked it's way from my head to my toes.

“Like that one,” Emma said helpfully.

“I had gathered. Can you tell me what's going on?”

“Only roughly. I should mention that there is another guard in the room by the way as technically you are still under arrest.”

“Prophets preserve us,”

“I thought the same as it happens. But anyway, when you tackled that poor young lad you both fell away and the curse hit the young man in full force. I'm sorry Freddie.”

“He died?”

I heard her dress rustle, “Sorry, I just nodded before realising that you couldn't see that.”

I stared at the ceiling.

“In the end it was Kerrass that put the poor boy out of his misery. All of his muscles were experiencing extreme spasms to the point where his limbs were breaking multiple times and in multiple ways. I'm told he was screaming... Horribly as well before Kerrass managed to reach his sword and well... You know the rest. He couldn't have survived. I was unlucky enough to see the corpse. It looked like one of those jelly-fish that sometimes wash up on the coast.”

She audibly shuddered.

“The working theory is that you got the back lash of the curse but they managed to get the curse undone before it killed you.”

I hadn't heard her properly. There was a buzzing in my ears.

“I'm going to kill him Emm. I'm going to take my spear and I'm going to kill that Robart fuck.”

“Watchman present...”

The man helpfully cleared his throat.

“I don't care,” I said. “Robart practically killed another Watchman by ordering him to his death without need. I doubt that the Watch will stop me. I'll find a second and get it organised properly anyway and that way I'll be able to skewer him properly.”

Emma was quiet for a moment.

“Yes, well. I think you may have to get in line.”

“I would stake my claim ahead of others.”

Emma was quiet.

“You done?” she said quietly. “Macho posturing is pointless. Anger I can understand. Let it cool and then make your choice.”

She wasn't wrong so I did my best to try and remember how to breathe. Another shudder.

“How long is this going to take?”

“Not long I'm told, half an hour?”

I nodded.

“So what happened?”

Emma took another breath.

“You got the lad clear which stopped the curse from spreading from him and into other people. Kerrass was yelling, Robart was demanding that they find a rope to hang the two of you from the nearest tree, villagers were screaming and apparently it was all going to get a bit messy. Fortunately for everyone, as well as summoning Sir Robart to the scene, the Watch had ALSO summoned The Watch Captain who arrived with a whole bunch more Watchmen.”

I sighed in relief. The Captain of Oxenfurt city watch is a steadfastly unimaginative man and managed to hold order throughout the most recent war. He was crippled in the second Nilfgaardian war in that he lost his left hand when his shield shattered, mangling it to the point where it needed amputating. The army people told him that he wouldn't be allowed to serve in the army any more so he went back to Oxenfurt and signed up in the watch pointing out that he could still fight with a sword and that all they had to do was to strap a shield to his left arm and leave him to it.

He rose through the ranks over the course of the next war until he was given the position of Captain because there was no one left who had the noble rank to hold the job. Much to everyone's surprise it turned out that he was born to the role. He married an academic and settled in although rumour has it that he enjoys messing up the society dinners that he gets invited to and is a little too fond of just bludgeoning everyone into unconscious and then sorting everything out afterwards for my taste. But he appoints people to ranks based on talent and skill rather than noble bloodline, is a gifted administrator and has that gift of those people who aren't blessed with an education at a young age to see through the bullshit to the heart of the problem.

Unfortunately he still had to deal with the subordinates of the High Sheriff of Redania however.

“The Captain turned up and demanded to know what was going on,” Emma continued. “Sir Robart told his side of the story and demanded that you and the Witcher be hung for using Witchcraft on the Watch.”

I groaned.

“The Captain listened gravely and then said, if I'm quoting him right, “That's lovely and everything but what actually happened?” When it became clear that the Captain wasn't going to get anything out of Sir Robart he asked Kerrass what had happened. Kerrass laid out the events. All the while, you and the young Watchman were screaming and moaning in agony. Then the Captain asked the Watchman that had escorted the pair of you to the scene what had happened. The Watchman told his captain the sequence of events. The Captain nodded, placed Sir Robart under arrest and had him removed. He conferred with the Witcher for a while and let him get at his sword despite still being under arrest as well and it was decided that the curse was still active and that they needed to send for a proper Magic User.

“The Captain wondered why Kerrass couldn't serve in that capacity, Kerrass spoke about specific knowledge of a Witcher but said that he could lay his hands on a Sorceress providing that she be given amnesty.

“The Captain mused for a while, during which you and the young lad were still screaming, and agreed. Kerrass sent off a message and I was brought here.”

“Wait a second, what?”

Emma wouldn't meet my eyes.

“Ummm,”

“Emma is there something you want to tell me?”

Emma looked at the ceiling and burst into tears.

“Dammit,” I swore, “Watchman, could you untie me please?”

“I...”

“I will deal with the consequences, just untie me.”

Emma had curled herself up into a little ball, her hands scrunched into fists and pressed against her eyes.

The Watchman beat a hasty retreat.

“Emma,” As gently as I could I pried Emma's hands away from her eyes which were swollen and red with tears.

“Emma you don't need to protect yourself from me,”

“I know I know it's just,” She looked at me, “I don't want you to hate me,”

“Why would I hate you? You're my sister.”

“I know but you were almost as religious as Mark at one time and the church has certain views on things that...”

I took hold of her arms again.

“Emma look at me,” She did although it took a bit of time.

“That was a long time ago. I am religious but in the last eighteen months I have seen more good from people that the church says are evil and more evil from those that the church says are good. You're my sister and I love you even though it might take me a little while to get used to the idea of you being a Sorceress.”

“What?” she looked shocked.

“What do you mean what? They sent for a Sorceress and you came,”

Emma's eyes widened. Then she laughed. “No, Oh flame no, I'm not the Sorceress. I've got all the magical talent of a plank. No, it's my maid.”

“Your maid?” My brain was too busy realising that it was bulling off in the wrong direction and desperately trying to turn itself around.

“Yes my maid.” She laughed at what must have been the most stupid expression that I can wear multiplied by several thousand. “You don't think that someone who looks like that would be working as a maid for someone do you? Even if her family wasn't noble then she still would have attracted some important persons eye and been whisked off by now.”

I stared at the ceiling for a long time as my brain worked away quietly. “She certainly caught Sam's eye.” I heard myself comment.

Emma giggled. “Yes, she told me about that.”

“So your maid's a Sorceress.”

“Yes, her real name is Laurelen de Bismoor.”

“I've not heard of her.”

“You wouldn't. She would say that to be noticed as a Sorceress you need to be involved in politics and as she could care less about politics, no-one knew who she was. She was part of the community that grew up in Novigrad where magic users worked together to get themselves out of the city.”

“I'd heard they were all led north to Kovir and Poviss.”

“They were. Laurelen decided not to go.”

“Why? It would have been safer, there are still plenty of people that would cheerfully burn her as a magic user.”

Emma looked scared again.

“She didn't want to go. There were several reasons. I gather there was something of a rivalry with someone in the rest of the group and...” Emma turned away. “She didn't want to leave,”

“Why? Research in the area? What for?”

My sister just looked at me.

I could feel my brain jumping up and down trying to tell me something.

“For me.” She said simply.

“Oh,” I said stupidly. “Ooohhh,”

A shudder struck me then and I held onto the bed for dear life.