Chapter 37: Brothers job to tease their siblings (2)

“Nah,” I said. “Not by conscious choice though. It just never interested me particularly and I've never found a man that attracts me. Also I wasn't the sort to get invited to those kinds of parties. As well as that there's the thing that I'm all but betrothed now.”

Another wave of disgust and anger flashed across my brothers face.

“And that's another thing how can you even consider...”

But he didn't get to finish that thought. Just as well really because if he'd started talking church dogmatic nonsense about Ariadne I might have hit him.

In a clearing full of church soldiers I don't think I would have come out of that very well.

The church soldiers reacted with remarkable efficiency. Several of Sir Rickard's men appeared out of the undergrowth while one whispered into the Captain's ear who just gave a quick whistle and made a complex gesture.

The plan was that we would split into several units of around seven or eight who would be guided in to the site of the ambush by one of Sir Rickard's men to each group. In that way we would surround the cultists and be able to prevent any escapees. I led one group. Shani went with another although from the way she was speaking I had the distinct impression that she was leading it. All told I think there were five groups of soldiers.

To me we moved with painful lack of speed and with far too much noise but Rickard's man didn't even flinch as we moved quietly through the trees. Fortunately the moon was out and when we got a little bit further out from Oxenfurt's noise and light, there was no disguising which way we were going.

There was a huge fire that lit up the sky.

We edged forward, armour clinking, swords clattering and my teeth were bared in a snarl that I could no longer keep from escaping. I had to keep telling myself over and over that there was nothing we could do. That I was leading soldiers, not scouts or woodsmen like Rickard's troop but men in heavyish armour who had already had a fairly long march today but every time I heard a little tinkle of chain-mail I could imagine more and more cultists escaping into the night.

As I say though, we needn't have worried.

The closer we got, the more that we could hear them chanting.

We crept slowly forward, now able to see roots and dips in the ground. We almost tripped over the sentry that had been left at our deployment area.

“Evenin' your Lordship” he said as he announced himself by spitting a wad of tobacco stained saliva onto the boot of a churchman.

“Evening Dan,” I managed. I'm told that he was an old soldier, one of the few old and established soldiers in Rickard's troop that he had rescued from languishing in the proper, formal army. He had been a poacher since he was old enough to use a slingshot against pigeons to feed his family and had been told to use those skills in the army. He travelled with a selection of bows ranging from the huge War-bow that was longer than he was down to a short, powerful recurved bow that he could use from horseback. He cradled them and cared for them as though they were his children and I've never seen a better shot.

“All in?” I asked him.

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“All in, your boys know their business?”

I gestured and a Sergeant came forwards. I'm under no illusions about my own military prowess and I'm no soldier. The Sergeant knew what he was doing and asked a few questions and saw to the deployment of the men.

The chanting grew louder.

“How long?”

“Ten minutes before everyone should be in place.”

I nodded but couldn't help but count the seconds away while forcing myself not to listen to the chant.

I rested my forehead on the cool metal shaft of my spear and found I was banging my head against it in time with the cadence of the chant.

Dammit.

I looked around and realised that I wasn't the only one on edge. Hardened soldiers were uneasy, shifting their weight from one foot to the other, counting to themselves or making the sign of the flame against their breasts over and over and over.

I've had to wait before a fight before but this was something different. There was a weight to the air, as though we were being pressed down into the earth by invisible weights. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

“That's it, we go.” Dan said having hear a sound that the rest of us had missed and despite being absolutely desperate for some kind of action, we hesitated.

Then someone screamed.

Screamed horribly. Like a pig being gutted.

Suddenly I could move, the air seemed to be filled with a golden glow and I could feel my legs moving. The chant had vanished to be replaced by Laurelen's voice speaking words that I could hear clearly but without understanding.

I charged into the clearing.

I didn't see much as I went in there as it was all happening so fast. All churches that I have ever been in, including some ruined shrines to Gods and Goddesses that have long been forgotten, there is a space for the worshippers and the holy bits are all at one end of the building. Often behind a rail or a screen as if to say that what's behind the screen is far too holy for anyone else to be seeing and touching. It's like another world beyond that place and in my more.... cynical moments I suspect that this is intentional as it creates a yearning, a physical desire to go there and see the forbidden treasures that our holy people get to touch and be involved with.

That was not the case here.

What we saw was a spiral. A spiral of men that eventually converged on a raised platform on which stood a post. The post was carved in a jagged pattern that both fascinated and repelled the eye and my bile was in my throat making me want to vomit. Chained to the post and to the platform was a girl. I later found out that she was fifteen and had been kidnapped from one of the smaller shrines to the holy flame. She had been one of those women who tends the fire to keep it lit so that it can provide a guiding light in the darkness, to keep evil things at bay and to provide a refuge for those who need the solace and sanctuary of that holy light.

Standing next to her was a man in a long white robe that was cut in imitation, or mockery of the cassocks of the Eternal fire with jagged spirals of all kinds of colours that put me in mind of unclean things. Vomit, pus, puke and bile were those colours. He was cowled and masked, the mask was painted so that it resembled a vast and gaping maw, a mouth of some unspeakable and hungry creature, the bottom of which was endless promising only cruelty and torment. He had his hands aloft with a horrible looking knife in one hand and a lamia flail in the other. Both were dripping in a black liquid. It was him that had screamed as Kerrass had leapt from the trees and put his shoulder into the man's midriff sending him tumbling aside.

The platform was guarded on the four corners, which I would later learn agreed with the four points of the compass, by large men. Similarly hooded and robed except there were no patterns on their robes and the robes themselves were black. Black although they made me think of the deep black that blood is when you have pierced the more dangerous of the internal organs. They had wicked looking Guisarmes that they seemed to wield with not inconsiderable skill.

I would later learn that there were sixty-eight men in that clearing. Sixty-eight men who were worshipping and performing the foulest acts that a man can imagine. There were only men there and I find that I am glad of that, I could not have imagined how I would have felt if there had been women there. I cannot imagine how I would have felt if I had known that women were capable of such cruelty and hate.

I guess I'm not that progressive after all.

The men were arranged in a spiral out from the centre. It was still early in their act of worship. They spiralled out, clothed in plain white cloaks under which they were completely naked. Each of them carried a single instrument of inflicting pain. Some men carried whips, others flails and paddles. I would later learn that had their act of worship been allowed to continue then those instruments would have been swapped for instruments of the owners choice although now they would contain edges. Razor blades, knives and the like. Later the instruments of torture would have taken sexual form.

I walked away before we were told what form they took as I don't think I would have been able to contain myself.

All these things, all these details I would find out later. Small things.

I didn't see it at first but there was a large box wagon in the far edge of the clearing like the ones that are used to transport prisoners to their trials or to their prisons.

I also didn't smell the meat that was roasting for the feasting that was also planned for later.

I am glad.

All these things that I had to find out later.

Because at first there was work to be done.

Kerrass had started the attack by going for the “High Priest”. Being a Witcher he could identify which of the people was channelling the power that was being generated by the narcotics and alcohol that they had all taken. Specialised herbs that had come from Zerrikania that had cost their consumers a fortune. In knocking him aside the magical aura that was dominating the place ebbed.

The soldiers knew their business as they strode into the clearing, their faces were grim.

A Worshipper rushed at me, his flail hauled back over his shoulder. I reversed my spear and drove the but of it into the man's nose that exploded in blood.

He fell and I ran on, aiming for the platform.

Another Worshipper ran at my side, the soldier next to me held out his shield and the man ran into it full pelt. He bounced off, slipping on something unspeakable and fell to the ground.

I ignored him.

Kerrass had knocked the... priest, for want of a better word, from his feet. The hood and mask had come off and he rose up and I saw his face for the first time.

He saw me then and grinned as I recognised him although I didn't know who it was at first.

The fight was all but over by then. The Worshippers were in a kind of ecstasy and had easily been dealt with by the trained soldiers and by now they were being rounded up by the bleak eyed church soldiers. The only real fight was happening around Kerrass. After barging the “priest” off his platform he had been rushed by the black clad “guards” and was still in the process of defending himself although I could see that one of them was down but I was looking at the priests far too familiar face.

“I know you,” I heard myself say.

He laughed at me, his voice was cruel. “Perhaps you recognise your better. Edmund spoke often about his brothers and how...” he spat and drew a sword from under his robes, “weak they were.”

His face was so familiar but I didn't know him. So familiar that I felt sure I should know him.

He reminded me of...

Mother.

“Well,” I said as I gestured the other soldiers back. “I didn't know that Uncle Kalayn had a son. Hello Cousin.”

He saluted me with his sword before leaping at me.

He looked.... He looked like a classical noble. There's no other way of putting it. He had a high forehead with a receding widows peak that was accented by being pulled back into a severed pony tail. His facial structure was pronounced with prominent cheekbones and a large nose and chin. His eyes were pale with obscenely long eyelashes and he moved with a kind of predatory grace that put me in mind of a hunting falcon or a cat stalking a mouse.

He was a good swordsman, I will give him that much. But he suffered from the same problem that a lot men from his level of stock suffer from which is that he had only really practised his fencing on the training field.

He lunged at me and I sidestepped him. He lunged again and I moved away. His smile lessened a little and I allowed myself to grin at him.

I was already planning his death.

“Take him alive Frederick.” Someone called. I think it was Kerrass.

“Yes,” said my cousin. “Take me alive Frederick.” he mocked. “Take me alive, don't kill me. You'll never be able to kill me.” He laughed and did a little dance.

I wanted to kill him so badly that I could taste it.

“You know I'll survive if you don't kill me. There won't be a trial, father will send some money and it'll all be alright. Something that you will never understand. You with your peasant father.”

He laughed again at my silence. He was drawing patterns with his sword point in the air, moving from one side to the other. Seeing that I wasn't going to be baited he pulled his robe off and wrapped it round his fore-arm.

“We always laughed you know? Your brother and I. Edmund was wasted with such a father. Wasted. Edmund could have risen high if he had had the fortune to have a better father. A man of real breeding. Of proper noble blood.”

I ignored him.

The stereotype is that you should always watch a man's eyes when you fight him. However this has been the case for so long that everyone knows it. Including the man who's eyes that you are watching. Therefore you can train yourself to lie with your eyes when you attack someone. The one thing that you can't disguise though is your hips. Your hips and your breathing.

“If you kill me, you'll hang. Someone like you. A minor son of an ill bred bastard. The nobility hate you you know. You and all your mongrel kin. I understand your sister is even a two bit whore. Whoring herself out to the magic users in an effort to make your families position better.”

I ignored him. I suspected that he was goading me.

“What? Can't find your tongue. I had heard that you were a scholar of some kind. That's the right place for someone like you and I suppose that I must applaud your efforts to better yourself in a field where they rely on knowledge rather than breeding to get ahead. At least, that's what should happen.”

He was presenting with his feet. Interesting.

“Have you even known a woman yet? They don't open their legs for just anyone you know? They like breeding. You look too much like your ill-bred mongrel of a father to be attractive to a woman. All the money in the world couldn't make you attractive to a whore.”

I gave up and laughed.

“This from the man who has to invent phony, idiotic religions to get women and even then, the only people that you seem to attract is other men. What does it say about your so called “breeding” that you have to attract women by stalking and then kidnapping them instead?”

I apologise for the homophobia but I was trying to make him angry. I was astonished that my feeble jests seemed to hit home with remarkable accuracy.

“The great worm is no phony. He is far more powerful than your petty little flame.”

I laughed at him. There was nothing left.

He leapt to engage me. I side stepped, ducked and dodged. Truthfully I was too astonished as to how easily I had made him angry.

“Tell me,” I said, and again I apologise for the homophobia but I was trying to play on his biases. “Have you not considered trying it out with your other “worshippers”. Some of them would almost certainly wriggle properly.”

People laughed. I could definitely make out Kerrass' and Sir Rickard's voice.

My cousin roared and charged me. I knocked his attack aside before dropping my spear and in almost the same movement that I had once used against Sir Robart, I stepped inside his reach and head-butted him in the face. He howled and flailed at me with his sword but I was too close to him for it to hurt or to even mark my clothing. I grabbed his sword arm with my left hand and punched him twice. Once in the arm making him drop his sword and once in the face, making his already broken nose even worse.

He fell, howling.

I kicked him in the guts and he curled up in a ball.

I wasn't satisfied though.

I stood on one of his ankles and stooped to lift the other. Hauling off I kicked him as hard as I could in the testicles.

He screamed as I walked away.

“Tie him up,” I said to a waiting soldier who was wincing in sympathy. “I want to talk to him.”

We had a lot of prisoners. A LOT of prisoners.

Most were gibbering wretches, their pupils huge with a combination of fiss-tech and religious fervour as well as self righteous smugness that comes from thinking you have too much money, too much influence and far too noble a name to do anything wrong. As they came down from their fervour there were several cries of “Take your filthy hands off me,” and “don't you know who I am,” thus proving that no cliché can ever be unused in whatever circumstances.

They had that look.

If you don't know what that look is then you have never been the least favourite pupil in the class or the least favourite child. The “look” is that look that the teachers pet has when they survey the other members of the class, or the apple of daddy's eye gets. They get the “look” when they've been caught doing something that they know they shouldn't be doing but at the same time they know that they aren't going to get in much trouble for it.

The church soldiers responded in kind. Each man had been carrying manacles and the prisoners were chained up and shoved into order relatively quickly and we were all in the process of congratulating ourselves on a job well done.

I had been promised that I would be allowed to interrogate the “High Priest” at my leisure so I was just walking around letting people do their jobs. It is the height of rudeness and poor leadership to try and tell people how to do their jobs when they know it better than you do.

The alter was still standing, Kerrass and the newly arrived Laurelen were staring at it carefully in the way that people do when they're eyeing a dangerous animal. The poor girl who was tied to the post was still there but it had been explained that she was safe and that they were checking for bad magical vibes.

There was still the matter of the wagon though at the edge of the clearing.

Sir Rickard was there with one of his men. A man referred to by the others as “fingers” who had been offered the choice of joining the ranks or going to the scaffold. He was peering at the lock.

Sir Rickard nodded to me as we approached.

“Is it safe?” I asked.

“Kerrass tells us that there isn't anything magical there so that means that there is only the possibility of practical traps.”

“Ok.”

Fingers produced a set of lock-picks and started working on the large padlock that barred the door.

“Are those legal?” I wondered aloud over the lessening hubbub of people being chivvied into order.

“I won't tell anyone if you don't.”

The lock sprang open fairly quickly and the door was thrown open.

It seemed like I wasn't done with horror for the night.

“Sweet suffering Lebioda,” I heard myself breathe.

I turned away from the sight and looked at the prisoners that we had taken. One or two of them managed to have the good grace to look ashamed.

One of the church soldiers saw what was inside, drew a knife and gutted his nearest prisoner, spilling the man's guts onto the floor before hurling the knife down and howling into the night sky.

Someone vomited.

“I ummm,” I managed, forcing myself to turn round to face the horror that the wagon contained.

Rickard knew what I meant though. He gargled and spat to moisten his throat. “I'll make sure that Shani gets here quickly.”

The rest of the clearing had gone silent. Deathly silent.

The Wagon contained children.

Fucking children that had been mutilated beyond recognition. Children who had obviously been tortured, beaten and abused in the worst ways possible. So bad that as a result I can't bring myself to describe them.

No you know what... Fuck it.

In the weeks and months since this event, numerous noble families have complained at the treatment of the prisoners that we took that night. Noble families that have gone back centuries have been up in arms calling for the heads of the soldiers and churchmen that were responsible for the trials and grotesque punishments that took place afterwards. Even as they were taken to the stake to be burned, some of these men were protesting that it was their right to do those things. That those children were their subjects and so they had the “noble right to do whatever they wanted to them”.

I've heard still others that have said that men had been trained for war. Had been bred for war and that they needed and outlet for all that pent up violence and that this was a result and should excuse them.

If those people are reading this then I say “Fuck you”.

One of those children had been skinned.

Another had had her nose, eyes, teeth and ears removed. She still had her tongue though because, and I quote from transcripts of interrogations, “She sucked my dick better,”

When we started to release them from their bonds so that Shani could look at them. One of the older children, maybe thirteen years old managed to lay her hands on a soldiers dagger and killed two of the bound children before we managed to restrain her. She was still saying that it was a kindness and that she was just trying to take care of them before Laurelen managed to spell her to sleep.

That was the level of horror that we saw.

One young boy who with an angelic face had been flogged to the point where the lashes had damaged his spine. He will spend the rest of his days in one of my fathers orphanages where he is not expected to live another year.

Another young lad of four had been beaten so bad that all we could do for him was take away his pain. One of his internal organs had burst and was slowly dying of the poison that had gotten into his blood stream.

The wagon reeked of Piss, excrement, terror and a terrible rage that only children in their simplicity, are capable of.

One of the more lucid children asked a newly arrived Mark why the soldiers hadn't come sooner. Mark looked up at the rest of us in appeal for an answer but none of us had one and he wept as that child was taken off to be examined by Shani's caring hands.

The church is guilty of many sins in it's time. The liberal persecution of magic users or anyone who might be a magic user, followed by the persecution of non-humans was awful and un-called for. It has since been shown that many of those efforts were down to political efforts by some members of the church hierarchy to supersede the advantages that the mages had in royal circles.

But the trials of those men that we took that night?

They deserved every piece of that.

Children.

They were torturing, abusing and sacrificing children to slake their own thirsts and to appease a dark God that they didn't even understand.

Anyone who claims that there are any circumstances where that is alright. Where that level of EVIL is justified can come and see me.

I will be waiting, at dawn and with my spear ready for you.

In the end I didn't manage to see my cousin until the early hours of the morning. When the day had started I had looked forward to this entire thing being over. I had looked forward to meeting the mastermind behind my families pain and looking him in the eye but I had to force myself to enter the room where he was chained to a table.

I didn't want to see him. I didn't want to look at him. To acknowledge that the two of us were related by blood made me feel sick. In the end I managed to work myself up to it in the same way that you go to get a sore tooth removed because it's better if it's done quickly.

He was wearing fairly ordinary clothing when we walked in. A shirt that looked as though the best that could be said for it was that it was clean and a pair of trousers made from some rough cloth that had clearly once been something else.

“At last,” he said when Kerrass and I walked in, “Finally, we can get this whole thing sorted out.”

He held his manacled hands out to us.

We sat down carefully. There was a guard in the room. Not because anyone thought that my cousin might escape but at Kerrass' request in case I decided to murder my cousin there and then.

It was not a mistake to request that.

We had been directed to stay on the other side of the table and I deliberately moved the chair a little further away from the table.

Realising that we weren't going to unlock his bonds Cousin Raynard lowered his hands back into his lap.

“So you're one of those bleeding heart, commoner lovers are you. You're angry because of what was happening are you?”

I took a deep breath as I tried to reach for the calm that I need when I'm interviewing people that I don't like.

“It shames me to admit.” I spoke carefully. Slowly so as to make sure that I was biting off each syllable correctly. “That we would never have stopped you if you had just left Father and Edmund alone.”

“Hey I had nothing to do with that. Edmund killed your father,”

“What about the Stable-master and his wife?”

“I didn't know anything about that, besides they're not important. Edmund must have just panicked.”

He lounged back in his seat, stretching out his legs as far as the chains would allow him to.

“So you're not going to let me go then?” He asked as though it wasn't really that important. “Ah well. Someone will turn up eventually.”

I had to swallow my next words and took a moment to calm down again.

Kerrass took things up.

“Why don't you tell us about your little cult and what Edmund has to do with it?”

“Why don't I?” Anger dripped into his words for a moment. “Because I refuse to speak with such as you.”

Kerrass smiled an equally venomous grin. “But you will won't you? You want to. You and your kind always want to tell your stories.” Kerrass doesn't often remind me of the cat that his Witcher school takes it's name from but he did now in the way that he was smiling. Seeming so utterly relaxed but at the same time, so confident in his ability to murder.

“You want to tell us because you want us to know how... clever you are. How superior you are.”

“Don't you cast your spells on me.”

“I'm not casting spells. What you sense now is the truth of my words.”

Kerrass and Raynard stared at each other. Neither moving.

Raynard looked away first, into my eyes.

“I will talk to you though, cousin. I will admit that I'm surprised. Edmund said that you were weak. That you had no steel in you. He said that if you were surrounded by naked women that you wouldn't know what to do with them except wet your trousers.”

“Better soiling myself than soiling them.” I said. “Tell us what happened.”

“Are you sure you want to know the depths that your brother sank to? Are you sure you want to know how he killed your father. I had nothing to do with it. I am innocent of those things.”

“Come on,” I said. “Edmund wasn't that clever and we both know that.”

Cousin Raynard laughed. “You are right you know. He wasn't that clever. Your father was though. He figured it all out. Well, not all of it but enough to be dangerous.”

“When did it begin?” I prompted.

“Of all things it was actually Edmund that found me. He'd just had a fight with his latest paramour, whatever or whoever that was and he came to see me in Novigrad. Your brother was a hedonist. He saw things and he wanted them, money was no object as your father was obsessed that both he and his family had everything that your father had never had. Edmund was the first born and so... I might argue that your father learned his lesson with those children that came afterwards looking at what he made of you... But for Edmund, nothing was ever enough. Women and wine weren't enough so he moved on to fiss-tech. From there, fiss-tech wasn't enough so he moved on to Women and wine while being on fiss-tech. But that wasn't enough. So then he needed the taboo, he needed to know that he was doing things that society as a whole wouldn't approve of.

“All the rest of us had to do was to suggest something to him in an almost joking kind of way and he would want it. He would need it and then we would provide it for him.”

Raynard laughed.

“I remember the time we suggested bestiality to him and you could visibly see the disgust along with the interest warring on his face.”

Never have I wanted to punch someone in the face as much as I wanted to punch him then. Even Sir Robart was not as loathsome as this man was and it physically sickens me to think that I am related to Cousin Raynard.

“Where did the Sacrilege start? The Heresy and the magic?”

Raynard started to look furtive and nervous. His eyes started looking around the place and he licked his lips several times.

“I'm not sure I should answer that.”

“Oh come on,” I said. “We saw you doing it? What's the worst that could happen? They burn you at the stake a little bit more than they were going to previously?”

Raynard tried to wave a hand dismissively and frowned at the manacles as though he had forgotten that they were there.

“They won't burn me.” He said. “It's not entirely unlikely that we won't get to finish this interview before someone comes to set me free. I'm the future Count Kalayn.”

Kerrass snickered.

“When did it start. The worship of your dark God?” I asked.

“When did your brother start? Or when did the worship itself start?”

“Either,” I said rather stupidly. “Both.”

I'm a historian. I should have asked better questions. So that I could note them down as a way to ward off future stupidity. I know this now. But then I was tired, aching and massively, achingly sad.

“Crom Cruarch. The crooked man of the mound.”

Say what you like about Cousin Raynard but he knew how to draw in his audience. He lowered his voice and started speaking quietly so that we had to strain to hear him, leaning forward to catch his words.

“No-one knows when his worship started. No-one knows the first time that offerings were made to him. We gave the offerings to the golden idol on the hill and he responded with his gaze. His terrible, wondrous, terrifying gaze. Ancient he is, and terrible.

“He rewards us who worship him, unlike your holy flame. Flame can be put out, can be doused and extinguished. It is a small, fluttering, guttural thing but the lord Crom Cruarch. He is strong.

“The more we offer him. The more he rewards us. The more we give him. The more he gives us back. We give him our pleasure, he gives us more. We give him youth and vitality, he returns more to us.”

“That's lovely,” Kerrass said. His harsh words cutting across Cousin Raynard's smooth and melodious tones like a hammer breaking glass. “So you sacrifice others and throw them into his gaping maw and he shits out a drug high is that it?”

Raynard grinned.

Kerrass has a repertoire of smiles, many of them horrible and nasty but never have any of his smiles made me feel sick. Raynard's did.

“Oh, so much more.” he said. “And he takes the sacrifice of others as well.”

“When did Edmund start with this...cult.”

Raynard tried his negligent waving thing again.

“He was always heading towards the crooked man. Always, although he might deny it. It was in his blood one might say and as soon as he heard about it he wanted to try it out. More pleasure? That was a gift to Edmund. More of a feeling of defying societies normality? More of a feeling of rebellion against your fathers conservative leanings? The very idea gave him excitement. He started with that, maybe eight years ago? A handful of years after he left home.”

I nodded. I felt sick. I didn't want to know any more. I wanted to go home and be violently sick. I wanted to puke until I couldn't puke any more. Then I wanted a bath followed by getting drunk until I could no longer remember anything that had happened.

Kerrass had warned me of this back when I first hired him, but I hadn't listened and now I had to see it through.

“What happened about Father?” I heard myself say. I couldn't bring myself to look across the table at my cousin any further.

“Your father got wise. He recognised the pattern that we were using without realising that we were doing him a favour, removing undesirables from his lands but he spotted it and somehow managed to put two and two together and get the nineteen result that meant that he found out that Edmund was involved. I almost regret his death so that we could find out how he figured that one out. But he summoned Edmund and told him, in no uncertain terms that these activities would stop.

“Edmund panicked. He was already living in a heightened state with the drugs and the heightened state that Crom Cruarch provides and this made it worse, his lusts and desires grew at the thought of deprivation but so did his paranoia and fear. Vast spectres of being disinherited, cut off and thrown out onto the streets began to rear their ugly heads and a life without money just seemed like too much of a hardship to him. Like so many things, he brought the problems to those of us who are in the priest hood of the man on the mound. We were drunk and somehow he got the idea to murder his father.”

“Somehow?” I snarled. “You told him to didn't you.”

I was not asking a question.

“No, we were drunk. We were higher than the clouds and dancing in the air streams with the dragons. He got the idea and then we talked about how to do it.”

“You're lying. You made him do it.” It sounded childish and I got angrier because I could hear my own petulance.

“No, no I didn't,” Raynard was smiling at me. “He thought so though. He really did think so. The first thing I knew of it was that he had bought the poison and that he was telling me that he would be going home for a while to sort things out. I didn't believe he could be that stupid. Your father would never disown him as he would know that your family would never survive the scandal but your brother had it in his head by that point. It might have even blown over if Edmund had had the good sense to simply deny everything and come back to warn us all that someone was putting it all together so that we would have to move our base of operations to... I don't know... Vizima maybe. But your brother went off on a cocked mission to kill your father. Successfully it would seem as well.”

“I don't believe you,”

“That's your prerogative. I would challenge you to a duel for failing to believe my word but frankly you are so far beneath me that I wouldn't accept.”

“Fuck you,” I said but I didn't have the strength or energy to put any real venom behind it.

I sighed and stared at the ceiling. There was my answer. Edmund killed my father. My eldest brother was a patricide. His motives and reasoning were those of simple, paranoid fear, guilt and greed.

How...disappointing.

“Still,” he went on. “The money's the thing though isn't it.”

“I don't follow.”

“Well, obviously they're not going to kill me now and I stand to inherit from your brother.”

“Yeah, I still don't get it.”

“Your brother left me everything. The castle the lands, the money. Everything. I'd be getting your family to move out if I were you.”

I just stared at him, feeling stupid.

“I don't know what you're getting at.”

“Your lands.” Raynard said, practically licking his lips. “Your Father died which means that Edmund stood to inherit. Edmund dies and we made sure that I stand to inherit from him. It's all tied up and legal, you can check if you like.”

He sat back and tried to cross his arms before the manacles stopped his efforts.

I shook my head in disbelief.

“That's just not going to happen.”

“Come on, I'll survive this. I'm going to be a count before too much longer. Then they won't dare try me in court and I'll walk away. I'll probably even be able to get you hung for assaulting me.”

I gaped at him.

“Well you're just too stupid to live. You killed Edmund before Dad had died. That means that Dad's will has precedence...”

“You wanna bet. By the time I've finished throwing money around at court, you'll be lucky to have the clothes on your back. Not that sister of yours though. I'll keep her. Fine looking woman that. Besides, I didn't kill anyone. Not anyone worth noticing anyway.”

“You killed those peasants?”

“So?”

Hate is an interesting thing. I went for him but fortunately Kerrass was there to hold me back.

“You're forgetting something else.” the Witcher said calmly, his hand felt like an iron vice clutching my bicep. “This isn't a civil court. It's a church one, and their rules about prisoners are a lot less dainty than the civil or royal courts. And the nearest church authority is Arch-Bishop Coulthard. You will survive to tell everything you know about your little cult to your little god. Then you will be tried for heresy, found guilty and executed.”

Kerrass' deadpan tone made the sentence sound all the more awful. “Arch-Bishop Coulthard is unlikely to forgive you killing his brother.”

“But I didn't kill him.”

“Of course you did,” I said having sat back down. “He was going to tell everything. He was going to pass on all the details and his mouth would run off.”

“Why would I kill him. We had won. He was going to be “Baron” Coulthard with all the money power and prestige that went with it. We could tell him what to do with it and he isn't clever enough to do otherwise. Why would I kill him?”

His eyes narrowed at me.

“You killed him. This is a stitch up, a frame job by your pet mutant monster.

“I always thought one of you killed him. I always thought it was a bit dodgy and he always spoke about how much you all hated him and were jealous of him. You killed him didn't you?”

“Don't be daft.”

“No, you did didn't you. You killed him. It wasn't me so who else could it have been.”

He was getting angry now, the fear of his position finally getting through or his drugs high wearing off.

“You killed him. You murdered him for the money and now you're going to take it from me too by having me burned as a heretic you fucking murderer. Who's next? The rest of your family. Admit it you fucking piece of filth.”

Kerrass caught my eye and jerked his head towards the door.

“Who killed your brother Freddie? Who killed him?”

We left but his words still echoed down the corridor after us as he screamed the question.

“WHO KILLED HIM? WHO KILLED EDMUND?”