Chapter 66: Trials (2)

Kerrass looked at me for a long moment. “Each school had a mage to oversee the mutations. It's one of those things that you can't really get round. You need to have someone there to maintain the flow of mutagens. I can't pretend to understand why. But they were always trying to perfect the process. Get it to the point where they could minimise the potential losses. What I'm saying is that the bodies of the dead were given to the mage to dissect in an effort to find out what went wrong and correct the procedure.”

“Yeesh.”

“I know. It sounds ghoulish, and it is. But I genuinely believe that those people truly cared about what happened to their charges and wanted to get to the stage where the entire process could happen without losing a trainee.”

“So what kind of things did you do during the choice?”

“Chores mostly. Sword training, Lore training as well. Sign practice came later when we were more physiologically capable of channelling the force to be able to perform the simplest tasks. Otherwise nosebleeds and things if we started that too early.”

“I know that but what kind of training did you do.”

“Everyone does it differently. One of the significant things is the assault course. The Wolves have this track which the apprentices called “The Killer,” probably because it was and it did. You run up trees, leap from hand hold to hand hold, run along mountain tracks and things. I've done it when I was here recuperating and it certainly did it's job. We had “The cat-walk,” which was not as physically strenuous if I'm honest, but you had to do it pitch blackness.”

I was appalled but Kerrass seemed to speak of those things and past places fondly.

“Good times,” he said. Apparently without irony.

We came to the draw-bridge and dismounted.

“So all of this is done, to actually drive people away?”

“Pretty much,” we led the horses through a large gate house. The path that we travelled turned right at right angles. I later had to check why this was the case. And it turns out that this is so that any mobile siege equipment, like battering rams will struggle to get up to the next gate. All the while, people on the walls are still shooting at them and dropping unpleasant things down into the melee.

The things you learn when you follow a Witcher around.

“What kind of training equipment do they use?”

“Various things. There's a thing called a pendulum which swings backwards and forwards that when it's being operated properly can simulate a monsters attacks. There's also a thing that, they used to have here actually called the comb. Which is a set of end on end poles of various sizes stacked up on end. Then you have a frame that also swings weights and heavier logs across the path of the poles. It teaches balance, awareness of footing.”

“What do you do up there?” As I said, I was horrified and trying to hide it because I was concerned that I might offend Kerrass.

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Remember that we hadn't called each other “friend” yet.

“Fence, work the sword forms. Often while we were blindfolded.”

“Holy flame.”

“Oh it wasn't too bad.”

The gate house was large, lofty and very very dark. There was a lot of litter there, old, empty and broken boxes and bags. Again, there were old bones piled in the corners. I guessed that the detritus had been left there deliberately in an effort to drive home the entire fact that this place was not occupied.

The effect was rather ruined by the fact that the portcullis' at both ends of the gate house were obviously maintained and well looked after.

We walked out into the bottom courtyard. That was where the efforts to make the castle look derelict began to fall apart a little bit. I could see a row of training dummies off to my left as I entered and a further pile of of unused ones in the back of the wooden structure that leant against the inner walls. There were also a few archery targets and further back there was what looked like a well stocked and diverse herb-garden. Off to the right were another small set of wooden buildings that were obviously in use as a stable. A single horse was there, feed-bag over his nose.

We started to lead our horses over in that direction when it happened.

Kerrass' head jerked up, in the same movement his sword was out and already flashing as a shape leapt off the wall above us and crashed into Kerrass.

Kerrass and the other shape rolled to their feet and separated. Kerrass was already attacking. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

The entire thing happened in less than a second.

You know that thing that happens in plays when two “enemies” get together and decide that they want to have a fight. They draw their swords, face each other and tell each other (and therefore the audience) why they're fighting and so we can all see what's going on and who is fighting whom.

You know that thing?

It spectacularly failed to happen.

The only reason that I could tell one combatant from the other was because Kerrass had hair and the other man did not. They both wore brown tunics which, as it was summer, had had the sleeves removed. Both wore wrist guards and hide trousers.

In the end I got one good look at the other man from the back to see that his sword scabbard lay across his back in a similar but not identical way that Kerrass wore his and decided that the other man was another Witcher. I caught up Kerrass' horse by the reins and led both animals into the stable and into stalls to keep them out of the way before turning back to watch the contest.

Well.

I've seen Kerrass fight many times. A lot of times over the two years that we have spent in each others company. But this was the first time that I had seen him taken on by a human scale opponent that was on an equal skill level. I had seen him fight monsters many times. I'd even seen him fight humans many times but most depend on their armour as a substitute for skill and as such do not fight on Kerrass' level.

This was something else.

The two men's swords moved so fast that I would hear the swords clash, after I had seen them meet. They also didn't clash nearly as often as I was expecting them to. More often than not, they didn't bother parrying the blows that they were trading with each other on the grounds that that time could have been used to make a strike and an attack of their own.

It also wasn't like a dance. Anyone who says that a fight is like a dance was watching an exhibition match or a fight on stage. This wasn't a dance. There is a rhythm to a dance and there was not one here.

As I watched I began to get just a hint of the differences though. They fought fast. Bewilderingly, so to the point that it hurt my eyes and gave me a headache in trying to follow it.

What I did get the feeling of was the way the fight was working and the tactics of the two men. I didn't get to discuss it later with Kerrass but what it looked like to me was that Kerrass was doing most of the attacking whereas what the other man was trying to do was to channel his actions to set Kerrass up in a particular position at a particular time. Then the stranger would unleash a blistering, powerful series of attacks that Kerrass would struggle to both avoid or parry and would scramble out of the way. At which point Kerrass would be off balance and vulnerable to follow up attacks which were similar in feel. Brutal, hard, powerful attacks from the other man. Until Kerrass managed to catch them correctly and then move back from the defence to the attack.

But on the other end of the scale, the other man was struggling to manage Kerrass' free wheeling, chaotic strike patterns.

I honestly couldn't have told you who would have won the contest in a real fight. I say, “real” fight, because the other thing that began to become obvious is that both men were enjoying themselves. Smiling, grinning even. All the time giving and receiving blows that would have easily killed the other man if they had struck home.

Witchers. Crazy, the lot of them.

In the end they broke apart. I don't know how long they had been going at it. A minute, maybe two minutes at most. But they came apart and looked at each other. Breathing hard from the look of them.

“Going soft, snake?” Kerrass said panting.

“Giving up, kitty cat?” answered the other man in a drawl which I now know was from Southern Nilfgaard originally.

“Some of us have been riding all day.” I noticed that despite the friendly tone of the words, neither man's sword wavered from pointing directly at the other.

“Pussy,” sneered the bald man.

Kerrass shrugged, feinted one way before rolling the other way and renewing the attack.

My body decided that I had gone off to spend time with crazy people. While they were off being crazy people I could be doing something useful and went back to take care of the horses. The two Witchers were still going by the time I had done piling our saddle bags nearby and sat down on the fence at the side of the stable. I was fast enough to shield my eyes against one of the bombs that the bald man had thrown at Kerrass. Using a strange body twist Kerrass caught the bomb against the fuller of his blade and deflected away. As a result, I didn't go completely blind. But it was close.

As it was there were still spots in my eyes.

Again, one of those trained parts of my body realised that my brain wasn't working properly and I took out my boot knife and was holding it in my hand when I felt rough hands grab me by the shoulders and spin me around. Something cold and sharp was pressed against my neck.

“Who's this?” The Southern accent was thick in my ear. Along with a strong scent of garlic and mint.

I sighed and blinked a few times. The bald man was behind where I was sat having vaulted the fence, knife at my throat and breathing hard. I think I saw his sword lying on the ground a little way away.

“His name's Frederick.” Kerrass said. Re-sheathing his sword. “Try not to break him. He's my meal ticket.”

“You mean you cart him around and he pays for your food,”

“Pretty much.”

“A scholar too from the smell of him.”

“I like to think he has grown since I first met him.”

“So now he's a cat's chew toy as well as a scholar.” The man spat. “Important to you?”

“Not that important.”

“Damn,”

“You were hoping I'd forget about that twenty crowns you owe me from Vizima that time.”

“Also to see what kind of camp follower you carry around with you. Does he wriggle properly?” I sensed rather than saw the leer.

“If you try anything he might cut it off. Wouldn't you Freddie.”

I let the man feel my dagger point pressed against his side from where I had reversed it. “This is getting to be a habit.” I commented.

“Yes, well.” Kerrass shrugged again. “You will keep letting people use you as a human shield against me. How did he do, snake?”

“Not bad,” drawled the other man. “Better than some I've known.”

He let me go suddenly. Vaulted back over the fence, scooped up his sword with his foot before sheathing it quickly and then he and Kerrass embraced fiercely.

“Good to see you Kitten.” said the southerner.

“You too, Snake. Although I didn't expect to find you here.”

“It seems that the puppy dogs are expanding their definition of who they consider “pack-mate” especially if they told you where this place was.”

“Actually I woke up here once after they set a Queen on me.”

“You're talking...”

“Yep.”

“Nice.”

I cleared my throat.

Kerrass looked over at me. “Freddie, this is...” He raised his eyebrows at the other man.

“Letho of Gulet,” he drawled and I got my first good look at the man.

His face was the kind of face that people are afraid of. Bald with a jagged, v-shaped scar that had cut into his forehead, if you saw him walking down the street at night you would cross over, or go down a side alley to avoid him. Huge sloping brows which shadowed his eyes, further lending to his thuggish and intimidating exterior. His nose had obviously been broken many times before and his mouth was thin lipped and seemed to be made to sneer at people. I found his eyes, although similar to Kerrass' in that they were obviously vertical pupiled and yellow. They seemed to glow a lot more than Kerrass' did which, coupled with the shadowing from his brows made him seem even more unearthly. He was also hugely muscled. Massively so. It was another thing that contributed to his fighting technique. When he moved, despite walking lightly and on the balls of his feet, he moved like he expected the world to get out of his way.

I well imagine that it would at that.

There was also a remarkable intelligence behind his eyes. In every way he looked like a thug. The kind of man that stands behind money collectors and villains in plays. The ones designed to scare the audience and their children in the local plays by pulling faces and making themselves look unpleasant. But I could also tell that he had played up to his thuggish exterior. Something about the way his eyes moved, very similar to the way Kerrass does it, or those people that I've seen at court, the real powerful people, or the way my sister does when negotiating something. Eyes always moving, looking at details, anything that might lend an advantage.

But I also didn't want to underestimate him. His sword was considerably larger than the one that Kerrass carried and he scooped it up like it was nothing. He also had two, long, fighting knives that were strapped to his waist in front of him like a diagonal cross.

“Do I know you?” I asked. The name was singing in my ear, convincing me that I had heard it somewhere before.

“You might have.” He drawled, gazing at me steadily. “I have another name that northerners sometimes call me.”

“Really?” I asked as the answer occurred to me and a shiver ran up my spine. Letho's eyes were bothering me. Flat, emotionless and judging. I got the impression that he had already decided how to kill me. “I do not recall.” I said it very clearly, making sure that my words were easy to hear.

Kerrass was looking from one of us to the other.

“That's good to hear.” Letho turned to Kerrass who suddenly relaxed although I hadn't noticed him tensing up. “Much better than that overdressed peacock that hangs around with White Puppy.”

For those people who don't know who Letho of Gulet is. I shall leave you in ignorance. For those people who do know who Letho of Gulet is and are now wondering why I didn't do anything to try and bring the man to justice. You try and face down a Witcher who you know for sure can kill you as easily as breathing. Along with another Witcher who you are unsure of his loyalties. I remind you that this was before we started calling each other friend.

“Speaking of Geralt and the rest of the Wolves. Who else is here?”

“It's just me at the moment. White puppy helped me out a little while ago and he offered to put me up.”

“That's a shame. I was hoping to catch Eskel at the very least.”

“He left a couple of weeks back. He's not away much for long though. Lambert's off chasing a skirt.”

“May all the Gods help her.”

“Yeah. She seemed to be into it though.”

“Who's the lucky girl.”

“I don't know. Blonde woman. Sorceress.”

“Keria Metz?” I suggested as a way of trying to re-enter the conversation.

“That's the bitch, yes.”

“Tell me,” I said feeling my hackles rise despite my best efforts to stay calm. “Do you do lessons on how to offend people? Or is it just something you do naturally.”

Letho mused to himself. “I don't know. People generally tend to hate me on sight. That or be afraid of me so I find that hating them back is the easiest way forward. I know what I look like, Scribbler.”

“What a nice new nick-name you've given me,” I commented.

A hairless eyebrow rose, I realised that then that he was absolutely hairless, not even eye-lashes. “It was either that or, “Woman”, or “girl”. “Scribbler” suits you better.” He sneered which I began to realise was his version of a smile. “Only just though.”

“Wonderful. What should I call you? Egghead? Billiard ball? Ooh ooh, I know, Dick-head. It's funny because it's true, in every sense of the word.” Somewhere in the back of my mind, a small terrified part of me was listening to what I was saying to this trained killer and whimpering.

Letho astonished me then by laughing aloud.

I fall into a trap occasionally of over-emphasising Kerrass' displays of emotion. When I write that Kerrass smiled, what actually happened is that he kind of smirked. When I say that he laughed, it's more of a short, quiet chuckle. His temper is legendary but beyond that his emotional displays are subdued. I had never heard him guffaw with laughter. Indeed I found that I struggled to imagine any Witcher laughing, not the quiet brooding temperament of Kerrass or the epic versions of the White Wolf from the ballads. Instead I imagine, in the same way that all people do, the grim faced, dour, silent man of mystery.

To hear Letho belly laugh was astonishing.

He turned again to Kerrass. “I like him. Listen Scribbler, I need to talk to the Kitty Cat for a bit. You'll find us up in the keep. Take your time, just don't go wandering through the valley on your own.”

“Why? Will you kill me?” I retorted, still feeling the anger of who the man was as well as his general mocking tone.

“Nah, the bears might though. Also the trolls, or the Drowned dead that they have in these parts. There's also, generally some Forktails flying about. The Wights don't come out till later though.”

“Lovely place you have here.” I heard myself say.

“I didn't choose it.” Letho retorted. “Good place for a Witcher school though.” He clapped a massive hand on Kerrass' shoulder and led him off, their heads together and talking.

I took the invitation to explore to heart and wandered around a bit. It was hard not to be some kind of giddy child running around and delving into things. As I said earlier. There is a palpable weight about it all. A sense of history about it. Drama too, the feeling that much blood had been spilt. Blood sweat and tears, all mixed up with the mortar that the Witchers had used to bind the bricks together while making repairs to the stonework.

The other thing was that there was a palpable sense of sadness about the place. It was like... It was like the castle was a grand old soldier. A man who had fought many battles and gained many honours and victories. But time and compounded injuries had beaten him down. He was no longer the proud warrior of before, he could no longer straighten or hold his sword in a strong grip. His mind is feeble and you can imagine his pain in remembering what the past had been. But just, in the depth of eyes that are facing with cataracts, you get a sense of the man that used to stride the battlefields of his youth and men fought to get out of his way.

That is what Kaer Morhen is like.

There was a struggle here. A fight of some kind, where someone fought a war, a desperate struggle for their very survival. Then the war had moved on and the old antiques of that struggle had been left to rot.

It was a similar feeling that I sometimes used to get when I walked into the great cathedral in Novigrad for the first time. It was all so heavy and so...strong.

I don't just mean the Witchers or their fights here. I don't know if the Witchers built those ancient fortifications. I find that I doubt it somehow. Kaer Morhen seems more ancient. It feels older somehow. I hope that someone renovates and rebuilds it some day. I don't know why someone would do that, how or why. But I have a dream of that place. Beautiful and terrible as it is.

Listen to me. I'm a scholar. I'm happy being a scholar but sometimes I wish I was a poet, or artist so that I could properly pay tribute to that valley and that place.

I wandered into the gatehouse where I could easily imagine guardsmen standing the watch into the night. There were crates there. I opened one and I found a training dummy that had been dressed up in plate armour. There were scars in the metal near the joints where, I presume, people had been striking at the dummy and aiming for the gaps in the armour and missing. I gave a couple of the other boxes a kick and it felt like they held similar items.

I moved on.

To my layman's eyes, the herb-garden was substantial and well maintained. Recently as well, looking at the wet mud that was sticking to a trowel and gardening fork. Beautiful to look at, I knew too much to go stomping through that undergrowth. It was odd, Letho was a brute, rude, huge and thuggish but I know from my own attempts at trying to make plants grow that they need just as careful a handling as any other craft. I struggled to imagine those huge hands being turned to the careful arts of herbalism and alchemy and felt my mind sliding off the idea.

The path further into the castle sloped up and round to the next gate and I followed slowly. Something in one of the slabs of rock in the stonework caught my eye and I bent to peer closely. Small spirals, fossilized sea creatures, shell fish and other crustaceans. I shook my head in disbelief but there was the evidence. We were miles from the sea and to transport such huge blocks of stone overland would have had to be prohibitively expensive.

My mind provided theories to go with it.

From the river side perhaps?

No, some creatures live in salt water far easier than they do in fresh.

There was a lake in the valley, maybe from there? Same answer.

Perhaps magic. Possible certainly. Magic users have performed incredible feats. But I couldn't imagine why a mage, or group of mages would magic stone all the distance from the sea to build a castle here, in the remote parts of the wilderness, when the mountains were much closer which would provide stone just as easily.

It was baffling, another mystery that I would probably never solve.

The next arch-way did not inspire confidence. This was given that it was obviously in the process of being rebuilt. Wooden support struts were in place and I had to turn sideways to get through them but many of the larger stones had broken into pieces. There were signs that they were being repaired and glued back together where they were being held together, presumably to set, by rope. As I came through I was face to face with a large ballista that was aimed at my head.

The shock was diffused a little as it actually seemed as though it was aimed a little bit above my head. I

climbed up to it and followed the aiming line and guessed that it was aimed at the door frame.

The gate had been collapsed on purpose.

Curious.

I explored this second courtyard.

More training equipment greeted my sight.

There were several things that looked like children's toys only on a much larger scale. Large, multi-segmented see-saws and roundabouts. Going over and giving them a push I found that they were all very finely balanced. There were stains nearby that I took for blood.

All around the place there were cracks in the floor as if something had been confined below and had exploded upwards. I bent down to peer into one of the cracks before a wave of noxious fumes swept up and I reeled backwards, eyes watering. There was some stairs up from there that led to the wall which was obviously in need of some repair. I got up there though and looked out over the vista which was stunning.

Looking down from the wall though, anyone wanting to assault from this angle would need very long ladders or climbing rope. In the distance, down on the floor of the valley I thought I could see the charred remains of some old siege weapons and I resolved to go down to inspect them later. I climbed up, through the third gate which was in much better repair than the second. Well oiled and greased, with the machinery for winching it open off to one side. On the other was a heavily build and locked shed, no windows and a heavy door that was locked.

Beyond the she was a small alcove, over which a large piece of canvas had been stretched. A small campfire smouldered there along with a sleeping roll and some blankets. A pot hung over the ashes and there was a book propped against the wall. It looked like quite a cozy little shelter. I bent to examine the book, to see if there was a title on the spine but it looked as though the book had been rebound at some point. Old wooden covers wrapped in leather. Small pieces of thin leather marked various pages and it showed signs of much use.

I left it where it was.

I also got to see the infamous Comb. I cannot imagine putting a grown man on so obvious a piece of torture machinery, let alone a child. The posts that Kerrass had talked about were fixed to the side of the castle wall. If the person moving along the top fell one way then they fell onto the top of the wall. If they fell the other way then they would fall twenty, thirty feet down onto sharp rocks that covered a sharp slope where the faller would tumble down the loose stone and gravel to the bottom of the gulley. The faller would be lucky if they merely died as otherwise they would clearly be crippled.

A set of wooden practice swords were propped up next to it in a rack. The swords varied in size and I tried picking up one of the smaller ones. There must have been some kind of solid, metal core to it as I needed both hands to lift and hold it properly, let alone practice fighting with it. I know the theory behind giving the trainee heavier weapons before moving them on to lighter ones but this seemed to be ridiculous to me.

I moved on.

In one corner of the upper courtyard I found a huge skeleton of some beast that I did not recognise. It was huge, putting me in mind of some kind of giant insect. Chitinous exo-skeleton and things were still visible. The sun and other elements had long bleached it clean and white.

In the end I began to feel as though things were beginning to get a little overwhelming and I headed for the keep entrance. The door had been wedged open at a small angle so that I had to turn sideways to squeeze through. Inside it was much warmer but it turned out that I hadn't even begun to take in the sights, sounds and smells of this place.

I walked in to a huge hall, So high that it seemed unfeasible that anyone would order a hall to be built so large. As my eyes adjusted to it though I could see several cracks in the ceiling. One large crack in particular had been propped up by huge wooden beams. The very act of that repair in and of itself was a feat of engineering that was mind-boggling but there it stood. I wondered how long it had stood there and who had been the first people to set such a thing up. Even more importantly, given how long it had been there, how much longer would it stay in place.

Witchers. Setting up home, and maintaining that home in a place that was likely to collapse and kill them at

any moment.

The arrangement of the floor space, at first, seemed to be chaotic to me. But again, as I started to adjust to it I began to see the order that came out of the chaos. A corner for books. Another corner for the dissection and study of beasts and monsters. Another corner for beds. Two of which had been made up with what looked like fresh sheets and I recognised Kerrass' steel sword propped against one of them.

I followed a delicious smell to the hearth where I found Letho sprinkling some Rosemary over a large hunk of meat before ladling some kind of sauce over the top of the meat. He did it gently and slowly showing much more patience than I did whenever I was cooking, but it allowed the liquid to be absorbed into the meat with just the slightest bit of what was left spilling into the fire to rise into steam.

“You took your time scribbler,” he drawled without looking up.

“You did say you wanted to talk to Kerrass in private.”

“No, I said I needed to talk to him for a bit. Not an age.”

“You also said that I should, and I quote, “Take your time,””

Letho grunted something that I didn't catch.

“Where is Kerrass anyway?” I asked.

“Off somewhere.”

“Did he say where?”

Letho just looked at me. I could detect no thought or feeling in that stare. It was as though I was just a thing, an annoyance and a boring one at that. I was being measured in some way and I could not tell what he thought.

“No,” he said simply.

“Is he ok?”

“No,”

“This is going to be a really boring conversation.”

Another weighing stare.

“He had some bad news is all. Wanted to be by himself for a bit. He'll be back when he's ready.”

“How long's that going to be.”

“As long as it takes. Give it a fortnight and if he's not back by then I would suggest making your way home.”

“Lovely. What was the bad news?”

“A friend of his died.” It was as though he took great delight in saying very little but hinting at the maximum possible result. “Asked me to make sure you don't die in the meantime looking at anything you shouldn't.”

“Is that a real danger?”

“I don't know. I don't know what you shouldn't be looking at. He did suggest that you could entertain yourself for a year or two by looking at the books over there. Just be careful, some of them are quite old.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't know yet. Was going to start with dinner. Come here.” He beckoned. “Keep spooning the jus over the meat, gently as you can. If you think you could do it slower then you are going to fast.”

He lumbered off to a wooden cupboard and produced two plates along with, to my astonishment, a set of cutlery and a pair of wine-glasses. With that he set the nearby table.

“Stop watching me,” he said. Against without looking up. “Concentrate on spooning that sauce over the meat.” He went over to another part of the hearth where there was an oven, which he opened and produced two loaves of fresh bread which he set out on a rack on the table before coming back to examine my handiwork.

“Not bad,” was his musing. With quick practised movements he cut the thinnest of slices of meat off the roast and put them on the plate. Fortunately for my tastes there was plenty of it and he kept going until the skewer was clean other than a carcase. Then from another pan he added some fried mushrooms and other vegetables and poured the sauce into a jug. He gestured for me to sit down opposite him and placed one of the plates in front of me. He poured half the jug over his food, handing it over to me and pulled one of the loaves over to himself and tore a huge chunk off it.

I was just staring at him.

“What?” He said before something occurred to him. “Butter,” He got up and rumbled off, coming back with a small pot of butter. “It's goats butter but it does the job.”

I felt my mouth drop open as the huge man wasted no time shovelling the food down his throat.

“It's better when it's hot,” he commented after he noticed me watching him.

It was delicious.

It was so good that I don't really have the words to describe it.

It was a while before I even noticed that the huge man had carefully poured me a glass of wine. I don't know why I was surprised to discover that the wine complemented the meal perfectly.

“That was delicious,” I said after finally mopping up the remains of the sauce with the last of my bread.

“Not bad,” Letho grumbled. “Needed more garlic.”

I stared at him in a clash of amusement and amazement. “That was amazing. There's a reason that Kerrass has me do most of the cooking on the road. He can cook a good steak but that's about it.”

“Well, that doesn't surprise me.” Letho lifted his glass to the light and examined the shine of candle-flame through the liquid. “The Kitty Cat always was too impatient to be a proper cook, or a proper alchemist really.”

“Have you known Kerrass long?”

Letho looked at me over the top of his glass.

“He warned me about you,” he said.

“Oh yes.”

“Yes. He told me that you would interrogate me worse than the most zealous church interrogator.”

I laughed. “You're my second Witcher.” I said. “If our positions were reversed what would you do.”

“If our positions were reversed I would probably have tried to kill me.”

“Why would I do that.”

“That, business with the Kings.”

“Not my King.” I said shrugging. “Plus I am well aware of my own capabilities. I could no more fight or kill you than I could a dragon.”

Oh how I laugh at that comment now.

Letho grunted. “Take a tip, Scribbler. Never have anything to do with Kings, Emperors or Sorceresses. They'll lead you around by the nose and then try to kill you for it.”

“I certainly intend to try, but I may find that difficult.”

He raised a brow in question.

“I may have caught the eye of an elder vampiric Sorceress.”

His eyes widened a little. I had been watching. His expression was much more guarded than Kerrass' was and it was harder to read but I thought I had detected surprise there, then amusement. With maybe just a touch of sympathy.

“In a sexual way, in a “bow to my will kind of way” or what?”

“In a, she suggested we might marry kind of way.”

Letho took that in. For a moment before topping up my wine.

“She attractive?”

“Very, Or she will be when she recovers her strength, but she can also cast a glamour on herself so that she can look like whatever she wants.”

“In which case,” He drank his own wineglass off at a swallow. “I suggest you jump in with both feet.”

Amazing how many people have echoed this sentiment.

“Shouldn't I be afraid?”

“Very. But if she's decided then I doubt you have much choice.” He got up and fetched another bottle of wine. Then he rethought the matter and fetched a couple of bottles of wine which he put on the table next to us. “Saves time later,” he said when he noticed me looking.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

Letho shrugged. “Cards?”