Chapter 77: Vampires (3)

He cuffed me round the ear. A habit that he had used during his teaching days.

For the rest of the day, nothing happened. Believe me when I say that I've been over the events of that day over and over again in an effort to see if there was some kind of clue that I missed. Something that I could have done to prevent disaster or otherwise make events turn out differently but sooner or later, I had to come to the decision that there was nothing that I could have done. Nothing that I could have said that would have made life different or end up with a different outcome.

After the meeting it was mid afternoon. I had a bit more lunch with the Arch-Chancellor where we talked about my Thesis, which he had read, although he did have some pointers. I asked him what he thought of the Empress and what he thought of the process of the meeting as a whole. I remember one exchange that I found very telling.

“If we think,” he said while chewing a piece of sausage. “If any of us think for one moment think that that meeting would have gone a different way, then we would have been sadly fucking mistaken. The Empress had already made her mind up. There will be a new Witcher school sooner or later because the Empress has decided that we need one. She convened a committee to talk it through in an effort to let a certain number of experts and things come to the same conclusion.

“But if we had obstinately refused to support the creation of new Witchers then we would have been portrayed as being backward looking stick in the muds. You notice who were the members of the committee. You notice that there weren't any churchmen present, of any religion. How much are you willing to bet me that Lady Eilhart invited herself rather than being invited. I'd bet money that the Empress wanted Lady Yennefer and one other mage for balance. Yennefer brought Lady Eilhart. The Empress invites you, the newest professor whose best friend is a Witcher. If it wasn't you, I would suggest that Dandelion would have been here as the next most suitable academic expert on Witchers, Proffessor of poetry though he may be and despite Duchess Anna Henrietta's requests.

“Two Witchers,” he went on. “One a Wolf who is wrapped so tightly round the Empress' finger that he doesn't even know it, and the other a bear. Did you know that he's the only bear that is visiting? Four bears and five Cats, but the Empress didn't want a feline Witcher who would only remind everyone of what happens when the process can go wrong.

“The Empress is an incredible mind and she's learned her tactics, strategy and politicking at the feet of the masters of those arts. The Witchers, Queen Calanthe, Emperor Emhyr and the school of having to live in the real world on her wits alone. She's going to leave everyone standing, if she can survive.”

“If she can survive?”

“Oh Yes. She's already bringing change just by being a powerful woman. Off the top of my head I can think of several dozen stick in the mud old Lords who are already hating the fact that she even exists. If there hasn't already been an assassination attempt on her life already I would be astonished.”

I grunted in agreement.

The Arch-Chancellor then went off to enjoy the sights and sounds of the city and to make his report. Emma was due to be in negotiations for the rest of the day. What I wanted was to find somewhere quiet and dark where I could set about processing all the incredible things that had happened over the last couple of days.

Failing that I wanted to find Ariadne and spend some time talking with her. I wanted to plan for the future and to throw around ideas like, where are we going to live and what are we going to do with ourselves but mostly I just wanted to sit and look at her, knowing that I had the right and the privilege to just sit and look at the woman that was going to be my wife. Also, I wanted to spend some time getting used to that fact. I was still very aware that I needed to reconcile the fact that I wasn't marrying a human woman but marrying an elder vampire. I was under no illusion. That was going to take work.

But time was a luxury that I didn't really have. I also knew that I would regret not going around and seeing the sights of Toussaint when, arguably, the relatively small Duchy was at it's best so instead I went down into the town and watched some street performers, attended a wine tasting and watched a brief piece of street theatre. A blatant piece of propaganda by a troupe who were clearly trying to get noticed enough to play somewhere bigger and more important. They weren't going to be successful.

My target was the tourney fields though. I've attended tournaments before but I had never been to one with this amount of pageantry, pomp and ceremony. As Sammy was taking part I managed to find that our family had been given some space in the stalls. Francesca was there along with Mark and Laurelen. Mark was cheering Sam on when it came round to his turn to tilt and, much to my pleasure, he and Laurelen had found some common ground in that they both had a fascination of the sport of jousting and spent the time commenting on the technique and virtues of the various contestants.

I spent the time catching up with my little sister. Chatting and joking. She interrogated me about Ariadne mostly asking me the same questions over and over and over again. In turn I asked her about the many men that were paying court to her. A thing that she was clearly enjoying immensely. It seemed that the Empress had declared that she wasn't going to be allowed to marry for some time yet and as a result she could just sit back and enjoy the poems and the gifts, the dancing and the sly looks and winks.

I was so happy for her. She deserved her happiness and she was clearly thriving with it. I told her that in no uncertain terms I absolutely needed to inspect whoever it was that she intended to allow to court her to ensure that the man wasn't a cad. She seemed dismayed at the prospect much to my amusement. She received a message as the evening fell which she showed me saying that the Empress wanted her so she kissed me on the cheek and left.

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I spent the rest of the early evening with Mark and Laurelen, cheering on Sammy before returning back to the villa to change for the evening's excitement. There was a ball that night up at the palace and we were expected. We had been told that Emma would already be there so once again I found myself escorting a beautiful blonde haired Sorceress up the hill towards the palace to the misplaced envy of just about the entire world.

The ball was pleasant enough although the room was a little too stuffy for my taste and many times I had to escape into the evening air just so that I could breathe. I also struggle with the food at these kinds of things. It's always these little nibble bits that never quite fill me up while at the same time being massively rich and overwhelming so I always end up feeling far too full but not in the least bit satisfied. I managed to get in a few dances though. Many with my sister and at her urging I took Laurelen out onto the dance floor for several turns around the place. According to the Sorceress the two of them had tried dancing together and although the Toussaint courtiers approved of the two women being in love, the sight of them being so blatant was possibly a little bit too much for the more conservative lords that were attending from the far reaches of the Empire.

The highlight of the evening was when I got to dance with Ariadne. She had clearly been learning to dance for some time but despite being tall, beautiful, graceful and elegant she was also endearingly clumsy at the dance. She promised that she would be better before our wedding day, a promise that made me flush tot he amusement of many of the nearest dancers.

The evening came to an end much sooner than I had anticipated though as several people, especially Emma, suggested that we might be better off conserving our energy for the day ahead. The coronation was going to be long and arduous and it was possibly unwise to be partying the night away so we retired early. We were not alone in doing so.

I wish I could say that I was restless that night. That some kind of premonition kept me awake or that I tossed and turned. I wish I could say that I had nightmares. But I didn't. I slept like a log.

We woke early and had a sizeable breakfast before we all trooped down to the baths to ensure our cleanliness. I shaved, again, and had my hair arranged by the local barbers until I met my sisters exacting requirements before I was fitted with my proper, pomp and ceremony clothing. Shoes to a mirror shine, colours so bright as to hurt the eyes with not a thread or a stitch out of place. Emma was similarly attired in our formal colours while Laurelen wore a dress which complimented those same colours while not actually saying that she was part of the family. A political decision which clearly caused both of them a little pain. I remember resolving to doing something about that when we returned to Redania.

Heh. The things that we remember.

For those people that are not aware of how these things work, the Empress had spent the night outside the city somewhere where she could prepare in private. She would then ride up to the palace so that the subjects would be able to see her and be seen by her. We also knew that she would be surrounded by an honour guard made up of the Witchers and the Imperial guard led by Morvran Voorhis and would be accompanied by her ladies including Francesca as her sword bearer. There were also guardsmen all over the rooftops like black crows watching everyone moving around. We had already been warned that anyone who carried anything larger than an eating knife out of doors would be arrested on sight. Sam met us having come up from his pavillion looking a little bit the worse for wear as he had lost a couple of his bouts the previous day and was now out of the running for the championship. But even my amateur eye told me that he had done well to get as far as he had. He was unarmed and wearing a slightly more martial version of the clothing that I wore that Emma had sent down for him. Mark would be sitting with the Church delegation.

Before the Empress was due to be crowned, Heralds and pages were sent out in order to bring us to our correct seating. The more important you were the later you were fetched which meant that those Kings and Queens that were in attendance were the last to be gathered and escorted in to the front of the congregation so that they could look down on the rest of us and so that we could see our “betters” being brought into the room.

We were summoned just before lunch time and it was almost comedically like when we used to set out on family outings. Things like my sister asking us all, “Now, do you need to use the chamber pots?” for which she was teased by Sam and I. Sam, as the eldest, escorted Emma while I had Laurelen on my arm. Again I saw the kind of wince in her eyes that she would be so kept from her love that I took it upon myself to gently mock everything that was going on around us in an effort to make her smile. I was largely successful and I think I heard Sam doing the same for Emma but I still felt the injustice a little keenly. Apart from anything else I would much rather have been sat next to Ariadne sharing those little jokes and observations whilst giggling like school children. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

But we marched into the palace ballroom that had magically been decorated overnight. The assembled plumage of all the nobles was already such that I felt a colossal headache coming on and it was only going to get worse as the day dragged on.

On and on it went. I have reason to believe that the Empress actually arrived at the palace a good hour before she came into the ballroom to be crowned but it was taking so long to get everyone seated that she was forced to wait and, I suspect, sneakily had something to eat to keep her strength up.

But then, finally, after the last rulers had been seated, exchanging glares with the attending Sorceresses, the fanfare sounded and the Empress was there.

The Witchers came first, scanning the room and prowling around and peering into corners suspiciously. Then in marched the Empress. In every way that her previous outfits had been subdued and austere, she made up for it with this outfit. Still martial in appearance she was not wearing the huge skirts with under hoops that the Duchess of Toussaint wore. She wore a silver dress that glittered in the lights. By what artifice it was managed I don't know but the entire dress seemed to shine and reflect all the colours that were already in attendance. It was though she was dressed in a summer storms rainbow. The shining silver of rainfall with those colours glowing through. Her silver hair piled on top of her head behind a circlet that would shortly be replaced by a crown.

The dress was cut so that she could still walk with a decent stride and we could see that she had trousers and boots on underneath. Like everything there was a message here. She was still ready for action at a moments notice and that we should know that she was no shrinking, gentle, meek woman that powerful men could order around. This was a warrior Queen. A Fighting Empress that would fight us on the same battlefields that we used without regard for her gender.

It was a powerful sight and a stirring sight as she walked down the aisle to sit on the throne on the dais.

But I wasn't looking at the Empress. I was craning my neck and looking around trying to see.

“Where's Francesca?” I asked Laurelen innocently as I saw Sam and Emma also looking around.

I looked around and saw Kerrass standing at the wall watching the assembly. He caught my eye and I saw him shake his head.

“Where's Francesca?” I asked again.