Chapter 97: Dark days in my parents house

I could just about see the shadowed bulk of the watchtower up on the hill, standing against the darkening sky.

I had been here earlier in the day to get a good lie of the land and to test out a couple of theories, but now it was getting properly dark. All things being equal though, I was in luck. It was going to be a clear night with relatively little cloud cover, which gave the air a sharp, cutting chill to it. It was the kind of cold that you took into your lungs and seemed to freeze your breath.

Not cold enough to make you shiver but cold to make you feel as though you were artificially out of breath. It made your chest ache, is what I'm trying to say.

I had come here early, it wasn't dark yet and I wasn't expecting things to start to happen until it was properly dark but I wanted to get here early in an effort to make sure I know where to go. I had selected a small flat area most of the way up the slope. It was screened from the rest of the village by a thick hedge, all brambles and thorns but it was getting thicker by the day as new buds were forming on it.

Before too much longer the hedge would be blossoming completely and would be covered in flowers. The hedge provided me with some cover from the wind and the cold though as well as giving me a cover so that the village wouldn't be able to see what I'm doing.

Since my story was that I was Kerrass' apprentice, I had discovered that everything I had told them that I was going to be doing had generated a lot of questions. People asking me why I was asking the questions that I was asking and why I was doing the things that I was doing. I had begun to get a new view on things as to why Witchers do their best to be enigmatic and mysterious in an effort to prevent people from asking them a whole bunch of silly questions. I had had visions of getting up towards the watch-tower and queues of villagers lining up to ask me what I was doing, why and what for.

The same as if I'd done my preparation in the village before I had set off. The mayor asking me why I was leaving off rubbing the oil on my spear until later. Why did I need quite so many torches? Why did I need to light a fire? What was it that was killing our children in the first place?

The uncomfortable truth about that last question was that I still didn't know. I was pretty sure that I was right but I didn't know for certain and I wouldn't know until I had gone to the watchtower in the depths of night.

Tonight's expedition would go one of two ways. The first way was that I would be able to get a good look at what we were dealing with here and then be able to make a more concrete plan about what to do next. The second possibility was that I would get up there and be forced to defend myself. At which time it would be a test of my knowledge gleaned from time spent with Kerrass and reading books on the subject as well as my gathering of evidence to narrow down what would be going on.

But there was no certainty.

So I was going to go and have a look.

Ideally, it would turn out that I was right and I would be able to deal with the problem here and now. But if not then....

Well.....

I'll worry about that as and when it comes up.

I had already set up a small ring of stones. I set my burdens down next to the fire place and started to arrange a fire. I had brought wood with me as well as some tinder and a firebox so it didn't take me long. Then, when there was a lot more light I could take in my surroundings a little better.

Fire isn't a friend to the imagination though. The firelight flickering through the trees made the shadows jump and the surroundings seem much more frightening than they were as I imagined Wraiths, spectres, Nekkers, Fetches and all kinds of things dancing in the shadows beyond the fire.

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I thought of Jack and just for a moment I thought I could hear him laughing. He would certainly find this situation and my current fear amusing.

Concentrate now. You're pretty sure you know what's out there. You know what you're doing. Just need to get the job done. The important thing tonight is information, no need to be a hero. Take your time.

I set about checking my equipment.

Seven torches, heads of the torches soaked in oil. A tinderbox in case the torches went out and I needed to relight torches quickly if there was no other source of flame. A length of rope. A climbing spike and a sledge-hammer. My weapons, my spear and dagger. I laid them out next to the fire so that I would be able to see what I was doing.

I was wearing my boots, trousers and some leather armour. Just soft stuff, kind of light. If it was what I thought it was then thicker armour wasn't going to be much good anyway.

There was a worry there though. I was concerned about space and room to move. I am a spear-fighter. To use that properly I would need room to move and to avoid. If I was confined and channelled by a lack of space then the attacker would find it much easier to get past my point and tear my throat out. True, that's what the dagger was for but I didn't find that reassuring.

There is always the possibility that I might miss with the dagger. I had improved with it since first being gifted with it but still, I was no soldier, no Witcher or trained killer. My entire style was based around mobility and being able to keep the bad guy further away from me.

But there is no use borrowing trouble. If it came up then it would come up and I would worry about it then.

Lastly, carefully, I took out a large potion bottle from my pouch and placed it carefully on the ground in front of me. After ordering and checking the rest of my equipment I sat on the ground facing that small bottle hugging my knees.

It wasn't that big of a bottle. Maybe three inches tall. In fact, calling it a bottle was a bit of stretch, more of a jar really. A dark, black liquid sat in the bottom of it, I knew from experience that this was a little deceptive as the liquid was a deep blue, green which you could tell from the residue it leaves when you smear it on your weapon. It also glowed. Don't ask my why or how it does that but it dies. I did once suggest a theory to Kerrass that it takes the light from external sources and absorbs it, before letting it emerge at a later time when in darker surroundings. He had looked at me as though I might be crazy for a long time before just telling me that it was magical and I was trying to read too much into it. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

But it was looking at me.

I had a couple of hours to burn.

In these kinds of situations, I know that Kerrass likes to meditate. Clear his mind for the coming conflict and activity but I never got the knack of that. I asked him how he did it once and he told me that it was down to practice. Long hours of waiting for things to happen with nothing to do other than to wait. He argued that panic takes a certain amount of time to go through the system. The same with anger or fear or any or the other exciting things that can happen to a body so if you just sit quietly and endeavour to empty your brain then you get to a point where those things just fall away.

I remember wondering why that was important. He had then asked me what good panic, fear, anxiety and stress were to a body when you knew you were going into a stressful situation. He argued that excesses of those things just made a bad problem worse so it was better to just ignore them.

I did some stretching exercises to make sure that my limbs wouldn't seize up in the cold. I will admit to pacing for a little while as well. Just for the variety of the thing.

But I was avoiding the things that I really wanted to think about.

What I wanted to do was to puzzle out a further solution to the problem of what had happened to Francesca.

But that was old and tired ground. Over and over again, for weeks now it seemed, I had been playing the scene of the last time I had seen her in my head. I was saying good night as were all heading off to get an early night before the coronation happened. I could see her smile and cheery wave as she went, but it was no longer a good memory. I found myself wanting to catch hold of her, to call out to her and tell her not to go.

To stay and to remain safe.

I had tried some better memories of her to see if I could force my brain over onto new patterns of behaviour. Instead of thinking of the last time I saw her I tried thinking about the time she came pelting out of the crowd and wrestled me to the crowd. Her happy squeal as she saw me for the first time and her smiling happiness at her congratulations on my engagement.

The fact that I thought she was congratulating me on my receiving my doctorate is a detail I tried to leave out of my rememberings.

I thought about her face as the Empress and I were discussing the crossbow and how I had got information about The Empress' preferences and grip.

I remembered the happy amazement as she had admired Ariadne's engagement ring and the joy with which she had embraced the elder vampire as a new elder sister without thought or care to the fact that she was embracing an elder vampire.

That was the young woman that I wanted to remember. That was my sister.

It is a long time, now, from those events at the watchtower and that night. But I think that that was the night where I finally allowed myself to start thinking of Francesca as being dead. Don't get me wrong. In an ideal world, one day, she will read this and be horrified that I gave her up for dead. I didn't. But it was at this point that I started to prepare myself for that moment. It was then that I thought. “I am never going to see my sister again” and started to come to terms with that.

Prior to that night I was aware that this was a possibility, even a probability given the circumstances but there was a small part of me that was still holding onto the hope of seeing her alive. That refused to accept that she might be dead. A deep and primal voice in the back of my mind that just, steadfastly, refused to let go.

I wasn't quite there yet. But that was the night that I started to loosen my grip. That was the night I felt my brain begin to relax.

To be sure, it was still a slow thing. My mind was still racing and working far too hard to justify and figure things out, but now it was beginning to run out of steam. Like a horse after a long protracted and quick ride. At first it gets up, ready for the extended exercise of the day but then it begins to get used to the fact that it would be staying in the same stable for a while and starts to relax. It starts to let itself be tired and let itself....slow down.

That was my what it felt like my brain was doing.

I wanted to cry with it as I became aware of how utterly exhausted I was. Not the weariness of a man who has been working hard physically all day and every day for a long time. Rather this was the brain weariness of someone who doesn't want to make any decisions any more. My brain wanted to go off somewhere and get drunk and not have to think about things and run around after every stray rumour and stray thought.

I would tell the reader that none of these thoughts were new to my brain. It was just the endless cycle of thinking that I had been going through since Francesca's disappearance.

So, I sat there, not remembering at which point I had taken my seat, and looked into the flames. I had thought about Francesca. Then I had thought about her disappearance. Then I had thought about myself for a while and how I was reacting. What I wanted and what I needed.

All of these were well travelled thought processes that I had gone down many times before. They were pointless and wouldn't get me anywhere. I knew where those things led and I knew what would happen at the end of them. I knew that they were cyclical in nature and that those thoughts would present no solutions.

There was still quite a bit of time before I wanted to go up to the Watchtower to see what could be seen. I hadn't brought a book with me, nor had I brought any notes with me to work on anything or to begin the promised chapters regarding Jack.

I hadn't even thought about the book that I was supposed to be writing with Madame Yennefer since I had promised to start writing it.

That alone was evidence enough that I wasn't in my right mind. Normally I would leap at an opportunity to throw myself into some academia but I had let it slide. Neglected it and let it rot.

Was that what Kerrass was talking about next to the river? Was that what he meant by the fact that I was letting myself go.

I took a deep breath and tried to force myself into thinking about my Kerrass problem and what I sensed to be the growing gulf between us.

I had sat on the bank of the river for a long time staring at the currents and swirls and the currents in the water. For a while I had hoped that Kerrass would come back but at the same time, I knew that he wasn't going to.

I was hurt, beyond the bruise on my jaw I was angry and disappointed. I felt guilt and grief and a whole other host of emotions that I didn't entirely understand and couldn't entirely identify. I was torn between wanting to chase after Kerrass and confront him with what felt like his unfair treatment of me. But I also wanted to chase after him and beg forgiveness for whatever I had done to piss him off. Real or imagined in his own little brain.

Several times I tried to examine my own behaviour to see if I had done something wrong but I couldn't get my brain to settle on anything. I felt the same as I had the previous night when I'd been trying to sleep. There seemed to be a thought on the edge of my brain that was trying to jump up and down so that it could be heard but I couldn't quite pin it down in order to identify it.

Most of all I felt a self-disgust and loathing. I kept replaying the conversation with Kerrass over and over in my head until I thought I could recite it by heart. I thought of the things that I had said and about how they had come out wrong. I thought about the arguments and jokes that I could have made to make Kerrass laugh or to distract him from his anger.

Or at the very least to prove to him that I hadn't done anything wrong.

It's easy to look back, from here to there and realise that the thought that was trying to catch my attention was that my brain wasn't working properly. I needed to think clearly and logically and it just wasn't happening.

“Here.” said a voice. A wineskin hovered in my sight-line. “You look like you could use a drink.” It was a young voice and I looked up at the man standing over me. He was heavily muscled but lacked the grotesque over muscling of the black-smiths trade. That and the leather apron that he had on over his shirt told me that he was one of the butchers.

“Mine says hello.” He said as I took the skin off him.

“Yours?” I asked.

“Gustav.” He told me. “The Butcher that you worked with yesterday?”

I recognised him then as one of the youngish men that had sat on the fence, enjoying my humiliation.

“What is it?” I asked, shaking the bottle.

“Me ma's Elderflower wine. It's good stuff. Watered a bit because I was bringing it to work and you don't wanna be pissed when you're wielding a giant cleaver. Mine once told me that that that was how he lost his hand. Wielding a chopper while drunk. It wasn't until much later that I guessed that he was having a little joke on us apprentices.”

I took a drink. It was excellent. It had that quality that good drinks have where it seemed to scour my throat clean as it just burned through the fug that seemed to have covered my brain in wool.

“Thanks.” I said handing the skin back.

“Hey, you know.” He sat next to me, clapping me on the shoulder with a big meaty palm. “Us apprentices,

we got to stick together. Any chance to take it easy, gotta be taken right?”

“That's right.” I grinned at him.

“Anyway. Yours treatin' you hard?”

“Mine?”

“You know, your master?”

“My master?”

“Wow,” He took a heroic swallow from the wineskin. “Is it that easy being a Witcher? No offence, friend, but you seem a little dumb to be a Witcher.”

“Oh you mean Kerrass.”

The lad's eyes boggled for a moment before checking up and down the area we were sat. “You call yours by his name?”

“Why wouldn't I?”

He stared at me as though I was some kind of demon come from hell to tempt his soul into eternal damnation.

“You must do things differently up in the North,” he decided after a while, passing me the skin back.

“Probably.” I said, taking another couple of swallows.

“So anyway, treating you hard at the moment is he?”

“A little hard. I'm sat here trying to think about whether or not I deserve it.”

“You do,” He took the skin back.

“I do?”

“Yeah, we always deserve it. A good walloping now and again.” He grinned. “Admittedly he doesn't wallop me as much any more. He claims it's because I'm not as stupid as I used to be.” He sniffed to display what he thought of that. “But we always deserve it.”

“I don't follow.”

“Well how does he stop you from doing something stupid if he doesn't clip you round the ear. Yelling doesn't work over all the din of the pigs and stuff so, nice sharp shock upside the ear. Does wonders.”

“If you say so.”

“But anyway. Master only ever hits me when I deserve it.”

I opened my mouth to make a joke. Something inconsequential but decided not to. He seemed like a nice lad. Now that I could see him up close he looked to be about fourteen. Huge guy and looked as though he would be bigger yet. He was enjoying himself, sat, enjoying the spring air, sharing a drink and a moments laziness with another apprentice.

“So did I provide much entertainment then?” I asked him.

“Mmm?”

“Trying and failing to kill a pig.”

He laughed.

“Nah, not during the killing. The catching though? That was comedy gold. But no-one's funny during the killing. Although I will admit to enjoying myself a little as you got the muck all over your fancy clothes.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you know. Your frilly shirt with the La-de-da embroidery on the front.” He waved his hand in an imagined effeminate gesture. “Your tailored jerkin and your fancy, leather belt with the silver tooling.”

He snorted. “Wish I could afford a belt like that. Gotta admit. I hated you for that a bit at the beginning of things.”

“Why?”

“Well there you are in your fancy clothes and things coming into our place. At first I thought that your master had given up on you. Deciding that Witchering isn't the right trade for you or something and decided to palm you off to mine. I was looking forward to giving you a good hiding to be honest.”

“Were you afraid that I was going to replace you or something?”

“Yes.”

He said it simply enough that I believed him even though it astonished me.

“Does it not work like that in the North?” He asked me.

“Does what not work like that?”

“The masters. They pass us round like goods at trade. This apprentice for that apprentice. Sometimes they do it so that they get cheap workers or to get rid of an inept apprentice. But there isn't enough work at the tannery or at the butchers yard to support another apprentice so I thought they might be getting rid of one of us. I wouldn't mind trying my hand at a bit of blacksmithing, girls like the muscles you know?”

He winked at me conspiratorially.

“Do they?”

He gaped at me in astonishment for a moment.

“Wow. It really must be different in the north.”

“Not so different.” I realised that I was holding onto the wineskin. “My father wanted me to be a scribe. Not many pretty girls like scribes though. There's a bit of money in it but...”

He shuddered in sympathy, taking the wineskin back.

“But yeah, as I say, I quite fancied a bit of work as a blacksmith but the idea of being a Witcher's apprentice didn't really fill me with joy.” He admitted, before taking a swig.

I nodded.

“So I was glad,” the lad went on, “that you were just learning a lesson of some kind. You look better dressed for the work now anyway.”

I looked down at myself, woollen clothing replacing the cotton and silks that I had been wearing for the last eight months. I hadn't realised what I had been wearing, or what it must have looked like.

We sat and drank in silence for a bit. It's a little odd to feel yourself relaxing.

“So,” I turned back to him. Bless him, his emotions were painted all over his face. He was a little scared, a little angry about something and desperately embarrassed. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“I wanted to ask you last night but couldn't find you. Apparently you were locked in with the mayor.”

I nodded and gestured for him to continue.

His face twisted around as he tried to figure out what he wanted to say.

“So, are you,” he blew out his breath. Stopped and took another deep breath in. “Are you and your master here to deal with what's killing the kids?”

He turned away from me, staring down the stream.

“That's the idea.” I said.

“Good.” He probably meant it to be a strong, vehement response but it came out a bit more like a sob.

“Did you lose someone?” I asked as gently as I could manage.

He chuckled bitterly. “There have been twenty seven kids die here. Twenty seven in six months. We're not that big a place. There isn't anyone here who hasn't lost someone to this. I heard my master talking to the smith the other day about when they would need to start thinking about abandoning this place all together.”

“Seems a bit extreme.” I commented.

He looked at me with a certain amount of horror and a little of the old loathing in his face.

“Twenty seven children. Is there anything you wouldn't do to save the children? I thought that was the Witcher's job.”

“I'm sorry, I spoke without thinking.”

“It's alright.” Just as quickly as he had started to get angry, he subsided again. “I keep forgetting that you're from the north. Also that you're an apprentice Witcher and they say that Witchers don't have any emotions.”

I told myself, rather firmly, that I needed to keep a grip on my mouth and learn to think before speaking.

“I more meant that it was a big decision to take.” I tried after turning the phrase over a few times in my mouth to see if it could be taken as offensive.

“It is.” He said staring out over the water. “I would miss this place. I'm glad you and your master are here though. I hope you can fix it.”

“So do I.”

We sat in silence for a while.

“Listen,” I said after a while. “You don't have to, and I understand if you don't want to, but can you tell me about it?”

“What?” He wiped his hand across his face. “My sister?”

I felt a shard of ice go through my heart and a lump form in my throat.

“I understand if you don't want to.” I said. “I know it's hard but...”

“No no, I will. It's just....” He looked up and down the bank again to see if we were being watched. “I've never talked about it before.”

“I'm a Witcher.” I said before twisting my mouth in a smile in an effort to put him at ease. A trick that I had seen Kerrass used. “Well, almost. I won't judge you.”

He looked at me sceptically.

“I lost my sister too.” I said, without meaning to. “That's why I'm on the road with my master. I can't kill the thing that killed her but...” I stopped speaking. Letting him fill the silence on his own.

He nodded. “Does it get easier?” He was a big lad. He worked hard, at a physical job, outside so his bulk was all trained. But suddenly he looked very young.

“No,” I answered as honestly as I could. “Or at least, it hasn't yet.”

He smiled bitterly. “Do you know that you're the first person who has been honest about that kind of thing.” He told me. “Everyone keeps telling me that it gets easier over time. “When?” I ask them, “When does it get easier?” but they can't give me an answer.” He laughed bitterly. “It's silly but I want them to give me a time you know? Something I can work towards. I think I could live with it easier if that was the case. Even if I knew that it was years away.”

“I lost my brother to the war as well.” I said, passing over the wine-skin again after it had found it's way to me. “My big brother I mean.”

He nodded his acceptance of the lie.

“It's not that it gets easier.” I told him, lying through my teeth. “It doesn't. You're going to miss her for the rest of your life. But one day you will realise that you haven't thought of your sister in a while. Don't get me wrong. That day hurt me more than I could imagine. But that's how it works.”

He nodded.

“Thanks.”

“Tell me about her.”

He took a long drink.

“I hated her.” He said. “Little bitch that she was. She used to make my life hell.”

I stared at him in amazement. Then I felt a giggle bubble up from inside me and couldn't stop it escaping.

He grinned at me although I could see the tears running down his face.

“I'm the fourth of five children.” He told me. “An older sister, long married and working down at the Duke's castle now. I see her at festivals and things. Two older brothers. One ran off to join the army and we don't hear from him for ages before he comes back with some gifts and some tall stories and another brother who's a hunter like my dad. Then there was me. Too big and clumsy to be a hunter.

“My brother once told me that Mum and Dad had wanted another baby shortly after I was born but mum got sick and lost it. She was heart-broken and she blamed my dad for a long time.

“Those were dark days in my parents house.”

His large and honest face clouded at the memory.

“But eventually she got over it and six years after I was born, my little sister came screaming into the world. We hated each other on sight.”

He laughed at a stray thought and I decided to just let him speak.

“Have you ever seen that thing where a new mother takes the baby round the village to show them off in the same way that I used to show off my newest toy soldier that my brother had brought home for me? It's exactly the same.

“My brother brought me this wooden soldier carved to look like the knights of the Morpeth brigade. You could move it's arms and legs and I was well pleased. I went down to my friends in the village to show him off and he got passed around with everyone looking at the paintwork and things and moving the arms in exactly the same way as everyone else had while expressing jealousy.

“It was exactly the same when my mother took this new baby round all of her friends to show her off in exactly the same way. They even made the same noises.”

He sniggered at the memory.

“But then I was asked if I wanted to hold her. I didn't, but I could tell that Mum wanted me to hold her for some reason that passes my understanding. Probably so she could go and have a good hard shit in peace.”

I couldn't help but laugh. The lad was a gifted story-teller although it occurs to me now that this is how people occupy themselves when they're doing unpleasant, hard, manual work and if you're not entertaining then you shut up and let others speak.

“But Mum handed me this tiny little thing. She took one look at me before opening her mouth and started to scream. Not cry, no, not crying. This is the kind of thing when you hear a little kid really going for it. Taking a good deep breath in before really giving voice to their misery with a full throated scream of disapproval. Then, she pissed, shat and puked all over me. A Sorcerous trick for which my mother refused to allow me to burn her at the stake.”

I laughed, what else could I do. It was a funny story.

“We hated each other.” He said. “Absolutely hated each other. Everything she wanted to do, I hated and everything I wanted to do, she refused and would kick up a tantrum. To make matters worse, I was often expected to look after her even though she so obviously hated me that she would lash out with every weapon that she had at her disposal.”