Chapter 98: Tell your master that I am grateful for your help

He stopped so suddenly that I was caught off guard.

“She cried when I left home. We hated each other, I'm convinced of it, but when I left to go and live with Master Gustav and learn my trade, my mother tells me that she was inconsolable for weeks afterwards.”

He sniffed again and I looked away from his pain.

“I only found out about it afterwards.” He said after a long time. “I didn't even know that she was sick before someone thought to come and tell me that she had died. I have hated master Gustav for years but that day he put his hand on my shoulder and said “off you go son.” He said. “Come back when you're ready.”

“My family lived out of town, up closer to the trees where Dad could find more game and mother could get at some of the wilder herbs that grew out there, away from town and those parts that were picked clean. It took me ages to run up there. Ages.

“When I got there Mum had had to be put into the other room and a couple of other women were there keeping her asleep. Dad was sat in my sister's room, still cradling her. He wouldn't let her go, can you believe that? He wouldn't let them take her away.

“I found out later that she had taken one of Dad's skinning knifes to her own wrists.

“I can still see him sat there, cradling her in his arms, her head lolling off his biceps, and her fore-arms escaping from his embrace. I can still see him rocking backwards and forwards keening in a voice that I still hear late at night. He was talking to her but no-one could hear what he said.

“All I could think about was a joke I had made when I was younger. She had only been born maybe three months earlier and our mutual loathing was really beginning to dig in now. I asked Dad how it was possible that something so small and tiny could produce quite that quantity of shit. He had laughed at the time I remember.

“But as I stood there, in the entrance to my sisters room which had once been my room, I looked at the huge puddle of drying blood on the floor....

“I'm a butcher. I slaughter and cut up meat for my living so I know how much blood you can expect yo get from a pig, the same from a cow or a sheep.

“But I looked at that puddle. My first thought, presumably from my work, was that that was a huge waste of blood. My second thought was amazement that so much blood could come from so small a person. Then I remembered my comment from years earlier.

“There I was, my mother having to be drugged, my father UN-approachable and I was fighting not to giggle.”

“You were in shock.” I tried. Trying to get through the layers of self...self-loathing that the lad had seemed to take onto himself.

“Yeah. That's what Master Gustav said. Mother Trexford as well. But I don't understand it. All I can understand is that I looked at my sisters body and had to concentrate not to laugh.”

I nodded.

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I took a deep breath.

“I have to ask.” I said carefully. “Did your sister go and play near the old Watchtower?”

He looked at me.

“Of course she did. What else is there to do round here for young kids other than to climb up the watchtower and pretend you're a noble knight from ancient times saving the nation from Redanian attack.”

He realised what he said.

“Errr. Sorry.”

“Don't worry about it. My brothers and I used to pretend that we would save our family from the evil Nilfgaardians.”

We had too.

“Fair enough. Does that tell you what you need to know?”

“I think so. I want to check a few things though and I'd better get going.” Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

I felt like I was running away from him. His pain was so raw and primal. Witnessing it I found that I felt guilty although I couldn't have told you why.

“Yeah right. I'd better get back to work too.”

“Tell your master that I am grateful for your help.

“I will, maybe that will save me from a beating.”

I stared after him for a bit.

“He doesn't really beat you does he?” I called out to him.

“Nah,” he said over his shoulder. His grief put aside for a moment. “Not really, only when I'm about to do something really stupid so....most days I suppose.”

He grinned at me and ran off.

I spent a bit more time staring after him before turning back to the river and staring at the water swirling by for a minute.

“Ok,” I said to myself. “That's enough.”

I went off to see the herb-woman first. To say that the poor woman was suffering some kind of crisis of confidence would have been an understatement. She was a nice lady, edging into her thirtieth year but now wondering if she had done the right thing. If she was the right person to deal with the problems that had come up since the children had started dying.

She wept when I told her that I was an apprentice to a Witcher. She wept. I don't know whether it was relief or anger at herself for not seeing what was needed or what was going on there. All I can say is that she seemed to fold in on herself to the point that I had to go and make her some tea. The poor woman was exhausted and at the edge of her endurance.

We sat and talked for a while. She told me more about the children that had died. The children that she had lost and the anguish of the families and the village over what had been lost. I nodded and made the correct noises in an effort to keep her talking before I managed to steer the conversation over to what I wanted to talk about.

“So what I really wanted to ask was this.” I leant forward to spoon another dollop of honey into my tea. The lady favoured a particularly bitter blend of tea that wasn't entirely to my taste. “I've been told that the children were getting sick before they managed to commit an act of self-slaughter. What was actually wrong with them?”

“You see that's the thing.” She stuttered out. I got the feeling that she had spent a good portion of the last six months alternating between self-loathing and self-recrimination. “In every other case, I would have said that the child was just exhausted.”

“I see.” I said putting the cup aside having decided that it was undrinkable. “I'm not questioning you or your competence,” I said carefully, if this woman was going to continue on as the village herb-woman then someone would have to do some serious positive reinforcement for her to get her confidence back. “I'm just saying that I don't know what exhaustion looks like. I'm an apprentice Witcher, I know a bit about wounds and stuff but not exhaustion.”

She nodded, sipping her own tea with a relish that I didn't understand.

“They had that peculiar kind of restlessness that happens in children when they're tired. They were angry, sullen and resentful but when you asked them what the problem was they couldn't explain it. They didn't have a temperature but they complained of being cold which is their body telling them that they want to be wrapped up in a blanket. They struggled to look at bright lights and their eyes were bloodshot. A couple of them complained about headaches.”

I nodded. I had brought my notebook with me and made a couple of notes.

“Anything else?” I asked

“Yes, a couple of them had bloodshot eyes which is often a sign of eye-strain. Even for children, their attention would wander and they had lost their appetites.”

“Is that unusual?”

“It is in healthy children. You have to understand that all of these individual symptoms could lead you into thinking of colds or something but there were no symptoms in association with colds. There was no coughing or running noses, sore throats, fevers. A few head-aches but nothing that made me concerned.”

She shook her head, again showing a few signs of her own agitated exhaustion.

“In every other case. Every time you're dealing with this kind of thing, you put the child to bed and wait to see if that cures it. It did every time up until this whole thing started and I've been through my teachers notes and she said the same. I even managed to get her down here once and she was just as mystified as I was.”

I nodded again. “So here's my next question. Those children that died without an act of self-slaughter. What did they actually die of.”

“Ummm, how technical can you understand.?”

“Try me.”

“Do you know what an aneurysm is?”

“I've heard of it.”

“Basically, part of their brains started to bleed and it caused the body to shut down. That was the actual final cause of death but.... to those of us watching it looked like they slept themselves to death.”

“What?”

“Don't look at me like that.” It was half sob, half snap of anger.

“Sorry, I don't mean to question you, I just need to know what you meant.”

“No, sorry. I'm sorry. It's not been a good few months.”

I poured her some more tea and passed over my handkerchief. It was not the first time I had to do so.

“They went to bed. The same as we had told them to do and got them to rest. They did so. Then they just slept and slept. At first we could wake them up to get some food and water into them but after a while we couldn't even do that. They just...slept until we would realise that they were no longer breathing. The only reason I know about the aneurysm is because of the nose-bleeds and the blood spots on their eyes.”

I nodded and made some more notes.

“Ok.” I said. “Thank you very much.”

“Do you know what's happening here?”

“I don't know.” I told her. “But I've got a good idea.” I took a deep breath. “I need to ask. What is that old Watchtower?”

“Oh that old thing? It's always been there.”

“Yes, but what is it?”

“Just a tower.”

“Is there anything about it that could be making these kids sick? People tell me that all the kids concerned go up there regularly to play.”

“Kids round here have always gone up to play. If it was something to do with the Watchtower, I would be sick. We send them there because it's relatively safe, it keeps the kids entertained and away from the village so that they're not underfoot.”

I nodded before taking another deep breath. I didn't want her to think that she could have done something.

“I heard about the mudslide?”

She looked confused.

“Oh yes. Which one?”

“The one about seven months ago. I'm told it caused the Watchtower to tilt a little bit.”

“The tower has been tilting for years. The mayor says that it would take a lot more erosion before the tower would fall and I believe him. You should go and have a look.”

“I will. Is there anything else that you can think of that might help me?” Not that I thought that there might be but you never know and locals come out with the strangest things when you're not paying attention.

“Remember,” I told her. “I'm not from round here so I might not know what's important and what's not.”

“I don't think there's anything.” She told me. “I'll let you know if I think of anything though.” She noticed my abandoned cup. “You not going to finish your tea?”

“No thanks. I want to go and have a look at this Watchtower.”

She nodded. She proved she could move fast though as she caught my arm as I got to the door.

“Thank you.” She said. “Thank you for coming.” Then she kissed me on the cheek.

I would like to say that I didn't flee in the face of the poor woman's gratitude but I would be lying.

I went back to the inn to collect my spear and a couple of torches before heading up to the Watchtower. It was a little chilling. As I went up there there was a small group of children dancing around in a circle, holding hands and singing some kind of old nursery rhyme. One of the old rhymes that are actually meant as a warning or as a teaching device but over time their meaning has been lost. I didn't recognise this one but I did hear one of the children complain that there weren't enough of them to play the game properly any more.

I considered going over there to see if I could warn them off the Watchtower but I decided that it would be futile. From what the herb-woman had said, village children had been playing here since the village had first been built. Some stranger telling them that it might be dangerous wasn't going to change years worth of habits.

Instead I went over to the tower itself.

Calling it a tower is probably a bit ambitious. It's summit was maybe twelve feet off the ground. It was maybe nine foot square as a base and the stairs, such as they were, to reach the summit were carved into the outside walls of the tower. I climbed to the summit first to have a look at the view. It was cold up there and the spring winds blew straight through me.

I shivered but I was also procrastinating.

My working theory was that there was something living under the Watchtower. Just be looking at the thing you could tell that it predated human settlement to the area. The stone was the wrong colour for any kind of local stone. It was dark, almost granite like. As always when I find these odd structures that seem so out of place, I'm left wondering what they were built for. What were the original builders guarding against. It was the same feeling that had assailed me when I first saw Kaer Morhen. What was that place? And why was it there? But most chillingly. What was it guarding against?

In this case, what were the ancient builders of this tower watching for?

I looked around but humanity had changed the landscape so utterly that there was no way I could tell what might have happened.

But, as I say, my working theory was that something was under the tower. I reasoned that the erosion of the water coming down from the mountains had worn away at the hill that the tower had stood on but that the landslide had done some serious damage. Not to the stone work as that seemed as solid as it ever had been.

The stone was well put together enough that the original builders had had no need for mortar. A thing that would have been thought of as being impossible to modern human builders.

Reluctantly I climbed down from the tower. I was looking for cracks in the earth, something that could let light in to a newly opened up cellar or something. My plan was to search out from the tower in a spiral pattern. Starting from inside the tower itself.

The insides of the tower were relatively sheltered. As is the case with a lot of these kinds of ruins I found a pile of hay as well as some dry and sheltered firewood. A small circle of stones set out an area for a fire with black soot marks on the floor. I scratched at the floor with my eating knife, I know better than to use my fighting weapons for such investigations and found that the floor of the tower was packed dirt and mud over some kind of stone floor. I spent a little bit of time trying to find if it was made up of flagstones but eventually it became clear that I would need to dig up, just about, the entire floor of the tower to find anything out. Plus, I reasoned, if the gap was recently opened then it should, be at least partially visible. And it was obvious that some of this dirt had been impacted into place over years.

I did pull the hay apart though, and rearrange the woodpile to see if it was hiding anything.

It wasn't.

So I moved outside.

It's strangely off-putting to find what you're looking for almost immediately. When I started going around the edges of the tower, especially down between the edge of the tower and the bank that was being eroded, I found several cracks in the ground.

One of which, in particular, was quite large. I had a look at the edges and found scuff marks at the edges of the crack as well as some grooves that pointed to rope being on the edge.

Somebody had already been down here, recently too if I had to be any judge. I guessed at Kerrass and felt absurdly pleased with myself.

It's always reassuring to know that you're on the right track.

I peered in carefully. It was going to be a squeeze but I thought I could make it down there. I would prefer to have a rope but I didn't want to have to go back into town as I was pretty sure by that stage that if I had to go back then my courage would fail me.

I kept the spear beside me and slid down. It was not easy. On a couple of occasions I went sharply down and then had to climb back up again. I resolved that I would bring a rope next time to make sure it would be easier to find my way. As it was I mislaid my spear twice and had to backtrack to find it again. I was dimly aware that I was moving in the rough direction of the tower itself. I was also aware that I had probably moved a depressingly small distance.

In the end though I made I through to what felt like a small cave. I don't know how it got there. It was incredibly dark with just enough light coming in from the hole that I had crawled down for me to be able to light a torch. I didn't want to leave it lit for too long as I was unsure of the air supply down here as it did smell pretty stale.

Off to one side I found some stairs that led up to a flat stone ceiling which I guessed to be the floor of the watchtower. There was a flat stone there but to get to it I would need to trust the wooden stairs that didn't look to be too stable or healthy but even if I got there I guessed that it would be too heavy. The floor of the tower was so impacted with dirt that I doubted I would be able to lift the heavy looking stone up.

Beyond that it was a fairly standard looking cave. Not too large. Again, I had no difficulty imagining that it might once have been used to house a supply cache for whoever had built the tower. I wouldn't want to sleep down here as it would be too stuffy but I could see that it could be done.

However the floor was muddy and tacky under foot. Water was seeping in from somewhere and had washed the earth into the cave where it had settled into the ground as mud. I wondered if it was also seeping out somewhere.

I also thought about how far down I was. The mud had raised the ground level of the cave by not a small amount so I was moving at a stoop as I looked around the edges. I also found animal holes and guessed at rats, rabbits or other small scavengers.

I was examining one of the wholes when I stood up suddenly and banged my head on the ceiling. The hairs down my arm had stood on end and I shivered.

The room was too small for proper spear work unless I fought from my knees which was not a prospect that I found particularly exciting. I still had my spear in hand and I span, I planted the torch into the mud so that it stood upright, removed the bottom half of my spear and tossed it towards the stairs where I would be able to collect it later without having to scrabble around in the mud to look for it.

I edged back to the wall and put my back against it as I scanned the small cave for the tell-tale green light of a spectre.

It's the strangest feeling being in the presence of a ghost when it doesn't want to be seen, or the conditions aren't right for it to be seen. I shivered, I felt the hairs stand up on my neck and down my fore-arm and I had the strangest sense that something was stood next to me, only a meter or so away.

I turned towards it but the feeling seemed to move to the right.

I know that that seems to be odd or strange but I really can't think of any other way to put it. I took a deep breath.

“Hello,” I called out although it might be more accurate to say that I squeaked it out.

Then the thought occurred that I wasn't properly prepared for a confrontation with a ghost. I took another deep breath, scooped up the torch and moved to pick up the bottom half of my spear. I jammed both parts of my spear into my belt and went to climb up and out of the little cave.

I felt eyes on the back of my head.

I was being watched.

Climbing out turned out to be much more difficult than climbing down.

I sat on the hillside for a little while thinking things through although it seemed to be obvious as to what needed to happen next. The kids tried to come up here at night when they were delirious.

So night time it was.

I yawned before climbing to my feet and heading into town.

I found Kerrass sat at a corner table, reading the same book that he had been looking through before. He had a mug of something that was steaming next to him and he was reading carefully, his lips moving as he read. I didn't get to really look at the book but I saw that it was covered in handwriting.

He didn't look up as I approached.

“I need some Spectre oil.” I told him.

Without speaking he reached out his other hand, the one that he wasn't using to mark his place in the book with and held out the small bottle of liquid. He must have already had it in his hand waiting for me.

Another sign that I was on the right lines.

I wanted to say something but for the life of me I couldn't think of what needed to be said. To say that I was sorry would be wrong as I wasn't entirely sure what I was sorry about yet so an apology would sound wrong in my head. Also, I wasn't entirely sure what I had to be sorry about, other than a vague kind of feeling that I had fucked up somewhere. Demanding an apology from him also seemed wrong.

It was almost the definition of our association that he knew more than I did about these kinds of situations. In any other situation to do with travelling on the road or hunting monsters I would have deferred to his judgement in every situation. In the same way that he would defer to mine when it came to some kind of social engagement but I.....

Oh....

Something to think about there.

I decided that I was still feeling fairly muddled and that talking to Kerrass wouldn't do either of us any good.

Yet.

So instead I went to bed in an effort to get some rest before what was sure to be an interesting evening.