The Tower of Swallows Read online

  Vysogota only now seemed to have realised that he hadn’t written a single word on the page. He put his quill to the parchment, but the ink had dried. The old man was not bothered in the slightest.

  ‘May it be noted,’ he continued, ‘that the girl has had no children. I emphasise: I refer to old scars. No shortage of fresh wounds on her body. The girl has been beaten. Flogged, and by various means, probably at her father’s hand. She has probably also been kicked.

  ‘I also found on her body quite a strange distinguishing mark… Hmmm… Let’s write this down, for the good of science… The girl has a red rose tattooed on her loins, right by the pubic mound.’

  Vysogota stared at the sharpened quill point before dipping it into the inkwell. This time, though, he did not forget why he had done it–he quickly began to cover the page with even lines of sloping script. He wrote until the quill was dry.

  ‘She was talking and shouting in befuddlement,’ he said. ‘Her accent and way of expressing herself–if I pass over frequent interjections in profane criminal cant–are quite confusing, difficult to place, but I would risk the assertion that they originate rather from the North than the South. Some of the words…’

  Once again his quill scratched over the parchment, much too briefly to write down everything he had said a short while before. And then he took up his monologue in exactly the place he had left it.

  ‘Some of the words and names the girl mumbled in her delirium are worth remembering. And investigating. Everything suggests a very–I mean very–extraordinary person has found their way to old Vysogota’s cottage…’

  He said nothing for a while and listened.

  ‘I just hope,’ he muttered, ‘that old Vysogota’s cottage doesn’t prove the end of her road.’

  Vysogota bent over the parchment and even pressed his quill to it, but wrote nothing, not a single letter. He threw the quill onto the table. He breathed heavily for a while, muttered angrily and blew his nose. He looked at the pallet and listened to the sounds coming from it.

  ‘It must be stated and noted,’ he said in a weary voice, ‘that things look very ill. All my endeavours may be insufficient, and my exertions in vain. My fears were well-founded. The wound is infected. The girl is most worryingly feverish. Three of the four cardinal symptoms of acute inflammation have appeared. Rubor, calor and tumor can easily be confirmed by eye and touch. When the post-treatment shock passes, the fourth symptom–dolor–will also appear. Let it be writ that almost half a century has passed since I have practiced medicine. I feel the years weighing on my memory and the dexterity of my fingers. I have little practical skill, and there is little I can do. I have painfully few resources or medicaments. The only hope lies in the young body’s immune mechanisms…’

  ‘Twelfth hour following my intervention. In accordance with expectations came the fourth cardinal symptom of inflammation: dolor. The patient is crying out in pain, the fever and shivers are growing stronger. I have nothing, not a single physic to give her. I have a small quantity of stink weed elixir, but the girl is too frail to survive its effects. I also have monk’s hood, but monk’s hood would surely kill her.’

  ‘Fifteenth hour following my intervention. Dawn. Patient unconscious. The fever advances rapidly, the shivers intensify. Moreover, powerful spasms of the facial muscles are occurring. If it is tetanus the girl is done for. Let us hope it is only the facial nerve… Or the trigeminal nerve. Or both of them… The girl would be left disfigured… But she would live…’

  Vysogota glanced at the parchment, on which not a single word was written.

  ‘On condition,’ he said hollowly, ‘that she survives the infection.’

  ‘Twentieth hour following my intervention. The fever advances. The rubor, calor, tumor and dolor are reaching, I venture, critical limits. But the girl has no chance of survival, of even reaching those limits. Thus do I write… I, Vysogota of Corvo, do not believe in the existence of gods. But were they by any chance to exist, let them take this girl into their care. And may they forgive me what I have done… If what I did turns out to be in error.’

  Vysogota put down his quill, rubbed his swollen and itchy eyelids, and pressed a fist against his temple.

  ‘I have given her a mixture of stink weed and monk’s hood,’ he said hollowly. ‘The next hours will determine everything.’

  He was not sleeping, only dozing, when a knocking and a pounding accompanied by a groan wrenched him from his slumber. It was a groan more of fury than of pain.

  Outside, the day was dawning. A faint light filtered through the slits in the shutters. The hourglass had run its course long before; as usual Vysogota had forgotten to turn it over. The oil lamp flickered, and the ruby glow of the hearth dimly lit the corner of the chamber. The old man stood up and moved away the makeshift screen of blankets which separated the pallet from the rest of the room, in order to give the patient peace and quiet.

  The patient had already picked herself up from the floor where she had fallen a moment earlier, and was sitting hunched on the edge of her pallet, trying to scratch her face under the dressing. Vysogota cleared his throat.

  ‘I asked you not to rise. You are too feeble. If you need anything, call. I’m always at hand.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want you to be at hand,’ she said softly, under her breath, but quite clearly. ‘I need to pee.’

  When he returned to remove the chamber pot, she was lying on her back on the pallet, fingering the dressing attached to her cheek by strips of bandage wrapped around her forehead and neck. When he went over to her again a moment later she was in the same position.

  ‘Four days?’ she asked, looking at the ceiling.

  ‘Five. Almost a day has passed since our last conversation. You slept the whole day. That is good. You need sleep.’

  ‘I feel better.’

  ‘I’m gladdened to hear it. Let’s remove the dressing. I’ll help you sit up. Take my hand.’

  The wound was healing well and cleanly. This time the removal of the bandages passed without the painful tearing of the dressing from the scab. The girl gingerly touched her cheek. She grimaced, but Vysogota knew it wasn’t only from the pain. Every time she checked the extent of the disfigurement she appreciated the gravity of the wound. She made certain–with horror–that what she had touched before had not been a fevered nightmare.

  ‘Do you have a looking glass?’

  ‘I do not,’ he lied.

  She looked at him totally clear-headed, possibly for the first time.

  ‘You mean it’s that bad?’ she asked, cautiously running her fingers over the stitches.

  ‘It’s a very long cut,’ he mumbled, angry at himself that he was making excuses and justifying himself to a girl. ‘Your face is still swollen. In a few days I shall remove the sutures. Until then I shall be applying wolfsbane and extract of willow. I shall no longer bandage your entire head. It’s healing nicely. Very nicely.’

  She did not reply. She moved her mouth and jaw, and wrinkled and contorted her face, testing what the wound permitted and what not.

  ‘I’ve made pigeon broth. Will you eat some?’

  ‘I will. But this time I’ll try by myself. It’s humiliating to be spoon-fed when I’m not paralysed.’

  Eating took her a long time. She lifted the wooden spoon to her mouth cautiously, using as much effort as if it weighed two pounds. But she managed without the help of Vysogota, who was observing her with interest. Vysogota was inquisitive–and burning with curiosity. He knew that the girl’s return to health would lead to conversations which could throw light on the whole mysterious matter. He knew it and couldn’t wait for that moment. He had lived too long alone in the wilderness.

  She finished eating and sank back onto her pillow. For a moment she gazed lifelessly at the ceiling and then turned her head. The extraordinarily large green eyes, Vysogota realised once again, gave her face an innocently childlike expression, now clashing violently with her hideously disfigured cheek. Vysogota k
new those looks; a big-eyed, permanent child, were a physiognomy arousing an instinctive sympathetic reaction. A perennial girl, even when her twentieth, thirtieth, why, even fortieth birthday had long ago sunk into oblivion. Yes, Vysogota knew those looks well. His second wife had been like that. And his daughter, too.

  ‘I must flee from here,’ the girl suddenly said. ‘Urgently. I’m being hunted. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ he nodded. ‘Those were your first words, which contrary to appearances were not ravings. To be more precise, they were among the first. First you asked about your horse and your sword. In that order. Once I had assured you that your horse and sword were in good hands, you became suspicious that I was the comrade of a certain Bonhart and wasn’t treating you but inflicting the torture of hope. When, not without difficulty, I put you right, you introduced yourself as Falka and thanked me for saving you.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ She turned her head away on the pillow, as though wanting to avoid meeting his eyes. ‘I’m glad I didn’t forget to thank you. I remember that vaguely. I didn’t know what was reality and what was a dream. I was afraid I hadn’t thanked you. My name’s not Falka.’

  ‘I learned that, too, although rather accidentally. You were talking in your fever.’

  ‘I’m a runaway,’ she said, without turning around. ‘A fugitive. It’s dangerous to give me shelter. It’s dangerous to know what I’m really called. I must get on my horse and flee, before they catch up with me…’

  ‘A moment ago,’ he said kindly, ‘you had difficulty sitting on a chamber pot. I don’t really see you mounting a horse. But I assure you, you are safe. No one will track you here.’

  ‘I’m certainly being pursued. They’re on my trail, combing the area…’

  ‘Calm down. It rains every day, no one will find your tracks. You are in a wilderness, in a hermitage. In the home of a hermit who has cut himself off from the world. To such an extent that it would also be difficult for the world to find him. If, however, you wish it, I can look for a way to send tidings about you to your family or friends.’

  ‘You don’t even know who I am—’

  ‘You are a wounded girl,’ he interrupted, ‘running from somebody who does not flinch from injuring girls. Do you wish me to pass on some tidings?’

  ‘There is no one,’ she replied a moment later, and Vysogota’s ear caught a change in her voice. ‘My friends are dead. They were massacred.’

  He made no comment.

  ‘I am death,’ she began again, in a strange-sounding voice. ‘Everyone who encounters me dies.’

  ‘Not everyone,’ he contradicted, scrutinising her. ‘Not Bonhart, the one whose name you screamed out in the fever, the one you are running from. Your encounter seems to have harmed you rather than him. Did he… did he cut your face?’

  ‘No.’ She pursed her lips, to stifle something which was either a groan or a curse. ‘My face was cut by Tawny Owl. Stefan Skellen. But Bonhart… Bonhart hurt me much more gravely. More deeply. Did I talk about that in the fever?’

  ‘Calm down. You’re weak, you should avoid powerful emotions.’

  ‘My name is Ciri.’

  ‘I’ll make you a compress of wolfsbane, Ciri.’

  ‘Hold on… a moment. Give me a looking glass.’

  ‘I told you—’

  ‘Please!’

  He did as she asked, judging that he had to, that he could delay it no longer. He even brought the oil lamp. So she could better see what had been done to her face.

  ‘Well, yes,’ she said in an altered, trembling voice. ‘Well, yes. It’s just as I thought. Almost as I thought.’

  He went away, pulling the makeshift screen of blankets after him.

  She tried hard to sob quietly, so he wouldn’t hear.

  The following day Vysogota removed half of the stitches. Ciri touched her cheek, hissed like a viper, and complained of an intense pain in her ear and heightened sensitivity in her neck near her jaw. Nonetheless, she got up, dressed, and went outside. Vysogota did not protest. He went out with her. He didn’t have to help her or hold her up. The girl was healthy and much stronger than he had expected.

  She only wobbled once outside, and held on to the door frame.

  ‘Why…’ she said, sucking in lungfuls of air. ‘What a chill! Is it a frost or what? Winter already? How long have I been lying here? A few weeks?’

  ‘Exactly six days. It’s the fifth day of October. But it promises to be a very cold October.’

  ‘The fifth of October?’ She frowned and hissed in pain. ‘How can it be? Two weeks…’

  ‘What? What two weeks?’

  ‘Never mind,’ she shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’ve got something wrong… But perhaps I haven’t. Tell me, what is it that reeks around here?’

  ‘Pelts. I hunt muskrat, beaver, coypu and otter, and cure their hides. Even hermits have to make a living.’

  ‘Where’s my horse?’

  ‘In the barn.’

  The black mare greeted them with loud neighing, joined by the bleating of Vysogota’s goat, which was greatly displeased by having to share its lodgings with another resident. Ciri hugged the horse’s neck, patted it and stroked its mane. The mare snorted and pawed the straw with a hoof.

  ‘Where’s my saddle? Saddlecloth? Harness?’

  ‘Here.’

  He did not protest, make any comments nor voice his opinion. He leaned on his stick and said nothing. He did not move when she grunted trying to lift the saddle, didn’t budge when she staggered beneath the weight and flopped down heavily onto the straw-covered floor with a loud groan. He did not approach her or help her to stand. He watched intently.

  ‘Very well,’ she said through clenched teeth, pushing away the mare, which was trying to shove its nose down her collar. ‘I get it. But I have to move on from here, dammit! I must!’

  ‘Where would you go?’ he asked coldly.

  Still sitting on the straw next to her fallen saddle, she touched her face.

  ‘As far away as possible.’

  He nodded, as though her answer had satisfied him, made everything clear and didn’t leave any room for speculation. Ciri struggled to her feet. She didn’t even try to reach down to pick up the saddle or harness. She just checked that there was hay and oats in the manger, and began to rub the horse’s back and sides with a wisp of straw. Vysogota stood in silence. He didn’t have to wait long. The girl staggered against the post supporting the ceiling, now as white as a sheet. Without a word he handed her his stick.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s just—’

  ‘It’s just you felt giddy, because you’re sick and as weak as a kitten. Let’s go back. You must lie down.’

  Ciri went out again at sunset, after sleeping for a good few hours. Vysogota, returning from the river, happened upon her by the bramble hedge.

  ‘Don’t go too far from the cottage,’ he said curtly. ‘Firstly, you’re too weak—’

  ‘I’m feeling better.’

  ‘Secondly, it’s dangerous. There is a huge marsh all around us, endless tracts of reeds. You don’t know the paths, you might get lost or drown in the bog.’

  ‘And you,’ she said, pointing at the sack he was dragging, ‘know the paths, of course. And you don’t walk that far, so the swamp can’t be so huge at all. You tan hides to support yourself, I understand. Kelpie, my mare, has oats, but I don’t see any fields around here. We ate chicken and groats. And bread. Real bread, not flatbread. You couldn’t have got the bread from a trapper. So there’s a village nearby.’

  ‘Unerringly deduced,’ he calmly agreed. ‘Indeed, I get provisions from the nearest village. The nearest, which doesn’t mean it’s near. It lies on the edge of the swamp. The swamp adjoins the river. I exchange pelts for food, which they bring me by boat. Bread, kasha, flour, salt, cheese, sometimes a coney or a hen. Occasionally news.’

  No question was forthcoming, so he continued.

  ‘A band of horsemen on the hunt were in the
village twice. The first time they warned people not to hide you, they threatened the peasants with fire and sword if you were seized in the village. The second time they promised a reward for finding your corpse. Your pursuers are convinced that you’re lying dead in the forests, in a gorge or a ravine.’

  ‘They won’t rest,’ she muttered, ‘until they find a body. They have to have proof that I’m dead. They won’t give up without that proof. They’ll root around everywhere. Until they finally end up here…’

  ‘It really matters to them,’ he observed. ‘I’d say it matters uncommonly to them…’

  She pursed her lips.

  ‘Don’t be afraid. I’ll leave before they find me here. I won’t put you at risk… Don’t be afraid.’

  ‘Why do you think I’m afraid?’ he shrugged. ‘Is there a reason to be afraid? No one will find this place, no one will track you here.

  If, however, you stick your nose out of the reeds, you’ll fall straight into your pursuers’ hands.’

  ‘In other words,’ she tossed her head proudly, ‘I have to stay here? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘You aren’t a prisoner. You can leave when you want. More precisely: whenever you’re able to. But you can stay with me and wait. Your pursuers will eventually become disheartened. They always get disheartened, sooner or later. Always. You can believe me. I know what I’m saying.’

  Her green eyes flashed when she looked at him.

  ‘And anyway,’ he said quickly, shrugging and avoiding her gaze, ‘you’ll do as you please. I repeat, I’m not holding you a prisoner here.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll leave today,’ she said. ‘I’m too weak… And the sun will soon be setting… And anyway I don’t know the paths. So let’s go back to the cottage. I’m frozen.’