Time of Contempt Read online

  ‘I know,’ interrupted Geralt. ‘I know what he did to the Riverdell peasant family. And I was expecting more for my two hundred and fifty crowns. Up to now, your only fresh information has been about the sorcerers’ school and the Kaedwen secret service. I know the rest. I know Rience is a ruthless killer. I know he’s an arrogant rogue who doesn’t even bother to use aliases. I know he’s working for somebody. But for whom, Codringher?’

  ‘For some sorcerer or other. It was a sorcerer who bought him out of that dungeon. You told me yourself – and Dandelion confirmed it – that Rience uses magic. Real magic, not the tricks that some expellee from the academy might know. So someone’s backing him, they’re equipping him with amulets and probably secretly training him. Some officially practising sorcerers have secret pupils and factotums like him for doing illegal or dirty business. In sorcerers’ slang it’s described as “having someone on a leash”.’

  ‘Were he on a magician’s leash Rience would be using camouflaging magic. But he doesn’t change his name or face. He hasn’t even got rid of the scar from the burn Yennefer gave him.’

  ‘That confirms precisely that he’s on a leash,’ said Codringher, coughing and wiping his lips again with his handkerchief, ‘because magical camouflage isn’t camouflage at all; only dilettantes use stuff like that. Were Rience hiding under a magical shield or illusory mask, it would immediately set off every magical alarm, and there are currently alarms like that at practically every city gate. Sorcerers never fail to detect illusory masks. Even in the biggest gathering of people, in the biggest throng, Rience would attract all of their attention, as if flames were shooting out of his ears and clouds of smoke out of his arse. So I repeat: Rience is in the service of a sorcerer and is operating so as not to draw the attention of other sorcerers to himself.’

  ‘Some say he’s a Nilfgaardian spy.’

  ‘I know. For example, Dijkstra, the head of the Redania secret service, thinks that. Dijkstra is seldom wrong, so one can only assume he’s right this time, too. But having one role doesn’t rule out the other. A sorcerer’s factotum may be a Nilfgaardian spy at the same time.’

  ‘You’re saying that a sanctioned sorcerer is spying for Nilfgaard through Rience?’

  ‘Nonsense,’ coughed Codringher, looking intently into his handkerchief. ‘A sorcerer spying for Nilfgaard? Why? For money? Risible. Counting on serious power under the rule of the victorious Emperor Emhyr? Even more ludicrous. It’s no secret that Emhyr var Emreis keeps his sorcerers on a short leash. Sorcerers in Nilfgaard are treated about the same as, let’s say, stablemen. And they have no more power than stablemen either. Would any of our headstrong mages choose to fight for an emperor who would treat them as a stable boy? Filippa Eilhart, who dictates addresses and edicts to Vizimir of Redania? Sabrina Glevissig, who interrupts the speeches of Henselt of Kaedwen, banging her fist on the table and ordering the king to be silent and listen? Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, who recently told Demavend of Aedirn that, for the moment, he has no time for him?’

  ‘Get to the point, Codringher. What does any of that have to do with Rience?’

  ‘It’s simple. The Nilfgaardian secret service is trying to get to a sorcerer by getting their factotum to work for them. From what I know, Rience wouldn’t spurn the Nilfgaardian florin and would probably betray his master without a second thought.’

  ‘Now you’re talking nonsense. Even our headstrong mages know when they’re being betrayed and Rience, were he exposed, would dangle from a gibbet. If he was lucky.’

  ‘You’re acting like a child, Geralt. You don’t hang exposed spies – you make use of them. You stuff them with disinformation and try to make double agents out of them—’

  ‘Don’t bore this child, Codringher. Neither the arcana of intelligence work nor politics interest me. Rience is breathing down my neck, and I want to know why and on whose orders. On the orders of some sorcerer, it would appear. So who is it?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. But I soon will.’

  ‘Soon,’ muttered the Witcher, ‘is too late for me.’

  ‘I in no way rule that out,’ said Codringher gravely. ‘You’ve landed in a dreadful pickle, Geralt. It’s good you came to me; I know how to get people out of them. I already have, essentially.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the lawyer, putting his handkerchief to his lips and coughing. ‘For you see, my friend, in addition to the sorcerer, and possibly also Nilfgaard, there is a third party in the game. I was visited, and mark this well, by agents from King Foltest’s secret service. They had a problem: the king had ordered them to search for a certain missing princess. When finding her turned out not to be quite so simple, those agents decided to enlist a specialist in such thorny problems. While elucidating the case to the specialist, they hinted that a certain witcher might know a good deal about the missing princess. That he might even know where she was.’

  ‘And what did the specialist do?’

  ‘At first he expressed astonishment. It particularly astonished him that the aforementioned witcher had not been deposited in a dungeon in order to find out – in the traditional manner – everything he knew, and even plenty of what he didn’t know but might invent in order to satisfy his questioners. The agents replied that they had been forbidden to do that. Witchers, they explained, have such a sensitive nervous system that they immediately die under torture when, as they described quite vividly, a vein bursts in their brains. Because of that, they had been ordered to hunt the witcher. This task had also turned out to be taxing. The specialist praised the agents’ good sense and instructed them to report back in two weeks.’

  ‘And did they?’

  ‘I’ll say they did. This specialist, who already regarded you as a client, presented the agents with hard evidence that Geralt the Witcher has never had and could never have anything in common with the missing princess. For the specialist had found witnesses to the death of Princess Cirilla; granddaughter of Calanthe, daughter of Queen Pavetta. Cirilla died three years ago in a refugee camp in Angren. Of diphtheria. The child suffered terribly before her death. You won’t believe it, but the Temerian agents had tears in their eyes as they listened to my witnesses’ accounts.’

  ‘I have tears in my eyes too. I presume these Temerian agents could not – or would not – offer you more than two hundred and fifty crowns?’

  ‘Your sarcasm pains my heart, Witcher. I’ve got you out of a pickle, and you, rather than thank me, wound my heart.’

  ‘I thank you and I beg your pardon. Why did King Foltest order his agents to search for Ciri, Codringher? What were they ordered to do, should they have found her?’

  ‘Oh, but you are slow-witted. Kill her, of course. She is considered a pretender to the throne of Cintra, for which there are other plans.’

  ‘It doesn’t add up, Codringher. The Cintran throne was burnt to the ground along with the royal palace, the city and the rest of the country. Nilfgaard rules there now. Foltest is well aware of that; and other kings too. How, exactly, can Ciri pretend to a throne that doesn’t exist?’

  ‘Come,’ said Codringher, getting up, ‘let us try to find an answer to that question together. In the meanwhile, I shall give you proof of my trust . . . What is it about that portrait that interests you so much?’

  ‘That it’s riddled with holes, as though a woodpecker had been pecking at it for a few seasons,’ said Geralt, looking at a painting in a gilt frame hanging on the wall opposite the lawyer’s desk, ‘and that it portrays a rare idiot.’

  ‘It’s my late father,’ said Codringher, grimacing a little. ‘A rare idiot indeed. I hung his portrait there so as to always have him before my eyes. As a warning. Come, Witcher.’

  They went out into the corridor. The tomcat, which had been lying in the middle of the carpet, enthusiastically licking a rear paw extended at a strange angle, vanished into the darkness of the corridor at the sight of the witcher.

  ‘Why don’t cats like you, Geralt? Does it hav
e something to do with the—’

  ‘Yes,’ he interrupted, ‘it does.’

  One of the mahogany panels slid open noiselessly, revealing a secret passage. Codringher went first. The panel, no doubt set in motion by magic, closed behind them but did not plunge them into darkness. Light reached them from the far end of the secret passage.

  It was cold and dry in the room at the end of the corridor, and the oppressive, stifling smell of dust and candles hung in the air.

  ‘You can meet my partner, Geralt.’

  ‘Fenn?’ smiled the Witcher. ‘You jest.’

  ‘Oh, but I don’t. Admit it, you suspected Fenn didn’t exist!’

  ‘Not at all.’

  A creaking could be heard from between the rows of bookcases and bookshelves that reached up to the low vaulted ceiling, and a moment later a curious vehicle emerged. It was a high-backed chair on wheels. On the chair sat a midget with a huge head, set directly on disproportionately narrow shoulders. The midget had no legs.

  ‘I’d like to introduce Jacob Fenn,’ said Codringher, ‘a learned legist, my partner and valued co-worker. And this is our guest and client –’

  ‘– the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia,’ finished the cripple with a smile. ‘I guessed without too much difficulty. I’ve been working on the case for several months. Follow me, gentlemen.’

  They set off behind the creaking chair into the labyrinth of bookcases, which groaned beneath a weight of printed works that even the university library of Oxenfurt would have been proud to have in its collection. The incunabula, judged Geralt, must have been collected by several generations of Codringhers and Fenns. He was pleased by the obvious show of trust, and happy to finally have the chance to meet Fenn. He did not doubt, however, that the figure of Fenn, though utterly genuine, was also partially fictitious. The fictitious Fenn, Codringher’s infallible alter ego, was supposedly often seen abroad, while the chair-bound, learned legist probably never left the building.

  The centre of the room was particularly well lit, and there stood a low pulpit, accessible from the chair on wheels and piled high with books, rolls of parchment and vellum, great sheets of paper, bottles of ink, bunches of quills and innumerable mysterious utensils. Not all of them were mystifying. Geralt recognised moulds for forging seals and a diamond grater for removing the text from official documents. In the centre of the pulpit lay a small ball-firing repeating arbalest, and next to it huge magnifying glasses made of polished rock crystal peeped out from under a velvet cloth. Magnifying glasses of that kind were rare and cost a fortune.

  ‘Found anything new, Fenn?’

  ‘Not really,’ said the cripple, smiling. His smile was pleasant and very endearing. ‘I’ve reduced the list of Rience’s potential paymasters to twenty-eight sorcerers . . .’

  ‘Let’s leave that for the moment,’ Codringher interrupted quickly. ‘Right now something else is of interest to us. Enlighten Geralt as to the reasons why the missing princess of Cintra is the object of extensive search operations by the agents of the Four Kingdoms.’

  ‘The girl has the blood of Queen Calanthe flowing in her veins,’ said Fenn, seeming astonished to be asked to explain such obvious matters. ‘She is the last of the royal line. Cintra has considerable strategic and political importance. A vanished pretendress to the crown remaining beyond the sphere of influence is inconvenient, and may be dangerous were she to fall under the wrong influence. For example, that of Nilfgaard.’

  ‘As far as I recall,’ said Geralt, ‘Cintran law bars women from succession.’

  ‘That is true,’ agreed Fenn and smiled once more. ‘But a woman may always become someone’s wife and the mother of a male heir. The Four Kingdoms’ intelligence services learned of Rience’s feverish search for the princess and were convinced that’s what it’s all about. It was thus decided to prevent the princess from becoming a wife or a mother. Using simple but effective means.’

  ‘But the princess is dead,’ said Codringher, seeing the change the smiling midget’s words had evoked on Geralt’s face. ‘The agents learned of it and have called off their hunt.’

  ‘Only for now,’ said the Witcher, working hard to remain calm and sound unemotional. ‘The thing about falsehoods is that they usually come to light. What’s more, the royal agents are only one of the parties participating in this game. The agents – you said yourselves – were tracking Ciri in order to confound the other hunters’ plans. Those others may be less susceptible to disinformation. I hired you to find a way of guaranteeing the child’s safety. So what do you propose?’

  ‘We have a certain notion,’ said Fenn, glancing at his partner but seeing no instructions to remain silent in his expression. ‘We want to circulate the news – discretely but widely – that neither Princess Cirilla nor any of her male heirs will have any right to the throne of Cintra.’

  ‘In Cintra, the distaff side does not inherit,’ explained Codringher, fighting another coughing fit. ‘Only the spear side does.’

  ‘Precisely,’ confirmed the learned legist. ‘Geralt said so himself a moment ago. It’s an ancient law, which even that she-devil Calanthe was unable to revoke – though not for want of trying.’

  ‘She tried to nullify the law using intrigue,’ said Codringher with conviction, wiping his lips with a handkerchief. ‘Illegal intrigue. Explain, Fenn.’

  ‘Calanthe was the only daughter of King Dagorad and Queen Adalia. After her parents’ death she opposed the aristocracy, who only saw her as the wife of the new king.

  ‘She wanted to reign supreme. At most, for the sake of formality and to uphold the dynasty, she agreed to the institution of a prince consort who would reign with her, but have as much importance as a straw doll. The old houses defied this. Calanthe had three choices: a civil war; abdication in favour of another line; or marriage to Roegner, Prince of Ebbing. She chose the third option and she ruled the country . . . but at Roegner’s side. Naturally, she didn’t allow herself to be subjugated or bundled off to join the womenfolk. She was the Lioness of Cintra. But it was Roegner who was the formal ruler – though none ever called him “the Lion”.’

  ‘So Calanthe,’ Codringher took up, ‘tried very hard to fall pregnant and produce a son. Nothing came of it. She bore a daughter, Pavetta, and miscarried twice after which it became clear she would have no more children. All her plans had fallen through. There you have a woman’s fate. A ravaged womb scuppers her lofty ambitions.’

  Geralt scowled.

  ‘You are execrably crude, Codringher.’

  ‘I know. The truth was also crude. For Roegner began looking around for a young princess with suitably wide hips, preferably from a family of fertility proven back to her great-great-grandmother. And Calanthe found herself on shaky ground. Every meal, every glass of wine could contain death, every hunt might end with an unfortunate accident. There is much to suggest that at the moment the Lioness of Cintra took the initiative, Roegner died. The pox was raging across the country, and the king’s death surprised no one.’

  ‘I begin to understand,’ said the Witcher, seemingly dispassionately, ‘what news you plan to circulate discreetly but widely. Ciri will be named the granddaughter of a poisoner and husband-killer?’

  ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, Geralt. Go on, Fenn.’

  ‘Calanthe had saved her own life,’ said the cripple, smiling, ‘but the crown was further away than ever. When, after Roegner’s death, the Lioness tried to seize absolute power, the aristocracy once again strongly opposed this violation of the law and tradition. A king was meant to sit on Cintra’s throne, not a queen. The solution was eventually made clear: as soon as young Pavetta began to resemble a woman in any way, she should be married off to someone suitable to become the new king. A second marriage for the barren queen wasn’t an option. The most the Lioness of Cintra could hope for was the role of queen mother. To cap it all, Pavetta’s husband could turn out to be someone who might totally remove his mother-in-law from power.’

  ‘I’m
going to be crude again,’ warned Codringher. ‘Calanthe delayed marrying off Pavetta. She wrecked the first marital project when the girl was ten and the second when she was thirteen. The aristocracy demanded that Pavetta’s fifteenth birthday would be her last as a maiden. Calanthe had to agree; but first she achieved what she had been counting on. Pavetta had remained a maiden too long. She’d finally got the itch, and so badly that she was knocked up by the first stray to come along; and he was an enchanted monster to boot. There were some kind of supernatural circumstances too, some prophecies, sorcery, promises . . . Some kind of Law of Surprise? Am I right, Geralt? What happened next you probably recall. Calanthe brought a witcher to Cintra, and the witcher stirred up trouble. Not knowing he was being manipulated, he removed the curse from the monstrous Urcheon, enabling his marriage to Pavetta. In so doing, the witcher also made it possible for Calanthe to retain the throne. Pavetta’s marriage to a monster – even a now unenchanted one – was such a great shock to the noblemen that they could suddenly accept the marriage of the Lioness to Eist Tuirseach. For the jarl of the Isles of Skellige seemed better than the stray Urcheon. Thus, Calanthe continued to rule the country. Eist, like all islanders, gave the Lioness of Cintra too much respect to oppose her in anything, and kingly duties simply bored him. He handed over his rule wholesale to her. And Calanthe, stuffing herself with medicaments and elixirs, dragged her husband into bed day and night. She wanted to reign until the end of her days. And, if not as queen mother, then as the mother of her own son. As I’ve already said, great ambitions, but—’