The Time of Contempt Page 7

  ‘Thank you. What interest rate shall we agree on?’

  ‘You have already paid your interest,’ the dwarf raised his head, ‘for the whole Giancardi family, Yennefer, during the pogrom in Vengerberg. Let's not talk about it anymore.’

  ‘I don't like debts like that, Molnar.’

  ‘Neither do I. But I'm a merchant, a businessdwarf. I know what it means to be indebted. Allow me to repeat: Let's not talk about it. You may consider everything you asked for to be done. The thing you didn't ask for, as well.’

  Yenenfer raised her eyebrows.

  ‘A certain witcher, dear to you,’ Giancardi chuckled, ‘had recently visited the town Dorian. I've been informed that he had taken a loan of a hundred crowns. The usurer is working for me. I shall erase the debt, Yenenfer.’

  The sorceress glanced briefly at Ciri, frowning deeply.

  ‘Molnar,’ she said coldly. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie. I doubt that he still considers me dear to him, and if he finds out about the erased debt, he will hate me even more. You know him, how obsessed with honour he is. How long ago was he in Dorian?’

  ‘About ten days ago. He has been spotted later in Little Meadow. From there, as I was informed, he rode to Hirundum, answering the notice of local peasants. A monster, as usual.’

  ‘And he will be paid next to nothing for dealing with it, as usual.’ Yennefer's voice changed a bit. ‘And, as usual, it will barely cover the costs of medical treatment, if the beast maims him. As usual. If you truly wish to do something for me, Molnar, then get involved in this. Contact the peasants and raise the reward. So he'll earn a living.’

  ‘As usual,’ snorted Giancardi. ‘What if he finally figures it out?’

  Yennefer glared at Ciri, who was watching them and listening, not even pretending to be interested in the Physiologus.

  ‘Pray, tell,’ she retorted. ‘Who will break it to him?’

  Ciri lowered her gaze. The dwarf smiled, stroked his beard.

  ‘Before heading to Thanedd, are you going to stop by Hirundum? Accidentally, of course?’

  ‘No,’ the sorceress turned her head away. ‘I'm not. Let's change the subject, Molnar.’

  Giancardi continued stroking his beard and looking at Ciri. Ciri lowered her head, coughed, shifting in her chair.

  ‘Indeed,’ he agreed. ‘It's time to change the subject. But your pupil seems to have gotten bored with the book… and with our conversation. And the thing I want to discuss with you now will bore her even more, no doubt… Fate of the world, fate of the dwarfs, fate of their banks, such a boring subject for young maidens, future graduates of Aretuza… Let her out from under your wings for a while, Yennefer. Let her take a walk in the town…’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ cried out Ciri.

  The sorceress frowned and opened her mouth to protest but suddenly changed her mind. Ciri wasn't sure, but suspected that it was influenced by a wink from the banker.

  ‘Let the girl take a look at the marvellous old town of Gors Velen,’ added Giancardi, smiling widely. ‘She deserves a bit of freedom before… before Aretuza. And we will have a talk about other matters… hmm, private matters. No, I'm not suggesting that the girl should walk alone, although it's a safe town. I shall give her a companion and a guard. One of my best clerks.’

  ‘Forgive me, Molnar,’ Yennefer didn't return the smile. ‘but I doubt than in current times, even in such a safe town, the company of a dwarf…’

  ‘It didn't even cross my mind,’ Giancardi said offensively, ‘to pick a dwarf for her companion. The clerk I've been thinking of is a son of a respected merchant. A full-blooded human. Do you think that I only hire dwarves? Oi, Wilfi! Call Fabio here, lively!’

  ‘Ciri,’ the sorceress came up to her and whispered, ‘don't get any foolish ideas, please. Don't cause me any shame. And keep your mouth shut when you're with that clerk, understood? Promise me that you'll be careful. Don't nod. Vows ought to be made in clear voice.’

  ‘I promise, Mistress Yennefer.’

  ‘Don't forget to look at the sun from time to time. You will return at noon. Be punctual. And if… No, I doubt anyone will recognize you. But if you notice anyone staring at you…’

  The sorceress reached to her pocket, taking out a tiny chrysoprase marked with runes and shaped like an hourglass.

  ‘Hide it in your sack. Don't lose it. If the need arises… Do you remember the spell? But be discreet, because the active amulet emits strong vibrations and the activation itself leaves an echo. If you are close to someone sensitive to magic you will not conceal yourself but rather reveal your presence. Ah, and here you can have… in case you want to buy anything.’

  ‘Thank you, Mistress Yenenfer.’ Ciri put the amulet and coins to the sack and stared curiously at the boy entering the office. The boy had freckles and wavy auburn hair, reaching the collar of his grey uniform.

  ‘Fabio Sachs,’ Giancardi announced. The boy bowed with respect.

  ‘Fabio, this is Lady Yennefer, our honourable guest and client. And this young lady, her pupil, wishes to tour the town. You will accompany her, guide and protect her.’

  The boy bowed again, this time in the direction of Ciri.

  ‘Ciri,’ said Yennefer coldly. ‘Stand up, please.’

  She complied, surprised, knowing the customs enough to be aware that such gesture isn't required of her. Suddenly, a realisation hit her. The clerk appeared to be her peer, yet he was a head shorter than her.

  ‘Molnar,’ sighed the sorceress. ‘Who is supposed to watch over whom? Could you give this task to someone with a bit more impressive posture?’

  The boy blushed and gazed at his master searching for permission. Giancardi nodded with encouragement. The clerk bowed once again.

  ‘Honourable lady,’ he started smoothly and with no hesitation. ‘I may not be tall but you can rely on me. I know the town and surroundings well. I will take care of young lady best I can. And when I, Fabio Sachs Junior, son of Fabio Sachs, swear to do something best I can then… then many a man cannot compete.’

  Yennefer gazed at him for a while, then turned to the banker.

  ‘Congratulations, Molnar,’ she said. ‘You know how to pick your staff. This young clerk will be of great use to you in the future. Indeed, a diamond in the rough. Ciri, I entrust you to the care of Fabio, son of Fabio, for it is a man of honour and can be relied on.’

  The boy flushed red as a tomato. Ciri realised that she had too.

  ‘Fabio,’ the dwarf opened a casket, rummaging through its contents. ‘Here's a half-noble and three… and two fivers. In case the young lady has any wishes. If she doesn't have any, you will return them. Now, off you go.’

  ‘Noon, Ciri,’ reminded Yennefer. ‘Not a second later.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  * * *

  ‘I'm Fabio,’ said the boy, once they ran down the stairs onto a busy street. ‘And your name is Ciri, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What would you like to see in Gors Velen, Ciri? The Main Street? Goldsmith’s Lane? Seaport? Or maybe the town square and the market?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Hmm,’ pondered the boy. ‘We only have time until noon… We should go to the town square then. It's a market day today, so you can see a lot of interesting things. But before that, we’ll climb up the wall, from which you can see the whole Bay and the famous Thanedd Island. What do you think?’

  ‘Let's go.’

  The street was full of rumbling carts hauled by horses and oxen; coopers rolling barrels; noise and haste. The disorder made Ciri a bit dizzy – clumsily, she stepped down the wooden pavement and fell ankle-high into mud and manure. Fabio offered his hand but she rejected the help.

  ‘I can walk by myself!’

  ‘Hmm… of course. Let's go then. The place we're in right now is the main streets of the town. It's called Kardo and it connects both gates, The Main Gate and the Sea Gate. This way here leads to the town hall. Do you see that tower with the golden weathervane? That
's the town hall. And that place with the colourful sign is a tavern called the Unlaced Corset. But there, hmm… we won't go there. We’ll take a route through the fish market on Circuit Street.’

  They made a turn in the alley and entered a tiny square pressed between the walls of houses. The square was filled with stalls, barrels and vats smelling of fish. Merchants and buyers were involved in loud negotiations, as if trying to outcry the seagulls circling above their heads. Cats were lying underneath the wall, pretending not to be interested in fish in the slightest.

  ‘Your mistress,’ said Fabio suddenly, ‘seems very firm.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She's not a close relative of yours, right? It's plain at first sight!’

  ‘It is? How?’

  ‘She's very beautiful,’ answered Fabio with the cruel, disarming honesty of a youth. Ciri spun abruptly, but before she had a chance to retort with a biting remark alluding to his height and freckles, the boy was already dragging her between the trolleys, barrels and stalls, while explaining that the turret adjoining the square is called The Thief's Tower, that it was built of stones found at the bottom of the sea, and that the trees growing beneath it are called sycamores.

  ‘You sure are quiet, Ciri,’ he noticed after a while.

  ‘Me?’ she feigned surprise. ‘Nothing of the sort! I'm just listening to what you're telling me. You're very informed, you know. I was meaning to ask…’

  ‘Ask away.’

  ‘If it far from here to… to the town Aretuza?’

  ‘Not at all! But Aretuza isn't a town. Let's climb up the wall, I'll show you. The stairs are over there.’

  The wall was high and the stairs were narrow. Fabio had a hard time catching his breath, as he never stopped talking. Ciri was informed that the wall surrounding Gors Velen was a fairly new construction, much younger than the town itself, which had been built by the elves; that it was thirty five feet tall and that this type of a construction was called a casemate wall, made of hewn stone and adobe brick, because this sort of material was best-suited to withstand blows from a battering ram.

  Cool marine wind blew at the top. Ciri gladly inhaled it after the thick air of the town. She laid her elbows on the edge of the wall, looking down at the seaport, rich in colours from the sails.

  ‘What is that, Fabio? That mountain?’

  ‘Thanedd Isle.’

  The isle appeared to be very close. And it didn't resemble an island at all. It looked like a giant stone pole emerging from the waves; a huge ziggurat engirdled by a spiral path, zigzags of stairs and terraces. Terraces were engulfed in green from the amount of groves and gardens, and the green was adorned with soaring white towers stuck to the rock like swallow nests, and by decorative domes crowning the buildings surrounded by galleries. The building didn't appear to have been put up. They seemed to have been carved in the slopes of that mountain in the sea.

  ‘All of this was built by the elves,’ explained Fabio. ‘By the use of elvish magic, as is said. But for as long as we can remember, Thanedd belongs to the wizards. Near the peak, close to those shiny domes, there's Garstang palace. In a few days, a big convent of the wizards will take place there. And look, there at the very top, that high, lone tower with crenulations – that’s Tor Lara, Seagull's Tower…’

  ‘Can it be accessed from the land? It's quite close.’

  ‘It's possible. There's a bridge connecting the shore with the island. We can't see it from here because it's behind the trees. Can you see the red roofs at the feet of the mountain? That's Loxia palace. That's where the bridge leads. Only through Loxia you can get to the path leading to the upper terraces…’

  ‘And what's at that place with all those beautiful groves and ponds? And gardens? I don't know why it doesn’t fall off the rock… What is the name of this palace?’

  ‘This is Aretuza, the one you were asking about. That's where the famous school of sorceresses is.’

  ‘Ah,’ Ciri licked her lips. ‘So that's where… Fabio?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How often do you see the students of this school? This Aretuza?’

  The boy gaped at her, clearly surprised.

  ‘Never! No one ever sees them! They're not allowed to leave the island and go out to the town. And no one from outside is allowed at the school grounds. Even the Count and the Bailiff, when they want something from the sorceresses, go only as far as to Loxia. On the lowest level.’

  ‘Just as I thought,’ Ciri nodded, gazing at the shiny roofs of Aretuza. ‘This isn't a school but a prison. On an island, on a rock, above an abyss. Nothing but a prison.’

  ‘Maybe a bit,’ admitted Fabio. ‘It must be difficult to get out of there… But no, it's not the same as being in prison. The students are young ladies, after all. They need to be guarded…’

  ‘Against what?’

  ‘Well…’ the boy was stammering. ‘You know…’

  ‘No, I don't.’

  ‘Hmm… I think… Oh, Ciri, they're not locked up there by force. They want it themselves…’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Ciri grinned mischievously. ‘They wanted it, so now they're stuck in this prison. If they hadn't, then they wouldn't let themselves be locked up. It's not hard; the key is to make a run early. Before they get there, because it might be difficult later…’

  ‘What do you mean? Run? Where to…?’

  ‘These poor souls,’ she interrupted, ‘probably had nowhere to run. Fabio? Where's the town… Hirundum?’

  The boy gave her a confused look.

  ‘Hirundum's not a town,’ he corrected. ‘It's a huge farm. There are orchards and gardens providing vegetables and fruit to all towns in the region. There are also many ponds with carps and other fish…’

  ‘How far is Hirundum? Which way is it? Show me.’

  ‘Why would you need to know that?’

  ‘I asked you to show me.’

  ‘See that road, leading west? The one the wagons are at? That's the road to Hirundum. About fifteen miles, through the woods.’

  ‘Fifteen miles’, Ciri repeated after him. ‘Not far for a good horse… Thank you, Fabio.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Never mind. Now take me to the market. You promised.’

  ‘Let's go then.’

  Ciri had never before seen such a hustle and bustle like the one at the square in Gors Velen. The noisy fish market they had just crossed seemed quiet as a temple in comparison. The square itself was gigantic and yet so crowded that it appeared as if they would only be able to see it from afar, because getting anywhere close to it would be miracle. Fabio, however, managed to get through the rabble, pulling Ciri behind him.

  Vendors were yelling, customers were even louder, children lost in the crowd cried and screamed. Cattle were bellowing, sheep were bleating, birds were clucking and quacking. Dwarven blacksmiths keenly hit some plates with hammers, stopping every now and then to drink and curse. The sounds of pipes and dulcimer could be heard from several directions. In addition to that, someone hidden in rabble continuously blew into a zurna. It was certainly not a professional musician.

  Ciri dodged before a squealing swine and fell onto chicken cages. Someone pushed her and she stepped on something soft and meowing. She leapt away, almost falling between the hooves of a huge, stinking and terrifying animal.

  ‘What was that?’ she groaned, regaining her balance. ‘Fabio?’

  ‘A camel. Don't be scared.’

  ‘I'm not scared!’

  She took a curious look around. She watched the halflings, busy crafting decorative goatskins, she cooed over beautiful dolls sold by a pair of half-elves. She gazed at products made of malachite and jasper, offered by a grim and gloomy gnome. She regarded with connoisseurship swords at the blacksmiths workshop. Afterwards, she observed for a while girls weaving wicker baskets and came to the conclusion that there's nothing in the world that would be worse than work.

  The zurnist stopped blowing. Someone probably killed him.

/>   ‘What is this wonderful smell?’

  ‘Doughnuts,’ Fabio groped the pouch. ‘Do you wish to try one?’

  ‘I wish to try two.’

  The vendor handed three doughnuts, took a fiver and gave a change of four pennies, one broken in half. Ciri watched the breaking of the penny, hungrily devouring the first doughnut.

  ‘Is this,’ she asked, while reaching for the other one, ‘where the saying 'halfpenny's worth' comes from?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Fabio bit on his doughnut. ‘Didn't you have halfpennies at your home?’

  ‘No,’ Ciri licked her fingers. ‘At my home we had golden ducats. Besides, the whole breaking thing was stupid and pointless.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I wish to try one more.’

  The plum filling of the doughnuts worked magic. Ciri was in high spirit and the bustling square ceased to terrify and began fascinating her instead. She no longer followed Fabio, now she was the one who drugged the other in the biggest crowd, to a place where someone spoke to the mob from a makeshift platform supported on barrels. The speaker was a fat, old man. Judging by his shaved head and grey robe Ciri assumed him to be an errant priest. She had seen some of them when they visited the Melitele Temple in Ellander. Mother Nenneke always called them, ‘the insane fanatics.’

  ‘There's only one law in the world,’ bellowed the fat priest. ‘God's law! All of nature is subjected to it, the whole earth and everything living on it! But magic and spells are defying this law! And so wizards are cursed and the day of retribution is nigh, the day when holy fire will destroy their accursed isle! The walls will fall, of Loxia, Aretuza and Garstand, the walls in which these pagans are gathering right now to plot and scheme. The walls will fall…’

  ‘And then I'll have to put them bloody things back up again,’ complained the journeyman mason in a lime-stained coat, who stood next to Ciri.

  ‘I'm warning you, good, god-fearing men!’ yelled the priest. ‘Don't trust wizards; don't turn to them in your need! Don't let them trick you with their beauty nor learned speak, for let it be known that wizards are like whitewashed graves, clean from the outside, stinking on the inside!