Time of Contempt Page 9

  ‘Ha,’ said Ciri, shooing wasps away from the pears. ‘A basilisk? A live one? This I must see. I’ve only seen them in books. Come on, Fabio.’

  ‘I haven’t got any more money . . .’

  ‘But I have. I’ll pay for you. Come on, in we go.’

  ‘That’ll be six,’ said the pockmarked man, looking down at the four coppers in his palm. ‘Three five-groat pieces each. Only women with children get in cheap.’

  ‘He,’ replied Ciri, pointing at Fabio with a pear, ‘is a child. And I’m a woman.’

  ‘Only women carrying children,’ growled the pockmarked man. ‘Go on, chuck in two more five-groat pieces, clever little miss, or scram and let other people through. Make haste, folks! Only three more empty spaces!’

  Inside the canvas enclosure townspeople were milling around, forming a solid ring around a stage constructed of wooden planks. On the stage stood a wooden cage covered with a carpet. Having let in the final spectators, the pockmarked man jumped onto the stage, seized a long pole and used it to pull the carpet away. The air filled with the smell of offal mixed with an unpleasant reptilian stench. The spectators rumbled and stepped back a little.

  ‘You are being sensible, good people,’ said the pockmarked man. ‘Not too close, for it may be perilous!’

  Inside the cage, which was far too cramped for it, lay a lizard. It was covered in dark, strangely shaped scales and curled up into a ball. When the pockmarked man knocked the cage with his pole, the reptile writhed, grated its scales against the bars, extended its long neck and let out a piercing hiss, revealing sharp, white fangs, which contrasted vividly with the almost black scales around its maw. The spectators exhaled audibly. A shaggy little dog in the arms of a woman who looked like a stallholder yapped shrilly.

  ‘Look carefully, good people,’ called the pockmarked man. ‘And be glad that beasts like this don’t live near our city! This monstrous basilisk is from distant Zerrikania! Don’t come any closer because, though it’s secure in a cage, its breath alone could poison you!’

  Ciri and Fabio finally pushed their way through the ring of spectators.

  ‘The basilisk,’ continued the pockmarked man on stage, resting on the pole like a guard leaning on his halberd, ‘is the most venomous beast in the world! For the basilisk is the king of all the serpents! Were there more basilisks, this world would disappear without a trace! Fortunately, it is a most rare monster; it only ever hatches from an egg laid by a cockerel. And you know yourselves that not every cockerel can lay an egg, but only a knavish one who presents his rump to another cockerel in the manner of a mother hen.’

  The spectators reacted with general laughter to this superior – or possibly posterior – joke. The only person not laughing was Ciri. She didn’t take her eyes off the creature, which, disturbed by the noise, was writhing and banging against the bars of the cage, biting them and vainly trying to spread its wings in the cramped space.

  ‘An egg laid by a cockerel like that,’ continued the pockmarked man, ‘must be brooded by a hundred and one venomous snakes! And when the basilisk hatches from the egg –’

  ‘That isn’t a basilisk,’ said Ciri, chewing a bergamot pear. The pockmarked man looked at her, askance.

  ‘– when the basilisk hatches, I was saying,’ he continued, ‘then it devours all the snakes in the nest, imbibing their venom without suffering any harm from it. It becomes so swollen with venom itself that it is able to kill not only with its teeth, not only with its touch, but with its breath alone! And when a mounted knight ups and stabs a basilisk with his spear, the poison runs up the shaft, killing both rider and horse outright!’

  ‘That’s the falsest lie,’ said Ciri aloud, spitting out a pip.

  ‘It’s the truest truth!’ protested the pockmarked man. ‘He kills them; he kills the horse and its rider!’

  ‘Yeah, right!’

  ‘Be quiet, miss!’ shouted the market trader with the dog. ‘Don’t interfere! We want to marvel and listen!’

  ‘Ciri, stop it,’ whispered Fabio, nudging her in the ribs. Ciri snorted at him, reaching into the basket for another pear.

  ‘Every animal,’ said the pockmarked man, raising his voice against the murmur which was intensifying among the spectators, ‘flees the basilisk as soon as it hears its hiss. Every animal, even a dragon – what am I saying? – even a cockrodile, and a cockrodile is awfully dreadful, as anyone who’s seen one knows. The one and only animal that doesn’t fear the basilisk is the marten. The marten, when it sees the monster in the wilderness, runs as fast as it can into the forest, looks for certain herbs known only to it and eats them. Then the basilisk’s venom is harmless, and the marten can bite it to death . . .’

  Ciri snorted with laughter and made a long-drawn-out, extremely rude noise with her lips.

  ‘Hey, little know-it-all!’ burst out the pockmarked man. ‘If it’s not to your liking, you know where the door is! No one’s forcing you to listen or look at the basilisk!’

  ‘That’s no basilisk!’

  ‘Oh, yeah? So what is it, Miss Know-It-All?’

  ‘It’s a wyvern,’ said Ciri, throwing away the pear stalk and licking her fingers. ‘It’s a common wyvern. Young, small, starving and dirty. But a wyvern, that’s all. Vyverne, in the Elder Speech.’

  ‘Oh, look at this!’ shouted the pockmarked man. ‘What a clever clogs! Shut your trap, because when I—’

  ‘I say,’ spoke up a fair-haired young man in a velvet beret and a squire’s doublet without a coat of arms. He had a delicate, pale girl in an apricot dress on his arm. ‘Not so fast, my good animal catcher! Do not threaten the noble lady, for I will readily tan your hide with my sword. And furthermore, something smacks of trickery here!’

  ‘What trickery, young sir knight?’ choked the pockmarked man. ‘She’s lying, the horri— I meant to say, the high-born young lady is in error. It is a basilisk!’

  ‘It’s a wyvern,’ repeated Ciri.

  ‘What do you mean, a Vernon! It’s a basilisk! Just look how menacing it is, how it hisses, how it bites at its cage! Look at those teeth! It’s got teeth, I tell you, like—’

  ‘Like a wyvern,’ scowled Ciri.

  ‘If you’ve taken leave of your senses,’ said the pockmarked man, fixing her with a gaze that a real basilisk would have been proud of, ‘then come closer! Step up, and let it breathe on you! You laughed at its venom. Now let’s see you croak! Come along, step up!’

  ‘Not a problem,’ said Ciri, pulling her arm out of Fabio’s grasp and taking a step forward.

  ‘I shan’t allow it!’ cried the fair-haired squire, dropping his apricot companion’s arm and blocking Ciri’s way. ‘It cannot be! You are risking too much, fair lady.’

  Ciri, who had never been addressed like that before, blushed a little, looked at the young man and fluttered her eyelids in a way she had tried out numerous times on the scribe Jarre.

  ‘There’s no risk whatsoever, noble knight,’ she smiled seductively, in spite of all Yennefer’s warnings, and reminders about the fable of the simpleton gazing foolishly at the cheese. ‘Nothing will happen to me. That so-called poisonous breath is claptrap.’

  ‘I would, however, like to stand beside you,’ said the youth, putting his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘To protect and defend . . . Will you allow me?’

  ‘I will,’ said Ciri, not knowing why the expression of rage on the apricot maiden’s face was causing her such pleasure.

  ‘It is I who shall protect and defend her!’ said Fabio, sticking his chest out and looking at the squire defiantly. ‘And I shall stand with her too!’

  ‘Gentlemen.’ Ciri puffed herself up with pride and stuck her nose in the air. ‘A little more dignity. Don’t shove. There’ll be room enough for everyone.’

  The ring of spectators swayed and murmured as she bravely approached the cage, followed so closely by the boys that she could almost feel their breath on her neck. The wyvern hissed furiously and struggled, its reptilian stench assaulting
their noses. Fabio gasped loudly, but Ciri didn’t withdraw. She drew even closer and held out a hand, almost touching the cage. The monster hurled itself at the bars, raking them with its teeth. The crowd swayed once more and someone cried out.

  ‘Well?’ Ciri turned around, hands proudly on her hips. ‘Did I die? Has that so-called venomous monster poisoned me? He’s no more a basilisk than I’m a—’

  She broke off, seeing the sudden paleness on the faces of Fabio and the squire. She turned around quickly and saw two bars of the cage parting under the force of the enraged lizard, tearing rusty nails out of the frame.

  ‘Run!’ she shouted at the top of her voice. ‘The cage is breaking!’

  The crowd rushed, screaming, for the door. Several of them tried to tear their way through the canvas sheeting, but they only managed to entangle themselves and others in it, eventually collapsing into a struggling, yelling mass of humanity. Just as Ciri was trying to jump out of the way the squire seized her arm, and the two of them staggered, tripped and fell to the ground, taking Fabio down with them. Anxious yaps came from the stallholder’s shaggy little dog, colourful swearwords from the pockmarked man and piercing shrieks from the disorientated apricot maiden.

  The bars of the cage broke with a crack and the wyvern struggled free. The pockmarked man jumped down from the stage and tried to restrain it with his pole, but the writhing monster knocked it out of his hand with one blow of its claws and lashed him with its spiny tail, transforming his pockmarked cheek into a bloody pulp. Hissing and spreading its tattered wings, the wyvern flew down from the stage; its sights were set on Ciri, Fabio and the squire, who were trying to get to their feet. The apricot maiden fainted and fell flat on her back. Ciri tensed, preparing to jump, but realised she wouldn’t make it.

  They were saved by the shaggy little dog who, still yapping shrilly, broke free from its owner’s arms – she had fallen and become entangled in her own six skirts – and lunged at the monster. The wyvern hissed, rose up, pinned the cur down with its talons, twisted its body with a swift, serpentine movement and sank its teeth into the dog’s neck. The dog howled wildly.

  The squire struggled to his knees and reached down to his side, but didn’t find his hilt. Ciri had been too quick for him. She had drawn his sword from its scabbard in a lightning-fast movement and leapt into a half-turn. The wyvern rose, the dog’s severed head hanging in its sharp-toothed jaws.

  It seemed to Ciri that all the movements she had learned in Kaer Morhen were performing themselves, almost without her conscious will or participation. She slashed the astonished wyvern in the belly and immediately spun away to avoid it. The lunging lizard fell to the sand spurting blood. Ciri jumped over it, skilfully avoiding its swishing tail. Then, with a sure, accurate and powerful blow, she hacked into the monster’s neck, jumped back, and made an instinctive – but now unnecessary – evasive manoeuvre, and then struck again at once, this time chopping through its backbone. The wyvern writhed briefly in pain and then stopped moving; only its serpentine tail continued to thrash and slap the ground, raining sand all around.

  Ciri quickly shoved the bloodied sword into the squire’s hand.

  ‘Danger over!’ she shouted to the fleeing crowd and the spectators still trying to extricate themselves from the canvas sheeting. ‘The monster’s dead! This brave knight has killed him dead . . .’

  She suddenly felt a tightening in her throat and a whirling in her stomach; everything went black. Something hit her in the bottom with tremendous force, making her teeth snap together. She looked around blankly. The thing that had struck her was the ground.

  ‘Ciri . . .’ whispered Fabio, kneeling beside her. ‘What’s the matter? By the gods, you’re as white as a sheet . . .’

  ‘It’s a pity,’ she muttered, ‘you can’t see yourself.’

  People crowded around. Several of them prodded the wyvern’s body with sticks and pokers. A few of them began dressing the pockmarked man’s wounds. The rest cheered the heroic squire: the fearless dragon killer, the only person to keep a cool head, and prevent a massacre. The squire revived the apricot maiden, still staring somewhat dumbstruck at the blade of his sword which was covered with smeared streaks of drying blood.

  ‘My hero . . .’ said the apricot maiden, coming to and throwing her arms around the squire’s neck. ‘My saviour! My darling!’

  ‘Fabio,’ said Ciri weakly, seeing the city constables pushing through the crowd. ‘Help me get up and get us out of here. Quickly.’

  ‘Poor children . . .’ said a fat townswoman in a cap as she watched them sneak away from the crowd. ‘Oh, you were lucky. Were it not for this valiant young knight, your mothers would be sorely grieving!’

  ‘Find out who that young squire serves!’ shouted a craftsman in a leather apron. ‘That deed deserves a knightly belt and spurs!’

  ‘And to the pillory with the animal catcher! He deserves a thrashing! Bringing a monster like that into the city, among people . . .’

  ‘Water, and quickly! The maiden’s fainted again!’

  ‘My darling Foo-Foo!’ the stallholder suddenly howled, as she leaned over what was left of the shaggy little dog. ‘My poor little sweetheart! Someone, please! Catch that wench, that rascal who infuriated the dragon! Where is she? Someone grab her! It wasn’t the animal catcher; she’s to blame for all this!’

  The city constables, helped by numerous volunteers, began to shove their way through the crowd and look around. Ciri had overcome her dizziness.

  ‘Fabio,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s split up. We’ll meet up in a bit in that alleyway we came along. Go. And if anyone stops you to ask, you don’t know me or anything about me.’

  ‘But . . . Ciri—’

  ‘Go!’

  She squeezed Yennefer’s amulet in her fist and murmured the activation spell. It started working in an instant, and there was no time to lose. The constables, who had been forcing their way through the crowd towards her, stopped, confused.

  ‘What the bloody hell?’ said one of them in astonishment, looking, it would have seemed, straight at Ciri. ‘Where is she? I just saw her . . .’

  ‘There, over there!’ yelled another, pointing the wrong way.

  Ciri turned around and walked away, still a little dazed and weakened by the rush of adrenaline and the activation of the amulet. The amulet was working perfectly; no one could see her and no one was paying any attention to her. Absolutely no one. As a consequence she was jostled, stamped on and kicked innumerable times before she finally extricated herself from the crowd. By some miracle she escaped being crushed by a chest thrown from a cart. She almost had an eye poked out by a pitchfork. Spells, it turned out, had their good and bad sides, and as many advantages as disadvantages.

  The amulet’s effects did not last long. Ciri was not powerful enough to control it or extend the time the spell was active. Fortunately, the spell wore off at the right moment, just as she left the crowd and saw Fabio waiting for her in the alley.

  ‘Oh my,’ said the boy. ‘Oh my goodness, Ciri. You’re here. I was worried . . .’

  ‘You needn’t have been. Come on, quickly. Noon has passed. I’ve got to get back.’

  ‘You were pretty handy with that monster.’ The boy looked at her in admiration. ‘You moved like lightning! Where did you learn to do that?’

  ‘What? The squire killed the wyvern.’

  ‘That’s not true. I saw—’

  ‘You didn’t see anything! Please, Fabio, not a word to anyone. Anyone. And particularly not to Madam Yennefer. Oh, I’d be in for it if she found out . . .’

  She fell silent.

  ‘Those people were right.’ She pointed behind her, towards the market square. ‘I provoked the wyvern . . . It was all my fault . . .’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ retorted Fabio firmly. ‘That cage was rotten and bodged together. It could have broken any second: in an hour, tomorrow, the next day . . . It’s better that it happened now, because you saved—’

  ‘T
he squire did!’ yelled Ciri. ‘The squire! Will you finally get that into your head? I’m telling you, if you grass me up, I’ll turn you into a . . . a . . . well something horrible! I know spells! I’ll turn you into—’

  ‘Stop,’ someone called out behind them. ‘That’s quite enough of that!’

  One of the women walking behind them had dark, smoothly combed hair, shining eyes and thin lips. She had a short mauve camaka cape trimmed with dormouse fur thrown over her shoulders.

  ‘Why aren’t you in school, novice?’ she asked in a cold, resonant voice, eyeing Ciri with a penetrating gaze.

  ‘Wait, Tissaia,’ said the other woman, who was younger, tall and fair-haired, and wore a green dress with a plunging neckline. ‘I don’t know her. I don’t think she’s—’

  ‘Yes, she is,’ interrupted the dark-haired woman. ‘I’m certain she’s one of your girls, Rita. You can’t know them all. She’s one of the ones who sneaked out of Loxia during the confusion when we were moving dormitories. And she’ll admit as much in a moment. Well, novice, I’m waiting.’

  ‘What?’ frowned Ciri.

  The woman pursed her thin lips and straightened her cuffs.

  ‘Who did you steal that amulet of concealment from? Or did someone give it to you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t test my patience. Name, class, and the name of your preceptress. Quickly!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you acting dumb, novice? Your name! What is your name?’

  Ciri clenched her teeth together and her eyes flared with a green glow.

  ‘Anna Ingeborga Klopstock,’ she muttered brazenly.