A Scholar's travels with a Witcher

(A/N: This was the first chapter that has been completely written while I had a new job. I have not enjoyed the process as much as I normally would but I am determined to keep going. I hope that you folks enjoy reading it and I hope that the faults that are obvious to me, are not as obvious to you. I hope everyone is doing ok.)

(Warning: contains some observations by Freddie that may be construed as being a bit racist. He doesn’t understand and it is said out of love so I hope that you will forgive me. Also contains some explicit and horrific imagery and institutionalised societal sexism and misogyny. Some dark stuff is recounted from people’s memories in this chapter.)

I survived my first assassination attempt the other day.

I don’t know what to say about it all. Not least of the worrying things about it is that my advisors are referring to it as my “first” assassination attempt. As though there is likely to be more than one of them. There was a lot of language and words used around the entire situation that has left me feeling a bit…

I’m not sure how I feel about it. I have been closer to danger than that, closer to danger at my instigation. It is even worth saying that after they didn’t get me in my first attack, there was no chance at all that they would get me after that.

But despite this, my new advisor from Imperial Intelligence who I am repeatedly trying not to call my “spymaster” is insisting on some modifications to my movements, my protection, my outfits and how my entire setups work. The thing that particularly worries me is that he has spent a lot of time talking with Carys and my personal secretary Ameiko and all three of them are in agreement about what the next stages need to be.

I was expecting Carys, in particular, to be upset and cross with being told what to do and how to go about protecting me. But she was one of the first people on board with matters when the small, smiling ageing man turned up pulling a mule laden down with boxes.

I like him and he is everything that I did not expect from a head of intelligence to the point that if I had met him before I had met Lord Voorhis, then it would have been far more likely that I would have taken up the job offer of going to work for the intelligence services at some point.

But he came. He is relatively short with long curly hair that he pulls back from his face into a ponytail. The hair is almost universally untidy with gray streaks running through it. He has a round face and a round body but is deceptively fast with his movements and is also deceptively flexible. Like Carys, he prefers to sit on the floor and can pull his legs into various formations of being crossed which I could not have done, even when I completely had legs.

And then when he wants to stand up, he just seems to unfold himself until he is standing.

He laughs a lot and loudly and is quick and charming with his smiles and his words. He is the kind of man that when he meets a woman’s mother, he claims that he didn’t know the woman had a sister. But instead of jeering or groaning at the corniness of it, the women in question laugh and are charmed. I could not achieve such a feat.

But he has one of the most creatively paranoid minds that I have ever encountered. It is he that has declared that my guard should all be Elves. He argued that the factions that want to cause me harm are all human and that therefore, the people that can be trusted the most are the Elves. It will be obvious to see someone trying to infiltrate my guard and therefore…

He paid for the recruitment and training and worked with Carys on the training of those guards. Not just in fighting but how to observe the surroundings. What to look for, who to look for and how and when to act. Terrifying stuff. I didn’t stay for all of it because it was getting to the point where it was leaving me feeling as though I couldn’t leave my home. I was not far off being frozen with fear and that was exactly not what I wanted to do, or what they wanted me to do.

As to why I was attacked? We have no idea… yet. Some of those attackers were taken alive and they were handed over to my head of intelligence for… well…

It turns out that there are certain truths of the ducal life that I must come to terms with. One of those things is that I occasionally need to take prisoners and occasionally, those prisoners need to be interrogated. I never wanted to be that person. I never wanted to be the kind of man who employed torturers and fortunately for my sanity, it would seem that I still don’t have to.

My head of Intelligence, who insists on being called exactly that, Intelligence, also insists that I still don’t. He replied with the often repeated phrase that a good interrogator doesn’t need torturers.

So Intelligence took the captives off somewhere and is setting about trying to find out what that was all about. I mean we are pretty sure what happened, but until we are certain?

We think it was to do with a meeting that I took a few days beforehand about the organisation of my religious council.

The way that I have found works best for me is that I have one advisor who leads a council of people who report to that person who reports to me. If I have ALL of my advisors in my pavilion and future office at the same time then nothing will get done as everyone will be too busy shouting at each other.

So what I did, was that I got the local representatives to send me someone who would be able to act as my advisor along with maybe some alternatives so that I could make a selection. I told them all that if I was not satisfied with the one they sent, then I would not be shy of sending them back.

So the Eternal Flame sent me half a dozen guys from which I selected an older, still hale and hearty priest who had once led the spiritual needs of one of the waystations by the name of Bishop Kreask. Father Anchor greeted him like a long-lost Father figure and I liked that he was a spiritual man as well as a man who understood the people moving around the land. He was sent by the Hierophant directly as a man that I would get on with among a group of other priests that I could make my own selection from. The fact that the Hierophant of the Eternal Flame knows me well enough to make such a series of choices is a source of some amusement and concern for me.

Kreve sent me one man, he was the right one and I greeted Father Danzig warmly. He was crippled in some recent fighting, taking a bad blow to his shield arm which had left the arm needing to be amputated. We commiserated over our new status as one-armed man and he gave me sympathy over the fact that I was lacking in feet.

From the church of Melitele, I chose a middle-aged matron named Mother Iona the Fourth. She was sent to me from Ellander and the desk of Mother Nenneke. She had been friends with my Mother but also understood that this was not an automatic route to my heart.

The Great Sun, at the time of writing their candidate, has not arrived. And the local circle of druids has told us that they will send someone when it is needed.

But I got those advisors in a room and asked them who their leading advisor should be and after some debate, they chose Mother Iona as Father Danzig was still coming to grips with his reduced physical capabilities and the Eternal Flame man was also new to his elevation. Mother Iona was the most comfortable in her skin and as such…

It seemed logical. She acts like the chair of a committee and sometimes they all turn up and sometimes Father Anchor sits in they have also told me that I should also ask for an advisor from the church of the Prophet as they might have some insights that could be useful.

It is all working out fairly well and we are getting used to working with each other when an Archbishop and a group of holy men turned up to yell at me.

I might be sounding harsh and I’m trying hard not to be personal, but it is hard to disentangle what happened to me later from what that meeting was. They turned up. A dozen of them, former witch-hunter knights and all kinds of things. They escorted this man up to the camp. As well as the Knights, he was accompanied by four monks who were wrapped around in cowls and habits so that they were just there, faceless and anonymous.

He was a tall man, thin and all but skeletal. He wore an Eternal Flame Cassock and was carrying a few signs of office. He had short dark hair, and a thin face but as he looked at me, he did this thing where when he tried to dominate me. He would kind of lean forward, tilt his head and push his head forwards. But as he did that, he would boggle his eyes so that his eyes would seem to boggle out of his skull.

I won’t lie to you. At first, it worked and was rather effective. But after a while, I began to see it for what it was and I increasingly struggled not to find it funny.

He was the kind of man who spoke with his hands and knew how to use his hands to emphasise the points. His voice was warm, trained and was an impressive instrument, I cannot deny that.

They went through the motions of course. They made themselves known and attempted to browbeat the locals into showing them straight in to see me. When they were told by my new advisors that they needed to wait, they attempted to exert rank. But both Anchor and my new advisor Bishop Kreask are due promotions to higher ranks as soon as the Hierophant can get the matter arranged. So they nodded and smiled politely and referred them to Mother Iona.

The priest himself, whose name I never took, seemed to take it in good grace but his various followers and adjutants were increasingly getting frustrated and offended at their master being given the runaround and “disrespected.

So Iona came in after speaking with my secretary and told me that a man was waiting to see me. We spoke a little about whether or not it was worth the time to speak to them. Iona told me that it was something that probably needed to be got out of the way. We spoke about what it was and Kreask came in and added his advice. Then I had them shown in.

I kind of knew what I was in for when this Arch-Bishop walked in and held out his hand for me to kiss his ring.

“Good Morning Your Grace.” I began with my best ‘Lord’ voice. “You will have to forgive me but I cannot rise or kneel as I mightt and therefore we must dispose of the pleasantries.”

“Of course,” he began with a smile.

“And of course, in return, I will not expect you to kneel before me in my position of Duke,” I added. “Now, have you eaten? Can I order any refreshments to be brought?”

“No, thank you, Your Grace.” He seemed to sigh. “We shall not be staying long.”

“Oh,” I said, “that’s a shame.”

“Alas, Your Grace. We have come to you to express some concern about the early movements of your Duchy and to offer our help in getting you to move forwards in the right way in the full warm glow of the Eternal Flame.”

I remember having the distinct thought that it was going to be one of those types of meetings.

“I see,” I replied carefully as I saw my secretary Ameiko sliding through the flaps of the tent to listen. She is good at knowing when I will need a witness or someone to keep an eye on me.

“I take it you have some suggestions.” I began, leaning back in my chair to be comfortable for what I was increasingly sure was going to be a long day.

The priest seemed a little mollified and perked up a little. I wonder if he thought that the hard part was over.

“First of all,” he began. I tried to restrain a wince at the suggestion that there were several objections. “I must confess to some dismay at your choice of spiritual advisor.”

I frowned,

“I am confused Your Grace,” I began. “Are you referring to my Personal Confessor or to the man that represents the Eternal Flame in civil matters?”

“Well, as you mention it, Your Grace. Your personal confessor is of far too low a rank to act as a confessor to one of your rank and importance.”

“Yes, I know,” I replied easily, enjoying the attempt to flatter my ego. “The matter of Father Anchor’s seniority is something of some distress to me. I have known a number of excellent priests in my life Your Grace, and Father Anchor’s work has gone underappreciated for too long. Did you know that he tried to put the needs of his flock over the desires of the Empire?”

I shuddered in pretended outrage. I hope I managed to keep it from becoming “mock” outrage, but it must have been close as Ameiko winced.

“Be that as it may,” my guest began. “One of your status, should be attended to by a Bishop at the least.”

“Then I have good news,” I replied, still trying to keep the confrontation from my voice. “I have recently received word that Father Anchor will soon be Bishop Anchor of the Pontar Valley with a special duty to the Duke of that same.”

The priest and his entourage shifted uncomfortably.

“I am informed by the Hierophant,” I went on, “through Cardinal Mazarin who, as I’m sure you’re aware, administers my particular corner of the continent, that the promotion will be declared the next time the lists are published.

The priest deflated a little bit but I could see his eyes flashing.

“Surely there are better men who…”

“Your Grace, my spiritual upbringing was seen to by one who I’m told will soon be canonised to the company of saints.” I interrupted. “If you wish to disagree with my brother’s interpretation of the scriptures of the eternal Flame then I think you should be taking up the matter with the Hierophant himself. Father Anchor’s views are similar to my brothers and as such, I find that I would trust a man who echoes the saint that I think of so fondly.”

“But he’s married,” someone moaned from within this priest’s entourage.

“Yes he is,” I replied. “Before The Eternal Flame to a good and Flame-worshipping woman who has been invaluable in supporting her husband while he works to the glory of the Eternal Flame. And as you gentlemen will be aware, the original scriptures do not prevent this. It is only later interpretations that prevent it. Declarations by purely secular authorities.”

“Let us move on,” The priest said with the verbal suggestion that he was getting in the middle of two people that were about to come to blows. “On the matter of the representative to your council.”

“You mean Bishop Kreask?”

“Yes. Such a man is not qualified to properly represent the Eternal Flame on civil matters towards… He is clearly not advising you properly.”

“Oh?”

“Not his fault of course. Nor yours. He is not experienced enough, not knowledgeable enough…”

“That is interesting,” I replied, making a mental note to discuss with Mother Iona the types of people she was letting through to come and see me. “I specifically requested candidates for the position who would have experience in a rural and arable landscape. Are his credentials inaccurate? Did Temple Isle send me the wrong kind of…?”

“No no,” The priest was clever enough to see the trap that he was about to walk into. “Our problems are in the other direction. He is far too soft a man when it comes to the interpretation of the scriptures and for a man such as yourself, you will need a strong ally to be able to bring your countryside to heel.”

“I take it you have suggestions?” I managed not to grit my teeth at the insinuation that my countryside needed to be subjucated by force.

“We do as a matter of fact. A Prior Robert would be most suitable.”

“Robert, Robert.” I pretended to reach for the name. “Ameiko did I meet with a Prior Robert? The name is familiar to me.

She just stared at me, which she does when she knows when I’m playing games. Her expression doesn’t change but I can feel her disapproval.”

“You did Your Grace,” She told me, just letting her odd version of the Skelligan accent drift out into the air. “He was the one that recommended…”

“Ah yes, I remember,” I made my voice stern and angry. “He was the man that told me that I should just walk into the fire after handing over the leadership of my realm to a proper Flame-Fearing man so that they could launch a crusade. He condemned those that had helped us prevent the massive heresy and treason, both in the further North and in the most recent histories. He declared my sister an abomination. He called the woman I love, who was baptised and confirmed in the flame, a monster and called me a treacherous and treasonous piece of scum for daring t even begin to entertain the thought of marrying her as well as harbouring all the non-humans.”

I let my voice soften as I watched this priest squirm in his seat.

“That Prior Robert?” I wondered.

“He is a good man,” he tried, “and his faith in the Eternal Flame cannot be questioned.”

“I do not doubt,” I replied. “But when working where he will be working, he must work with, not against, members of other religions as well as non-humans. Dwarves will be rebuilding our walls. Elves help patrol our roads and indeed one of them keeps me safe. My people follow their small gods of the harvest or Melitele as the case may be and we stand under the auspices of the Great Sun of Nilfgaard so…”

“Which is another thing,” the priest’s own anger flared. I wonder how long he had been keeping that in. “In what world is the Eternal Flame a subject of Melitele? Why is the leader of your religious council a priestess of Melitele? These lands belong to the Eternal Flame and as such…”

“No they don’t,” I replied. Not bothering to hide my scorn any further. “The only land that belongs to the Eternal Flame is Novigrad itself. According to the scriptures…”

“Blasphemy.” Someone shouted.

“You cannot just shout ‘Blasphemy’ and expect everyone to get out of the way,” I snapped. “Some of us have read the holy texts with great care. The holy city is the holy land of the Eternal Flame. All other lands are considered to be just that “other”. The other religions do not claim ownership, but if we are really going to be picky then I would argue that Melitele has the strength here. We are farmland and she is the Goddess of the harvest and fertility. After her, the druid circles and whatever comes next.”

“Have a care…”

“And if we go further than that, then I would remind you all that we are a conquered people. Conquered by the Great Sun. If anyone truly owns the land then it is the Empress, the personification of the Great Sun on the continent.”

The priest sighed. He was trying to look like a Father who had tried to get an errant child to see reason and was realising that he had failed.

“Then you are lost to heresy and failure,” he told me. I decided that I would give him enough rope to hang himself.

“This place, the Pontar Valley could have been a beacon of hope to those of us that keep the Eternal Flame first in our hearts and minds but you are turning from the flame towards madness and death.”

“You are missing something,” I told them. “I was given this remit by the Empress of Nilfgaard. When it comes to religion and the religion of my lands, I was given two choices. The first was as it is, where people can worship what they like with my support, or they can worship the Great Sun only, under the bootheel of the Imperial army. There is no middle ground. The Eternal Flame, like the others, can preach the scripture all they like but they are banned from preaching treason against the Empire and myself, and they cannot encourage or urge people to the breaking of the Imperial Law.”

I finally pushed myself to my feet.

“To the breaking of my law. To do so is treason and wearing a red cassock and carrying the symbol of the Eternal Flame is no protection against that, no more than it would if someone did the same, while wearing the golden sun, the lightning bolts, the three faces of the Goddess, the cat of Freya, the mask of Veyopatis or any of the others. If you cannot abide by that then you should leave or face the consequences.”

The priest rose to his feet.

“There is another choice.” He told me. “You could fight, you could be a holy warrior and you could fight in the name of the Eternal Flame. And then you would be a saint alongside your brother and the Coulthard family would have two saints.”

“It already does,” I told him. “My ruling stands.”

“Then you will suffer the consequences,” he told me as he led his fellows out.

I let him have the last word because I had more important things to do.

Now I don’t know for sure that that’s what the assassination attempt was all about. I mean… I’m pretty sure but I don’t know. There is also something that I am learning about being a Duke which is that I can know something within a reasonable certainty of knowing something… but then there is a moment that comes where I must know something on an official basis.

The problem is that when I know something officially, I must do something about it. So I am learning that there are things that are discussed among my advisors and then someone needs to decide whether or not I should be told about… whatever it is that’s going on.

But we can be reasonably sure that the assassination attempt was about that.

I’m also, not entirely sure how I feel about the fact that people want to kill me. The sensation is not entirely new. People have tried to kill me before but this feels different somehow and I have yet to be able to put it into words as to why it feels different.

Lord and Lady de Launfal dined with me before they left for the return journey to the South. As they did so, Lady Vivienne told me something interesting: it feels different because it is more personal before Guillaume agreed.

“When it’s political it’s done out of hate,” he said. “It is colder and more calculated. When someone tries to kill you in combat it is often because you are trying to kill them. There is an equality to it, you try to kill them because if you don’t, then they try to kill you.”

Lady Vivienne joined in.

“But in politics, people must plot to kill you. It takes time, effort, and gathering of resources. It is never done on a whim because, in politics, murder is a last resort when all other things are now useless. In politics, assassination is done because they hate you, or something you are doing, or not doing, or something that your Lord is doing, or to make a point.”

“In combat,” her husband took up the thread, the blood is up, but an assassination?” he shook his head sadly. “That is just a cold-blooded murder. That’s why it feels different.”

“Take heart though, Lord Duke,” Vivienne smiled fondly, “If they want to kill you, you must be doing something right,”

“Was it a serious attempt?” Guillaume wanted to know. “Or of a gesture to keep you on your toes?”

“We are not sure yet,” I replied.

And we’re not. It certainly felt pretty serious at the time.

As ambushes go, it wasn’t a bad one. They had prioritised stealth over being close to me. I remember a conversation with Kerrass after a group of bandits jumped out at us once. They got very confused at the time as Kerrass and I had calmly drawn weapons and moved to cover each other. We weren’t acting according to how they expected us to act and as a result, they kind of gave up and went away.

“There is an equation,” Kerrass told me. They have to be close enough to surprise you and get the job done before you have the chance to prepare. But the closer they are to you before they jump out and attack you, the more likely you are to notice them and avoid the ambush altogether. But if they are further away and more stealthy, then they might be too far away and therefore you will have time to ready yourself before they get to you.

“The archer might be out of range. The swordsman risks having too far to run to get to you and is winded before he can bring his weapon to bear. Such is the science to ambushes.”

I remember him acting very smug at the time although distance and recent sentiment might be clouding my judgement there.

I still haven’t heard from him about anything. I know where he is as he headed out eastwards and there are still patrols up in that direction. He asked a whole bunch of questions about the ruins of the castle before he rode off. I have to restrain the urge to send messages to him to yell at him, to apologise or to demand a progress report. I am as certain as I can be that he is doing the job that I asked him to do and if anyone can do it, he can but…

I am not happy with how things were left. But no matter how I go back and replay that conversation in my head, I can’t imagine a different way that it could have gone. Even if I could have stayed calm, or remained calmer then there would have been unpleasant words.

But I was telling you about the assassination attempt.

We were riding North to meet with the Hierophant and the cardinals about Mark's canonisation and formal funeral ceremony.

I can ride now and with a bit of help to get me into the saddle and my “feet” into the stirrups as well as someone to catch me at the other end I have found that I can make do. My balance is still improving now and the promised future of being able to move around normally is now visible to me like the sunrise at the end of a long night. My stamina still leaves much to be desired and those people that run my life still have to schedule rest periods that make me chafe at the lack of progress, but progress is there and is visible. I just have to be careful.

So we were riding through the countryside along roads that I have a foreboding feeling will become very familiar to me over time. River embankments on our left and fields, small villages and groups of trees on the right.

I will admit that the attacker’s plan was quite good. The idea was that a group of attackers would stand up from behind the river banks, scream an attack and would do so. They were very brave men as it was almost certain that they planned to attack me to draw off my escort. With the river at their back, there was little chance that they would survive that effort.

When the escort was engaged then a group of archers would emerge from a nearby group of trees and fire a volley of arrows at me before charging in to make sure that the job was done.

In theory, it was a fairly good idea.

This a good idea based on remote knowledge of the site and not enough knowledge of how my guard and escort are run nowadays.

The problem with the plan was that they had not entirely understood how far the archers would be from me. It would have been a long shot for experienced and skilled archers, properly equipped with war bows. Unfortunately, these men were not. Carys’ assessment of the bows was that they had been strung for too long and improperly maintained meaning they had lost a lot of their strength and were not good for the use anyway.

The plan worked but for a few snags. The first was that as I say, the archers were really far away so their bows lacked the stopping power. The second was that they weren’t aware of just how much Carys and Padraig have been drilling my personal guard and my escort. The third was the presence of my terrifying little Yukki-Onna secretary Ameiko.

So we were riding along, I was enjoying the sunlight on my face and the feel of having a horse underneath me. That quiet moment of knowing that there was nothing that I could be doing right at that moment, not writing letters or meeting with dignitaries. Intelligence tells me that there may come a time when people literally arrange to travel with my party solely for the purpose of talking to me about some issues.

Jokingly, I wondered if I could have such people killed. He just nodded seriously and informed me that I could.

I didn’t know what to make of that.

So for now, I am enjoying these small moments of quiet. The sun was shining, the river was flowing and I was watching people work in the fields and the trade barges moving up and down the river and thinking that life was good.

Then there was a shout and people were leaping up from behind the embankment and shouting battle cries.

Which was when the fourth thing went wrong with the attack. Once again, it comes to the fore that I was trained by Kerrass.

I remember blinking, and then I was out of my saddle having cut myself free from the harness that keeps me in the saddle and then I was falling. I hit and rolled before my guards were also clustering around me.

So the archers fired and had aimed too high for me, the arrows spent themselves and fell in the river or bounced off the armour of my guards.

The archers howled their own battle cries and charged in. They should also probably have just kept shooting but…

The escort dealt with the attackers from the river bank and my closer personal escort just stood their ground, waiting for the archers to get to us before countering with their long Elven blades while others that were still on their horses started shooting them down.

There were about four of them that were about to get to our lines when Ameiko burst from the lines and charged them, drawing her long, thin, curved sword from the sticks in her belt as she ran. She had done something to tie her normally loose and billowing robes tight around her and she ran, upper body absoultely motionless and leaning forward slightly while her legs pumped frantically.

It was clear that we were in no danger by this point and I was able to watch as she almost absentmindedly cut the first two men. The first didn’t even feel the blow that almost cut his throat out. I watched as he just realised that he was no longer screaming and was losing control of his legs. Then he noticed that the blood was pouring from his throat and that he couldn’t breathe.

He died with a surprised, terrified expression on his face.

The second died having been disembowelled. Another quick, simple-looking strike that he clearly barely felt and he was tripping over his own entrails.

They say that good swordsmen make it look complicated but that truly great swordsmen make it look simple. That is what this reminded me of. She just moved and the men died.

It reminded me of watching Kerrass.

Intelligence shouted that we should take prisoners and I watched as Ameiko changed her strike before driving the pommel of her sword into the jaw of a third before tripping up a last and holding her blade at his throat.

So why do we think that the two are connected?

The battle cries that the men shouted were about denouncing me as a heretic monster lover…

Notice the term “Monster-lover” which is what the Eternal Flame screeches when they are being irate.

And another cry was “Long live Radovid” which was a cry of the rebellion. In our meeting, it would not take too much of a logistical leap to argue that the priest in question was urging me towards further rebellion so there is a link there. Crosses between rebellious things and sentiments of the rebellion.

So Intelligence took our prisoners off to do whatever it is that he needs to do to them. He promises me that he is only going to ask questions as I have told him my views on torture and interrogations. Fortunately, he seems to share the view of Father Jerome that a proper questioner does not need all of the fancy tools, blades and hot things.

He will let me know what he finds.

I am procrastinating again. Not telling you what I am ordered to tell you, but rather talking about the things that are on my mind.

The rebellion had this part of the countryside to itself for a few weeks and that time period is being referred to as “The Terror”.

The men in the field celebrated their victory for a while but were sensible enough to realise that the force that was sent against them under Count Bernier was not that large and was quite poorly commanded.

“Impeccably led,” Aleksy told me. “Cannot fault the poor sods on that regard. Good soldiers, properly led, nice and courageous, Knights leading from the front and in amongst the lads. Discipline was good and all that. But the commander? He waited, old boy, he waited in the marshes for us to come out of our nice defensible position and attack him when we absolutely didn’t need to. He waited.”

So they knew that the next attack was not going to fall into the same traps, or even possibly try the same things. They did have the problem that they were forced by their nature to be reactive, but all they could do was use their imaginations to come up with the new things that they thought the Imperial Forces would try. But as time went on and the weather became colder, the belief that the Imperials would wait for Spring became greater and greater and the rebellion’s confidence grew and grew.

And to be clear, their confidence was well founded, their flanks were guarded by Coulthard Castle and Novigrad. Novigrad, famously never taken except by treachery.

Including this time.

So in the centre of the Rebellion’s lines, morale was good. The flanks though, were not as happy.

It remains to be seen as to whether or not the term will hold, but the locals are calling this time “The Terror” as in “Then The Terror began.”

The optimist in me doesn’t want to believe that this whole thing will have that much of a long-term effect on the psychology of the area. But they are all calling it that. In Oxenfurt and Coulthard counties, the effects ramped up slowly reaching a fever pitch later, but in Novigrad, it was as though the locals were just looking for the excuse to leap straight back into things. By which I mean the taking of what they want by force under the pretense of righteousness and the attacking and persecution of all things that might be considered “other”.

All the people, men and women, that gained a certain amount of pleasure from the torment of others started to emerge. Beforehand, there had been a delay as the chosen method of execution had been a pyre. A pyre to burn the mages and the non-humans as heretics. Now, there was a headsman to remove the heads of traitors and turncoats.

Martial law had been declared. No one can seem to tell me who it was that had claimed the authority to order such a thing, but it was declared. A curfew was put in place and roving bands of soldiers and “patriots” roamed the streets looking for “traitors and southerners.”

The evidence required for this kind of accusation seems to have been flimsy at best. And in many cases, the same with the harbouring of the magic users, all that happened was that people used this excuse to exercise old grudges and remove rivals. Trials were all but non-existent. Often happening on the way to the block where a prisoner would be told to declare themselves. Anyone known to be from Nilfgaard was doomed. People from the North would often be told that their cries of innocence were easily explained as the kind of things that spies and traitors would use to preserve their lives and survive to carry the “black poison” further into the heart of the free Northern Kingdoms. The gate guard that I have referred to before speaks best to this period. Again, you should consider this account slightly paraphrased and this account comes with the warning that he talks about some nasty things and some explicit things in his account.

You think you’ve seen the worst of it. You look at a thing and then you either make a joke to make the horror seem small so that you can keep working, or you tell yourself that it can’t get any worse than this. It can’t possibly be any worse than this.

I was in Novigrad when Radovid was here. I watched as an old woman that I knew was taken to the pyre. I used to go to her when I needed something to stop my teeth hurting. Or something to make sure that my dick didn’t drop off after my lusts had got the better of me and I stuck it in the wrong woman if you follow.

She was always good for that.

I watched as this little old dear was led to the pyre. They had to carry her up the pile of wood to tie her to the pole. She looked so frail. My ma had taken me to her when I needed a boil lancing. Formidable old woman and she had never lost that aura of strength. As I got older and watched some of the things that some of the real magic people did, I decided that that old woman was far from magical. I think she just knew how to use the herbs and moss and things. She knew how to put them together in ways that would make the average mage scratch their head in confusion.

She didn’t mutter spells, she muttered rhymes to herself to help her keep the time while she stirred the mixtures.

She was strong, and powerful too in her way. But she wasn’t magical. I would swear to it, sir.

But still, they took her to the pyre.

She looked so frail. I remember her looking as though she thanked the man who helped her into place and he hit her. I remember being angry at that. I think her mind had broken as they took her. Maybe they hit her around the head or she had lost her mind with the torture or something.

I don’t know. But she looked vacant, sucking on her lower lip and trembling. I watched her as they tied her to the pole and as she looked out over the crowd, blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth, I found that I couldn’t watch her die and I turned away. I told myself that I needed to find myself something to eat before I went back on duty.

I’m told that she died quickly for all of that.

When they ran out of mages, they started on the non-humans.

I joined the guard out of the army after Brenna. How I survived that I’ll never know but my Sergeant wrote me a recommendation and I joined in Oxenfurt before they offered me a place in Novigrad and Novigrad pays better.

My weakness has always been women. I don’t mind admitting it. I love em all. Tall, short, fat, skinny, hairy, smooth, cheap or refined, short hair, long hair… red hair, blonde hair, brown hair and all the colours that the dyers can come up with. Never gone for a dwarven girl but I don’t mind admitting that sometimes the taste runs towards something exotic. Dark-skinned beauties from Zerrikania or Ofier. Pale, muscled women from Skellige. Demure girls, wilful girls, I don’t mind. All I ask is that they are willing and enthusiastic. Or can pretend enough to earn the money that I’m spending on them.

And every so often, I used to like an Elven girl. Don’t mind admitting it.

I fought at Brenna and I wasn’t as scared then as I was at that time of Radovid. I mean… I was much younger then. Barely sixteen and convinced of my immortality. Wasn’t scared until later when I realised how close we all came. I’ve stood in the faces of nobles and killers who promised to gut me and prevented entry into the city. I’ve knocked down murderers and killers and kiddie-fiddlers. I’ve manhandled plague victims. It was a job and when it’s your job, you tell yourself a joke to get over the horror and then you move on.

But I’ve never been as scared as I was when they came for the non-humans and the non-human lovers.

But this terror got worse than that.

I’ve seen executions, of course, I have. And I’ve stood and held the ladder, just as I’ve climbed the ladder and put the heads on the spikes myself to warn people that Novigrad will not suffer…

I’ve even known the people whose heads I’ve put up there.

But it’s different when it’s a girl that you’ve…

I liked her, that Elven lassie. She was gentle. Some women in her profession just want the job done and I can understand that, but she liked to take her time. I won’t say that she enjoyed it but… she was gentle with it. I went to her when I wanted the exotic but also when I wanted it gentle. She treated it as an art form you know?

And I had to watch as they put her head on a spike.

Not even a Spike. On a stake, they drove into the ground outside the gate. There were so many of them that they needed to…

And I looked at her and I told myself that she was just a stupid non-human who should have seen what was going on and fled earlier. I made a joke. I was so very scared that they would cart me off for having been with her a few times. But I made jokes. Everyone knew what she did and I joked that if they came for every man that had loved her then they would end up burning half the city including more than a couple of the priesthood.

People laughed. I remember that people laughed.

There was even a joke made that, now that she was just a head, she would be easier to pass around. I remember thinking that I wanted to punch the smug bastard in the face, even as I forced myself to laugh at the stupidity of it all.

But then they came for her.

(Freddie: There was an extended pause here while the man stared off into space. A tear rolled down his face. I watched it as the light from the hearth of the room that we were in glinted off the surface of that small droplet of water. He didn’t notice it until it got to his lips where he suddenly started and realised what was going on. He scuffed the droplet from his lips and shook himself when he started to speak again.)

As I say, my weakness was women and although I was always up for a quick boff around the back of the stable, or a trip up to the whorehouse or the Passiflora to get what I wanted…

Sometimes, your regular woman just doesn’t… Anyway.

But there were two women that I would go back to every time. They were different, those women. They were different in here, you know, in your heart. They were different. I think I loved them. Loved them both. It wasn’t the same. Not quite.

The first one was the woman that was lost when she went to Coulthard Castle to be around the merriment. She was the woman from the home you know? She was soft and warm, could cook a meal and was the kind of woman that would help you pull your boots off when you are too stiff to bend over properly, before kissing you passionately to wake you up. She had this smile that would just make the sun come out from behind a cloud and when it was cold and the two of you climbed into bed together, she would hold onto me as if she was a drowning woman holding onto the last piece of wood floating on the ocean.

Makes a man feel special you know?

She wanted to get married and start a family but I was just not ready. To my mind, I was still enjoying life and didn’t want to be tied down but deep down I knew that she deserved better than me. She headed off to your castle and… from everything I hear happened around there, the best that I can hope is that she met someone else there and ran off with them. Heightened emotional… whatever in the presence of all that fear and then she didn’t come back.

I should have married that woman years ago. My bed feels very cold without her and when I… fuck... When I weep in my blankets I turn over to get a hug from her and a bit of a comforting word, but now she isn’t there is she?

Fuck. Stupid bitch. Should have seen me for what I was years ago and run off with one of those merchants that keeps coming through. She would have been happier I think. Women always want to see the world don’t they and she would have done better with one of them.

But the other was this lass that worked the bar in my local (Freddie: Again, name obscured for anonymity) and where my woman was big and blonde… Not fat, she wouldn’t want me to call her fat, but she was a big woman you know?

But the lass from the bar. She was slim with it. Long dark curly hair and pale skin. She had this big, wide smile, slightly crooked at one side as though she was laughing at a joke that only she could hear. She would wrinkle her nose when she laughed and she always made you feel as though you were in on some kind of private jest that only the two of you knew about.

She had large, dark eyes that she…

She had the most expressive face. She could look at a man and her eyes would widen in innocence until all you wanted to do was to tell her that it was all going to be ok, but then she could turn that innocence into a challenge before they would widen in shock then hooding in desire.

And she knew exactly what she was doing with it. Her face, her body… it was a weapon that she used aggressively. Someone once told her that she would have made a good courtesan if her Father, the innkeeper, would have let her go. She claimed that she was scouted once but her Father wouldn’t have it.

Her Father knew the benefit of having a beautiful woman behind the bar and this way he could convince himself that she was chaste and virginal.

Of course, all that meant was that it all had the air of a clandestine affair.

She could sink her hooks into any man that she wanted to. Punters would come back and drink in the hope of speaking to her. She would rebuff suitors… Flame…

I mean, Most bars have a gimmick like that. She was not alone in working that particular angle, the barmaid that every drinker falls in love with and then they can’t help but drink there. It’s as common as having a sword over the bar. I’ve drunk in some of those bars and I have slept with one or two of those barmaids as more than one landlord is happy for the extra silver you know?

I know.

But this woman? She had me. She knew it and I knew it. She wasn’t happy. She played the game and did her job and made her Father happy. But she longed to make him angry as well.

She was desperate to get out of there. She was ambitious that woman. She had views and not only was she attractive, but she was clever with it too. She knew how desirable she was, but also she knew how…

She was too clever really. Too clever for her lot in life and she was dissatisfied.

She only slept with those men that she thought might get her out of there. In, I do not doubt that she saw a guardsman’s wages and the extra money that a guardsman might bring in so that she could live in luxury. I knew that and I sometimes wonder if she knew that I had worked it out. I might not have been averse to some kind of arrangement like that. I didn’t like her father and he watered down the beer too much. It was good for a hot day when you needed to quench your thirst without impacting your judgment. And on those days, his cider was quite good for that.

But she was the real draw. But I was not stupid either. I knew that she would marry the man and then she would leave the man. She would not be satisfied with my small rooms, even if she would be the queen of them. She would be after my Sergeant after that. I was years away from my stripes and she would not have been patient. But even if she got a Sergeant, she would want to be the Knight’s mistress. Then his wife. Then a richer merchant than the kind of poverty-stricken Knight that commands a gate or a chunk of a wall for the city.

She would never be satisfied.

But the sex was amazing. In the back alley behind the crates where we could get at each other. And as I came, I would look into those wide eyes of hers and she would always look shocked and awed and I fell for it every time. She was trouble that girl. I knew it and I think she knew that I knew it.

But I was drawn to her in the same way…

Fuck…

I loved her. I wanted her. She was trouble and I knew it but I couldn’t help it. She was trouble. Any man that went anywhere near her would want her but she would never be satisfied. Men wanted her, they desired her and they needed her. There was a want to conquer her and make her theirs. They wanted to possess her. To love her was to let her be who she was and I couldn’t do that. I don’t think any man could.

This doesn’t make any sense. I know and I’m sorry.

To try and possess her was to hold her too tight and she would… She would not be what they fell in love with. Sooner or later you would need to let her go.

Who could walk into a marriage knowing that?

Not I.

So the terror happened. Roving bands of soldiers and priests and guards and just angry citizens. Men and women. I think the non-humans stayed at home. The ones that are still here are the ones that got wise a while ago anyway.

People were being dragged from their beds with little or no remorse. Men that had bought something from a Nilfgaardian trader. Women who had slept with a Nilfgaardian guard. And by a Nilfgaardian guard, I mean a man who had worn the black. Not necessarily even from south of the Yaruga.

I was pretty confident that I was safe. I wore the uniform and I felt that if they killed every man that had worn the black that was just doing their duty, then there would be no one to….

I think some people wanted to. The hard asses in the whatnot. People tried to call me a traitor and I would just laugh at them. Not that I was stupid. I took to sleeping in the barracks or out in the guardhouse if you follow. And I wasn’t alone either in taking that precaution.

But they came for her. My little dark-haired barmaid. They came for her and they took her from her bed, screaming as she went.

Her da came to me in tears in the morning. Poor old, fat, stinky, beer-watering motherfucker and he came to me in tears. “I know what you and she got up to,” he said, “I’m stupid but not so stupid that I didn’t see. That I didn’t hear. You’re in the guard, aren’t you? They took my daughter. They took her and they’re going to kill her.”

Of course, I went to help him.

In a flash, I saw her the last time. Up against the city wall. She never took her clothes off when we... She just wore these skirts, undid her bodice and pulled the shoulders of her shirt off so we could feel each other. For whatever reason, she wanted it from behind and she looked back at me with wide eyes as she urged me on. For a flash, I saw those eyes again as she moaned.

For all I know, she was faking but somehow, I never cared when she did it.

We ran up the street. I took one of my mates from the gate as well and we clattered up the street. The two guards and the fat man.

There was already a crowd in the main square. They had the block on a raised platform. They would hold the trials there…

Trials…

Hah.

They would hold the trials, the verdict was always that the person was guilty and then they would tie the poor fucker to the block. The theory was that it kept them from moving while the axeman swung. It never worked though. The axeman would always miss the first time, often the second one too. The crowd wanted pain, blood and screaming. So did the men in charge.

Bastards

I had never thought of it until it was a woman that I loved on the block.

The blood was in the gutters. The one thing that can be said about pyres is that there is not as much blood. But when a head gets taken off all that blood goes everywhere. The stench of it. The blood, the piss and the shit and the flies that come after. A man shits himself when he dies if he hasn’t shit himself in terror beforehand.

Can’t blame them. I would do the same.

I have done the same come to that.

But the stench was thick in the air, there were flies and rats everywhere and still, the people turned out to watch as mangled heads and mangled bodies started to build up. The piles got bigger and bigger and the thought occurred that they would have to burn them all anyway. Just to find a place for all of those bodies.

We found her in chains. She couldn’t believe what was happening. She was part of the line of prisoners waiting for her turn. She was still wearing her nightdress. She was sobbing and she screamed when she saw us, hurling herself into her chains. She hurt herself, breaking her arm as she did so. There was a line of guards keeping us back though and we couldn’t get at her. We tried to argue.

I did. I tried. But my friend held us back.

“If you try and save her now, you will be up there on the block after her.” He told me. “And then they come for all the guards because if you consorted with the black ones, then we all did.”

Her Father looked at me.

“She’s already dead.” My friend told us both. “Be there for her and then afterwards, there is vengeance.”

We watched as she died.

She was in shock from the pain in her arm and what was happening. She was standing accused of being Nilfgaardian in descent. Her black hair and pale skin were used as the evidence. She was asked if she had anything to say in her defence. She told the judges that she was born in Novigrad and that both her parents were born in Novigrad and that her Grandparents had all been from Novigrad.

“So you say,” said one judge.

“The lies of a spy,” said another.

And then she was on the block, weeping as they tied her in place. They cut her hair off so that the headsman could see where her neck was. She wept as they did that and I wept as well. She used to like it when I pulled that hair. Just gently, not hard enough to hurt but just enough so that she could feel it and not move her head.

She used to like that.

I would have liked to keep a lock of that hair but they threw it on the fire.

She was tied down and it took the headsman eight tries to get her head off. The first time he hit her in the back and she screamed. It didn’t kill her. The second time he missed. The third time he cut her arm deeply so that it hung by a flap of skin and muscle. The fourth time he hit her in the back again and blood came out of her mouth.

The fifth, he went too high and hit her in the head. I hope that it was that one that killed her. It certainly knocked her insensible. But one of the impacts made one of her eyes pop out.

Those beautiful eyes that looked up at a man with hunger in them. Hunger, mischief and humour. I will see those eyes in my dreams. The nice dreams and the nightmares both I think.

The headsmen were drunk. There were eight of them and they took it in turns. It’s hard work swinging an axe and as I say, the powers that be wanted the prisoners to suffer. So they paid the headsmen well and for a while there those men did not want for money or women.

For a while there, I had considered applying for the job. I hate myself for that now.

We took our vengeance that night. My friend and I were still guards. The Father and I went back to the inn. We didn’t dare stay in case people came for the Father of the Nilfgaardian. They could argue that, because the daughter was Black, then the Father was either black or had slept with black and that was… problematic.

We liberated some of his best stock and found a place to drink it.

My friend found me and told us what had happened.

Some woman had told what passes for the guard about her.

They weren’t real guardsmen. They were just strong men pretending to be guardsmen. Give them a bit of power and it made their dick feel big and made themselves feel important.

But some woman had told them about her. My friend had found the woman’s address and we went to see her to find out what was going on. I swear, I had no idea what we were going to do. No idea about what was going to happen. I am… aware of myself enough to know that I was drunk. But I was not drunk enough that I was weaving around in the streets. I walked straight and I spoke clearly and I had full… control of myself.

Her Father was a bit worse but only a little bit. Just enough to leave me feeling as though it was more the emotion that had caught him wrong than anything else. I wondered who had been the girl’s mother but he never told me.

We found the woman who had reported her in a townhouse.

I don’t know if it’s the same in your line of work sir, but sometimes… The world just lines up. You see someone and their circumstances and I just knew what the story was. I knew what had happened and I knew what was going to happen. I knew everything about what was going on.

She lived in a fairly rich house in the upper end of town. One of those houses that was on the bridge you know? Old money, as close to the temple as they could manage without actually being on Temple isle.

It was the kind of house that people bought when they had the money flying around and wanted to be seen to be rich without actually having lots of money and therefore living somewhere more comfortable.

It was a merchant’s house.

There are no secrets to this kind of place when you’re a guard. We know all the back alleys, all of the back ways through things and all of the different routes and sideways and everything so it was not hard to find a route onto the outside of the bridge down onto some of the scaffolding that they use to shore up the brickwork and the mortar and things. From there and the application of a ladder we were easily able to get past all of the locked doors and things to be able to sneak onto a balcony and in through her bedroom window.

I only needed to take one look at her to know exactly what was going on, what had happened and I think my friend knew the same thing as well. We knew. It was obvious. But the dead girl’s father was not a guard. He was an innkeeper and was used to people telling him their stories.

The woman was a merchant’s wife. I don’t and didn’t know the merchant. Man like that, they all look the same to me as they come through the city gates and I have no doubt that, as he looked down on me from his big, fancy-looking horse, I looked like any other guard to him.

He was asleep in another room. I know why nobles do it., sleep in another room I mean. I know that it’s a gesture of wealth but for me? It’s one of the things that you look forward to at the end of a day, to come home to a nice warm woman and to climb into bed with her you know?

My mate went and secured the rest of the place. It wasn’t hard, what servants were still left were locked into a store cupboard and the merchant himself was a fat, dribbling piece of shit that my friend tied face down and naked on his bed for someone else to find.

All the time, my lover's father held the weeping woman, the weeping girl that we had found on the floor of her room, wearing only a nightshirt and with a dagger to her throat.

She was gorgeous. Really really pretty. Long, golden blonde hair that she had tied up into braids that were hanging down from her head. Blue eyes that gazed at us with real fear. High cheekbones and a full mouth.

And she was just beginning to show signs of age.

There were smile lines around the corners of her eyes. The skin was just a touch rougher in certain other areas. Her breasts were just beginning to sag, just slightly. Nothing that a real man like you or I would care about, but they were just showing stretch marks of beginning to sag. She was still slim to my eyes but there was the beginning of a paunch and she had some marks on her face from where the makeup and the chemicals from the makeup were having too much of an effect.

I looked at her and I knew the story.

But the dead girl’s Father wanted to know. He wanted to know.

So he asked her and the story came out between the pleading.

She had been a young girl herself, working as a maid to the merchant’s mother. She was pretty, knew it and as such she decided that she was too good to just be working as the chambermaid to some… woman.

So she set her sights on some of the merchants that were coming through the place and she found a man that was appreciative of the lines of her body, the looks that she gave him and so obviously enjoyed the noises that she made when they were in the throes of the things that they were doing. She was older than some of the other maids that were around the place and she was therefore better able to use her wiles to get the man that she wanted.

She snared him, made sure that she got a declaration of love out of him and the two of them were married. At first, it was wonderful and she lived all of the life that she wanted. But sooner or later, her age started to show and then her new husband’s eye started to drift.

She had thought that she would be able to keep his gaze on her but over time, it was clear that she was losing this grip. She was simply not as young as she used to be and it seemed that the man himself wanted the variety in his diet.

He had been passing through, meant to be meeting a client at the inn in question and had met the dead girl who had seen just what his wife had seen and had snared him in almost the same way.

The wife had started to notice that the number of gifts that she had received was dropping, the compliments and things were reduced and her husband was spending less and less time in her bed. She followed him one night and saw the dead girl teasing him.

The terror began and she saw her opportunity. She conjured up some elaborate tale about how she had seen the girl speaking with Nilfgaardian soldiers. About how the girl had spent time buying things and had confessed to a servant who was in the employ of the merchant’s household that she was of Nilfgaardian descent but that she wasn’t to tell anyone for fear of blah blah blah.

But it turned out that the guard had not cared. The woman had just told them about a pretty girl who was of Nilfgaardian descent and to say to them where she could be found.

And that was that.

She had been pleased with her victory and her husband had come to her bed on cue.

There was a debate about what to do. My friend, whose relationship with the dead girl I never found out and I didn’t ask, wanted to use the weapons of the enemy against them. He wanted to go to the guard house with this woman and the merchant in question and spin a yarn about how they had supplied the Nilfgaardian war machine through the back rooms and then, just as the innkeeper’s daughter had died on tenuous evidence, so too would these people die.

I admitted that the idea had some merit but then the thought occurred to me.

If we did that, then the fuckers that had murdered one of the women that I loved would be able to take the house and all of the belongings that belonged to them and use them to fund… whatever the fuck was going on. My mind grew with this argument.

If we did that, then we were no better than she was. We were using this… horror to dispose of our enemies and I found that I was happier with straight murder than I was by doing that.

And the innkeeper himself wanted his vengeance.

I argued that he should have it and my friend bowed to our decision.

The Innkeeper was not skilled at torturing people to death and the woman died far too fast for his vengeance. We helped him tip her out of the window and into the river below before we made our escape. The merchant died as well because my friend rather thought that the merchant had seen his face but a slit throat was not as bad as what had happened to his wife.

We escaped and stood in the street. I told the innkeeper that we would not see each other again and that he should flee the city. If his daughter was killed for being of Nilfgaardian descent then legally, he was either of Nilfgaardian descent himself or he had slept with a Nilfgaardian. He saw my logic and shook my hand and the hand of my friend before tottering off down the street.

Then my friend asked me what I was going to do then.

I remember that moment so clearly. I looked up and I could see the stars twinkling above me. I had been hating doing the work for these fuckers that had taken over and I had found that I needed something strong to get me to sleep more nights since they had taken over than I ever had under the command of the black ones themselves, or even under Radovid.

I told him that I was not going back.

He asked me what I was going to do and I told him that I was going to find a resistance and do my best to help them. He asked me what I would do if there wasn’t a resistance and I replied that I would start one. He nodded and we shook hands before he left.

Then I did the thing that I had once sworn that I would never do.

I turned my coat.

Or more accurately, I balled up my bloodstained tabard and threw it in the river. How I wasn’t arrested as I did I will never know.

As I say, not real guards. Not really.

That is the best, most complete story that I have about what it was like in Novigrad. Others have bits and pieces of the same story and are from different sources but that is the most complete and from one of the more reputable sources. I want to help that man, but it’s true that sooner or later, he was a turncoat. He changed his mind and worked against the people that he was supposed to be working for which will mean that to the vast majority of men that hire guards, he is poison.

He will allow himself to be governed by his morals and sometimes, that is a problem with a guard. Commanders want men that will follow orders without question and he has proven that he will simply not do that.

So that is what it was like in Novigrad. I’m told that Professor Dandelion and Master Chivay were with the Imperial party anyway so their lives were not impacted that much. But all told, it was pretty horrific. Oxenfurt and the spirit of Oxenfurt were damaged by what had happened but I think that what had happened in Novigrad was worse in many ways. I’ve been back since now that the city is coming back alive and for a given value of me riding around on the back of a horse, people are scurrying around, not meeting each other’s gaze. It is like an old pig’s bladder that was inflated with air for children to play with. Only someone has broken it and now that same toy is deflated.

I hope that the spirit of Novigrad will come back. I really do.

The tales out of Oxenfurt are very similar but oddly, not as bleak. There is less hate behind what was going on there. For Oxenfurt, it was a matter of an unpleasant job that needed to be done. There was no… As I say, there was no hate there.

But for Coulthard castle and the immediate environs, things were horrific.

Like with Novigrad, there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to people’s witness testimony of what happened in that time and that place. Some are more reliable than others and still others are more… problematic. People generally see snippets of the information and rarely are they quite as full as my friend the gate guard so we do what we have to do when things like this come up.

In this case, I think we will take two separate accounts of what life was like in the castle in this period. One is from my sister-in-law Laurelen de Coulthard and one of the castle blacksmiths. I am obscuring his identity because although he would be more than welcome to stay, he has chosen to move back to his family smithy in the countryside and as such, his name being mentioned in context such as this might hurt his business.

We will start with Laurelen

The mood in the castle was Euphoric among the rebels. People were laughing and joking and feeling smug about themselves. They walked around with their noses in the air, looking down on those of us that were more obviously criminals. I felt like I was back at school, walking through corridors and courtyards after the latest student scandal had taken place and I found myself on the wrong side of the social lines. People would stop and stare at me as I walked past before someone would whisper something behind a raised hand and then the sniggering would follow me down the corridor.

But that first victory was important. I was not in the confidence of your brother and his compatriots, but I knew enough to be able to tell what was happening. Your brother’s strategy had worked or was at least beginning to work. That first battle when the Temerians attempted to cross the Pontar had resulted in a rout. That victory over the perceived forces of Nilfgaard meant that people started to become emboldened. Nilfgaard had lost that sheen of invulnerability and now, people were coming out of the woodwork to get involved.

Men and lords that had sat on the fence started to turn up both from overland and arriving on the road from Novigrad as people disembarked from the ships there and marched down to…

Heh…

Where the action was going to be.

There was a perception that the castle was where people needed to come. I have no idea why that might be the case but it was. I can suppose though. This was the headquarters of the Rebellion and people wanted to be next to the general so that some of that reflected glory might fall onto them. Also, they might be able to exert some influence on the direction of things.

So that was what it felt like. Lots of idiots and morons who had been waiting on the fence decided to sign up for what was perceived to be the winning cause.

Never doubt for a moment that most of those so-called rebels were there out of personal ambition. There were a few true believers amongst them to be sure and if there is one thing that can be said about your brother and his immediate comrades was that he could sniff out the bullshitters. Your de Radford was not an isolated case. Sometimes people would turn up with men and proper provisions and equipment but other times they did not. And it rather seemed to me that your brother could not afford to be choosy.

He, at least, knew that the attempt to cross the Pontar was not a serious attempt and that there would be more coming. He knew that Natalis, Voorhis and the rest would be far more subtle than a straight, brute attack across the Pontar and he knew that he needed men. But that’s where the problems started to creep into his camp and where the prisoners went from being disbelieving and terrified to being angry and terrified.

They had been all but frozen in fear. Those that were in the pens would just huddle together and weep. There would be some struggle when one of the guards turned up for another sacrifice. There would be screaming and the like. But other than that.

The workers in the castle were equally terrified. There was an air of… “Keep your head down and it will all be ok.” I can understand how they felt as I was certainly one of those. It was an odd feeling. On the one hand, I knew that I was safe because they needed me to guarantee Emma’s obedience, but I also knew that if I acted out and was caught acting out then Emma would be punished in my stead. I knew that I could act up and that I, of all people, I could do more.

But I did not and I will carry that failure to my dying day.

But that’s how people were. And then these other men started to come in. Your brother understood the logistics of the situation and, being fair, many of the newcomers also understood the logistics of it all. But enough didn’t that it caused problems.

I even heard the beast Kristoff giving the newcomers a kind of orientation once.

“Our cause is righteous and just,” he said. “But righteousness and justice will not put food in our bellies, nor will it put blades in the hands of our soldiers. Nor will it add to the stacks of arrows, nor dig the latrines or build the walls. To sign up for this rebellion is to join an army and as such you act according to proper discipline. Both men and lords. Failure to do this will have consequences that are greater than just standing the night watch or taking an extra turn at digging the ditches. Apart from anything else, the captives and workers are not to be touched or harmed in any way. They are vital to the cause in their way.”

People never listen to that kind of thing, do they.

I was not alone in being assaulted, nor was I first and it is worth saying that, in my opinion, worse happened to others. I was in a privileged position. I was… important. I had my tasks and was allowed to wander freely between them. I wore proper clothes, if not things that were to my taste and I may say that I worked at my tasks hard. I was escorted everywhere by two men that you referred to as “critics”. They were brighter than some and they went everywhere with me unless it was into one of those places that was already heavily guarded.

Your cell for instance.

Your brother’s office was another one.

As these things go, they were not unfriendly. They were insistent and I was never allowed to believe that they were anything other than guards. But after a certain amount of experimentation, I found that I could give them some small orders providing those orders didn’t take them away from my sight. They would hold patients still and things, even though they would also occasionally prevent me from healing someone properly.

Such as you for instance.

I was walking down a corridor when I saw this big knight walking towards me. Like much of what happened at the castle, I don’t remember much of what happened, save to know that it happened. So I don’t know who the Knight was. I can’t describe his armour or his coat of arms. I know that it wasn’t de Radford but it was that kind of…

I remember that I didn’t recognise him.

I was used to the rhythm of such things now. I saw him coming and heard the clanking of his armour as he came. I was in a world of my own, worrying about you, worrying about… Emma.

There are still times when I have to remind myself that we are no longer in that darkness.

So I saw him coming and I stepped to the side of the corridor to get out of the way. He recognised me, Powers only know from where but he stopped and looked at me.

In my memory of the moment, he towered over me to the extent that he blotted out the sun. But we were inside and I am confident that although I am not a tall woman, he was only a little taller than me.

“Well?” he demanded… Do you know I cannot remember his face although I can remember the expression quite clearly? I remember that his eyes seemed to boggle out of his face.

“Not so high and mighty now are you, whore?”

He grabbed me by the throat and pushed me back against the wall.

I froze. I wish I had fought back but instead, I froze.

“You and that deviant bitch that you are fucking, can’t look down on me now can you?”

As he held me there with one hand he used his other hand to rub up and down my body. I was gasping for breath then and one of the guards must have stepped in because my attacker turned away.

“Take your damn hands off me.” He declared. “Don’t you know who I am? I was invited here. I have fought and now it is time that I take some of the things that I am owed.”

One of my guards must have said something else because the puke grumbled and moaned.

“Very well,” he complained. “But I will be back for you bitch. I will show you what you are missing.” He groped himself to make sure I understood what he meant.

I tried to come up with a response but my mind had frozen along with my body. I wanted to tell him that even when I was enjoying the company of men, I would not have chosen one such as him. But I didn’t. Instead, I did nothing when he kissed me forcefully and fondled me roughly leaving me gasping for breath. I don’t know how he took that but he left.

The guards were generous enough that they let me catch my breath before I was hustled down the corridor again.

I wish that I could tell you that that was the only person that something like that happened to. I wish that I could tell you that that was the worst that was done to the people in the castle. Not just the women either.

This new breed of reinforcement would be wandering past the captives and decide that they liked the look of this girl or that and they would order the men guarding the prisoners to go and bring the girl to them, willing or not. The guards would try not to permit such things but not all of them were as disciplined as my two guards and as such, those assaults became more frequent, especially after it occurred to the guards that the merchandise was already used so what was keeping them from sampling.

It also affected productivity. A groom, exhausted and overworked, was beaten to the point of death when he didn’t take care of some idiot’s horse properly and according to the way the idiot wanted it to be done. One of the labourers had his jaw broken for not knowing where a certain person was.

Your brother tried his best to curtail these extravagances on the part of the soldiers and their lords, but the bottom line was that they needed the troops and the morale of the castle was fragile. If a group of soldiers was seen to be leaving because their lord and commander had been deprived of something he wanted or punished past the capacity of argument, then others would start to wonder why they were going.

“Do they know something we don’t?” they would ask themselves and then they would wonder if there was a danger that was being compartmentalised and kept from people. People would flee in fear of the coming danger and then… the fragile alliance holding everyone together would shatter.

The rebellion had won the first victory and in the field, that victory might have bolstered morale, but out here, things were more fragile. They knew that the Empire was coming and that pressure, that stress, was beginning to spill out.

But the problem that the rebellion had now was that this, along with the perceived unfairness of the fact that people were just taken for the rituals whether they had done everything requested of them or not meant that the prisoners as a whole started to come out of their shells.

I think that they had all been shocked. It had never occurred to any of them that they would be treated like this, least of all by the people that were supposed to be on their side. That they would be considered a traitor to the cause of Redania was alien to them. So when your brother declared his rebellion and started to declare who was on his side and who was not, people were genuinely shocked. When that declaration started to be followed up with violence and brutal violence at that, the state of being shocked deepened.

But now the acts of violence started to become more… unfair?

Just as the first act against the prisoners was a sexual assault, so too was the first act of resistance. We are referring to what Sam was doing as being a rebellion but now people started rebelling against the rebellion.

The first incident that I knew about was when a soldier had decided that he was going to “have” one of the prisoners. They never actually said what they were doing, but we always knew. He went into the cages to get the prisoner out, but it turned out that she was the daughter of the village wrestling champion. Before the soldier knew what was happening, he had been grabbed around the waist and hurled away from the girl. He landed badly and had the wind knocked out of him which meant that the father could get on top of him and was driving his fists into the soldier’s face.

The soldier was in real danger of being badly hurt if not killed before his friends that were waiting outside, realised what was happening and ran the Father through with spears.

I was called in as the soldier was one of the important ones in one of the reinforcing Lord’s retinues. As I walked in to begin some healing, the Lord in question was demanding to know what Sam was going to do about it. Sam responded that everyone had been warned that the balance of power was still fragile in the castle. He pointed out that there were more prisoners than there were soldiers…

A fact that I hadn’t realised up until that point which possibly shows you the state of mind that I was in.

And that if there was a serious uprising then, although the soldiers would win, the prisoners were needed for the various processes that had previously been discussed.

Latrines, cooking, being sacrificed in dark rituals and in the long run, working the fields and the lands.

The Lord suggested that there needed to be some other method employed to properly “show the prisoners their place and teach them the proper respect for their betters.”

Whatever else I can say about your brother, and I can say a lot, believe me… One of the things that we can say about him with absolute certainty is that he was more clever than we all took him for.

He had anticipated this problem and had several things that he could do in advance. He couldn’t starve his prisoners as their blood was one of the principal ingredients in the rituals. Extreme violence wouldn’t work as people were pretty confident that violence would only be met with a rising sense of violence from the prisoners as well. Also… again, violence would result in the reduction of viable, or useful prisoners.

He even allowed some of the people to try various things to show them just how it was all going to fail because he knew that the solution was not just fear… it was terror.

Specifically, his solution was to use the terror of Ariadne.

In the long term, I rather think that his plan backfired as I may say that I, for one, love Ariadne more than I ever did before and I already loved her like a sister.

A slightly eccentric, strange and terrifying sister, but a sister nonetheless.

What she had been doing up until that point, I don’t know, helping out with the rituals. Helping to police the countryside? Securing other Vampires to bolster your brother’s numbers? But now she became the enforcer of Sam’s will inside the castle.

And oh Freddie, she fought him. She couldn’t do much, but she fought him every step of the way. Your brother had to carefully word every little thing he ordered her to do otherwise she would find the room on the outside of his words to work against him. I know for a fact that several times, she was told to “search that set of rooms for rebels,” which is another one of those times when the use of different terms becomes confusing.

Well… She did search those rooms for rebels. She found them too and did absolutely nothing about them, allowing them to find better hiding spots or escape altogether.

There are several instances where Sam, or the people that Sam authorised to deputise for him when it came to ordering Ariadne about…

Oh ummm, he would say things like “Follow this man’s orders as though they were my own.”

But I know of at least one occasion where she was told to search a room, capture anyone that she saw, flay one of them alive with her magic and then bring the rest to the captive cages.

So she walked into the room backwards, making a lot of noise so that people could hear her coming. Then she stood in the corner of the room and faced the corner before slowly turning around so that people could simply stay behind her if they wished.

Unfortunately, it is also true that… for every life that she managed to save doing that, she ended several more.

Oh, Freddie, she hated herself for that. She would harm herself, cutting gouges out of her own flesh as she did so so that the blood ran down her arms. She wept blood. I know that you have commented that that doesn’t happen, well I have to tell you that it does when she cries for long enough, hard enough, and without water in her body to weep.

She wept blood. She became this… apparition that went around the castle with horrible speed, lashing out at people that went against the orders that she had been given. Blood running from her limbs and her eyes as she audibly sobbed with all the people that she had to kill.

She deliberately didn’t heal herself. We would always know when she had spent any time around your brother because he would always order her to regenerate so that he didn’t have to look at her injured state. He hated that for some reason although I never found out why. I know that some of the other lords would complain at the sight of this… “unsightly beast” they called her when she would be attending upon them in meetings.

I think that it was one of the few pieces of enjoyment that she got out of it. Summoning spiders and using them to torment those Lords and followers of your brother that were afraid of spiders. Until he ordered her to stop of course. I was so proud of her Freddie.

I AM so proud. Some people might say that she did nothing to fight back… I DON’T believe that. She had less freedom than the rest of us. I literally saw your brother order her as to how to think. But she fought and she rebelled with everything that she had.

I miss her Freddie, bring her back to us.

Of course, I promised that I was doing everything that I could think of to do that. Up to and including talking to any spider that I spot crawling over a leaf in the fields but it hasn’t had any kind of effect.

I also have a more eye-witness account of what it was like out in the courtyards. The same blacksmith again was relatively safe from reprisals as good blacksmiths with proper training are hard to find.

We woke up one morning to find that there was a reddish tint to the smoke around the castle.

There were always smoke then. Thick, cloying, sickly-sweet smoke that would curl up and around the place. There were times when I couldn’t see the keep there were so much smoke. Smoke from the forges smoke from the burning villages in the countryside. Smoke from the flame hardening of the stakes and the burning of the fuel that they were preparing for the war engines to spew against the coming invaders.

I swear sir that my honest hope was that those invaders would come soon and end my existence. If forced to fight I planned to hold my sword wide and let the attackers run me through. But for now, the bastards still had me wife and me little girl didn’t they?

Bastards.

And then there was the smoke from the dead.

Desiccated bodies would be brought out of the basements. Sometimes we would all but cheer as we recognised soldiers that had tormented us being brought out of the depths. But more often than not it was just as likely to be some old friend that would be carted out on a barrow or something and taken off to the burning pits where other men worked to burn them all in case some disease would spread from them.

I remember asking one of the soldiers if it was some religious ceremony. Did they at least give those dead captives the last rites of the flame so that they could be carried into the warm embrace of the Eternal Flame?

He laughed at me and walked off. I knew that this rebellion was wrong but… the dead bodies of their own side went to the same burning pits as the prisoners.

What kind of cause doesn’t honour their own dead?

But they came out all but skeletal. Men that I knew as being big, strong, healthy men came out as withered husks of their former selves and they would be tossed on the fire. I’ve since met someone that worked those flame pits. He told me that those corpses burned as though they were made out of charcoal.

So there was always smoke. Always, you couldn’t get away from it. It was like this formless thing that lived in the back of your throat, making you vomit and choke.

It made me sick. It smelled sweet you see. Sweet and sickly.

Like rotten vegetables.

There was always smoke. The screaming had stopped though. There had always been screaming when the entire thing started. Always screaming from the captives and the villages running this way and that and…

But by this point, it was almost quiet. Almost…

Fuck.

It were almost peaceful. Just the music of hammers on wood, hammers on metal.

There were still odd screams and bellows but it were peaceful.

I were allowed to keep my wife and daughter. They mostly spent the time hidden away but that morning I had started work in my haze of exhaustion and terror and was not aware of my surroundings before my daughter came out.

I can’t remember what I were working on but she came out with her doll dangling from her hand. It were the only toy she had left from when all of this started. I don’t know why the soldiers had taken everything else. But this one was an old broken doll that had been thrown away, she had dug it out and was carrying it with her everywhere. She had taken it from the midden heap and we wanted to keep it from her because it was filthy, but after a while, we became at peace with it.

It kept her quiet.

She came out into the forge and stood out of the front while it worked. There was no rain that day and she looked up into the sky.

“Look Daddy, the sky is bleeding,” she said. I came out and stood next to her and she was not wrong. The smoke had taken that deep red tint of blood. There were currents to the red as it billowed and moved around and sometimes it seemed to move against the wind and the other currents that moved around.

“Go inside Sweetie,” I told her, turning her and pushing her gently before I turned and watched it for a while. Then I turned and reentered the forge myself.

Two days later I saw your lady again and I nearly didn’t recognise her.

I mean, I’ve seen your lady before… Course I have. We all have. We like her too. Proper lady that one. Not like some of these that you see coming down the lane that expect everyone to get out of their way. She was a right one. Properly beautiful too. I mean… All due respect… Ladys Emma and Laurelen are proper Ladies too but there was something about your woman that just seemed to set her apart you know? She was just that little bit more…

I don’t know the word for it. I want to say that she was more noble. She was good and kind and gentle. She had this way about her that kind of put you at ease.

I mean she was a bit odd. She would occasionally tilt her head onto one side and look at you like a dog does as though the dog’s trying to figure out what you’re trying to tell them or what you want them to do. But she had a way with the little un you know and it might make me something of a cliche of a Father and a husband but she always stopped and chatted you know? She crouched down to talk to me daughter and she always remembered some point of a woman’s business with the wife and she treated us all with proper respect and all of that.

I liked her. I liked her enough to think that you were a lucky man and that this one would make a man out of you. I were looking forward to having a proper lady around the place you know?

Not that your sister isn’t but…

I meant no disrespect sir and…

I liked your Lady and I don’t think any the worse of her for what I saw.