Sword of Destiny (The Witcher Book 4) by Andrzej Sapkowski

Author:Andrzej Sapkowski [Sapkowski, Andrzej]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fiction / Fantasy / Epic, Fiction / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Fantasy / Historical
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2015-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

IV

‘Oho,’ the Witcher said, feigning surprise. ‘So you’re here? I thought you wouldn’t be back tonight.’

Dandelion locked the door with the hasp, hung up his lute and his bonnet with the egret’s feather on a peg, took off his jerkin, brushed it down and laid it on some sacks lying in the corner of the small room. Apart from the sacks, a wooden pail and a huge palliasse stuffed with dried bean stalks there was no furniture in the attic room–even the candle stood on the floor in a hardened pool of wax. Drouhard admired Dandelion, but clearly not enough to give him the run of a chamber or even a boxroom.

‘And why,’ asked Dandelion, removing his boots, ‘did you think I wouldn’t be back tonight?’

‘I thought,’ the Witcher lifted himself up on an elbow, crunching bean straw, ‘you’d go and sing serenades beneath the window of Miss Veverka, at whom your tongue has been hanging out the whole evening like a pointer at the sight of a bitch.’

‘Ha, ha,’ the bard laughed. ‘But you’re so oafishly stupid. You didn’t understand anything. Veverka? I don’t care about Veverka. I simply wanted to stab Miss Akeretta with jealousy, as I shall make a pass at her tomorrow. Move over.’

Dandelion collapsed on the palliasse and pulled the blanket off Geralt. Geralt, feeling a strange anger, turned his head towards the tiny window, through which, had it not been for some industrious spiders, he would have seen the starry sky.

‘Why so huffy?’ the poet asked. ‘Does it bother you that I make advances to girls? Since when? Perhaps you’ve become a druid and taken a vow of chastity? Or perhaps…’

‘Don’t go on. I’m tired. Have you not noticed that for the first time in two weeks we have a palliasse and a roof over our heads? Doesn’t it gladden you that the rain won’t be dripping on us in the wee small hours?’

‘For me,’ Dandelion fantasised, ‘a palliasse without a girl isn’t a palliasse. It’s incomplete happiness, and what is incomplete happiness?’

Geralt groaned softly, as usual when Dandelion was assailed by nocturnal talkativeness.

‘Incomplete happiness,’ the bard continued, engrossed in his own voice, ‘is like… a kiss interrupted… Why are you grinding your teeth, if I may ask?’

‘You’re incredibly boring, Dandelion. Nothing but palliasses, girls, bums, tits, incomplete happiness and kisses interrupted by dogs set on you by your lovers’ parents. Why, you clearly can’t behave any differently. Clearly only easy lewdness, not to say uncritical promiscuity, allows you musicians to compose ballads, write poems and sing. That is clearly–write it down–the dark side of your talent.’

He had said too much and had not cooled his voiced sufficiently. And Dandelion saw through him effortlessly and unerringly.

‘Aha,’ he said calmly. ‘Essi Daven, also known as Little Eye. The alluring little eye of Little Eye fixed its gaze on the Witcher and caused confusion in the Witcher. The Witcher behaved like a little schoolboy before a queen. And rather than blame himself he is blaming her and searching for her dark side.

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