‘Calm down. Apart from the splashing you can also hear oars squeaking in rowlocks. It’s the customs officers from the Redanian shore. You’ll see them in a moment and they’ll cause more of a commotion than three, or even four, aeschnae.’
Boatbug ran past. He cursed obscenly as the little boy in the feathered hat got under his feet. The passengers and messengers, all extremely nervous, were going through their possessions trying to hide any smuggled goods.
After a little while, a large boat hit the side of the barge and four lively, angry and very noisy individuals jumped on board. They surrounded the skipper, bawled threateningly in an effort to make themselves and their positions seem important, then threw themselves enthusiastically at the baggage and belongings of the travellers.
‘They check even before we land!’ complained Boatbug, coming up to the witcher and the Master Tutor. ‘That’s illegal, isn’t it? After all, we’re not on Redanian soil yet. Redania is on the right bank, half a mile from here!’
‘No,’ contradicted the Master Tutor. ‘The boundary between Redania and Temeria runs through the centre of the Pontar current.’
‘And how the shit do you measure a current? This is the Delta! Islets, shoals and skerries are constantly changing its layout the Fairway is different every day! It’s a real curse! Hey! You little snot! Leave that boathook alone or I’ll tan your arse black and blue! Honourable lady! Watch your child! A real curse!’
‘Everett! Leave that alone or you’ll get dirty!’
‘What’s in that chest?’ shouted the customs officers. ‘Hey, untie that bundle! Whose is that cart? Any currency? Is there any currency, I say? Temerian or Nilfgaardian money?’
‘That’s what a customs war looks like,’ Linus Pitt commented on the chaos with a wise expression on his face. ‘Vizimir forced Novigrad to introduce the ius stapulae. Foltest of Temeria retaliated with a retortive, absolute ius stapulae in Wyzima and Gors Velen. That was a great blow for Redanian merchants so Vizimir increased the tax on Temerian products. He is defending the Redanian economy. Temeria is flooded with cheap goods coming from Nilfgaardian manufactories. That’s why the customs officers are so keen. If too many Nilfgaardian goods were to cross the border, the Redanian economy would collapse. Redania has practically no manufactories and the craftsmen wouldn’t be able to cope with competition.’
‘In a nutshell,’ smiled Geralt, ‘Nilfgaard is slowly taking over with
its goods and gold that which it couldn’t take with arms. Isn’t Temeria defending itself? Hasn’t Foltest blocked his southern borders?’
‘How? The goods are coming through Mahakam, Brugge, Verden and the ports in Cidaris. Profit is all the merchants are interested in, not politics. If King Foltest were to block his borders, the merchants’ guilds would raise a terrible outcry—’
‘Any currency?’ snarled an approaching customs officer with bloodshot eyes. ‘Anything to declare?’
‘I’m a scholar!’
‘Be a prince if you like! I’m asking what you’re bringing in?’
‘Leave them, Boratek,’ said the leader of the group, a tall, broad-shouldered customs officer with a long, black moustache. ‘Don’t you recognise the witcher? Greetings, Geralt. Do you know him? Is he a scholar? So you’re going to Oxenfurt, are you, sir? With no luggage?’
‘Quite so. To Oxenfurt. With no luggage.’
The customs officer pulled out an enormous handkerchief and wiped his forehead, moustache and neck.
‘And how’s it going today, Geralt?’ he asked. ‘The monster show itself?’
‘No. And you, Olsen, seen anything?’
‘I haven’t got time to look around. I’m working.’
‘My daddy,’ declared Everett, creeping up without a sound, ‘is one of King Foltest’s knights! And he’s got an even bigger moustache than you!’
‘Scram, kid,’ said Olsen, then sighed heavily. ‘Got any vodka, Geralt?’
‘No.’
‘But I do.’ The learned man from the Academy, pulling a flat skin from his bag, surprised them all.
‘And I’ve got a snack,’ boasted Boatbug looming up as if from nowhere. ‘Smoked burbot!’
‘And my daddy—’
‘Scarper, little snot.’
They sat on coils of rope in the shade of the carts parked amidship,
sipping from the skin and devouring the burbot in turn. Olsen had to leave them momentarily when an argument broke out. A dwarven merchant from Mahakam was demanding a lower tax and trying to convince the customs officers that the furs he was bringing in were not silver fox but exceptionally large cats. The mother of the nosey and meddlesome Everett, on the other hand, did not want to undergo an inspection at all, shrilly evoking her husband’s rank and the privileges of nobility.
The ship, trailing braids of gathered nenuphars, water lilies and pond-weed at its sides, slowly glided along the wide strait amongst shrub-covered islets. Bumble bees buzzed menacingly amongst the reeds, and tortoises whistled from time to time. Cranes, standing on one leg, gazed at the water with stoical calm, knowing there was no point in getting worked up – sooner or later a fish would swim up of its own accord.
‘And what do you think, Geralt?’ Boatbug uttered, licking the burbot’s skin clean. ‘Another quiet voyage? You know what I’d say? That monster’s no fool. It knows you’re lying in ambush. Hearken to this — at home in our village, there was a river and in that river lived an otter which would creep into the yard and strangle hens. It was so crafty that it never crept in when Father was home, or me and my brothers. It only showed up when Grandpa was left by himself. And our grandpa, hearken, was a bit feeble in the head and paralysis had taken his legs. It was as if the otter, that son-of-a-bitch, knew. Well then, one day our pa—’
‘Ten per cent ad valorem}.’ yelled the dwarven merchant from amidships, waving the fox skin about. ‘That’s how much I owe you and I’m not going to pay a copper more!’
‘Then I’ll confiscate the lot!’ roared Olsen angrily. ‘And I’ll let the Novigrad guards know so you’ll go to the clink together with your “Valorem”! Boratek, charge him to the penny! Hey, have you left anything for me? Have you guzzled it down to the dregs?’
‘Sit down, Olsen.’ Geralt made room for him on the ropes. ‘Stressful job you’ve got, I see.’
‘Ah, I’ve had it up to my ears,’ sighed the customs officer, then took a swig from the skin and wiped his moustache. ‘I’m
throwing it in, I’m going back to Aedirn. I’m an honest Vengerberger who followed his sister and brother-in-law to Redania but now I’m going back. You know what, Geralt? I’m set on enlisting in the army. They say King Demawend is recruiting for special troops. Half a year’s training in a camp and then it’s a soldier’s pay, three times what I get here, bribes included. This burbot’s too salty.’
‘I’ve heard about this special army,’ confirmed Boatbug. ‘It’s getting ready for the Squirrels because the legurar army can’t deal with the elven commandos. They particularly want half-elves to enlist, I hear. But that camp where they teach them to fight is real hell apparently. They leave fifty-fifty, some to get soldier’s pay, some to the burial ground, feet first.’
‘And so it should be,’ said the customs officer. ‘The special army, skipper, isn’t just any old unit. It’s not some shitty shield-bearers who just need to be shown which end of the javelin pricks. A special army has to know how to fight like nobody’s business!’
‘So you’re such a fierce warrior, are you, Olsen? And the Squirrels, aren’t you afraid of them? That they’ll spike your arse with arrows?’
‘Big deal! I know how to draw a bow too. I’ve already fought Nilfgaard, so elves are nothing to me.’
‘They say,’ Boatbug said with a shudder, ‘if someone falls into their hands alive, the Scoia’taels’ ... It’s better they hadn’t been born. They’ll be tortured horrifically.’
‘Ah, do yourself a favour and shut your face, skipper. You’re babbling like a woman. War is war. You whack the enemy in the backside, and they whack you back. Captured elves aren’t pampered by our men either, don’t you worry.’
‘The tactic of terror.’ Linus Pitt threw the burbot’s head and backbone overboard. ‘Violence breeds violence. Hatred has grown into hearts . . . and has poisoned kindred blood . . .’
‘What?’ Olsen grimaced. ‘Use a human language!’
‘Hard times are upon us.’
‘So they are, true,’ agreed Boatbug. ‘There’s sure to be a great war. Every day the sky is thick with ravens, they smell the carrion
already. And the seeress Ithlin foretold the end of the world. White Light will come to be, the White Chill will then follow. Or the other way round, I’ve forgotten how it goes. And people are saying signs were also visible in the sky—’
‘You keep an eye on the fairway, skipper, ‘stead of the sky, or this skiff of yours is going to end up in the shallows. Ah, we’re already level with Oxenfurt. Just look, you can see the Cask!’
The mist was clearly less dense now so that they could see the hillocks and marshy meadows of the right bank and, rising above them, a part of the aqueduct.
‘That, gentlemen, is the experimental sewage purification plant,’ boasted the Master Tutor, refusing his turn to drink. ‘A great success for science, a great achievement for the Academy. We repaired the old elven aqueduct, canals and sediment trap and we’re already neutralising the sewers of the university, town and surrounding villages and farms. What you call the Cask is a sediment trap. A great success for science—’
‘Heads down, heads down!’ warned Olsen, ducking behind the rail. ‘Last year, when that thing exploded, the shit flew as far as Crane Islet.’
The barge sailed in between islands and the squat tower of the sediment trap and the aqueduct disappeared in the mist. Everyone sighed with relief.
‘Aren’t you sailing straight by way of the Oxenfurt arm, Boatbug?’ asked Olsen.
‘I’m putting in at Acorn Bay first. To collect fish traders and merchants from the Temerian side.’
‘Hmm . . .’ The customs officer scratched his neck. ‘At the Bay . . . Listen, Geralt, you aren’t in any conflict with the Temerians by any chance, are you?’
‘Why? Was someone asking about me?’
‘You’ve guessed it. As you see, I remember you asked me to keep an eye out for anyone interested in you. Well, just imagine, the Temerian Guards have been enquiring about you. The customs officers there, with whom I have a good understanding, told me. Something smells funny here, Geralt.’
‘The water?’ Linus Pitt was afraid, glancing nervously at the aqueduct and the great scientific success.
‘That little snotrag?’ Boatbug pointed to Everett who was still milling around nearby.
‘I’m not talking about that.’ The customs officer winced. ‘Listen, Geralt, the Temerian customs men said these Guards were asking strange questions. They know you sail with the Malatius and Grock barges. They asked … if you sail alone. If you have— Bloody hell, just don’t laugh! They were going on about some underage girl who has been seen in your company, apparently.’
Boatbug chuckled. Linus Pitt looked at the witcher with eyes filled with the distaste which befitted someone looking at a white-haired man who has drawn the attention of the law on account of his preference for underage girls.
‘That’s why,’ Olsen hawked, ‘the Temerian customs officers thought it might be some private matters being settled, into which the Guards had been drawn. Like . . . Well, the girl’s family or her betrothed. So the officers cautiously asked who was behind all this. And they found out. Well, apparently it’s a nobleman with a tongue ready as a chancellor’s, neither poor nor miserly, who calls himself . . . Rience, or something like that. He’s got a red mark on his left cheek as if from a burn. Do you know anyone like that?’
Geralt got up.
‘Boatbug,’ he said. ‘I’m disembarking in Acorn Bay.’
‘How’s that? And what about the monster?’
‘That’s your problem.’
‘Speaking of problems,’ interrupted Olsen, ‘just look starboard, Geralt. Speak of the devil.’
From behind an island, from the swiftly lifting mist, loomed a lighter. A black burgee dotted with silver lilies fluttered lazily from its mast. The crew consisted of several men wearing the pointed hats of Temerian Guards.
Geralt quickly reached into his bag and pulled out both letters -the one from Ciri and the one from Yennefer. He swiftly tore them into tiny shreds and threw them into the river. The customs officer watched him in silence.
‘Whatever are you doing, may I ask?’
‘No. Boatbug, take care of my horse.’
‘You want to . . .’ Olsen frowned. ‘You intend to—’
‘What I intend is my business. Don’t get mixed up in this or there’ll be an incident. They’re sailing under the Temerian flag.’
‘Bugger their flag.’ The customs officer moved his cutlass to a more accessible place on his belt and wiped his enamelled gorget, an eagle on a red background, with his sleeve. ‘If I’m on board carrying out an inspection, then this is Redania. I will not allow—’
‘Olsen,’ the witcher interrupted, grabbing him by the sleeve, ‘don’t interfere, please. The man with a burned face isn’t on the lighter. And I have to know who he is and what he wants. I’ve got to see him face to face.’
‘You’re going to let them put you in the stocks? Don’t be a fool! If this is a private settling of scores, privately commissioned revenge, then as soon as you get past the islet, on the Whirl, you’ll fly overboard with an anchor round your neck. You’ll be face to face all right, but it’ll be with crabs at the bottom of the river!’
‘They’re Temerian Guards, not bandits.’
‘Is that so? Then just look at their mugs! Besides, I’ll know instantly who they really are. You’ll see.’
The lighter, approaching rapidly, reached the barge. One of the Guards threw the rope over while another attached the boathook to the railing.
‘I be the skipper!’ Boatbug blocked the way as three men leaped on deck. ‘This is a ship belonging to the Malatius and Grock Company! What . . .’
One of the men, stocky and bald, pushed him brusquely aside with his arm, thick as the branch of an oak.
‘A certain Gerald, called Gerald of Rivia!’ he thundered, measuring the skipper with his eyes. ‘Is such a one on board?’
‘No.’
‘I am he.’ The witcher stepped over the bundles and packages and drew near. ‘I am Geralt, and called Geralt. What is this about?’