Анджей Сапковский - Lesser Evil

"May I know what you are aiming at?"

"At nothing. I've had some drink and I'm preaching philosophy, I'm looking for general truths. And I've just found one: the lesser evil exists, yet we do not have to choose it by ourselves. This Very Great Evil is capable of forcing us into such a choice. Whether we want it or not."

"I must have drunk too little," the hexer smiled tartly. "And midnight has just passed, like midnights do. Let us proceed to the matter.

You won't kill Stregobor in Blaviken, I won't let you do it. I will not allow fighting and slaughter here. I'm suggesting for the second time: renounce your vengeance. Give up killing him. In this way you will prove it to him, and not only to him, that you are not an inhuman, bloodthirsty monster, a mutant and a freak. You'll prove to him that he was wrong. And that he wronged you terribly with his mistake."

For a while, Renfri looked at the hexer's medallion spinning on the chain turned by his fingers.

"And if I tell you, hexer, that I am unable to forgive, nor can I renounce my vengeance, will it be the same as if I admitted to him, and not only to him, that they are right, won't it? In this way I will prove that I am a monster, an inhuman demon cursed by gods? Listen, hexer. At the very beginning of my banishment I was taken by one freeman under his roof. He fancied me. Yet, I did not fancy him, on the contrary, every time he wanted me to be his, he used to thrash me so hard I could hardly drag myself off the bunk in the morning. Once I got up when it was still dark and I slit that ceorl's throat. With a scythe. Then I did not yet have my skill, and a knife seemed too small. And you see, Geralt, listening to the ceorl gurgling and choking, looking at him jerking his legs. I felt no pain whatsoever in the bruises his cudgel and fists left. And I felt good, so good that even… I went away, whistling cheerfully, healthy, joyful and happy. And each next time it was the same I. If it were different, who would waste time on vengeance?"

"Renfri," said Geralt, "Whatever your justification and reasons are, you shall not leave from here whistling and you will not feel so good that even. You will not leave joyful and happy but you shall leave alive. Early in the morning tomorrow, as the sheriff ordered. I have told you that but I shall repeat. You shall not kill Stregobor in Blaviken.

Renfri's eyes were glowing in the light of the candle, the pearls in the neckline of her short doublet were glistening; the medallion with wolf's head was glimmering and whirling on its silver chain.

"I pity you," said the girl suddenly and slowly, staring at the shimmering silver disk, "You claim that there is lesser evil. You're standing on a market, on the cobbles bathed in blood, alone, so lonely, because you were not able to make a choice. You were not able but you made it. You shall never know: you shall never be sure — you hear me? And your pay shall be a stone and an unkind word. I pity you."

"And you?" asked the hexer quietly, almost in whisper.

"I cannot choose either."

"Who are you?"

"I am what I am."

"Where are you?"

"I'm cold."

"Renfri!" Geralt clasped the medallion in his hand.

She lifted her head up as if suddenly woken up from a dream and blinked her eyes a few times in amazement. For a moment — a very short one — she looked frightened.

"You've won," she said in a sudden harsh tone, "You've won, hexer.

Tomorrow morning I am leaving Blaviken, never to return to this lousy little town. Never. Fill up, if there is anything left in the bottle."

Her usual mocking teasing smile returned to her lips when she was putting the empty cup back on the table.

"Geralt?"

"I'm here."

"This bloody roof is steep. I'd rather leave at dawn. When it's dark I can fall down and hurt myself. I am a duchess, and I have a fragile body, I can sense a pea through a mattress. Unless it is well stuffed with straw, naturally. What will you say?"

"Renfri," Geralt smiled, willy-nilly, "does what you say become a duchess?"

"Hell! What can you know about duchesses? I was one and I know that all the pleasure that there is in being one is the possibility of doing what one feels like. Am I to tell you openly, or will you guess yourself?"

Still smiling, Geralt didn't answer.

"I do not even want to accept the thought that you don't fancy me," the girl frowned. "I prefer to presume that you are scared of walking in the footsteps of that freeman. Eh, white-haired. I've got nothing sharp on me. Well, just see for yourself.

She put her legs on his knees.

"Take my boots off. The bootleg's the best place to hide a knife."

Barefoot, she stood up and tugged at the clasp of her belt.

"I hide nothing here, as you see. Nor here, as you see. Put down that damned candle.

Outside, in the darkness, a cat was caterwauling.

"Renfri?"

"Yes?"

"Is that batiste?"

"Blast it! Naturally! I am a duchess, aren't I?"

"Daddy," Marilka wailed monotonously. "When will we go to the fair?

To the fair, Daddy!"

"Be quiet, Marilka." Caldemeyn rumbled, wiping his plate with bread.

"So, what are you saying, Geralt? Are they moving out from the town?"

"Yes."

"Well, I didn't think it will go that smoothly. They held me by the throat with this parchment sealed by Audeon. I was trying to grin and bear it, but — to tell you the truth — I could do nothing at all to them."

"Even if they openly broke the law? Started a brawl, mutiny, fight?"

"Even then. Audoen, Geralt, is an easily irritable king, he sends you up the gallows for anything. I am married, I have a daughter, I like my job, and I don't have to trouble where to get something to go well with my tomorrow's groats. In one word: it's good they're leaving. How did it really happen?"

"Daddy I want to the fair!"

"Libushe! Take Marilka away! Well, Geralt, I didn't think so. I questioned Centurion, the innkeeper of the Golden Manor, about that Novigrad company. They are quite a bunch. Some have been identified."

"Well?"

"The one with a scar across his face is Nohorn, former Abergard's sidekick, from the so-called free Angren company. You've heard of the company, haven't you? Apparently you have; who hasn't… That bull of a man, they call Fifteen, too. Even if not, I don't think his name refers to the fifteen good turns he's done in his life. That blackish half-elf is Civril, a highwayman and assassin. He's said to have had something to do with the Tridam massacre."

"Where?"

"In Tridam. You haven't heard? It was common gossip about three…

Well, yes, must have been three years ago, for Marilka was two then. The Baron of Tridam kept some thugs in his dungeon. Their companions, they say that that cur, Civril, was also among them, they captured a river ferry teeming with pilgrims, it was at the time of Nis Festivity. They sent to the baron demanded liberation of those. The Baron, as was to be expected, refused, and then they started murdering the pilgrims, one by one, one after another. Before the Baron yielded and released those from the dungeon, they let more than ten go down with the current. Exile, or even the block loomed over the Baron, some were vexed by the fact that he yielded only when so many had been killed; others were agitated, claiming that he had done a great evil: that it was a pre… precedent or what, and that those should have been shot down with crossbows together with the hostages, or be suddenly assaulted from boats, and he should not have go even an inch their way. At the court, the Baron maintained that he chose the lesser evil, for there were over a quarter of a hundred people on the ferry: women, brats.

"The Tridam ultimatum." hexer whispered. "Renfri…"

"What?"

"Caldemeyn — the fair!"