Eternal Flame 4

IV

Pushing through the crowd with difficulty, Geralt emerged right in front of a stall laden with copper skillets, pots and frying pans, sparkling in the rays of the twilight sun. Behind the stall stood a red-bearded dwarf in an olive-green hood and heavy sealskin boots. The dwarf’s face bore an expression of visible dislike; to be precise he looked as though any moment he intended to spit on the female customer sifting through the goods. The customer’s breast was heaving, she was shaking her golden curls and was besetting the dwarf with a ceaseless and chaotic flow of words.

The customer was none other than Vespula, known to Geralt as the thrower of missiles. Without waiting for her to recognise him, he melted swiftly back into the crowd.

The Western Market was bustling with life and getting through the crowd was like forcing one’s way through a hawthorn bush. Every now and then something caught on his sleeves and trouser legs; at times it was children who had lost their mothers while they were dragging their fathers away from the beer tent, at others it was spies from the guardhouse, at others shady vendors of caps of invisibility, aphrodisiacs and bawdy scenes carved in cedar wood. Geralt stopped smiling and began to swear, making judicious use of his elbows.

He heard the sound of a lute and a familiar peal of laughter. The sounds drifted from a fabulously coloured stall, decorated with the sign: ‘Buy your wonders, amulets and fish bait here’.

‘Has anyone ever told you, madam, that you are gorgeous?’ Dandelion yelled, sitting on the stall and waving his legs cheerfully. ‘No? It cannot be possible! This is a city of blind men, nothing but a city of blind men. Come, good folk! Who would hear a ballad of love? Whoever would be moved and enriched spiritually, let him toss a coin into the hat. What are you shoving your way in for, you bastard? Keep your pennies for beggars, and don’t insult an artist like me with copper. Perhaps I could forgive you, but art never could!’ ‘Dandelion,’ Geralt said, approaching. ‘I thought we had split up to search for the doppler. And you’re giving concerts. Aren’t you ashamed to sing at markets like an old beggar?’ ‘Ashamed?’ the bard said, astonished. ‘What matters is what and how one sings, and not where. Besides, I’m hungry, and the stall-holder promised me lunch. As far as the doppler is concerned, look for it yourselves. I’m not cut out for chases, brawls or mob law. I’m a poet.’ ‘You would do better not to attract attention, O poet. Your fiancée is here. There could be trouble.’ ‘Fiancée?’ Dandelion blinked nervously. ‘Which one do you mean? I have several.’ Vespula, clutching a copper frying pan, had forced her way through the audience with the momentum of a charging aurochs. Dandelion jumped up from the stall and darted away, nimbly leaping over some baskets of carrots. Vespula turned towards the Witcher, dilating her nostrils. Geralt stepped backwards, his back coming up against the hard resistance of the stall’s wall.

‘Geralt!’ Dainty Biberveldt shouted, jumping from the crowd and bumping into Vespula. ‘Quickly, quickly! I’ve seen him! Look, there, he’s getting away!’ ‘I’ll get you yet, you lechers!’ Vespula screamed, trying to regain her balance. ‘I’ll catch up with the whole of your debauched gang! A fine company! A pheasant, a scruff and a midget with hairy heels! You’ll be sorry!’ ‘This way, Geralt!’ Dainty yelled as he ran, jostling a small group of schoolboys intently playing the shell game. ‘There, there, he’s scarpered between those wagons! Steal up on him from the left! Quick!’ They rushed off in pursuit, the curses of the stallholders and customers they had knocked over ringing in their ears. By a miracle Geralt avoided tripping over a snot-nosed tot caught up in his legs. He jumped over it, but knocked over two barrels of herrings, for which an enraged fisherman lashed him across the back with a live eel, which he was showing to some customers at that moment.

They saw the doppler trying to flee past a sheep pen.

‘From the other side!’ Dainty yelled. ‘Cut him off from the other side, Geralt!’ The doppler shot like an arrow along the fence, green waistcoat flashing. It was becoming clear why he was not changing into anybody else. No one could rival a halfling’s agility. No one. Apart from another halfling. Or a witcher.

Geralt saw the doppler suddenly changing direction, kicking up a cloud of dust, and nimbly ducking into a hole in the fence surrounding a large tent serving as a slaughterhouse and a shambles. Dainty also saw it. The doppler jumped between the palings and began to force his way between the flock of bleating sheep crowded into the enclosure. It was clear he would not make it. Geralt turned and rushed after him between the palings. He felt a sudden tug, heard the crack of leather tearing, and the leather suddenly became very loose under his other arm.

The Witcher stopped. Swore. Spat. And swore again.

Dainty rushed into the tent after the doppler. From inside came screaming, the noise of blows, cursing and an awful banging noise.

The Witcher swore a third time, extremely obscenely, then gnashed his teeth, raised his hand and formed his fingers into the Aard Sign, aiming it straight at the tent. The tent billowed up like a sail during a gale, and from the inside reverberated a hellish howling, clattering and lowing of oxen. The tent collapsed.

The doppler, crawling on its belly, darted out from beneath the canvas and dashed towards another, smaller tent, probably the cold store. Right away, Geralt pointed his hand towards him and jabbed him in the back with the Sign. The doppler tumbled to the ground as though struck by lightning, turned a somersault, but immediately sprang up and rushed into the tent. The Witcher was hot on his heels.

It stank of meat inside the tent. And it was dark.

Tellico Lunngrevink Letorte was standing there, breathing heavily, clinging with both hands onto a side of pork hanging on a pole. There was no other way out of the tent, the canvas firmly fastened to the ground with numerous pegs.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you again, mimic,’ Geralt said coldly.

The doppler was breathing heavily and hoarsely.

‘Leave me alone,’ it finally grunted. ‘Why are you tormenting me, Witcher?’ ‘Tellico,’ Geralt said, ‘You’re asking foolish questions. In order to come into possession of Biberveldt’s horses and identity, you cut his head open and abandoned him in the wilds. You’re still making use of his personality and ignoring the problems you are causing him. The Devil only knows what else you’re planning, but I shall confuse those plans, in any event. I don’t want to kill you or turn you over to the authorities, but you must leave the city. I’ll see to it that you do.’ ‘And if I don’t want to?’

‘I’ll carry you out in a sack on a handcart.’

The doppler swelled up abruptly, and then suddenly became thinner and began to grow, his curly, chestnut hair turning white and straightening, reaching his shoulders. The halfling’s green waistcoat shone like oil, becoming black leather, and silver studs sparkled on the shoulders and sleeves. The chubby, ruddy face elongated and paled.

The hilt of a sword extended above its right shoulder.

‘Don’t come any closer,’ the second Witcher said huskily and smiled. ‘Don’t come any nearer, Geralt. I won’t let you lay hands on me.’ What a hideous smile I have, Geralt thought, reaching for his sword. What a hideous face I have. And how hideously I squint. So is that what I look like? Damn.

The hands of the doppler and the Witcher simultaneously touched their sword hilts, and both swords simultaneously sprang from their scabbards. Both witchers simultaneously took two quick, soft steps; one to the front, the other to the side. Both of them simultaneously raised their swords and swung them in a short, hissing moulinet.

Simultaneously, they both stopped dead, frozen in position.

‘You cannot defeat me,’ the doppler snarled. ‘Because I am you, Geralt.’ ‘You are mistaken, Tellico,’ the Witcher said softly. ‘Drop your sword and resume Biberveldt’s form. Otherwise you’ll regret it, I warn you.’ ‘I am you,’ the doppler repeated. ‘You will not gain an advantage over me. You cannot defeat me, because I am you!’ ‘You cannot have any idea what it means to be me, mimic.’

Tellico lowered the hand gripping the sword.

‘I am you,’ he repeated.

‘No,’ the Witcher countered, ‘you are not. And do you know why? Because you’re a poor, little, good-natured doppler. A doppler who, after all, could have killed Biberveldt and buried his body in the undergrowth, by so doing gaining total safety and utter certainty that he would not be unmasked, ever, by anybody, including the halfling’s spouse, the famous Gardenia Biberveldt. But you didn’t kill him, Tellico, because you didn’t have the courage. Because you’re a poor, little, good-natured doppler, whose close friends call him Dudu. And whoever you might change into you’ll always be the same. You only know how to copy what is good in us, because you don’t understand the bad in us. That’s what you are, doppler.’ Tellico moved backwards, pressing his back against the tent’s canvas.

‘Which is why,’ Geralt continued, ‘you will now turn back into Biberveldt and hold your hands out nicely to be tied up. You aren’t capable of defying me, because I am what you are unable of copying. You are absolutely aware of this, Dudu. Because you took over my thoughts for a moment.’ Tellico straightened up abruptly. His face’s features, still those of the Witcher, blurred and spread out, and his white hair curled and began to darken.

‘You’re right, Geralt,’ he said indistinctly, because his lips had begun to change shape. ‘I took over your thoughts. Only briefly, but it was sufficient. Do you know what I’m going to do now?’ The leather witcher jacket took on a glossy, cornflower blue colour. The doppler smiled, straightened his plum bonnet with its egret’s feather, and tightened the strap of the lute slung over his shoulder. The lute which had been a sword a moment ago.

‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Witcher,’ he said, with the rippling laughter characteristic of Dandelion. ‘I’ll go on my way, squeeze my way into the crowd and change quietly into any-old-body, even a beggar. Because I prefer being a beggar in Novigrad to being a doppler in the wilds. Novigrad owes me something, Geralt. The building of a city here tainted a land we could have lived in; lived in in our natural form. We have been exterminated, hunted down like rabid dogs. I’m one of the few to survive. I want to survive and I will survive. Long ago, when wolves pursued me in the winter, I turned into a wolf and ran with the pack for several weeks. And survived. Now I’ll do that again, because I don’t want to roam about through wildernesses and be forced to winter beneath fallen trees. I don’t want to be forever hungry, I don’t want to serve as target practice all the time. Here, in Novigrad, it’s warm, there’s grub, I can make money and very seldom do people shoot arrows at each other. Novigrad is a pack of wolves. I’ll join that pack and survive. Understand?’ Geralt nodded reluctantly.

‘You gave dwarves, halflings, gnomes and even elves,’ the doppler continued, twisting his mouth in an insolent, Dandelion smile, ‘the modest possibility of assimilation. Why should I be any worse off? Why am I denied that right? What do I have to do to be able to live in this city? Turn into a she-elf with doe eyes, silky hair and long legs? Well? In what way is a she-elf better than me? Only that at the sight of the she-elf you pick up speed, and at the sight of me you want to puke? You know where you can stuff an argument like that. I’ll survive anyway. I know how to. As a wolf I ran, I howled and I fought without others over a she-wolf. As a resident of Novigrad I’ll trade, weave wicker baskets, beg or steal; as one of you I’ll do what one of you usually does. Who knows, perhaps I’ll even take a wife.’ The Witcher said nothing.

‘Yes, as I said,’ Tellico continued calmly. ‘I’m going. And you, Geralt, will not even try to stop me. Because I, Geralt, knew your thoughts for a moment. Including the ones you don’t want to admit to, the ones you even hide from yourself. Because to stop me you’d have to kill me. And the thought of killing me in cold blood fills you with disgust. Doesn’t it?’ The Witcher said nothing.

Tellico adjusted the strap of the lute again, turned away and walked towards the exit. He walked confidently, but Geralt saw him hunch his neck and shoulders in expectation of the whistle of a sword blade. He put his sword in its scabbard. The doppler stopped in mid-step, and looked around.

‘Farewell, Geralt,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Farewell, Dudu,’ the Witcher replied. ‘Good luck.’

The doppler turned away and headed towards the crowded bazaar, with Dandelion’s sprightly, cheerful, swinging gait. Like Dandelion, he swung his left arm vigorously and just like Dandelion he grinned at the wenches as he passed them. Geralt set off slowly after him. Slowly.

Tellico seized his lute in full stride; after slowing his pace he played two chords, and then dextrously played a tune Geralt knew. Turning away slightly, he sang.

Exactly like Dandelion.

Spring will return, on the road the rain will fall

Hearts will be warmed by the heat of the sun

It must be thus, for fire still smoulders in us all

An eternal fire, hope for each one.

‘Pass that on to Dandelion, if you remember,’ he called, ‘and tell him that Winter is a lousy title. The ballad should be called The Eternal Fire. Farewell, Witcher!’ ‘Hey!’ suddenly resounded. ‘You, pheasant!’

Tellico turned around in astonishment. From behind a stall emerged Vespula, her breast heaving violently, raking him up with a foreboding gaze.

‘Eyeing up tarts, you cad?’ she hissed, breast heaving more and more enticingly. ‘Singing your little songs, are you, you knave?’ Tellico took off his bonnet and bowed, broadly smiling Dandelion’s characteristic smile.

‘Vespula, my dear,’ he said ingratiatingly, ‘how glad I am to see you. Forgive me, my sweet. I owe you—’ ‘Oh, you do, you do,’ Vespula interrupted loudly. ‘And what you owe me you will now pay me! Take that!’ An enormous copper frying pan flashed in the sun and with a deep, loud clang smacked into the doppler’s head. Tellico staggered and fell with an indescribably stupid expression frozen on his face, arms spread out, and his physiognomy suddenly began to change, melt and lose its similarity to anything at all. Seeing it, the Witcher leaped towards him, in full flight snatching a large kilim from a stall. Having unfurled the kilim on the ground, he sent the doppler onto it with two kicks and rolled it up in it quickly but tightly.

Sitting down on the bundle, he wiped his forehead with a sleeve. Vespula, gripping the frying pan, looked at him malevolently, and the crowd closed in all around.

‘He’s sick,’ the Witcher said and smiled affectedly. ‘It’s for his own good. Don’t crowd, good people, the poor thing needs air.’ ‘Did you hear?’ Chappelle asked calmly but resonantly, suddenly pushing his way through the throng. ‘Please do not form a public gathering here! Please disperse! Public gatherings are forbidden. Punishable by a fine!’ In the blink of an eye the crowd scattered to the sides, only to reveal Dandelion, approaching swiftly, to the sounds of his lute. On seeing him, Vespula let out an ear-splitting scream, dropped the frying pan and fled across the square.

‘What happened?’ Dandelion asked. ‘Did she see the Devil?’

Geralt stood up, holding the bundle, which had begun to move weakly. Chappelle slowly approached. He was alone and his personal guard was nowhere to be seen.

‘I wouldn’t come any closer,’ Geralt said quietly. ‘If I were you, Lord Chappelle, sir, I wouldn’t come any closer.’ ‘You wouldn’t?’ Chappelle tightened his thin lips, looking at him coldly.

‘If I were you, Lord Chappelle, I would pretend I never saw anything.’ ‘Yes, no doubt,’ Chappelle said. ‘But you are not me.’

Dainty Biberveldt ran up from behind the tent, out of breath and sweaty. On seeing Chappelle he stopped, began to whistle, held his hands behind his back and pretended to be admiring the roof of the granary.

Chappelle went over and stood by Geralt, very close. The Witcher did not move, but only narrowed his eyes. For a moment they looked at each other and then Chappelle leaned over the bundle.

‘Dudu,’ he said to Dandelion’s strangely deformed cordovan boots sticking out of the rolled-up kilim. ‘Copy Biberveldt, and quickly.’ ‘What?’ Dainty yelled, stopping staring at the granary. ‘What’s that?’ ‘Be quiet,’ Chappelle said. ‘Well, Dudu, are things coming along?’

‘I’m just,’ a muffled grunting issued from the kilim. ‘I’m… Just a moment…’ The cordovan boots sticking out of the kilim stretched, became blurred and changed into the halfling’s bare, hairy feet.

‘Get out, Dudu,’ Chappelle said. ‘And you, Dainty, be quiet. All halflings look the same, don’t they?’ Dainty mumbled something indistinctly. Geralt, eyes still narrowed, looked at Chappelle suspiciously. The minister, however, straightened up and looked all around, and all that remained of any gawkers who were still in the vicinity was the clacking of wooden clogs dying away in the distance.

The second Dainty Biberveldt scrambled and rolled out of the bundle, sneezed, sat up and rubbed his eyes and nose. Dandelion perched himself on a trunk lying alongside, and strummed away on his lute with an expression of moderate interest on his face.

‘Who do you think that is, Dainty?’ Chappelle asked mildly. ‘Very similar to you, don’t you think?’ ‘He’s my cousin,’ the halfling shot back and grinned. ‘A close relative. Dudu Biberveldt of Knotgrass Meadow, an astute businessman. I’ve actually just decided…’ ‘Yes, Dainty?’

‘I’ve decided to appoint him my factor in Novigrad. What do you say to that, cousin?’ ‘Oh, thank you, cousin,’ his close relative, the pride of the Biberveldt clan, and an astute businessman, smiled broadly. Chappelle also smiled.

‘Has your dream about life in the city come true?’ Geralt muttered. ‘What do you see in this city, Dudu… and you, Chappelle?’ ‘Had you lived on the moors,’ Chappelle muttered back, ‘and eaten roots, got soaked and frozen, you’d know. We also deserve something from life, Geralt. We aren’t inferior to you.’ ‘Very true,’ Geralt nodded. ‘You aren’t. Perhaps it even happens that you’re better. What happened to the real Chappelle?’ ‘Popped his clogs,’ the second Chappelle whispered. ‘Two months ago now. Apoplexy. May the earth lie lightly on him, and may the Eternal Fire light his way. I happened to be in the vicinity… No one noticed… Geralt? You aren’t going to—’ ‘What didn’t anyone notice?’ the Witcher asked, with an inscrutable expression.

‘Thank you,’ Chappelle muttered.

‘Are there more of you?’

‘Is it important?’

‘No,’ agreed the Witcher, ‘it isn’t.’

A two-cubit-tall figure in a green cap and spotted coney fur coat dashed out from behind the wagons and stalls and trotted over.

‘Mr Biberveldt,’ the gnome panted and stammered, looking around and sweeping his eyes from one halfling to the other.

‘I presume, shorty,’ Dainty said, ‘that you have a matter for my cousin, Dudu Biberveldt, to deal with. Speak. Speak. That is him.’ ‘Sorrel reports that everything has gone,’ the gnome said and smiled broadly, showing small, pointed teeth, ‘for four crowns apiece.’ ‘I think I know what it’s about,’ Dainty said. ‘Pity Vivaldi’s not here, he would have calculated the profit in no time.’ ‘If I may, cousin,’ Tellico Lunngrevink Letorte, Penstock for short, Dudu to his close friends, and for the whole of Novigrad a member of the large Biberveldt family, spoke up. ‘If I may, I’ll calculate it. I have an infallible memory for figures. As well as for other things.’ ‘By all means,’ Dainty gave a bow. ‘By all means, cousin.’

‘The costs,’ the doppler frowned, ‘were low. Eighteen for the oil, eight-fifty for the cod liver oil, hmm… Altogether, including the string, forty-five crowns. Takings: six hundred at four crowns, makes two thousand four hundred. No commission, because there weren’t any middlemen…’ ‘Please do not forget about the tax,’ the second Chappelle reminded him. ‘Please do not forget that standing before you is a representative of the city authorities and the temple, who treats his duties gravely and conscientiously.’ ‘It’s exempt from tax,’ Dudu Biberveldt declared. ‘Because it was sold in a sacred cause.’ ‘Hey?’

‘The cod liver oil, wax and oil dyed with a little cochineal,’ the doppler explained, ‘need only be poured into earthenware bowls with a piece of string dipped into it. The string, when lit, gives a beautiful, red flame, which burns for a long time and doesn’t smell. The Eternal Fire. The priests needed vigil lights for the altars of the Eternal Fire. Now they don’t need them.’ ‘Bloody hell…’ Chappelle muttered. ‘You’re right. They needed vigil lights… Dudu, you’re brilliant.’ ‘I take after my mother,’ Tellico said modestly.

‘Yes, indeed, the spitting image of his mother,’ Dainty agreed. ‘Just look into those intelligent eyes. Begonia Biberveldt, my darling aunt, as I live and breathe.’ ‘Geralt,’ Dandelion groaned. ‘He’s earned more in three days than I’ve earned in my whole life by singing!’ ‘In your place,’ the Witcher said gravely, ‘I’d quit singing and take up commerce. Ask him, he may take you on as an apprentice.’ ‘Witcher,’ Tellico said, tugging him by the sleeve. ‘Tell me how I could… repay you…?’ ‘Twenty-two crowns.’

‘What?’

‘For a new jacket. Look what’s left of mine.’

‘Do you know what?’ Dandelion suddenly yelled. ‘Let’s all go to the house of ill repute! To Passiflora! The Biberveldts are paying!’ ‘Do they admit halflings?’ Dainty asked with concern.

‘Just let them try not to,’ Chappelle put on a menacing expression. ‘Just let them try and I’ll accuse their entire bordello of heresy.’ ‘Right,’ Dandelion called. ‘Very satisfactory. Geralt? Are you coming?’ The Witcher laughed softly.

‘Do you know what, Dandelion?’ he said. ‘I’ll come with pleasure.’