Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski Read Free Book Online

spring from nowhere. But you’re not a stranger, Dandilion. I know you and like you.”
    “Really?” The poet smiled too. “You have been good at concealing it up until now. I’ve even heard the rumour that you can’t stand me, I quote, any more than the plague.”
    “It was the case once.” The enchantress suddenly grew serious. “Later my opinion changed. Later, I was grateful to you.”
    “What for, if I may ask?”
    “Never mind,” she said, toying with the empty tumbler. “Let us get back to more important questions. Those you were asked in the pigsty while your arms were being twisted out of their sockets. What really happened, Dandilion? Have you really not seen Geralt since you fled the banks of the Yaruga? Did you really not know he returned south after the war? That he was seriously wounded – so seriously there were even rumours of his death? Didn’t you know anything?”
    “No. I didn’t. I stayed in Pont Vanis for a long time, in Esterad Thyssen’s court. And then at Niedamir’s in Hengfors—”
    “You didn’t know.” The enchantress nodded and unfastened her tunic. A black velvet ribbon wound around her neck, an obsidian star set with diamonds hanging from it. “You didn’t know that when his wounds healed Geralt went to Transriver? You can’t guess who he was looking for?”
    “That I can. But I don’t know if he found her.”
    “You don’t know,” she repeated. “You, who usually know everything, and then sing about everything. Even such intimate matters as someone else’s feelings. I listened to your ballads beneath Bleobheris, Dandilion. You dedicated a good few verses to me.”
    “Poetry,” he muttered, staring at the chicken, “has its rights. No one should be offended—”
    “‘Hair like a raven’s wing, as a storm in the night…’” quoted Yennefer with exaggerated emphasis, “ ‘…and in the violet eyes sleep lightning bolts…’ Isn’t that how it went?”
    “That’s how I remembered you.” The poet smiled faintly. “May the first who wishes to claim the description is untrue throw the first stone.”
    “Only I don’t know,” the Enchantress pinched her lips together, “who gave you permission to describe my internal organs. How did it go? ‘Her heart, as though a jewel, adorned her neck. Hard as if of diamond made, and as a diamond so unfeeling, sharper than obsidian, cutting—’ Did you make that up yourself? Or perhaps…?”
    Her lips quivered, twisted.
    “…or perhaps you listened to someone’s confidences and grievances?”
    “Hmm…” Dandilion cleared his throat and veered away from the dangerous subject. “Tell me, Yennefer, when did you last see Geralt?”
    “A long time ago.”
    “After the war?”
    “After the war…” Yennefer’s voice changed a little. “No, I never saw him after the war. For a long time… I didn’t see anybody. Well, back to the point, Poet. I am a little surprised to discover that you do not know anything, you have not heard anything and that, in spite of this, someone searching for information picked you out to stretch over a beam. Doesn’t that worry you?”
    “It does.”
    “Listen to me,” she said sharply, banging her tumbler against the table. “Listen carefully. Strike that ballad from your repertoire. Do not sing it again.”
    “Are you talking about—”
    “You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Sing about the war against Nilfgaard. Sing about Geralt and me, you’ll neither harm nor help anyone in the process, you’ll make nothing any better or worse. But do not sing about the Lion Cub of Cintra.”
    She glanced around to check if any of the few customers at this hour were eavesdropping, and waited until the lass clearing up had returned to the kitchen.
    “And do try to avoid one-to-one meetings with people you don’t know,” she said quietly. “People who ‘forget’ to introduce themselves by conveying greetings from a mutual acquaintance. Understand?”
    He