'I understand.' Triss grimaced mockingly. 'Woman's or not, for the time being you'll have to change into it. Well, get on with it, get undressed. Let me help you… Damn it! What's this? Ciri?'
The girl's shoulders were covered in massive bruises, suffused with blood. Most of them had already turned yellow; some were fresh.
What the hell is this?' the magician repeated angrily. Who beat you like this?'
'This?' Ciri looked at her shoulders as if surprised by the number of bruises. 'Oh, this… That was the windmill. I was too slow.'
What windmill? Bloody hell!'
'The windmill,' repeated Ciri, raising her huge eyes to look up at the magician. 'It's a sort of… Well… I'm using it to learn to dodge while attacking. It's got these paws made of sticks and it turns and waves the paws. You have to jump very quickly and dodge. You have to learn a lefrex. If you haven't got the lefrex the windmill wallops you with a stick. At the beginning, the windmill gave me a really terribly horrible thrashing. But now-'
'Take the leggings and shirt off. Oh, sweet gods! Dear girl! Can you really walk? Run?'
Both hips and her left thigh were black and blue with haematomas and swellings. Ciri shuddered and hissed, pulling away from the magician's hand. Triss swore viciously in Dwarvish, using inexpressibly foul language.
'Was that the windmill, too?' she asked, trying to remain calm.
'This? No. This, this was the windmill.' Ciri pointed indifferently to an impressive bruise below her left knee, covering her shin. 'And these other ones… They were the pendulum. I practise my fencing steps on the pendulum. Geralt says I'm already good at the pendulum. He says I've got… Flair. I've got flair.'
And if you run out of flair' – Triss ground her teeth together -'I take it the pendulum thumps you?'
'But of course,' the girl confirmed, looking at her, clearly surprised at this lack of knowledge. 'It thumps you, and how.'
And here? On your side? What was that? A smith's hammer?'
Ciri hissed with pain and blushed.
'I fell off the comb…'
'… and the comb thumped you,' finished Triss, controlling herself with increasing difficulty. Ciri snorted.
'How can a comb thump you when it's buried in the ground? It can't! I just fell. I was practising a jumping pirouette and it didn't work. That's where the bruise came from. Because I hit a post.'
And you lay there for two days?? In pain? Finding it hard to breathe'
'Not at all. Coen rubbed it and put me straight back on the comb. You have to, you know? Otherwise you catch fear.'
'What?'
'You catch fear,' Ciri repeated proudly, brushing her ashen fringe from her forehead. 'Didn't you know? Even when something bad happens to you, you have to go straight back to that piece of equipment or you get frightened. And if you're frightened you'll be hopeless at the exercise. You mustn't give up. Geralt said so.'
'I have to remember that maxim,' the enchantress murmured through her teeth. 'And that it came from Geralt. Not a bad prescription for life although I'm not sure it applies in every situation. But it is easy to put into practise at someone else's expense. So you mustn't give up? Even though you are being thumped and beaten in a thousand ways, you're to get up and carry on practising?'
'Of course. A witcher's not afraid of anything.'
'Is that so? And you, Ciri? You aren't afraid of anything? Answer truthfully.'
The girl turned away and bit her lip.
'You won't tell anybody?'
1 won t.
'I'm frightened of two pendulums. Two at the same time. And the windmill, but only when it's set to go fast. And there's also a long balance, I still have to go on that… with a safety de- A safety device. Lambert says I'm a sissy and a wimp but that's not true. Geralt told me my weight is distributed a little differently because I'm a girl. I've simply got to practise more unless… I wanted to ask you something. May I?'
'You may.'
'If you know magic and spells… If you can cast them… Can you turn me into a boy?'
'No,' Triss replied in an icy tone. 'I can't.'
'Hmm…' The little witcher-girl was clearly troubled. 'But could you at least…'
'At least what?'
'Could you do something so I don't have to…' Ciri blushed. 'I'll whisper it in your ear.'
'Go on.' Triss leaned over. 'I'm listening.'
Ciri, growing even redder, brought her head closer to the enchantress's chestnut hair.
Triss sat up abruptly, her eyes flaming.
'Today? Now?'
'Mhm.'
'Hell and bloody damnation!' the enchantress yelled, and kicked the stool so hard that it hit the door and brought down the rat skin. 'Pox, plague, shit and leprosy! I'm going to kill those cursed idiots!'
'Calm down, Merigold,' said Lambert. 'It's unhealthy to get so worked up, especially with no reason.'
'Don't preach at me! And stop calling me 'Merigold'! But best of all, stop talking altogether. I'm not speaking to you. Vesemir, Geralt, have any of you seen how terribly battered this child is? She hasn't got a single healthy spot on her body!'
'Dear child,' said Vesemir gravely, 'don't let yourself get carried away by your emotions. You were brought up differently, you've seen children being brought up in another way. Ciri comes from the south where girls and boys are brought up in the same way, like the elves. She was put on a pony when she was five and when she was eight she was already riding out hunting. She was taught to use a bow, javelin and sword. A bruise is nothing new to Ciri-'
'Don't give me that nonsense,' Triss flared. 'Don't pretend you're stupid. This is not some pony or horse or sleigh ride. This is Kaer Morhen! On these windmills and pendulums of yours, on this Killer path of yours, dozens of boys have broken their bones and twisted their necks, boys who were hard, seasoned vagabonds like you, found on roads and pulled out of gutters. Sinewy scamps and good-for-nothings, pretty experienced despite their short lives. What chance has Ciri got? Even though she's been brought up in the south with elven methods, even growing up under the hand of a battle-axe like Lioness Calanthe, that little one was and still is a princess. Delicate skin, slight build, light bones… She's a girl! What do you want to turn her into? A witcher?'
'That girl,' said Geralt quietly and calmly, 'that petite, delicate princess lived through the Massacre of Cintra. Left entirely to her own devices, she stole past Nilfgaard's cohorts. She successfully fled the marauders who prowled the villages, plundering and murdering anything that still lived. She survived on her own for two weeks in the forests of Transriver, entirely alone. She spent a month roaming with a pack of fugitives, slogging as hard as all the others and starving like all the others. For almost half a year, having been taken in by a peasant family, she worked on the land and with the livestock. Believe me, Triss, life has tried, seasoned and hardened her no less than good-for-nothings like us, who were brought to Kaer Morhen from the highways. Ciri is no weaker than unwanted bastards, like us, who were left with witchers in taverns like kittens in a wicker basket. And her gender? What difference does that make?'
'You still ask? You still dare ask that?' yelled the magician. 'What difference does it make? Only that the girl, not being like you, has her days! And bears them exceptionally badly! And you want her to tear her lungs out on the Killer and some bloody windmills!'
Despite her outrage, Triss felt an exquisite satisfaction at the sight of the sheepish expressions of the young witchers, and Vesemir's jaw suddenly dropping open.
'You didn't even know.' She nodded in what was now a calm, concerned and gentle reproach. 'You're pathetic guardians. She's ashamed to tell you because she was taught not to mention such complaints to men. And she's ashamed of the weakness, the pain and the fact that she is less fit. Has any one of you thought about that? Taken any interest in it? Or tried to guess what might be the matter with her? Maybe her very first bleed happened here, in Kaer Morhen? And she cried to herself at night, unable to find any sympathy, consolation or even understanding from anyone? Has any one of you given it any thought whatsoever?'
'Stop it, Triss,' moaned Geralt quietly. 'That's enough. You've achieved what you wanted. And maybe even more.'
