and in flower-beds, repeated their homework to each other, discussed or discreetly played at evens or odds, leapfrog, pile-up or other games demanding intelligence. Professors engrossed in conversation or debate also strolled here with dignity and decorum. Younger tutors milled around with their eyes glued to the backsides of female students. Dandilion ascertained with joy that, since his day, nothing had changed in the Academy.
A breeze swept, in from the Delta carrying the faint scent of the
sea and the somewhat stronger stink of hydrogen sulphide from the direction of the grand edifice of the Department of Alchemy which towered above the canal. Grey and yellow linnets warbled amongst the shrubs in the park adjacent to the students' dormitories, while an orang-utan sat on the poplar having, no doubt, escaped from the zoological gardens in the Department of Natural History.
Not wasting any time, the poet marched briskly through the labyrinth of lanes and hedges. He knew the University grounds like the back of his hand – and no wonder, considering he had studied there for four years, then had lectured for a year in the Faculty of Trouvereship and Poetry. The post of lecturer had been offered to him when he had passed his final exams with full marks, to the astonishment of professors with whom he had earned the reputation of lazybones, rake and idiot during his studies. Then, when, after several years of roaming around the country with his lute, his fame as a minstrel had spread far and wide, the Academy had taken great pains to have him visit and give guest lectures. Dandilion yielded to their requests only sporadically, for his love of wandering was constantly at odds with his predilection for comfort, luxury and a regular income. And also, of course, with his liking for the town of Oxenfurt.
He looked back. The two individuals, not having purchased any ocarinas, pipes or violins, strode behind him at a distance, paying great attention to the treetops and facades.
Whistling lightheartedly the poet changed direction and made towards the mansion which housed the Faculty of Medicine and Herbology. The lane leading to the faculty swarmed with female students wearing characteristic pale green cloaks. Dandilion searched intently for familiar faces.
'Shani!'
A young medical student with dark red hair cropped just below her ears raised her head from a volume on anatomy and got up from her bench.
'Dandilion!' She smiled, squinting her happy, hazel eyes. 'I haven't seen you for years! Come on, I'll introduce you to my friends. They adore your poems '
'Later,' muttered the bard. 'Look discreetly over there, Shani. See those two?'
'Snoops.' The medical student wrinkled her upturned nose and snorted, amazing Dandilion – not for the first time – with how easily students could recognise secret agents, spies and informers. Students' aversion to the secret service was legendary, if not very rational. The university grounds were extraterritorial and sacred, and students and lecturers were untouchable while there – and the service, although it snooped, did not dare to bother or annoy academics.
'They've been following me since the market place,' said Dandilion, pretending to embrace and flirt with the medical student. 'Will you do something for me, Shani?'
'Depends what.' The girl tossed her shapely neck like a frightened deer. 'If you've got yourself into something stupid again…'
'No, no,' he quickly reassured her. 'I only want to pass on some information and can't do it myself with these shits stuck to my heels-'
'Shall I call the lads? I've only got to shout and you'll have those snoops off your back.'
'Oh, come on. You want a riot to break out? The row over the bench ghetto for non-humans has just about ended and you can't wait for more trouble? Besides, I loathe violence. I'll manage the snoops. However, if you could…'
He brought his lips closer to the girl's hair and took a while to whisper something. Shani's eyes opened wide.
'A witcher? A real witcher?'
'Quiet, for the love of gods. Will you do that, Shani?'
'Of course.' The medical student smiled readily. 'Just out of curiosity to see, close up, the famous-'
'Quieter, I asked you. Only remember: not a word to anyone.'
A physician's secret.' Shani smiled even more beautifully and Dandilion was once more filled with the desire to finally compose a ballad about girls like her – not too pretty but nonetheless beautiful, girls of whom one dreams at night when those of classical beauty are forgotten after five minutes.
'Thank you, Shani.'
'It's nothing, Dandilion. See you later. Take care.' Duly kissing each other's cheeks, the bard and the medical student briskly moved off in opposite directions – she towards the faculty, he towards Thinkers' Park.
He passed the modern, gloomy Faculty of Technology building, dubbed the 'Deus ex machina' by the students, and turned on to Guildenstern Bridge. He did not get far. Two people lurked around a corner in the lane, by the flowerbed with a bronze bust of the first chancellor of the Academy, Nicodemus de Boot. As was the habit of all snoops in the world, they avoided meeting other's eyes and, like all snoops in the world, they had coarse, pale faces. These they tried very hard to furnish with an intelligent expression, thanks to which they resembled demented monkeys.
'Greetings from Dijkstra,' said one of the spies. 'We're off.' 'Likewise,' the bard replied impudently. 'Off you go.' The spies looked at each other then, rooted to the spot, fixed their eyes on an obscene word which someone had scribbled in charcoal on the plinth supporting the chancellor's bust. Dandilion sighed.
'Just as I thought,' he said, adjusting the lute on his shoulder. 'So am I going to be irrevocably forced to accompany you somewhere, gentlemen? Too bad. Let's go then. You go first, I'll follow. In this particular instance, age may go before beauty.'
Dijkstra, head of King Vizimir of Redania's secret service, did not resemble a spy. He was far from the stereotype which dictated that a spy should be short, thin, rat-like, and have piercing eyes forever casting furtive glances from beneath a black hood. Dijkstra, as Dandilion knew, never wore hoods and had a decided preference for bright coloured clothing. He was almost seven foot tall and probably only weighed a little under two quintals. When he crossed his arms over his chest – which he did with habitual pleasure – it looked as if two cachalots had prostrated themselves over a whale. As far as his features, hair colour and complexion were concerned, he looked like a freshly scrubbed pig. Dandilion knew very few people whose appearance was as deceptive as Dijkstra's – because this porky giant who gave the impression of being a sleepy, sluggish moron, possessed
an exceptionally keen mind. And considerable authority. A popular saying at King Vizimir's court held that if Dijkstra states it is noon yet darkness reigns all around, it is time to start worrying about the fate of the sun.
At present, however, the poet had other reasons to worry.
'Dandilion,' said Dijkstra sleepily, crossing the cachalots over the whale, 'you thick-headed halfwit. You unmitigated dunce. Do you have to spoil everything you touch? Couldn't you, just once in your life, do something right? I know you can't think for yourself. I know you're almost forty, look almost thirty, think you're just over twenty and act as though you're barely ten. And being aware of this, I usually furnish you with precise instructions. I tell you what you have to do, when you have to do it and how you're to go about it. And I regularly get the impression that I'm talking to a stone wall.'
'I, on the other hand,' retorted the poet, feigning insolence, 'regularly have the impression that you talk simply to exercise your lips and tongue. So get to the point, and eliminate the figures of speech and fruitless rhetoric. What are you getting at this time?'
They were sitting at a large oak table amongst bookshelves crammed with volumes and piled with rolls of parchment, on the top floor of the vice-chancellor's offices, in leased quarters which Dijkstra had amusingly named the Faculty of Most Contemporary History and Dandilion called the Faculty of Comparative Spying and Applied Sabotage. There were, including the poet, four present -apart from Dijkstra, two other people took part in the conversation. One of these was, as usual, Ori Reuven, the aged and eternally sniffing secretary to the chief of Redanian spies. The other was no ordinary person.
'You know very well what I'm getting at,' Dijkstra replied coldly. 'However, since you clearly enjoy playing the idiot I won't spoil your game and will explain using simple words. Or maybe you'd like to make use of this privilege, Philippa?'
Dandilion glanced at the fourth person present at the meeting, who until then had remained silent. Philippa Eilhart must have only recently arrived in Oxenfurt, or was perhaps intending to leave at once, since she wore
