'Hmm…' Jarre shuffled from foot to foot and moved his arms undecidedly, evidently not knowing what to do with them. What can I tell you? It's true, people are gossiping in town, all excited by the events in Dol Angra… But there isn't going to be a war. That's for sure. You can believe me.'
'Of course, I can,' she snorted. 'But I'd rather know what you base this certainty on. You don't sit on the duke's council, as far as I know. And if you were made a voivode yesterday, then do tell me about it. I'll congratulate you.'
'I study historical treatises,' Jarre turned crimson, 'and one can learn more from them than sitting on a council. I've read The History of War by Marshal Pelligram, Duke de Ruyter's Strategy, Bronibor's The Victorious Deeds of Redania's Gallant Cavalrymen… And I know enough about the present political situation to be able to draw conclusions through analogy. Do you know what an analogy is?'
'Of course,' lied Ciri, picking a blade of grass from the buckle of her shoe.
'If the history of past wars' – the boy stared at the ceiling -'were to be laid over present political geography, it is easy to gauge that minor border incidents, such as the one in Dol Angra, are fortuitous and insignificant. You, as a student of magic, must, no doubt, be acquainted with the present political geography?'
Ciri did not reply. Lost in thought, she skimmed through the parchments lying on the table and turned a few pages of the huge leather-bound volume.
'Leave that alone. Don't touch it.' Jarre was worried. 'It's an exceptionally valuable and unique work.'
'I'm not going to eat it.'
'Your hands are dirty.'
'They're cleaner than yours. Listen, do you have any maps here?'
'I do, but they're hidden in the chest,' said the boy quickly, but seeing Ciri pull a face, he sighed, pushed the scrolls of parchment off the chest, lifted the lid and started to rummage through the contents. Ciri, wriggling in the chair and swinging her legs, carried on flicking through the book. From between the pages suddenly slipped a loose page with a picture of a woman, completely naked with her hair curled into ringlets, entangled in an embrace with a completely naked bearded man. Her tongue sticking out, the girl spent a long time turning the etching around, unable to make out which way up it should be. She finally spotted the most important detail in the picture and giggled. Jarre, walking up with an enormous scroll under his arm, blushed violently, took the etching from her without a word and hid it under the papers strewn across the table.
'An exceptionally valuable and unique work,' she gibed. 'Are those the analogies you're studying? Are there any more pictures like that in there? Interesting, the book is called Healing and Curing. I'd like to know what diseases are cured that way.'
'You can read the First Runes?' The boy was surprised and cleared his throat with embarrassment. 'I didn't know…'
'There's still a lot you don't know.' She turned up her nose. 'And what do you think? I'm not just some novice feeding hens
for eggs. I am… a wizard. Well, go on. Show me that map!'
They both knelt on the floor, holding down the stiff sheet, which was stubbornly trying to roll up again, with their hands and knees. Ciri finally weighed down one corner with a chair leg and Jarre pressed another down with a hefty book entitled The Life and Deeds of Great King Radovid.
'Hmm… This map is so unclear! I can't make head or tail of it… Where are we? Where is Ellander?'
'Here.' He pointed. 'Here is Temeria, this space. Here is Wyzima, our King Foltest's capital. Here, in Pontar Valley, lies the duchy of Ellander. And here… Yes, here is our Temple.'
'And what's this lake? There aren't any lakes around here.'
'That isn't a lake. It's an ink blot…'
Ah. And here… This is Cintra. Is that right?'
'Yes. South of Transriver and Sodden. This way, here, flows the River Yaruga, flowing into the sea right at Cintra. That country, I don't know if you know, is now dominated by the Nilfgaardians-'
'I do know,' she cut him short, clenching her fist. 'I know very well. And where is this Nilfgaard? I can't see a country like that here. Doesn't it fit on this map of yours, or what? Get me a bigger one!'
'Hmm…' Jarre scratched the wart on his chin. 'I don't have any maps like that… But I do know that Nilfgaard is somewhere further towards the south… There, more or less there. I think.'
'So far?' Ciri was surprised, her eyes fixed on the place on the floor which he indicated. 'They've come all the way from there? And on the way conquered those other countries?'
'Yes, that's true. They conquered Metinna, Maecht, Nazair, Ebbing, all the kingdoms south of the Amell Mountains. Those kingdoms, like Cintra and Upper Sodden, the Nilfgaardians now call the Provinces. But they didn't manage to dominate Lower Sodden, Verden and Brugge. Here, on the Yaruga, the armies of the Four Kingdoms held them back, defeating them in battle-'
'I know, I studied history.' Ciri slapped the map with her open palm. Well, Jarre, tell me about the war. We're kneeling on
political geography. Draw conclusions through analogy and through anything you like. I'm all ears.'
The boy blushed, then started to explain, pointing to the appropriate regions on the map with the tip of a quill.
'At present, the border between us and the South – dominated by Nilfgaard – is demarcated, as you can see, by the Yaruga River. It constitutes an obstacle which is practically insurmountable. It hardly ever freezes over, and during the rainy season it can carry so much water that its bed is almost a mile wide. For a long stretch, here, it flows between precipitous, inaccessible banks, between the rocks of Mahakam…'
'The land of dwarves and gnomes?'
'Yes. And so the Yaruga can only be crossed here, in its lower reaches, in Sodden, and here, in its middle reaches, in the valley of Dol Angra…'
And it was exactly in Dol Angra, that inci- Incident?'
'Wait. I'm just explaining to you that, at the moment, no army could cross the Yaruga River. Both accessible valleys, those along which armies have marched for centuries, are very heavily manned and defended, both by us and by Nilfgaard. Look at the map. Look how many strongholds there are. See, here is Verden, here is Brugge, here the Isles of Skellige…'
'And this, what is this? This huge white mark?'
Jarre moved closer; she felt the warmth of his knee.
'Brokilon Forest,' he said, 'is forbidden territory. The kingdom of forest dryads. Brokilon also defends our flank. The dryads won't let anyone pass. The Nilfgaardians either…'
'Hmm…' Ciri leaned over the map. 'Here is Aedirn… And the town of Vengerberg… Jarre! Stop that immediately!'
The boy abruptly pulled his lips away from her hair and went as red as a beetroot.
'1 do not wish you to do that to me!'
'Ciri, I '
'I came to you with a serious matter, as a wizard to a scholar,' she said icily and with dignity, in a tone of voice which exactly copied that of Yennefer. 'So behave!'
The 'scholar' blushed an even deeper shade and had such a stupid expression on his face that the 'wizard' could barely keep herself from laughing. He leaned over the map once more.
'All this geography of yours,' she continued, 'hasn't led to anything yet. You're telling me about the Yaruga River but the Nilfgaardians have, after all, already crossed to the other side once. What's stopping them now?'
'That time,' hawked Jarre, wiping the sweat which had all of a sudden appeared on his brow, 'they only had Brugge, Sodden and Temeria against them. Now, we're united in an alliance. Like at the battle of Sodden. The Four Kingdoms. Temeria, Redania, Aedirn and Kaedwen…'
'Kaedwen,' said Ciri proudly. 'Yes, I know what that alliance is based on. King Henselt of Kaedwen offers special, secret aid to King Demawend of Aedirn. That aid is transported in barrels. And when King Demawend suspects someone of being a traitor, he puts stones in the barrels. Sets a trap-'
She broke off, recalling that Geralt had forbidden her to mention the events in Kaedwen. Jarre stared at her suspiciously.
'Is that so? And how can you know all that?'
