The Witcher

A LITTLE DEDICATION X

The next day, they organized a sort of farewell dinner. Essi and Geralt had bought a lamb in a village, already prepared. During the haggling, Dandelion made off with fresh garlic, onions, and carrots from the garden behind the house. They also stole a pot to prepare it in, nimbly slipping it through the farrier's hedge. The witcher had to plug the holes by using the Igni sign.

The farewell dinner was held in a clearing deep in the forest. The fire crackled cheerfully. Geralt carefully turned the prepared animal, stirring the contents of the steaming pot with the stripped branch of a pine tree. Little-Eye, who knew nothing about cooking, was content to make the atmosphere agreeable by singing ribald verses with her lute.

It was a dinner party. In the morning, it was agreed that each would go his own way in search of what he already had. But unaware of that fact, ignorant of just how far the road would take them, they had decided to separate.

After eating their fill and drinking the beer that Drouhard had offered them, they talked and laughed together. Dandelion and Essi sparred in song. Geralt, lying on spruce branches with his hands behind his head, thought that he had never heard such beautiful voices and such beautiful ballads. He thought of Yennefer. He also thought of Essi. He had the feeling that...

At the end of the evening, Little-Eye sang with Dandelion the celebrated duet of

Cynthia and Vertven, a marvelous love song beginning with the words: “These are not my first tears... ” Geralt had the impression that even the trees leaned in to listen to the troubadours.

Then Little-Eye, who smelled of verbena, lay down next to him, pressed against his shoulder, lay her head on his chest, then sighed perhaps twice before falling into a peaceful sleep. The witcher did not sleep until much later.

Dandelion, absorbed by the glow of the fire that was going out little by little, remained seated and played a few discreet chords on his lute.

He began with a few measures that he transformed into a quiet melody. The words were born with the music, captured by it like insects in translucent amber.

The ballad recounted the story of a certain witcher and of a certain poet: the circumstances of their encounter at the seaside, amid the squalling of the gulls; their mutual love at first sight; the sincerity of their love; their indifference toward a death that could not destroy this love nor separate them.

Dandelion knew that few would believe the story told by the ballad, but he didn't care: one writes a ballad for the emotion it conveys.

Dandelion could have changed, some years later, the content of that ballad to reflect the truth. He did not. The true story was indeed moving. Who would hear, indeed, that the witcher and the poet parted and never saw each other again? That four years later, Little-Eye died of smallpox in Vizima during an epidemic? That Dandelion carried her body in his arms far from the funeral pyres burning away in the city, alone and quiet, into the forest, and buried with her, according to her wishes, two objects: her lute and the azure pearl with which she was never parted.

No, Dandelion kept the first version of his ballad, but he never sang it again. Not ever, for anyone.

In the morning, a hungry and furious werewolf took advantage of the darkness of the night that had not yet dissipated and invaded the camp; but, recognizing the voice of Dandelion, he listened for a moment to the melody before disappearing into the forest.