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flog me and release me. And through it all my stepmother and your sorcerer were hard on my
heels, with their poisons and assassins and spells. And you want me to reveal my
magnanimity? To forgive him royally? I'll tear his head off, royally, first.'
'Aridea and Stregobor tried to poison you?'
'With an apple seasoned with nightshade. I was saved by a gnome, and an emetic I thought
would turn my insides out. But I survived.'
'Was that one of the seven gnomes?' Renfri, pouring wine, froze holding the wine-skin over
the tumbler.
'Ah,' she said. 'You do know a lot about me. Yes? Do you have something against gnomes?
Or humanoids? They were better to me than most people, not that it's your business.
'Stregobor and Aridea hunted me like a wild animal as long as
they could. Until I became the hunter. Aridea died in her own bed. She was lucky I didn't get
to her earlier - I had a special plan for her, and now I've got one for the sorcerer. Do you think
he deserves to die?'
'I'm no judge. I'm a witcher.'
'You are. I said that there were two people who could prevent bloodshed in Blaviken. The
second is you. The sorcerer will let you into the tower. You could kill him.'
'Renfri,' said Geralt calmly, 'did you fall from the roof onto your head on the way to my
room?'
'Are you a witcher or aren't you, dammit? They say you killed a kikimora and brought it here
on a donkey to get a price for it. Stregobor is worse than the kikimora. It's just a mindless
beast which kills because that's how the gods made it. Stregobor is a brute, a true monster.
Bring him to me on a donkey and I won't begrudge you any sum you care to mention.'
'I'm not a hired thug, Shrike.'
'You're not,' she agreed with a smile. She leant back on the stool and crossed her legs on the
table without the slightest effort to cover her thighs with her skirt. 'You're a witcher, a
defender of people from evil. And evil is the steel and fire which will cause devastation here
if we fight each other. Don't you think I'm proposing a lesser evil, a better solution? Even for
that son-of-a-bitch Stregobor. You can kill him mercifully, with one thrust. He'll die without
knowing it. And I guarantee him quite the reverse.'
Geralt remained silent.
Renfri stretched, raising her arms.
'I understand your hesitation,' she said. 'But I need an answer now.'
'Do you know why Stregobor and the king's wife wanted to kill you?'
Renfri straightened abruptly and took her legs off the table.
'It's obvious,' she snarled. 'I am heir to the throne. Aridea's children were born out of wedlock
and don't have any right to
'No.'
Renfri lowered her head, but only for a moment. Her eyes flashed. 'Fine. I'm supposed to be
cursed. Contaminated in my mother's womb. I'm supposed to be . . .'
'Yes?'
'A monster.'
'And are you?'
For a fleeting moment she looked helpless, shattered. And very sad.
'I don't know, Geralt,' she whispered, and then her features hardened again. 'Because how am I
to know, dammit? When I cut my finger, I bleed. I bleed every month, too. I get belly-ache
when I overeat, and a hangover when I get drunk. When I'm happy I sing and I swear when
I'm sad. When I hate someone I kill them and when But enough of this! Your answer,
witcher.'
'My answer is no.'
You remember what I said?' she asked after a moment's silence. 'There are offers you can't
refuse, the consequences are so terrible, and this is one of them. Think it over.'
'I have thought carefully. And my suggestion was as serious.'
Renfri was silent for some time, fiddling with a string of pearls wound three times around her
shapely neck before falling teasingly between her breasts, their curves just visible through the
slit of her jacket.
'Geralt,' she said, 'did Stregobor ask you to kill me?'
Yes. He believed it was the lesser evil.'
'Can I believe you refused him, as you have me?'
You can.'
'Why?'
'Because I don't believe in a lesser evil.'
Renfri smiled faintly, an ugly grimace in the yellow candlelight.
'You don't believe in it, you say. Well you're right, in a way. Only Evil and Greater Evil exist
and beyond them, in the shadows, lurks True Evil. True Evil, Geralt, is something you can
barely imagine, even if you believe nothing can still surprise you. And sometimes True Evil
seizes you by the throat and demands that you choose between it and another, slightly lesser,
Evil.'
'What's your goal here, Renfri?
'Nothing. I've had a bit to drink and I'm philosophising, I'm looking for general truths. And
I've found one: lesser evils exist, but we can't choose them. Only True Evil can force us to
such a choice. Whether we like it or not.'
'Maybe I've not had enough to drink.' The witcher smiled sourly. 'And in the meantime
midnight's passed, the way it does. Let's speak plainly. You're not going to kill Stregobor in
Blaviken because I'm not going to let you. I'm not going to let it come to a slaughter here. So,
for the second time, renounce your revenge. Prove to him, to everyone, that you're not an [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]