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Not since his captivity in Nazairia had the Count de Lettenhove been tormented this thoroughly. Not even when Julian had renounced his Viscountdom and ridden off into the hills with that Witcher. And this was even worse than Nazairia - this was happening in his own home! It was a week before midwinter, and the estate was hectic. The Count had been ‘the Count’ for thirty-five years, thirty-five midwinters, and so he thought he knew how the festival went by now. A feast, a drink, a short dance, or - if Julian was in residence - an overly-long sing-song that lasted into the long hours of the night. A ride on the hunting steeds the next morning, a fencing contest, gifts under the winter bough that was dragged into the main hall, and all was done with. And if you had people to cook the feast, pour the drink, arrange the dance, tend the horses, clean the lances, and drag the aforementioned bough - and the Count de Lettenhove did have all of those people - it really was not much work.
But not this year. Because of that Witcher.
No, not that one. He had not been seen for almost two years. Julian’s brief return to Lettenhove the previous midsummer had been enough to convince his father that he was still alive and not yet regretting his decision to become a nomad alongside a taciturn - if rather impressive - beast-slayer.
It was not Geralt - the Count had practised saying the name aloud in front of his looking glass more often that he would ever admit, even under Nazairian torture - that had brought chaos to Lettenhove. Oh no. It was his replacement who had sent the Count into hiding in the tapestry room.
The previous midwinter, for which Julian had not returned home, had been quiet. Generally, the replacement Witcher was as quiet as Geralt, but in a manner that seemed to suggest he was happy with the way things were and felt no need to intervene, rather than that he was plotting everyone’s demise under his furrowed eyebrows. He and the Count got along fine, and indeed had even shared a few fireside conversations in the awkward fashion of two men very unaccustomed to fireside conversation. The household liked him, but were not possessed with romantic fancy as they had been with Geralt. (As they still were - the Count was accosted several times each week by various members of his household, most of whom he had never spoken directly to before, requesting news of Julian and Geralt’s adventures.) All in all, Geralt’s replacement had been quite a relief. He had been absent for midwinter, away slaying something, and had returned four days into the new year with dried blood in his hair, a new scar on his chin and a leather satchel that dripped ominously on the entrance hall tiles.
And so as midwinter approached this year, the Count had thought little of it. Julian insisted in his letters that he and Geralt would be visiting the estate this year, so there was a tad more preparation to be done, but after all - the Count had people for that.
What he did not have people for was the revelation of the new Witcher’s utter obsession with the festival. Oh, how the Count longed for a drowner, a cemetaur, a plague maiden - or even a possessed pigeon! Anything (preferably non-dangerous) to take up the Witcher’s attention for the next week. But Lettenhove remained decidedly peaceful. Gods, the whole of Kerack was as dormant as a dowager aunt sleeping off her midwinter plumwijn! And so here the Witcher was, the quiet, amiable Witcher who went about his business without fanfare, who left short and sensible reports on the Count’s desk, who went fishing quietly in the forest - here he was, tormenting the Count.
The Count eyed the tapestry in front of him mournfully. It depicted an entirely fictitious meeting between a unicorn and the Count’s grandmother, whose inaccuracies Julian, on his one return visit, had delighted in pointing out.
“Nana,” the Count said plaintively, in a voice that reached back decades into his childhood. “I thought that now I am an old man, I would be at peace. I thought if I were to suffer, it would be honourably; on the battlefield, in defence of my home. I thought that now my son is happy the gods would permit me a little rest. But I am tormented.”
From two floors below came the distant sound of pots clattering across the stone floor. The Count shut his eyes briefly.
Fifty seconds later, Marjory the cook poked her head around the tapestry room door. “Ah. My lord. Here you are.”
The Count did not pretend he had not been hiding. “Marjory. What is it this time?”
“A special Witcher recipe for midwinter fish stew. Apparently. My lord.”
“Of course. And the noise…?”
She chewed the inside of her cheek as though she were trying not to laugh. “A pan-preparation ritual.”
The Count looked once more at his embroidered grandmother. “And I am needed…?”
“Well, it’s only that the next stage of the, er, pan-preparation ritual involves bubbling whale fat in the main hall. For five days.”
The Count mouthed the words ‘five days’. He turned beseeching eyes upon the unicorn, who appeared unmoved.
“And we only thought that the smell…”
“Yes, yes, you are quite right to fetch me, Marjory.” He let out a heavy sigh and turned to the cook. “Is this not Lettenhove?”
She looked at him as though concerned the last of his wits had sallied off into the hills with his wayward son. “Yes?”
“And who am I?”
“My lord?”
“Am I not the Count de Lettenhove?”
“Ah.” Marjory nodded seriously. “Yes, indeed you are, my lord.”
“Then I shall stop this foolishness. He will listen to me.” And the thing was, he would listen to the Count. But even the Count knew that it was not really because of any aristocratic authority. This Witcher - like all Witchers, apparently - did what he wanted. It just happened that most of the time it amused him to bow to the Count’s demands.
So they left the tapestry room, Marjory following behind the Count with an amused smile on her face. As they descended two flights of stairs, they heard further crashing and smashing, the cries of several footmen, and, inexplicably, the rhythmic call of a partridge.
“We shall see about this,” the Count muttered to himself, striding towards the main hall and flinging the doors open, surprising the gaggle of maids who were gathered just inside the entry, watching the pandemonium. A few partridge feathers flew past the Count’s head. He growled, stooping to pluck one from the flagstones, and turned towards the white-haired, leather-clad figure who was overseeing this farce. “Vesemir!”
***
Jaskier groaned. "I've not slept in a real bed for five weeks." There was no answer from the shadowy lump next to him. Jaskier harrumphed at the full moon overhead. "Five weeks!"
The lump spoke. "You were offered a bed by our grateful employers."
"Yes, but you weren't."
"But I am not the one complaining about the hardness of the ground. The ground is as it always is; its lack of softness is not a surprise."
Jaskier rolled his eyes so hard a dart of pain shot through his head. He bit back a wince. "I have slept beside you almost every night since you came to Lettenhove two years ago. I'm not about to abandon you now."
The lump snorted. "I wouldn't feel abandoned."
"I am choosing to ignore that," Jaskier said haughtily, "for the sake of our relationship."
"Very wise." The lump rolled over and slung an arm over Jaskier, tugging him close. "Now shut up and go to sleep. We'll be at your estate in two days and you can sleep in a bed then."
"Don't remind me," Jaskier groaned. And, "Not my estate."
Geralt put one of his palms over Jaskier's face, a motion Jaskier liked to imagine was Geralt's primal protective instinct expressing itself, and Geralt liked to refer to as his shut-up-Jaskier-and-go-to-sleep move.
Geralt pressed his nose into Jaskier's neck. "Long day tomorrow. Rest."
"Yes, yes," Jaskier said, but he was already half asleep, his words slurring. The clearing was bright, the fat yellow moon streaming through bare branches and over the hard ground. An hour's ride south, a village was deep into its cups, its squire and her wife reunited with their son. The monster had been chased away, the child was safe, the family reunited, and all before midwinter. It was a nice story, but it had little room for the Witcher who had saved them once his role was done. Jaskier had worried, when he first set off on the road with Geralt, that he would not understand life outside the structures of country estates and universities and court. But he was a storyteller at heart. The road was easy; they just had to remember who they were, what their role was in the tale, and know when the time came for them to slip from the page and into the woods.
Jaskier pressed in even closer to Geralt's side, and felt Geralt's arm tighten in response.
***
Vesemir had agreed that the whale-fat boiling could occur in the courtyard instead of in the main hall, which halved the number of complaints the Count had to deal with. The laundry backed onto the courtyard, and Ellery, one of the laundry maids, who was heavily pregnant, was overcome by bouts of retching every half hour before the Count gave her the rest of the week off. This was followed by a suspicious epidemic of nausea amongst the entire laundry staff, which was why Vesemir was now elbow deep in lye water.
He had tied his white hair on top of his head in a foolish little knot, his cheeks were pink from the well-stoked laundry fires, and he had puffy cuffs of bubbles on his arms that made him look like a country maiden attending her first ball. Yet, for all that, he was grinning.
The Count had ventured down to the laundry - having asked directions from one of his footmen - to ask Vesemir why half a dozen geese had just been delivered, live and flapping, into the main hall, while the Count was trying to deal with his constituents’ business.
All questions of geese had fled his mind once he saw Vesemir at the sink. “Laundry work suits you, Witcher. You should switch professions.”
Vesemir glanced over at him. “I see the geese have arrived.”
The Count frowned, before reaching up to his hair and plucking free a feather. He had never known midwinter to involve quite so many birds.
“When will my fellow Witcher be here?”
“Hmm?” The Count was staring at the goose feather in his hands. “Oh. Tomorrow, I believe. Julian sent word when they left Sotonin.”
Vesemir arched a pale eyebrow. “It will be interesting to meet your son.”
“Will it?” the Count snapped waspishly. Something about that arched eyebrow reminded him of Geralt’s silent knowing looks, and he prickled. “I am afraid neither of them will be much company for you. My son is a man who enjoys conversation and gaiety and song.”
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, Vesemir reached into the soapy bubbles and flicked a handful towards the Count. “I am a man of great gaiety.”
The Count thought of the geese squawking above, and wrinkled his nose at the smell of bubbling whale fat. His greatest concern was that Julian actually would find both of those things very amusing, and would probably like Vesemir almost as much as he did Geralt. Although presumably not in quite the same… fashion. The Count blinked rapidly to clear his mind of such thoughts.
“Quite. Well, then Geralt will be too serious for you.”
“Geralt…” Vesemir gazed into the water.
“Of Rivia,” the Count provided. “Heard of him, have you? I don’t really know how well you all know each other. Solitary bunch.” He chuckled awkwardly. “Is there a, I don’t know, a Witcher… town?”
“Not as such.” Vesemir offered him a half smile. “I have indeed heard of Geralt of Rivia.”
The Count scoffed. “Not that he is of Rivia at all, as it turns out. I had it all looked into when I was working out how he and Julian could inherit Lettenhove. You know how nobles get about all this sort of thing.” He wafted the air with a hand.
“I don’t suppose I do,” Vesemir said. He looked at the Count intently for a moment, and the Count felt as though he had been caught undressed, so uncomfortable did the Witcher’s gaze make him.
“Anyway, about these geese…”
“Oh, those.” Vesemir let out a laugh. “Just you wait until tomorrow.”
***
A thick snow had arrived overnight, turning the roofs and yards of the estate white. Flakes of it still meandered down during the morning, as Jaskier and Geralt approached Lettenhove.
“We could just keep riding,” Jaskier offered hopefully. He stroked Snowdrop, his blinding white stallion. “I don’t suppose we would be missed.”
“Your father has been asking if we would attend ever since we missed last year.”
“It’s not my fault there was a dragon-”
“And besides, I want to see Vesemir.”
Jaskier slumped lower over his horse’s neck. Geralt might look like a wolf crossed with a demigod, but he was really a little weasel, and he knew exactly how to get his way. As if Jaskier was about to tell him he couldn’t spend midwinter with his old foster father.
As they rode into the outer courtyard, a welcome party spilled from outbuildings and stables. Immediately, Jaskier’s spirits lifted. “Long I’ve been from home,” he sung, gesturing wildly over Snowdrop’s head. “Weary and alone/And never seen a prettier sight-”
“Scarcely alone!” One of the grooms called out, stilling Geralt’s horse.
Jaskier flushed deep red. “Yes, well, there’s a certain something called artistic licence.”
Geralt snorted. “And a certain something called not insulting your- co-traveller.”
Flashing him a withering look - well, it had never withered Geralt, but other people would describe it as withering - Jaskier swung himself down from Snowdrop’s back. He embraced several of his old friends before turning resolutely to face the house. “My father?”
His father, it turned out, was busy attempting to sell a collection of rather angry swans to his neighbour, who had only visited to confirm the arrangements for the midwinter feast in five days’ time.
“They don’t seem very peaceable,” the neighbour was saying. “I don’t know what my wife would think.”
“They’ll be peaceable once they’re cooked,” the Count urged, an edge of desperation in his voice. “Positively docile after you slit their necks.”
The neighbour cocked his head, looking at the birds, who were penned into one corner of the main hall, where a carpet of feathers and poo was slowly developing. “Why’ve you got so many swans, anyway?”
“A question I have been asking myself all morning,” the Count muttered.
At that moment, Jaskier and Geralt burst in. Well, Jaskier burst, Geralt kind of slunk in after him, looking half as though he were on a hunt, and half as if he were exhausted by Jaskier’s theatrics.
“Julian!” the Count said, relieved at the interruption. “Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Father.” The two met in the middle of the room and shared a tight embrace. “Although it’s Jaskier now, remember?” He glanced over to the corner. “Swans?”
“Swans.” The Count looked at Geralt as though he had noticed him for the first time, and his eyes lit up. “Swans! You are a Witcher.”
“Indeed I am.”
Jaskier rolled his eyes. “A fine greeting when you have not seen Geralt in almost two years, Father.”
“Yes, yes,” the Count said, admonished. “Yes… Geralt.” He had, after all, been practising. “How are you? Well, I know how you are. Julian’s - Jaskier’s letters are most detailed. Happy midwinter. You are very welcome here.” He looked sidelong at Jaskier, who nodded. “Now, can you tell me of Witchers’ midwinter traditions?”
“Witchers’ midwinter traditions?” Geralt parroted. “Ah.” He also looked towards the swans. “Witchers’ midwinter traditions are… private.”
The Count sighed heavily. “Yes, of course they are. I thought as much. Except they’re not very private when I’ve got four cauldrons of whale fat bubbling in my courtyard for your special stew, are they? Or when I’ve got a dozen birds roaming around the house, leaving feathers everywhere.”
“Ah.” Geralt looked slightly panicked.
Sensing that they were reaching the limits of Geralt’s capacity to deal with nobles that were neither paying him nor currently possessed by a malevolent spirit, Jaskier stepped in. “Where is Vesemir, anyway?”
“In the laundry,” the Count said darkly.
***
“I still don’t see why neither of you mentioned that Vesemir is basically your father,” Jaskier argued as they got dressed that evening..
“It’s more complicated than that. Witchers don’t have families in the same way as humans.”
“Yes, yes, you’re all sad orphans, I know.” Jaskier yanked angrily at one of the ribbons on his doublet. Geralt stepped over and tugged it gently out of his hand, tying the bows efficiently and neatly. “Still, my father should probably know that you know one another.”
Geralt shrugged. “I merely followed Vesemir’s lead. If he doesn’t want to mention it, I won’t.”
“The emotional intelligence of Witchers continues to astound me.” Geralt finished lacing the doublet and smoothed a palm gently along Jaskier’s side. Jaskier glanced down at the neat ribbons. “Oh. Thank you.”
Geralt snorted. “You’re welcome.” He stepped away to dress, and Jaskier sighed dramatically as he tugged on his dark shirt, the vast plains of his chest disappearing beneath fabric. Geralt looked at him with raised eyebrows.
Jaskier glanced at the clock over the doorway. “We still have fifteen minutes until dinner.”
“Which is supposed to be time for the pre-dinner drink. With your father.” Geralt frowned, competing urges warring inside of him. On one hand, he had studied noble etiquette expressly for the purpose of getting along with Jaskier’s family, and he had no intention of making the Count dislike him - or Witchers in general - even more than he already did during the course of this trip. On the other hand, drinks with Jaskier’s father seemed a great deal less appealing than whatever Jaskier’s crooked smile was promising. “Your doublet.” Geralt tried one last half-hearted line of defence. “It’s all laced up.”
“Oh, I can stay laced up.” Jaskier sauntered over. “You, on the other hand…”
***
The Count thrust his knife into his chicken with unnecessary vigour. Jaskier shared a look over the table with Geralt. The three of them were clustered in the middle of the dining room, with a roaring fire burning at either end of a table that could seat thirty. There were several very fine bottles of wine on the table, and the food was the best Jaskier had eaten in at least six months. There was no reason for the Count’s evident irritation.
“And how has the estate been since I last visited?” Jaskier broached. Perhaps there was some dispute with a nearby estate, or a herd of deer had fallen sick, or someone’s daughter had run off with a goblin and disrupted the elaborate marital machinations of the local nobility.
“Oh, fine, fine.” The Count speared a carrot so violently that a neighbouring potato leapt off his plate. The three of them watched it roll to a stop. The Count set his knife down with a sigh. “It’s this Witcher,” he said. He looked at Geralt a little guiltily. “Er, Vesemir, I mean.”
“Is he not doing his job?” Jaskier probed.
“No,” the Count admitted, “he has kept the area very safe. He’s very efficient. Very quiet about it too. No showiness, you know.”
“Witchers are hardly famed for their flamboyance.”
Geralt snorted. “That’s why I have you.”
“Look.” Jaskier pointed his fork at Geralt. “How many more high-quality jobs have we had since I started singing about your work?”
Geralt held up his hands. “I don’t deny it.”
Jaskier pivoted back to his father. “So is he a bad house guest?”
“Oh, not at all.” The Count scowled at a pickled walnut. “Keeps himself to himself. Not in an impolite way, however. Occasionally we share a drink by the fire, that sort of thing.”
Geralt, seated beside the Count, raised his eyebrows at Jaskier.
“Well,” the Count continued abruptly, looking up from his plate. “He is usually a good house guest. But suddenly, this past week or so… He’s causing absolute pandemonium.”
Geralt was now smiling, and Jaskier fought to keep a straight face himself. The thought of a Witcher causing absolute pandemonium was rather delightful. “How so?” Jaskier asked.
“First there was the soup. All that whale blubber.”
“Ah yes,” Geralt chimed in, “the special Witcher soup.”
“Right.” The Count frowned. “Not that I want to… insult anybody’s… traditions. But the geese were rather excessive - honestly, the partridge was enough trouble by itself - and now we’ve got all these swans that I can’t get anyone to take off my hands. I mean, I assume it’s a Witcher thing. I suppose it’s because of your animal… rapport?”
Jaskier choked on his wine. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But Geralt was nodding sagely. “Yes. The midwinter swans.”
“I thought as much,” the Count said, as though any explanation had been offered. “But I rather wish he had told me in advance.”
“Oh, but that’s part of it,” Geralt said, enjoying himself far too much, in Jaskier’s opinion. This could not end well - Geralt and Vesemir lying to his father, while Vesemir was up to some kind of mischief involving whales and geese. His father would come out of it looking like a fool, which was likely to leave him angry, and before they knew it, Geralt, Vesemir and Jaskier would be kicked out and on the road again. Twelve hours earlier, Jaskier wouldn’t have thought that to be such a bad thing, but since then he’d lain on his bed and drunk four glasses of excellent Temerian wine, and the snow and his bedroll were looking rather unappealing.
“If it helps,” Geralt continued, “I don’t think there will be any more birds.”
The Count let out a heavy sigh. “Really? That is a relief.” He looked at Jaskier. “You’re fortunate Geralt is such a reasonable Witcher.”
Jaskier slammed down his wine glass. “Now, what is that supposed to mean?”
***
Geralt had been right: no more birds appeared the next day. When Jaskier had quizzed him about it after their dinner with the Count, Geralt had told him firstly that they had a holy rule against speaking about anyone’s father while in bed, and secondly that the whole thing was based on a Redanian midwinter rhyme that Geralt had fixated on as a child when he adopted Rivia as his fictitious homeland.
“So the birds are to do with you?” Jaskier asked. Geralt said he didn’t think so, but refused to sing Jaskier the song so he could study it himself, despite Jaskier’s well-formed argument of ‘but I’m a musician, Geralt, I understand these things’.
The Count was twitchy all breakfast, glancing towards the hallway as though afraid a host of peacocks was about to appear. When the doors opened, however, only Vesemir entered, striding in purposefully. He was wearing his usual leathers, with a bag over his shoulder.
“Oh, is there a monster?” the Count said hopefully. “Will you be away long?”
“No monster,” Vesemir said, and grinned widely. The Count was reminded of the dogs his father had kept as a child. They had been at least half wolf, with great slavering jaws full of vicious teeth.
Vesemir approached the table where the three of them were eating, and slung his bag down next to the Count’s fruit cake. The Count eyed it nervously. Vesemir tugged it open and drew out what looked like a bundle of dry, hollow sticks and a handful of dried nuts.
Geralt sniffed the air. “Nutmeg and cinnamon.”
Vesemir’s wolfy grin widened even further. “It’s baking day.”
***
The kitchen had been cleared of all its usual business. The ovens lay empty, the pans clean and hanging from the rack. Knives had found their way back into drawers they had not seen for years, and the motley crew of cats and children that usually milled around had vanished too.
Instead, there stood Vesemir, hands dusted in flour and an apron knotted around his waist. Jaskier turned to share his disbelief with Geralt, but found him already stepping forward to join Vesemir, picking up a spare apron - freshly laundered and crisp from the lye - and tying it around himself. Jaskier pinched his wrist.
“What’s this?” the Count muttered unsteadily. Jaskier suspected he had not been into the kitchen for several decades.
“What I have learned, Father, is that you can never predict a Witcher.”
“Here, Dandelion,” Geralt called over, holding out another apron. “Come and make some cinnamon trees.”
“Yes, certainly,” Jaskier said, walking towards him. “Obviously. Making cinnamon trees with Witchers. Can I-”
“No, you cannot put this in a song.”
Jaskier sighed. “Worth asking.”
***
The next day dawned bright, the snow-heavy skies of the past few days clear, leaving cold sunshine in their wake. The yellow half-light of winter creeped in through Jaskier’s window. Jaskier lay on his front, furs piled up to his neck, groaning.
“I told you to stop,” Geralt said, amused. He ran a hand gently down Jaskier’s spine.
“You told me nothing,” Jaskier argued. “You did not tell me that, back in your tragic childhood Witcher days, you and Vesemir used to bake midwinter biscuits together. Nor did you tell me that those biscuits taste incredible.”
“I thought the point of all of your songs was that I had hidden depths?”
Jaskier rolled onto his back with a considerable amount of effort. “Hidden from everyone else, not from me! You’re not meant to have anything left hidden from me! That’s the whole point!”
Geralt leant forward and bit the rest of Jaskier’s complaints from his lips. Jaskier grinned and pushed Geralt back, slipping out from his nest of furs to straddle him.
“Not still too full?” Geralt asked.
“Energised,” Jaskier explained, and bent down to kiss him.
They were half way towards being disrespectfully late for breakfast when Geralt pushed Jaskier gently off of him. Geralt sighed, kissed Jaskier’s head and said, “Thanks for the warning.”
Jaskier frowned at him in confusion. Geralt tilted his head towards the closed door. “Vesemir. Your father’s looking for us. Thought we might want a little notice.”
“Thanks, Vesemir,” Jaskier said, unsure whether he could be heard or not. Any sense of shame Jaskier had had melted away many years before, and he stood up and stretched unabashedly. “Another time, my love?”
Once dressed, they met the Count on the galleried landing above the hall. “At last!” the Count cried. “It’s time for the fencing. I thought you were going to miss it. You weren’t at breakfast.”
“Too many cinnamon trees last night.”
“Ah, yes.” The Count patted one of his pockets, which was bulging suspiciously. “Good old midwinter traditions.”
They began to walk down the stairs towards the main courtyard.
“No more birds today, then?”
The Count shuddered. “Thankfully not. You were right, Geralt.”
Geralt nodded thoughtfully.
“It’s good to have someone here to explain these Witcher traditions,” the Count continued. Jaskier rolled his eyes. Witcher traditions his arse, this was Vesemir and Geralt entertaining themselves.
The first rounds of sparring were already underway when they made it out to the yard. Young grooms and footmen gave way to the Count’s junior men-at-arms as the morning progressed, before the real fighting began after lunch. Jaskier spent most of the day perched on a window ledge, eating a plateful of grape and cheese tartlets that Marjory had brought out and picking out little patterns on his lute. Geralt and Vesemir stood clustered together at the side of the yard, analysing the fighting. Travelling with Geralt for almost two years had given Jaskier a good sense of when someone knew what they were doing in a fight, as opposed to when someone was simply throwing themselves around with a pointy stick. But as he still belonged resolutely to the pointy-stick-throwing camp himself, he had little interest in the fine points of technique. His most successful songs involved elves and ghouls and werewolves, not rural men-at-arms besting each other in polite bouts of festive sparring.
As the fencing wound to a close, the Count wandered over to Jaskier, cheeks flushed with cold. “A good show this year, wouldn’t you say?” The Count was enjoying having control of the festivities once again.
“Very good,” Jaskier said, running a scale up the neck of his lute. “Three days before the darkest night/Brave men gathered here to fight/But no blood was slain this merry day/For all their fighting was mere play.”
“I miss your little tunes,” the Count said in a tone that would, by many, be considered fond. Jaskier decided not to argue about the term ‘little tunes’ and merely smiled up at his father.
The Count’s chief advisor appeared next to them. “I think the fighting is done, my lord.”
“Excellent,” the Count said, and turned towards the middle of the yard. “Let me just address our winners-”
But before he could get any further, Vesemir strode forward. “I thought we could have one more bout.”
The Count paused. “Look, if this involves, I don’t know, a vicious ostrich-”
Vesemir laughed, another sound that would be considered by many to be fond. “No, no. No birds, but two Witchers. Geralt, will you not join me?”
Later, Jaskier would argue that his rapt attention during the fight was due to his responsibilities as a chronicler of Witchers. How often did anyone get the opportunity to see two Witchers sparring?
The Count would have no such excuse, but thankfully no one asked him.
Besides, no one’s eyes strayed from the centre of the yard as Geralt and Vesemir stripped to the waist - “Quite unnecessary,” Jaskier breathed - and circled one another, sparring staffs whirling through the air. A fresh layer of snow fell from a seemingly cloudless blue sky, dusting the heads of the watchers. The Witchers’ bodies steamed in the cold.
Liana, a groom’s apprentice Jaskier had once joined in a scrumping expedition, sat down next to Jaskier. “You really…?”
Jaskier nodded. “Yep.”
“With him?”
“Oh, yep.”
“Gods.”
Geralt and Vesemir fought like dancing, like they were talking, remembering the steps from the years when Vesemir trained young Geralt, taught him what he needed to know to stay alive, but more than that, too; what he needed to be who he was meant to be. Years Jaskier knew had been full of sadness, of pain that seared through his body and weighed down his heart. Years when Witchers were kept apart from society, when a crowd gathered around a pair of Witchers would be baying for blood, not swooning. But they had been years of cinnamon biscuits too, of children’s rhymes, of shared jokes that left both Witchers with the same amused half-smile decades later.
The fight continued like a show and showed no signs of slowing, until Geralt glanced over at Jaskier, who blew him a dramatic kiss. Geralt chuckled, and let his staff hang loose at his side. He accepted Vesemir’s gentle blow to his stomach as a defeat, before the two Witchers pressed their foreheads together in an embrace.
***
The next day, the cauldrons were emptied of the whale fat and the next stage of Vesemir’s fish stew began. Geralt had admitted to Jaskier that he had never had the stew before in his life, but knew it was one of his foster brothers’ favourites. The whale blubber was gone, taking its vile scent with it, but it was replaced by forty trout, which were being deboned enthusiastically by Vesemir himself. The cooks refused to share the kitchen with a knife-wielding Witcher, and had set up camp in the entrance hall in protest.
The Count decided to go for a ride. He strode out to the stables, and when the groom asked him if anyone else’s horses needed readying, he told him to prepare Snowdrop and sent a passing footman to fetch Jaskier. Geralt and Jaskier had not appeared at breakfast again, and the Count was no fool; he knew what young people sometimes liked to do on cold mornings. Well, he supposed young was a relative term when it came to Witchers. He preferred not to think about how old Geralt was, otherwise his own position of authority started to crumble around his ears. He should definitely not think about how old Vesemir might be. His head was already aching from taste-testing the barrels of plumwijn the night before.
Jaskier appeared at last, yawning, and they rode out across the icy courtyard and towards the open fields that stretched alongside Lettenhove’s vineyards and orchards, all silent and frosty.
They rode in silence for a time, listening to the thud of the horse’s feet, the crackle of ice in the grass. Then Jaskier began to speak, idly and almost too softly, as though the words were inconsequential. He told his father of things he had seen in the past year, places he had gone that held sights he could not have imagined. He talked about pompous ship captains and witty queens, long summer days in sun-baked cities, dark nights on the road where the stars spilled out a map on the heavens. He talked about a man who threw himself into the water to escape the things he could see behind his own eyes, the children that were eaten up from the inside in a village occupied by monsters so small it took Geralt a week to realise they were there at all, the restless hours of guilt that followed.
When his words trailed off, they continued quietly for a while longer.
“When I was a boy,” the Count said at last, “your grandmother, my mother, used to tell me how unhappy she was. I haven’t told you this before. Oh, it was nothing more than the usual. No monsters or demons, no tricks or nightmares. Just a woman who did not want to marry the man she married, and did not want to have the children she had. And I suppose the saddest part of it, in a way, is that by the time I was, oh, fourteen or fifteen, I did not think that it was sad at all. It was just normal. I know I am a wealthy man.” He waved a hand across the horizon. “I may be a little pompous, but I am no fool. I know my own fortune. So why should we also be happy?”
Jaskier fumbled for words. He and his father had never spoken so openly for so long. Before Geralt, every interaction they had had been constrained by the knowledge that they were Count and Viscount, father and heir, and all the years of expectation that knowledge contained.
“Oh, do not feel sorry for me, Julian. Jaskier.” The Count smiled. “See, you even find your own name. You truly are a wildflower, my son. It has been so long since anyone even called me by my own name. Always ‘my lord’, or ‘Count’. But I am a rich man. I have a house and servants, profitable land, neighbours I can call friends. I have you, of whom I am proud, even if I do not know how to show it, because I am proud of you for all the things you were not meant to be.”
Jaskier swallowed. “Having us here for the midwinter feast - both of us, Geralt as well as me - sitting beside you, even though I am no longer your heir and he is a Witcher. That is showing pride.”
“Maybe that is what it takes. Doing things a little differently.” The Count frowned down at his horse’s mane.
“It can’t hurt,” Jaskier said, “if the old ways were so unhappy.”
“But who am I, if I am not the Count de Lettenhove, with my ways of doing business and etiquette? Who am I if I roam through the kitchens and, and, find swan feathers in my hair?” he chuckled at the absurdity of it.
“No one says you have to give up the whole estate and take to the road, Father. Just maybe sometimes you could be… not the Count. Just Alfred. Just for a while.”
***
At last, midwinter night arrived. The Count had eaten pungent fish stew, baked spiced biscuits, corralled chicken and geese and swans. He had laid out on the upper balcony to stargaze, learning the constellations of Dragon, Wolf and Cat. He had watched two witchers duel with each other, bare chested in the snow.
Thankfully all that nonsense was over. As the sun set, the guests arrived, three dozen neighbours and local nobles pouring through the entrance hall, necks bedecked in festive gold, sprigs of greenery in their hair. Jaskier stood in the doorway of the main hall beside his father, as was traditional. Geralt stood at his other side, and Jaskier drew strength from his quiet presence as he looked into the faces of all the people he had chosen to leave two years before.
“Good evening,” Jaskier said cheerfully, as matrons he had grown up around eyed him warily. “Happy midwinter.” Then, once they were passed, “They think I’m dangerous, Geralt!”
“What, have they tasted your camp bread?”
Above the doorway was a great bunch of mistletoe, bound together with a red ribbon and dangling low overhead. Several of their guests chuckled and pecked the Count’s cheek as they entered. Jaskier was bouncing on his toes, the excitement of the festival and the anticipation of his performance filling him with restless energy.
Once all the guests had arrived, the heavy outer doors were shut against the whirling snow. Wind moaned through the cracks of the building, singing mournfully of the freezing hillsides and dark woods, fading away as the chatter in the main hall grew louder.
“Happy midwinter!” the Count cried, sweeping into the middle of the hall, a little of his son’s flair visible in him. Behind him came most of the estate’s servants, who now joined the festivities.
The Count began the traditional midwinter greeting. “May the night make you merry before the sun rises, may the friends at your side be true.” He spun around at that, pointing a finger into the gathered throng and garnering a few laughs. “May the food in your belly keep you warm, and may the new year bring nothing but warm winds and pleasant surprises. Welcome, my friends!”
Everyone cheered and clapped, in a slightly off-kilter way that suggested more than a few of them had already begun their merry-making.
They sat down at three long benches. Jaskier and Geralt were to one side of the Count, while to the other sat the Lady and Lord Petrelsteyn.
As dishes were brought out, Lady Petrelsteyn sniffed appreciatively. “What is this meat?”
“Swan,” Jaskier said cheerfully, leaning past his father.
“How… unusual! Here, brother,” she said to Lord Petrelsteyn, “try some of this fine swan meat.”
Jaskier was soon engaged in conversation with the assortment of neighbours who clustered around him, who, once the plumwijn was flowing, had no qualms in quizzing him about his travels. Geralt was happy to fill his belly and look on with what those in the know might refer to as fondness as Jaskier spun whatever tale he wished.
It was not long before the Petrelsteyns’ conversation also turned to Witchers. It was only the second midwinter since the protection deal had been in place, and the presence of Witchers in the homes - and now around the tables - of Kerack was still a little thrilling.
“Our Witcher is a very glum fellow,” Lord Petrelsteyn was saying. “I don’t suppose he would even consider joining us for a feast.”
The Count resisted asking if they had invited him. “Well, Witches have their own midwinter traditions, after all.”
Lady Petrelsteyn arched a finely plucked eyebrow. “Do they? They are as secretive about that as everything else, then. We scarcely see ours for months at a time.”
The Count frowned. “Have you not had any Witcher fish stew? Or cinnamon biscuits?” He gestured to his plate with his knife. “Or the traditional swan?”
Lady Petrelsteyn laughed, not unkindly. “It does not sound as though you have a Witcher, my dear Lettenhove, but a new cook!”
The Count chuckled quietly, but the food on his plate was suddenly unappetising. He glanced down the long table to the far end, where Vesemir sat. He did not appear to be talking to any of his neighbours, but seemed comfortable with his solitary meal. The Count thought of how Geralt would slip out of the house when it grew too busy for him, how he turned to the quiet of the road with a distant look in his strange eyes. Perhaps Vesemir, who was older and calmer, could find his peace even amongst people.
At that moment, Jaskier leapt up and came to stand between the Count and Lady Petrelsteyn. “Time for a song, don’t you think?”
“Yes, certainly,” the Count said, as though Jaskier actually relied on his permission.
Lord Petrelsteyn nodded agreeably, but Lady Petrelsteyn turned to Jaskier with a playful smile. “Are you well, young Julian?”
“Quite excellent, thank you, my lady. I need not ask after your own health when you look as fine as you do this evening.”
“And how is your Witcher?” Lady Petrelsteyn asked, but interrupted Jaskier with a laugh before he could answer. “I say ‘your Witcher’ as though you own him! What is he… an avant-garde travelling companion? A good guide for the road, I suppose.” She looked up at Jaskier expectantly, as though she had asked a sensible question that deserved his answer.
Jaskier frowned. “Geralt? He’s my…” He trailed off.
The Count picked up his full glass. “Last midwinter, Lady Petrelsteyn, you employed a bard to sing half a dozen of Jaskier’s newest songs. It was almost all anyone talked about all night. I think you know well enough who Geralt is.” He took a large swig of his plumwijn.
Jaskier clasped his father’s shoulder. “As always, my music speaks with a finer tongue than I could ever hope to. Lady Petrelsteyn, Lord Petrelsteyn.” He nodded politely, then moved over to the dais at the end of the hall, collecting his lute from the corner of the room on his way.
“I suppose there is some appeal to these Witchers,” Lord Petrelsteyn mused, ruddy cheeked. The Count was beginning to think he had been far too generous with his wine stocks. “Don’t you think, sister?”
Lady Petrelsteyn cast an eye down the table, taking in first Geralt, then Vesemir. Geralt’s gaze was tracking Jaskier, but Vesemir was looking straight towards the middle of the table where the Count and the Petrelsteyns sat.
“Quite… Arresting. Wouldn’t you agree, Lettenhove?”
The Count shut his eyes for a moment, hearing Jaskier tuning his lute over the chatter of the hall. He wished for a moment that he had the sharp senses of a Witcher, that he could hear every conversation in the room and dismiss them all as idle chatter, that he could hear the hearts and tongues quickened with wine and know them to be idiotic.
“Arresting,” Lord Petrelsteyn hummed. “That’s the word for it. Why, if I were a lady…”
He and his sister broke down into childish giggles. The Count opened his eyes and looked down the table, his gaze locking onto Vesemir’s. Witcher hearing, indeed. The Count made a tiny shrug of his shoulders that he hoped expressed an apology for the foolishness of his guests.
Over on the dais, Jaskier cleared his throat loudly and, with the skill of a practised performer, quietened the room.
“A little midwinter ditty to begin.” He strummed his hand over his lute, smiling at the sound. “I left my love under mistletoe,” he began, and the gathered guests sighed happily in recognition of a familiar tune. “Tell me, where did my love go?/There winter’s night but gone by day/Tell me, was our love mere play?”
***
By the time Jaskier finished his first set of songs, the dishes had been cleared away, glasses had been refilled several times, and the guests were itching to dance.
“Shall we have a jig?” Jaskier called down from the dais, grinning widely. The crowd’s enthusiastic chatter answered him. “Very well. Let me fetch a cup of water for my poor parched throat, then I will return to entertain you some more.” He nodded to the doorway, where the viol player and drummer waited to join him, and they walked over to set up.
Jaskier moved over to the bench where Geralt sat, nursing his plumwijn. “You can just say if you don’t like it,” Jaskier told him, sitting down beside him for a moment.
“Your singing? I wouldn’t dare.”
Jaskier rolled his eyes and snatched Geralt’s glass, draining the plumwijn.
“I thought you said you needed water?”
“It’s midwinter, Geralt. Time for a little fun.”
Geralt nodded thoughtfully. “As opposed to your usual solemnity?”
“If you can say ‘solemnity’, you haven’t had enough to drink. Go find some Witcher spirits with Vesemir. He must have some hidden somewhere.” Jaskier looked down the table to where Vesemir still sat. “Is he lonely?” he whispered, hoping it was quiet enough that Vesemir couldn’t hear him, but too merry to worry that he might.
“He’ll figure it out,” Geralt said, covering Jaskier’s hand on the table with his own. “I did.”
Jaskier looked down at their hands. “Shouldn’t we tell them soon?”
“Tomorrow,” Geralt promised. From the dais, they heard the low scrape of the viol. “Go on, Dandelion. Your audience awaits.”
Jaskier leaned forward to kiss him softly, uncaring who saw. As his father had pointed out, Jaskier was hardly secretive about what Geralt meant to him. “You are always my true audience.”
“Does that mean I can’t slope off with Vesemir to play Gwent…?”
Jaskier laughed. “Please do. Tell my father it’s another vitally important Witcher tradition and take him with you, if you want. I don’t think he’s having the best time.”
They both looked over at the Count, who was gazing mournfully into his plumwijn.
“I’ll sort it,” Geralt promised. “Now. Go. Play.”
***
Vesemir sat down next to the Count with a quiet sigh. “I’ve never been one for feast days.”
The Count continued staring into his glass. “Yet you have so many midwinter traditions.”
Vesemir smiled softly. “Things from when I was a boy. Things from when my foster sons were young. Just little ways to draw forth the happiness of the past.”
The Count sighed and looked up. “I think I’m a bit of a fool.”
“It is a fortunate man who grows old enough to become a fool.”
“And I am a fortunate man.” The Count gestured around him. “I do know that, you know. I’m not a complete snob.”
Vesemir chuckled. “I never thought you were. You are fortunate because you have a full belly, a happy son, and a friend to talk to. I am fortunate for all the same reasons.”
The Count raised his glass in a toast. “To our foolish fortunes, then.”
***
As the night slipped into the early hours of the next morning, the dancing grew disorganised and, in a few shadowy corners, rather indecent. Jaskier excused himself and made his way over to the bench where Geralt sat, idly playing Gwent by himself.
“No Vesemir?” Jaskier asked, draining half a jug of water.
Geralt nodded over to where the Count and Vesemir sat in quiet companionship.
“Huh.” Jaskier wiped his chin with his sleeve. “You don’t think…”
“Maybe a taste for unconventional partners runs in the family.”
Jaskier nodded slowly before frowning. “Wait, in whose family?”
The guests were drifting towards the doorway in clusters, those who were heading home to welcome midwinter day in their own beds beginning to slope off into the night. A few would stay till the morning, heads too heavy with plumwijn to brave the dark.
The Count made his way to the doors to bid his guests farewell, receiving compliments on the unusual food and Jaskier’s performance with the vague awareness that Lettenhove was nowadays considered rather eccentric. He could not bring himself to particularly care.
Lady Petrelsteyn insisted on embracing him in farewell. “Oh, and here is your Witcher!” she cried, pulling away. She looked over the Count’s shoulder to where Vesemir stood. “Farewell, Witcher!”
“Goodnight, my lady.”
“Ah, I almost forgot!” she cast her eyes upwards to the bundle of mistletoe. “I have no desire to bring bad luck.”
“Well then, I suppose we have no choice,” the Count said politely, and ducked his head to kiss her cheek. “Happy midwinter, Lady Petrelsteyn.”
As the Petrelsteyns left, Vesemir stepped forward to stand beside the Count. “I am surprised you are still upright. Hosting seems to be an exhausting task.”
The Count smiled. “I was raised to it. If you ask me, hunting wyverns sounds more exhausting.”
“Oh no,” Vesemir disagreed. “I’d take a wyvern any day.”
A few pink-cheeked servants began to shuffle out. “Happy midwinter,” the Count said as they passed.
Marjory paused in the doorway on her way past. “Goodnight, my lord, Witcher.”
“Goodnight, Marjory.” The Count looked sidelong at Vesemir. “The swan was excellent.”
“I’m pleased you thought so.” Marjory took a step back and looked up. “Seems you are beneath the mistletoe, my lord.”
The Count looked up. As it had all night, the mistletoe still hung in the doorway, above where he and Vesemir stood. The hall behind him was now almost empty, and a cold wind blew in from the entrance hall where the main doors had been propped open for people to leave. The little white berries, poisonous, seemed to taunt him.
“Goodnight, my lord,” Marjory said again, and walked away towards the kitchen.
“It seems the young have no need for such superstitions,” Vesemir said, looking past the Count to where Jaskier sat sprawled across Geralt’s lap on one of the benches, eating cubes of cheese. “But maybe some of us need an excuse.”
Vesemir - and when had he become just Vesemir? - seemed suddenly very close. His eyes had the same astuteness as Geralt’s, but his face was lined with time and a thousand memories the Count could not even imagine.
“Were you mocking me, before?” the Count asked before he knew he was going to. “With the baking and the swans and everything?”
Vesemir blinked. “No. I wouldn’t do that.” A blast of cold air blew past them and the Count shivered. “I am not a complicated man,” Vesemir continued. “I have not lived a life that leaves much room for tricks and mockery.” He reached out and brushed the back of his hand against the Count’s. “Would you join me for a walk outside, my lord Lettenhove? I want to see the midwinter sky again before I go to my bed.”
“Alfred. Please, just Alfred.”
Vesemir smiled. “Very well, Alfred. Will you walk a while with me?”
The Count kept his eyes on Vesemir. “Is it not too dark?”
“I can see very well in the dark.”
“Nor too cold?”
“I will fetch your cloak.”
The Count shook his head. “No, I should like to be cold, for a little while. It will make my bed all the more welcoming.”
“Will it, now?” Vesemir said with a shameless grin.
The Count flushed plum red. “Come on then,” he said. “Show me the stars.”
***
Jaskier peered over Geralt’s shoulder. “They’re gone,” he said.
“I know.” Geralt sounded amused. “I can hear them.”
“Hush. I’m being your spy.”
Geralt wrapped his hands around Jaskier’s back and settled him tighter on his lap. “Very well, my clever spy. Then I suppose you don’t want me to tell you where they end up this evening?”
Jaskier looked as though he had bitten down on a lemon. “Please take that to your grave.”
Geralt looked at him solemnly. “I swear.”
“Not a word tomorrow. They can’t know that we know.”
“I expect Vesemir already does.”
“Fine, fine.” Jaskier eyed him seriously. “But my father will run like a scared kitten if we tease him.”
“And you want him to be happy.”
Jaskier glared at Geralt. “Don’t make me say it. But yes. Now… to our own bed? I am tired from seeing all these people. Talking and looking at me all evening, as though I am a creature on display.”
Geralt stood up, keeping an arm around Jaskier as he did so. “I will slay anyone who tries to talk to you for the next twelve hours.”
“Except you,” Jaskier interjected. They began to make their way through the abandoned benches towards the doorway.
“Except me,” Geralt agreed.
Jaskier sighed happily, leaning into Geralt’s side. “See? That’s why I married you.”