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They set out from Kaer Morhen, the four of them together. It was never really discussed. When the spring broke and the snow melted off the pass, it just seemed obvious.
What was not obvious was what to do now. Stay away from Nilfgaard, yes, and not just them. A fallen Cintra was an attractive symbol and Ciri far too useful to any lord who’d like to raise an army in Cintra’s name. They cut her hair, but even dressed as a boy, the four of them were far too recognizable. Yennefer’s eyes, Jaskier’s reputation, and Geralt’s—everything. It was too dangerous for Geralt to take contracts. If the fire fucker had known to look for Ciri with him, there would be others.
So they stuck to the North, to unpopulated areas. Geralt hunted and Yennefer set traps, but there came a time when they needed to buy things they couldn’t forage. Like when Roach threw a shoe, for example.
“If Geralt can’t take contracts, can’t you just conjure up some coin?” Jaskier asked Yennefer.
Yennefer narrowed her eyes. “If it worked that way, do you think sorcerers would ever bother to take positions in court?”
“No respect for the late departed, but thank goodness you’ve a different horse, at least,” Jaskier said, patting the replacement Roach. This one also tried to nip him. “Your previous was far too recognizable.”
Geralt grunted. Ciri looked sad.
Yennefer paused. “You could sing. We’re only a half a day from Holopole. They probably haven’t seen an Oxenfurt-trained bard in a year.”
Jaskier had a look of longing on his face for a moment, then it returned to a frown. “Not to point out the obvious, but I’m just as recognizable as the rest of you.”
“True,” said Yennefer. “But the last anyone knows if you, you were locked up in prison for being a peeping tom. There’s no reason for you not to go to town.” She turned back to Geralt and Ciri. “It’s settled then. Geralt will carry the saddle bags, and we’ll head to Holopole. When we’re there, we’ll camp in the forest, and Jaskier will take Roach in to the ferrier, and pay for it by making coin at the tavern.”
It took two days to reach Holopole, taking Roach at a nice, easy pace. Geralt shifted the saddlebags on his shoulder. It’s not that he objected to carrying them, but they kept bumping into his swords in an unsettling way.
They set up camp well into the woods, far enough from the road that any traveler from the town wouldn’t see them. That posed its own dangers, but if Geralt couldn’t take contracts, he could still protect his group.
The plan was for Jaskier to take Roach into town, then spend a day or two earning money and getting Roach re-shoed. The other three would wait for him here, making camp in the woods.
As Jaskier fussed with his hair and clothes—“absolutely disgraceful,” Geralt could hear him muttering as he brushed his doublet—Yennefer pulled Geralt aside. “Have you been to Holopole before?”
Geralt thought for a moment, picking apart the long, winding years in his mind. “Not for many years.”
“More than a generation?” Yennefer asked. Geralt nodded. “Good. You should follow him—keep an eye out. Our bard has a mouth that gets him into trouble sometimes—I’m not saying he would betray us! He’s very loyal. But also, at times, very stupid. It would be best for him to have a friend nearby, hm?”
Geralt thought of what he’d been told of the fire fucker, and Jaskier’s other adventures in Oxenfurt. It was not a bad idea—all it would take is one husband beating his wife where Jaskier could see and things would go tits up.
“If you stay in the shadows and leave your silver sword, you’ll be just another man at arms wandering through. Wars have a tendency to draw them, even to remote places.” Geralt looked toward Ciri. “I’ll keep watch—don’t worry. Between the two of us, we are more than capable of fending for ourselves.” She smiled. “Consider it a girls night.”
When Geralt reached the tavern in Holopole (small town—there was only one) Jaskier was already talking to the landlord. Geralt remembered how Jaskier had picked him out from the back of a crowded tavern that first time they’d met—he had an eye for the members of his crowd that didn’t applaud as much as those that did—and decided to make himself scarce. Yennefer was right—no one gave him a second look. He didn’t appear to be the only mercenary in town.
As evening fell, he returned to the tavern. Still worried about Jaskier spotting him, he leaned against the wall out front, deep in the shadows. It was nice to hear Jaskier sing again, though he would never admit it. Jaskier hadn’t while at Kaer Morhen—things were still tense between them. And the urgency of Ciri’s situation seemed too dour for Jaskier’s levity.
Jaskier worked through a set of songs he’d heard a thousand times before, peppered with a few new ones—there was one about sex with a fawn that got a lot of table thumping. By the time it was late, Jaskier started in on a song that felt a little familiar. Geralt tilted his head closer—oh, it was the song he was singing in the jail cell when Geralt had arrived. Well, that had rounded out well.
He could tell Jaskier was winding down with his usual imprecations for coin and, what sounded like, more than a few rounds of ale on the patrons of the tavern. If the crowd reaction was anything to go by, it had been a successful night. And Jaskier hadn’t gotten into any of his usual trouble, though the night was still young enough to take someone’s wife to bed and need to climb out a window in the morning.
Jaskier started his last song. This was usually a crowd favorite he held in reserve. For many years, it had been “Toss a Coin,” a song that haunted Geralt as much as it aided him on the Path. This was a new one, though—unusual. He must have had a hit in the time since they traveled together.
I hear you’re alive. How…disappointing.
Another lament of Jaskier’s rocky love life. He’d been there for the aftermath of Countess de Stael, which had provided Jaskier with a fair few popular songs. Geralt sometimes wondered if Jaskier intentionally pursued the most disastrous couplings just for fodder.
Did I not bring you some glee, mister oh, look at me.
Mister—well that’s new.
…with your swords and your stupid hair…
Oh. Oh. Geralt thunked his head against the wall. This was Yennefer’s fault, he knew it. Why don’t you follow Jaskier, make sure he doesn’t get into trouble? Sure. This was why she’d sent him, he had no doubt.
Jaskier was really milking the burn, butcher, burn bit. True, it suited his tenor very well, but every time the crowd cheered he launched into another round. Well. At least the crowd seemed to like it.
As it wound down, he wrestled with himself for a moment. Jaskier was fine. He didn’t need guarding. He wouldn’t pick a fight, knowing how precarious their position was (probably). And if Yennefer had sent him here for this (the fucker) not out of any concern for Jaskier’s safety, there was no need to stay.
It was past midnight by the stars when he returned to the banked fire of their camp. Ciri was a shapeless bundle. Yennefer was keeping watch, a suspicious glint in her eye.
“Not a word,” Geralt growled, and Yennefer broke out into a silent laugh.
~*~
Jaskier returned two days later with a well-groomed and no longer limping Roach. And a new velvet doublet. (“I had to, Geralt, to defend my reputation. If I am truly meant to be continuing on as I was before, then everyone who knows me would expect me to be wearing the latest fashion. To do otherwise would raise questions!”) He didn’t feel so badly about Jaskier’s spendthrift habits when he saw that he’d bought Ciri a game of knucklebones and a few sugar cubes for Roach.
Yennefer had been right—these remote towns were very generous to a roving bard.
And so it went. They stayed to remote areas, and from time to time Jaskier went into town, returning with necessary supplies and small presents for Ciri.
Several towns later, Ciri anxiously waited for Jaskier’s return. Staying in one place, even for a few days, made her antsy. Even though the road they were on had no destination.
“It’s not fair that I can’t go hear Jaskier,” Ciri said.
“That would defeat the entire purpose,” Geralt said. He was cleaning his swords one by one, then each of his daggers.
“I know,” she sighed. “It’s just not fair. He never plays for us.”
“He plays all the time.”
“That’s different. That’s practice. He doesn’t perform for us.”
“Perform for who?” Jaskier said, strolling into their makeshift camp.
“Jaskier!” Ciri said, launching herself into a hug. Or—not a hug, Geralt revised. She was searching his pockets for her present. From behind his back, Jaskier brought out an orange, a rare prize in these parts, and one Ciri set on immediately.
“For me,” Ciri said, between bites.
“It would be an honor, my lady,” Jaskier said with a bow.
It was too late in the day to break camp. It would be best to stay for the night—and there was Yennefer returning with two rabbits from her snares. She handed to them to Geralt to clean and poured some water over her hands.
“What shall I perform, my lady,” Jaskier continued, starting to tune his lute. “A love song, perhaps?”
Geralt caught a sly look from Yennefer. “Why not one of your new songs,” Yennefer said, settling by the fire. “You had several songs I hadn’t heard before in Oxenfurt.”
“Ah, yes—”
“Yes, Jaskier,” Geralt agreed, keeping his eyes fixed on the rabbits. “I think I heard there was one about, what was it, ‘your swords and your stupid hair’?”
“Yes,” Yennefer said with a snap of her fingers. “I think I recall it. Something about ‘mister oh look at me’?”
Jaskier looked at Yennefer with open hurt. “You told him?”
“Oh, no—there’s nothing so awkward as speaking lyrics. Doesn’t give the right impression at all. No, I sent him to hear you.”
“What?” Jaskier squawked. “When?”
“Holopole.” Geralt said. “The crowd really got into the spirit of it. They kept singing, what was it, ‘burn b—‘”
Jaskier made a strangled sound. “I know what you’re thinking, but I want to tell you that you’re wrong. My songs are works of fiction. I draw from archetypes. The best songs speak to universal experiences. Like—like heartbreak.”
“What are you talking about?” Ciri looked between them.
“Universal experiences?” Yennefer asked with a smirk.
Geralt looked dead at Jaskier. “’With your swords and your stupid hair’?”
“Yes, well. The universal is specific, you see? The most effective poetry draws on specifics to create universal themes.”
“Swords and stupid hair,” Geralt repeated.
Ciri asked again, “What are you talking about?”
“I do confess that I play an exaggerated version of myself. The audience forms a relationship with the image they have of Jaskier. It’s important to maintain that façade. So yes, I do, sometimes, use personal moments from my own life, but always only as the seed of the idea.”
“Uh-huh.” Geralt said.
“What are you talking about?” Ciri stamped her foot.
“A song,” Yennefer said. “A song Jaskier wrote about Geralt.”
“You wrote a song about Geralt?” Ciri turned to Jaskier.
“He wrote many songs about Geralt.”
“I want to hear it. Will you play it for me?”
Jaskier held up his hands. “It really works better with the emotion of the crowd. There are some songs that require the right energy.”
Ciri looked mulish. “I’ll sneak into town the next time you go.”
“She would,” Geralt grunted.
Jaskier pointed an accusing finger at him. “You’re enjoying this.”
Geralt kept skinning the rabbits.
“Fine,” Jaskier said and pulled out his lute. It was not as fine as his previous one, but he’d been lucky enough to find any instruments in Kaer Morhen. And Geralt had to admit he took as much care of his instrument as Geralt did of his swords.
Ciri spread her skirt and sat at Jaskier’s feet. As Jaskier tuned his lute, Geralt watched his professionalism take over. He had an audience, and he was a bard. As awkward as it might have been, Jaskier launched into the song with all the enthusiasm Geralt had heard in Holopole. Ciri laughed at the right places. Jaskier kept the performance directed at her, not looking at Geralt once. Geralt caught more of the lyrics now than he had before. Even with Jaskier in front of him, he felt a frisson of worry at some of the words.
Ciri clapped as he finished his last repetition of the chorus.
“Thank you, milady,” he doffed his cap in a sweeping bow.
“I have a question,” Ciri said.
“Ah.” Jaskier replaced his cap. “I don’t discuss the inspiration for my songs. Meaning is created between the bard and the audience—I’m sure you understand that describing more of my process would degrade the purity of the artistic experience.”
“Well,” Ciri went on, undeterred. “If it’s about Geralt, why are you singing about a butcher?”
Geralt stiffened. “Never you mind,” Jaskier said, and turned to stow his lute.
“Okay, but what about the urns?”
Jaskier turned back. “Urns.”
“The forty urns. Are they a metaphor?”
Yennefer stepped closer, “Yes, yes, for the ashes he’s burning.”
“Oh, I see,” Ciri said. “He’s burning the memories, like maybe they’re scraps of paper, like a journal, and there are so many that he needs forty urns to store them.”
“Exactly,” Yennefer said.
“Urns?” Jaskier interjected. “Urns? I don’t sing about urns!”
“Yes, you do,” Ciri said.
“I can assure you that there are no lyrics about urns, metaphorical or otherwise.”
“’What forty urns,’ that’s what you sing.” Ciri insisted.
“Yes, ‘what forty urns,’ that’s what I heard.” Yennefer added.
“I as well,” Geralt chimed in. Jaskier turned to him for the first time since he started playing, looking faintly betrayed.
“’What. For. Do. You. Yearn.’” Jaskier enunciated clearly. “The lyrics are ‘what for do you yearn.’”
Ciri shook her head. “That’s not what I heard. There weren’t even that many syllables.”
“I will insist on this one thing, as the composer of the song, the words are ‘What for do you yearn.’”
“Does that even make sense?” Yennefer asked. Oh, Geralt thought, she was definitely stirring shit. “Who even talks like that?”
“Fine! Fine! You’ve ruined it. Are you happy? May my A string break if I ever play it again.”
Just as Geralt was wondering if that was the entire point of Yennefer setting up this situation in the first place, she said, “He should keep singing it.”
“What?” Jaskier said. “Of course I’ll stop singing it. Though I really do think it is one of my better compositions, if I must sacrifice by removing it from the repertoire, I will.”
Yennefer leaned forward. “Everyone knows you’re the White Wolf’s bard, right?” She gave Jaskier a meaningful look.
“Fire fucker,” Jaskier muttered under his breath.
“And you’ve spent the last six months telling the entire continent that Geralt abandoned you.”
“I would not say—as I said, poetry is about the art of exaggeration—”
Yennefer ignored him and turned to Geralt. “What better camouflage than to have Jaskier go on braying about how he hasn’t spoken to you in months.”
“Braying! Now I really do object to that characterization—”
Yennefer turned back to Jaskier. “People request it, yes?”
This Geralt had seen for himself. It was the last number of the set, a place always reserved for a guaranteed crowd pleaser.
Yennefer continued, “So what happens if you suddenly refuse to sing it? People might start wondering why you might refuse, what might have changed between you and the White Wolf.”
“That’s…a fair point.” Jaskier conceded.
“Why don’t you write something new? So people request that instead,” Ciri asked.
“As much as the gift of the muses has been generous to me, it is not so easy to create a new song that is as popular.” Jaskier thought for a moment. “Though I had been working on a ballad of the fall of Cintra—”
“Absolutely not,” Yennefer said. “What are you going to do, write the heroic and tragic story of noble Cintra’s sacking by the vile Nilfgaard? The taverns in the Free North would love that, but I can’t think of a better way to make the Nilfgaardians come looking for you, specifically. And if you wrote it the other way, the Nilfgaardians might like it but you’d be apt to be stoned.”
“I could, though, at least say that Ciri was dead? My apologies, my lady.”
“And if you did that, all you’d do is remind people of the rumors that they’d heard that she wasn’t dead and then make them wonder why you seemed so certain that she was. Best to stay away from politics.”
“Well,” Jaskier sighed. “Unfortunately most of my recent experiences are unsuitable for similar reasons. I could write such a story of the fight with the basilisk and the barren Witcher’s Keep—”
“No,” Geralt said.
“Or the golden child and the prophecy—”
“No,” all three of them said.
“Well that doesn’t leave me with much new material, does it!”
“Why don’t you write about, what do you call it, archetypes.” Geralt grumbled. “Make something up.”
Jaskier looked pained. “Truth be told, I have always found my best inspiration from my own experiences.”
Geralt raised an eyebrow.
“Look, if I could just make something up and have it be any good I wouldn’t have followed you around in the first place!”
“That settles it,” Yennefer said. “You keep performing your new material—your break up song—”
“It is not!” Jaskier interjected.
“That one where you swear a lot at a jail keeper—”
“He deserved it.”
“’The Fishmonger’s Daughter.’” Yennefer said. “Why don’t you do more like that? People love a bawdy song.”
“I have never in my life had so much interference in my performance from meddlers with no musical talent. I sing what I sing based on the mood of the crowd! It can’t be dictated like this.”
“It can if you’re travelling with us.” Yennefer said with finality. “Coin is all well and good when Geralt can’t risk calling attention to himself by taking contracts. But we’ll live on foraging berries in the forest before you bring Nilfgaard straight to us by showing off.”
“You want a bawdy song,” Jaskier said. “I don’t think I ever wrote anything about the djinn. Even from my limited observations, that would make quite the lascivious tale.”
“Are you going to include the part where you looked like a bullfrog and drooled blood everywhere?” Yennefer replied.
Jaskier huffed and walked away from the camp to the stream nearby. Geralt let him go, though he kept his ear out for any signs of trouble. Geralt finished cleaning the rabbits and set them to turn over the fire.
He turned his gaze to Yennefer, who looked satisfied. A small smile crept across her lips. “Can I help it if the bard is so easy to provoke?” she said.
“I notice how you also very neatly maneuvered him into serving your own ends. You probably could have just asked him.”
“Where would be the fun in that?” Yennefer said.
~*~
Jaskier did write new songs, though he stayed away from anything that talked about witchers or witches or princesses in hiding. He debuted them for Ciri—ostensibly to keep her from following him to town, but Geralt suspected because she was an appreciative audience.
There was a lament to a noble horse who serves his master well and ultimately sacrifices himself to save him. That one often brought a tear to people’s eyes. Though Ciri tells him he didn’t get anything right for how Roach died. “That’s what happens when your protector doesn’t tell me anything,” Jaskier explained to Ciri. “I can only infer that Roach died as the horse Geralt is riding is definitely not the same horse, no matter what he calls it.” He left that bit out of the song. Nobody wanted to dwell on being replaced.
There was the promised bawdy song about a whole town driven mad by lust only to wake up the next day to their ordinary lives. And a song about the loneliness of the long road and the joy of finding companions to share it. That one proved very popular indeed.