She ran lightly, skilfully controlling her breath. At every other tree she passed, she made an agile half-turn leap, marking slashes with an imaginary sword and immediately following them with dodges and feints she had learned. She jumped deftly over the fence, landing surely and softly on bent knees.

'Jarre!' she shouted, turning her head up towards a window gaping in the stone wall of the tower. 'Jarre, are you there? Hey! It's me!'

'Ciri?' The boy leaned out. 'What are you doing here?'

'Can I come up and see you?'

'Now? Hmm… Well, all right then… Please do.'

She flew up the stairs like a hurricane, catching the novice unexpectedly just as, with his back turned, he was quickly adjusting his clothes and hiding some parchments on the table under other parchments. Jarre ran his fingers through his hair, cleared his throat and bowed awkwardly. Ciri slipped her thumbs into her belt and tossed her ashen fringe.

'What's this war everybody's talking about?' she fired. 'I want to know!'

'Please, have a seat.'

She cast her eyes around the chamber. There were four large

tables piled with large books and scrolls. There was only one chair. Also piled high.

'War?' mumbled Jarre. 'Yes, I've heard those rumours… Are you interested in it? You, a g-? No, don't sit on the table, please, I've only just got all the documents in order… Sit on the chair. Just a moment, wait, I'll take those books… Does Lady Yennefer know you're here?'

'No.'

'Hmm… Or Mother Nenneke?'

Ciri pulled a face. She knew what he meant. The sixteen-year-old Jarre was the high priestess's ward, being prepared by her to be a cleric and chronicler. He lived in Ellander where he worked as a scribe at the municipal tribunal, but he spent more time in Melitele's sanctuary than in the town, studying, copying and illuminating volumes in the Temple library for whole days and sometimes even nights. Ciri had never heard it from Nenneke's lips but it was well known that the high priestess absolutely did not want Jarre to hang around her young novices. And vice-versa. But the novices, however, did sneak keen glances at the boy and chatted freely, discussing the various possibilities presented by the presence on the Temple grounds of something which wore trousers. Ciri was amazed because Jarre was the exact opposite of everything which, in her eyes, should represent an attractive male. In Cintra, as she remembered, an attractive man was one whose head reached the ceiling, whose shoulders were as broad as a doorway, who swore like a dwarf, roared like a buffalo and stank at thirty paces of horses, sweat and beer, regardless of what time of day or night it was. Men who did not correspond to this description were not recognised by Queen Calanthe's chambermaids as worthy of sighs and gossip. Ciri had also seen a number of different men the wise and gentle druids of Angren, the tall and gloomy settlers of Sodden, the witchers of Kaer Morhen. Jarre was different. He was as skinny as a stick-insect, ungainly, wore clothes which were too large and smelled of ink and dust, always had greasy hair and on his chin, instead of stubble, there were seven or eight long hairs, about half of which sprang from a large wart. Truly, Ciri did not understand why she was so drawn to Jarre's tower. She enjoyed talking to him, the boy knew a great deal and she could learn much from him. But recently, when he looked at her, his eyes had a strange, dazed and cloying expression.

'Well.' She grew impatient. 'Are you going to tell me or not?'

'There's nothing to say. There isn't going to be any war. It's all gossip.'

'Aha,' she snorted. 'And so the duke is sending out a call to arms just for fun? The army is marching the highways out of boredom? Don't twist things, Jarre. You visit the town and castle, you must know something!'

'Why don't you ask Lady Yennefer about it?'

'Lady Yennefer has more important things to worry about!' Ciri spat, but then immediately had second thoughts, smiled pleasantly and fluttered her eyelashes. 'Oh, Jarre, tell me, please! You're so clever! You can talk so beautifully and learnedly, I could listen to you for hours! Please, Jarre!'

The boy turned red and his eyes grew unfocused and bleary. Ciri sighed surreptitiously.

'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.'