Flicking away the whickered bottle, a last lurch at its mouth, he shouldered his pack and followed the main street to the town’s square. There appeared to be no system to its manure-reeking streets, instead it was a wild collection of twists and turns until suddenly he arrived at a cobbled square. Gargoyles hung from several facades, the town houses there clearly owned by the wealthier merchants. He trudged on, down a side-lane and towards the docks where the cobblestones eventually gave way to a muddy, grimy ditch that had to masquerade for a street.
Winter was coming soon, already doing battle with the end of autumn. There was already strength in its frosty fingers. The winter season was stubborn north of the Pontar, and tended to outstay its welcome every year. At night temperatures plummeted, leaving the puddles in the road frozen over, and the cobblestones slippery with ice. The ground lay hard as bones come dawn, and the fattened cows and pigs herded through the streets complained loudly when ushered into their pens at the quays. Some broke their legs on the way over, and were slaughtered on the spot, their meat sold at the morning market.
Men wrapped themselves heavily against the encroaching bites of frost and looked at the grey skies in anticipation of the snows and deep winter. Afterwards would come the short spring and even shorter summer. Families huddled together around flickering fires, mindful of the infringing shadows. Folk said it was during the longest nights in midwinter that the Wild Hunt rode out in force. Everyone had grown up with the tales of the spectral riders racing through the air, devils swooping down to steal souls and children. They were told, time and again, memories of an ancient era passed into myth. Yet, there were rumours now that those ancient memories were not simply that, but forgotten truths come back to haunt.
Little to no work could be done on the poor fields any longer, and the countryside was empty but for the murders of crows and solitary coal-burners or shepherds. The culling season had begun, and no hands could be spared from the cattle business. Slaughter, sell and send on its way – after the beef and pork would float on heavy barges down the river Gram, people could hibernate, yet for now there was work to be done.
When the sun rose, its light was pale as if coming through milky glass. Its weak rays barely managed to provide any warmth, and when the sun passed again beyond the horizon for another long night the cold returned with a vengeance. A low-hanging mist was slithering into town from the docks.
Cregan took an angry look around him. He felt tired, dirty and ill. The streets were nigh on empty at this time of day and he himself wanted a place to get even more drunk, find something to eat and rent a bed. It was as if his bones had been burnt, and he had to drag his limbs through a muddy bog.
In the faint light of dusk, the narrow hovels clustered together tightly, as if gripping one another for support. They rose from the refuse and filth of the streets in uneven, jagged rows like a crone’s teeth. Out of all the houses in front of him, only five had slate roofs and straight walls of dressed stone. The others were made of wattle and shoddy brickwork with thatch-roofs and crooked corners.
The region east of Novigrad was not a wealthy place, torn apart by squabbling nobles with a claim to one title or other. Somehow they managed not to deal with the bandits hiding in the hills and deep forests. They were too preoccupied with counting their silver and tourney-play. There were more poor places than rich in the world, Cregan knew. Novigrad might have been the largest port and only true city of Redania, but it also had some of the poorest buggers as its inhabitants.
Those who could afford it constructed their town houses and manses at the foot of the hill upon which Temple Isle was perched, as close as they could to the stone fortress and temple. Those who could not buy or rent a plot of land there had to try their luck in the lower districts, where the squalid dwellings were crammed together, shoved up against one another and the militia-men patrolled in strength to keep the peace.
He moved away from the city though, and followed the road toward Oxenfurt until he quit the outskirts and reached an inn. Looking back to Novigrad’s walls he estimated it was three or four hours walk from the gates.
The Seven Cats, the sign read. Fuck. Cats were notorious for their aversion to people like him. There would be a lot of hissing tonight.
Cregan pulled his longcoat tighter around his brawny frame, the stitches almost giving as the heavy fabric was drawn taut across his broad back and shoulders. After another glance down the street he moved toward the two establishments, one of the only ones where light poured from the stained windows. There was some carousing to be heard from within. The hand-painted - badly painted, mind you- sign hung from the doorpost, and he had to duck to pass under it and into the inn. He snickered again because of the name of the alehouse.
After letting the door fall shut in its creaking hinges, Cregan observed the gloomy room. A slow, sullen murmuring filled his ears, sharp laughter and high-pitched giggles cutting through which made his head hurt. Or rather, which made it hurt even more. He sensed the mood was stifled, surly people sitting at trestle tables and aged benches. The room was a low one. Old straw lay in the corners, reeking and mouldy. Tallow candles sputtered with greasy flame, streaking their alcoves and the daub walls with black.
A quick look was all it took to realise they were mostly scum or downtrodden. Just like me, Cregan cynically told himself. There were others too though, sat at the better furbished back of the room, closer to the hearth and more beyond on an elevated level. Not just the downtrodden attended the Seven Cats. Some of the patrons turned to look at him enter, most turned back to their drinks, conversational partners or bought women. Most, Cregan noted, but not all. One man with a salt-and-pepper beard kept his calm eyes on the newly arrived guest. A frown sat etched on his forehead, much like on Cregan’s. Then, after a few moments the fellow returned his interest on the tankard in front of him.
His thick boots made the wooden floorboards squeak as he marched forward toward the bar. Cregan ignored the bearded lout. The old fool probably lusted after Cregan’s warm and heavy coat. He can try and take it if he wants, he thought grimly. Better men than him had, and failed.
“Beer,” he told the woman standing behind the bar, his voice gravel-coarse. She was wearing an apron, and busy with counting coppers into a clay jar. Slightly overweight, it seemed her best years were behind her. “Something to eat.”
The waif looked at him irritated, as if serving customers was not her task even though employment at or ownership of a business like this one implied as such. “Keg or bottle?” She screeched.
A single brow went up at the question. To have beer from a glass bottle was a rarity, an oddity. Cregan ogled the ones on show carefully, trying to discern whatever was written on the faded labels that stuck to the deep green and thick glass. Long corks protruded from the bottlenecks. The characters he attempted to read were foreign, angular and non-sensical. Plundered stock then, he surmised, anything could be in them. I better not.
“Keg,” he said, throwing a single silver piece onto the tabletop. The woman got up and filled a tin tankard with a dark brown liquid. There was practically no head on it, none of the usual froth dark heady beers had. Cregan took a sniff. It almost smelled like beer, almost. But there was more than a bit of the drain about it too.
Nevertheless, Cregan took it up and shuffled over to one of the benches lining the daub walls. Sitting down heavily, he noticed the man with the salt-and-pepper beer had left, but none of the other clientele paid him any attention. He sighed and took a sip of his drink, dropped his pack next to him. The metal and apparel within jostling, mixing with the jingling of glasses and cutlery of the heated room. The beer had a sour finish after the initial sweetness subsided, but he had had worse. Much worse, as he recalled the rubbish he had drank in Cintra after the war. It was wet, it would take the edge of his mood and ease his burning bones and sluggish arms and legs. Not much else mattered for now.
Cregan pushed himself back against the wall, reclining and then letting his legs stretch out against the floor, studying his feet. His boots had once been something to be proud of: expensive leather, expertly sewn, steel in the heel and tip of them. Now they were just like him, faded, battered and worn-out. He grunted in self-loathing and shifted his pale eyes to his legs. Though it was hard for him to remember, he had been considered tall. Handsome even. Now he just looked big and weathered like an old willow. The muscles that had swung steel and iron were still there, but were encased in an unwelcome layer of fat he had put on in the last two years. His features had become lined and hard from the elements and the sea. His dark hair, jet-black in his youth, was now ragged and stained with white from the sea-salt. It was slowly coming off, but the tresses kept on a grey colour. At least when he looked in a silver platter or bowl of water he saw the colour of his eyes -grey like the flank of winter wolf- had remained the same, even though his eyes themselves were set in a stranger’s pale face and underlined with red. When he looked at his sorry reflection he saw his mentor’s eyes stare back at him, and then cursed his curiosity. Even from beyond the Last Door the bastard managed to haunt him, find him wanting and unworthy of his legacy.
The dark beer went down easily, too quickly. Before he knew it, the drinking flagon was nearly empty. Cregan left the dregs where they were, bubbling like molten grease at the bottom of his tankard. You never really wanted to know what was in those dregs. He gestured the woman for another. She brought one over, grumbling as she approached.
“And? That silver was enough to cover one pint and the meal. You want another? Pay up.” she said, holding out a grimy palm. Cregan paused. His payment should have been good for it. His stash was almost empty, just like his cup. He had paid in silver after all, minted in Kovir across Praxeda’s Gulf, taken from a trader. That merchant and his cog now rested at the bottom of Freya’s seas. Nobody in this inn probably knew any of those places, Cregan presumed bleakly.
Cregan was about to protest, but the alcohol had sunk deep into his body, almost as deep as the Koviri cog had in the sea, and had made him lethargic. Who cared if he was being swindled? The money would be gone soon enough anyway. Let this cunt have it, he thought indifferent to his own misery. After pressing a second piece of silver into her hand, she skulked off. He took a thoughtful sip, for the amount he was paying he should make it last and try to enjoy it.
A second sip followed soon after. And a third. The familiar warmth and solace spread through his leaden body. Watching the common room, taking in the scent of cooking food, he managed to slink into something of a relaxed state of mind. He would need to take the edge of himself before heading to the backroom and this secret meeting.
Winter was coming soon, already doing battle with the end of autumn. There was already strength in its frosty fingers. The winter season was stubborn north of the Pontar, and tended to outstay its welcome every year. At night temperatures plummeted, leaving the puddles in the road frozen over, and the cobblestones slippery with ice. The ground lay hard as bones come dawn, and the fattened cows and pigs herded through the streets complained loudly when ushered into their pens at the quays. Some broke their legs on the way over, and were slaughtered on the spot, their meat sold at the morning market.
Men wrapped themselves heavily against the encroaching bites of frost and looked at the grey skies in anticipation of the snows and deep winter. Afterwards would come the short spring and even shorter summer. Families huddled together around flickering fires, mindful of the infringing shadows. Folk said it was during the longest nights in midwinter that the Wild Hunt rode out in force. Everyone had grown up with the tales of the spectral riders racing through the air, devils swooping down to steal souls and children. They were told, time and again, memories of an ancient era passed into myth. Yet, there were rumours now that those ancient memories were not simply that, but forgotten truths come back to haunt.
Little to no work could be done on the poor fields any longer, and the countryside was empty but for the murders of crows and solitary coal-burners or shepherds. The culling season had begun, and no hands could be spared from the cattle business. Slaughter, sell and send on its way – after the beef and pork would float on heavy barges down the river Gram, people could hibernate, yet for now there was work to be done.
When the sun rose, its light was pale as if coming through milky glass. Its weak rays barely managed to provide any warmth, and when the sun passed again beyond the horizon for another long night the cold returned with a vengeance. A low-hanging mist was slithering into town from the docks.
Cregan took an angry look around him. He felt tired, dirty and ill. The streets were nigh on empty at this time of day and he himself wanted a place to get even more drunk, find something to eat and rent a bed. It was as if his bones had been burnt, and he had to drag his limbs through a muddy bog.
In the faint light of dusk, the narrow hovels clustered together tightly, as if gripping one another for support. They rose from the refuse and filth of the streets in uneven, jagged rows like a crone’s teeth. Out of all the houses in front of him, only five had slate roofs and straight walls of dressed stone. The others were made of wattle and shoddy brickwork with thatch-roofs and crooked corners.
The region east of Novigrad was not a wealthy place, torn apart by squabbling nobles with a claim to one title or other. Somehow they managed not to deal with the bandits hiding in the hills and deep forests. They were too preoccupied with counting their silver and tourney-play. There were more poor places than rich in the world, Cregan knew. Novigrad might have been the largest port and only true city of Redania, but it also had some of the poorest buggers as its inhabitants.
Those who could afford it constructed their town houses and manses at the foot of the hill upon which Temple Isle was perched, as close as they could to the stone fortress and temple. Those who could not buy or rent a plot of land there had to try their luck in the lower districts, where the squalid dwellings were crammed together, shoved up against one another and the militia-men patrolled in strength to keep the peace.
He moved away from the city though, and followed the road toward Oxenfurt until he quit the outskirts and reached an inn. Looking back to Novigrad’s walls he estimated it was three or four hours walk from the gates.
The Seven Cats, the sign read. Fuck. Cats were notorious for their aversion to people like him. There would be a lot of hissing tonight.
Cregan pulled his longcoat tighter around his brawny frame, the stitches almost giving as the heavy fabric was drawn taut across his broad back and shoulders. After another glance down the street he moved toward the two establishments, one of the only ones where light poured from the stained windows. There was some carousing to be heard from within. The hand-painted - badly painted, mind you- sign hung from the doorpost, and he had to duck to pass under it and into the inn. He snickered again because of the name of the alehouse.
After letting the door fall shut in its creaking hinges, Cregan observed the gloomy room. A slow, sullen murmuring filled his ears, sharp laughter and high-pitched giggles cutting through which made his head hurt. Or rather, which made it hurt even more. He sensed the mood was stifled, surly people sitting at trestle tables and aged benches. The room was a low one. Old straw lay in the corners, reeking and mouldy. Tallow candles sputtered with greasy flame, streaking their alcoves and the daub walls with black.
A quick look was all it took to realise they were mostly scum or downtrodden. Just like me, Cregan cynically told himself. There were others too though, sat at the better furbished back of the room, closer to the hearth and more beyond on an elevated level. Not just the downtrodden attended the Seven Cats. Some of the patrons turned to look at him enter, most turned back to their drinks, conversational partners or bought women. Most, Cregan noted, but not all. One man with a salt-and-pepper beard kept his calm eyes on the newly arrived guest. A frown sat etched on his forehead, much like on Cregan’s. Then, after a few moments the fellow returned his interest on the tankard in front of him.
His thick boots made the wooden floorboards squeak as he marched forward toward the bar. Cregan ignored the bearded lout. The old fool probably lusted after Cregan’s warm and heavy coat. He can try and take it if he wants, he thought grimly. Better men than him had, and failed.
“Beer,” he told the woman standing behind the bar, his voice gravel-coarse. She was wearing an apron, and busy with counting coppers into a clay jar. Slightly overweight, it seemed her best years were behind her. “Something to eat.”
The waif looked at him irritated, as if serving customers was not her task even though employment at or ownership of a business like this one implied as such. “Keg or bottle?” She screeched.
A single brow went up at the question. To have beer from a glass bottle was a rarity, an oddity. Cregan ogled the ones on show carefully, trying to discern whatever was written on the faded labels that stuck to the deep green and thick glass. Long corks protruded from the bottlenecks. The characters he attempted to read were foreign, angular and non-sensical. Plundered stock then, he surmised, anything could be in them. I better not.
“Keg,” he said, throwing a single silver piece onto the tabletop. The woman got up and filled a tin tankard with a dark brown liquid. There was practically no head on it, none of the usual froth dark heady beers had. Cregan took a sniff. It almost smelled like beer, almost. But there was more than a bit of the drain about it too.
Nevertheless, Cregan took it up and shuffled over to one of the benches lining the daub walls. Sitting down heavily, he noticed the man with the salt-and-pepper beer had left, but none of the other clientele paid him any attention. He sighed and took a sip of his drink, dropped his pack next to him. The metal and apparel within jostling, mixing with the jingling of glasses and cutlery of the heated room. The beer had a sour finish after the initial sweetness subsided, but he had had worse. Much worse, as he recalled the rubbish he had drank in Cintra after the war. It was wet, it would take the edge of his mood and ease his burning bones and sluggish arms and legs. Not much else mattered for now.
Cregan pushed himself back against the wall, reclining and then letting his legs stretch out against the floor, studying his feet. His boots had once been something to be proud of: expensive leather, expertly sewn, steel in the heel and tip of them. Now they were just like him, faded, battered and worn-out. He grunted in self-loathing and shifted his pale eyes to his legs. Though it was hard for him to remember, he had been considered tall. Handsome even. Now he just looked big and weathered like an old willow. The muscles that had swung steel and iron were still there, but were encased in an unwelcome layer of fat he had put on in the last two years. His features had become lined and hard from the elements and the sea. His dark hair, jet-black in his youth, was now ragged and stained with white from the sea-salt. It was slowly coming off, but the tresses kept on a grey colour. At least when he looked in a silver platter or bowl of water he saw the colour of his eyes -grey like the flank of winter wolf- had remained the same, even though his eyes themselves were set in a stranger’s pale face and underlined with red. When he looked at his sorry reflection he saw his mentor’s eyes stare back at him, and then cursed his curiosity. Even from beyond the Last Door the bastard managed to haunt him, find him wanting and unworthy of his legacy.
The dark beer went down easily, too quickly. Before he knew it, the drinking flagon was nearly empty. Cregan left the dregs where they were, bubbling like molten grease at the bottom of his tankard. You never really wanted to know what was in those dregs. He gestured the woman for another. She brought one over, grumbling as she approached.
“And? That silver was enough to cover one pint and the meal. You want another? Pay up.” she said, holding out a grimy palm. Cregan paused. His payment should have been good for it. His stash was almost empty, just like his cup. He had paid in silver after all, minted in Kovir across Praxeda’s Gulf, taken from a trader. That merchant and his cog now rested at the bottom of Freya’s seas. Nobody in this inn probably knew any of those places, Cregan presumed bleakly.
Cregan was about to protest, but the alcohol had sunk deep into his body, almost as deep as the Koviri cog had in the sea, and had made him lethargic. Who cared if he was being swindled? The money would be gone soon enough anyway. Let this cunt have it, he thought indifferent to his own misery. After pressing a second piece of silver into her hand, she skulked off. He took a thoughtful sip, for the amount he was paying he should make it last and try to enjoy it.
A second sip followed soon after. And a third. The familiar warmth and solace spread through his leaden body. Watching the common room, taking in the scent of cooking food, he managed to slink into something of a relaxed state of mind. He would need to take the edge of himself before heading to the backroom and this secret meeting.
