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Nenneke, rolling up the sleeves of her priestess's robe, took a pair of scissors and a little bone
rake from her basket and got to work. Geralt sat on a bench between shafts of light falling
through huge crystal blocks in the cave's vault.
The priestess muttered and hummed under her breath, deftly plunging her hands into the
thicket of leaves and shoots, snipping with her scissors and filling the basket with bunches of
weeds. She adjusted the stakes and frames supporting the plants and, now and again, turned
the soil with her small rake. Sometimes, muttering angrily, she pulled out dried or rotted
stalks, threw them into the humus containers as food for mushrooms and other squamous and
snake-like twisted plants which the witcher didn't recognise. He wasn't even sure they were
plants at all - it seemed to him the glistening rhizomes moved a little, stretching their hair-like
offshoots towards the priestess's hands.
It was warm. Very warm.
'Geralt?'
'Yes?' He fought off an overwhelming sleepiness. Nenneke, playing with her scissors, was
looking at him from behind the huge pinnated leaves of sand-spurry flybush.
'Don't leave yet. Stay. A few more days.'
'No, Nenneke. It's time for me to be on my way.'
'Why the hurry? You don't have to worry about Hereward. And let that vagabond Dandilion
go and break his neck on his own. Stay, Geralt.'
'No, Nenneke.'
The priestess snipped with scissors. 'Are you in such haste to leave the temple because you're
afraid that she'll find you here?'
'Yes,' he admitted reluctantly. 'You've guessed.'
'It wasn't exactly difficult,' she muttered. 'But don't worry. Yennefer's already been here. Two
months ago. She won't be back in a hurry, because we quarrelled. No, not because of you. She
didn't ask about you.'
'She didn't ask?'
'That's where it hurts,' the priestess laughed. 'You're egocentric, like all men. There's nothing
worse than a lack of interest, is there? Than indifference? No, but don't lose heart. I know
Yennefer only too well. She didn't ask anything, but she did look around attentively, looking
for signs of you. And she's mighty furious at you, that I did feel.'
'What did you quarrel about?'
'Nothing that would interest you.'
'I know anyway.'
'I don't think so,' said Nenneke calmly, adjusting the stakes. 'You know her very superficially.
As, incidentally, she knows you. It's quite typical of the relationship which binds you, or did
bind you. Both parties aren't capable of anything other than a strongly emotional evaluation of
the consequences, while ignoring the causes.'
'She came looking for a cure,' he remarked coldly. 'That's what you quarrelled about, admit it.'
'I won't admit anything.'
The witcher got up and stood in full light under one of the crystal sheets in the grotto's vault.
'Come here a minute, Nenneke. Take a look at this.' He unknotted a secret pocket in his belt,
dug out a tiny bundle, a miniature purse made of goat-leather, and poured the contents into his
palm.
'Two diamonds, a ruby, three pretty nephrites, and an interesting agate.' Nenneke was
knowledgeable about everything. 'How much did they cost you?'
'Two and a half thousand Temeria orens. Payment for the Wyzim striga.'
'For a torn neck,' grimaced the priestess. 'Oh, well, it's a question of price. But you did well to
turn cash into these trinkets. The oren is weak and the cost of stones in Wyzim isn't high; it's
too near to the dwarves' mines in Mahakam. If you sell those in Novigrad, you'll get at least
five hundred Novigrad crowns, and
the crown, at present, stands at six and a half orens and is going up.'
'I'd like you to take them.'
'For safe-keeping?'
'No. Keep the nephrites for the temple as, shall we say, my offering to the goddess Melitele.
And the remaining stones . . . are for her. For Yennefer. Give them to her when she comes to
visit you again, which will no doubt be soon.'
Nenneke looked him straight in the eyes.
'I wouldn't do this if I were you. You'll make her even more furious, if that's possible, believe
me. Leave everything as it is, because you're no longer in a position to mend anything or
make anything better. Running away from her, you behaved . . . well, let's say, in a manner
not particularly worthy of a mature man. By trying to wipe away your guilt with precious
stones, you'll behave like a very, very over-mature man. I really don't know what sort of man I
can stand less.'
'She was too possessive,' he muttered, turning away his face. 'I couldn't stand it. She treated
me like '
'Stop it,' she said sharply. 'Don't cry on my shoulder. I'm not your mother, and I won't be your
confidante either. I don't give a shit how she treated you and I care even less how you treated
her. And I don't intend to be a go-between or give these stupid jewels to her. If you want to be
a fool, do it without using me as an intermediary.'
'You misunderstand. I'm not thinking of appeasing or bribing her. But I do owe her
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