They reached Ard Carraigh at dusk. Kaedwen, the largest kingdom in the Northern Realms—and the second-largest nation in the known world after Nilfgaard—naturally had a capital to match: size, bustle, and money.
Beneath towering walls, there were brick houses and stone-paved roads; twenty-eight thousand permanent residents, more than twice that in transient crowds; and women—women in silk, scented with perfume, with long hair draped over their shoulders.
After paying the entry fee, Lambert led Victor to a tavern in the city called the Limping Kate. He settled the horses, booked a room with two beds, tossed their packs down—and immediately turned to leave.
His hurried behavior puzzled Victor, and he couldn't help calling out, "In such a rush—got something to do?"
Lambert stopped, turned, and stared Victor up and down a few times. Then he crooked a finger for Victor to follow—and the two of them ended up somewhere with big bath tubs, attendants who would scrub your back for you, and the opportunity to sample the oldest profession in the world.
Lambert might've been hoping to see the boy blush with awkward, first-time shyness. Too bad for him—Victor didn't feel particularly bothered. In an era this unstable, where tomorrow wasn't guaranteed, taking your pleasure while you could was normal.
At least in a big city, the attendants bathed every day. You didn't get that thick, "brotherly warmth" stench clinging to everything.
Victor picked a half-elf attendant: blonde hair in loose waves, eyes a hazy shade of blue, slightly pointed ears hidden in her hair, tall and fair-skinned, and generously endowed.
…
After properly expressing his gratitude for her attentive service, Victor didn't stay behind to wait for Lambert to finish. Witchers' stamina wasn't something an ordinary man could hope to compete with.
He returned to the tavern, took a corner table, and ordered a rack of roast pork ribs with baked potatoes, a serving of garlic bread, and a large jug of hot milk. Listening to the noisy chatter around him, he tried to pick out anything useful.
The "pre-trip assessment" he'd done at Kaer Morhen had been painfully naive. If Lambert hadn't been prodding and helping him along the road these past days, the journey would've been brutal. Even something as simple as caring for a horse over long distances had a dozen tricks you wouldn't learn from books. Reading ten thousand pages really couldn't replace traveling ten thousand miles.
Still, expecting important intelligence to just fall into your lap because you ate dinner at an inn was fantasy. First, he needed money. Luckily, he'd already had a plan for that.
Victor walked up to the innkeeper. "Quick question—what's the exchange rate right now, crowns to ducats? Can you change a little here?"
Once he confirmed the rate, Victor traded three ducats for a single crown. Then he strolled back upstairs, closed the door, and got to work.
He set up a small pot with practiced ease, heated water over the fireplace, and counted what he had left: sixty ducats. From those, he picked out twenty old coins whose unicorn emblems had worn blurry with age and tossed them into the pot.
Then he took the crown he'd just exchanged as a reference—Radovid V's side profile on the front, Redania's crowned silver eagle on the back—and began stirring.
…
By morning, Lambert still hadn't returned. Most likely, he'd spent the whole night at it. A witcher cooped up in Kaer Morhen all winter, bursting with energy—this level of release was understandable.
Well-rested, Victor didn't care much. He decided to go out alone, take a look around, and—while he was at it—break his brand-new crown into smaller change.
Normally, medieval city hygiene was the kind of thing that made your skin crawl—waste, waste, and more waste… but Ard Carraigh had been built on the bones of an abandoned elven city. That meant proper sewers and, surprisingly, a certain sense of design.
The common currency of the Northern Kingdoms—the crown—was smoothly exchanged bit by bit into ducats. With money in his pocket, Victor wandered through the market and casually bought a few mundane materials: saltpeter, sulfur, lime, phosphorus, charcoal. He didn't want to attract attention, so he bought only small amounts of each, spreading his purchases across different stalls.
He packed the alchemical supplies into the herb satchel slung across his body and continued strolling the streets. He even bought a few kebabs to eat as he walked.
That easy leisure lasted right up until he noticed there was actually a barbershop by the roadside.
…
Lambert didn't return to the tavern until evening. When he came in, he reeked of something unspeakable, filthy from head to toe. There were bloodstains and damage on his armor as well.
The silver sword that had been wrapped in cloth when they rented the room yesterday now hung on his back alongside his steel sword. Combined with his gleaming catlike pupils, it made him as unmistakably witcher as it got.
"Innkeep—get a big tub of hot water to my room!" Lambert barked, and without looking back, he headed upstairs. He didn't even notice Victor eating dinner in the corner.
And as Lambert's footsteps faded above, Victor heard the whispers around him grow louder.
"Witcher…"
"…That's a mutant…?"
"Damn monster…"
"Freak…"
"…A thing cursed by the gods, a creation that defies nature."
"Spawn of evil magic!"
"A demonic creature—filthy, fallen trash from hell!"
If he kept listening, Victor knew he'd end up snapping. So he gathered his tray, picked up his food and milk, and went upstairs to the room.
The moment he stepped inside and took one breath, the stench nearly made him vomit on the spot. He immediately regretted bringing food up here—who could eat in this?
Lambert was stripping off his armor, preparing to wash away the grime and blood. The smell was genuinely unbearable.
"You bastard—gone all day. What, did you go play in a privy?" Victor knew he'd probably been hunting monsters, but he wasn't about to be nice to a walking source of air pollution.
Lambert unhooked a small pouch from his belt and tossed it up and down in his hand. The clatter of coins was bright and pleasant. "Easy job. A few rotfiends in the sewers. Not big, but hungry—caused a couple of attacks.
This morning, the guard hauled me in the second I stepped outside. That stingy captain only wanted to pay two hundred at first. I pushed it up to three. Then it was work nonstop until now."
Victor had zero interest in Lambert's bare backside. He turned away, set the food on the table, and sat down. "Ducats?"
"You want crowns instead?" Lambert said with a sneer.
Victor ignored the jab. He'd only asked to confirm the going rate. He pulled a potion from his herb satchel and tossed it by sound toward Lambert. "Swallow."
Swallow was a healing potion only witchers could use. Like the rest of the witcher formulas, it was highly effective—and highly toxic.
Lambert caught the bottle and gave it a light shake. The Swallow inside gleamed a bright orange-red. "Good stuff. I'll keep it. These little cuts will be mostly fine by tomorrow."
"Suit yourself."
A moment later, water began sloshing loudly. Either Victor was getting used to the smell or the water was washing it away, because he finally managed to pick up his food and keep eating.
"Earlier I was downstairs having dinner. After you came in, those drinkers…"
"Said ugly things?"
"Yes."
"I don't give a damn."
After thinking for a moment, Victor added, "Next time something like that comes up, call me. I mean monster hunting. Maybe I can harvest materials I can use."
"You sure?" Lambert's voice dripped with smugness. "The moment you walked in, your face went green. That 'I'm about to puke but I can't' look was priceless."
Finishing his milk, Victor patted his stomach. "Idiot. One day you'll learn—alchemy can do anything!"