His Cruelest Ballad

The town smelled like wet rope and old apples, river fog folding over docks where bargemen shouted and gulls wheeled. Geralt guided Roach past fishmongers and the open-air dye vats, ignoring the stares that tightened in his wake. His medallion hummed, not with monsters, but with the low throb of tension that follows rumor. He’d felt it before. Doors closing. Hands drawing children back from the street, as if he were the sickness on the air.

Adelberg’s alderman kept his office in a timbered hall with a painted griffin nailed over the door. The carving was fresh, newly gilded, its wings spread wide in a pose no living beast would endure. Geralt dismounted, tied Roach, and climbed the stone steps into lamp-lit warmth.

A clerk with ink-stained fingers was waiting, chin lifted like a guard dog. “Business for the alderman?”

“Griffin.” Geralt let his contracts satchel drop with a soft thud. “Took it on the road. Your messenger said you were looking.”

“Inquire elsewhere.” The man’s smile was too easy. “We’ve had… superior applicants.”

“Superior applicants,” Geralt repeated.

“Heroes,” the clerk said, eyes glittering. “Not butchers.”

Geralt’s jaw worked once, a muscle ticking. “Let him tell me himself.”

Ten minutes later he stood before the alderman: a broad-bellied man in a velvet coat with grease on his cuffs. Behind him, a window looked out on the river like a framed painting, rain grizzling the glass.

“I know of you,” the alderman said, fingers steepled. “The White Wolf. Men like you used to be needed. But the age of brute force is passing.”

“You have a griffin killing drovers on the west road,” Geralt said. “That requires more than a prayer.”

“We have skill,” the alderman countered, and there it was—the smug turn of the mouth that meant a song had already done the work Geralt could not. “Brehen of the Cat was here. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He doesn’t demand coin up front. Doesn’t terrify children. He’s… refined.”

Geralt didn’t look at the velvet, the gilt pen, the soft hands that’d never bled. He kept his gaze steady. “Brehen isn’t here. I am.”

“That is regrettable.” The alderman lifted a sheet of parchment. Even from across the desk Geralt recognized script that wasn’t the clerk’s—flourished, self-satisfied. Lyrics spilled down the page. “The bards’ ballads say he outwits monsters. He speaks gently. He negotiates. He saves what can be saved.”

“Negotiation won’t help with a starving griffin,” Geralt said.

“The people want a different sort of witcher,” the alderman said. “And I serve them. If Brehen returns within the week, the contract is his. If not, we will consider… other options.”

“You’re going to wait.” Geralt’s voice went flat. “While drovers die.”

The alderman spread his hands. “A few days. If the beast is truly hungry, your kind would only inflame it. There are children in this town. Brehen makes a point not to—” he hesitated, as if choosing a word that wouldn’t offend— “not to exacerbate matters.”

Geralt’s laugh was quiet, humorless. “You’re quoting a song.”

The alderman didn’t deny it. “I am quoting hope.”

Geralt left before the taste of it curdled in his mouth. On the hall steps, rain pricked his hair and ran down his neck. He filled his lungs with the river’s weight and let it go, then swung into Roach’s saddle and let her pick her way back through the crowd.

Word traveled faster than hoofbeats. By the time he reached the market, a fishwife was already telling a knife vendor that she’d seen his eyes glow. “They say he eats the entrails, you know,” she whispered. “Raw, like a wolf.”

“Brehen doesn’t need to eat anything,” the vendor said. “He feeds on justice.” He winked at his daughter. She giggled.

Geralt kept moving. Under the awning of the rowdy tavern, he paused. Lute strings drifted out, silk over the scrape of stools and the clatter of tankards. A cheer swelled, rolled. His name didn’t ride it. Another did.

“Brehen,” someone sighed like prayer.

Geralt tightened his hand on Roach’s rein. Not yet, he told himself. He needed facts—trail signs, claw marks, the way the west road’s ditch ran down to the marsh. He needed to make choices that weren’t about proving a man wrong in a song. But even as he turned the corner, the music followed him like a taunt. Brehen the gentle. Brehen the clever. Brehen who saved girls without asking their fathers to sell a cow.

At the west gate, two guards leaned under the eave to share a bottle. One nudged the other. “Hey. Don’t go out there now. We’re waiting for the Cat.”

“I’m going,” Geralt said.

“For what?” the first guard snorted. “To make a mess? The alderman won’t pay you.”

Geralt didn’t answer him. Beyond the gate, the road bled rain into wagon ruts and hoofprints. He crouched and touched the mud. Not old. A deep three-toed track pressed at the edge, half full of water—the forefoot of a griffin. Fresh enough the edges hadn’t slumped. He stood, wiped his fingers on his trousers, and squinted into the hills where the road bent out of sight.

Behind him, a child called, “Monster!” and his mother dragged him away.

By the time he returned to the square, dusk had thickened. The tavern door burst open to release a wave of heat, ale, and the end of a verse. “—and the Cat, with a smile and a bow, spared the beast, taught the lord how—” The crowd roared. Brehen was everywhere and nowhere, etched into their faces, their expectations, their fear-turned-sweet.

Geralt stared at the swinging sign, at the light, at the silhouettes moving against it. He felt the old, familiar blade of it slide under his ribs: the choice between walking away, letting foolishness fester, or stepping into a room where his name had been ground down to a curse and a ghost wore his work like a crown.

He let Roach’s reins fall loose and pushed the door open. The warmth hit him, thick with steam and smoke and the high, clear voice of the bard, and every turned head cut the noise in half.

The bard stood on a trestle table like it was a stage, boots braced, hip cocked to show off tight hose the color of ripe plums. Lute tucked under his arm, he rode the last chorus hard, voice bright enough to cut through the fumes of ale and sweat.

“—and with wit, not wrath, he stayed his hand,
the Cat bent fate to a kinder plan—
no blood on blade, no coin in purse,
a noble heart that broke the curse!”

The crowd pounded the tables. Foam slopped. Someone whistled, two fingers to their lips. Jaskier—because who else could that be with curls like that and a mouth built to be seen—flourished a bow, grinning, soaking in it.

Geralt moved to the bar and set a coin down. “Ale.”

The barkeep slid him a tankard without taking his eyes off the performance. “That’s him,” he muttered, not meaning Geralt.

“Brehen!” someone shouted, as if calling for a lover. “Again!”

Jaskier lifted his head, curls shaking. “My dear patrons,” he trilled, breathless, “if you insist, who am I to deny you the triumph of compassion over carnage?”

Geralt drank and watched. The song started again, verses tumbling out like polished stones. Brehen outtalking a wyvern. Brehen letting a cursed knight keep his life and his lands. Brehen refusing coin, taking only gratitude and a garland of flowers to tame his savage brow. Every line smooth, practiced, plausible to ears that had never watched a man convulse on the ground while poison ate him from inside and the only way to stop it was a blade through the spine.

When the last chord shivered and the room erupted, Geralt set his tankard down and pushed through bodies toward the table. He didn’t bother to soften his steps. The crowd parted, a murmur rising—the air punch of a storm walking into a fair.

Jaskier saw him too late. His smile faltered, then snapped back into place like a shield. “Ah,” he said, breath hitching just a touch. “A connoisseur.” His gaze flicked over Geralt’s armor, the scar at his jaw, the hair darkened by rain. He bowed, a shallow mockery. “Have you a request, witcher?”

“Truth,” Geralt said. “You take requests?”

Laughter rippled, uncertain.

Jaskier’s mouth tightened around its curve. “Truth sounds dreadfully dour. My patrons prefer joy.”

“Your joy got drovers killed,” Geralt said, voice even. “Your joy told the alderman that monsters can be coaxed like skittish horses. Your joy means the griffin on the west road will have one more night to feed.”

Silence bled outward. Someone coughed. A chair scraped.

Jaskier straightened. “Songs are stories,” he said, keeping it light. “We shape fear into something we can hold. You, of all people, should welcome that.”

“I don’t welcome being called a butcher because you made a liar a saint,” Geralt replied. “I don’t welcome doors closing while a cat-branded coward leaves the work to others and you polish his boots with your tongue.”

Color flared high on Jaskier’s cheekbones. “Brehen is no coward.”

“He ran from a leshen in Velen and left a boy to die,” Geralt said, flat. “You wrote that he negotiated peace.”

Jaskier blinked, falter visible now. Then he leaned harder into the performance, tossing his head with an easy laugh. “I write what the people need, not the gore in your saddlebag. They need hope. They need heroes who don’t terrify their children or bankrupt their farms.”

“They need not to be lied to,” Geralt said. “They need to know that if a witcher tells them to bar their doors because a griffin is ravening, they should bar them, not stand in the road waiting for a kind word from a beast that doesn’t speak their tongue.”

“Ah, but Brehen speaks to hearts,” Jaskier said, quick as a card sharp. “He tempers steel with mercy—”

“Mercy gets you dead if you offer it to the wrong jaws,” Geralt cut in. “You sing like you’ve never watched a mother bleed out because a manticore’s spine took her in the back while she carried water. You sing like there’s no cost to being kind when teeth are already in your throat.”

A murmur of discomfort, a shifting of feet. The barkeep’s rag went still. Jaskier’s fingers tightened on his lute’s neck.

“You think I don’t know cost?” he said, smile gone. “I know what hunger sounds like in an empty room. I know what it is to play to drunks for crusts and be told to sing softer so the lord’s dogs can sleep. If the world is cruel, I choose to make it gentler in the spaces I can.”

“Make it true,” Geralt said. “Gentle comes after. Not before.”

Jaskier’s gaze slid over the faces watching them. He climbed down from the table with deliberate grace, boots thumping to the rush-strewn floor. Up close, he was shorter than Geralt by a hand, bright as a knife with the sun on it. He squared his shoulders.

“Tell me, witcher,” he said quietly, but the room carried it, hungry. “What would you have me sing? That you take coin before you lift a finger? That you scare children because you must? That blood is your business?”

“Sing that I do the work,” Geralt said. “That I don’t leave it for men who like their reflections. Sing that monsters kill, and sometimes men do worse. Sing that if you want a witcher to save your daughter, you pay him enough to feed himself so he doesn’t have to ride on to the next town while she’s still screaming.”

The word save hung there, raw. Jaskier’s throat moved. “And you think my songs keep you from coin.”

“I know they do,” Geralt said. “Alderman won’t give me the griffin because he wants a cat with a smile. He’ll wait while bodies stack. Your rhyme put the wreath on Brehen’s head.”

Jaskier’s lashes flicked down, then up. “Perhaps the alderman simply prefers a professional manner to… gloom.”

“You prefer the sound of your stories to the truth,” Geralt said. “Fine. Keep singing. But if your lies get me shut out of work again, you can stand with the families and explain why help didn’t come. Or better—go out there and ask the griffin to be reasonable. See how that ends.”

A strained laugh broke somewhere and died.

Jaskier’s jaw tightened. He didn’t back away. “You could try being less unpleasant.”

“You could try being less wrong,” Geralt said.

They stood like that, breath clouding in the heat of bodies. Finally, Jaskier lifted his chin and turned to the room. “A brief intermission,” he announced, bright again by sheer will. “Wet your throats. I’ll—” he glanced at Geralt, defiant “—compose something new.”

Geralt let the hint of a breath out. “Do that,” he said, and stepped back, the path parting for him all the way to the bar. The noise didn’t return. It hovered, waiting, the space between a word and its answer.

The door banged open again, letting in a chill smear of rain and the clink of mail. A man in rich green, velvet darkened with damp, stepped through with two guards at his back. He carried himself like someone used to stepping over people’s lives. The tavern drew a collective breath.

“Jaskier, is it?” he said, voice crisp, eyes already finding the bard by the table. “And the witcher.”

Jaskier’s smile came back like a blade slipped behind a cuff. He swept a bow so practiced it barely touched sincerity. “At your service, good sir. If you come for music, I fear I’m in the midst of revising—”

“I come for work,” the man said, gaze flicking over the lute, then lingering on Geralt. “I am Roderik, steward to Baron Venger. His Lordship has… enjoyed your chronicles.” He softened the word with faint disdain, then turned it into currency with a glance at the room. “Especially the accounts of the Cat. Brehen, is it?”

Jaskier’s mouth tilted. “A favorite, evidently.”

Roderik’s eyes cut to Geralt. “The Baron prefers efficiency to favorites. We need a witcher now. The Cat is not present. You are.” He stepped farther in, moisture beading on his lashes. “And if the famous bard accompanies the work, His Lordship will be pleased.”

“Is that so,” Geralt said.

“It is,” Roderik said, with the weight of coin. He produced a folded parchment sealed with wax. “The Barony has a matter requiring discretion and skill. The alderman dithers; the Baron does not. You will come.”

Jaskier laughed lightly. “Such confidence. And what, pray tell, is the reward for such sudden obedience?”

“Good silver,” Roderik said. “Lodging at the manor. Your pick of the kitchens. And a patron who enjoys stories—truthful or otherwise.”

A ripple of amusement broke the tension. Jaskier’s fingers stroked his lute’s neck, mind calculating. He glanced at Geralt, at the stubborn set of his mouth, the rain still tracking down his temple. “I wouldn’t want to intrude on the witcher’s schedule.”

“You already did,” Geralt said.

Roderik’s brow lifted. “You’ll both be paid. Together. The Baron stipulates it.” He allowed himself a brief, sharp smile at the way both men’s jaws ticked. “He is impatient with… division.”

Geralt considered the parchment he didn’t need to read to know was binding. “What kind of work.”

Roderik hesitated, measuring the room, then lowered his voice enough that people leaned to catch it. “Something large in the mountains. Trade routes suffer. His Lordship wants it resolved quickly. He prefers intact… components.”

Jaskier’s eyes gleamed with interest despite himself. “Ah, an admirer of anatomy.”

“An admirer of profit,” Roderik said. “And order.”

Geralt didn’t look at the bard when he said, “You like the Cat. Ask him.”

“The Cat is where all cats are when needed—vanished,” Roderik replied, bored. “You are here. Your reputation is mixed.” He glanced at Jaskier’s taut smile. “But the Baron respects competence more than gossip. The coin is substantial enough you won’t refuse.”

Jaskier’s throat worked. He pasted on an easy grin. “I’m always delighted to grace a manor with my presence. And if the witcher comes as a—what was it—necessary addendum, well. I suppose I can endure him.”

Geralt’s hand flexed on the tankard. “I work alone,” he said, knowing it wouldn’t matter.

“Not this time,” Roderik said, smooth as oil. “His Lordship was charmed by the idea of a chronicler at hand. A famous one. He plans to host you both. You’ll leave at first light. Bring what you need.” His gaze moved down Geralt’s armor as if cataloging costs. “Drink on the Baron’s tab tonight if it steadies your nerves.”

Jaskier’s chin tipped up. “My nerves are perfectly steady.”

“Mm,” Roderik said, unimpressed. He turned a little, addressing the room because he understood rooms. “You’ll all be safer for it. The Baron invests in Adelberg. He rewards loyalty.”

He let the threat hang there for those who’d been laughing at Geralt an hour ago. The barkeep was already nodding before the steward slid a few coins across. The sound of them hitting wood was a spell; the tavern shifted, people making space for power.

Roderik returned to the pair. “Do we have an understanding?”

Geralt weighed Roach’s feed, the lack of work, the guards at Roderik’s shoulder, the grind of Jaskier’s jaw. He’d been in worse chains. “Fine,” he said. “Terms at the manor.”

“Of course,” Roderik said, satisfied. “Bard?”

Jaskier set his lute across his back with a practiced flick. “I never turn down a patron. Especially a generous one.”

“Good.” Roderik tipped his head, already dismissing them. “Enjoy your evening. In the morning, speak to the gate sergeant. He’ll escort you up.”

He turned on a heel, the guards following, rain closing behind them as the door swung and thudded shut. The noise returned in uncertain fragments, like people trying a language they’d forgotten. Eyes slid away from Geralt faster now. A few looked at Jaskier with envy, others with the sourness that attends someone else’s luck.

Jaskier exhaled, something fragile in it before the performance settled again like armor. He looked at Geralt. “Well. It seems my terrible lies have won you a very fine meal.”

Geralt stared into his tankard, then up at the bard. “You heard him. We work together.”

Jaskier’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “We perform together,” he corrected. “Slightly different art.”

“Same pay,” Geralt said.

“Sadly, yes,” Jaskier said, and then softened it with a flicker of rue. “I’ll meet you at the gate at dawn.”

“Don’t be late,” Geralt said.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jaskier murmured, and climbed back onto the table, voice bright again by sheer will as he called for one last song, something lively to wash the taste of the steward from the air. He didn’t sing of Brehen. He sang something bawdy and brief, and when it ended, he didn’t look toward Geralt again. The path between them held. The next step waited at sunrise.

The tavern emptied by degrees, leaving behind the damp smell of wool and rain. Geralt stayed at the bar, nursing what was left of his ale. He could feel the room recalibrating around Jaskier’s last song, the way people turned their faces away from him less boldly now that coin had touched the counter in his favor. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the contract, and the fact he’d be shackled to the bard until it was done.

A stool scraped. Jaskier slid onto it, keeping a careful inch of space between them as if proximity might scald. Up close, he smelled like wet leather and something sharp—citrus oil rubbed into the lute’s wood.

“So,” Jaskier said lightly, like they were two acquaintances discussing rain. “A mountain thing with intact components. That sounds positively convivial.”

“Sounds like poison and teeth,” Geralt said.

Jaskier’s smile was brittle. “Yes, well. I’ve been promised kitchens. I’m sure I’ll eat very well while you’re being gnawed.”

Geralt let that lie, staring at the way Jaskier’s fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on the bar. “You could have said no.”

“And watch a steward inform a packed room that I turned down a baron?” Jaskier scoffed, quiet. “My patronage would vanish by morning. And all your beloved aldermen would still prefer the Cat. No.” He lifted the tankard the barkeep set down for him and drank like it burned. “I don’t say no to survival.”

“I know,” Geralt said.

Jaskier’s eyes flicked to him, surprised that he’d offered any understanding at all. He covered it quickly, mouth twisting. “And you? You’d have stayed, brooding in this charming establishment, waiting for the alderman to change his mind?”

“I’d have found another town,” Geralt said. “But the steward was right. The coin’s good.” He felt the weight of it already, the relief it would buy for a few lean weeks. “I won’t pretend otherwise.”

Jaskier toyed with the seal on his tankard, peeling it back with a thumbnail. “We’ll be cordial. We’ll do the work. You can glower. I’ll sing at an appropriate remove from your shadow.” He breathed out. “Then we can go back to hating each other in peace.”

Geralt grunted. “Fine.”

It should have ended there, easy and clean. Instead, the silence sat between them, heavy as chain. The barkeep slopped more ale their way, emboldened now to treat them like men with a future. Jaskier watched the foam slide down his cup, then spoke without the polish he usually wore.

“You were right,” he said, low. “About songs. About them not being… harmless.”

Geralt didn’t look at him. “Tomorrow,” he said. “We start early. You’ll need proper boots. And a cloak that isn’t a peacock’s last wish.”

Jaskier’s mouth quirked. “I have a very serviceable cloak.”

“Get a better one,” Geralt said.

“Mm.” Jaskier took another drink, a little too deep. “Do you always make friends like this?”

“I don’t make friends.”

“Good,” Jaskier said, brightening falsely. “No chance of disappointment.”

They finished their drinks. Geralt stood. “Dawn. Gate.”

“Yes, yes,” Jaskier waved, then hesitated. “Do you… will you need anything from the manor besides what they offer? Oil, powders?”

“Bring what you have,” Geralt said. “If you have anything useful.”

Jaskier’s chin came up. “I have a bestiary. Notes. Not that you’ll read them.”

“I’ll read them if they’re worth reading.”

“Then I’ll make them worth reading,” Jaskier snapped before he could stop himself. He flushed, angry at the way Geralt’s mouth barely curved. “Don’t look so pleased.”

“Wasn’t,” Geralt said. He turned, his armor creaking softly, and moved toward the stairs the barkeep had indicated earlier. The Baron’s tab didn’t extend to charity rooms, but the steward had thrown in beds for the night. Jaskier’s eyes tracked him as he went.

“Goodnight, witcher,” the bard called.

“Jaskier,” Geralt answered without turning.

Upstairs, the pallet was clean enough. Geralt stripped the harness from his shoulders piece by piece, feeling each buckle’s relief. He checked his oils out of habit, counted what he had left. Not enough. He’d make do. He always did.

Below, he could hear Jaskier’s voice again, softer now, speaking to the barkeep, to a girl with quick hands refilling lamps. Laughing, even, like everything slid off him because he made it. Geralt lay back and stared at the ceiling until the wood blurred, listening to the storm move across the river and pound at the shutters. Dawn would come wet and grey. He closed his eyes and made room for it.

Jaskier didn’t sleep much. He sat at a corner table long after the crowd thinned, quill scratching over a travel-stained book he pulled from his case. He chewed his lip, the taste of ale and humiliation stubborn on his tongue, and wrote down the steward’s words, the shape of the contract, the list of items the Baron had wanted intact. Glands. Heart. He underlined it, annoyed at the little prickle at the back of his neck. He wasn’t a fool. He’d been in enough manors to know when a noble’s interest turned clinical.

He closed the book and pressed the tip of the quill to his thumb, leaving a dark dot. “Don’t be late,” he muttered, mimicking Geralt’s low voice when no one was listening. He hated the way it rolled through him, the faint thread of safety that came with it. He despised needing anyone.

He went up when the lamps burned low, found the cubby set aside for him, and undressed down to his shirt, shivering as he burrowed under rough blankets. He stared at the beam overhead and made calculations. New boots. Extra strings. A cloak that wouldn’t soak through in the first drizzle. He could afford it if the Baron’s kitchens were generous and he played the patron well. He always did.

Sleep came thin. He woke before the sky had finished turning from black to bruised blue, the tavern already stirring. He was careful, quiet, packing his case, tying down the lute. He checked the pages he’d written twice and tucked them into the safer compartment, away from damp.

At the gate, the world smelled like river and horses. Guards in the Baron’s colors waited, bored and upright. Geralt was already there, hood up, Roach laden but ready, condensation ghosting from her nostrils. He looked at Jaskier’s cloak once and said nothing, which was worse than an insult.

“I’m on time,” Jaskier said brightly, because brightness fit better than anything else. He curled his fingers against the cold and lifted his chin. “Shall we go earn our bread, witcher?”

Geralt met the guards’ eyes, then Jaskier’s for the smallest second. “We shall.” He swung into the saddle and nodded at the captain. “Let’s move.”

The gate creaked. The road lay open, dark with rain and slick with morning. They fell in beside each other because the contract said they must, and because coin had a way of lining up even the most unwilling steps. They rode without speaking at first, the clenched set of Jaskier’s jaw matching the tight line of Geralt’s mouth, each aware of the other like a weight on the whole day. The partnership had been signed with a steward’s seal and a tavern’s silence, and there was no easing it. Not yet. Not now. The mountains waited. So did the thing with venom and teeth. And the two of them, bound by money and necessity, went to meet it.