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“The baron is fine. Good.” Grant heaved a sigh of relief. “I must be crazy to believe those witchers.”

His worries were not unfounded, however. If anything were to happen to Ignatius, the bloodline of the Verrieres family would come to an end. Vizima would take back the rule on White Orchard, and all the servants of the baron, including Grant, would have to return to their lives as peasants.

Grant was already used to being the lapdog of nobility, and he refused to return to a life of peasantry. Barons might be on the lowest rung of nobility, but they were nobility regardless. No matter how decadent their lives were, they still were of a nobler status than peasants. Grant resolved to never let anything happen to the baron. He closed the door and planned on sending someone to check the tomb.

***

Roy took a sip of his red tea. It had a slice of lemon in it, adding a tinge of sourness to the beverage. “The butler doesn’t seem to be lying. It doesn’t seem like the banshee has infiltrated the fortress. Maybe it has left the White Orchard entirely.” Roy cast Observe on everyone he passed by, but they were all ordinary people. The pendant did not vibrate either.

“We’ll have to find a chance to search the whole place, then,” Letho said. “Ignatius must have kept the silver sword’s blueprint away somewhere.”

“The blueprint is one thing. We’re going to clear Kolgrim’s name, and Ignatius is going to do it himself,” Roy said. “And the innkeep did tell us all the crimes Ignatius did in the White Orchard. He’s worse than a demon. Why don’t we…” The young witcher straightened out his hand and brushed it across his throat.

“Calm down, Roy. This is noble territory, not a bandit lair. And we can’t do anything that’ll invite trouble.” Letho rubbed his chin seriously. “I don’t want the whole of Temeria hunting me down just because I assassinated royalty. It’s hard to make a living in the south. Can’t risk my backup plan here.”

“I’m just kidding.”

The door of the office yawned open, and in came Grant, wiping the sweat off his forehead. He smiled at the witchers. “The baron is upstairs in his room, sleeping soundly. I assure you that the monster you mentioned isn’t in the fortress. I have sent some soldiers to scout the tomb. We will have news by afternoon, but you’ll have to wait.”

“Good,” Letho said. “We have a few questions for you.”

“Ask away, Mr. Letho.” Grant reclined into his wooden chair and squinted languidly.

“We overheard your conversation with the servant earlier,” Letho said. “And you say the baron only fell asleep when morning came?”

“It’s not a secret. I don’t mind telling you about it.” Grant wore a worried expression, looking concerned. “It has been an ongoing condition. He can only sleep after he exhausts himself throughout the night.”

“If the baron has to rest in the morning, then the job of administration will fall on his butler’s shoulders. It must be hard for you.”

Grant puffed his chest out, and a smug smile curled his lips. “Nothing I can do about it. It’s my job to solve my master’s problems. The baron’s health does not allow him to do anything himself. All the more reason why I have to do a good job for him.”

“You’re a loyal man,” the witcher praised, though there was a hint of mockery underneath. “You must have worked here for a long time, then. The baron must value you a lot.”

That was exactly what Grant wanted to hear, and he started beaming. “I started to work in the fortress when I was twelve. Master John and Mistress Mary were still alive then…” Once he started talking, he could not stop, and the butler kept bragging about his past.

The witchers exchanged looks.

“Master John promoted me to the position of butler. It was something that had never been done before. He thought I was a very capable man for my age, and my ancestors had no criminal records, after all.”

“Now let us talk about something more interesting.” Roy locked the office door and cut to the chase, “Two years ago, Ignatius put a witcher called Kolgrim on trial. He was accused of kidnapping a beekeeper’s boy. Do you remember that?”

“Ye-Yes.”

“The baron took a blueprint from Kolgrim back then. Do you know where he’s keeping that?”

“The basement…” Grant said stiffly. “The baron thought there was no point collecting the blueprint belonging to abominations, and he told me to keep it in a box. It’s in the basement with the other sundry items.”

Excitement shone in Roy’s eyes for a moment. He did not expect things to go this smoothly, and now he was one step away from taking the school’s long-lost blueprint back. The witchers quickly asked where the basement was.

“It’s under the kitchen?” Roy wanted to check it out right away, but there were too many eyes on them. It was not the perfect time to make their move. Besides, the questioning was not over yet. They still had questions regarding the tomb and the village in White Orchard.

“What does Ignatius do most of the time?”

“The baron drinks,” Grant answered monotonously.

“Have you noticed any weird behavior from him? Does he tinker with containers, herbs, or mysterious liquids? Does he read books that you don’t understand?” Roy asked.

“No,” Grant answered quickly. “The baron despises books. He spends his waking hours drinking or crying with his family’s portrait in his arms.”

The baron sounds like a widower who has given up on himself, but the innkeeper’s description is different. The baron she knows is not a weak person. He is violent and ludicrous.

“Has he always been this way? What about his earlier days? Why did he kill more than half of the villagers in White Orchard?”

That was the change the innkeeper told them.

Grant shuddered, and he struggled for a moment, but he resumed his calm composure and answered, “The people in the orchard sent a petition to Vizima’s court because of the baron’s actions. In the end, the court acknowledged their dissent and permitted them to leave the orchard. The baron watched as the villagers left one by one. In the end, he caved and sent someone to talk to them. But the peasants said a lot of awful things to the baron, thinking the court would protect them. And then the killings started.”

“That is no excuse for his murderous actions. Ignatius is a murderer! A butcher!” Roy said. He massaged his temples, and then he noticed something more important. The young witcher stared at Grant, and he asked, “So the massacre happened because of the villagers’ petition. Then that begs the question. What damning thing did Ignatius do to the villagers? What forced them to start that petition?”

Most peasants won’t leave the place they’re toiling in if they can help it. This isn’t exactly a peaceful era. “Is he even more terrifying than bandits?”

The butler scrunched his face, his muscles shuddering. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as he kept resisting the sign.

The witchers were alarmed. The greater the resistance was, the closer the witchers were at getting to the secret of the fortress. They knew they were close to the answer they were searching for, but it was possible the butler could snap out of it.

In the end, he stammered, “Th-The baron ha-has a bad re-reputation. He-He can be cr-cruel if he needs… needs to be.”

“How cruel can he be?”

“Th-The baron found out that his son, Master Florian, was in love with a hunter in the village. The hunter was a man. The baron exiled the hunter, and Master Florian hung himself. To make things worse, Mistress Mary died two years later. Ever since then, the baron has been all by himself. He spends his waking hours drinking, and his temper gets shorter and shorter. The baron became very troubled, and rumors started going around in the village. Some said the baron was possessed by a demon, and that he would kill everyone around him.”

Roy lamented, “I guess there’s always more to a story than we can think, huh? Florian’s grave only states that he died of asphyxiation. I see that his father drove him down that path.”

“And…” Grant continued, “The baron… barged into a wedding… in the orchard. He forcibly… took the bride’s… first night. He invoked his… right, and he… cut off the head… of a villager, because… he took his hat off… too slowly.”

He was starting to break up, and his voice became a whisper.

“This is preposterous.” The witchers exchanged looks of disbelief. “That right has been repealed for many years. How dare he?”

“What happened next?”

Grant did not answer this time. He closed his eyes and mouth, his eyelids fluttering, as if he were having a bad dream. He then opened his eyes, and they regained clarity.

The witchers sighed surreptitiously. They were slightly disappointed, but they could not use Axii on the same person two times in a row in such a short time.

“Sorry for spacing out, witchers.” Grant wiped the sweat off his forehead. Sweat? He sighed. “You know how people are after they hit forty. We space out a lot. Oh, where was I?”

Roy quickly came up with a believable excuse. “You would take us to the servants’ rooms and let us check them just in case.” He did not make an obvious lie, of course. “And the basement as well.”

“Did I say that? Do give me a moment, then.” The butler frowned, looking reluctant. “We’ll discuss further after we receive news of the tomb.”

***

***