Chapter 25: THE IRONBLOOD COURSE AND THE TEMERIAN SCOUT
The second Ironblood Tonic dose hit at the wrong moment.
I was in the workshop with Brokk, reviewing foundation specifications for the eastern wall extension, when the muscle-cramping phase started. The first warning was a tightness in my shoulders that I'd learned to recognize from the initial dose three days ago.
"—the load distribution at the third course is adequate," Brokk was saying, "but I recommend increasing the mortar depth at the junction points."
"Agreed." I kept my voice level. "Implement your specifications. I'll review the completed work tomorrow."
He nodded, collecting his drawings, and I made it through the door before the cramping became impossible to hide.
The workshop was empty — Pip claimed her corner during afternoons, but mornings belonged to planning sessions I'd deliberately scheduled around her preferences. I closed the door, lowered myself to the floor, and let the Ironblood course do what it was designed to do.
Forty minutes of it.
The cramping was severe — every muscle in my core contracting in waves that would have been terrifying if I hadn't known they were intentional. The tonic was rebuilding my physical foundation at a cellular level, and the process was not gentle.
I categorized the sensation. Breathed into it. Kept the assessment clinical the way I'd kept assessments clinical through every difficult procedure in my past life.
[IRONBLOOD TONIC — DOSE 2/10 COMPLETE]
[CONSTITUTION IMPROVEMENT: ACCUMULATING]
[SIDE EFFECTS: MUSCLE CRAMPING (DECREASING WITH COURSE PROGRESSION)]
Marta appeared in the doorway before the cramping finished — she'd read the schedule and anticipated when I'd need support. A cooling compress pressed against my forehead, relief spreading across overheated skin.
"The third dose will be easier," she said. "The body adapts."
I didn't comment on the fact that she'd known exactly when to arrive.
Kasimir found me two hours later, still in the workshop, reviewing the gate lattice overlay that Tier II had made visible on my territory map.
"There's a problem."
His voice carried the specific tension I'd learned to recognize as serious-but-manageable. I looked up from the amber lines tracing the Conjunction-era infrastructure.
"The Temerian scouts?"
"One of them is inside the settlement. He passed as a traveling laborer looking for work. He's been eating at the common meal table for the past hour."
I'd expected escalation. I hadn't expected it this fast.
"How did you identify him?"
"Military posture. The civilian clothes don't fully disguise it." Kasimir's expression was carefully neutral. "He's junior — not senior enough for this situation. He may not know what to do now that he's here."
A junior scout, sent inside to gather information, probably exceeding his orders by actually entering the settlement. The passive surveillance phase was over.
"Where is he now?"
"Still at the table. Finishing bread and soup."
I stood, brushing the last residue of cramping from my muscles. "Show me."
The scout's name was Bertak.
I approached his table directly, without accusation or hostility, and sat down across from him before he could decide whether to flee or perform innocence.
"The camp on the north road," I said conversationally. "And the second team on the southern approach. You've been watching for approximately three weeks."
His face went through several emotions — surprise, calculation, the specific panic of someone caught in a situation they weren't trained for.
"My lord—"
"Information gathered informally tends to be filed imprecisely." I kept my voice pleasant. "Observations made during a formal settlement tour, on the other hand, can be documented accurately and reported to whoever assigned you here."
He stared at me. "You're offering a tour?"
"I'm offering an alternative to whatever report you were planning to file based on soup and conversation. The tour is honest. The picture it paints is accurate. Your superiors will receive better intelligence than they would from secondhand accounts."
The calculation in his expression shifted from panic to assessment. A junior scout, offered a way to turn an exceeded-orders situation into a success.
"The tour," he said finally. "I accept."
Yennefer was in her workspace when we arrived at that section of the settlement.
I'd briefed her in eleven words: "Scout. Temerian. Needs to find nothing interesting."
Her performance was flawless.
She emerged from her workspace with the hostile indifference of a mage who found everything about her current situation beneath her dignity. Her eyes swept across Bertak with the dismissive assessment of someone cataloguing an insect, then returned to me with barely-concealed contempt.
"Lord Roderick. I assume this interruption has a purpose."
"The contracted mage for pest control," I said to Bertak, gesturing toward Yennefer. "Her workspace is off-limits to visitors, naturally."
"Pest control." Yennefer's voice dripped with precisely calibrated disdain. "An adequate description of the arrangement."
Bertak nodded nervously, scribbling notes on a small pad he'd produced from his coat. The picture forming in his report was exactly what I wanted: an eccentric noble project, a disgraced mage doing mundane work for room and board, nothing worth institutional attention.
The tour continued through the forge, the Kasimir Wall, the permanent stone structure, the Stonehatch family workshop. At each stop, I provided accurate information that painted the settlement as exactly what it appeared to be: a functional but unremarkable agricultural venture in the worst part of Velen.
When Bertak left through the north gate three hours later, his report would be neutral.
It wouldn't stay neutral. But it would buy time.
Yennefer found me in the workshop that evening, after the settlement had settled into its nighttime routine.
"'Pest control,'" she said.
"It was the most dismissive evaluation I could think of."
"The single most dismissive evaluation of my capabilities I have ever been assigned." She didn't sound angry. She sounded almost amused. "In seventy years of political theater, no one has ever described me as a pest control specialist."
"Did it work?"
"He believed I was a disgraced mage doing menial labor. The contempt was convincing because I didn't have to fabricate it — I simply directed it at him instead of the situation." She studied my face. "You briefed me in eleven words."
"You didn't need more."
"No. I didn't." She was quiet for a moment. "The scout's report will be neutral. But neutral reports from border territories attract attention. The next contact will be institutional."
"I know."
"Do you have a plan for institutional contact?"
"I'm developing one."
She nodded once and left without further comment.
The eleven-word briefing had produced a seventy-year veteran's political performance. That was the most useful thing she'd done since arriving.
And she'd done it without being asked for more than the minimum information needed to understand the situation.
I filed that under "significant" and returned to planning.
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