Chapter Text
When Jaskier is summoned home less than a week before he’s due to graduate from Oxenfurt, the news arrives in the form of two witchers who’ve been sent, apparently, as his armed escort. And that isn’t even the strangest thing.
The strangest thing is that by ‘home’ they don’t mean the estate of the Duke of Hallet, where Jaskier grew up on the Redanian coast south of Roggveen. They mean Lettenhove, on the Redanian coast north of Roggveen, where he was born, and which he hasn’t seen since he was three and a half years old.
This would be a lot to take in even if Jaskier wasn’t hungover. Unfortunately, he’s spectacularly hungover – the witchers’ knock dragged him out of his bed, which lies in a disordered heap of blankets behind him – so he has to ask the witcher with the scarred face to repeat himself.
“Julian Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove – ”
“Yes, that’s me. Technically.”
The scarred witcher’s face is completely without expression, but his companion’s is extravagantly irritated. He has red, curly, shoulder-length hair and is leaning against the wardrobe in Jaskier’s college room, his massive arms crossed and a glare in his amber eyes. It’s clear that he considers the act of collecting a viscount beneath him; that he has no time for viscounts generally. Whether this is a political opinion or born of personal experience, Jaskier doesn’t know. He’ll find out, though.
The red-head scowls at him and he realises he’s been staring. Also that the scarred one, who’s even bigger than his friend and has a luscious thicket of pure black hair and even more strikingly yellow eyes, is waiting for him to pay attention.
Which he tries to do. He’s perched on his table, study papers crumpled beneath his butt, and wearing only his nightshirt, which he threw on to cover his nakedness when he went to answer the door. This means his thighs are almost entirely bare. The black-haired witcher seems to be making a concerted effort not to look at said thighs, but not in a sexy way, although Jaskier knows he has very nice thighs. Not even in a mortified way. Mostly just in a weary, what-the-fuck, but still consummately professional kind of way.
Jaskier swings his legs and notices, idly, that there’s blood on his right heel, probably because he insisted on wearing his new red shoes to last night’s post-exam tavern crawl, and they’d given him blisters before he’d even left his building.
The scarred witcher clears his throat and says, “Lord Alfred Pankratz, the Earl of Lettenhove, requires your immediate presence at your family’s estate. He’s sent us to escort you home at your earliest possible convenience.”
“My earliest possible convenience?” Jaskier asks, hooking his ankles together but continuing to swing his legs. The red-head glances at them and then glances away. He’s almost not quite blushing. Are all witchers this handsome? Jaskier has heard rumours about their brutality and stupidity, but he’s never met a witcher before, and has made a policy of only believing something about another person once he’s seen it for himself. “Or his earliest possible convenience?”
The scarred witcher blinks slowly. “Our instructions are to give you no more than three days to make any necessary arrangements to wrap up your life here, then start for Lettenhove without delay.”
Jaskier is sure he can stretch three days to four, meaning he’ll be able to attend the ceremony at which he’ll be officially declared a Master of the Seven Liberal Arts, then disgrace himself thoroughly at the all-night party afterwards. After that, he doesn’t much mind leaving Oxenfurt. He’s not the type to hang around once a party’s over, and after four years in the city, he’s ready for new things.
New people, new sights, new adventures. New things to write songs about, and new audiences to sing them to. New loves, new beds, new pleasures. He’s already bought a horse and ordered a travelling wardrobe, and while he didn’t intend Lettenhove to be the first stop on the fascinating journey of the rest of his life, it might as well be.
What he does mind is the idea that his father thinks he can issue a summons and have Jaskier obey it. If he goes to Lettenhove, it will be on his own terms. After all, Lord Alfred Pankratz, the Earl of Lettenhove, gave Jaskier up at the age of three. Tore him away from his mother and his home to be raised as the ward of another family, all because a series of poor political decisions saw the Earl on the wrong side of an attempted royal assassination. Jaskier grew up knowing he was essentially a hostage.
The fact that the Duke of Hallet, his wife, and his daughter Essi are all absolute darlings, and that Jaskier has thoroughly enjoyed his life with them, doesn't change that fact. Nor does the fact that, from what he’s heard, his father would have been very unlikely to let Jaskier learn the lute, spend what he does on tailoring, or study at Oxenfurt.
His father gave him up without a fight. Jaskier, therefore, has no intention of going ‘home’ without one.
He slides off the table, approaches the scarred witcher, and looks up at him in as dignified a manner as possible, considering Jaskier’s in his nightshirt and the witcher is much larger than him in every direction. This close, he has a good view of the snarling wolf on the witcher’s medallion. The other witcher wears one too.
“What’s your name, good sir?” Jaskier asks.
The witcher purses his lips for a moment before answering, “Eskel, my lord.”
Jaskier nods. “Well, Eskel. The first thing I want to make clear – and this goes for your ginger friend, too – is that I’m no-one’s lord. And I don’t answer to Julian, either. My father gave me the name Julian. He also gave me up. The name I gave myself is Jaskier, and I’d ask you to use it.”
“‘No one’s lord’ my arse,” the red-head mutters, which makes Eskel hiss, “Lambert!”
Jaskier ignores this. “The second thing I want to make clear is that I won’t be summoned. I’ll come at my father’s invitation, but not at his orders. Which means we’ll be leaving in four days’ time, and no sooner. And the third thing – what? What is it?”
The witchers are looking at each other.
“Why do you both look as if you need to pass a painful shit?”
The one called Lambert raises his eyebrows, while Eskel looks back at Jaskier. “I’m sorry, my lord…Jaskier. We thought you knew.”
“Knew what?” Jaskier asks, feeling uncomfortably naked, now, in his nightshirt.
Eskel gentles his voice. “We’ve been sent by your brother. Your father is dead.”
Which makes for two pieces of unexpected news: his father is dead, and he has a brother.
This is of course the exact point at which Valdo pops his bright blonde head up from among the bedsheets, bare shoulders gleaming, and says, “J’sker? What’s time? Come back t’bed.”
*
Thanks to Valdo, the news races through Oxenfurt: Jaskier thought his father was alive, but as of one month ago he’s actually dead; Jaskier thought his brother was dead, but he’s actually alive; Jaskier has been summoned to Lettenhove by this brother, who’s taken the title of Earl and sent two mutants to make sure Jaskier actually does as he’s told.
Jaskier is used to being a subject of Oxenfurt gossip. He’s cultivated himself as a subject, after all, by wearing outrageous clothes and saying outrageous things and being an outrageous slut. These behaviours are deliciously gossip-worthy if you also happen to be absurdly good-looking, effortlessly clever, irresistibly charming, a musical genius, and the beloved ward of a very tolerant and filthy-rich duke.
Jaskier is smart enough to know that if he were the pimply son of a debt-ridden dockworker, he’d probably be dead by now. He’s also savvy enough to know this isn’t fair, compassionate enough to wish it wasn’t the case, and selfish enough to make the most of every single one of his unearned advantages.
Well, the musical genius bit is earned, he thinks. He has natural talent, of course, but he’s worked fucking hard to make sure he’s the best.
As he rushes around Oxenfurt sorting out his affairs before leaving for Lettenhove, however, he finds himself disliking being the talk of the town. People are full of questions and opinions and sympathy and glee, and he finds that he’d rather not talk about his surprisingly dead father and surprisingly living brother. For one thing, they ask him things like “where has your brother been all this time?” and “how can you be sure it’s really him?” – questions to which Jaskier doesn’t know the answer. Nor will the witchers tell him. Perhaps they don’t know?
One of the great pleasures of being gossiped about is knowing secrets other people are dying to learn, but Jaskier doesn’t know his own secrets, and he hates to admit it. He can only be intriguingly mysterious for so long before someone – probably Valdo – will realise that he’s utterly clueless, and then people might pity him. They might even laugh at him. Pity and ridicule: he can imagine nothing worse.
For another thing, people assume Jaskier must be angry not to have inherited his father’s title, and none of them will believe him when he insists he isn’t. He’s relieved, in fact – and that’s the truth. He has no desire to be an earl. He wants to be a bard. He’d hoped his father would live a long and healthy life: long enough that Jaskier could have plenty of adventures before he was stuck administering a minor estate to which he feels no connection.
Even better, long enough for Jaskier to become so disgraceful and famous that no one would ever dream of insisting he take up even the smallest responsibility, and he’d be ‘forced’ to pass the whole thing off to a second cousin twice removed.
There’s also the fact that he prefers to be connected to the esteemed Davens of Hallet, rather than the disgraced Pankratzes of Lettenhove. He prefers to be talked about for his songs and his love affairs than for the fact he was given up as a child by his own father. If only Essi was here – Essi who he will always, no matter what, consider his sister. Essi would know exactly how to spin all of this drama in Jaskier’s favour, in ways that he can’t do himself. Ways that need the authority of a real Daven, the Duke’s real child.
But Essi, who is only in her second year at Oxenfurt, decided at Yule that she needed a break from studying and didn’t come back with him for the spring term. He’s missed her terribly, and never so much as he does now.
The unexpected solution to the gossip problem comes in the form of the witchers, who tend to get people talking about Jaskier’s thrilling new warrior-shaped accessories rather than his disgraced family. Because Eskel and Lambert insist on coming everywhere with him: to the tailor, the stables, the perfumer, the dean’s garden party, the community of stray cats he adopted four years ago, assorted gambling dens, his favourite brothel, various taverns, his graduation ceremony, and the party afterwards. The only places they don’t accompany him are into his room at night, and the rooms of lovers and ex-lovers and would-be lovers he’s saying goodbye to. Otherwise, they stalk about behind him like cranky nannies, growling if people mention his father or his brother.
Jaskier isn’t sure if they’re being protective of him when they growl, or of his family in general, or of his brother in particular, who is after all their employer. At least, Jaskier assumes his brother is paying them. Why else would witchers be running errands for the newly appointed Earl of Lettenhove? Jaskier barely remembers his big brother, though he remembers adoring him from afar. Alfred – Alfie – was at least ten when Jaskier was sent away. And being ten, he was busy with important things like school and learning how to be an Earl, and didn’t have much time to spend with a clumsy three-year-old who wouldn’t stop talking.
Then, not long after Jaskier arrived in Hallet, word came that Alfred had died of a sudden illness. Lady Daven, the Duke’s wife, had delivered this news very gently, with tears in her eyes, but by that time, little Julian Pankratz was so bewildered by loss and fright that it hadn’t seemed real to him. Or maybe his brother’s death had felt like just one more part of the catastrophe that was unfolding around him.
Whereas the news of his mother’s death five years later had been its own distinct catastrophe. She, at least, had written to him from time to time, always expressing the hope that they might be together again one day.
Presumably Alfred is also paying the witchers to not let Jaskier out of their sights until he’s been safely deposited back in Lettenhove. And paying them well, which is why they insist on coming everywhere with him. What’s his brother afraid of? That Jaskier will slip away in the night, amass an army, and come to claim the title? The witchers won’t tell him. Probably they don’t know that, either.
The thing is, Jaskier likes them. Likes the witchers – Eskel especially, who’s turned out to be kind of a sweetheart. But he likes Lambert too, even though he’s an arsehole who cheats at cards. Possibly because he’s an arsehole who cheats at cards.
It turns out that Eskel reads poetry and has always wanted to see the Oxenfurt library. So in they all go, Jaskier on first-name terms with all the librarians, who gawp at the witchers, who in turn gawp at the books. When Jaskier tells Eskel to choose anything he wants to borrow, the scarred witcher begins to purr. That’s really all Jaskier can think to call the low rumble emanating from behind Eskel’s breastbone: purring.
Lambert isn’t interested in borrowing library books, but he does let drop that he’s heard of an Oxenfurt bookseller who keeps a secret room full of erotic art and literature. Apparently, he says, it’s fucking filthy, but you can only get in with a password. Well, Jaskier is delighted to reveal that this month’s password is ‘Jaskier’ in honour of his own graduation, and that he’d be only too happy to introduce them to the bookseller, who is one of his dearest friends.
So off they all go, and Magdi is just as unruffled by the witchers as Jaskier expects her to be, and Lambert can hardly believe his eyes when he’s ushered into her secret room.
It’s not difficult to extend the three days to four, not when he promises to claim all responsibility for the delay, and also to pay for the witchers’ accommodation by renting them rooms at the Eager Thighs. From Marina, his favourite whore at the Thighs, Jaskier learns that Eskel mostly reads in his time off, helps carry water and firewood, and has made himself a great favourite with Mama Lantieri. Lambert, on the other hand, has impressed all the boys with his stamina and skill in bed, and is an arsehole who cheats at cards.
So where the fuck did witchers earn their reputation for being violent brutes, hardly better than the monsters they kill?
He asks Eskel about it one night, just after they’ve snuck out of the dean’s garden party with a crate full of sparkling wine, and the big witcher says that things are different out in the real world beyond Oxenfurt. He also says to be careful around any witcher who isn’t wearing a wolf medallion like his.
Jaskier concludes that there are shitty and not-shitty witchers, just as there are shitty and not-shitty humans, and that he just happens to have come across two of the good ones. After all, he’s heard of Blaviken. He knows witchers aren’t all as likeable as Eskel and Lambert.
By the time he’s ready to leave for Lettenhove, Jaskier feels comfortable enough with the witchers to call them friends, although the term seems to unsettle Eskel. It makes Lambert snort. Jaskier’s actually looking forward to the trip, which will last about ten days and take them not far from Hallet, where he’s sure he can convince his companions to stop for a day or two. He’s desperate to see Essi.
But he’s also looking forward to seeing Lettenhove and meeting his brother. If he’d been going to his father, he might have been angry and anxious. Instead, he’s mostly just curious. And no matter what his brother says, nothing can keep him in Lettenhove if he doesn’t want to stay. The Duke adores him, and will make sure of that.
So, on the morning they’re due to leave, Jaskier is happy to dress in one of his new travel outfits, host a raucous breakfast for fifty of his closest friends, then head off on his handsome new horse – along with a sturdy packhorse loaded with absolutely necessary books, doublets, soaps, etc., with the rest of his possessions to follow later by ship. The early summer weather is warm and clear, his lute case is on his back, he’s a Master of the Seven Liberal Arts, he looks fabulous on a horse, and he’s got the best – and safest – company on the continent, in the form of two fascinating witchers who he’s managed to wrap around his little finger.
As he rides out of town alongside his awe-inspiring escort, whispered at and waved at, he feels like a king. He rides out into his new life quite sure that he’s ready for any challenge destiny wants to throw at him.
Everything changes once they leave Oxenfurt.